This sort of fetal ageism, or “fegeism,” seems pervasive throughout the abortion debate and explains the support for legal abortion.

I wrote an article entitled “Reason vs. abortion” a few weeks back, to which I received several responses. After reading the responses I noticed a fair amount of rhetoric I had seen before – rhetoric that failed to properly factor fetal rights into consideration.

According to my observations this is a systemic failure in much of the modern abortion debate. As such it must be addressed before progress is possible.

In most of the great moral issues our nation has faced, recognizing and eliminating the discriminatory attitudes that caused the controversy in the first place eventually resolves them. By identifying these attitudes in the abortion debate, we can hope to resolve it.

Individuals’ opinions on abortion appear to be based on whether or not they respect fetal rights.

Sometimes people frame the issue in terms of skepticism regarding fetal personhood. However, this is just a way to deny parental responsibility for fetal rights. By denying the personhood of a fetal child, one can ignore fetal rights because non-persons lack rights.

Opposition to fetal rights does not only occur in abortion however. Many who favor legal abortion oppose fetal-rights legislation in areas other than abortion. Thus it would appear that opposition to fetal rights is not isolated to the abortion issue, but is only part of a categorical denial of fetal rights in general.

This denial of fetal rights can clearly be identified as a form of ageism, or discrimination based on age. Once fetal children are born, the same people who opposed their rights in earlier stages of development accord them the rights of regular persons after birth.

The only factor that has changed here is the child’s stage of development. This sort of fetal ageism, or “fegeism,” seems pervasive throughout the abortion debate and explains the support for legal abortion.

Thus to understand support of legal abortion one must understand the causes of fegeism in society. What motivates fegeist discrimination? Since the most significant form of fegeist oppression in society is abortion or fetal homicide it is likely that fetal ageism is mostly motivated by a desire to justify this.

If the rights of fetal children are recognized it would follow that the parents of fetal children would have a parental responsibility to ensure that these rights are guaranteed. This would involve parenting the child.

Since parenting can be costly, it is understandable that sometimes parents would wish to shirk these responsibilities so that they could keep their money for themselves. Without abortion to eliminate unwanted children, parents would not have another way of denying parental responsibilities to their fetal children.

Thus it would appear that abortion, and thus fegeist discrimination, is largely motivated by parents’ concerns for their own economic status. Irresponsible parents who do not wish to pay for the costs of parenting their own children would benefit economically by aborting their children instead of raising them. If individuals in fetal stages of development are denied legal rights, then their parents would not be legally responsible for those rights.

But then why not just not have a child in the first place? Why couldn’t they simply decide not to have a child if they do not wish to pay for one?

Parents of unwanted fetal children do not want assume the recognized responsibilities that come from their actions. From simple biology it is obvious that sexual behavior entails the possibility of reproduction.

However, some parents do not wish to accept the possible responsibilities that this possibility of reproduction entails. By adopting fegeist attitudes towards their offspring they can simply deny any recognized sexual liability that might involve parental responsibilities on their part.

The ultimate motivation for fegeist discrimination can then be identified as a desire to deny recognized sexual liabilities by denying the rights of fetal children so that people can rationalize committing abortions or fetal homicides.

Without fetal children to worry about, recognized sexual liabilities can simply be ignored, as there would be no one else for the parents to be responsible for.

It is likely that progress will eventually be made on the issue of abortion. However, if history is any indicator when it comes to social progress, this will only happen once we recognize these discriminatory attitudes in our society and eliminate them.

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