MadMordigan

Again, such cases are quite rare unless (like the SC) you define “health” so expansively as to include the “harm” to the woman’s mental “health” resulting from not being allowed to have an abortion.

Or, unless one defines a 'threat to health' as anything that in the opinion of medical authoritis requires hospitalization,

tronvillain

Like the vegetarian debate, this argument is ultimately impossible to resolve, in since people simply differ on fundamental values. I simply do not value a fetus as much as I value a woman's ability to choose. Now, we can try to examine why this is, but it doesn't change the fact that I don't.

Viti

Hi Tristan!

I think this is an excellent topic for discussion, but probably needs its own thread. It would probaly fit well in Political Discussions if you wish to examine it from a legal point of view, or right here in Moral Foundations and Principals if the morality is the focus.

Welcome to the boards!

Jamie_L

Underage abortion: a secondary issue. First one has to establish the abortion issue on its own. If there is no abortion, the underage issue is moot.

bd-from-kg:
An analogy for physical structures - comparing a comatose person and an embryo with no nervous system:

You say a comatose person does not have physical structures capable of producing mental events. I say he/she does.

I have a car completely intact. It has no gasoline in the tank. Does this car have structures capable of accelerating the vehicle? One could say "no. It has not gas. Thus, it's structures are not capable of accelerating." Or, one could say "of course. Just fill up the tank and it will go."

Now, I have car with it's engine in pieces in the trunk. Does this car have structures capable of accelerating the vehicle? Well, I suppose you could argue that if you put the engine together, it can drive. But generally speaking, one would probably say "no."

Now, are both cars equivalent? Is the difference between the two so ambiguous that no clear line can be drawn?

This is how I feel about an early-stage embrio and a comatose person. There are clear, distinct differences, and I feel the line can be drawn between the two clearly and easily.

You ask why I am seemingly obsessed with physical structures? Well, like most people in the debate, I think I am trying to determine definitions that explain the moral sense and values that I already have. I do not feel morally obligated to protect the life of a zygote in a test tube. I feel the same lack of obligation to a similar zygote or early embrio in a mother's womb. I do feel obligations to people in coma's and people in drunken stupors. Why? Because I don't consider the former persons, but I do consider the latter to be persons. And it is the nature of their physical structure that makes me feel that way, as best I can tell.

So, now I'm delving into whether or not there is a rational set of definitions that clearly defines this moral sense, and is intellectually defensible. So far, I believe there is. I don't think this process is significantly different from yours, it has just reached a different conclusions, probably due to a different starting point.

Jamie

bd-from-kg

Jamie_L:

It appears that since posting this you've decided to switch to the "Personhood" thread, so I'm posting a reply to it there.

shamon

If the fetus can’t survive outside the womb then it’s a part of the woman’s body and therefore under her control. This is basically during the first two trimesters. After the 3rd trimester that baby can survive outside of the womb. It is therefore autonomous, or potentially so and cannot be aborted.

In summary,

1st and 2nd trimester – fetus cannot survive outside of womb so is considered a part of the woman’s body; abortion allowed

3rd trimester - fetus can survive outside of womb so is not considered a part of the woman’s body; abortion not allowed

Erroneous?

Scrutinizer

I'll just quickly stick my nose in, and perhaps come back to give some sort of insight into the abortion debate if I have the time/inclination. But firstly, Danya, in your discussion with bd-from-kg, you wrote this regarding Peter Singer:

That is quite simply untrue, and I suggest you read his Practical Ethics to understand his position a little more clearly.

Peter Singer is a very notably liberal philosopher when it comes to the abortion debate. His position is that it is not directly wrong to kill either a foetus or an infant. Yes, Singer argues that foetuses and infants should be thought of in largely similar ways since they both possess the same morally significant qualities. But he does not argue that it is directly wrong to kill either.

Take this excerpt from Practical Ethics as an example:

So Dr. Singer's position is quite clearly liberal with regards to both abortion and infanticide.

The crucial question in much of abortion debates is the question of When does human life begin? It is usually assumed that an answer to when human life begins will solve the problem of whether it is right or wrong to perform an abortion, etc.

Let me put aside for the moment the objection of Judith Jarvis Thomson that even if a foetus is a person it still doesn't have a right to life that outweighs the mother's right to decide what occurs in her body. Let me also put aside the question of whether species membership is morally significant, rather than applying a principle of autonomy or personhood that I think a foetus clearly doesn't have.

I'll just concentrate on one aspect of this debate, and that is the question of when human life begins. I think the most logical treatment of this subject comes from John Burgess in his "A Matter of Life and Death", May 2000. Burgess argues that 'unless there are very good reasons for not so doing, we should expect symmetry considerations to govern our answers to the questions of when life begins and when it ends. If the answer we would give to the question of when we come into existence depends on what we think we essentially are, and the same goes for the answer we would give to the question of when we cease to exist, we should expect the same view of essence to govern both answers - the answers we give to these questions should be in symmetry.'

He then goes through three main definitions of death and applies symmetry considerations to arrive at a non-arbitrary and logical way of deciding when human life "begins". Rather than going through each one, I'll just quickly state that syngamy does not seem a viable point for arguing that human life begins. Burgess argues:

What is interesting to note, however, is that even if the conservatives grant that human life doesn't begin until some point during the pregnancy, there still may be reasons why abortion is impermissible based on somewhat of a potential personhood/potential human life argument. These arguments are quite hard to formulate in an acceptable form, and I don't feel confident enough defending one at this stage, but if/when I formulate one that I feel is defensible, I'll write another instalment!

- Scrutinizer

Scrutinizer

The two main individuals who deserve moral consideration in the abortion debate are the foetus and the mother. Concentrating purely on the status of the foetus is where most of the abortion debate centres, with the conservatives, moderates and liberals all trying to arrive at a non-arbitrary separating line where it is permissible to have an abortion before but not after. Hard-line conservatives draw the line at conception, other conservatives draw it at about 14 days after conception, moderates draw it at all sorts of places such as viability or sentience, and liberals draw it at birth or even in the case of some more extreme liberals, about 2 years after birth. But what reasons are there to favour any of these lines in the sand?

The difficulty in drawing a non-arbitrary line has led some to abandon hope and consider the "rights" of the foetus/infant or the point at which it deserves independent moral consideration as being somewhat of a slope, increasing gradually over time but having no distinct crossover point at any time during pregnancy/infancy. I'm a little more hopeful that a reasonable point can be found, so I'll start by eliminating some of the points I consider to be more plainly unacceptable.

Firstly, moderates sometimes point to viability as a morally significant dividing line. What's strange about this claim is that viability depends on the state of medical technology, so that a six-month old foetus may be viable in an affluent country but non-viable in a poorer one. As Peter Singer states:

As for sentience or consciousness, it is worth noting that many forms of animal life have sentience and consciousness as well. Even so, we still apply utilitarian considerations to such animals, believing it morally acceptable to kill such animals for food or simply to suit the needs of humans on a higher plane of consciousness or experience. Why should utilitarian considerations not take place in the case of sentient/conscious foetuses that are not yet self-conscious?

Moving onto birth, the best defence of using birth as a dividing line is Mary Ann Warren's The Moral Significance of Birth. Warren argues that the fundamental assumption of rights, namely that 'the only facts that can justify the ascription of basic moral rights or moral standing to individuals are facts about the intrinsic properties of those individuals' is a mistaken assumption. She argues that we ought to ascribe a newborn infant moral rights based not on its intrinsic properties (as a newborn infant doesn't have any new morally significant properties when it is outside the womb as opposed to inside), but rather based on its relational and social place in the world:

I can't really see any strong way of refuting Warren's claim, since it all seems to depend on your particular view of rights (or even, <gasp>, if you think there is no such thing as rights). It just makes me uneasy to think that rights are based on relational rather than intrinsic properties, so I reject Warren's view on more of an intuitive rather than logically rigorous basis.

It seems rather obvious though, that if you don't accept Warren's view of rights, birth seems to be a very arbitrary dividing line. What morally significant difference to the foetus occurs when it exits the womb? How could a right to life possibly arrive simply because the individual is no longer situated in its mother's womb?

Well, I've run out of time for now! I'm getting too tired and bored, so I may be back to write something about the other three possible dividing lines -- conception, 14 days after conception and approximately 2 years after birth.

Regards,

- Scrutinizer

[ April 07, 2002: Message edited by: Scrutinizer ]</p>

bd-from-kg

Scrutinizer:

Thanks for pointing out once again that Dr. Singer’s position on infanticide is extremely “liberal”. Although I’ve never quite understood why the position that lots of human beings generally thought to be entitled to civil rights are not entitled to them is generally described as “liberal”. After all, the political philosophy that has most notoriously embraced this idea was generally considered the opposite of liberal. When exactly did Thomas Jefferson become a conservative?

Your posts seem to be pretty thoughtful, but they give the impression of someone circling, circling, trying to decide where to land. Have you picked a runway yet?

Anyway, let’s look at some the comments in your posts.

If Burgess means that the same criteria for personhood should apply to everyone regardless of age or stage in the life cycle, I agree completely. But I have no idea what his point is supposed to be in the snippet you quoted. To be sure, a cell taken from a person may survive long after the person is dead, but so what? Although the question is often framed as “When does life begin?” this is widely understood to be short for “When does a new, living human organism come into existence?” And by symmetry considerations, as Burgess might say, the corresponding question at the “other end” is not “When does life end?”, but “When does a living human organism cease to exist?” Now one of my cells is obviously not me, nor is it some other human being. If I bleed, I am not thereby creating hundreds of thousands of “new people”. And if some of my cells survive my death, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t really died. In fact, my criterion for “personhood” handles all of this effortlessly.

Your discussion of viability as a criterion for personhood is right on the mark. It really isn’t hard to show that this idea is untenable, even though it has unfortunately been written into American law by an overreaching Court. It will be fun to watch the pro-choicers who have embraced this criterion squirm when the point of viability drops below 11 weeks.

I’ve already pointed out that the criterion of sentience or consciousness would make many animals “persons” unless we just arbitrarily limit “personhood” to human beings, which again is untenable on examination. Of course, in the real world all persons are human beings, but this is a contingent fact about the world. It could be otherwise, and the recognition of this fact tells us that membership in a particular species cannot be a criterion for personhood.

Warren’s argument is plausible only if one is willing to make “being known and cared for”, or being “socially present and responsive”, or similar qualities that depend on one’s being in the “right” kinds of relationships with other people, a criterion for personhood. But many perfectly competent adults would fail to qualify under any such criterion, and I suspect that there are few who would be willing to deny them civil rights on that account. To me this sort of thing makes about as much sense as making membership in the Elks a criterion for personhood.

Singer is right on this one: birth is clearly not a morally significant dividing line. the absurdity of this idea is illustrated perfectly (IMHO) by pointing to partial-birth abortion. How can it make sense to say that killing an individual just before it emerges fully from the mother’s body is OK, but doing the same thing a second or two later is murder? What moral basis can there possibly be for such a distinction?

But I might have wished that these comments had been posted to the <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=52&t=000108" target="_blank">Personhood</a> thread. It gets very complicated to discuss the same issue on two threads simultaneously.

free12thinker

I assume that by the laughing face at the end that you are joking about this.

People should not have to refrain from sex, simply because having sex may result in a pregnancy. I will always say that people should have protected sex, should being the operative word here.

But I am pro-choice and pro-sex for two big reasons, none of which have to do with "a woman's right to choose" as the ultimate answer.

1. If someone is considering abortion, they are considering because their heart is not in the motherhood/fatherhood thing 100%. And that's a reason to get an abortion in itself. It's not fair for the child to be born to an unsure parent. There is just no guarantee that the required dedication will be there.

2. Sex is a physical or emotional act that two consenting people should be able to do, without having to worry about the potential of getting a child out of the experience. Abortion should be a viable alternative to sex as a whole.

Now for medical reasons towards the mother, and the uncertainty that may come should sex lead to pregnancy, I would always recommend using protection. But if they don't, we shouldn't chastise them into "acting responsibly" and having the child if it will mean any negative impact on the child.