Twins, souls and abortion

I wonder if scepticism toward pseudoscience has any contribution to make to the abortion debate?

The thought arises because the theory of L Ron Hubbard (disposed of in a recent Skeptical Inquirer), that foeti can hear and understand voices outside the mother and react to them, is clearly pseudoscientific.

What about the theory of the anti-choice brigade that "the human being" comes into existence at the "moment" (now known to last hours) of conception?

There is a reductio ad absurdum of this view: while most conceptions go on to produce one individual, identical twins arise after at least one division of the zygote (fertilized ovum), more hours after conception. Therefore, in the anti-choice view, twins and other multiple births comprise only one "human being".

If that were the case, the Auckland doctors recently faced with the decision whether to separate conjoined twins should have had no hesitation in sacrificing one of the twins: only one "human being" had come into existence at conception, and they would have merely been restoring the status quo.

There used to be another case involving a similar paradox, "Locked twins" are fortunately now almost unknown, occurring only under circumstances of extreme neglect. If birth of twins was allowed to begin so that part of both bodies blocked the birth canal, both of them would die and probably the mother too. Or one could be saved if the other were sacrificed. There was even an instrument for this purpose, whose very name will set your teeth on edge — a "cranioclast", or skull-breaker. Catholic midwives and obstetricians would rather try to save both by breaking the mother's pelvis, crippling her for life. According to their own argument, they could have sacrificed one twin without qualms.

What most anti-choice people really believe, but never say in the abortion debate, is that a supernatural entity called "the soul" is infused into the foetus at the "moment" of conception, and it is this that makes it human. Presumably they believe that the Deity knows how many individuals will result from any conception, and infuses an appropriate number of souls, to share a zygote until it divides.

Let me say that I would like abortion to be a woman's last resort, and if it be done, let it be as soon as possible to prevent any possibility of suffering to the foetus: that, I think, is the real issue. Again paradoxically, it is the efforts of the anti-choice faction that delay abortions until the brain has started some kind of function, and suffering is more likely.