Susan G. Komen for Cure pulls funding from planned parenthood

[IdiotsOpposite]

Oak trees aren't human. Dumb analogy.


What the heck is your second argument about? It sounds like sophistry. Fetus not being a person=being less of a person then an older human.
Of course the pro-lifer looks horrified because a kid might die...

What is your opinion on safe, pre-conception birth control?

 

[_random_]

What is your opinion on safe, pre-conception birth control?

I believe NBAfan has voiced pretty strong opposition to it.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

I believe NBAfan has voiced pretty strong opposition to it.

I see. Can he give any non-religious reasons for why he might be opposed to it? I've never heard a good non-religious reason against birth control before, and I'd really like to see one.

 

[Tarquelne]

Okay, explicit and complete incomprehension is actually new.
One more whack...

Oak trees aren't human. Dumb analogy.

In any analogy there are elements that are relevant and elements that aren't. In this case it's the relationships between the entities being discussed that are relevant.

The point isn't that oak trees are human. The point is that acorns aren't oak trees. And the point of *that* is that a fetus isn't necessarily a human.

An acorn and a fetus both (arguably) *become* something else.

What the heck is your second argument about? It sounds like sophistry. Fetus not being a person=being less of a person then an older human.

Is an orange less of a large goat than a small goat?
Are 6 hamburgers less of a car than 8 hamburgers?

Here we're dealing with things that are different in *quality*, not quantity or degree.

The claim is that a fetus is *not a person*. A person it is not. There are things that are persons, and an insufficiently developed fetus is one of those things.

If you take all the people in the world and put them in a box, then 1 day-old fertalized eggs wouldn't be in the box.

Of course the pro-lifer looks horrified because a kid might die...

No, a kid would die. And the pro-lifer looked horrified because he chose to let the kid die so he could save a fertilized egg. I asked.

Would you make the same choice, NBAfan? Do you think a 1 day old fertilized egg just as much of a person as a 1 year old child?

If so, is there anything you can measure with a physical instrument of any type known or theoretically possible to science that can support you

 

[_random_]

I see. Can he give any non-religious reasons for why he might be opposed to it? I've never heard a good non-religious reason against birth control before, and I'd really like to see one.

Well, it can infertilize endangered fish.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

Naturally, your life is only sacred until you commit a capital crime.

 

[NBAfan]

Okay, that's actually new...



In any analogy there are elements that are relevant and elements that aren't. In this case it's the relationships between the entities being discussed that are relevant.

The point isn't that oak trees are human. The point is that acorns aren't oak trees. And the point of *that* is that a fetus isn't necessarily a human.

An acorn and a fetus both *become* something else.
Want to try again?



Is an orange less of a goat than a small goat?
Are 6 hamburgers less of a car than 8 hamburgers?

Here we're dealing with things that are different in *quality*, not quantity or degree.

The claim is that a fetus is *not a person*. A person it is not. There are things that are persons, and an insufficiently developed fetus is one of those things.

If you take all the people in the world and put them in a box 1 day-old fertalized eggs wouldn't be in the box.

That help?



No, a kid would die. And the pro-lifer looked horrified because he chose to let the kid die so he could save a fertilized egg.

Would you make the same choice, NBAfan? Do you think a 1 day old fertilized egg just as much of a person as a 1 year old child?

If so, is there anything you can measure with a physical instrument of any type known or theoretically possible to science that can support you

A fetus is obviously human, person or not. Any knowledge of reproductive Biology tells you this. Therefor it is a serious issue, which trees aren't.

Do you have the precise moment a fetus becomes human worthy of protection then?

I would make the same choose of course. Lucky that example is so ludicrous that no one would lose sleep over it.
Is there anything in science that tells you it's not a person? Science is stacked against you.... Why else does the abortion places dislike forcing sonograms so much?



It goes like this. All persons have an intrinsic right to life that no one can take away. All live humans have to be persons, otherwise you can have non-persons with no rights like slaves. All fetuses are human from the start. Therefor are persons because this can't be gained by function, otherwise man decides what that is. So if person hood is gained from function, then man can make others non-persons and justify killing them (jews, blacks ect.).

Naturally, your life is only sacred until you commit a capital crime.

What's with your straw men? I don't believe in the death penalty...

 

[GamezRule]

I'm really starting to hate the same old abortion debate. My personal views put aside, both sides have perfectly logical viewpoints from their perspective. It makes no sense to call the other side "bigots" or "murderers" simply because one does not take the time to understand them.

 

[Skwink]

I'm really starting to hate the same old abortion debate. My personal views put aside, both sides have perfectly logical viewpoints from their perspective. It makes no sense to call the other side "bigots" or "murderers" simply because one does not take the time to understand them.

This is what I'm saying, and nobody ever gets anywhere in these debates.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

What's with your straw men? I don't believe in the death penalty...

Who said I was talking to you? Stop imagining things.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's quite obvious the thing in the womb is not a cow.... Why does one's intelligence have any moral weight?

Morality consists in how people interact with each other, yeah? That is, in how subjects interact with each other. So the kind of subjectivity present, and even more fundamentally the presence or absence of subjectivity, is pretty much the basis of any coherent moral decision-making process. If a thing doesn't possess conciousness, if it isn't a subject, then it exists outside of morality, and this is entirely true of an embryo/ foetus up until a certain point. (That changes over time, of course, so it's not the entirety of the pro-choice position.)

If we continue your intelligence logic, we will have to conclude that Autistic people are not as important as "normal" people.

What do you mean by "less important"? You people and your damn presuppositions...

Abortion is black and white. If the fetus is not human worthy of protection, then it is ok. If not, it is gravely wrong, plain and simple. There is no middle ground here.

Are you saying you know better than St. Augustine?

I'm really starting to hate the same old abortion debate. My personal views put aside, both sides have perfectly logical viewpoints from their perspective. It makes no sense to call the other side "bigots" or "murderers" simply because one does not take the time to understand them.

Are there really even "two sides"? There's a bunch of positions you could hold on this, the only reason that Americans view this as an either-or-issue is because the fundies who wield such a disproportionate influence on your political discourse have managed to frame the debate that way. The most you could say is that there is an organised "pro-life" movement and a (slightly less) organised "pro-choice" movement, but they don't - or at least shouldn't- constitute the only participants in this debate.

 

[Tarquelne]

Up too early, so back once more anyway:

A fetus is obviously human, person or not.

A kidney is obviously "human," for a given definition of human, but not a person.
Or, put another way: If it was so bloody obvious this wouldn't be a huge controversy.

Any knowledge of reproductive Biology tells you this. Therefor it is a serious issue, which trees aren't.

Pointing out a switched goalpost from "person" to "human" deals with the RBiology comment. Therefore I point. Though I might comment that you still need to define "human" - are we talking human tissue, a full human err... "person".

Anyway, you're refusing to address the issue actually brought up by the analogy.

Do you have the precise moment a fetus becomes human worthy of protection then?

No. Which is why a law should have a "margin for error." Or, more accurately, a "margin for we don't know the precise moment."

I would make the same choose of course. Lucky that example is so ludicrous that no one would lose sleep over it.

Ludicrous... but illustrative of your philosophical point. Lets confirm it: You think a just-fertilized egg is just as much a person as a one year old child. Morally speaking they can be treated as exactly equal, correct?

You think common fertility treatments involve multiple murders, correct?

IIRC the figure on how many fertilized eggs are miscarried may be as high as 50%. It's a lot. Far, far more common than abortions. Why the silence from pro-lifers of your philosophical stance on that issue? Isn't that a far more pressing concern? (Like the fertility treatments.) It's not like something couldn't be done about it. It'd be intrusive, probably expensive and oppressive, and abstinence outside of intent to have a child likely the only "practical" response... sound good?

(With regard to miscarriages, a common response is "They're not the result of a human intervention and happen naturally." Like someone dying from... well... anything that a doctor saves them from. The point is that if "it's human therefore it must be protected" is your point, then it doesn't matter how "natrual" somethign is." Unless you want to add it? If so we're back to dying when God wants you to... and "It's human" *isn't* an overriding concern. And there's still the fertility treatments...)

Is there anything in science that tells you it's not a person?

Yes. To take the easiest example (and what we were working with) a fertilized egg has no neural activity at all.

Science is stacked against you.... Why else does the abortion places dislike forcing sonograms so much?

Because they seem intended as an intrusive emotional appeal.

It goes like this. All persons have an intrinsic right to life that no one can take away.

I agree.

All live humans have to be persons, otherwise you can have non-persons with no rights like slaves.

No. We simply use a different definition of "persons" and or "humans."

All fetuses are human from the start.

If by "human" you mean "made up of all or mostly human tissue". Sure. Like a severed finger, say.

Therefor are persons because this can't be gained by function,

In dispute. (I can't recall an argument given that isn't circular or simply declarative.) And I'm not really sure what the point is, since I think the physiological ability to function-as-a-person is what pro-choicers generally focus on.

otherwise man decides what that is.

Tough cookies. That's called "Using the brains God gave us."
And deciding "it's at conception"... is making a decision. A lazy and ill-informed one, I maintain, but a decision nonetheless.

So if person hood is gained from function, then man can make others non-persons and justify killing them (jews, blacks ect.).

First, I'm pretty sure at least 1 homicide in history was committed by someone who thought "personhood"/full humanity/whatever started at conception. So I don't think your definition is exactly the road to a killing-free world.

Second, a definition granting "personhood" based on, for example, neurological activity couldn't be withdrawn due to race, class, gender, etc without contradicting the definition.

Yes, it'd be possible to come up with a bad definition of personhood that has bad consequences. For example: "Personhood is present from conception therefore all abortions should be banned." The negative consequences of that definition have already been described ad nauseum. Real world stuff. Not "But if you're wrong based on these dubious unverifiable assumptions..."

 

[uppi]

I don't mind anti-abortion laws that err on the side of caution... but bans as restrictive as most vocal "pro-lifers" want are nothing more than attempts to thrust their personal religious or philosophical views - generally both poorly supported by the Bible and actual examination, in my experience - on other people.

Interestingly enough and relevant to the personhood debate, Mosaic law in the Bible explicitly states that an unborn human does not have the same value as a born one, because the penalty for killing one is not the same.

Not that this stops anyone making an argument supposedly based on the Bible.

 

[emzie]

A fetus is obviously human, person or not. Any knowledge of reproductive Biology tells you this. Therefor it is a serious issue, which trees aren't.

Do you have the precise moment a fetus becomes human worthy of protection then?

I would make the same choose of course. Lucky that example is so ludicrous that no one would lose sleep over it.
Is there anything in science that tells you it's not a person? Science is stacked against you.... Why else does the abortion places dislike forcing sonograms so much?

Personhood and human are different things. If I get cancer, that's human tissue. It has human DNA. It would be quite hilarious to argue against chemotherapy because it's killing something human.

Personhood, on the other hand, isn't so clear as a DNA test. Was Lucy human? How about Homo erectus? Does a chimpanzee or a bottlenose dolphin deserve special treatment? I'm not sure how science is stacked against him on this front. It's a question better answered by (and perhaps only answerable by) philosophy.

 

[El_Machinae]

I found this. Sounds like your question.

The fourth argument is right, of course, to say that development is gradual - after conception. Conception is the break, the clear dividing line, and the only one. I am the same being from conception on. Otherwise we would not speak of the growth and development and unfolding of that being, of me. I was once an infant. I was born. I was once in my mother's womb. My functioning develops only gradually, but my me has a sudden beginning. Once again, the pro-choice objection confuses being a person with functioning as a person.

Furthermore, if personhood is only a developing, gradual thing, then we are never fully persons, because we continue to grow, at least intellectually and emotionally and spiritually. Albert Schweitzer said, at 70, "I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up." If we are only partial persons, then murder is only partially wrong, and less wrong to kill younger, lesser persons than older ones.

If it is more permissible to kill a fetus than to kill an infant because the fetus is less of a person, then it is for exactly the same reason more permissible to kill a seven-year-old, who has not yet developed his reproductive system or many of his educational and communications skills, than to kill a 27-year-old. The absurd conclusion follows from defining a person functionally. No other line than conception can be drawn between pre-personhood and personhood. Birth and viability are the two most frequently suggested. But birth is only a change of place and relationship to the mother and to the surrounding world (air and food); how could these things create personhood? As for viability, it varies with accidental and external factors like available technology (incubators). What I am in the womb}a person or a non-person} cannot be determined by what machines exist outside the womb! But viability is determined by such things. Therefore, personhood cannot be determined by viability.

Firstly, let me state that I understand this intuition. I think it's a reasonable starting point, and an okay point on which further thinking can be built. I also agree that conception is the beginning of a new human organism.

Now, your quotation goes on to discredit 'viability' and 'birth' as alternative starting points. And, I (again) agree. I don't think those are reasonable starting points for personhood.

The one part of the text I disagree with is where they overemphasise that personhood is on a 'scale'. I think that the best analogy is an s-curve. Most of the time, it's either/or. There's a small portion that's "in transition", but that's only a short period of time. There's only a small window where the "either/or" definition is unclear.

Let's use another example of a living human organism. Imagine a man who's suffered an accident, such that he's brain dead. You've seen a heart beating independently of a body (heck, it's a trope). The whole body is the same way. A person can be completely brain dead, but have a body that's still alive (as long as it's on life support, much like a fetus is). What's the personhood status of this body? Is it acceptable to use it as an organ donor? Yes! It very much is! "BUT", you might say, "brain damage is on a scale, so if 'total brain damage' is a non-person, then partial brain damage must be 'on the way' to non-personhood". Yeah, maybe. But the 'fuzzy' stage is actually really tiny. There's a wide gulf between having some mind and having no mind. There are some cases where it's unclear. There are LOTs of cases where it's clear.

And that's where I define personhood for a fetus. Not when it's a "living human organism", because a braindead body is also a "living human organism". Not when it's viable or when it's born. I think personhood for a fetus is similar to my scenario above: when there's a mind. Before it's destroyed (or after it's created), there's a person there. On the other side of that event (after it's destroyed, or before it's created) there is no person.

 

[GamezRule]

Are there really even "two sides"? There's a bunch of positions you could hold on this, the only reason that Americans view this as an either-or-issue is because the fundies who wield such a disproportionate influence on your political discourse have managed to frame the debate that way. The most you could say is that there is an organised "pro-life" movement and a (slightly less) organised "pro-choice" movement, but they don't - or at least shouldn't- constitute the only participants in this debate.

Everything political in the United States eventually boils down to two sides.