And then there is the question, addressed in deliciously-accessible layman’s terms, in the new book Brain Rules by John Medina. An average 30 month old child (2 years, 6 months of age) cannot think symbolically. An average 36 month old child…can.
Put a 30 month old child in a room with a dollhouse. Show that child a tiny plastic dog. Put it under a sofa in the dollhouse. Take the child into a room next door made up to look exactly like the dollhouse room, and ask her to find the “dog”. The child cannot. Do the same with a 36 month old child. The child will run right over to the life-size sofa and find the matching large plastic dog.
This ability to use symbols is apparently (as far as we know) uniquely human. But we would never cut off the age of personhood at 36 months, simply because at this point they begin to exhibit behaviours that are uniquely human.
I understand the use of gestational age to permit/forbid abortion as a convenience and a legal yardstick. I’ve never understood it as a measure of humanity OR personhood. Humans exist on a continuum. A fetus is not a newborn is not an 18 month old who can make simple jokes who is not a 4 year old who can point a stick at you and call it a sword, is not an 18 year old who is supposedly an adult but whose brain won’t finish through through major developmental changes for another 7 years…
But I have spoken to people whose grasp of biology was fundamentally flawed - who did NOT believe life began at conception or even that there was a heartbeat to stop during abortion, or that it could qualify as killing at all…though they had no difficulty with the idea of killing a flatworm or a flea or sprouting seed or the fungus that grows under a toenail. They didn’t want it to be a person or a human, therefore it wasn’t alive at all. And that was just…intellectually pathetic.
Don’t condescend me. I’m not stupid. On an issue such as this (one that will never be resolved) it comes down to personal ethical feelings. I’ve expressed mine (apparently unpopular) without resorting to snarky emotions, the least you could do is keep your mouth shut, if you aren’t going to elucidate or elaborate your feelings on the matter.
Ok, so it has potential. Lots of things that have potential don’t come to fruition. Zygotes don’t always come to fruition. If the body can reject a zygote, so can the mind. Potential is subjective. Potential is meaningless. Let’s talk about facts. Viability. A zygote without an incubator is organic detritus. It is not a potential human being. The human being is the incubator. If the human being doesn’t want to be an incubator, who’s to say she should be?
It is if you are referring to my womb.
What business is it of yours? Likewise, if you want to bear your own cross, it’s not my business to tell you should or shouldn’t. The mother has more dog in this fight than anyone else does. She’s the one that has to endure the physical stress of pregnancy and childbirth. She’s the one that gets to decide whether bringing another person into the world jives with her personal ethics. Everyone else needs to butt the hell out, unless invited by her to participate in the process.
We treat other animals, at varying levels of sentience/sapience, well, even though they’re (by definition) not exhibiting uniquely human behaviours. You appear to be saying “Well, why cut off there? Why not here, or here…”, to which I would say the answer is that I would think the problem is you’re looking at it from a distinctly human-centric view. Imagine an alien came along - it certainly appears intelligent, but it exhibits no human-unique behaviours, just alien-unique behaviours. Are we fine in killing it? No, because personhood shouldn’t be defined in human terms.
That’s true. And certainly it’s a difficult call to make. But why is it impossible? If we have a colour spectrum, it may be very hard for us to go through it and pick out where it stops being “green” and starts being “blue”. But if we’re trying to pick out where things are before they are blue, we don’t really have any problem picking red. You seem to be taking the existence of a spectrum of personhood as an inability to say that anywhere along its length can we define a difference. I disagree.
Well, if I had a growing object inside my body and I didn’t want it there, I’d consider my desire sufficient reason to remove it.
For that matter, once something is accepted as a right, reasons for exercising it aren’t required. If they were, it wouldn’t be a right, it would be something the government gives you permission to do.
People don’t forfeit their rights just because someone else has to bear a burden for them. Children are a burden to their parents long after they’re born, but that doesn’t give parents the right to end their life because it doesn’t “jive” with their personal ethics. Why should women get to decide to kill someone just because they don’t feel like being burdened by them?
Of course. It’s simple really, I value human life. Not so much single-cellular life. There’s a huge difference between a human borne cell, and a human genotype/phenotype. If a lump of cells, has a realistic potential to become a human being, then I would prefer everyone respect that, and revere it, just as they would anyone else’s humanity, no matter what stage the life cycle. It’s not easy admitting that, when most people want an out for abortion – a way to justify it. This is life. It’s a world of gray areas, and very hard decisions. I value the mother’s life and rights just as much as her fetus.
And on your first point… please don’t misunderstand me, The OP is asking for a definition of when a life begins, like that might weigh into the general equation of abortion. I’m saying it’s inconsequential once the genie has been let out of the bottle, so to speak.
And, sorry to disappoint, but like I said, I feel abortion should remain legal (for several reasons). My only hope is people not abuse the procedure and look at it as a last resort, not a way out of a hairy situation.
That’s not true. You can legally kill an adult human in all sorts of cases, from capital punishment to self defense to pulling a plug on someone who doesn’t want life support. You have a right to defend yourself with lethal force, but you sure need a reason to.
I already have. And as far as I’m concerned if you’re a man, I couldn’t give a flying fuck about your opinion on abortion. Don’t like it, don’t have one.
Just because you subscribe to a ludicrous notion about how a sperm sitting on an egg is somehow a person doesn’t mean you get to inflict the ramifications of your personal and willful ignorance on all the women of this country. If you don’t want abortion outlawed, I retract the previous sentence.
Edited to add: Upon posting, I see you wanna keep it legal, so I take back my previous sentence.
Fair enough. A fertilized frog egg is not a tadpole is not a frog. A fertilized dog egg is not a fetus is not a puppy is not a dog. A fertilized plant ovum is not a seed is not a seedling is not a tree/flower/whatever.
Nevertheless, the only difference between any one of those things and itself along the continuum is time and appropriate nurturing. We do abort dogs’ pregnancies, sometimes even including hysterectomy, at will and at any stage of development. Many people have no difficulty drowning puppies and kittens, either. We have no compuctions about doing all sorts of things to frogs (and cattle, mice, chickens, monkeys, and many other creatures) at every stage of development. And of course we do anything we like to plants, at every stage of development.
Why different with humans? I don’t know. I suppose you have to stop somewhere before you get called - or become - an utter sociopath.
But while I do acknowledge that one stage is not another, I don’t think that fundamentally changes the relevence of the thing. It is the thing it is. If it is not yet everything it will become, given time and nurturing, then that’s only a matter of time, not of essence. You might as easily argue that a man who has starved most of his life in a hypothetical 3rd world country is less of a person because his cognitive abilities are permanently diminished by his nutritional status and little or no education, whereas a person who grew up wealthy and well-nourished, with access to every sort of fine education, is more of a person. The former is a tragedy, the latter, perhaps a triumph. But they’re both examples of the same type of thing.
Potential is anything but meaningless. And I beg to differ, sure a lot of pregnancies don’t come to fruition, but the vast majority do.
I had no business, until you brought it up. I merely asked why not explain your position, rather than be arrogant about it. But, since it’s been brought up, I contend that a fetus should have rights. It’s really too bad that men and women alike can’t both become pregnant, because I wish I could offer an unbiased perspective here. But I can’t, I’m a guy, so my feelings carry no weight in the matter. BUT, I am a human, and I used to reside in a womb. I can’t flip my views from seeing a zygote as anything but a human being in an early stage of life, not as just a lump of meaningless, quivering cells. It kinda blows my mind that you’d even imply that.
Well, I generally tend to think that respect and reverance is earned by what you do and not what you are, though I tend to assume it has been rather than not. My problem with the potential argument is that by its very nature it tends to accept that it is not a human being yet, and I would say that just because something will become something else doesn’t mean we should treat it as that yet. A person entering medical school will quite possibly become a doctor, but we don’t let them practice medicine just yet.
Don’t worry, I am not the kind of pro-choicer that will call you names or suggest you’re looking to hold down women, or something. I disagree with you, obviously, but I would suggest you didn’t care about women’s rights just because of the side you’re on. However, I hope you realise that by phrasing it as you have, you’re suggesting that rather than having reasons already, pro-choicers have to go out and look for reasons to support something once they’ve decided to do it. I’m sure there are pro-choicers like that, but I wouldn’t assume you’ve made up your mind as to what your decision is, then gone out to look for reasons afterwards, so I don’t think it’s fair of you to suggest that about most people in reverse.
But for many people the definition of when life begins is required in order to identify the genie, so to speak. It may not factor anywhere near your personal views of the situation, but others might consider it very important.
No problem, and I couldn’t agree more. I think abortion should be legal, but that doesn’t make it not a bad situation for everyone concerned, and something to be avoided if possible.
This is not biologically or scientifically accurate. Parasites are always of a different species, with completely different DNA and a separate reproductive cycle from the host. Neither does the host’s body make many deliberate adaptations to permit the parasite to remain.
However, when one is in an unwanted pregnancy which can shatter one’s whole life (and I’ve been there twice)…it sure as heck can feel like a parasite.
The difference between “parasite” and “person” is entirely dependent on someone’s whim? Try explaining to a woman who wants to have a baby that the fetus in her is a parasite. Is it a person if it’s wanted, and a parasite if it’s not?
But that’s a matter of social acceptability, not moral acceptability. You can’t really claim as a reason not to do something that many people think you’d be wrong to; the point you’re trying to make is that something is what it is, and so opinions are pretty much meaningless to the truth of the matter.
I don’t consider education to be part of my definition of personhood; it’s more in terms of capacity rather than actual contents. Nor wealth. I would hope you have a generally higher opinion of people who disagree with you than that.
But anyway, i’m afraid I disagree with your “essence” argument. Something is what it is. If it will become something else - but it isn’t yet - then it isn’t yet. Like you say, a ferilized frog egg is not a tadpole is not a frog. Can you name any other occasions in which we’re willing to treat things as what they will be rather than what they are? I could equally say; we’re all going to die someday. That’s even more inevitable, even more a simple matter of time, than life is. People are dead for much longer than they are alive. What would be stopping me from saying that in essence, all people are dead? It would seem to work with your argument better.
I have no such ludicrous, or ignorant notions. But I’ll say a lot of people here are speaking with authority on the matter, in a way they wouldn’t be able to back up. I don’t want to inflict my views on anyone. I knew coming in here that it would create some heat, but I’m sick of the notion, that some people need to paint the picture that fetuses are some sort of inhuman clump of flesh to make their point. Would you feel the exact same way if you did want a child, and you happened to miscarry?
Duly noted, though explaining the circumstances isn’t quite the same as asking permission.
In any case, it’s been a full generation since Roe v. Wade. A great many American women now see abortion as a right. I’m not sure how they’d react to having it taken away.
