# Do you agree with this reasoning about pro-life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 15, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296 "2004-02-15T04:00:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Broken\_Column](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@The\_Broken\_Column](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Broken_Column)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/41 "2004-02-15T06:22:21Z")
Yes, I know, but it is difficult dealing with Hypocrits (Liberals). They always are hypocritical, they want the freedom to do whatever they want, but they don’t want to have their freedoms infringed by others. They want to sanctify the murder of an unborn child, but they think it is immoral to sanctify the murder of an adult. (Such as the Nazis did.) ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/42 "2004-02-15T06:27:36Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > Yes, I know, but it is difficult dealing with Hypocrits (Liberals). > > They always are hypocritical, they want the freedom to do whatever they want, but they don’t want to have their freedoms infringed by others. > > They want to sanctify the murder of an unborn child, but they think it is immoral to sanctify the murder of an adult. (Such as the Nazis did.) Take **Uncommon Sense** ’s advice. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/43 "2004-02-15T06:59:58Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > They want to sanctify the murder of an unborn child, but they think it is immoral to sanctify the murder of an adult. (Such as the Nazis did.) Is anybody else slightly amused by **TBC** ’s multiple invocation of the Godwin’s Law in this thread alone? Do you have any further arguments after your initial one got refuted thoroughly? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/44 "2004-02-15T07:01:20Z")
Citing what one thinks is “natural” is not at all compelling. It’s merely a means of smuggling in your own expectations and values about the proper direction of things without acknowledging it. ---
**Author:** ![IWLN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b5ac83/32.png) [@IWLN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IWLN)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/45 "2004-02-15T07:06:37Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > No one here in support of Abortion seem to have a clue of Sanctioned Murder. > > Nazis justified killing Jews because they believed them to be Subhuman as well. > > Liberal hell hole…dumb barbarians. Yes, you should probably leave while you still have your \*sacred values \* intact. Imagine so many people having an opinion that differs from yours? This is a **BAD** place. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/46 "2004-02-15T12:25:31Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > Liberal hell hole…dumb barbarians. Look, you obviously put a lot of consideration into your position. However, many people (myself included) have put just as much thought into the issue and reached a different conclusion. There’s no reason to insult us for it. In fact, you’d be better served showing how our reasoning is flawed, as we have attempted to do with yours. That _is_ the whole point of the Great Debates forum, after all. Oh, and be careful. Personal insults are not allowed in Great Debates, and calling anyone who is liberal a “dumb barbarian” is most certainly an insult. > [@](#): > > They want to sanctify the murder of an unborn child, but they think it is immoral to sanctify the murder of an adult. Except I have already show why I believe that the abortion of a fetus is _not_ equivalent to murder. One has a mind, the other does not. I have also shown why the ending of a _potential_ life is not murder. This is because there are myriad actions that, probabilistically speaking, lead to the same probability of ending a potential life, such as having sex with contraception **X** times. Thus, using contraception **X** times is equivalent to having one abortion, and thus, according to you, is equivalent to murder. Thus any action which has the same probability of ending a potential life as abortion is murder, which makes no sense. Thus the ending of a potential life cannot be murder; only the ending of a _actual_ life. And since the fetus, prior to roughly the 22[sup]nd[/sup] week has no discernible brain activity (and thus no mind and no “self”), ending its life prior to that time cannot be viewed as the murder of another human being. ---
**Author:** ![Oregon\_sunshine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/50afbb/32.png) [@Oregon\_sunshine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oregon_sunshine)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/47 "2004-02-15T12:43:57Z")
Am I _really_ the only one who got a kick out of the Monty Python, every sperm is sacred song reference?? Hahahahhahahahah!!! What a great reference. As to the rest of this thread, uh…? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/48 "2004-02-15T13:15:09Z")
You all realize that the electricity consumed in storing, broadcasting and viewing this thread could have been used to run little Mikey’s kidney machine, thus giving him a future life? You monsters! ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/49 "2004-02-15T14:09:59Z")
> [@Joe Random](#): > > I have also shown why the ending of a _potential_ life is not murder. This is because there are myriad actions that, probabilistically speaking, lead to the same probability of ending a potential life, such as having sex with contraception **X** times. Thus, using contraception **X** times is equivalent to having one abortion, and thus, according to you, is equivalent to murder. A fetus is not a potential life. He is a living human being, a fact that is scientifically beyond dispute. No need to argue against potential human beings in a debate that involves only living ones. Beagledave has provided numerous cites for this in the past, if anyone really needs evidence for something so self-evident. IMO, this fact is not critical to most pro-choicers’ arguments. Also, saying that a fetus can’t suffer as one justification for abortion (which has been invoked a couple of times in this thread), it seems to me, also supports killing anyone so long as you ensure there is no suffering. So, if the argument rests on some notion of “personhood,” it also seems to me that a meaningful definition could be that any existing human being with a future is a person. This definition covers the comatase, the temporarily brain-dead, and fetuses as well, and does not concern itself with every sperm hanging around on the corner on a Saturday night with nothing to do. It recognizes that, as the OP so belligerently advances, momentary conditions (e.g., current sentience) can be considered against future circumstances that will almost inevitably unfold, such as this existing, distinct human being’s future and whatever it holds for him. The future is all that anyone really possesses in terms of a “life,” whether you’re a fetus (as we all once were), a child or an adult. That’s what we take when we cause a life to cease–that person’s future. I also posit that the right to live must be the most essential right–inviolable to the extent that any right can be, though none really are–or all other rights are illusions. All other rights are necessarily secondary to the right to live, in that those rights can’t exist meaningfully if the primary right to live is not real. This all seems axiomatic to me, so I understand that beyond a certain point, there’s no argument. Just my two cents, you Nazis 😉 … ---
**Author:** ![Deucalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Deucalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deucalion)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/50 "2004-02-15T15:52:23Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > A fetus is not a potential life. He is a living human being, a fact that is scientifically beyond dispute. No need to argue against potential human beings in a debate that involves only living ones. But so is a baby born without a brain. I wouldn’t say that such a baby is a person, and I think it would be better to say that a fetus is a potential person. > [@Stratocaster](#): > > So, if the argument rests on some notion of “personhood,” it also seems to me that a meaningful definition could be that any existing human being with a future is a person. This definition covers the comatase, the temporarily brain-dead, and fetuses as well, and does not concern itself with every sperm hanging around on the corner on a Saturday night with nothing to do. Sure it is a meaningful definition, but there are better ones. The problem is that your definition also covers the permanently brain-dead; such a baby does have a future: it will be born and then die if it is not fed (intravenously) and the same thing can be said of a healthy baby. If the ‘future’ in your definition requires that without intervention it would at some point have the property of consciousness then it makes more sense, but it would still have problems. There is no reason to bring future possibilities into it, it is best to just deem something a person when it reaches a stage such that it has the one fundamental aspect of a successful human life or any other rational being: sentience. If someone has not ever been sentient, can you really say that that ‘life’ is a person when it has no mind? The fetus loses nothing through an abortion because it has nothing, it does not have any desire to have anything and it hasn’t even had a thought (for early abortions anyway). Using the thing’s future sentience instead of it’s actual sentience adds nothing to the definition. It seems to me that it is just an emotional response that actually weakens the definition. And it’s just plain semantics: any sound argument against abortion is not going to be less sound if a fetus is categorised as a potential person instead of an actual person. What’s important, at least in my mind, is not whether we call a fetus a person or not, but whether it _thinks_. If it doesn’t have a mind then it doesn’t matter whether it is aborted since no ‘one’ exists yet and hence no ‘one’ dies. ---
**Author:** ![Uncivil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ccd318/32.png) [@Uncivil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncivil)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/51 "2004-02-15T16:12:59Z")
I see other people have already pointed out the major flaw in the OP’s argument. Namely that if you regard every fetus as a potential person, you should regard every sperm & egg pair the same way. Which leads to the argument that contraception is genocide. I think the problems we have with the pro-life/pro-choice debate is that people get so emotional about it, and the lack of scientific knowldge about the issue. Life is a process, there is no well defined point where a fetus becomes a baby. It starts out as a small bundle of cells, and gradually develops. Obviouslly, a few dozen cells has no personality. At no one point can you suddenly say “now the fetus has become a person, with a fully fledged personality of its own”, and in fact this process continues for a long time after birth. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/52 "2004-02-15T16:22:10Z")
> [@Deucalion](#): > > But so is a baby born without a brain. I wouldn’t say that such a baby is a person, and I think it would be better to say that a fetus is a potential person. Feel free to argue that this baby is not a person, but if you try to argue that this is only a potential human life, your argument fails on its face. _That_ was my point > [@](#): > > Sure it is a meaningful definition, but there are better ones. The problem is that your definition also covers the permanently brain-dead; such a baby does have a future: it will be born and then die if it is not fed (intravenously) and the same thing can be said of a healthy baby. Yes, the healthy baby and the example you provide are indeed analogous in this regard. Interesting, eh? > [@](#): > > There is no reason to bring future possibilities into it, it is best to just deem something a person when it reaches a stage such that it has the one fundamental aspect of a successful human life or any other rational being: sentience. If someone has not ever been sentient, can you really say that that ‘life’ is a person when it has no mind? Yes, I can. Because my definition is that he only be a human being. Given your definition, which requires current sentience, what status do you assign a temporarily brain-dead human being? > [@](#): > > The fetus loses nothing through an abortion because it has nothing, it does not have any desire to have anything and it hasn’t even had a thought (for early abortions anyway). No, you’re arguing that the fetus isn’t aware that he’s losing something. That’s true. But he is undoubtedly losing his future, in the same sense that our temporarily brain-dead patient would be if you killed him. Certainly neither would be aware of the fact. Neither would be a sleeping person if you put a bullet in his head. He’d just be dead, and you would have taken not a single second of his past from him. You would merely be depriving him of his future. He would never even be aware of that act that led to that deprivation. > [@](#): > > Using the thing’s future sentience instead of it’s actual sentience adds nothing to the definition. It seems to me that it is just an emotional response that actually weakens the definition. And it’s just plain semantics: any sound argument against abortion is not going to be less sound if a fetus is categorised as a potential person instead of an actual person. What’s important, at least in my mind, is not whether we call a fetus a person or not, but whether it _thinks_. If it doesn’t have a mind then it doesn’t matter whether it is aborted since no ‘one’ exists yet and hence no ‘one’ dies. Then do you agree that killing a temporarily brain-dead patient is a victimless act? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/53 "2004-02-15T16:38:56Z")
There is no such thing as temporary brain death. Brain death, by definition, is the _permamnent_ cessation of brain activity. As a matter of fact, brain death is usually the legal definition of death. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/54 "2004-02-15T16:53:14Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > There is no such thing as temporary brain death. Brain death, by definition, is the _permamnent_ cessation of brain activity. As a matter of fact, brain death is usually the legal definition of death. Nonsense. And I’m not going to get into a meaningless semantical quibble with you. There are absolutely examples of people who lose all brain functions temporarily. For example, severe hypothermia has produced this effect. There are doctors who deliberately create [temporary brain death](http://uillinoismedcenter.org/content.cfm?contentalias=brain_dead) within a medical procedure. They seem to have no problem with the term. If you prefer to call this something other than brain death, fine–after all, what do these doctors know? But the point remains the same, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/55 "2004-02-15T17:14:10Z")
The doctors don’t call it brain death, the article does. Brain death, [by definition](http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/brain+death), is _irreversible_. If it isn’t permanent, it isn’t brain death…kind of like regular death. As to the conditions you refer to: > [@](#): > > Modern anesthesia techniques can render a person without brain activities (flat EEG), totally paralyzed (with neuromuscular blocking agents), and with no cardiac (heart) activity (with cardioplegic solutions), such as is the case when a patient is undergoing extracorporeal circulation during cardiac anesthesia. In this case, despite that the patient physically resembles that of a dead person, the condition is reversible. > > **Therefore, to declare brain death, one must follow a protocol of clinical testing as well as preclude anesthetic causes and hypothermia.** As you can see, temporarily flat EEGs which are caused by anasthetic and hypothermic causes are specifically _excluded_ as meeting the definition of brain death. I would also say that a controlled procedure which briefly tamps down brain activity is not analogous to an embryo or a zygote or a sperm and egg combo in the instant before contact. A person undergoing brain surgery is _already_ a person who is _paying for_ a specific procedure which will briefly produce an illusion of death in oreder to save the patient’s life. In the case of an embryo, there never was a person to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Tsiyeria](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Tsiyeria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tsiyeria)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/56 "2004-02-15T19:37:45Z")
> [@The\_Broken\_Column](#): > > Yes, I know, but it is difficult dealing with Hypocrits (Liberals). > > They always are hypocritical, they want the freedom to do whatever they want, but they don’t want to have their freedoms infringed by others. > > They want to sanctify the murder of an unborn child, but they think it is immoral to sanctify the murder of an adult. (Such as the Nazis did.) First off, I’m not a liberal, I’m a Libertarian. Huge Difference. As such, I personally believe in the phrase “My rights end where your nose begins.” I do not expect my rights to trample all over someone else’s. When has anyone: 1. Sanctified what the Nazis did in the first place, or 2. Said that they actually think that abortion is a good thing. The hypocrite here is you. You call us Nazis, and say that we want our rights to trample other people’s rights, but you want the laws to conform to your sense of morality. 😕 This doesn’t make much sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/57 "2004-02-15T19:41:46Z")
> [@](#): > > No, you’re arguing that the fetus isn’t aware that he’s losing something. That’s true. But he is undoubtedly losing his future, in the same sense that our temporarily brain-dead patient would be if you killed him. Look at your own language. You acknowledge that the fetus is not a consciously aware being (which isn’t necessarily true, but let’s go real early in development so there is no doubt on this point, and deal with the more complex issue later), and yet you still refer to it as a he with future interests. But to do that, you must be extrapolating a future being that IS aware backwards in time and wrongly connecting it to the fetus, who is not aware. What’s wrong about this is the sme thing that’s wrong with extrapolating this future “he” backwards onto an egg. In neither the egg nor the fetus is that “he” concurrently present. Yet, if you want to imagine a future he backwards to examine its precusors, then you would be arbitrary to trumpet one necessary precusor (fetus) and not another (egg) as something necessary for that “he” to come to be. > [@](#): > > Neither would be a sleeping person if you put a bullet in his head. He’d just be dead, and you would have taken not a single second of his past from him. You would merely be depriving him of his future. He would never even be aware of that act that led to that deprivation. Several elements you are missing here: 1. A grown person can have already formed expectations and plans for the future, unlike the fetus. These plans are frustrated by his killing in a way that no expectations or plans are frustrated by the killing of a zygote. 2. Grown people can fear and estimate the _likihood_ of someone putting bullets in their sleeping heads, and/or frustrating their expectations and interests. The increasing prevelence of bullet-in-head-while-sleeping events increases this fear among humanity in general in a way abortions do not among zygotes (who aren’t aware of such things at all, and certianly not in a community sense). You may or may not think these differences are relevant, but it’s pretty hard to maintain that the situation between a being that has NEVER been consciously aware and one that HAS is identical. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/58 "2004-02-15T23:43:11Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > A fetus is not a potential life. He is a living human being, a fact that is scientifically beyond dispute. I’m not going to argue that it’s not a human being. However, a fetus isn’t a _person_. There is a vast difference as far as I’m concerned. > [@](#): > > So, if the argument rests on some notion of “personhood,” it also seems to me that a meaningful definition could be that any existing human being with a future is a person. But if it’s going to be aborted, it doesn’t _have_ a future, and thus is, by your definition, not a person. ---
**Author:** ![RockyRaccoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@RockyRaccoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RockyRaccoon)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/59 "2004-02-15T23:59:19Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > Imagine if we didn’t have the ability to abort foetuses. Those foetuses would almost certainly become people. i.e. almost certainly have a future. > > Once something becomes almost certain to become a life (if not already being a life) then destroying it IMO is murder. > > Sperm is by no means certain to become a being. A fertilized egg IS. Abortion is a technological extension of child abandonment or infanticide, which have been practiced by animals and humans for as long as there have been animals and humans facing hard decisions about their lives. Arguments about “when life begins” are futile, so a society has to recognize that some of its members inevitably will choose not to rear their young and will opt for some way out. We can either criminalize this behavior (and drive it underground) or remove as much as possible the causes for it. As long as there are people waiting in line to adopt babies, it seems like the latter approach is the most sensible. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296/60 "2004-02-16T00:02:37Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The doctors don’t call it brain death, the article does. Brain death, [by definition](http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/brain+death), is _irreversible_. If it isn’t permanent, it isn’t brain death…kind of like regular death. As to the conditions you refer to: > > As you can see, temporarily flat EEGs which are caused by anasthetic and hypothermic causes are specifically _excluded_ as meeting the definition of brain death. Diogenes, you are conveniently ignoring the essential point in the interest of scoring a semantical point. As I said before, call it whatever you prefer. The fact remains that there are adults who have temporarily had all brain activity cease, and in that regard they are identical to a fetus. Period. It’s inarguable. > [@](#): > > I would also say that a controlled procedure which briefly tamps down brain activity is not analogous to an embryo or a zygote or a sperm and egg combo in the instant before contact. > > A person undergoing brain surgery is _already_ a person who is _paying for_ a specific procedure which will briefly produce an illusion of death in oreder to save the patient’s life. In the case of an embryo, there never was a person to begin with. The ability to pay for the operation hardly seems relevant to the argument, which was, specifically, that possessing sentience is the key to “personhood.” Not my belief, by the way. Having sentience is either critical to “personhood” or it is not. Once the person loses his sentience during this operation, he is identical to a fetus in terms of sentience. Can he be killed with impunity based on his lack of sentience? Do you answer differently for the person who loses his sentience as a result of hypothermia? And can you explain your answer in a manner that does not make it merely a qualification that permits abortions? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-agree-with-this-reasoning-about-pro-life/229296.md?page=4)