The difference between booze and babies

- or Why alcohol and abortion aren´t the same thing

This will not be a Christian argument, other than as in parenthesis (disregard them if you´re hell-bent on keeping it prophane). This will be as secular a discussion in political ethics that I can manage. Why do I want to keep it secular? Because as a believer you´re allowed to think whatever you please, and people will just pat you on the head, saying “Oh how charming with these archaic religious types, especially when they don´t kill, maim or condemn people.” But as what I want to say concerns the political realm, or to be blunt, other people, I´ll try to avoid religious talk as a courtesy to atheists and agnostics.

We humans regulate our societal affairs along two main lines: Law, which follows the ethics of principle, and Politics, which follows the ethics of consequence. “Thou shalt not kill”, is an ethic of principle, it is simply wrong to do so. A characteristic of this ethical approach is the emphasis put on intent, for instance most cultures have heavier punishment on pre-meditated murder than on accidentally killing someone in a roadcrash. We feel less upset by collateral damages when the Americans bomb an alleged bomb factory (as is their custom) than of a terrorist blasting a double-decker in the streets of London. We can discuss if it´s right or not, nevertheless it´s an emotional fact.

In politics however you´re judged by the outcome. If you win an election on promising tax cuts which will give an economical boost and more jobs, and it fails to happen, you´ll get kicked out of office the next term despite your assurances you were right in principle. In ethics of consequence what matters is that the action is just and called for, if it´s results are beneficial. The perennial problem with this view is the inevitable uncertainty of what other possible actions would result in, and by what measure they are beneficial or harmful, also inevitably something quite arbitrary. Those deficiencies come with the political territory, yet we have throughout history found it a useful manner of regulating the complexities of human affairs. It´s better than nothing, at least.

I´d like to put up for comparison two ethical matters we have recently taken out of the realm of Law, and now treat in the realm of Politics: alcohol and abortions. I ´d argue that we were right to do so in one instance, and wrong in the other.

First alcohol. As we know there is a sliding scale between alcohol and narcotics, they cannot be said to be essentially different. Most narcotics have far more impact on the human body and mind than alcohol, but the main reason narcotics are treated with Law and alcohol with Politics is cultural. One could argue that since alcohol have damaging effects, we should banish it, as indeed have been done, and to bad effect also. It didn´t work out in inter-war mafia-stricken USA, nor as rationing in Sweden up to 1955 (the infamous “Motboken”). But maybe the principle is more important than the consequences? No not really, because the effects of alcohol are just as complex and ambiguous as other political affairs. Drink a little, and you´re the king of the world, everything´s bright and sunny. Which is a good thing, let´s not be moralists here. Drink a lot, maybe you go berserk on your wife, crash your car, do something you´ll regret. Which is a bad thing, let´s not be romantics here. Not many drink with the intent of doing the damages alcohol inflicts upon our society, which is why we must try to battle alcohol with political means, rather than prohibiting it by law. And we´ll get the society we as a whole deserve, it´s not more complicated than that.

(Is drinking sin? Not in itself, lest we call Jesus a sinner. He drank it and he made it. A moderate amount of alcohol can be drunk and it might have an uplifting effect, one will feel at ease, socialize and generally feel good about it. And we also hold that nothing good can be of the devil, he can just pervert things into sin that were originally blessings from God. Yet I choose not to drink, because for me, it would be sin. I know that here and now in Sweden there is an alcoholic culture that destroys people´s lives. I no longer want to take part in it, to do so would be to recklessly inflict damages upon these people. Anyway, Jesus is not Moses, we as Christians don´t follow him in a banale impersonating fashion, but in a far more profound sense practice Imitatio Christi.)

Second abortion. The argument for allowing abortions goes that if it were prohibited people would do it illegally and under dangerous circumstances. Let the state handle it, so it´s done with the minimum amount of pain and in a dignified fashion. Which is basically the same argument you can hear for legalising drugs, such as alcohol, which I just recently approved of. So where´s the problem? Well, actually, there is a difference. When someone has an abortion, is allowed to do so by the laws we´ve jointly decided upon and helped to do it by the medical institutions we jointly fund, the intent is to have a human fetus aborted. None other. There are no great mysticalities in this. The intent and effect of abortion is one and the same thing. Therefore it´s appropriate realm is Law, not Politics.

I hold that when the fetus is life, i e is a child, the interests of that child weigh just as heavily as the mother´s in the eyes of the law. I don´t see how that can be honestly disputed (though of course plenty do dispute it). That weighing of interests can then become a “political thing”, for instance if giving birth to the baby will put the mother in severe jeopardy. But we must first establish when that baby is a child, and again I hold that that is not something to be decided according to what´s politically convenient for the season (a better term in this case than “politically correct”). I see little reason for me in guessing weeks or constructing elaborate definitions of life. In the finishing stages of life, we define the end of life as the cessation of brain activity, which is the legal and medical definition of death. It´s appropriate to use the same definition of life for it´s beginning, and not stumble into the murky idea of autonomy, which seems to be the currently convenient definition of the beginning of life. “We can save early-born babies from such-and-such week, hence the fetus is life from that time onwards.” Really? So if we can bring forth babies ex-utero, in-vitrio in the distant future, abortion becomes a total no-no? The idea of defining life according to extrinsic advances in medical science rather than intrinsic qualities in the child appear to be absurd and disturbing.

- “Doctor, doctor, is my husband alive?!”
- “The bad news is that he doesn´t have a pulse. The good news is that yesterday I had a similar patient and he made it allright. So technically your husband is potentially alive.”

Brain activity can be detected in babies from the eighth week and onwards. In Sweden we freely allow abortions up to week eighteen. 35.000 abortions are made in Sweden every year, compared to circa 100.000 completed births. That is the highest ratio of abortions to births in Western Europe.

(What I put forth here is a political ethical view on abortion, not saying anything whether it´s sinful or not. The catholic church, for instance, believes that since the fetal process is continuos, the full potentiality of the child is there from conception.)


Fetus at eighth week

ex utero ante luciferum genui te
Ps 110:3

PS. To read about the development of the child in the mummy´s tummy: http://www.wprc.org/trimester1.phtml
For a catholic perspective on abortion:
http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/cherishinglife/cl38.htm
And a tidbit on alcohol in the churches: http://www.christianity.ca/church/life/2003/09.001.html