The abortion debate

Post Reply New Topic

A person is any living creature that is of the human species.[/quote]

Not true. An infant born without a cerebral cortex can never be a person. Such infants (acephalics) have been born. A most unfortunate circumstance. To be a person one must be (or have the capability to be) self-aware and be able for have intentions. Human infants are born with one third the brain mass they need to have these characteristics. Also at birth the necessary neural connections have not been formed. In the first year, an infant doubles his/her brain mass. After a few months there is enough in place for an infant to be self aware.

rueveyn

When I said that late abortion is another matter, I mostly meant to say that it's a less easy procedure, that the fetus might allready be sufficiently developed to survive outside the womb, and that it should be handled more softly if it has developed some degree of sensory function.

(I only mean to say that the situation is different, not that it is "better" or "worse".)

This is the core of the whole debate. It's a philosophical question, so you simply have to assume one way or the other. That's why the abortion debate won't ever go away.


I don't accept your definition of a person, for moral purposes at least.

In any case, your definition has problems. What about the mentally ret*d? Sufficiently advanced computer programs? Sufficiently clever animals? Intelligent aliens? Almost-but-not-quite sufficiently clever animals? Large-brained animals that are not sufficiently clever?


Huh? You just got through making a definition that specifically established that the unborn and infants are not people, to support a position that killing the unborn is acceptable for any reason, but you're against infanticide? Why?


We're talking about what's morally right and wrong and what should be legal and illegal. What happens to be legal now is almost totally irrelevant. As well as different in different places (and times, for that matter).


Yes. But if it isn't a person and has no value, why protect it? Why place the burden on anyone, rather than destroy the burden?


Slavery and mysogyny were also considered routine...

I am on the side of intellectual honesty.

My existence started at the point of conception - I don't see how anyone can argue against that. Arguments over where to draw arbitrary lines as to "when independent life truly begins" or "when a fetus really becomes a person" exist primarily in a world where people are trying to justify their views of abortion. Outside of the abortion debate, I don't see much of a debate at all.

Whether abortion should be legal is a societal decision - not a biological decision. I don't care one way or another where we draw the line on abortion. Societies make decisions to kill everyday. Changing science to fit out agendas does not make it any more or less justified.

And I believe that this is a matter of opinions and perspectives. The I - the whole that we may call "I", rather than only the psychological phenomenon - is a fickle thing.

As Bertrand Russell well observed, "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way."

What the abortion debate boils down to is a fundamental difference in opinion. Is a fetus a person or not?

For my part, I don't think a fetus is a person. I wouldn't consider a beaver or a snake a person, yet a fetus, as we have observed, is at least as non-sentient as those animals and, furthermore, lacks the ability to survive on its own.

Fetuses are, of course, of the human species, which bears some significance, but it relates to the human species as seeds and eggs relate to trees and birds, respectively. All it has is potential.

Do I think women should have abortions? Absolutely not. I'd hope they would have the common sense, foresight, and humanity not to kill their and another's offspring, but as far as imposing a legal restriction on people saying they can't have abortions goes, I say no, no, no.

There is, however, an argument which the pro-life side of the debate makes sometimes that I've always found curiously cogent. That, since there is obviously a discrepancy over the personhood of fetuses, we should, by default, be on the side of life, even if there is a chance of erring. You can see that, if pro-lifers are somehow correct, we have committed atrocities unequaled by even the Holocaust.

I still stand on the pro-choice side of the debate, albeit not very staunchly.

This is why we should not rely on opinion and go straight for science. Is the life form in question alive? If so, is it of the human species? If so, it's a human life and should be entitled to the same rights as any other human.

Rights are a social construct, not a scientific fact. There are no Rights in nature.

ruveyn

Obvious counter-argument: Sperm are alive and of the human species as well, yet are not entitled to any rights.

Gametes *are* however haploid.


Well, no. It's not the core of the debate necessarily. The core of the debate is whether or not society has the right to tell a woman that a fetus can commandeer use of her body against her will.

As I see it, abortion is a societal issue and will be resolved according to the social norms of the day, regardless of science. If science doesn't match society's decision, then people will adapt science to fit that decision. It wouldn't make a bit of difference to the abortion debate whether the scientific community definitively concluded that life begins (or that a "person" exists) at conception, after the first trimester or at childbirth. Both sides would still maintain their respective positions. This is why the debate will never be resolved. Although they argue science, it really isn't a debate about science.

At best, sperm are a component part of the human entity - not an independent living organism. Spare parts do not become a car on their own... and if you're extending life to sperm then by reasonable extension one is favoring the criminalization of masturbation as well (keeping in line with the argument, and I believe you are playing devil's advocate here to begin with). To take it further, then would not vasectomies and hysterectomies be at issue, because the person is affecting the ability for another life to come through them? There has to be a point of acceptance; for me, it is at the point of self-sufficiency, when the parasitic stage - for lack of a better phrase - is over and the baby is capable of survival on its' own - which explains my own ambiguity on third trimester abortions of any ilk, despite the fact that I am rather vehemently pro-choice. I'm not attacking you, as I think you are joking, but was just wandering down the train of thought of considering sperm alive.


M.

As ruveny said, of course it wouldn't matter. Morals are not determined empirically.

However, morals can be informed by science.

Anyway, I think that the same applies to "personhood" in general. It is a line that has to be more or less arbitrary. For example, I can certainly see the point of someone who claims that I began at conception - but I think that the opinion that I was the eggcell, and that the conception was merely an alteration, is an equally valid view.
Regardless, I still think that abortion, if done well and safely, is not a source of any major suffering, except the possible anguish of involved adults. I think that it, overall, prevents more suffering than it causes.

Really? even during the eighth month after conception?

well, I don't see why that has to be intellectual dishonest, I mean, if the issue is of accusing an opponent view of intellectual dishonesty because they don't, allegedly, agree with "the obvious" then, we have a problem, and perhaps the ones making such accusation may fall into that.

Yes, your existence started at the point of conception, but the issue goes beyond that, beyond biology, regarding the issue about abortion more than the biological aspect, it can be argued from a pro-choice perspective that, even though the existence of a person starts at conception, they are not fully formed yet, they are in the process of formation, organs nonexistent yet, as well as the brain, no brain yet.. which all of that are scientific facts, the former AND the latter. Beyond that, we get into philosophical and ethical grounds relating to the issue rather than purely biological and we cannot deny that, from both perspectives pro-life and pro-choice. The brain thing, leads to another issue about the 'potential' person not being "brain-alive" at the moment of conception, which seems to be an interesting question within philosophical grounds, relating to the issue of mind, consciousness and sentience, and the issue about you as a person, if you, as an individual, are your mind or your body or both.