Re: [Marxism] reaching out to the far right II (response toBobHopson)

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote, "Because human life, in all cultures that I know of, begins at
birth."

Sayan responds:  "This is not quite correct, because in that case, abortion
would have been concerned perfectly permissible in all cultures, but it is
not -- which obviously means that life is not considered to begin at birth
in all cultures.

That abortion is not considered permissible in all cultures is a function of
patriarchy, not of philosophical theories about when "life" begins -- or
when it ends. On the contrary, these notions about "life" beginning (or the
soul arising) at a certain point are rooted in and come from patriarchal
society and its needs.

But as for when "life" or "personhood" begins, I am not familiar with ANY
culture that accords an embryo the status of a person. There are no
passports for embryos. There are no social security numbers. No tax
deduction for dependents. There's just religious bullshit about "all life is
sacred" to subjugate women as *breeding stock.* 

I wrote: "And biologically, an embryo is not capable of sustaining life or
developing into a baby independently."

To which Sayan responds: "But neither is a newborn. A newborn, or even a
toddler, cannot develop into a baby "independently". It is in fact highly
dependent on others for food. shelter and survival. When left out, it
usually perishes due to exposure (a common method of infanticide)."

These are two different senses of the word "independent." An embryo is not a
BIOLOGICALLY independent living organism. A baby very much IS "independent"
in that sense. You could extend Sayan's argument and say that NO human is
even "independent," since humans are social animals, although as a person
grows from infancy to adulthood they gain ever-greater relative autonomy.
Sure, an individual ant, or bee, or human adult can survive "independently"
in this sense for a time. But that is not the way the lives of those species
is organized, not the way it really takes place. 

This failure to see things *socially* marks all of Sayan's comments on this
(and many other subjects). For example, he says, "The patriarchal bourgeois
male may well see his wife as a mere instrument of production.... But
suppose that a man and a woman (neither of whom treats the other merely as
an 'instrument of production') have loving, non-coerced, consensual sex with
a contraceptive" and so on. The contraceptive fails; she gets pregnant.

"In such a case, how can it be argued that the  lack of an option to abort
the pregnancy in such a situation implies social sanction for treating the
woman as an 'instrument of production,' given that the consensual sexual act
had not even been carried out with (re)production in mind?" 

But is not a question of how the INDIVIDUAL "patriarchal bourgeois male" or
the individual male that has "loving, non-coerced, consensual sex" sees
things. These individuals function in a determined social setting.

By discouraging abortion, making it hard to obtain, or prohibiting it
altogether, *bourgeois society* treats the woman as a mere instrument of
production. It is not a question of what those two people imagined when they
were having sex.

Sayan's opposition to my statement that "The belief that an embryo is a
separate and distinct human life is quintessentially a religious belief,"
claiming it is "an unfalsifiable belief, but not necessarily a religious
one," just the same as the converse statement, shows that Sayan fails to
approach things as a materialist.

That an embryo is NOT a biologically independent human life is a very
humdrum statement of scientific FACT. ONLY by imbuing "life" with some
supra-material, non-biological meaning can you state the opposite. 

This also highlights the importance of being able to think *dialectically*
in a *materialist* way. An embryo grows and becomes a fetus, a fetus becomes
a baby. Quantity changes into quality. What was once a tiny cluster of cells
of the mother's body becomes now, at birth, a separate human being. That the
newborn is completely dependent on others to sustain life for more than a
few hours or days is a QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT kind of dependency than that
of the embryo. The latter is biological; the former social. If the mother
dies at the moment of birth there is no reason --none whatsoever-- for the
baby to die. If the mother dies with an embryo inside her the embryo dies
also, automatically, because it is part of the mother's body, not a separate
living organism. 

Is this really so hard to comprehend, Sayan?

That from a tiny seed a mighty oak tree will grow does not thereby negate
the difference between a seed and an oak tree. If Sayan wishes to verify
this experimentally, I would suggest that he let a seed and an oak tree fall
on his head -- I am sure he will be quite struck by the difference.

Joaquín


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