Of course, like I said, it seems a lot of people really do care about birth as making a moral difference! But I would expect the causality probably runs the other way here—they’re comitted to defending a law which places the cutoff point at birth, so they start arguing for birth making a moral difference, so...
I think that’s almost certainly the explanation for everyone who thinks birth makes a difference in the moral value of the fetus/baby. Of course, various distinctions make it easier to pretend it’s a moral difference, but I’d bet the primary cause it because people support that cutoff for other reasons.
I’d like to suggest another reason besides the Schelling point, however, which is that birth is the point where it gets dramatically easier to keep the fetus/baby alive without harming the mother. First of all, health risks to the mother drop dramatically (I think to zero?); even more obviously, it’s now possible to give the baby up for adoption and remove any danger, burden, or even inconvenience on the mother. I’m certain that if we had the technology to remove fetuses from the womb while keeping them alive somehow, abortion would be illegal, or at least it would still be if we’d had it prior to the abortion-rights movement.
What’s particularly weird about this is that the entire basis of the pro-choice movement is about women’s rights, so in that sense the reason for birth being the cutoff is incredibly obvious. It feels very strange to me that even many people who support abortion don’t seem to be aware of this.
On a separate note, it’s worth noting that many jurisdictions make a distinction between early- and late-term abortions. I can’t see any reason for this except the idea that human life increases in value steadily as it grows rather than at a specific time.
(Well, that combined with the fact that it’s usually possible to get an abortion before late-term, and also easier to perform, so there’s relatively little reason to have late-term abortions… which raises the interesting question of why people ban them; I wonder what sorts of situations result in people wanting abortions late-term. Finding out about health issues with the mother or fetus?)
Anyway, my main point with saying the above was to note that the use of birth as a set point isn’t nearly as common as these sorts of discussions make it out to be.
Of course, like I said, it seems a lot of people really do care about birth as making a moral difference! But I would expect the causality probably runs the other way here—they’re comitted to defending a law which places the cutoff point at birth, so they start arguing for birth making a moral difference, so...
I think that’s almost certainly the explanation for everyone who thinks birth makes a difference in the moral value of the fetus/baby. Of course, various distinctions make it easier to pretend it’s a moral difference, but I’d bet the primary cause it because people support that cutoff for other reasons.
I’d like to suggest another reason besides the Schelling point, however, which is that birth is the point where it gets dramatically easier to keep the fetus/baby alive without harming the mother. First of all, health risks to the mother drop dramatically (I think to zero?); even more obviously, it’s now possible to give the baby up for adoption and remove any danger, burden, or even inconvenience on the mother. I’m certain that if we had the technology to remove fetuses from the womb while keeping them alive somehow, abortion would be illegal, or at least it would still be if we’d had it prior to the abortion-rights movement.
What’s particularly weird about this is that the entire basis of the pro-choice movement is about women’s rights, so in that sense the reason for birth being the cutoff is incredibly obvious. It feels very strange to me that even many people who support abortion don’t seem to be aware of this.
On a separate note, it’s worth noting that many jurisdictions make a distinction between early- and late-term abortions. I can’t see any reason for this except the idea that human life increases in value steadily as it grows rather than at a specific time. (Well, that combined with the fact that it’s usually possible to get an abortion before late-term, and also easier to perform, so there’s relatively little reason to have late-term abortions… which raises the interesting question of why people ban them; I wonder what sorts of situations result in people wanting abortions late-term. Finding out about health issues with the mother or fetus?)
Anyway, my main point with saying the above was to note that the use of birth as a set point isn’t nearly as common as these sorts of discussions make it out to be.