Just for clarification: When does the fetus, in your opinion, change from being a lump of cells without a working brain to a human with a working brain? Obviously not at conception, so I guess the alternatives are basically “some time during pregnancy” or “at birth”.
Or have I perhaps overlooked an alternative?
Killing people because their existence is expensive or awkward leads to Very Bad things. This is why we must be very, very careful when we approach making a decision that (arguably) involves killing someone for our connivence.
As I said, I am not sure there is a good answer.
What’s this ‘we’ shit, kemosabe?
If it’s so arguable and unknowable, howsabout ‘we’ keep it so that I decide for me, and you decide for you, and we leave ‘we’ out of it entirely, mkay?
There is no “point”; there’s no evidence that personhood is something that turns on like a light switch. At the very earliest it starts around the six month mark in gestation, when the fetus starts producing human style brainwaves (which doesn’t mean human level thought, it just means some of the most basic patterns of activity are there). Probably well after that actually, but that’s the earliest point that I would consider it even physically possible. It probably isn’t complete until well after birth.
By the time the fetus can reasonably be considered even possibly a person, the only abortions that happen are either because the fetus is fatally defective, already dead or a severe danger to the mother; so it doesn’t really matter whether it becomes a person after that for these purposes.
Except that abortion doesn’t “arguably” lead to the death of people. Nor are the the historical analogies you are trying to draw very applicable; if the Jews killed during the Holocaust were mindless creatures that had physically attached themselves to unwilling non-Jewish Germans and were draining them of their vitality your analogy would work, but then that would make the Jews the villains, and the Nazis into Fearless Vampire Slayers.
According to Randy Alcorn’s book “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Questions,” the “unborn baby” is fully formed by three months, “earlier than the earliest abortions.” After that, all the baby does is “increase in size.”
Of course, he also states that "it is reasonable to expect a person to endure a minor inconvenience (i.e., pregancy), and “doctors are not to be trusted when it comes to information about abortion.”
Barring the obvious discussion about rape, even consenting to sex is not tantamount to consenting to procreate. Humans naturally don’t engage in sexual intercourse for strict procreation purposes. We engage in sexual intercourse for all manner of reasons that have nothing to do with procreation. I think that we are biologically designed to engage in sex for purposes other than procreation, given our large brains and ability to have sex at any time regardless of fertility.
So, naturally, we are compelled to have sex. We, naturally, are equipped to determine whether and when we procreate. Ergo, procreation is not necessarily the intent, nor does it need to be the irreversible result, of humans who engage in sex.
There’s also our low fertility and our lack of a clear signal of fertility. Sex for the purposes of procreation is actually the exception not the rule for humans.
So your point of view is if you think it is kill someone it is none of my business?
Hard to say, I’m having a bit of trouble parsing that.
And all I can determine about your point of view is that you don’t really have one, and we should all listen to it. Or something.
If your opinion is killing someone is OK, and my opinion is it is wrong, would you agree we ought to err on the side of caution? That is to say unless we are sure we ought not to do it?
It may not be “at birth” but several months later.
I’m not saying that to be factitious. As humans evolved our brains got larger relative to our bodies. This meant that we had to shorten our gestational period so the infant could fit through the birth canal. Fetal development is literally about growing the massive human brain, at the expense of a completely useless body, and then giving birth before the brain size exceeds the birth canal.
Humans are thus born extremely useless, and are completely reliant. Consider other mammals that can walk at birth, humans take at least 10 months. And part of the problem is that our heads are so big relative to our bodies.
Even in comparison to different species of monkeys. The smaller the brain relative to the body, the more fully developed and functional the infant is as birth.
There is a case to be made that even after birth the infant brain is still pretty worthless. What’s important at this point is that this giant underdeveloped brain is no longer a threat to the mother’s health. Because after birth, society recognizes a right to kill in self defense.
So killing mindless people is OK? Killing people who we think are without value is OK? Please explain.
Can this also be applied to conception? Should “we” be very, very careful when deciding to conceive? Should the government also be involved in this process?
Because some think birth control is equivalent to abortion, or masterbation is equivalent to abortion, doesn’t mean we should err on the side of caution and think very carefully about whether we should criminalize whacking off.
And again, ‘we’ who? ‘We’ aren’t doing anything. You’re asking me to err on the side of caution just in case you turn out to be right. No.
And how will we be sure? After the mother is dead?
Shouldn’t we err on the side of caution and leave it up to the person actually involved?
So people should be free to kill those they wish to kill? After all, they know their situations best.
I would of thought society has a role in protecting the people in it. Perhaps you know better. Please explain.
True dat.
There’s no such thing as a mindless person. And as I’ve pointed out repeatedly we do kill mindless ex-people on a regular basis; we harvest their organs, which kills them. But the person who formerly owned those organs is already dead before we start.
I never said anything about killing people without value. I’ve clearly and repeatedly pointed out that a mindless thing isn’t a person in the first place. Whether it’s a fetus, a potato or a rock; without a mind, it isn’t a person.
Pregnant women are people in society, with the rights and protections afforded such. Fetuses are potential people inside other people, and people who actually exist trump people who might exist someday, especially when their only possibility of of existing requires borrowing the organs of people who already exist.