"Legitimate Rape"

The flap over Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s (R) “legitimate rape” comment is fascinating.  Akin claimed that in cases of “legitimate rape,” women have built in biological protections against pregnancy.

By “legitimate,” of course, Akin meant “genuine.”  His point was that rape exceptions (to abortion restrictions) are unnecessary because pregnancies do not happen to genuine rape victims.  His darker point, not explicitly stated but logically implied, is that every pregnant woman who has claimed “rape” is lying – she is instead pregnant as the result of her own voluntary decision and should, therefore, not be allowed to escape the consequences of her actions.

That this is pseudo-science serving a harsh ideology is undeniable.  That it is a repugnant tactical move (shaming pregnant women who allege rape) designed to exonerate an extremist political posture (forcing rape victims to carry their rapist’s fetus to term) is equally obvious.   But what interests me is why hard-core pro lifers – those who wish to criminalize all abortions without exception – resort to such silly, repugnant arguments.  Why don’t they just stick to their “personhood” argument?  After all, if you believe that a fetus is a “person” from the moment of conception, you have a rather straight-forward argument in favor of banning abortions – namely, abortion kills someone who has a right to life.

I suspect there are two reasons.  First, very few people believe that a zygote is a “person” or a “someone.”  Given the way we use those words, and what we normally mean when we use them, a multi-celled entity, however “human” and “alive,” does not qualify as a “person.”  Granted, some people disagree.  But in cases of such disagreement, there really isn’t anything to say.  When I meet people who insist that zygotes are “persons” or “someone’s” – and, as a Christian, I have met numerous people who took this position – I simply say that we’re using these terms in fundamentally different ways.  If you think a zygote is a “person” or a “someone,” fine.  Given what I mean when I use these terms, I don’t.

BTW, even people who believe that zygotes are “persons” often argue on safer ground.  Consider the claim that “human life begins at conception.”   This statement has the virtue of being undoubtedly true.  It has the additional virtue of substituting the term “human life” for the term “someone.”  The apparent strategy is to get the concession on “human life,” and to then suggest that “human life” necessarily implies “someone’s life.”

What this argument strategy implicitly denies is the possibility that an entity could be (1) alive, and (2) human, and (3) not (yet) a someone.  But to most people, upon reflection, this appears to be a distinct possibility.  Consider the millions of fertilized human embryos currently stored in freezers.  One day they might be unfrozen, implanted in a womb, and develop into a baby born to a loving mother.  Such embryos are certainly human.  They are also alive.  But are they a “someone?”  Are there millions of “persons” in the freezers?

If you think the answer is “no,” as I do, then you can see why the argument “life begins at conception” does not save the personhood rationale.  That is because the description “not someone” is compatible with “alive” and “human.”

Additionally, there is a strong possibility that the “personhood” argument is not nearly as strong as it initially looks.  That is, even if one concedes that an embryo is a “person” from the moment of conception, it may not follow that abortion is morally impermissible, or that it should be outlawed.  On this point I’ll leave you to peruse the most famous (and arguably the most enjoyable) philosophical article ever written on this topic by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson.

Joe Huster