Choose life

[timtofly]

I think you do not yet understand my argument. This is not about the fetus taking something from the mother.
Still, you clearly said that a person should have the right to decide what happens with his or her body, regardless of the consequences for someone else.

I don't understand then, sorry. I don't see any need to give the government any more power than necessary even if it protects me from myself. Personally I would lean towards anarchism, and perhaps communism as a stateless body. That I am going to change the current government I live in is futile. If I were born under a government that takes things from me without my permission, I would not resist such a government. It may be hard to understand my positions and they may not even make sense to most, but that is the way I view things.

It is the default position that a person is in control of their own body. We have governments not to protect the right to decide/choose, but to protect people from hurting themselves and then that is limited. I never said regardless of the consequences for some one else. There is a point in the process where a fetus is no longer, "just a part of one's body". It is a separate person. I really do not like the use of rights. When you legislate rights to some, you take them away from others.

I would prefer that people being given an opportunity or privilege (that word is so misused and even now is equated with rights) to act in a responsible manner. Governments are viewed as showing preference and giving opportunities to a few which necessitates rights to others. That is not what a privilege is to me. Yet again we can misuse the word opportunity as only giving rights to some. So perhaps humans have lost the concept altogether of personal responsibility. It seems to cast a bad light on other humans making them feel inferior.

 

[Traitorfish]

Well, I consider life to start at conception, so yes, I'd say a fetus is a baby, or a human at least. It's at the fetus-stage of development, just like a 2-year old is at the toddler-stage of development.

But, yes, I can see how those who do not share my view of life starting at conception would find this to be a complicating factor.

What does "life" have to do with anything? The egg and sperm cells are both alive before conception, and themselves represent a continuity of life going back some four billion years. To say that "life begins with conception" is simply scientific illiteracy. Unless you mean this life, this specific organism, but again, so what? The fact that a genetically distinct organism has come into being has no obvious moral consequences. We could, in principle, splice together two different sets of genes and grow some meat-blob in a jar, but for all its genetic distinctness nobody would imagine that this blob constituted a person, or that we had any moral duties towards it.

So my guess is that, when you say "life", you mean it as a secularised euphemism for "the soul's inhabitation of the body". But is it acceptable, in a society which regards itself a secular, to enforce this sort of religious belief on those who do not share it regardless of how sincerely-held it may be? I don't think it is, and I don't think most people, if questioned outside of the context of this debate, would have any hesitation in agreeing with me.

 

[timtofly]

One either exists as a person or not. Secular or spiritual are not definitions of personhood. They may be states of the mind. Self awareness may happen in the womb, or it may not. What a person chooses later in life as an identification may not be set in stone.

 

[Traitorfish]

Self-awareness, then. Point is, as El Mach said,

I'm like smellincoffee, I find 'brain development' to be an important moral consideration. To the best of my knowledge (and it's pretty significant), there's no sentience before 22 weeks. Not saying there's sentience at 22 weeks, just that there isn't beforehand. And so, I find pre-22 week abortions to be mostly morally inconsequential.

There's nothing happening in a 6-week old embryo that we would identify as resembling the material processes underlying cognition, so whatever claims to awareness or personhood or what have you made on behalf of this embryo can only be appeals to the presence of the soul, hardly tenable basis for legislation in a secular republic like the United States. And I think it's proponents are aware of this, or they'd come right out and say "ensoulment occurs at conception", rather than dancing around the place with all this poorly-defined stuff about "life".

 

[ParkCungHee]

So my guess is that, when you say "life", you mean it as a secularised euphemism for "the soul's inhabitation of the body". But is it acceptable, in a society which regards itself a secular, to enforce this sort of religious belief on those who do not share it regardless of how sincerely-held it may be? I don't think it is, and I don't think most people, if questioned outside of the context of this debate, would have any hesitation in agreeing with me.

I think if you stripped away the specific language on the other hand, you would. Because while we have a society that is purportedly secular, we have at the same time a society that is very uncomfortable changing about well worn notions of the self and others, and our obligation to them, even if this occasionally results in some incongruities.

 

[Zelig]

I wouldn't consider a brain-dead adult a "person" in any useful sense.

It's essentially equivalent to if you lop off someone's head and keep the body alive.

 

[KmDubya]

Self-awareness, then. Point is, as El Mach said,



There's nothing happening in a 6-week old embryo that we would identify as resembling the material processes underlying cognition, so whatever claims to awareness or personhood or what have you made on behalf of this embryo can only be appeals to the presence of the soul, hardly tenable basis for legislation in a secular republic like the United States. And I think it's proponents are aware of this, or they'd come right out and say "ensoulment occurs at conception", rather than dancing around the place with all this poorly-defined stuff about "life".

When the DNA from the mother and father combine to form a unique individual that is when I would define life. It obviously can not occur any sooner and any point chosen afterwards is arbitrary.

El Mach says 22 weeks, what if one had brain activity at 21 weeks or 23 weeks? The 22 week mark is arbitrary it could be sooner or later and thus does not serve well as a definition of when life starts.

I believe humans are different from other animals in that we are self aware, if that is because of a soul I do not know. It does not require any religious convictions to believe that we are different from an animal. I would even think that a hardcore atheist would believe that humans are different by the fact that we can discuss the matter.

If you don't define human life as starting at conception you can pick any qualifier that you want. 22 weeks for brain activity, or 7 months for life outside the womb, six years old to comprehend self, 18 to be legally an adult, 26 to need to be self insured. Why not add in quality of life arguments as well? Mentally slow - lets get rid of them, old people - why not, they lived a good life and we will spare them the pain of getting older, why not poor people - they won't have much quality of life so better to spare them the misery. Once you take that first step in qualifying when life occurs it is easy to go to the next step.

Abortion is legal, just be honest about the taking of a life for convenience.

 

[Gigaz]

Do you think that if someone needs a kidney, the goverment should take one from a fitting donator, by force, if necessary?

I don't understand then, sorry. I don't see any need to give the government any more power than necessary even if it protects me from myself.

You see, giving the government this power is not about protecting you from yourself, but for protecting the innocent people in need for an organ from an avoidable death.

It is the default position that a person is in control of their own body. We have governments not to protect the right to decide/choose, but to protect people from hurting themselves and then that is limited. I never said regardless of the consequences for some one else...

I think you contradict yourself very much here. You said that one has, and should have, the right to refuse to give a person a necessary organ donation, even if that person dies. This does obviously mean that a person has, and should have, control over his or her body, regardless of the consequences for someone else.

One either exists as a person or not. Secular or spiritual are not definitions of personhood. They may be states of the mind. Self awareness may happen in the womb, or it may not. What a person chooses later in life as an identification may not be set in stone.

Essentialism is a point of view that is very much in contradiction with modern scientific results. One does not either exist as a person or not. One comes to be a person by a gradual process.

 

[Zelig]

El Mach says 22 weeks, what if one had brain activity at 21 weeks or 23 weeks? The 22 week mark is arbitrary it could be sooner

Nope.

 

[KmDubya]

Zelig does life occur exactly at 22 weeks = 13,305,600 seconds? Not one second before or after? Einstein and GW Bush both become self aware at the same time?

If not then the 22 week part is arbitrary by definition.

 

[Antilogic]

EDIT: Nah, not going to do this.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

EDIT: Nah, not going to do this.

My thoughts about 3 or 4 times in this thread.

 

[Silurian]

When the DNA from the mother and father combine to form a unique individual that is when I would define life. It obviously can not occur any sooner and any point chosen afterwards is arbitrary.

The egg cell that the mother releases to be fertilized was formed before the mother was born herself. So when imagining technology develops it will be possible to trace an individual "person" back thirty or forty years before they were born.

To rule out the first forty years of an individuals life seems arbitrary.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Abortion is legal, just be honest about the taking of a life for convenience.

Requiring honesty while being so blatantly dishonest about the motivators is a thing to observe.

For most women it's pretty spectacularly damn far from convenience. To claim this is the default motivator is outstanding dickishness.

 

[Kyriakos]

You see, giving the government this power is not about protecting you from yourself, but for protecting the innocent people in need for an organ from an avoidable death.

I am not sure what your view on this is. Do you actually think it is a good idea for a government to be able to extract the organs from a dead person regardless of the dead person not having agreed when alive to be donating his organs?

Cause it is a nightmare to allow a government to make such decisions. They don't own anyone's body, not when alive, not when dead. Governments are not kings, they are supposed to be public servants. To hell with the psychos they now consist of :/

 

[KmDubya]

The egg cell that the mother releases to be fertilized was formed before the mother was born herself. So when imagining technology develops it will be possible to trace an individual "person" back thirty or forty years before they were born.

To rule out the first forty years of an individuals life seems arbitrary.

My understanding is that your individual unique DNA is formed from both of your parents. The unique pairing is what makes you "you". Based on this how can you exist prior to the joining of your parents DNA?

 

[KmDubya]

Requiring honesty while being so blatantly dishonest about the motivators is a thing to observe.

For most women it's pretty spectacularly damn far from convenience. To claim this is the default motivator is outstanding dickishness.

What is the reason for the abortion then if not convenience? I am not talking about life threatening medical treatment required type situations.

The obvious reason is that she wants to terminate the pregnancy. If one does not wish to become pregnant there are many things that can be done before going for an abortion. One can choose not to have sex, one can choose to use birth control, one can choose to have her male partner wear a condom, one can choose to have unprotected sex at a point in their fertility cycle unlikely to produce a pregnancy.

When one fails to make any of the above choices to avoid becoming pregnant, what other reason besides convenience is there for obtaining an abortion?

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm like smellincoffee, I find 'brain development' to be an important moral consideration. To the best of my knowledge (and it's pretty significant), there's no sentience before 22 weeks. Not saying there's sentience at 22 weeks, just that there isn't beforehand. And so, I find pre-22 week abortions to be mostly morally inconsequential.

El Mach says 22 weeks, what if one had brain activity at 21 weeks or 23 weeks? The 22 week mark is arbitrary it could be sooner or later and thus does not serve well as a definition of when life starts.

I wasn't being arbitrary when I chose 22 weeks. I've not seen evidence that there's anything resembling sentience at 22 weeks. I don't think that sentience starts until post week 26. Definitely there by 30ish. I've already built in the leeway that we all want to see in such sticky issues. It's just that the tools required for sentience are not there at 22 weeks. It's like asking if you know whether this car can run. How about this one? First one, you're 100% sure cannot (as it is). 2nd one? No idea ... maybe? maybe not? You'd not be surprised either way.

Again, it's not when life starts. The life started billions of years ago. There's new human life whenever a skincell replicates. And, yeah, I'll grant that the organism starts at conception. But, I just don't find that to be a morally significant thing. Scratching your skin create unique, independent, human life (that will quickly die unless put into proper living conditions). So, I find 'sentience' to be a morally significant time-point. It's why we toss the placenta but keep the baby, even though both are products of the initial embryo. It's why we find 'braindeath' to be important, etc.

 

[Silurian]

My understanding is that your individual unique DNA is formed from both of your parents. The unique pairing is what makes you "you". Based on this how can you exist prior to the joining of your parents DNA?

Well what happened to that egg over the previous forty years will affect your health and well being. We are talking about half of the final person. To exclude that half is arbitrary.

 

[Darkflight]

What is the reason for the abortion then if not convenience? I am not talking about life threatening medical treatment required type situations.

The obvious reason is that she wants to terminate the pregnancy. If one does not wish to become pregnant there are many things that can be done before going for an abortion. One can choose not to have sex, one can choose to use birth control, one can choose to have her male partner wear a condom, one can choose to have unprotected sex at a point in their fertility cycle unlikely to produce a pregnancy.

When one fails to make any of the above choices to avoid becoming pregnant, what other reason besides convenience is there for obtaining an abortion?

There is a distinction to be made between "conveniance" and "avoiding a life-altering situation that can bite you in the ass in a million ways".