S.D. Gov'r "inclined" to ban abortions, shoves head up ass

The BBQ Pit
581

You may see this as a nitpick, but I don’t think it is. Please note also that I’m not trying to start a semantic argument, but to clarify a point – more on that in a moment.

The word George Kaplin used was cogitate. While the dictionary definition means “to think deeply and/or carefully; ponder”, I’d hazard a guess that when used in this context, it’s used more like “possessing cognitive ability”, which is much more general and bears a lower standard than “intellectual ability”. Taken in this way, there’s a rather marked effect on your points:

Because the ability to solve differential equations is not a characteristic of cognition; granted, if one posits that cognition is necessary but not sufficient for abstract thought (e.g., mathematical problem solving), it may be taken as proof of cognitive ability – but lack of mathematical prowess does not indicate lack of cognition. One would hope to use a lowest common denominator as the defining bar for cognition, whatever it may be.

This is an interesting (and contentious) question (I hope I don’t misrepresent any of the following). On the one hand, you have people like Peter Singer who make that exact point, then conclude that, from an ethical point of view, animals deserve to be treated in the same way humans are. On the other hand, people like Daniel Dennett want to claim that there is something that separates humans from animals, which can be attributed to the cognitive architecture humans have. Perhaps you’d be interested in this piece by Aaron Sloman, which delves into ontological questions from an artificial intelligence standpoint (it’s not quite on target for this discussion, but interesting nonetheless).

To get back to a prior point as promised, your statement above was In terms of deciding personhood I place no importance whatsoever on “sentience” or whatever intellectual ability you care to name. I most likely missed it, but I’d like to ask for clarification – just what is your standard for deciding personhood?

Intellectual ability may not be constant but, using the distinction from above, one might say that’s the wrong measure. Rather, perhaps we should use cognitive capability instead. If so, then a person’s stance on the Terry Schiavo case would be a good indicator as to where to draw the line.

Arguing potentiality always seemed kind of silly to me, as it raises the “what about a single sperm” or “what about a thumb” questions. Relying on “encoded in genetic material” to buttress the argument is even sillier, as it just makes the absurdity of “a single skin cell is not only alive, but human” more pronounced. What must be part of the argument is actuality – which separates fetal development from the passed-out drunk.

Again, I don’t think “intellectual ability” is an appropriate term to inject into this argument, and I don’t think you’ll find anyone advocating for it.

You’re last sentence is right, so long as you’re using the term “intellectual ability”. Out of curiosity, what is your position on the Terry Schiavo case?

582

Yes, one of us does seem to have become a bit emotional.

You were both debating the merits of the hypothetical with regard to how removed (or not) it is from reality–i.e., whether or not it is a “legitimate” question. The fact remains that the hypothetical was asked and answered. So the debate, which can be quite an interesting one, does not hinge on the fact that the question wasn’t answered because, well, it was. That’s all I’m pointing out.

583

For me, all human beings are persons. But a human being without the capacity for any kind of thought in the future is one who has already died–e.g., an irreversibly brain dead patient. The absence of this capacity at the moment doesn’t detract from that being’s “personhood,” not if he’ll have it in the future. This is just axiomatic for me.

584

What occasion placed these 1,000 adults in cryogenic suspension? What are they destined for? What are their chances of survival?

This is, as it is framed, a grossly unfair question to ask, it’s borderline entrapment. You are trying to show absurdity in an argument, through an inherently absurd hypothetical.
The problem is that the situation is itself impossible, there is no way I can carry 1,000 people out, before the building burns down. Because the situation is impossible the hypothetical is meaningless.

(A) I don’t think I’m capable of carrying one dewar large enough to hold an adult, can you provide a cite, stating the size and weight of such a dewar?
(B) More seriously, given our current technological status WRT reviving people from cryogenic suspension (AFAIK no one has ever been revived from cryogenic suspension), I think the correct answer is the one thawed and conscious person (especially if they had a few adorable puppies. But not if this person had been torturing and killing Jewish puppies! I would not save puppy Hitler! I’m on the record.
Wait, are they cute puppies or one of those ugly breeds?).

But not because the thawed and conscious persons life is worth more than the lives in the dewars. Because from a simple triage view the thawed and conscious person has the only chance of a continued life outside the fire, and so you do whatever has the best chance of maintaining life. Rightly or wrongly many adults are destroyed through whole body cryogenic suspension and similar programs, and I think this colors how I view cryogenic suspension.

If there was a 100% guaranteed life sustaining cryogenic method (unlikely, given the fact the body itself doesn’t act like that) then my perception of cryogenic suspension, and it’s survivability, would change such, that taking the 1,000 frozen adults would seem like a much more reasonable position. If that was the case then I would take the 1,000 frozen adults, because you can save more life that way.

There are other situations where it is right to choose one life over many lives as well. For instance if we exchanged the 1,000 frozen adults with 1,000 people with hemorrhagic fever, Ebola or dengue fever, you should take the thawed and conscious person there as well because even if you pull the other 1,000 out of the fire they are going to die soon anyway. Life is better maintained by taking out the adult who supposedly will live a lot longer than the Ebola or dengue fever victims. Rescuing the person will not save them from the suffering of death, it only delays it. In fact rescuing the person may set them up for a more painful death later in life (probably from hemorrhagic fever), therefore increasing their suffering. In general I don’t think “who is going to suffer least” is a good way of deciding what to do in emergency situations.

Actually, come to think about it, I’m not going near anybody with a hemorrhagic fever. In fact, I’d recommend the military drop a fuel-air munition like a BLU-82 daisy cutter, or even a low-yield nuclear device, to sterilize the area. It would be better for all concerned.

The reality is though that the situation as presented is inherently unrealistic, and getting me to respond to it reveals little about my position. It is too hard for me to simply accept the premise of your silly hypothetical.

So really, the absurdity I find in this situation, is from the way you set it up, not from my actions in it. If the question was framed in a way that was actually possible, like in my man portable dewar hypothetical, then it might be interesting. But if the question involves inherent impossibilities then it is a non-starter.

You can’t test the internal consistency of someone’s logic by presenting them with impossible situations.

CMC fnord

585

And one of us seems to like ad hominem fallacies. Give you one guess as to which one of us it is.

The fact remains, that the question was ‘answered’ and then gainsaid. If one answers a question, and then turns around and says that any answer to the question is invalid because it’s a bad question, that they haven’t really answered anything.

If I answer a question, and then claim that the question is invalid and any answers given are just ‘entrapped’ answers which set me up for ‘mockery’, then I’m attempting to have my cake and eat it too.
As I have said, what, three, four times?

586

Clothahump, had you actually read my posts here, you’d have noticed that when I say “I respect the pro-life position”, I mean that there are people who genuinely consider life sacred. They are against all abortion, regardless of circumstances, except to save the life of the mother, whose life is also sacred. They are against war, and the death penalty, and poverty. Those people are worthy of being called “pro-life”. I may heartily disagree with them, and I’ll fight them, but I respect them.

Equating embryos in petrie dish to actual children is like equating a lottery ticket to a million dollars. If you’ve got a million dollars in one place, and a lottery ticket in another, and you can only save one, which one do you save?

587

Yeah. The really cool ones are hyped up on gamma radiation. :smiley:

588

I knew that I’d be fighting a losing battle by trying to keep the thread SOLELY on the SD ban as it relates to rape and incest. In my experience, when discussing an issue this “hot-buttony,” it just doesn’t happen.

Indeed there has. At first, I took your comment about my not wanting to address it as a personal attack, ie “Superdude doesn’t want to address this facet of the arguement because he’s not articulate enough to illustrate his points.”

Rereading your reply made me realize that that wasn’t what you were saying. Although it’d be a fair critique, which is one of the reasons I stay out of GD.

Anyway, I’m enjoying reading the rest of this thread, because it’s become my longest one to date.

I have to wonder, however, if this thread is still deserving of being in The Pit. Should it go to GD instead?

589

So, understand that I’m coming at this from what might be considered…let’s say…oblique perspective. In particular, I’m a researcher in artificial intelligence, so “intelligence”, “cognition”, etc. are my bread and butter. Perhaps this is a hijack, as I’m not overly interested in debating abortion per se; if you think so, please say so and I’ll not pursue it. But I think it’s relevant, mind you, as the question of personhood was raised.

When you say “all human beings are persons” you’re making, to give Stagger Lee her/his due, an ontological point that isn’t quite as simple as s/he wants it to be. What are the criteria for establishing when someone is a “human being”? And again, I ask this not to nitpick or start a semantic argument, but because “ontology” requires some classification scheme. Furthermore, note that one might dismiss the following questions out of hand as too removed from the topic to be of concern. Which is fine, I suppose, if one were making a pragmatic ethical argument. However, that’s decidedly not the argument put forward by Stagger Lee; in fact, answers to the following require exactly the same argument, except in the opposite way.

You’ve ruled out irreversibly brain-dead patients as humans. Yet, it appears that you want to give the status of personhood to an embryo with no brain structure. How about reading this article on embryological development (it’s quite interesting, I think). Is an embryo that suffers from incomplete closure of the anterior neuropore a human being? Even though the embryo will never achieve brain function? What’s the difference between that and a brain-dead patient?

Here’s another site, discussing the moral status of consicousness. I can’t say that I agree with the author, but at least he’s a PhD student at Berkeley and not a random crank, if that matters. (One might argue that by virtue of being a PhD student at Berkeley, he’s automatically a crank; I’ll not open that can o’ worms.) At any rate, I don’t think it’s worth reading the entire article, but consider the following (from the second section, severly butchered to save you from having to read it):

There’s some discussion of anencephalic babies; do they qualify as “human”? What about embryoes that will not develop certain parts of the brain (e.g., the corpus collusum)?

It seems to me that those last four qualities form a pretty good working definition for “human”. But there are obvious issues when applying them to embryoes (or coma patients, etc.), which have none of them. But again, I’d point out that we’re talking ontology – there must be some other quality on which you rely. What is it?

You’ve given an indication that it’s the potential of brain function (i.e., cognition). Assuming it will be feasible in the future, does that make the initial cell in a cloning process human? Furthermore, my guess is that you distinguish between other primates and humans. On what basis?

590

Stagger Lee

I hope you don’t mind, but it’s easier to tackle your points backwards, and leave your question to the end.

I’m afraid I’m still not 100% clear. Firstly, how do you define ‘alive’? Every cell in my body is ‘alive’. Furthermore, recent advances in the biology of cloning have endowed each of those cells with the ‘potential’ to eventually develop into a fully fledged, walking, talking human being.

Also, how do you define ‘human’? Is it by genetic identity? If so, would you count the cranially conjoined Schappell sisters as one person, or two? I’m not being in the least bit facetious. Like ordinary identical twins they possess the same DNA and, by dint of gestational misfortune, they are technically one spatiotemporal entity.

The point I’m trying to make (and probably belaboring), is that you can’t simply rule sentience out of any comprehensive definition of personhood. By your criteria, the Schappell sisters are one person. Needless to say, they’d disagree vehemently with this assessment. Consequently, I think your definition isn’t precise enough to be workable.

As Digital Stimulus has pointed out, I in no way meant to imply that I considered intellectual ability a criteria for personhood. This is totally my fault as I misused the word ‘cogitation’. Apparently, that word refers to higher level thought processes (such as the ability to do differential equations) rather than, as I believed, the sort of base-level sentience associated with newborn infants.

I meant to argue this: Sentience, of the most primitive and elementary sort, is the sole defining characteristic capable of imbuing genetic entities with any sort of intrinsic worth.

Needless to say, past attempts to position human beings on some sort of ‘continuum of value’ according to intellectual ability were inhumane to say the least.

Arguments stemming from the potential of anything tend to be contingent for their efficacy on the prevailing technologies of the day. As such, I always avoid using them. As I said earlier, the biology of cloning is progressing in leaps and bounds. It seems that technology capable of reconstituting a human being from a scrap of their DNA is something of an inevitability.

By the measure of potential, the day could soon come when the act of scratching one’s nose culls innumerable potential humans.

The intellectual ability I meant to specify when nominating it as a criteria for demarcating between persons and embryonic non-persons was of such a rudimentary level that the only way it could dip was if the person died. So primitive is this level of sentience that it need consist of no more than the occasional electrical fluctuation in the brain. An embryo could not be said to possess this level of sentience, being bereft of the neurological apparatus necessary to sustain it. A coma patient, by contrast, would most likely exhibit such activity. A blind drunk certainly would (and then some).

Good question. I’m with Peter Singer on this. There is no logical reason to treat animals worse than humans. I think that pro-choicers like myself, who argue for the superiority of newborns over embryo’s due to the sentience of the former, but who also eat meat, are acting inconsistently. While the word ‘personhood’ can obviously only be applied to people (however one defines them), I wouldn’t say a cow or a pig was intrinsically less valuable than a human being.

It is precisely because there is no defined standard for what level of intellectual ability makes someone a person that the bar must be set as low as possible. As I said, evidence of any intellectual ability is enough to satisfy me.

This is a very difficult question to answer because no-one really understands the inner workings of the brain well enough to really quantify intellect. I mean, who’s smarter, an average Joe like me who can read, write, drive a car, play football, read a map, and wire a plug, or an idiot savant who couldn’t even lace his shoes but could recreate the interior of St Peter’s Basilica down to the most exquisitely intricate detail from memory alone?

While I would undoubtedly rescue a ‘normal’ child over five acephalic children on life support, I don’t know if I could go into much more detail than that. For instance, if I had to choose between rescuing one child prodigy or several children with Down’s syndrome, I would choose the Down’s syndrome kids.

To be honest, I think I’m going to have to do a bit more thinking about this before I can really give you a proper answer.

591

Since George Kaplin’s main issue was with suffering, I took this to mean more than just a simple cognitive ability, since the amount one can suffer is related to intelligence of a being. The more you percieve about your surroundings the more you can be distressed by it. But whatever, you may be right. We should let George speak for himself as to what he means.

But ultimately cognitive abiltiy is just one in a number of arbitrary properties that people use to define “personhood”. There is nothing really essential or unique in cognition. We may just as well put the standard of personhood at being able to solve differential equations.

And as far as I can tell you didn’t answer the objection, that many animals have “cognitive ability” and are not granted personhood. While obviously I disagree with the premises of Peter Singer’s argument, I think his conclusions are spot on. If we are going to define personhood functionally then we should be consistent about how we grant it. So why should a newborn have rights that a higher intellectually functioning animal does not?

My standard for personhood, as I stated at the end of my last post, is human and alive.

But the problem is that you are defining “cognitive capability” in a very narrow way. A normal embryoe has the ability to develop cognition, if it is not interfered with in it’s growth. While they may not have a concrete brain structure that you can point to, the natural growth of the embryoe includes development of the brain structure. There is no separate process by which they gain brain structure. The ability to develop brain structure is gained at fertilisation, and then is progressively realised throughout the life of the embryoe as it grows into a child and then finally an adult.

In that sense embryoes are clearly different from skin cells or thumbs. Neither of these have the natural ability to develop cognition. Naturally they will never be anything other than a skin cell or a thumb. Embryoes are different in that they represent the first stages of the natural development of a new person. The whole arguement of “an embryoe is just like a skin cell because they are both cells” reminds me of the story of the two Greek philosophers (I can’t remember which ones). One declared that man was a “hairless biped”. So the other one to mock the first got a chicken, plucked it, and then ran it down the street proclaiming “make way for so and so’s man!”. The point is that not all cells are the same. And embryoes clearly have different function and ability to many other cells in the body.

But you can’t hide from the fact that many people in history (and even some still today) use the intellectual ability of others as a reason for detracting from their humanity. One of the really scary things about the abortion debate is the willingness of many to abort foetuses just because they have some form of disability, such as Down’s syndrome. The common assumption is that such a child, because of their disabiltiy, is better off dead than actually living. Now if you actually have Down’s syndrome this is quite a scary proposition because it logically means that if someone kills you they are actually doing you a favour. In arguing that a whole class of people are better off dead you are effectively arguing for the non-humanity of that class of people.

This is one of the reasons that I am very wary of any argument to try and define “human” functionally. It normally doesn’t take long before someone wants to exclude people from the definition because they don’t meet the criteria.

[/QUOTE]

Not being American and therefore not being exposed to a lot of the hype I don’t really have a string opinion one way or the other. AFAICT the crux of the case was whether she was genuinely brain dead or not. On that I don’t have enough facts to comment. What I would say is that because of our medical technology we can keep people “alive” who are for all intents and purposes dead. There is a point in which we have to accept that people have passed away. So I don’t think that the actions of her doctors are in principle always wrong, in that there are some people that you just have to let go. The point I am not sure of is whether Terry Schiavo actually crossed that line or not. If she had then the doctors did the right thing. If not, then they did the wrong thing.

592

I really don’t care enough about this to continue. Consider yourself the winner of this critical point. Continue to rant. Begin frothing now.

593

A distinct human entity with the capacity for future thought, I believe. So in other words, we needn’t discuss hair follicles or tumors or any of the usual suggestions that clutter up these arguments.

Well, I think I said they were persons who had already died. But I grant this in the sense I think you mean it.

I don’t know anything about this condition. It’s possible I’d say there’s little difference. I think these fetuses are all human. And I believe all human beings have the right to live. Humans who have lost the potential to think again–e.g., brain dead–should be permitted to die naturally. The dying process has already begun, in my estimation. But they are still human beings.

Don’t know enough about cloning. Is the initial cell already a distinct entity? A cell that can be cloned–or an egg or a sperm cell–are not yet human beings.

Not sure what you’re asking. I believe we should presume a right to live for higher order animals like primates, if that’s what you’re asking.

594

Except that “pro-life” is a politically motivated lie. They don’t care about executions or starving children or wars, just abortion. Pro-birth or anti-choice are more honest.

So organ donations should be outlawed, and transplant doctors and recipients imprisoned or executed ?

No, they are better off never having existed; not the same thing at all.

595

You know, sports fans, there’s a way to make posters like this wither up and die.

596

:dubious: Like what ? Shoot me ?

597

No, we may just as well not put the standard there. At least, not if you’re expecting anyone to take you seriously. Cognitive ability is most decidedly not an arbitrary property – most people who actually put some thought into it will acknowledge that. (Oh, just to be clear – that wasn’t directed at you, implying that you’ve not thought about it; just that I can imagine someone making the same claim as you because they hadn’t thought it through.)

I was not attempting to answer any objection. I was merely attempting to get you to clarify your position – after all, you’re the one making the ontological argument.

I think I mistook a quote of your post by Stratocaster to be his words. My apologies to both of you. At any rate, I’ll refer you to that post (#589) and the questions therein.

Am I defining “cognitive capability” in a narrow way? I can’t be, in actuality, as I did not give a definition. Rather, I was just making a suggestion of a term to replace “intellectual ability”.

So, it seems that you want to define “human” as: something that has the ability to develop “cognition” if no interference takes place. Is that correct?

But, in this instance, I don’t care. You’re making an ontological argument. I’m simply trying to clarify what that is. If you want to have an ethical debate, I’m not really up for it. If you want to talk history, you have my total agreement.

As I said earlier, use the lowest possible standard you can. Again, you’re the one claiming an ontology that clearly distinguishes “human” from “not human”. What are the qualities of that class?

Terry Schiavo is just a convenient case that can be used to save lots of tedious explanation. Assume a PVS patient (from here on out, denoted as “PVSp”) that will never recover. Now, to re-quote you:

Based on that, you either take issue with the PVSp being considered alive or that they are human. Which one? It seems as though you choose the former, as you say that PVSp is “for all intents and purposes dead”. Is that right?

598

You evidently never cared enough about it to start, let alone continue.

Again, you sure do love deliberately mischaracterizing someone who you’re too lazy to actually discuss an issue with. I have pointed out, many times, that someone who anwers a question and then claims that the very question is invalid and a form of trap is talking about of both sides of their mouth. You haven’t had the energy or the honesty to actually touch on this point, and instead have kept up this purile banter. Good show.

Ah, so I’m belaboring, I’m huffing and puffing, I’m railing, and I’m about to start “frothing”.

You, however, are a coward and a jerk who refuses to actually discuss a single point and have instead attempted to paint me as ‘emotional’ because you didn’t have a single factual counter to my points.

Pathetic.

599

See, you get it. Now if only Der Trihs could get it.

It is arbitrary in that it is one in a long list of possible functional characteristics that have been positied as defining personhood. For it to be non-arbitrary you have to provide some reasoning as to why this (and only this if you want to make it the only property) is an essential property of personhood. Why is something that has some cognitive ability a person while something that does not is not? Without that fundamental reason as to why we should pick this property over any other it remains arbitrary.
And such an argument IMHO is almost impossible to make as the cognitive ability of humans (in the sense of ability to think) is rather unremarkable in the world. Many different animals exhibit cognition. If you want to establish cognition as a non-arbitrary definition of personhood, then you have to grapple with the fact that humans are not the only ones that have this property. If cognition is such an obvious definition of personhood, where are the legions of people protesting at abattoirs to stop the slaughter of litterally billions of “persons”. A few PETA members maybe, but I think that cognition is not as obvious as a definition of personhood as you make it out to be.

But you were implying that embryoes fo not have cognitive capability. I was pointing out that if that was one of the features of your definition (whatever that is) then it is IMHO far too narrow.

In some ways yes, but actually no.

I define “human” to be any independant entity that derives from another human entity. Therefore children are “human” by virtue of being created by human parents. Pigs, OTOH are not human as they did not have human parents. Also parts of bodies (livers, thumbs, skin cells, ect) are not “human” in this sense because they are not independant.

Where cognition comes in is that because of the way humans are created alive humans will develop cognitive abilities. However their humanity is not predicated on this cognition. So while all alive humans will have some cognitive ability, it is not the defining characteristic of their humanity.

But isn’t this whole debate in of itself an ethical debate

As you could probably guess from my previous definition of “human”, the issue with PVSp is whether or not they are alive. To my mind a person needs to be both “human” and “alive”. Terry Schiavo, ect are obviously human via my previous definition. What I would question is whether or not she is actually alive. I am with Stratocaster in that there is a point at which we have to recognise that people will not get better, and that the best thing for them is to let them die (although this doesn’t include actively killing them). I don’t know enough about the Schiavo case to determine whether or not letting her die was the right thing.

But the main point is that she was human, but may or may not have been alive, and therefore may or may not have been a person.

The other point is that this has little to do with abortion on demand. There I think it is clear that the foetus is alive, in that absent any direct action to kill it, the embryoe/foetus continues to grow. What seems to be at issue here is whether the embryoe is actually human.

600

Well, my mother loves me. By the way, I retract my prior statement. No frothing here.