If you follow the quote arrows upthread a bit, you will see this particular tangent is specifically about the bible. (you quoted me, I quoted HMS_Irruncible, who quoted me quoting the bible.)
~Max
Ah. I see your point.
Many religious and cultural traditions, such as the bris, only welcome newborns into humanity a couple of days after birth, no doubt because of the high number of babies who died right after birth.
Someplace, it might have been here, I read something about names being reused when the first owner of that name died early.
Nods
Hell, a two year old can give you her reasons for any of the above.
I am a parent. A two year old can make these types of choices but cannot decide whether to purchase premium or 87 octane gasoline, or a bucket of fried chicken.
I don’t think that any of us dispute that the maturity process is a continuum. I don’t know why it follows that before a person/entity/thing is mature enough to have free will that means it is okay to kill it. If anything, shouldn’t society protect that person/entity/thing more precisely because it has not reached a level of maturity to survive on its own? That’s why the viability point has always confused me. You can kill the person/entity/thing prior to viability, but that is exactly when it needs protection the most.
So I just don’t understand the entire line of thought. Most of us come from nothing, grow over 9 months plus 18 years to adulthood, have a good run, then decline in old age. Would you propose that at some time in old age before death we are no longer human? That seems to be the logical implication of this belief.
Most people retain volition until moments before their death. Even those who suffer severe dementia. This is not a high bar.
It’s no accident that so much of the debate centers around whether a fetus is a person or not. It’s a philosophical question that sidesteps the thorniest moral questions. If a fetus isn’t a person, we can kill it. Otherwise we can’t. People balk at legislating morality, but not so much philosophy.
We end up in this sort of odd Pascal’s wager type situation… explore all the horrible implications if a fetus is (or isn’t) a person.
I would like to sidestep that whole debate and say the only person whose opinion matters is the person who is pregnant. If she says it’s a person, then we treat it as a person with all the attendant rights and responsibilities. Otherwise… it’s not a person. Nobody should be forced to remain pregnant. If you tell me that means I’m tolerating the killing of a “person”, I’m comfortable with that as it applies to fetuses. Nobody else gets any say whatsoever, including the sperm donor. The highest principle is that nobody else should be able to compel another person into the slavery of forced reproduction.
Okay. But why is volition important? Could it be because it makes us not feel as bad about killing it?
Flesh this out for me if you would. Why don’t you give me the same choice about a dog or a toddler?
Because i consider that a minimal requirement to be considered a human being.
Heck, i feel bad pulling out a flourishing dandelion. So no, i don’t think it’s about “making us feel bad”. But i think we owe a much greater moral debt to human beings than to things that aren’t human beings.
So if a person, a living human, has a medical condition that makes him or her unable to have volition, then that is not a human being? I can shoot grandpa three minutes before he dies and should not be charged with murder?
I think this is terribly condescending to millions of fathers who contribute far more that ejaculate matter to their children.
If your grandpa will die without living as a parasite within you, and he no longer has any volition, then yes, you can expel him from your body. IMHO. Even though that will kill him.
This seems to be a common theme. This idea considers human beings to be parasites? You were that and so was I. It cannot be considered a bad thing to do what is required of everyone. I have heard the term “trespasser” as well. The law regarding parasites or trespassers assumes a state of nature where we don’t want that and try to discourage such lawlessness. This state was required for every one of us to be here. It cannot be considered an invasion, especially when one has consensual sex. No, I don’t want to go back to 1692, but pregnancy sometimes happens after sex. I think this (along with the human life question) is a big part of it. People want consequence free sex as a higher value than human/potential human life.
Because they’re not inside anybody.
The second does not follow from the first.
That doesn’t seem to follow. It seems to me that, if you for some reason want to do the ‘trespasser’ analogy, you’d say it’s to someone you can eject if you’re so inclined, or you could let them stay if you’re so inclined, and when it comes the latter we’re not trying to “discourage such”: we don’t say “we don’t want that”; we just sort of — shrug, while plenty of folks decide in favor letting them stay and plenty of folks, well, y’know, don’t.
That is certainly a factual difference. But why does that person/potential person’s right to live, when it has done nothing wrong, become subsumed by the mere statement that it is inside a body? We were all inside a body. I’m trying not to have this turn out the same as all other of these debates. Do you see my point? I get that being inside a woman’s body is different than a dog or my toddler, but why does it tip the balance, when it is not an unusual proposition but how all of us, women included, got here?
I don’t get why you think that’s relevant or interesting. Nobody is arguing for ending every pregnancy in abortion; if, going forward, every pregnant woman on the planet were allowed to make the decision for herself, then presumably (a) there’d still be a next generation, and another one after that, and so on; and (b) someone in each future generation could likewise say “and that’s how all of us, women included, got here.”
I know this. You are saying that the world won’t implode if we have legal abortion and that is true after 50 years of Roe. Why does that mean it is the better position? The world didn’t implode pre-Roe either.
I have no problem with you euthanizing your own dog. Knock yourself out, cook it and eat it if you want.
With regard to a toddler, I’d remind you that the reason I give the pregnant person absolute authority to terminate is because she’s facing the risk and burden of childbirth. Once birth has taken place, that is no longer a factor, so we can apply the normal rules of personhood. Plus the myriad other traits a toddler has acquired that distinguishes them from a fetus, not the least of which are social relationships.