Right… because they didn’t consent to organ donation when alive.
Depends on jurisdiction: your statement is false in many first world countries, such as Spain, Austria, and Sweden.
Abortion to save the mother is completley different. I agree that in the case of a tubal pregnancy the pregnancy should be ended. Abortion because the mother had sex without protection is entirely different.
The whole point of bringing that argument up** in this thread** is to show how a pro-choice viewpoint doesn’t need to rest on the belief/fact that a fetus isn’t a person. Which is what the OP asked.
As for me, none of what classyladyhp says makes a difference in how I feel about whether abortion should be legal, safe and available. If an 8-week fetus could play mozart or address the UN, I’d still say it should be legal for the woman carrying it to abort.
No, but it is what gives them more rights than a rock. Because they have minds, and a rock doesn’t.
No, most people die in a way that doesn’t leave many useful organs.
It is however not a person, which is what matters here.
I understand that. It seems that many pro-choicers don’t care that the baby is a human being and is alive. What they care about is that the mother should be allowed to kill her baby if she feels like it.
Can we though? I’m not aware of any country (with the possible exception of Holland) which allows the active killing or dissemblement of live babies born with anencephaly, or other humans with a pulse and no brain activity. I’m not saying that I think it should be illegal (I don’t), just that there seems to be some disagreement regarding which attributes (human DNA or conscience) qualifies someone for human rights.
A person is human. A person is part of the human species. A person is not a dog or an insect.
Fair enough. I would state it differently: A baby, though it is a human being and alive, does not have the right to be supported by and within the body of its mother.
The mother may have a moral obligation to support it, but the state has no business legislating that obligation.
Live babies with anencephaly inevitably die within hours or days, so if you don’t abort them before birth there’s no point in killing them. I doubt the issue has come up. And the term for a human “with a pulse and no brain activity” is “brain dead”; which are exactly the sort of bodies that get harvested.
No, those are not in the same vein. Abortion is the only issue in which you’ll find people play the “don’t force your morals on me!” game when the like of another human is on the line. If I were to try to make that argument in regards to, say, child sacrifice, further adding in how I should be entitled to operate according to my own belief, the same individuals spouting this line about not forcing their morals on someone else will instantly drop the line and force me to adhere to a moral code in which child sacrifice is wrong and thusly not allowed. Everyone in this thread knows this. And if you were going to be consistent, then you would have to necessarily argue that while you don’t agree with my moral stance, you will leave me to my own will. But you wouldn’t.
I see nothing about sentience.
Also, no, I’m not going to get into a debate on morality, because you’ll just claim that everyone should be entitled to their own views. Except, of course, when you find those views abhorrent.
No, a person is a creature with a human level mind or greater; the term would apply just as much to an alien, an artificial intelligence of the right sort, or an enhanced animal. And “human” does not mean “person”; a human with enough of a mental deficit is not a person despite being human.
Right- so you do agree that there are occurrences where “murdering” the “baby” is ok. What about pre-eclampsia or other health concerns that happen later in pregnancy?
So why then is it so hard for you see that other people believe that there are valid reasons for ending a pregnancy than you do? And that you could be less condescending by treating people who draw a different line than you do as better than criminals who have no morals (or your favorite: “different morals”).
Even you recognize that abortion has gray zones. You have worked them out for yourself, which you are entitled to. But how can you have such an arrogant attitude that you have worked them out for everyone? Frankly, I’m really comfortable with my moral decisions relating to abortion, but I do not deny you, or Der Trihs for that matter, the right to yours. What gives you the inside scoop on universal truth? It’s attitudes like yours that I find immoral- not your personal attitude on abortion, but your belief that you have truth figured out for us all.
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Depends on jurisdiction: your statement is false in many first world countries, such as Spain, Austria, and Sweden.
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I live in the United States, where it’s not false, and is why I specificually asked Der Trihs where he lives where this isn’t so. And as he apparently lives in the United States, as well, then I can only surmise he doesn’t know what he’s talking about on this issue.
Or, you have more rights than a rock, because you’re a human and a rock is, well… a rock.
No, they don’t.
I asked you this before, but could you please define a person for me.
“Beings”. As opposed to pieces of meat that happen to have human DNA; an organ in an ice chest has no human rights.
Well, isn’t that just lovely. I don’t want to invoke Godwin’s law, but it’s nice to know that you think that if someone is mentally handicapped enough that they should lose their status as a person, and thusly any consideration under the law.
You know, your posts are becoming more and more ridiculous. So now you equate the unborn to pieces of meat? Surely, you’re just being facetious, yes?
And a dog also has more rights than a rock. Because it is an aware, feeling creature and a rock isn’t. Just like a fetus isn’t.
Yes, they do. People who die of old age, cancer, disease, toxins end up with worn out or contaminated organs that are useless. Only a minority of people die in a way that doesn’t ruin their organs in the process, since it’s that very damage to their organs that kills them in the first place.
A self aware thinking entity.
They do; it’s called “brain death”.
Hardly. Why would you think that? They ARE just mindless pieces of meat, just as my liver is.
Ok, but what about a chimpanze or an orangutan? They appear to have emotions, a certain level of intelligence, and even a sense of personality, judging by their patterns of social interaction. Could they not be persons as well?
By and large, I would say that’s because humans are the sole species considered sentient to the extent of fulfilling that particular category. By and large it’s simpler (not to mention, more rhetorically attractive) to use “human” than “being whose sentience exceeds a line we can’t define too well”. Like as not, if we had some reason for humans no longer being solely included in that club (let’s say, if sentient aliens land, or dolphins or something march up and demand rights) such language would be altered to “sentient”, or some such term.