This diary started out as a comment to Wolfwhisper's diary, in which an absence of legal recognition for the unborn as "persons" was used to call into question the claims of anti-abortion activists. Essentially, what I wanted to say got too big to really serve as a comment; it is, however, not a "call-out" diary - the responses of those who noted potential difficulties in resolving the abortion debate through appeal to those very statutes that are under debate simply led me to a sort of meditation on that very issue - how we define persons and murder - that I wanted to talk about.
From a young age, I've been a fan of evolutionary psychology (EP). Its critics make very valid points - it is, in a sense, tautological, as virtually any behavior can be given the old EP treatment - if an adaptive story can be told, then great; if not, then you start with the fundamental obstacle facing a would-be adapter (a certain infirmity or defect) and then explain the behavior in light of how EP would play out given this distortion. A classic (and, I think, woefully shaky) example of the EP tautological treatment involves homosexuality (too long a debate to address here; note that I do not belive homosexuality is an infirmity - it's simply an orientation that presents difficulties to those who would explain all human behavior in terms of direct reproductive capacity). But already I digress (you can see why I had to turn this into a diary)! The main point is, despite these flaws, I've found it, overall, to be a better explanation of human behavior than the major extant alternatives (Freudianism and behavioralism; cognitive and neuro brands of psychology strike me as more empirical than theoretical).
So, abortion. Well, you have to start with the concept of "murder". The killing of others might of course benefit the prehistorical individual as a strategy to acquiring resources. But you earn a pretty woeful collection of resources through complete self-reliance - no collective hunting; certainly, no real agriculture. No, you need group cooperation. If one takes that "dog-eat-dog" mentality into the group collective, the result is dissoltuion - no group cooperation. So, the idea goes, humans evolve a sense of justice to encourage adaptive group cooperation. Anyone who has not violated the group code should not be murdered.
See, if I'm right that murder is essentially an inheretied conept, inextricably tied up with early group adaptation, then abortion presents a real problem. Because the idea of EP is that we can all, save certain highly anti-social individuals, agree upon certain norms, and the prohibition against murder is based on a strategy involving living, breating adults. Of course, we have this sense of injustice against killing babies as well. But this may have to do with the cooperation of the relevant fathers and mothers - a proto-society that permits the killing of one's children at a young age will not be a popular society to join and contribute to.
That raises the problem of fetii that are unwanted. These are not entities whose preservation could possible have contributed to group success. Thus, even if EP is right, the prohibition against murder does not apply.
Thus, I believe that the only way we can deal with the unborn is through socially constructed categories which, crucially, do not correspond to concepts that would have aided us in the prehistorical age. In fact, I think you find evidence of this fact not only in the failure to oppose abortion among many, but in the lukewarm opposition to abortion among its foes. Would anyone doubt the righteousness of someone who took it upon themselves (Roeder e.g.) to defend the young and innocent, even through killing? Quite simply, most anti-abortion activists do not regard the actions of Roeder as as righteous as the actions described. The reason is that we have a concept of "murder" based on very group-practical realities, which is now being extended to socially constructed areas.
And how one stakes out their position on these areas might be explicable in terms of EP. For pro-choice advocates (myself included), the emphasis is on the protection of the individual's rights (so as to justify inclusion in the group). For opponents, the emphasis is on enforcement of group values and thus group cohesion. I do believe that the abortion debate would not be as fiercely contested by the opponents if they did not, at least subliminally. equate abortion with promiscuity and the independence of women.
Anyway, my main argument is that we are using a concept with very firm genetic roots and attempting to apply it to a situation where those roots are not applicable. The result is disagreement that is based on the genetic coneptions of justice that we choose to personally emphasize.
(edited for initial, uncaught mistakes)