A knocked-out patient, that’s what we’re talking about right? They certainly can’t suffer as a result of any physical trauma you could apply, including, let’s say, killing them.
There are people who temporarily flat-line their brain activity. Sometimes it’s an accident, severe hypothermia, that type of thing. Sometimes it’s medically induced for certain operations. In both situations, the person flat-lines, has zero brain activity, and no capacity for any sort of pain. Then they regain their brain functions. Are they “persons” while they flat-line? Can we disregard their well-being because they lack the capacity to suffer?
That’s quite a slippery slope, deciding whose lives are worth living. If that suffering is so profound, why not kill them after they’re born? If the parents agreed, would that be OK?
Exactly the same? No. But neither is a toddler exactly the same as as adult. But all of them I would categorize as human beings, deserving of certain rights. The most fundamental right is the right to live (not trying to preach, but you asked what I thought). I don’t require someone to possess the current capacity to think or suffer to consider someone a human being, and I bet most people don’t (at least when considering my examples above). As soon as there is a distinct human being, one with a singular unity of identity, I think you have someone who has a right to live. I just don’t know what compromise can dovetail with that belief. I can’t envision what sort of “meet me half way” scenario would be okay.
Might I ask why then you differentiate between chickens and people? I mean, genetically speaking a just-fertilised human egg and a just-fertilised chicken egg are considerably different. But in moral terms, what is it about that human egg that means aborting it would be a wrong, but aborting the chicken egg wouldn’t be (or at least, would be to a lesser extent)? Why does that human egg deserve rights which the chicken egg does not? They have a similar capacity to suffer, for one thing.
And just as a seperate point; while for me personally the term of importance is “person” and not human being, I do require someone to possess the current capacity to think to consider someone a person. So there are some of us outside that most!
There is still significant brain activity going on, and the fact that the anasthesia has been intentionally administered under contractual and legal conditions obligates the medical personnel to bring them back out of it. This is a case where it doesn’t matter if they can feel physical pain because it was the medical personnel who caused that condition. A dead body can’t suffer physical pain either, but that doesn’t mean you can CAUSE a body to be dead. In the case of a pregnancy, the woman doing the terminating has done nothing to cause the embryo or fetus not to be sentient.
I don’t believe you’re right that it’s ever intentionally induced. Do you have a cite for that? Sometimes comas are induced, but that doesn’t flatline brain activity. As for the general question, if there’s no brain activity, it’s not a person.
If their brains are dead, they don’t possess the capacity for 'well-being." They are dead.
Not at all. If the pregnancy is terminated, there IS no "who."You can’t victimize people who never existed.
Because that would be murder. Duh.
You’re aware that this is all just religious belief, though. There is no actual logical or scientific basis for it. It’s just assertion. Calling a zygote a “distinct human being,” and therefore a “person” is just a tautology, a restatement of the assertion. It’s not a proof or argument. How is it any different from PETA asserting that animals are “persons” deserving of the same legal protection as humans?
So… foster home? Either way, you’re not aborting, you’ve hypothetically been raped, you’re pregnant.
Let’s also suppose the rape baby you’re carrying poses a high chance for a miscarriage, more than a few doctors are telling you this,
and they’re also saying that this miscarriage may cause you an inability to become pregnant in the future. What then?
I’m only posing these ideas to show that abortion is certainly not always evil, as you described earlier.
I didn’t see anyone answer this directly so I wanted to respond here
I don’t know about the ACLU, but I would accept that speech as a very praise-worthy one that seems to want to compromise, with a caveat: I think you got some of the tone wrong. In Obama’s speech, he did not say “**instead **of fighting against abortion” or infer anything of the sort like you did in your example. He truly compromised; he accepted that some ideas are irreconciliable and that both sides will continue to make its case. His request was that we use words to communicate, not demonize, which is exactly the point missed by some posters when they scoffed that Obama “merely” changed some of the words on his website
Does it feel good to be called a extremist ideologue? Of course not, so anyone who mocks a change in his rhetoric implies that they either are an ideologue or want the fighting words to continue. So yes, it is a compromise that Obama made with that doctor who took offense at his website. Like he said in the speech, changing some of the harsher words makes true compromise and understanding a better possibility, and that at least the benefits of such change is that both sides argue in good faith instead of cynicism
And that’s what Obama basically said in his speech. It was a magnanimous outreach towards those who usually scream and spit and show idiotic pictures of fetuses. Stop that, your point is getting lost through all that bullshit, Obama’s saying. Until those people accept that pro-choicers like me aren’t the devil’s incarnate, there can be no compromise. And in the meantime, if you’re a pro-lifers, babies are dying. Such strong rhetoric does no good at all. So quit the bullshit guys and start talking like adults
With that caveat changed in your example, I would absolutely expect any reasonable person include those at the ACLU to accept such a death penalty compromise. They still be against it, but by arguing in not such an idiotic way, they can bring about real change such as the ones you highlighted: more prisons, more cops, crackdowns on petty crimes. Those type of things do help, and its much better to do that then stand in a picket line to change something that wont be changed
Now I will say one thing about your comparison and that is that the death penalty is much much closer to being abolished than abortion. Many states already have it suspended. And there is the fact that there isn’t a big Supreme Court case like Roe vs. Wade mandating its legality. Any laws against abortion will have to be some kind of Constitutional Amendment, or you guys will have to get more justices on the bench. Neither of those things are happening anytime soon. So drop the hate-filled act and do something to prevent unwanted pregnancies and lower the desire for abortions.
The question isn’t whether it’s a contractual obligation, Diogenes. Come on.
I actually provided a cite for you on this before–note your response (post #55), which refers to a person given a flat EEG. The link I provided there seems lost, but semantic debates aside, you seemed satisfied then that there are patients who have flatlined EEGs who recover brain activity. I can dig up other cites if you need them, I guess. This also occurs accidentally, in severe hypothermia cases, for example. It really does occur.
So, while in this condition, without the capacity to suffer, do you dismiss any thoughts of rights for these individuals?
Not in the instances I’m referring to–they are alive and regain their brain functions.
Diogenes, this is no less arbitrary or axiomatic a definition.
But would it be wrong?
I concede at its base it’s an axiomatic belief, as is yours. But it’s not essentially religious.
