beagledave:
No. I’m explaining what “human being” means in the sentence “The immediate product of fertilization is just a ‘potential’ or a ‘possible’ human being—not a real existing human being.”
If it meant “an organism with 46 chromosomes and human DNA” then there would be no question. No one disagrees that an embryo has those characteristics.
Then it’s a straw man, at best. No one disagrees that an embryo is alive and human.
Hmmmm…no one you say?
from http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=48750&pagenumber=2
from the same thread by
Cantrip "The fetus is potential life. The mother is actual life. "
and also… "Should a fetus at any stage of development have the “right to life”? Well, for example, the medical profession defines “living” to mean “having a heartbeat”. By that definition, a 6-week old fetus is “living”. (I’m too tired to look up a cite, but any obstetrics textbook should have something along these lines.) Should abortions before 6 weeks be allowed? "
and later "It seems to me that a heartbeat is the minimum (and the earliest, occurring apparently at about 4 weeks rather than 6 as I first stated) requirement for a metabolism and thus for an entity to be considered “living”.
"
In the context of a single-celled organism, an embryo is as “alive” as a bacteria. Obviously when compared to a dog or a person, it isn’t very lively.
I found the laughing fetus cite in From Here To Maternity 6th ed. Apparently, the “laugh” refers to mouth-open reflex breathing, which can occur as early as the 12th week, and is neither a true laugh or an indicator of cognition.
So, this particular piece of misinformation is my responsibility and Wring justifiably called me on it (bastard.) 
My Mayo Clinic Complete Book of Pregnancy & Baby’s First Year 1994, confirms a fully formed brain at 12 weeks.
I think the main difference that Gaudere and I are arguing is not so much the formation of structure (which is there at 12 weeks according to quite a few sources,) but the formation of active connections in the forebrain which does not occur until the 5th or 6th month.
Unfortunately for both Gaudere and I, and our respective arguments, thisrelatively unimpeachable link suggests that there is no true cognitive activity in the brain until after birth, or maybe 6 weeks or so before birth at best. Instead, a very high and complex, yet still precognitive level of activity is produced by the brainstem.
So, it appears that if we wish to accept Gaudere’s assertion that personhood does not occur until the first words have been written on the “cognitive page,” then personhood cannot be logically bestowed upon a fetus until six weeks before birth at earliest.
Fortunately for my arguments, I’ve expressed deep reservations about this line of reasoning for personhood since the onset of the debate.
**
Ya know Scylla I like debating with you - you don’t get (generally) rude, snippy, smug, and you admit when something you thought was true turns out the other way. Classy. now, if you were only correct, too…
Anyhow. See, I still like my position better - it allows Gaudere and you both the luxery of your own personal convictions.
Aww shucks. T’ain’t no big thing. I’ve had lots of practice, being wrong. I’d better be good at it.
Well, well, well. That’s new information to me. I must now consider changing my mind about the date acceptable for non-medically-necessary abortion to six weeks before birth. However, I will have to see more than just one article before I accept as fact the belief that fetuses cannot be conscious prior to six weeks before birth; I’ve seen quite a few that at least concede the possibility is there. My previous 5-6 month line was based on the fact that prior to 5 months the brain structures required for consiousness were totally non-existent, therefore there was no possibility for consciousness so far as we can tell. Once the structures are in place for consciousness, there is at least the possibilty that the fetus may be conscious, and I find the fact that EKG readings the same as are found in adult humans have been recorded in post-six-month fetuses to be a telling piece of evidence that the fetus may be conscious at that point. My judgment on when abortion is acceptable, based on my belief that consciousness==personhood, was actually quite conservative; I allowed abortion for any reason so long as is was utterly impossible that the fetus was conscious, and limited to medically necessary abortions once there was even a chance that the fetus was conscious. I rather like the line drawn there; I feel quite safe in allowing abortion in cases where there is no reasonable chance that the fetus can be conscious. Once the possibility is there, I am considerably more hesistant. I would have to see solid evidence that it is practically impossible for a seven-month fetus to be conscious before I would consider condoning abortion at that point.
I am still curious as to your reliance on physical measures rather than mental in determining when aborting a fetus is acceptable, Scylla, when physical development clearly does not seem to be a requirement as to your judgement as to whether a human is a person.
Rolleyes? OK.
Just pointing out inconsistencies in that line of thought. Just find it interesting where you choose to draw the line.
That is, if you feel the toddler shouldn’t be punished, then neither should the fetus. There should also be no civil suits involved? No compensatory awards?
If that is the case then why on earth would there be anything wrong with abortion?
Hmmm last time I checked… the people having abortions and performing abortions were older than toddlers and fetus’…old enough to make informed decisions…know the difference between right and wrong…and all that…
The :rolleyes: is because you have yet (still) to come up with a societal punishment for the toddler (suggesting that it’s not accountable for it’s actions) …yet challenge my thinking that a fetus is not accountable for it’s actions.
Do YOU feel that the toddler should be criminally punished (yes or no)?
Well, I fear I’m about to get dragged to the Pit, as I know this will be an extraordinarily unpopular answer. Still, here goes:
I’ve given this question a lot of thought over the years. The romantic in me wants to say “at the moment of conception.” However, this just doesn’t make any sense to me from either a physiological or a philosophical standpoint.
From conception to birth, the fetus is not a person or even a “being”. It’s merely an “entity”. It has some of the systems necessary for human being-age, and of course the number of those systems present grows throughout development. However, it is not a person until birth, when its core bodily systems are functioning without being connected to / hosted by the mother.
Yes, in the womb the heart is beating, there’s a type of respiration, all the nutrient and waste processing is going on, etc. But until it’s out, it’s not a person, it’s a humanoid parasitic entity with the * potential * to become a person.
As such, a fetus is never a human being with independent rights. It is the property of the mother.
At the moment of birth, when the fetus becomes a baby, it possesses all the rights of any other human.
Scylla said:
This site is run by Feminists for Life of America. If you go to other areas of that site, you’ll also find such statements as
and
The “After an Abortion” page also features this religious picture. It is clearly a site meant to persuade viewers to a certain belief. Biased sources require greater scrutiny.
Here’s a site I found interesting: http://www.visembryo.com/baby/index.html . It appears to be a more neutral, educationally-oriented source. It has been “sponsored by The National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development,” according to the site Agreement.
FWIW, it states that at 26 weeks post-fertilization, the fetus’s brainwaves resemble those of a full-term baby.
I do not know what the laws are surrounding accidental death. Whatever they are would apply here, though possibly to a lesser degree due to the young age of the kid. As I said, when a child is born it is a person. Being a person comes with rights and responsibilities, even if you are five years old. This is why parents, when the child has done something wrong, resort to light/medium/heavy spankings, stern talks, etc etc. To punish what was done wrong. I see nothing wrong with this.
The point of abortions comes to either a medical question, a philosophical question, or a combination of the two. Philosophically, IMO, the fetus has no status. Much like a seed of a tree has no status as a tree.
The medical aspect has been covered pretty well in this thread.
I have no problem with abortion. :shrug:
uh huh…
Main Entry: en·ti·ty
Pronunciation: 'en-t&-tE, 'e-n&-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Etymology: Medieval Latin entitas, from Latin ent-, ens existing thing, from coined present participle of esse to be – more at IS
Date: 1596
1 a : BEING, EXISTENCE; especially : independent, separate, or self-contained existence b : the existence of a thing as contrasted with its attributes
2 : something that has separate and distinct existence and objective or conceptual reality
Stay with me here…I said a TWO year old toddler…again, can you be specific on the responsibilities of the toddler who causes the others death…also I said criminal or societal justice…since that was your original circumstance with the in utero fetus’ (bringing them up on charges…remember?)
You talk about parental spanking…I noticed that you skipped the part about criminal justice for the 2 year old toddler(the same standard that YOU initially raised in regards to the fetus) …again.
I’ve asked at least twice for you to answer the question raised in response to your ludicrous suggestion of criminal charges against a fetus. Twice you have punted. That, in and of itself, is answer enough for me I think…
ABCD
Let me spell it out here…
Once a child is born it has certain responsibilities if it is to have any rights. As such, there would need to be some punative action, though lightened due to the extreme lack of age.
Sorry, rights in a legal sense don’t come free IMO. Call me crazy.
Gaudere:
It’s not so much that I prefer physical criteria, it’s that mental criteria is difficult to define.
Though I see no flaw in your thinking, all the gaps in it are not filled in.
The EKG evidence you cite is compelling yet not definitive.
THe EKG data may be similar, or the same between a 7 month old fetus, a newborn, and a two year old but that does not prove that we aren’t anthropomorphizing the data by assuming it represents a conscience thought. As my cite mentions a high degree of activity does not necessary correlate to a high degree of function.
The cite also suggest that the brainstem carries functions that are later taken over by the higher portions of the brain when it becomes capable.
Without a Very clear picture as to what constitutes a minimal yet acceptable human conscious thought, we cannot objectively determine at what period of develop interaction between an immature brainstem and a developing cortex may generate one.
If as I assume, it’s not a simple light switch turning on, but a more gradual process where do we draw the line? At the first dull glimmer? At “I think therefore I am?” To borrow your metaphor, does thought begin when the pen is picked up? When it is applied to paper? At the first mark? The first word? The first complete sentence?
Arguing the beginnings of conscioussness has kept philosophers busy for millenia. Our task is even more daunting as we’ve applied the additional context of fetal development over that already scorchingly difficult conundrum.
The brainstem is essentially a reptile brain. Alligators get along fine with just that, and nothing more. Exactly how much more human gray matter do we have to add to a human brainstem to generate a human thought?
Once again, it’s tough to define a human thought.
Consider this. I want to live forever. I clone Brad Pitt (so I’ll be handsome) As FetalBrad is developing I clamp a thought suppression device onto his head so that the clone can never have a single thought. I then grow Brad to maturity, cut out his brain (which is fully formed, and complete, yet totally thoughtless (not unlike the real Brad Pitt,) I then have my brain inserted, and go about life looking cool. I toss Clonebrad’s brain to the dog as a snack of course.
By your defintion I haven’t murdered.
I’m pretty sure that I haven’t killed a “person,” but I think I’ve done something pretty horrible nonetheless. I’ve deprived a fully capable and complete human life of it’s personhood (even if it is just Brad Pitt.)
At 3 months, a fetus is basically a fully formed yet underdeveloped person. The brain structure is there, the connections are beginning. It may not be until the 6th month that the first recognizable human thought doesn’t occur, but that doesn’t prove that it’s somehow not there, glimmering like the tiniest spark about to turn into a flame.
I think A.I. scientists are still arguing about how many connections are necessary to achieve conscioussness. How can you prove that it’s not the brainstem +1, and that you just need three more months before you can recognize it, or it’s strong enough to be picked up on an EKG?
At 3 months you are recognizably human, you are breathing, sucking a thumb, crying, laughing (yeah, I know. What the hell?) Your brain is functioning to an arguable degree. What’s glimmering in it?
We really can’t know.
Is it a reptile brain in a human body? Or is it a little more. Where does the process of conscioussness and human thought begin?
If it’s not truly conscioussness yet, is the reptile brain +1 connection beginning the human experience as a human?
These are a lot of tough, and possibly unanswerable questions. The physiological aspects are easier to grasp. You yourself are doing the same thing. Your criteria isn’t the first glimmering of human thought, the pen touching the paper, you’re looking for the first complete sentence.
I’m trying to write a book, and I think your metaphor is wrong. The book does not begin when the first words touch paper. By the time you get to that point, the hardest part of writing a book has already been completed. Though that part can’t be seen it’s nonetheless there. I call it the resolve. Resolve is a deep instinct, rooted I’d say in the reptile brain, and given life and direction by it’s interraction with intellect.
Any fetus has the instinct and resolve to live. When does a human fetus posess human resolve?
Those first words are truly written before the pen touches paper, you see.
Hmmm. I read this over, and I think I may have gotten out there a little bit. Let me know if it helps though.
Do tell me, what responsibilities does a 3 month old have? I can’t think of a single one… so by ARL logic, it has no rights, yes? Help me out with that. Do you condone limited infanticide?
While you’re at it, could you please explain why something needs responsibilities before it earns rights? My roommate’s cat has no responsibilites, so should I be able to wring its neck when it jumps on my keyboard?
Quix
entity: 1 b) the essence of something apart from its accidental properties.
Still, it was perhaps not the best word I could have used. “Object” or “structure” would have been more precise and in line with my argument.
Well, at the very least, why focus on development of the body rather than the brain alone? I think we agree that a conscious human brain with bodily functionality less than that of a three-month fetus would still be a person, so it’s pretty clear you don’t really care about development of the body compared to the brain. Why not tie your definition solely to the brains’ physical development rather than the body’s?
When judging whether a possibly-conscious person should have a right to continue to live, I tend to err on the conservative side; when it is at least possible that the fetus is conscious, I only allow abortion for health risks to the mother. We cannot prove that the fetus can think, but since the necessary brain structure are wholly in place and the EKG readings are the same as are indicative of thought in adults, I think it prudent to assume the possibility of consciousness and take that into account. I do accept abortion for health reasons because of the uncertainty as to whether the fetus in conscious, since I think the certainly-conscious mother’s rights overide a possibly-conscious fetus’ rights.
Well, a complex cerbral cortex at the very least, according to current scientific knowledge.
I am very particular with my defintion of human: a human is something with human DNA. Anything that does not have human DNA may be a person, but it is not a human.
Well, since the brain is human, I would call it a human brain in a dog’s body. Simple as that. There are feral children that have been raised by animals, and I would still call them human.
The brain was not removed from the body in The Ship Who Sang; they had human bodies, albeit stunted and deformed and their senses were hooked up to sensors in the ship.
Well, I find it creepy, but not evil. The “person” never existed. I don’t think it’s any worse than growing a human body without a brain for spare parts. I don’t like you preventing Brad Pitt’s potential consciousness from being realized any more than I like the fetus’ potential consciousness from being realized, but no “person” was killed in either case, IMHO.
Because by all the scientific evidence, a complex cerebral cortex is absolutely necessary for thought, and fetal EKG readings are detectable and considered indicative of certain brain activities. Anencephelitic infants do have a brainstem, and are capable of reflex actions, but it is accepted that they will never be truly conscious; legally, they do not have the rights of a person. I do not think we need to be paralyzed by indecision; all the scientific evidence we have shows that no consciousness is possible without a complex cerebral cortex. At the very least, it seems a more sensible place to draw the line to me than physical characteristics.
I’ve resolved to write any number of things. Yet those things I resolved to write still do not exist. Resolve is as necessary to a book as paper is; you need (paper/resolve) to have a book, but the (paper/resolve) itself is not sufficient for a book to exist. If all one has is resolve, there is no book. You need something written down.
Only metaphorically, and only if one is capable of conscious thought. Reptile-brain “resolve” alone certainly can’t write anything; you need a conscious brain to even think of words, and even then the book still doesn’t exist until you write something.
Who says anyone has independent rights?
—foolsguinea, who wanted to make the 666th post.