I noticed the side argument about brain-deads. I didn’t read into it that much, so disregard this if it is irrelevant or already covered:
It’s ok to kill a brain dead only if you know with a certain statistically relevant confidence that he will not be back to normal. I would like to leave that arbitrary stat to the experts, but if the BD hits that mark, it’s ok because you are not destroying a would-be or existing human “life”, only human organs. The human has exhausted it’s “life” (functioning unique existence), so it’s ok.
Of course it would be prudent to donate the organs, giving the spark of “better-ending scenario” that this situation could use.
I still hold that there are no rights without sentience. However, my point is that the rights of a sentient being should cover all of their sentient life, and should span any areas of temporary non-sentience to do so.
The difference wit respect to a fetus is that the fetus is not yet sentient, and thus has no rights (yet) to carry over.
No, I want to give the person who existed before he lost brain activity rights. One such right is a reasonable expectation of future existence. A consequence of this right is that it gives the appearance of giving rights to a brain-dead person, when it really doesn’t.
I’m not making a general case for prior sentience being important. My case is for current sentience. It just so happens that one of the rights that I assign to humans is the right to continue to exist, and that right gives the impression of my caring about prior sentience, when, in fact, I am simply carrying out a right assigned to a then-sentient being that, by its nature, carries into the future.
In retrospect, I probably should have elaborated on that when it first came up, considering the nature of the debate at hand.
In that regard, yes. The difference is in the existance (or lack) of rights that have the capability to carry into the future.
I hope I’ve managed to clarify my position somewhat. I still stand by my “sentience defines rights” argument. It’s just that some rights extend past the “now”.
hauss:
I disagree. While the above situation is not the most moral thing to so, it ranks only as bad as (or maybe a little worse than) normal selfishness. It is certainly nowhere near the same level as murder (which is what you seem to regard abortion as being equivalent to).
You started that quote saying that a fetus would likely have sentience, and ended by saying that it will have sentience. Which is it?
Since a fetus will not necessarily be a person in the future, you seem to be stumbling back into the realm of probability, here.
I see the relevance, but I also see that it is a majorly flawed line of reasoning. Since not all fetuses are naturally carried to term, you are really saying that because a fetus could be human, that it is human. However, a single egg could be human, and no one is going to complain about aborted eggs when a woman menstrates.
Or, to look at it from another perspective, a fetus could grow to become sentient, and it could also grow up to be the president of the United States. Does that mean that abortion should be treated as a crime of treason, equivalent to assassinating the president?
Oh, yes, I am most definately in the realm of probability, and rightfully so.
I (and I hope everyone here) am not prepared to take any action which has any more than a miniscule probability of killing a future baby, even if I think that for some reason it might (or even will) produce a greater good.
If you don’t agree with this statement (not any scanerios, but this actual statement), then IMO you are not taking human life as seriously as you should, IMO.
Why not think the big picture here. You are thinking about this with tunnel vision onto a timeline. I am thinking of this with a wide scope onto a timeline. When I perform an action such as abortion, I am seeing what I am doing to the whole timeline, not just a small section of it.
This coupled with my sensitivity towards even a statistically probable life makes me pro-life.
Learn to think this way, it’s more thorough and sensible IMO.
Joe, I appreciate your feedback. This is interesting. A couple of more questions.
**I don’t know how else to make my point. If I kill a brain-dead patient who would have recovered sentience, haven’t I respected his rights for all spans of his life where he was sentient?
**This is where our disagreement/confusion peaks, I think. Sentience is either something that affords its possessor real rights by virtue of its existence, or it does not. This “carry over” argument seems to have no basis in your prior conclusion that sentience itself provides the basis for rights, not if it can be absent and still “carry over.” To me, you are basically saying that sentience is essential for rights to exist, except when it isn’t. Sentience is such an important attribute that once having possessed it means your rights are intact, but not so important that if it will occur in the future that it carries any weight whatsoever. Except if the person once had it. I think.
**That person does not exist when he is brain dead, not by your very definition. That person has NO expectation of anything, because he is brain dead. If you still posit that a brain dead person cannot be killed, you have not given the appearance of giving rights to a brain dead person. You HAVE given rights to a brain-dead person. Can this really be argued otherwise?
**Hmm. You really detect no non sequitur here? Your case is only for current sentience, but you still assign rights to someone who currently has none. That is not a mistatement, right?
**Well, not to be flip, but I think you’ve made it abundantly clear that possessing sentience at a given moment is not a requirement for rights, not in your philosophy. You posit that time is a tyrant that we will not permit to dictate rights in a given circumstance. I heartily agree with that.
I think most people do. If they didn’t see the whole timeline, why would they bother with an abortion ?
Seriously. Imagine finding out you’re unexpectedly pregnant at 1 or 2 months along. The only reason you know you’re pregnant is because you missed a period and did a store-bought test. No ill-effects have happened as yet. You aren’t going to think “well this is OK, not causing too much inconvenience yet. Should I have it removed to be on the safe side, or go on as is, since it’s not affecting me?” You’re going to think “Oh my god ! I’m pregnant.” Images of pregnancy, babies, toddlers, young children, are going to flash through your mind. You will imagine your future life with a baby in it, with a toddler in it, with a schoolkid in it. And some will see this in a positive light, some will see it in a negative light.
Why on earth do you think that everyone who is talking about or getting an abortion isn’t 100% completely aware that they’ll end up with a baby if they don’t get an abortion. That’s the whole purpose of an abortion ! To avoid ending up with the pregnancy, baby, toddler, child, teen, etc. Of course people are aware of the future possibilities, and they don’t like them, so are cutting off that path at the beginning.
I’m also interested in which motivations to prevent pregnancy are perverted and which aren’t. This one has me confused.
Some people think about the whole timeline and how it affects them. But they don’t seem to consider the whole timeline and how it affects the future probable baby. That’s what I am trying to tell some people here on this board.
And I think that what some people are trying to tell you, is that there is no effect on the future baby, if it never becomes a future baby. (from their perspective). Any possible future it may have had is completely unimportant, and quite fanciful and fairy-tale-ish, since there’s no way of knowing what would’ve happened.
It depends where you’re looking at it from, and I don’t think that is easy to change. I could no more ‘feel sorry’ for a fetus that didn’t get to live as a baby, toddler, child, teen, adult, etc than I would ‘feel sorry’ for me not getting to live as a duck. It’s a completely different, alien way of thinking and unreal. You’re probably not going to understand how it is completely a non-issue to some people, since you’re seeing it from a vastly different perspective. I’ll never understand how it’s a vital point to you, though I can accept it is.
And I’m still interested in which motivations to prevent pregnancy are perverted and which aren’t.
By that statement, may I assume that you would never use any form of contraception, since doing so would “kill a future baby”?
I will freely admit that I don’t take human life very seriously at all. I take human sentience very seriously, but just being alive and human doesn’t mean much at all to me if there is no mind.
I can’t agree with that re-phrasing. Probable sentience means very little to me. The only time it’s an issue is when there is existing sentience that is lost, and there is a certain probability that it will be regained.
Likewise, future sentience means nothing without past or present sentience as far as I’m concerned. Bob Cos:
Not as far as I’m concerned, since one of the rights that I grant people with sentience is a reasonable expectation of continued survival.
Basically, the non-sentient person has no rights, but the previously-existing sentient person has rights that stay in effect even if they lose sentience. The rights aren’t those of the brain-dead person, but of the non-brain-dead person who used to exist.
I realize that it’s an odd way of looking at things, but it makes perfect sense to me.
Perhaps I haven’t worded things properly (or perhaps the concept is a bit confusing). Let me try to rephrase.
Rights in general do not carry over into periods of non-sentience. Rather, specific rights are defined such that those specific rights remain in effect even if the person loses sentience. For example, a person has a vested interest in remain sentient for as long as possible. The only way to carry out this right is to refrain from killing them should they temporarily lose sentience. That particular right, by its nature, controls what can and can’t be done to a person’s body when they become brain dead.
That is certainly not how I meant it. Sentience is essential for rights to exist, and some rights, by their nature, must continue to be enforced even during periods of non-sentience, because they would be null and void were they not enforced.
I believe that it can. I posit that the brain-dead person cannot be killed because the non-brain-dead person that he/she used to be had the right to expect to continue to exist even though circumstances that would temporarily stop their brain activity.
In general, isn’t it obvious that some rights should be enforced even if the person is not around? Shouldn’t we refrain from stealing stuff from someone’s house while they’re gone? What if they’ve moved out and left a few items behind? Wouldn’t it be the “right” thing to do to try to forward those items to the person’s new address? In that vein, I would forward a person’s body to their new “address” should their brain activity stop for a little while.
This definitely seems to be the stumbling block in our conversation. I am assigning rights to someone who currently has sentience, but those rights are not confined to now. They are not instantaneous.
Perhaps the main difference in our viewpoints is that I view time as being unidirectional. My view is that we can’t go backward and start assigning rights to people who don’t have any yet, but might in the future. We just have to wait until the future gets here, and then assign rights.
I hope this has made some sense. I feel like I might have been rambling a bit. Maybe I’ll post again in a little while and try to condense my position into something more concise.
So you say. But how you choose to characterize my thinking isn’t any sort of real response to the points I’m making. Anyone can make sweeping insults of the same sort, amounting to nothing in the end.
It is statistically probable a baby will be born if you have sex with every woman you can get your hands on. So I don’t think you have sensitivity to what you say you do.
Those aren’t the words I would use to characterize it, no. What you are thinking is not a “way” it’s a set of unexamned assumptions that I disagree with.
There is a default way of thinking. When concerning yourself with something as precious as human life, if the situation possesses a certain arbitrary probability, then you must default to accepting the possible outcome. You must err on the safe side.
Goo: If you are down for a simple hypo: What if all 100% pregnancies resulted in successful birth of a baby? Would you still think abortion is ok morally? Would you say that killing the fetus was the same or not the same as killing the future baby?
As for the motivation thing, it’s definately not as bad as killing a conceived fetus, but it’s bad. Like I said, if the life is not there to be physically lost, it’s not as bad. Motivations: jealousy, selfishness, coercive activity… all immoral in my book. Do these things while interrupting a possible conception and it makes for a situation a little more immoral, IMO.
Ok, I answered that, now answer my question, please.
There should be a default. When concerning yourself with something as precious as human life, if the situation possesses a certain arbitrary probability, then you must default to accepting the possible outcome. You must err on the safe side. This of course is all based on how much you value yours and others life (not their vital signs, but their life).
Goo: If you are down for a simple hypo: What if all 100% pregnancies resulted in successful birth of a baby? Would you still think abortion is ok morally? Would you say that killing the fetus was the same or not the same as killing the future baby?
As for the motivation thing, it’s definately not as bad as killing a conceived fetus, but it’s bad. Like I said, if the life is not there to be physically lost, it’s not as bad. Motivations: jealousy, selfishness, coercive activity… all immoral in my book. Do these things while interrupting a possible conception and it makes for a situation a little more immoral, IMO.
Ok, I answered that, now answer my question, please. And, hehe, it was “quite fanciful” to mention the duck thing on your part… so many people screw up their image on this board by pointing their finger, and then follow it up with a comment like that. Good job. Just teasin’ you, don’t let me get to ya.
I’d still think abortion is ok. Abortion is the right of every woman, to not have a child. Actually, more precisely, to not be pregnant against her will. (IMO, of course)
I’m not sure what you mean by asking if killing a fetus = killing a future baby ? The only difference I see (apart from a bit of time and some further growth) between a fetus and a baby is its location. I guess I’m not following your line of thought. If I had an abortion, yes, I’m killing a fetus, and killing any chance of it ever becoming a baby / toddler / adult, etc. Is that what you’re asking ?
Well, I guess we aren’t going to see eye-to-eye on this one. You’d probably recoil in horror from my selfish contraceptive actions
So, no medical proceedures to save a heart attack victim then?
Simply put, there is no merit to this argument. You should default to accepting the RIGHT outcome, which is precisely what we are debating. “Accepting” some contrived and fatalistic sense of the natural outcome is nonsense.
And, of course, you weasel in “precious human life” even though you know that the person you are arguing with doesn’t concede that the thing in question IS the sort of human life that’s precious.
Of what? There is 0 chance that a zygote will be bothered in the slightest by being killed. It has no capacity at all to care, to feel pain, to have any interests whatsoever. It’s as safe to kill as the skin cells that die when you pick your nose.
Couple things that a couple of you keep forgetting that underlies any statement I make. I don’t continue to write this with every statement because, for one, I figure you can remember it, and for two it’s friggin’ awkward to write.
When I speak of interrupting a probable future life, I mean when it’s there to be physically lost (after conception). That’s why I don’t care about contraception, because granted you are interrupting a possible future life, but the act is not as bad because you are not ending a life already present, and your motivation is sound because you are merely trying to enjoy sex as a relationship tool. There are no ill motives against a physically present fetus when you just wanna get laid…
Now, if you plug this into everything I have said in this thread (remember I have said this about 3 times now), you will probably have different reactions to everything I have said, because this is what you keep getting hung up on.
How can we debate if you don’t even know what my stances are after 20 something posts??? Here is a rundown in chronological order (I wish I could draw out an algorithm):
-----------Couple lays down to conceive: Ok to interrupt conception if motives are good. If you did interrupt w/ bad motives, it’s morally wrong, but it’s still not as bad as actual abortion because the life is not there to be physically ended.----------------------Conception: Not ok to interrupt in any case because probability is reasonably good that it will result in a living baby. Since probability is above a miniscule level, and because human life is so precious to me, it is assumed, for morality purposes, that this fetus will be a baby, so in return, I believe it shall not be touched. This is when I think “life” starts. It may not be living and have vital signs, but this fetus’ life has begun. --------------------- Birth: I think we all agree with after-birth occurrences.
This is not considering the mothers social or personal situation. That can be for another thread, because this thread must be settled first before complex personal situations can be analyzed.
I think this covers everything, but I’m sure if it didn’t, I will know soon…
let me try to recap your position and tell you why i think you are wrong.
you are ok with interrupting life before conception because “the life is not there to be physically ended.” and, though the chances of birthing a healthy baby increase only a “miniscule” amount, you are against interrupting the possible life because there’s a life there to be physically ended.
picking an arbitrary probability of birth higher than which it would be immoral to abort is just that: arbitrary. i don’t think you want your morality to be arbitrary. i sure don’t.
but it seems to me that your position isn’t arbitrary at all. it seems that you place a great deal of value on the life created by conception. otherwise how could it be that a “miniscule” increase in the chances of birth produce such an exponential increase in the importance you place on the cells involved?
First, there ain’t no right or wrong answer to this, bub.
Second, you err by saying it’s a small increase in probability. A woman and man having sex (sperm entering vagina) is a very low probabiity of forming a baby at birth (can I say 1-2%?). A fetus already conceived has a much greater probability of forming a baby at birth (can I say 30%?). This is a large, incremental increase. The life there to be physically lost, coupled with this large, incremental increase in probability is why my moral stance goes from “motivationally dependent” before conception to “wrong in almost any case” afterwords.
Just teasin’ you, don’t let me get to ya.