Rhian – I appreciate your thoughtful responses. Firstly, to your last paragraph. Certainly I think it should be a crime if someone assaults a pregnant woman and kills her baby.

You say that s 313 (2) of the criminal code only makes it a serious offence and not murder. I would point out that the section has been included in “Chapter 28 Homicide – suicide – concealment of birth” of the Code, and not in “Chapter 26 Assaults and violence to the person generally”. Significantly, the penalty for s 313 (2) is life imprisonment, the same as for murder and the most severe punishment that can be given. You are right that the word murder is not used but to all intents and purposes the offence is treated the same as murder.

I said that the example I gave illustrated a double standard. I ran out of words to be able expand on that, so will do so now. My primary point was that the value of the life of the child in the womb, and what is done to them, can be regarded in completely opposite ways, solely depending on the feelings of the mother. The section of the Code I keep citing places great value on the child in the womb’s life – effectively giving the child in the womb exactly the same value as any born person.

So if a pregnant woman is assaulted and her baby dies that woman can take the assailant to court and if convicted the assailant gets life in prison. But that same woman, if she decides for any reason she does not want that baby, she can take the baby to an abortion clinic and have the child deliberately killed by an abortionist.

Do we ever accept any other situation where someone’s life or death can be determined simply on the basis that someone else does not want them to live? That is what I mean by a double standard.

Regarding your third point, you say “causing the death of a viable fetus could legitimately be considered equivalent to infanticide”. (continued)

(continued) You say “viable fetus” and I think that phrase is wrongly used. Please read the following dialogue which I think illustrates my point. (It will go over a couple of posts.)

What’s viability got to do with it?

Scene: Late at night a man and a woman are standing at the rail of a cruise ship looking down at the dark water rushing by below.

She: I went to the onboard pharmacy today and got a test kit . . . I’m pregnant.

He: Oh . . . Are you quite sure?

She: Yes, I even did the test twice and both times it came up positive.

He: So, what happens now?

She: As soon as we get ashore I’ll organise to get an abortion. I think I’m only about ten weeks into the pregnancy so this child is not viable yet. It’s no big deal really.

At that, without a word, he quickly scooped her up into his arms, lifted her over the rail and held her out over the water. She screamed loudly and grabbed him round the neck.

She: What are you doing! If you drop me I’ll drown – put me down on the deck at once!

He stood her back on her trembling legs.

She: Are you completely stupid? What was that all about? You could have killed me!

He: But if I had dropped you and you drowned it would have been no big deal really.

She: No big deal? You are crazy – it would have been murder!

He: No, it would not have been murder because you are not viable.

She: What nonsense, of course I am viable.

He: Not according to your own logic you are not.

She: What are you talking about?

He: A moment ago you just said that it would be no big deal to have an abortion at ten weeks of pregnancy because the baby is not ‘viable’ at that age, right?

She: Yes that’s right; a baby must be about 23 weeks or more before they have a chance of surviving outside the womb.

He: You just said that if a baby is taken from the womb before 23 weeks gestation it will not be able to survive – it is not ‘viable’ according to your thinking, right? And because it would not be ‘viable’ under those circumstances you believe it would therefore be no big deal to intentionally end its life by abortion. Right?

She: Yes . . . But what has that got to do with you threatening to drop me into the ocean?

He: Don’t you see? Standing here on the deck you are alive and well. But if you had been dropped into the ocean just now you would have soon drowned. So long as you are in an environment suitable for life you are fine. But if you should be put in the middle of the ocean without a boat or in outer space without a space-suit, you would die. That is correct, isn’t it?

She: Yes, but . . .

He: Now, a healthy 10 week-old child in the womb is alive and well in that environment. Take them out of that environment though and they, like you in the ocean, will quickly succumb.

So if it is no big deal to kill an unborn child by abortion simply because that child is not ‘viable’ outside its natural environment, then logically it would have to be no big deal to kill you either because outside your natural environment you are equally as non-viable.

Your position opens the door to allowing the killing of any human being because effectively none of us, on your terms, are ‘viable’!

She: Hmm . . . So are you saying that the word ‘viable’ is a meaningless word?

He: No, the term ‘viable’ does remain meaningful in relation to situations where a miscarriage occurs naturally or following an accident. When nothing has been done to try and deliberately expel the baby from the womb we can rightly say that the child is in either a viable or non-viable state.(continued)

(continued) But there is all the difference in the world between a baby being either deliberately or accidentally expelled from the womb, just like there is all the difference in the world between you being either deliberately dropped overboard or accidentally falling into the ocean.

In the end, if you want to claim that you are ‘viable’, which of course you are, then your 10 week-old child in the womb must be regarded as being ‘viable’ also.

Equally, if you want to argue that your baby is not viable now, then neither are you. If your baby can be rightfully killed now, then so can you.

Take your pick. (end)

So the point of that dialogue is that logically the baby is viable at all stages, so long as we leave them alone. Thus, using your words, abortion would always seem to be infanticide.

In your fourth point you say, “women have the right (within limits) to decide what happens in their own bodies”. That is the issue – what are those limits? Does a woman have the right to kill another human being just because she is carrying that other human being? If you say yes, how do you justify that alleged right? Is there any other instance where one human being can morally rightly kill another just because that second person is completely dependent on the first

Dear JP
Thank you for your detailed response. “Viable” is the term used to describe a fetus that has a reasonable chance of surviving outside its mother’s womb. I used it simply to illustrate the point that, in the case of an assault on a pregnant woman leading to the death of her fetus, the crime becomes more analagous to infanticide when the pregnancy is more progressed. Presumably you would argue the opposite – that an assault causing the death of a zygote is no less of a crime that abortion of a fetus at 8 months or the murder of an adult human.

The point about competing rights also ultimately comes back to the issue of at what point a fetus becomes a person with the legal and moral rights that status entails. If, as you say, that status is fully acquired at conception then it is arguable that at no point in the pregnancy does the woman’s right to bodily autonomy trump the fetus’s right to life. But if, as I maintain, a clump of cells with no brain or nervous system and no mind or self-awareness is not a person then it has no rights, and women are certainly entitled to make decisions on whether or not to continue an unwanted pregnancy.

I'm not sure there is any biological, philosophical or other basis to demonstrate that either of these positions is correct.

Rhian – I think you missed the point of my dialogue about viability.

Yes, I do believe that a unique new human life comes into being at conception and that no one has the right to deliberately bring that life to an end. I fail to see how motherhood also confers the right to be an executioner.

We all go through the stage in our lives of having no nervous system or brain but that is just part of normal human development and I see no reason why our lives should be disposable at that point. Any rules for when “personhood” seemingly magically appears, are quite arbitrary. Some might say at implantation, others, when there is a heartbeat, others, when there is brain activity, others, at birth. And then there are people like “ethicist” Peter Singer who essentially says personhood should not be conferred until the child is self-aware – how many months after birth does that occur? Why should one of these points trump the others?

Reading between the lines in your comments it seems that there may be a time during pregnancy when you think that abortion would be wrong? Am I misreading you? If you do think so, when would that be? Or do you think abortions should be permitted up to birth? If you do set a cut-off point, is the baby really so different the day before that point and the day before that?

You use the word “crime” in relation to abortion. I am not so much wanting to criminalise abortion as make people think about what we are doing to our own offspring and to voluntarily cease killing them.

At the very least we should use the precautionary principle – if there is any doubt about whether we are killing a being as morally valuable as born people, we should desist. If a hunter shoots another hunter, we do not accept the excuse of, oh I thought it may have been a deer. No, they are not to shoot until they know what they are shooting. The same should apply to abortion.