Responses to Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Nathan Nobis's "Are Embryos 'Babies' and Children'?"

The American Journal of Bioethics Blog recently published a post by Nathan Nobis entitled "Are Embryos 'Babies' and Children'?" The following responds to sections, 1, 2, and 3.

Response to Section 1

In section 1, Nobis argues for two claims. First, he argues that people might use words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ as non-literal terms of endearment for embryos and early fetuses. Second, he argues that pro-abortion activists don’t have to agree with anti-abortion activists who say that words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ should be used literally for embryos and early fetuses.

The argument for the first claim—people might use words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ as non-literal terms of endearment for embryos and early fetuses—is that people use terms like ‘bean,’ ‘bun,’ and ‘bunny’ as non-literal terms of endearment for embryos and early fetuses. So, they might also use ‘baby’ and ‘child’ as non-literal terms of endearment for embryos and early fetuses.

This is good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. 

First, this argument doesn’t establish that people are using words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ as non-literal terms of endearment for embryos and early fetuses. It merely establishes that they might be. Moreover, even if people are using ‘baby’ and ‘child’ as non-literal terms of endearment for embryos and early fetuses, this argument doesn’t establish that embryos and early fetuses aren’t babies and children. Much more is needed for that.  

Second, the anti-abortion activist may acknowledge that it’s perfectly fine for anyone to use ‘baby’ and ‘child’ as non-literal terms of endearment for their own embryo or early fetus. People may use language however they want. But must everyone agree that ‘baby’ and ‘child’ are mere terms of endearment when used for embryos and early fetuses? Must they agree that ‘baby’ and ‘child’ can’t be used literally for embryos and early fetuses? No. 

The argument for the second claim—pro-abortion activists don’t have to agree with anti-abortion activists who say that words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ should be used literally for embryos and early fetuses—is that, since people agree that it’s generally wrong to kill babies and children, anti-abortion activists are begging the question by assuming that embryos and early fetuses are wrong to kill when they call them ‘babies’ and ‘children.’ 

Unfortunately, this argument isn’t even good as far as it goes. 

The problem is with Nobis’s understanding of begging the question. Nobis seems to think an argument begs the question when someone would reject one of its premises. This is a bad understanding of the fallacy. A better understanding is to say an argument begs the question only when the argument’s conclusion is used as a reason to believe one of its premises. However, anti-abortion activists don’t use the claim that embryos and early fetuses are wrong to kill as a reason to believe that embryos and early fetuses are babies or children. They also don’t use it as a reason to believe that it’s generally wrong to kill babies and children. So, the accusation that the anti-abortion activist is guilty of begging the question does not hold up. 

Nobis may complain that this misrepresents his position. After all, he explicitly defines begging the question as “assuming what needs to be argued for.” But it’s unclear what he means by this. He might mean the argument is circular—it uses its conclusion to justify one of its premises. This is suggested when he says, “when anti-abortion activists call embryos and beginning fetus ‘babies’ and ‘children,’ they are typically just assuming that embryos and beginning fetus are wrong to kill.” But as already explained above, anti-abortion activists don’t do this. So, if that’s his claim, he’s simply wrong. Alternatively, he might mean the argument uses the controversial premise—one that opponents of the conclusion would reject—that early embryos and fetuses are babies/children. If this is his claim, then, as stated above, Nobis seems to think an argument begs the question when someone would reject one of its premises, which misunderstands the fallacy. Either way, he’s mistaken: the argument doesn’t beg the question, and his accusation fails.

Response to Section 2

In section 2, Nobis argues for three claims. First, he contends that most anti-abortion arguments are poor. Second, he argues that embryos and early fetuses aren’t babies or children. Lastly, he argues that nobody must nor should accept the view that persons are individual substances of a rational nature.

The argument for the first claim—that most anti-abortion arguments are poor—links to an article where he assesses several arguments against abortion. For example, he provides the following argument: “Human fetuses are biologically human organisms, so they are persons, which makes them wrong to kill!” He then accuses the argument of being circular. However, the argument is not circular.

As explained previously, an argument is circular or begs the question only when it uses the conclusion as a reason to believe one of its premises. However, the anti-abortion activist does not use the conclusion as a reason to believe either premise. The anti-abortion activist doesn’t use the conclusion to believe that human fetuses are biologically human organisms, nor do they use it to believe that all biologically human organisms are persons. Therefore, the accusation that this anti-abortion argument is guilty of begging the question does not hold.

Nobis also complains that the argument doesn’t explain what makes biologically human organisms persons. This is true—it doesn’t. But neither was it attempting to do so, so this is not a substantial complaint.

However, this may not be the argument Nobis thinks is circular. He also gives the following argument just before the accusation of circularity, namely, “biologically human organisms are persons because they are biologically human organisms.” There are two problems with this. First, not even this argument begs the question. Again, an argument begs the question only when its conclusion is used to justify one of its premises. This argument doesn’t use (and doesn’t need to use) its conclusion to justify its premise. True, it’s not a particularly useful argument. But it doesn’t commit the fallacy of begging the question.

Second, it’s more charitable to interpret this as an explanation, not an argument. Now, Nobis might still complain that it’s an uninformative explanation. Admittedly, it’s not especially informative. But it’s not entirely uninformative. It says there is something about having the essence of being a human organism in general that confers personhood on particular human organisms. Consider this explanation: Uranium explodes before it reaches a ten-ton weight because it’s uranium. What this says is that individual pieces of uranium explode before they reach a ten-ton weight because there is something about having the essence of uranium that disposes them to explode before they reach that weight. Again, while not especially informative, this explanation is perfectly fine. (For more on such explanations, see Elanor Taylor’s “A Dormitive Virtue Puzzle” in Levels of Explanation, forthcoming.) 

The argument for the second claim—that embryos and early fetuses aren’t babies or children—is that babies and children are persons, but embryos and early fetuses aren’t persons since they aren’t (and never have been) conscious, aware, thinking, or feeling. This argument is unconvincing because some infants, babies, or children are not (and never have been) conscious, aware, thinking, or feeling, specifically children with anencephaly. As one embryology textbook puts it, “Infants with anencephaly lack a functional forebrain (cerebrum) and fail to gain consciousness” (Schoenwolf, et al., Larsen’s Human Embryology, 4th ed., 113). Another text explains that “Children with such severe skull and brain defects cannot survive” (Sadler, T. W., Langman’s Medical Embryology, 12th ed., 137). 

Nobis might respond that such infants, babies, and children are not persons because they aren’t (and never have been) conscious, aware, thinking, or feeling, and, therefore, are not paradigmatic examples of infants, babies, and children. There are two problems with this response. First, it misses the point. Even if such infants, babies, and children are not persons, it is still true that words like ‘infant,’ ‘baby,’ and ‘child’ are used literally for them. Second, anti-abortion advocates don’t need to think early embryos and fetuses are paradigmatic babies and children to claim that words like ‘baby’ and ‘child’ can be used literally for them. It would be a strange view to hold that a word for something can be used literally only for its paradigmatic cases. After all, we still use the word ‘dog’ literally for non-paradigmatic dogs.

The argument for the third claim—that nobody must nor should accept the view that persons are individual substances of a rational nature—is based on the fact that there is no good reason to accept this view and that such a view is offensive to people with severe mental disabilities. However, this would likely be surprising to experts in the field of philosophy of disabilities (see Scott Williams’s “Personhood, Ethics, and Disability: A Comparison of Byzantine, Boethian, and Modern Concepts of Personhood”).

Response to Section 3

In Section 3, Nobis argues that the etymology of the word ‘fetus’, meaning ‘little one,’ doesn’t determine its meaning today. He supports this claim by citing examples of words that have changed their meanings over time. For instance, ‘bully’ once meant ‘sweetheart.’ This example, along with others, demonstrates that words often shift in meaning from their etymological roots. However, this does not mean that etymology has no relevance in understanding the meaning of words today. The key is determining whether there is a connection between a word’s etymological background and its current usage. Today, the word ‘fetus’ is technically used to refer to a developing human organism from week nine to birth. But why is this the case? The best explanation is that, during this stage of development, the early biologically human organism takes on features that closely resemble the form it will have at birth (see picture below). In other words, it looks like a small paradigmatic baby or child—a little one. Thus, it is best to understand the word ‘fetus’ today as connected to its etymological roots.

(Picture taken from Carlson, Bruce M., Human Embryology & Developmental Biology, 456)

(UPDATE: Nobis responds here.)