When I was a kid, the big reproductive rights controversy
was birth control. (As a teenage boy with rampaging hormones, I was heartily in favor of birth control. As a senior citizen I still am). One of the arguments against allowing birth control was that
it would lead to abortion on demand. Birth control advocates pooh-poohed the
very idea that it would lead to abortion on demand. They derided the argument
as an example of the “slippery slope” fallacy. The slippery slope argument is
supposedly fallacious because going halfway down the hill doesn’t mean you will
continue to the bottom. You can stop any time you want to. When I first learned
about the slippery slope fallacy, I didn’t buy it, and I never have. The
argument that appears to me to be fallacious in this point-counterpoint is the
argument that “I can stop any time that I want to.” I have a name for this standard refutation to the slippery slope argument. I call it the drunkard’s fallacy. I gave it this name because I’ve heard numerous
alcoholics voice this argument, and they seldom make good on it.
Well, we have slipped right on down the slope from birth
control, and it looked like we hit the bottom of the slope with “intact
dilation and extraction,” a procedure more commonly known as partial birth
abortion. I’m no medical expert, but as I understand partial birth abortion, a
full term baby is delivered feet first, and while the head is still inside the mother,
the skull is punctured and the baby’s brain is sucked out.
I’m not kidding. Here’s how it is described in the Princeton
University web article: “Intact Dilation and Extraction,” http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Intact_dilation_and_extraction.html.
Under the Intact D&X method,
the largest part of the fetus (the head) is reduced in diameter to allow
vaginal passage. According to the American Medical Association, this procedure
has four main elements. First, the cervix is dilated. Second, the fetus is
positioned for a footling breech. Third, the fetus is partially pulled out,
starting with the feet, as far as the neck. Fourth, the brain and material
inside the skull is evacuated, so that a dead but otherwise intact fetus can be
delivered via the vagina.
I have never heard what I believe is a good medical reason
for delivering a baby feet first and killing it while its head is still in the
mother’s womb. (The explanation on the Princeton site sounds to me like a
plausible excuse rather than a valid explanation). I do, however, know of a
legal reason for doing this. A baby is considered stillborn if, after birth, it
never takes a breath. It is alive if it takes even one breath. When dead
newborns are found in trashcans, the medical examiner checks the lungs to see
if they have taken a breath. If they have, then you have a murder case.
Let’s apply this to the partial birth abortion. If the
doctor delivers the baby head first, it may take a breath before its brain gets
sucked out. That would be bad. That would be murder. The solution is to suck
the baby’s brain out while the head is still in the womb and it’s impossible
for the baby to take a breath. The
horrific nature of such a procedure gave rise to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban
Act of 2003, http://news.findlaw.com/wsj/docs/abortion/2003s3.html, which prescribes the draconian punishment of up to two years in
prison for killing a baby this way. Compare that to the maximum penalty if you happen
to be in a death penalty state and kill a baby after it takes a breath.
Whew! We got it stopped before we hit rock bottom. Or did
we? In an online article from the Journal
of Medical Ethics, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva argue for “post-birth
abortions” or “after-birth abortions.” They summarize their arguments in favor
of post-birth abortions in the following words:
Abortion is largely accepted even
for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing
that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual
persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and
(3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors
argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be
permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the
newborn is not disabled. “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” J Med Ethics, doi:10.1136/medethics-2011-100411,
http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full#aff-1.
Why not just put the baby up for adoption? Giubilini and Minerva
have a ready answer:
Why should we kill a healthy newborn
when giving it up for adoption would not breach anyone's right but possibly
increase the happiness of people involved (adopters and adoptee)?
Our reply is the following. We have
previously discussed the argument from potentiality, showing that it is not
strong enough to outweigh the consideration of the interests of actual people.
Indeed, however weak the interests of actual people can be, they will always
trump the alleged interest of potential people [aka newborn babies] to become
actual ones, because this latter interest amounts to zero. On this perspective,
the interests of the actual people involved matter, and among these interests,
we also need to consider the interests of the mother who might suffer
psychological distress from giving her child up for adoption. Birthmothers are
often reported to experience serious psychological problems due to the
inability to elaborate their loss and to cope with their grief. It is true that
grief and sense of loss may accompany both abortion and after-birth abortion as
well as adoption, but we cannot assume that for the birthmother the latter is
the least traumatic. Ibid.
In effect, their argument is, “Let’s kill the baby because
it might make the mother feel bad. It makes no difference that infertile
couples will be deprived of the opportunity to love and cherish a child or that
the child could grow up and lead a happy, productive life. Birthmom’s fragile
feelings might be hurt if we allowed that to happen.” It gives me great
pleasure to report that the firestorm of criticism ignited by this article has fractured
the fragile feelings of both the authors of the article and the editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics. See, e.g. Christopher
Smith, “Premeditated Murder of Newborns,” The
Washington Times, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/12/premeditated-murder-of-newborns/?page=all,
and Wesley J. Smith, “ ‘Bioethicist’ Upset by Public Criticism of ‘After-Birth
Abortion’ Idea,” http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/03/bioethicist-upset-by-public-criticism-of-after-birth-abortion-idea/.
This is just a tempest in a teacup, isn’t it? After all, Giubilini
and Minerva are just a lunatic fringe, aren’t they? Afraid not. Look at this
article from the web: William Saletan, “After-Birth Abortion: The Pro-Choice
Case for Infanticide,” Slate, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2012/03/after_birth_abortion_the_pro_choice_case_for_infanticide_.html,
and Mark A. Thiessen, “Planned Parenthood’s Defense of Infanticide,” The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-defending-infanticide/2013/04/08/36e44294-a061-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html.
It seems that the Florida Legislature is considering a bill to require
abortionists to try to save the lives of babies who accidentally get born alive
when they botch the abortion (See CS/CS/CS/HB 1129 - Infants Born Alive, http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills/billsdetail.aspx?BillId=50434),
and Planned Parenthood is opposing the measure.
The ball started rolling down the hill with the advent of
birth control (not a bad thing in itself if we could have stopped the ball at
that point). Then it started picking up speed when Roe v. Wade legalized first trimester abortions. We started putting
on the brakes with partial birth abortions, and we’re trying to keep pressure
on the brakes by requiring abortionists to try to save the lives of infants who
are accidentally born alive as a result of a botch abortion. But there are
those out there who want to apply pressure to the gas pedal and move on down
the hill toward infanticide. It would be nice if the drunkard could be right just this one time and we can
stop any time we want to.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt's incredibly bold to claim that the slippery slope is not a valid logical fallacy. Do you mean that seriously, or will you admit that the "drunkard's fallacy" is just a rhetorical flourish? As a flourish, it's a real eye catcher and I will be tempted in the future to use it myself. I think Gorgias himself would be impressed.
ReplyDeleteMy main point with this comment is to post a fact that threatens to invalidate your argument. It is from the authors of the paper "After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?" This is from the Washington Post quoting the paper's authors:
“However, we never meant to suggest that after-birth abortion should become legal. This was not made clear enough in the paper. Laws are not just about rational ethical arguments, because there are many practical, emotional, social aspects that are relevant in policy making (such as respecting the plurality of ethical views, people’s emotional reactions etc). But we are not policy makers, we are philosophers, and we deal with concepts, not with legal policy.”
--Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva
Roughly speaking, the authors of that paper were playing devils advocates, trying (sloppily, clumsily, perhaps) to enrich an argument. They were not trying to exert actual pressure to allow the killing of infants.
They can't be the drunkards of the drunkard's fallacy if they did not actually stumble as far as you are saying they did. In my opinion, this latter part of your argument for the drunkard's fallacy is the most effective part at first glance, so I think you should rescind it--unless you see genuinely see some flaw in my own argument.
For the source of the quotation, see "After-birth abortion: Can they be serious?" in the Washington Post. (I would post the URL, but I am afraid that will cause my comment to be filtered as spam.)
David Roe, Austin, Tx
From the first time I ever heard of the slippery slope fallacy back in high school, I thought "Yeah, right." When you see someone headed down a slippery slope, you cannot say that he will inevitably hit the bottom, and in that sense a slippery slope argument is fallacious. But in my experience, the bottom gets hit far too often to make the slippery slope argument a fallacy.
DeleteMy argument is that you are engaging in fallacious thinking if you say that you're not going to hit bottom simply because (1) your critic has pointed out you are on a slippery slope and (2) the slippery slope is a fallacious argument.
My point is this: You may have every intention of stopping half way down the slope, but you cannot guarantee that you won't hit bottom. The only sure way to not hit bottom is to not get on the slope.
I found the article you cite and read it. I also went to the Journal of Medical Ethics blog and read "An open letter from Giubilini and Minerva." It looks to me like they are engaging in something that a lot of people do when trying to recover from foot-in-mouth disease. There are three standard remedies for foot-in-mouth disease: (1) "I was misquoted." (2) "My comments were taken out of context." (3) "I should have made it more clear that I never meant to say what my words unmistakably said." Giubilini and Minerva opt for remedy (3) coupled with a dose of "I didn't think anybody outside my circle of cronies was listening."
On the drunkard's fallacy (I can stop any time I want): At the time I thought I had made the term up, but your comment sent me to do some research and I found that it is already in use for another type of fuzzy thinking--the tendency to "search where the light is better." E.g. the drunk who looked for his keys under the lighted lamp post when he knew full well he had dropped them in the dark alley. I think I'll have to rename my fallacy the addict's fallacy.