Common sense and a concern for the rights of women.
Any dfeinition is going to have to be arbitrary. When do YOU think a person becomes a person?
No, I hope I didn’t imply that. It happens before that, but obviously it’s quite a nebulous line that I don’t think anyone can actually define. For example, take age of consent laws. A child doesn’t magically reach adulthood when they cross the line on their birthday from being 15 to 16 (or 17 to 18, etc. on up depending on where one is at), however we legally and ethically view them that way because it is imperative for us to place the arbitrary line somewhere. I feel this is a similar concept. But I do believe that it’s one of those things that, in each individual person’s opinion, must be decided for themselves and not legislated by the government or others. And only for themselves.
[QUOTE=Essured]
Bingo. To me, abortion is amoral. To you it’s immoral. As long as you don’t hold me at gunpoint to prevent me aborting (if I was to fall pregnant), you and I have no problems, just a difference of opinion.
[QUOTE]
Essured I have to admit I had to wind down this as I don’t have the time or energy to keep this up. I understand your POV, and is the most honest ‘prochoice’ position as I see it.
One question, if the fetus is human, but can not stay implanted due to the woman not wanting it there, do we have a right to kill the fetus, or just remove it from the uterus walls and allow it to die on it’s own?
OK Lets see what else is out there…
Good nothing for me.
Keep in mind that the pro-choice position of the fetus not being a ‘person’, while I disagree with it, they are being honest too, as they see it. I really don’t think anyone is trying to come up with arguments to allow them to kill a fetus (bar a few maniacs), same as I don’t think pro-lifers are trying to punish women for having sex (bar the usual maniacs).
You know, I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about it. My primary focus is the fact that nobody else should be able to use my body without my permission. I see no need to kill the fetus. In my point of view, the killing of the fetus is kind of incidental to the process, not the aim.
Let’s see, abortion by current technology results in the killing of the fetus. If a new technology was to arise that could remove the fetus from the womb (with no difference in impact on the woman) without killing it, that opens a whole new aspect to things. I’m thinking pod-babies, since I doubt enough women will donate their wombs to nurture the freshly evicted fetus. Some sort of synthetic womb. Kinda freaky! Maybe even people who want children will use this SynthaWomb, to avoid stretch marks, incontinence, uterine prolapse, etc, etc.? I guess the bio-parents will then face an astronomical bill to finance the synthetic gestation, unless they can immediately offer it up for adoption? Interesting scenario. I wonder if this technology will ever be created or if another type of birth control will be developed to make the ‘need’ for it obsolete?
Conception.
So an egg with some jizz on it is a “person” to you?
My definition is better.
My personal view:
- Life begins at conception.
- While still an unborn baby, the baby and mother are in a special situation different from our normal independant form of life. This stage requires balancing the needs of multiple parties.
- When the baby is born, new rules.
While in stage 2, we try to apply language that simply doesn’t apply to the situation.
Is it a person? Well, kind of but not really, until you get to a certain point…
Is it not a person? Well, it is, kind of, almost, but not quite yet…
[QUOTE=Essured]
Keep in mind that the pro-choice position of the fetus not being a ‘person’, while I disagree with it, they are being honest too, as they see it. I really don’t think anyone is trying to come up with arguments to allow them to kill a fetus (bar a few maniacs), same as I don’t think pro-lifers are trying to punish women for having sex (bar the usual maniacs).
Essured I had to think over your POV some more last night and it cleared up a particular position that I just could not understand from a pro life POV. The case of allowing abortion in the case of rape. Which to me is killing a innocent 3rd party for the crimes of another.
This depends on accepting the act of consensual sex (or forced sex if it’s the woman doing the forcing) as granting permission, while sex forced onto her means that the fetus does not have permission unless granted later.
I’m not saying you agree w/ what I stated, but before this I though allowing abortion for rape was just a political compromise w/ no founding in logic coming from a pro life side.
The point at which personhood is legally bestowed upon biological matter comprising a potential human is utterly arbitrary, be it the contents of a condom/tampon, a just-fertilised egg, an 18-week old foetus or a toddler, as I argued here.
Conception is no less arbitrary than some nominal 18-week threshold.
I agree with you on this point if you are referring to legally bestowing personhood.
But after reading your linked post I have the following question:
Would you be uncomfortable defining life as at least the point in which you have a working cell such that the DNA contains a combination of the mother’s and father’s?
(now I know we could get into all kinds of exceptions that may occur in the process, but I would like to avoid that for a second and just find out if you agree/disagree with the general notion)
Exactly, SentientMeat. Exactly.
Master Control, you’ve repeatedly asked Dio for his take on when life begins. I’m here to argue that he doesn’t know. As you don’t know. None of us do. You can pick some arbitrary point (like conception) and support it with reasons, and I can come back with some other arbitrary point and support it with reasons. SentientMeat can come up with another, and so on. We’ll never agree. Why? Because as someone said before (think it was Diogenes, but I’m not certain), it’s a continuum. There’s not a one point, bang it’s a baby type of thing. You want that bang, you even think you’ve defined it, and that’s great, if it makes you feel better. Please understand that I might have issues with it, however. Please understand that I might not be so easily capable of defining my bang.
‘Life’? The two separate cells of sperm and egg are ‘life’ (if bacteria are ‘life’). And the ‘working cell’ quickly splits to become two cells again.
And so we are faced with two different pairs of cells which contain portions of both sets of DNA. How can we call one pair ‘life’ and the other not?
It’s not an egg with some jizz on it, the egg and sperm join together and start a human life.
And how is your definition better? By your logic, if personhood should be decided on by the government, then there was nothing wrong with slavery, since the Dred Scott case determined that slaves weren’t people.
Anyway, most people agree that
- Human beings are people.
- You stop being concidered a human being/person when your life ends
Then it makes since to be concidered a human being when your life begins. And that doesn’t happen until an egg and sperm join.
Doesn’t this have something to do with the process by which two cells which previously could only look at each other and dream of producing life come together (bang! surely this is the bang we’re looking for - and far more attestable and present than any “big bang” by which the cosmos was created) and produce that new life?
[quote]
and dream of producing life
[/quote[Cells have no dreams.[/quote]
Cells are life. The sperm and egg are life, and the daughter nuclei affter meiosis are life. They are both potentially more complex life.
I argue that a separate sperm and egg are just as much ‘life’ as the two daughter nuclei after meiosis, and that your threshold is as arbitrary as randomly plucking a date of 18 weeks out of thin air.
Sperm and eggs are life, but not human life. That doesn’t happen until they join together.
A baby starts out as a embrio, which multiplies and multiplies into the complex creatures we are today. This starts when an egg and sperm join. An egg can’t multiply into a more complex creature, neither can a sperm. Human life starts after they join together. So there’s nothing arbitrary about that threshold.
An egg with some jizz on it is not a person.
“Human beings are people?” Redundant much?
A cell is not a person. Personhood begins at birth. Any line we draw will have to be arbitrary because there is no moment when a fetus becomes a person any more than there is a moment when a child becomes an adult.
It’s the sheerest fantasy to imagine that blastocytes, zygotes and embryos are people and it’s not worth the suffering that would be caused to real human beings if we were to actually enforce laws designed to humor those kinds of delusions.
Sorry that you feel that way.
Anyway, at 4 pages now some people are beginning to repeat themselves, and if I hang around much longer, so will I.
I’ve said what I’ve wanted to say in my previous posts, so, see you all in some different ones.
That should have read, see you all in some different threads.