When does human life begin?

[Lexicus]

Lol, the majority of Alzheimer's sufferers are women, and the average "I'm not a misogynist, not like THEM!" will do nothing more than lift a token finger until it affects them personally. Ooooooh, we round up our bill at the grocery store every so often ... whatevs.

We tolerate the suffering from Alzheimer's at a scale completely out-of-whack with what we'd tolerate if it were caused by an identified person. A serial killer occasionally playing Russian Roulette with the frontal lobes of elderly women would cause people to lose their minds. We're about to watch the Boomer women enter the phase of their lives where they're abandoned en masse, except by their daughters. "Oh, here's a quarter for the collection jar". Puhlease.

Oh, I know that we conflate the Pro-Life with the Rightwing in the United States, I'd never deny that. I was talking about Alzheimer's, specifically Alzheimer's, when I said what I said. And, to my point, let's count people's posts about the Death Penalty vs. Alzheimer's on CFC. We're offended by the killing way more than we're bothered by the ignoring.

I understand the point you were making and I understand that you were referring to Alzheimer's. And I'm telling you that it simply is not true, in the US the people "offended" by abortion are in fact not bothered by "killing" in the abstract, so basically what I'm saying is this is an argument you have invented to get pro-life people off the charge of hypocrisy but your argument simply doesn't apply to the actually-existing pro-life movement.

 

[El_Machinae]

I understand the point you were making and I understand that you were referring to Alzheimer's. And I'm telling you that it simply is not true, in the US the people "offended" by abortion are in fact not bothered by "killing" in the abstract, so basically what I'm saying is this is an argument you have invented to get pro-life people off the charge of hypocrisy but your argument simply doesn't apply to the actually-existing pro-life movement.

And people 'offended' by misogyny don't actually care about women's suffering. Did I summarize correctly?

No, you're just incorrect. Psychologically, we prefer to stop people from being bad than actually helping people (especially strangers). In some ways it's a nod to recognizing autonomy, but in others it's just bad math. Hell, you're literally proving my thesis, "look at the bad guys, El_Mac!"

I'm not trying to get pro-life people "off" the charge of hypocrisy, though the idiocy of painting with such a large brush on a binary topic should be occasionally pointed out. I am not going to do the math comparing fetus deaths to deaths-from-institutional-violence, because while I recognize they care about fetus deaths, I don't really and I have no interest in creating that mathematical function. There will be a ratio of medically unnecessary late-term abortions to unjust death penalty executions, but I don't think it really sways anyone.

Even in the situation you pointed out, these are often painted as "stopping" (or deterring) 'bad guys' rather than 'helping people'. We care more about one than the other.

The hypocrisy when it comes to children from the pro-choice side is also complete, if we're going to apply such a large brush. We'll fight for the right for FASD kids to be created*, but we'll definitely not do more to help them than slacktivism or voting. Too many people are actually fighting the misogyny they perceive (stopping the bad guy) than actually trying to help women or the victims of the pro-choice compromise.

Afghanistan, Alzheimer's spring to mind. Look for any thread, it's all mewling about bad people rather than about actually helping. We prefer homeless kittens to actually helping women. And if we're going to spend any effort, it will be to 'attack their oppressors' rather than 'help usefully'. We want to be home in time for dinner, after-all.

Spoiler * :

Treating an incubating fetus with alcohol will be protected as 'her choice'**, but treating incubating viruses under the supervision of a doctor isn't really. That's not their choice, that's ours. "Pro-choice"? All you need is a slightly cynical stance or a slightly different moral calculation, and your hypocrisy is complete. This forum is just full of white men arguing what women shouldn't be allowed to do with their own bodies.

"Oh, but they don't have the right to be infectious"
(I'd said treatment, not whether they had to isolate during treatment).

"Oh, we had to stop the bad men from lying to poor women and their poor doctors!"
There we go.

It was deeply stupid to throw medical privacy under the bus to 'protect' people who resent the interference, while eroding the memetic base of something vastly more important. We don't actually believe in medical privacy or a woman's bodily integrity, so once again we have another liberal policy that's horribly named.

"But we vote differently!"
Woo, we call that 'moral license' to then do nothing more.

And then cue the wave of people, "other people should be doing more, not us!". As if the suffering of a person cares about who's helping. Sure, not every pro-choicer, but we're painting with broad brushes here.

If I had my way, since this is the "when does human life begin", I'd write law saying that upon emancipation kids could sue their parents for everything, including their organs. Don't force kids into an existence they're not grateful for, and then pretend that the parents' life is more important.

 

[sophie]

I mean we also kill what, 24, 25 thousand people in excess a year due to traffic-related accidents because we insist on orienting our entire life and infrastructure around cars, to say nothing of the excess deaths from the resulting air pollution.

Over the past 2 years we’ve let a million Americans die to a reasonably controllable virus because doing the things necessary to control it would be a (temporary!) imposition on bodily autonomy.

It’s obviously not about human life for the vast majority of pro-lifers, and it should be fairly clear at this point that pointing out that hypocrisy is simply not compelling.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

The only reading of this I can muster is: yikes? You're equating consensual sex with whatnow?

Forcing a woman to carry a rapist's baby suggests that you don't really care about suffering.

I think the reasoning is: people who are against abortion should be against abortion because they want to save the life of the unborn.
That life is not responsible for the circumstances that brought it there. It's innocent of the rape/incest.

To not make an exception is choosing the lesser of 2 evils. The evil of killing an innocent life vs the suffering of the woman who has to carry it.

 

[Gorbles]

We'll fight for the right for FASD kids to be created*, but we'll definitely not do more to help them than slacktivism or voting.

On top of any other counterpoints, I feel like this is a particular claim that might not hold up to scrutiny. Or at the least, you may find your definition of "we" ends up a lot narrower than your original assumption at time of posting.

It's common enough to fall back on assumptions of "slacktivism", but I tend to raise my eye at it unless it comes from people further left than I. Personal bias i guess. Regardless, they tend to attach receipts (where it often relates to blind spots r.e. progressives and intersectionality more than something as broad and relatively non-contentious like material acts of aid for people affected by regressive abortion policymaking).

 

[El_Machinae]

On top of any other counterpoints, I feel like this is a particular claim that might not hold up to scrutiny. Or at the least, you may find your definition of "we" ends up a lot narrower than your original assumption at time of posting.

(1) I'd even italicized the if in the preceding sentence!

(2) But even here, you're diluting the concern, implying left-of-you are doing more than I think, rather than agreeing that we're obviously not doing enough.

Personal bias i guess.

Satisfying both 1 and 2, above. Quoting out of the middle of a paragraph to complete my point.

 

[Lexicus]

And people 'offended' by misogyny don't actually care about women's suffering. Did I summarize correctly?

No, you're just incorrect. Psychologically, we prefer to stop people from being bad than actually helping people (especially strangers). In some ways it's a nod to recognizing autonomy, but in others it's just bad math. Hell, you're literally proving my thesis, "look at the bad guys, El_Mac!"

I'm not trying to get pro-life people "off" the charge of hypocrisy, though the idiocy of painting with such a large brush on a binary topic should be occasionally pointed out. I am not going to do the math comparing fetus deaths to deaths-from-institutional-violence, because while I recognize they care about fetus deaths, I don't really and I have no interest in creating that mathematical function. There will be a ratio of medically unnecessary late-term abortions to unjust death penalty executions, but I don't think it really sways anyone.

Even in the situation you pointed out, these are often painted as "stopping" (or deterring) 'bad guys' rather than 'helping people'. We care more about one than the other.

The hypocrisy when it comes to children from the pro-choice side is also complete, if we're going to apply such a large brush. We'll fight for the right for FASD kids to be created*, but we'll definitely not do more to help them than slacktivism or voting. Too many people are actually fighting the misogyny they perceive (stopping the bad guy) than actually trying to help women or the victims of the pro-choice compromise.

Afghanistan, Alzheimer's spring to mind. Look for any thread, it's all mewling about bad people rather than about actually helping. We prefer homeless kittens to actually helping women. And if we're going to spend any effort, it will be to 'attack their oppressors' rather than 'help usefully'. We want to be home in time for dinner, after-all.

Spoiler * :

Treating an incubating fetus with alcohol will be protected as 'her choice'**, but treating incubating viruses under the supervision of a doctor isn't really. That's not their choice, that's ours. "Pro-choice"? All you need is a slightly cynical stance or a slightly different moral calculation, and your hypocrisy is complete. This forum is just full of white men arguing what women shouldn't be allowed to do with their own bodies.

"Oh, but they don't have the right to be infectious"
(I'd said treatment, not whether they had to isolate during treatment).

"Oh, we had to stop the bad men from lying to poor women and their poor doctors!"
There we go.

It was deeply stupid to throw medical privacy under the bus to 'protect' people who resent the interference, while eroding the memetic base of something vastly more important. We don't actually believe in medical privacy or a woman's bodily integrity, so once again we have another liberal policy that's horribly named.

"But we vote differently!"
Woo, we call that 'moral license' to then do nothing more.

And then cue the wave of people, "other people should be doing more, not us!". As if the suffering of a person cares about who's helping. Sure, not every pro-choicer, but we're painting with broad brushes here.

If I had my way, since this is the "when does human life begin", I'd write law saying that upon emancipation kids could sue their parents for everything, including their organs. Don't force kids into an existence they're not grateful for, and then pretend that the parents' life is more important.

El_Mach, the argument is not "they're hypocritical and therefore wrong." The issue is that they are transparently inventing a "red line" around the sanctity of life as a pretext to control women's behavior.
The opposition to abortion is a relic from a time in which women were genuinely not considered to be full or equal persons. It was not controversial that women were to be valued not for themselves but for their ability to produce more children.

I mean, I've been watching the movie so I'll just throw it out there. To me the pro-life movement is Michael Corleone raging at and striking his wife for having an abortion, but he doesn't do this out of concern for "InNoCeNt HuMaN lIfE", he does it because he's a controlling misogynist.

 

[El_Machinae]

El_Mach, the argument is not "they're hypocritical and therefore wrong." The issue is that they are transparently inventing a "red line" around the sanctity of life as a pretext to control women's behavior.

My argument is, the literally argument you replied to, was that we prefer to stop bad people than actually help people.
And my second argument 'they' is too broad a brush and that it's going to be impossible to create the value matrix, especially with the numbers involved. Their value-matrix for the sanctity of life is as transparent as our value matrix for the sanctity of a woman's bodily integrity and medical privacy. We have policies to stop 'bad people' and sweep collateral from our policies under the rug.


Measure CFC's concern for Afghani women in the Afghanistan thread compare to the amount of writing we put into "stopping American Imperialism". Oh, we wanted America out (fair!), but we rarely suggested that the 'anti-misogynists' here do anything to help the resulting blowback against women. Why? Well, probably for the same reason why we (functionally) ignore Alzheimer's but care about serial killers. We value stopping bad people than actually helping against natural forces. We don't weight natural evils like we weight moral evils. And, I guess, the Taliban is a natural evil or whatever racism we're unmasking here.


I'm kinda done with this segue. We're just yelling at each other now.

 

[Narz]

This may as well be the abortion thread. Most people don't seem to be able to put politics & emotion aside to simply answer the question.

My new daughter 38 weeks in the womb is human obviously. If I had to choose between her life or my partner's life I'd choose my partners life but I'd still be making a choice between two lives.

We can pretend life doesn't begin until birth (or til done breastfeeding even), some tribal societies didn't consider a kid fully human until around age two (probably because infanticide was occasionally necessary for the good of the tribe) but that doesn't make it so.

One can be pro-abortion (even late term abortion in an extreme case of the mother's health being @ risk) and still acknowledge that one is making a difficult moral choice between two lives.

 

[El_Machinae]

Abrahamism gets no say on this topic, due to their codification of deeply evil precedents.

Here's why:

Leviticus 20
New International Version

10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.

There's no "wait to see if there's menses and then 'what happens next' depends on the answer"
It's just "kill her".

Punish the bad person. Don't talk to me about saving an innocent.

Spoiler Later prophets :

They never said "God never said that". They said "Love this god".

1 Samuel 15
New International Version
3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

Spoiler Later prophets :

They never said "God never said that". They said "Love this god"

The same faith that believes that God provides manna to take care of righteous people will also codify "sometimes you gotta kill fetuses and babies" into their faith. The same faith that believes that God can inflict sterility on the unrighteous will also codify "sometimes you gotta wipe a people out"


Even worse

1 Samuel 15
New International Version

1 Samuel said to Saul, “I am the one the Lord sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the Lord. 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.

I'll point out that Saul (and especially the soldiers) didn't have sufficient evidence to say that God wanted some baby-stabbing. Just the word of some guy for Saul (and the word of their generals for the soldiers).

But the warning from this codification isn't "sometimes prophets gonna suggested stabbing babies". It's "sometimes you gotta stab babies".


A people with this bias as a foundation, nevermind the lies about natural history in the text, really get no say. We aren't really sure who gets to determine "when does life begin", but it's not anyone valuing this text.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm always surprised that people seem puzzled at this, while the (theorical) answer appears to me to be pretty obvious.
Our thoughts are what make us a person, and thoughts are created in the brain.
If it hasn't grown a brain, it's not (yet) a person.

The practical aspect is of course harder - do we consider the fetus needs a fully-grown brain, or is the first activity enough ? So there is this grey area.
But we can safely consider that as long as no brain activity exists, no person does, and once a brain is fully grown, it's definitely a person.
I've yet to see someone make an actual argument against this that doesn't involve some religious BS.

i think it's worth pointing out that you didn't mention "human" in this post. i think you meant that as given, but lots of things have brains, some have self-awareness to some degree (passing mirror tests or otherwise acting in ways consistent with a model of their utility function, etc), and many of those things with brains + function well above that of even a fairly well-developed fetus do not count as a "person".

i also don't think this is necessarily nit picking. people not only say, but occasionally act like pets such as dogs etc are part of their family, to the extent of risking their lives for them in some cases. so the distinction of "human" is important, if we want to make it.

similarly, we don't know to what extent fetuses have awareness at given stages of development, to my knowledge. so it's hard to get a projection of harm/suffering prevention in that context.

as you say, it's a grey area. presence of brain is important, but not the end all/be all. to what extent that brain functions at a given moment and what we are most trying to avoid are also importnat factors.

What if the unborn child is found to have a genetic disorder, such as Batten's disease, which will be degenerative and fatal within 5 to 7 years? Should an abortion be allowed? If the State says no, who should pay the additional cost of caring for such a doomed child?

i don't think the state should say no to aborting a fetus with known horrible genetic issues, generally. if it does say no, then the state should bear the burdens for saying no in this context.

 

[Akka]

i think it's worth pointing out that you didn't mention "human" in this post. i think you meant that as given, but lots of things have brains, some have self-awareness to some degree (passing mirror tests or otherwise acting in ways consistent with a model of their utility function, etc), and many of those things with brains + function well above that of even a fairly well-developed fetus do not count as a "person".

Considering the context, yes I meant it as implicit. Though yes, we could consider sufficiently sapient animals to be "persons" too, and aliens with fundamentally different anatomy could be "person" with brain-equivalent that would be non-trivially corresponding to what we can recognize.

presence of brain is important, but not the end all/be all. to what extent that brain functions at a given moment and what we are most trying to avoid are also importnat factors.

It's more than "important", it's (for humans) and absolute pre-requisite. You can have a living person without a brain (at least not for now).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's more than "important", it's (for humans) and absolute pre-requisite. You can have a living person without a brain (at least not for now).

true, probably better to say "necessary, but not sufficient". brain also has to be functional, and to enough of an extent that we care. i don't know what that extent is, or how to measure it though.

 

[Narz]

Here's why:

You grew up with this stuff, how do people who've actually read the Bible try to reconcile this stuff w a loving god?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Christianity tends to cherry pick what is currently acceptable as worthy of being true.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

certainly, most religions do that, including movements/ideologies that don't consider themselves religions, but act like them.

 

[El_Machinae]

You grew up with this stuff, how do people who've actually read the Bible try to reconcile this stuff w a loving god?

That would be completely anecdotal, but from full-on dissonance to "it was true then, but not true now".

I have had an evangelical explain to me (in depth) their summary of a Catholic lecture that pointed out how it was for "a greater good" that Canaan was genocided. Not only did it wipe out an impure people, but also protected The Chosen People from 'corruption' by intermingling.

Once you're outside looking in, it's hard to understand why they value the Biblical narrative rather than a true or moral one. My ability to comprehend has definitely diminished to the point of "I can't really".

 

[Kaitzilla]

You grew up with this stuff, how do people who've actually read the Bible try to reconcile this stuff w a loving god?

I was only able to read the Bible for 1 week before running out of steam.

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/lets-read-the-bible-once.497181/

 

[Gorbles]

(1) I'd even italicized the if in the preceding sentence!

(2) But even here, you're diluting the concern, implying left-of-you are doing more than I think, rather than agreeing that we're obviously not doing enough.

The "if" isn't the point that was relevant. The point was the hypothetical equation of two different demographics in the argument, as though they're equally-polarised. Painting them both with an equal brush, so to speak. The snippet stands alone as a cohensive point I wanted to object to.

"we're not doing enough" is a topic in of itself, and one that is hard to make in a discussion filled with a bunch of people trying to make unrelated (and often opposing) points. I have visibility of people that are doing things you believe aren't being done, or aren't being done enough. I would argue that your standards for "doing enough" is putting the burden on the wrong people. We, or "we", or whoever, should obviously stand up for what we think is right. The problem is a lot of people do that, and "right" is the point of contention a lot of the time.

Or "the right way" (see that SMBC comic I now appropriately-in-hindsight-thanks-captain-hindsight linked). "wrong for the right reasons is still wrong" seems to be coming up a lot with regards to the other thread, and flows over to here as well when trying to discuss the legal ramifications of personhood.

The point in defining personhood is not only the definition, but how it is used, and what personhood is denied to allow this to be used (in this case, the personhood of a fetus, vs. the rights of the childbearing parent). This has come out of a leaked . . . let's say discussion, so people don't yell "allegedly" at me about what SCOTUS are discussing doing. A discussion about repealing a key decision that informs subsequent legal decisions made since. All of which, if repealed, have bad, bad consequences for a lot of people across the US. Because of a definition of personhood that this thread (every time it or a related thread pops up) hasn't been able to definitely conclude in my several years in CFC OT (yeah, I'm still a baby, but I reckon that if it isn't conclusive now, it hasn't been ever).

"we're not doing enough" doesn't work when you're discussing SCOTUS. Kinda by definition. If you want a causality of "people didn't vote hard enough" (like the Democrats are laughably trying to demand of people right now), I'd argue that people did, and the mainstream Democrats chose the compromises they did regardless of the cost. The efforts of the voter, or even an activist, pale in comparison to the party's ability to do literally anything (large or small).

Quoting out of the middle of a paragraph to complete my point.

If you want to rack up a points tally over (anyone) not quoting the entirety of someone's words, you might want to quit your day job! See above.

I recognise my bias as a possible factor, s'all. I think point-scoring over it kinda demonstrates something

 

[El_Machinae]

It's not 'point-scoring', it was 'point-making'. But, obviously, I failed to communicate that.

I would argue that your standards for "doing enough" is putting the burden on the wrong people.

I'm getting tired of this roundabout you and I have, honestly. "We need to be doing better" followed by "No we don't". We just might need a short-form. Ralph & Sam here. It's not a moral question, it's a practical question. Suffering doesn't care about motive. I can be angry at other people all I want, but until that effects change in their behavior or motivates me to help their victims, it's pointless.

Tell me, how do I usefully 'put the burden on the right people' without doing better myself? And why are you putting the burden on me to change my perspective rather than also getting 'them' to 'do better'?

My allies need to up their game. "No, your enemies need to be better" is an obviously true statement but useless advice. It's only useful if it's followed by "we need to get them to be better", which is only done by my allies upping their game, in a world where the clock is ticking. Convince, force, whatevs. Each of these things can only be done to 'them' by 'us'. And if our best is insufficient, the only option is to be better. Nevermind that lots of my allies are running down the clock faster, because they feel entitled to the same lifestyles as the people they disagree with, nevermind who's actually paying for their hedonism.

I never said vote harder with regards to the SCOTUS. I said

"This challenge and ruling seemed inevitable, given the sheer success of the Republicans plus Trump in the last cycle. I just hope that people have prepared on-the-ground resources to enact the Plan B ..."

But that would require funded think tanks and a coordinated volunteer force. Of course, we'd only have those things if people cared about the consequences of losing. Depending on the answer (which no one had), I'd then propose resource allocation.

I have visibility of people that are doing things you believe aren't being done, or aren't being done enough.

Oh, if these things are being done enough, then I can stop trying. Thanks! I guess I can pivot all of my donations into bragging about "what I ordered on Amazon". I might as well have not even focused on the topic of developmental neuroanatomy, because I am wrong that "enough wasn't being done".

No, you're wrong, if they were being done enough, you'd not need bother helping. Nor would I. Like, crap, if things were being done enough, I could even pivot into actively harmful lifestyle choices merely to satisfy my hedonism, since the efforts you're "privy to" are obviously going to overwhelm the consequences of my selfishness.

Or, you're wrong about not enough being done, that the erosion of Roe v Wade is going to cause actual harms. It's a battle. You win battles by fighting better, not by being morally superior to the evil people.