Submitted by Animal Rights Malta’s Blog

In an anti-abortion letter in today’s The Times, John Muscat, among other things, writes:

“And before anyone lectures us that the unborn child is not yet a person (i.e. without human rights), what is it then, a chicken perhaps or maybe a tadpole?! Does anything in the known universe other than a human embryo have the ability to mature into a fully grown person if left to follow its natural course?“.

Now, I shall not go into the matter of whether abortion is ever justifiable or not, since this is beyond the scope of this blog, and there are animal rights advocates on both sides of the debate. However, it is pertinent to point out the following, which is relevant to the non-human animal rights issue.

The statement that “the unborn child is not yet a person” in the sense intended in the quote (significantly and confusingly, he substitutes “child” with “embryo” in the same paragraph), is nonsensical for the simple reason that this statement by itself does not provide enough facts for us to make our reasoned judgement. What is implied by “the unborn child”? Is it a zygote immediately upon conception? Is it a foetus a few weeks into the pregnancy? Is it a wholly formed human baby waiting to be born? Is it anything intermediate between these three stages?

Animal growth (including human) is a continuous incremental process which results in the formation of an individual developed from a single cell. It is known that sentience (which denotes personhood) comes within an intermediate stage from the single cell stage to the fully grown infant ready to be born. When exactly sentience enters the picture (which is when the brain and nervous system are sufficiently developed to be capable of registering sensations such as pain and cognition) is still disputed within the scientific community. However, what is certain is that, religious belief in ensoulment aside, at least when an entity reaches the stage of sentience, that entity is an individual who deserves moral consideration. It is good to mention that plants and bacteria are also alive, but lacking a brain and a nervous system, they are not sentient.

Like I said, I won’t go into the merits of whether abortion is ever morally justifiable. However, to (sarcastically) ask whether the “unborn child” (zygote, foetus or baby?) is a chicken or a tadpole if not a person, shows lack of basic knowledge of biology. Of course, a human zygote, foetus or baby is not a chicken or a tadpole, just as the chicken zygote is definitely not a tadpole or a human baby. However, what is certain beyond any shadow of doubt is that a tadpole and a chick are, like a human baby, both sentient.

The question “does anything in the known universe other than a human embryo have the ability to mature into a fully grown person if left to follow its natural course?” is non-consequential, in the sense that it says nothing about whether or not a human embryo has rights. In fact, it could equally be claimed that contraception blocks the sperm from being left to follow its natural course and meet the egg to become a human. In essence, this kind of logic would make the use of contraception “murder”.

However, to return to the question of sentience, personhood and abortion, it is ironic that most people who advocate the rights of non-sentient human zygotes and sentient or non-sentient (depending on what stage of development) human foetuses, do not bat an eyelid over the daily murder of millions of sentient and fully developed non-human animals.

Richard Dawkins makes this point succinctly when, in The Ancestor’s Tale, he says:

“Many of our legal and ethical principles depend on the separation between Homo sapiens and all other species. Of the people who regard abortion as a sin, including the minority who go to the lengths of assassinating doctors and blowing up abortion clinics, many are unthinking meat-eaters, and have no worries about chimpanzees being imprisoned in zoos and sacrificed in laboratories. Would they think again, if we could lay out a living continuum of intermediates between ourselves and chimpanzees…? Surely they would. Yet it is the merest accident that the intermediates all happen to be dead. It is only because of this accident that we can comfortably and easily imagine a huge gulf between our two species – or between any two species, for that matter.”

Mr Muscat goes on to say that “We are living through confused and hypocritical times where so-called advanced and modern societies increasingly legislate in favour of protecting and preserving the environment and all sorts of other rights for present and future generations (most of whom still unconceived), which is all very well, but then think nothing of legalising the termination of life by abortion of millions of members from those very same future generations because, as the “reasoning” goes, they have no right to see the light of day although they have every right to a healthy environment…! The widespread abhorrence of the Maltese towards abortion is inherent from our solid no-nonsense culture and tradition of protecting the defenceless.

It must be said that the preservation and protection of the environment is laudable since this takes into consideration the well-being of all present and future sentient individuals. However, the preservation of the environment for future generations makes sense only with respect to future generations who actually get to enjoy the environment (or suffer from its degradation) through being born. Thinking of future generations makes sense only if it means thinking of future generations who will actually get to be born.

This basic misunderstanding is one that is recurrent within the debate on the human imposed breeding of non-human animals. Abolitionist animal rights advocates are usually (illogically) labelled as being anti-”animals” since, by opposing the breeding of non-humans for human purposes, they would be somehow denying non-human animals their existence. The person who makes such a claim cannot (or is not willing to) comprehend (or concede) that a non-existent has no interests. A non-existent is nothing.

Of course, this says nothing about whether abortion is ever justifiable or not (after all, even zygotes are existing entities - with or without rights). But it is a major fallacy to claim that pro-choicers or pro-abortionists “think nothing of legalising the termination of life by abortion of millions of members from those very same future generations because, as the ‘reasoning’ goes, they have no right to see the light of day although they have every right to a healthy environment…!”

When thinking of the right of future generations to a healthy environment, we would be thinking hypothetically. It is only those who are actually born who will get to enjoy the environment we would have preserved. Those who are not (either because the hypothetical “persons” never come to exist, or else they are aborted) would experience nothing of the world outside the mother’s womb (or egg in the case of birds, reptiles and other species).

So while preserving the environment just in case future individuals will come into existence (and millions undoubtedly will) is obviously a good thing, it says nothing about whether abortion is ever morally justified or not, and there is no contradiction in the claim that the environment should be preserved for future generations who actually get to be born while holding the belief that abortion (which results in individuals not being born) could be morally justifiable. The issues are completely separate issues and should be judged on their own merits.

Regarding Mr Muscat’s claim that “the widespread abhorrence of the Maltese towards abortion is inherent from our solid no-nonsense culture and tradition of protecting the defenceless” and “that is one reason why I am proud of and grateful to my country“, I would only say: If only that were so!

If Maltese people truly had a tradition of protecting the defenseless, the majority would be vegan. Again, if only that were so! Then, perhaps, thousands upon thousands of sentient individuals would be spared suffering, unconsenting use and premature death each year, simply because they are defenseless individuals whom it so happens that humans find their flesh tasty, and regard them as a convenient (albeit unnecessary) replaceable source of food.

It is only what Gary Francione calls “moral schizophrenia” that makes otherwise normal people see non-sentient zygotes or sentient or non-sentient foetuses as rights-holders, while seeing certainly sentient non-human animals as replaceable commodities with no rights, for no other reason than that they belong to other species and that they are, in Mr Muscat’s words, “defenceless”.

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