Wha? How can it be irrelevant whether or not a fetus is a thinking human being or not? I don’t get it. To test my understanding of your argument, location is what distinguishes what it right and what it wrong? Inside tummy = not human; outside tummy = human? Because that is what “society” (7 men) decided? Or is your “right” to control what happens inside your body is more important than the rights of the human inside your body? The distinction is important, and needs to be clarified. Of course, you could just go back to the whole, “nobody can convince anybody, because everybody’s mind is made up” argument if you’d like. It’s quite compelling.
Racism and slavery engender the suffering of sentient beings and I can become subject to racism and slavery. Foetuses are no more sentient beings than plants, sperm or ova. I cannot become a separate sperm and egg: should they be “treated correctly”? Your old-fashoined choice of “conception” as the point at which to grant human rights is just as arbitrary as any other.
Neither is a foetus: It is a potential human being, like the cell.
Perhaps because they are not wrong, and that the choice of conception as the threshold is overly simplistic and essentially a superstitious argument which the civilised world, rightly, left behind decades ago?
You have tested my definitions and arbitrary thresholds and personally found them wanting, but that is the point of these threads and so thank you I would be surprised if many of the audience had found your definitions and thresholds particularly convincing: perhaps you could talk us through precisely what happens after the sperm comes into contact with the outer membrane and four stages of mitosis and meosis occur and explain your “right…NOW!” point wherein beforehand we have a non-human-being and afterwards we have a human being?
Sorry: “that is the point of these threads and so thank you for your cooperation. I would be surprised…”
What I was referring to was, if you are a white person in the American South during slavery, there is no way you could fathom that some day blacks could become slaveowners and whites could become slaves. So, using your “I can’t become that, therefore I don’t care about it” rule, you should not care about black slaves, since in your mind there is no way you could end up a slave.
Also, in general, even if we forget the slave exampe, it is an unsound rule. You cannot become 2 years old again, so you don’t care if we kill 2-year-olds?
You state that as if it is scientific fact. If you have a cite, please provide it.
Actually, I did not claim that conception is where we grant human rights. I was just saying that a fetus is very different from a separate sperm and egg.
There is a type of glue that you can buy that has two tubes of chemicals side-by-side. Each material is not a glue, but when you squeze the tubes, the chemicals mix and become glue and harden very quickly.
So, my analogy is
- egg & sperm == two chemicals
- fetus == glue
You cannot say that the two chemicals by themselves have the same value as glue as the mixture of the two chemicals.
I don’t know exactly when the mixture of the two chemicals starts to behave like glue and I don’t have to give you a step-by-step description of the chemical reaction that turns the mixture of the two chemicals into glue.
The same with the egg & sperm and the fetus.
Why on earth is it superstitious? It may be wrong, but on what grounds is it superstitious? I did not invoke any gods, souls, or spirits in my arguments. Where is the superstition? Do you know what superstitious means? Or do you like to just throw “heavy” words around?
(Besides that fact that I did not actually propose conception as the threshold)
Actually, I don’t know what your thresholds are. Since a human being does not begin at conception, in your view, when does it begin? At the moment of birth, or before?
What I have found wanting are your two arguments
- I can’t become a fetus, so I don’t care how we treat it
- A cell/egg/sperm has the same potential to become human as a fetus does.
I don’t think people have to agree on the abortion issue to agree that these two positions are:
For argument (1) : odious and illogical (I can’t turn into a 2-year old so who cares about them?)
For argument (2) : illogical (does flour and water have the same potential to become cake as a half-baked cake in the oven?)
Actually, as has been pointed out many times, these discussions don’t convince anyone, so it doens’t matter how many people found my arguments convicing. The point, for me, is to learn how “the other side” thinks, to see if I can at least say, well, I don’t agree with that because of personal preferences, but at least it is logically consistent.
Actually, it might be neat to have an amazon.com-like button, where, for each review they have:
Was this review helpful to you? [yes] [no]
and each review has something like
30 of 33 people found the following review helpful
So, the SDMB might have something analogous. Not important really, but if the capability was there, it would be cool.
If you reread the thread again you’d undoubtedly notice that I already stated my position as for free abortion and I don’t believe in sugar coating my world with pretty euphemisms. Pro-abortion is what I am since that is what the outcome of my decision entails.
Well at least you’re consistent. Even being pro-abortion I would never go that far. But then I can’t boast of being consistent. In fact I believe inconsistency is an important trait of every well-balanced human being.
How about you SentientMeat? Use the foetuses (I’m going to use the correct British/non-American anal retentive spelling since that’s what my anal retentive English teacher beat into me) for cosmetics? Are you cool about it?
I did not say it was a rule in toto: I seek to minimise the suffering of sentient beings, and recognise that 2 year-olds display many indicators associated with sentience, such as recognising themselves in the mirror. (Again I am not saying “killing beings who can’t recognise themselves in the mirror should be legal”. I am advocating certain criteria for sentience and recognising that one might temporarily fail those criteria, citing enlightened self-interest and collective suffering due solely to mortality-awareness as reasons for granting human rights past the arbitary date of 18 weeks, though even this date errs vastly on the side of caution in this regard).
Foetuses fail criteria such as an ability to recognise themselves, which is why I define them as non-sentient. What is your definition?
Where is?
I can consider such distinctions irrelevant for the matter at hand, in the same way that there is a difference between “fresh” glue and “set” glue
You do if you wish to propose a reasonable principle by which we can call one thing “chemicals” and the other “glue” given that others consider it far more important whether or not the glue is “set”.
I cannot conceive (no pun intended) of any other reason for arbitrarily choosing this hazy concept (sorry!) called “conception” other than some odd appeal to a ‘soul’ or the like. Please enlighten me.
Whenever sentience, as fulfilled by certain criteria such as self-recognition, begins. I arbitrarily err absurdly on the side of caution and say 18 weeks to the day of conception: such is the basis of any legal system.
And yet to appear to allow any treatment, no matter how sadistic, of animals since they are not human either. I offer that neither are human.
In fact, a foetus in an unhealthy older woman’s womb might have less potential to become human than an ova surrounded by sperm in a healthy young woman’s womb. This appeal to the exact probabilities of a non-human becoming a human is a far inferior principle, I feel.
[quote[Actually, as has been pointed out many times, these discussions don’t convince anyone[/quote]
I think you might be surprised!
Rune:
Absolutely. Use this surgical waste however one wishes, like unwanted cysts.
Do one-day-old babies have the ability to recognize themselves?
In general, what can a one-day-old baby do that the fetus can’t (in terms of sentience)?
I don’t provide a definition of sentience because I don’t use that as my criterion for when we can kill someone/something. My criterion for when we can’t kill someone is when they are a human being, with certain exceptions, such as for example, in self defense.
I don’t care how “sentient” someone is. That means I don’t have to worry about people in comas, people who have Alzheimers, one-day-old babies, etc.
Good for you. Although you’re wrong, and you know it. So, here’s another example that avoids the “set” and “fresh” glue non-issue you brought up.
Hydrogen and oxygen. When they mix under certain conditions they produce water. At some point they are “hydrogen & oxygen”, and after a while they are “water”
So, the analogy is
- egg & sperm == hydrogen & oxygen
- fetus == water
I don’t know exactly when the mixture of the two chemicals starts to behave like water and I don’t have to give you a step-by-step description of the chemical reaction that turns the mixture of the two chemicals into water, because we all know that it does.
I cannot conceive of any other reason for arbitrarily choosing this hazy concept called “sentience” other than some odd appeal to a ‘soul’ or the like. Please enlighten me.
So, why do you choose sentience as your criterion? In fact, so what if we kill something with sentience? In the grand scheme of the universe it doesn’t really matter, does it?
In fact, a half-baked pie in a crappy old oven may have less potential to become a pie than flour and water in a chef’s kitchen, but so what? No one can claim that the flour and water in a chef’s kitchen is “more pie” than the half-baked pie in the crappy old oven.
Polerius, I feel you are avoiding the question. I am happy to try and respond again to your questioning of my position, but you do not even appear to be stating clearly what your position is in order that an earnest debate might take place. Nevertheless, I’ll persevere as intellectually honestly as I can.
I repeat, yet again, that I am placing my arbitrary point far, far into the “safety” zone. I actually do believe that a one-day-old baby is just as non-sentient as something I might kill and eat for breakfast.
When is this? Contact? Membrane-penetration? Reduction division of the chromosomes? Separation of the foetal and placental cells? Does your arbitrary labelling of one thing as a human being and that thing an instant before as not human seem to you any less arbitrary as my criteria based on the suffering of a sentient being?
Your water example sheds no more light, I’m afraid. Yes, one can make these distinctions. My point was that other people could make other distinctions and consider yours irrelevant - we must explain our reasoning why the distinction we chose is useful or fundamental. I still do not understand why you think a fusion of sperm and egg is a human being.
Well, I will, but since I asked first I will expect a little more detail from you in return. I seek to minimise the suffering of sentient beings out of enlightened self interest, ie. so that I won’t be on the wrong end of such suffering in future. Non-sentient things, plants, cysts and so on, cannot suffer. I might temporarily become non-sentient, but would wish to be returned to full sentience.
This is rather getting off the point but, again, my attempt to minimise the suffering of sentient beings is partly enlightened self-interest: I might suffer in future if I don’t propose a reasonable framework of rights today.
Trying to cope with this vast multitude of metaphors is rather taxing, but again, if the crappy oven spat out the half-raw ingedients on a far more regular basis than the fully raw ingredients failed to become a pie in the chef’s hands then, yes, I think it would be reasonable to say that the chef’s raw ingredients had greater pie-potential than the almost universally destuctive oven.
By whatever metaphor you choose, you are trying to get me, and indeed the audience, to see this blastocyst as a human being and becoming frustrated when we simply don’t see it your way. Again I ask: At which precise point does your non-human become human?
I don’t know. I would guess within a couple of hours or days after the sperm enters the egg.
After the membrane has been penetrated and becomes impervious, I assume. What makes the thing only one hour after this point non-human? If I chose to argue that this was a “human being”, how would you rebut me?
Fertilization is a process that takes several hours (penetration of wall…mirgation…exchange of genetic material… yadda yadda).
The typical pro life view that I’m familiar with posits that the result of that process is a unique human life.
Since elective abortions aren’t even performed on zygotes (they’re performed at the embryo or fetal stage) , I find myself wondering why folks are trying to break this down into minutes or seconds (or picoseconds or…)?
But it might well not be. At this stage, the thing has not even divided into placental cells and foetal cells yet: it is “half placenta”, and one cannot even distinguish whether or not this thing is actually going to become not a “human” but a type of cyst called a teratoma. Not even “pro-life” proponents would argue the “rights” of life such as a placenta or a cyst. Again, we descend to the murky realms of probability. We don’t know whether this thing will ever be any more complex than the hair we routinely have cut off at the salon, and yet some argue that it should be ascribed all the human rights of a toddler.
I don’t even need to quibble about the status of 2 hour old zygote…because it has nothing to do with decisions involving elective abortions (which is what I thought this thread was about)
Perhaps you missed the second part of my post. Abortions are not performed on this “thing” (whatever you wish to call it) . They ARE performed at the embryo and fetal stage. So again, in the context of THIS thread (you know…about abortion?) what point are you trying to make?
That it is reasonable to contend that neither a foetus nor a blastocyst is a human being.
A small hijack:
I think that the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” are stupid.
They oversimplify the situation, are disingenuous, and are condescending to the other point of view.
Of course, pro-abortion and anti-abortion also oversimplify the situation and do not capture the whole issue, but at least they are more direct and honest.
I wish there were better terms to describe peoples’ positions on this matter.
For example:
“Jack is ok-with-abortion-up-to-first-trimester”
“Jane is anti-abortion-except-in-cases-of-rape-or-health-risks-to-the-mother”
“Joe is anti-abortion-in-any-case”
“Jill is ok-with-abortion-until-just-before-birth”
If someone could turn these into latin or greek and make them shorter, that would be a significant improvement over what we have now.
Or, we could have an even more explicit scheme that captures most of a person’s position on the issue:
-
beyond which week is it OK to have abortions? (0 to 42)
-
under what conditions (no condition justifies it (N), rape & health risk to mother (H), conditions are unnecessary (U))
-
what reasons led me to my position (religious ® or secular (S))
So, for example,
“Jack is 13/U/S”
“Jane is 42/H/S”
“Joe is 42/N/R”
“Jill is 0/U/S”
Anyway, not the best terminology, but there has got to be a better way out there.
/end hijack
Oops, I meant
“- *before * which week is it OK to have abortions? (0 to 42)”
Which would change the examples to
So, for example,
“Jack is 13/U/S”
“Jane is 0/H/S”
“Joe is 0/N/R”
“Jill is 42/U/S”
Well, if someone commits suicide, there is no way to punish them anyway, so the point is moot.
Regarding smoking and drinking, consider this hypothetical situation:
What if there was a drug that, if the woman took it while pregnant, the child was 100% guaranteed to be born retarded, with three arms, and heart problems that would cause it to die by age 7.
So, even though the woman takes the drug when the fetus is tiny and, according to some, non-human, the action has an effect on the actual baby when it is born.
If this were ever the case, do you think the government should allow women to use the drug as they wish, or should a law be passed stating that they cannot use this drug while pregnant, and should be punished if they take this drug?
If someone thinks that even in this case the government has no right to tell the woman what to do, then of course they would consider the smoking and drinking issue much less of a problem.
If someone thinks that in this case the government does have the right to tell the woman what to do, then the way they treat the smoking and drinking issue depends on how much damage, and how certain is the damage from smoking and drinking while pregnant.
I personally would want the government to outlaw the hypothetical drug for pregnant women, but don’t know enough about the damage done by smoking and drinking to have an opinion on this.
Just as the government doesn’t allow parents to hit their kids until they have brain damage, it should similarly not allow parents to engage in behavior that results in the birth of brain-damaged babies, if we want to be consistent.
Or…you can look at it this way: One of the kids that were born instead of aborted was given up for adoption, and as an adult became the person who discovered an ingenious method of rehabilitating criminals, saving billions of dollars on prisons.
You see unwanted pregnancies as our future criminals and I see them as future problem solvers…the real answer is that there will be a mix.
Dueling Strawmen.
I disagree but not strongly. As a religious person, I am very troubled at the prospect of ending a human life. The pertinent question is, at which point does the fetus become fully human and endowed with the same rights as the rest of us? If you believe in a soul, at which point does the soul enter the fetus? Nobody can answer these questions.
In the end, what keeps me from being a “right to lifer” is the lack of unanimity among religions regarding abortion. If all major religions condemned abortion, I might be inclined to switch positions as a matter of there being a clear moral consensus against it. But without that clear moral consensus, then I side with keeping my own religious beliefs out of public policy. I side more with the mother, for which we all agree has rights, than with the fetus, for whom such agreement is lacking.