Then why do you keep trying?
That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is, it doesn’t matter if it’s a person or not, because all the argument that it isn’t is going to do is cause pro-lifers to change the terminology–“Fine, it’s not a person, but it’s a potential person and that’s just as important” or some such. It’s not a good strategy to try to convince anyone of anything by arguing definitions in a vacuum.
Because I like to argue. Because I feel obligated to speak up and condemn the anti-choicers outright when so many people seem determined to pretend that these are reasonable, well meaning people. And because there are people in the middle.
Fair enough, although I’d quibble that there are definitely ethical, coherent pro-lifers–I reserve that label for the relatively rare position of “no abortions, no death penalty, no war, pro-birth-control, and pro-UHC”, which isn’t a complete myth unless my dad turned into a unicorn recently. To riff on the reason I entered this discussion, I argued my dad into being pro-UHC a few years back by starting from “all human life is sacred, all fetuses are human life”, and I can’t help but think there are more people out there like that who could be pushed to a more tenable position (if not the most reasonable positions) with a little bit of acceptance.
There are other ways. Since your moral jusgements are simply your opinions, I’ll treat them as such. The same way I’d treat your opinions on the proper colour of my new carpet.
The first individual liberty is the liberty of being an individual.
Like what?
Sure:
Comatose persons are not sentient.
They have cortical activity. I would go ahead and say that any individual with no cortical activity is not sentient and ceases to be a person, though. I have no problem with that.
So you are abandoning “sentient” and going with “cortical activity” as the measure of a person? If an organism has cortical activity, it’s a person? That’s the scientific and factual standard you now declare to be true?
They’re the same thing.
Nope. I never said it was a sufficient requirement, just a necessary one.
According to the dictionary definition I linked to above, “sentient” means “responsive to or conscious of sense impressions.”
A comatose person is not responsive to or conscious of sense impressions. But he has measurable “cortical activity,” which means “activity involving or resulting from the action or condition of the cerebral cortex.”
They are not the same thing.
So are you abandoning “sentient” and going with “cortical activity” as a necessary but not sufficient measure of a person?
They are the same thing. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I don’t get your point anyway. Arguing about this is not going to make a clump of cells sentient, so why bother?
As someone who is pro-choice, I *really *hate it when someone ostensibly on my side of the issue pulls out the “clump of cells” argument. That might hold up for the first few weeks of a pregnancy, but let’s not call, for example, a 4 month old fetus a “clump of cells”.
To make your argument, Dio, you need to define what a person is, and tell us why that definition is objectively true. Knock yourself out with that one.
Use any dictionary.
Can you name anything that definitely is NOT a person?
It’s an insentient clump of tissue. Even a four month old fetus has no sentience. “Persons” at least require some kind of sentience.
Let’s reframe the issue this way - abortion does not cause any other living thing to suffer.
I would also argue that it’s those who want to abridge the rights of others to prove that a blastocyst IS a person, not for anyone else to prove it isn’t.
And Merriam Webster also doesn’t know what they’re talking about?
But of course you do.
Despite the fact I went to the dictionary at your request.
Great, then you saw that a clump of insentient tissue does not meet the the definition.
Exactly. You could make a much better argument that, say, a rat qualifies as a “person” - and it’s perfectly legal to kill rats. You’d certainly never get a law passed requiring people to sacrifice nine months of their life and their health for a rat.
That’s simply a snarky way of saying you can’t provide a definition that is objectively correct.
I’m not going to offer a definition for the simple reason that there isn’t one that is objectively correct. There are any number of definitions that can be used, and plenty that would rule out a rat but not a human fetus. That’s a ridiculous red herring, as neither rats nor herring have the DNA that makes human a unique species.
Any dictionary definition will suffice.
And I reiterate that it remains incumbent on those who want to assert “personhood” for something to porove, not for anyione else to disprove it. Can you prove a rock is not a person? Demanding proof of the negative is specious and evasive.
I’m not asking you to define a negative. I’m asking you to give us your definition and why that is objectively the correct one.
But, if “any dictionary definition” will do, here are a few:
The distinguishing characteristic being its DNA and it’s being alive. A fetus fits that definition just fine.
All I have to do is give a fetus “certain rights and obligations” and presto! it’s a person. All you have to do is take those away, and presto! it’s not a person.
n.b.: Those are not my definitions, or ones I would use in the abortion debate. But I don’t hold the conceit that my definition is the one an only correct one.