Over at Jill Stanek’s blog a debate between a pro-abort troll and the pro-lifers has developed, a debate over what the name “Fetus” means and what sort of rights issue forth from that name’s definition.
This is a massive blunder that pro-lifers get sucked into about 3,000 times a day. The dignity of the person does not issue forth from the meaning of an ancient Latin word, neither does the dignity of the organism depend on some arbitrarily line drawn across the developmental continuum. When presented with this losing argument by proaborts, we need to counter by reframing the question around objective reality and not get sucked into this quagmire.
My response to the proabort named Doug:
I’m a biologist, and we’re the ones who name things. Often we (men) name things after our wives (and since I’m a microbiologist, Mrs. Nadal has assured me that the day I ever name a disease after her is the day that she serves me with divorce papers).
Therefore, nomenclature can be an entirely arbitrary endeavor that is not descriptive of the biological entity before us.
For example, Escherichia coli (E. coli) does not look at all like Dr. Theodor Escherich who discovered it. (Trust me on this one. I’ve looked at lots of E. coli under the scope.) Nevertheless, Dr. Escherich spent his life saving people, and while some E. coli are normal gut flora without which we would die, some that have acquired some pretty nasty genes can kill us in a matter of days (the dreaded 0157:H7).
So not even a namesake necessarily shares the function of the one whose name it bears.
The same with developmental nomenclature. The reality of the embryological or fetal organism is not governed by its name any more than the benign/killer natures of Escherichia strains are a function of that sainted physician’s name.
“Fetus” describes a developmental stage shared by many organisms in the animal kingdom. Thus, there is nothing particularly human about the word for a biologist. Thus the word is hardly descriptive of human reality. (Pro-lifers don’t go to war over the deaths of fetal pigs, which are used by the tens of thousands in biology labs annually)
The truth here is that a human organism has a defined life cycle which begins at the moment of fertilization of a human egg (mother’s gametic tissue) by a human sperm (father’s gametic tissue) and becomes a new entity which is neither mother, nor father’s gametic tissue, but a stand-alone organism. A new human animal with its own unique genetic identity.
The rights attendant to that new animal derive from the kind of animal it is (human). If one disagrees with this fundamental premise, then one would not be at all disturbed by the happenings at Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s office. Further, one would not be any more bothered at the thought of saving those fetuses for a dissection lab than one would at the thought of using fetal pigs. For that matter, it would be an interesting lab to dissect a fetal human side-by-side with a fetal pig.
But I’m sure the very thought of that wrenches the gut of even the most strident proabort, and the question is:
Why?
Coming Home 
Brilliant. Thank you.
“The dignity of the person does not issue forth from the meaning of an ancient Latin word…”
Ah, but words have such power. Why else would there be such an outcry over the use of the word “nigger” (which adults in the media now refer to delicately as “the N word”) to where even “niggardly” is tainted by erroneous association? What we call a thing matters. It paints a picture, a picture we can carefully design by the specific words we choose.
When we call it a “fetus” (a Latin term not applied to anything living outside the womb) we depersonalize the unborn child. When we call it a “baby” we humanize it. Even the use of the pronoun “it” rather than “he” or “she” depersonalizes the infant in utero. It is the very same organism, at the same stage of development, but the words used create an entirely different perspective.
The battle for hearts and minds begins with words.
Planned Parenthood understands this well; just look at the name they chose for their organization. It would be a bit harder for average folks to rally behind the more intellectually honest “Abortions R Us.”
Excellent! Thank you. In the Oxford dictionary, “fetus” means “an unborn human baby” unless we’re talking about another species.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1246780#m_en_us1246780
RT,
We make the same point but stress it differently.
Of course all social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering, and the only way to cut through the morass {oh dear, an unfortunate auditory construct there 😉 } of verbal engineering is to refocus people on the reality of the thing before us and not get caught in endless debates over Latin translations that have been raging for over 30 years.
I throw the zygote, the blastocyst, the gastrula, the late embryo, the fetus on the table and state that I don’t care if we call them quibbledunk, gurglesnap, oshkosh, or whatever.
Their ontological reality exists, independent of nomenclature.
Now we proceed from there…
“…refocus people on the reality of the thing before us and not get caught in endless debates over Latin translations that have been raging for over 30 years.”
Absolutely. Abortion ends human lives. If we’re focused on a war of words over the terminology of development, we’re missing the point. I tend to get hung up on words because that’s the world I live in as an English teacher. 😉
I think the quickest way to move past the obfuscation created by words like “the zygote, the blastocyst, the gastrula, the late embryo, the fetus” is by revealing just what the developing baby is. Photos via ultrasound technology really are worth a thousand words.
When we can see that we’re dealing with a tiny human body, obviously a human being even in the first trimester, and not a mere”blob of tissue,” it becomes easier to avoid Latinate squabbles and focus the argument on inherent human worth, that “the dignity of the person does not issue forth from the meaning of an ancient Latin word” any more than it issues from the emotional state of the mother who conceived the child.
The real battle is over the inherent worth of all human beings, and the fundamental right to life.
excellent post and yes you are quite correct that this is an argument we often get drawn into and one which I think serves little purpose.
honestly as a woman i really feel that most women KNOW intuitively that when they miss their period and they are considering the fact that they might be pregnant they KNOW they are pregnant with a baby. not a fish. not a clump of cells. or whatever else they are apt to call “it”.
so all this use of words is just to try to obscure the above fact.
and obscuring the fact is important because of the option they are considering in their heads (and not their hearts) which is abortion
This leads us to the basic value difference between prolifers and proaborts:
an unborn baby that is wanted is a person and has rights
an unborn baby that is unwanted by his/her mother is not a person and therefore has no rights
thus unborn babies have no rights unless they are conferred by the mother.
“I’m a biologist, and we’re the ones who name things. Often we (men) name things after our wives (and since I’m a microbiologist, Mrs. Nadal has assured me that the day I ever name a disease after her is the day that she serves me with divorce papers).”
LOL!!
I know she’ll do it! So, don’t you! 😉
maybe you could find a “cute” microbe to name after your wife? 😉
Rev.
You know her well!!
MC,
I discovered a diminutive strain of E. coli that I thought rather becoming. Regina did not. However, I was successful in naming our youngest after her. (but not even that will save my bacon if I transgress with a futile exercise in microbial nomenclature.)
“I discovered a diminutive strain of E. coli that I thought rather becoming.
lol
I agree Dr. Nadal. T’is best to stick with the tried and true! And not something like Asterina violae which sounds like it could be the name of a beautiful daughter!