You’re seriously arguing that I’m arguing from emotion when I say that infants have desires?
Sorry, Charlie. That’s an absurd position, and it’s akin to asking for a cite that infants have vocal cords. The fact that it’s gonna be difficult for me to pull up a cite on the bleedin’ obvious is your problem, not mine. If you really want to set forth the argument that infants don’t have desires, then YOU’RE the one that’s going to need to do so: the common-sense conclusion is that the infant reaches for the breast because the infant desires nourishment, that the infant cries because the infant desires comfort, and so forth.
If you think that desires dont’ play into it, then you’re the one who needs to offer an alternate explanation, and further explain at what point in a human’s development the desires first form, and what prompts this formation. Not me.
The insanity is not that you asked for a cite; the insanity is when you said that I couldn’t give you one, implying that infants DON’T feel desires. If you’d just said, “Daniel, I don’t think that infants have desires in the sense that I understand the term; can you clarify what you mean?” then I wouldn’t have accused you of insanity.
But since you’ve explained that you’re just not aware that newborns have desires in the sense that you understand the term, please let me know how you understand the term, and I’ll be happy to explain myself.
Please show me where I argued in this thread (or any other, for that matter) that a fetus has desires. I’m arguing that a newborn baby does. It may be anecdotal evidence, but this isn’t Great Debates.
I suggest you go ask a few mothers whether or not they think their newborn baby has desires.
All I want is evidence that newborns experience desire (along with operating definitions). I don’t believe such evidence exists. Therefore, I don’t believe you can provide that evidence. I would very much like to be proven wrong.
Truthfully, I had you briefly confused with LHoD. Apologies to you both.
See, if it can be established that newborns have desires and fetuses don’t, then we have a valid demarcation point in the abortion debate.
(Why should it make any difference what forum we’re in? Isn’t it best to argue from reason regardless?)
Needs, sure. Desires? A bit trickier. Is a newborn sentient? Cognizant? Aware, in the strictest sense?
I’m sure most parents would like to believe that their newborn is all those things. But then, the Schindlers wanted to believe that their daughter Terri was going to start tapdancing at any second. What a parent wants to believe ain’t necessarily so.
As another example, most parents want to believe that their kid is the smartest child in the world. They’re all wrong.
Umm… and this would not apply to a newborn kitten, puppy, calf or chicken in exactly what way? (presuming one decided to diaper said newborn non-human)
[quote
Or disregard if you like. It was a cheap shot. All pro-life/pro-choice arguments begin and end the same way:
“Assume the fetus is/is not a separate human life with rights to be protected”. And then follow with rigorous logic from there. [/QUOTE]
Nonsense. I’m not assuming that the fetus has no rights to be protected; I’m concluding that. An entity with no capacity for desire, identity, hopes, fears, etc. has no rights that can be violated. (The most common objection is that a person in a coma has none of these; this is incorrect, inasmuch as a comatose person has a discrete identity which may be described, and which is merely temporarily suspended).
andros, I’ll go by the dictionary definition, which is “a wish or longing.” An expression of hunger is an expression of desire. Infants express hunger. cite.
I’m not talking about high-level desires; I’m not saying that infants desire to hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, or that they desire to understand the nature of love. I’m saying they can express a very few very basic desires (a desire for warmth, a desire for food, a desire not to fall, a desire not to hurt, etc.), which is more than a single-celled organism can express.
You are correct, which I why I personally don’t view infanticide (morally) as being murder. I understand the need for society to draw a line at an arbitrary and easily definable point to be on the safe side (just like 21 is the legal drinking age) and I respect that. But there’s nothing magical that occurs at the instant of birth that imbues a newborn with anything special that it didn’t have moments before when it was still in the womb.
I am so damned sick of reading all the anti-abortion people refer to pregnancy as an “incovenience.” For many woman, myself included, pregnancy is anything but. Pregnancy means nine months of nausea, bloating, constipation, elevated blood pressure, bone loss, itchy skin, leg pain, back pain, interrupted sleep and enormous weight gain. The end result of a pregnancy is typically hours and hours of enormous pain followed by permanent scarring and aching breasts.
My last pregnancy forced me into the hospital for three weeks. I couldn’t keep any food down and was in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.
Under any other circumstances we would never force anyone to voluntarily go through such an ordeal. Why are some people so insistant that once a fertilized egg exists that none of this matters?
Given how unbelievably hard pregnancy so often is on a woman’s body we should be down on our hands and knees heartily applauding every single woman who voluntarily gives birth.
Those who don’t want to should be given our sympathies and understanding instead of stupid homilies by people who can’t the difference between potential and actual life.
A woman who has an abortion needs a better method of birth control. She doesn’t need some prick threatening her with a jail sentence, especially when said prick admits he doesn’t particularly give a damn about her reproductive organs.
Muad’Dib,
You may not care about my uterus but rest assured I sure as hell do. I’ve seen some nervy statements by anti-abortionists but that particularly sentiment deserves a special little corner of contempt.
Fuck you for your open and callous disregard of my well-being and the continued health of all women around the world. I hope you never get married because you clearly don’t care very much about any potential wife’s body parts. I certainly hope you never father girls. You don’t deserve to create a uterus if you don’t care about what happens to it.
Of course I didn’t say “a fertilized egg” in my initial request to you…I said “fetus”.
If you can’t provide a cite that newborn baby “desires” food beyond the same biological desire/need that a fetus (or embryo does) than I think you’ve chosen to punt.
At least Blaron is being honest in saying he has no moral problem with infanticide.
To further clarify my above point concerning “desire” for food.
A newborn only “expresses” a desire for food in the sense that he/she NEEDS to. He/she no longer has an umbilical cord supplying nutrition.
LHoD seems to be suggesting that there is a greater developmental progression between a baby born at 28 weeks…than a 36 week old fetus, because the baby has exited a uterus.
(And to further clarify…this magical line in the sand of who gets to live and who gets to die is not MY line in the sand…I’m just pointing out the silly inconsistencies).
Murders are probably happening in your hometown, and all you can do is bitch on a messageboard? If I truly believed a concentration camp was running in my neighborhood, I’d do everything in my power to put a stop to it, the law bedamned.