danlowlite

When it's in my phone book?

It's a hard question, one, that as a guy, I have problems thinking I even have a "right" to answer it. However, I do have a child, so this question has came up.

Pregancy does irrecovable damage to the mother. Natural childbirth is violent, I know one woman that my never be able to have sex again because of, err, tearing. I know that she loves her child and abortion was never a question for her (born and raised Lutheren). For her, it was never a question. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be for anyone else.

One girl I know who had an abortion would have surely died, another would have had to drop out of school to take care of the twins she aborted, and her boyfriend would have never went to college and then got a masters. Some would see the first one as permissable, the twins less so.

Children are pure sacrifice, and until there are enough ways to take care of the kids that would be here (what is it, 40 million abortions, and their kids, and grandkids, since Roe v. Wade), I'm not sure we should be really having kids that aren't wanted in the first place.

Not that I'm able to make that decision, either. . .

long winded fool

The problem with this mindset is that its not lawful, and making it lawful would present contradictions with other laws. Who gets the privilege to have their love of said creature decide whether or not it's killed? What if I declare that I love all human beings and object to all innocent humans being killed? What if a thirteen-year-old girl wants an abortion but her rapist objects to his child being killed? If you make exceptions to the law, it becomes meaningless. "Why can't you make an exception for me? That's not right!" Are sleeping people aware of their own life? Do they value it? Can you prove this one way or another? And if you can't, don't I get off scott free for murdering my wife in her sleep? Does the knowledge that she'll probably wake up and be aware of her life and value it give her the right to it? If so, why does the knowledge that an embryo will "wake up," be aware of its life and value it not assure it equal rights?

Because we're in power. We give ourselves rights and the authority to ration them out to those with less power at our convenience. By this logic, there is absolutely nothing wrong with enslaving humans of dark skin color, so long as the majority decides this is morally acceptible. Opinion may be subjective, but morality is not. We need to learn the difference between universal right and personal opinion. It is universally wrong to revoke the inalienable rights defined in the constitution from any innocent human being, whether they are members of this society or not. It is not logical to make the definitions of any of these terms arbitrary. They were clearly defined when they were conceived, and they are clearly defined right now. It is not lawful to take the life of a hominid of the group homo unless said creature is threatening the life of another hominid of the group homo. Adding criteria to these definitions is as arbitrary as adding skin color to them.

long winded fool

Red herring. This only follows if the unwanted child who will inflict pain, suffering, and life changing alterations is not a human being, which I have shown that it is. The embryo's right to life therefore must supercede the mother's right to convenience, sexual function, and wealth. A terrible situation for both parties, yes. But it is clear that the mother must be forced to sacrifice all but her life for the life of her unborn human, as any human must be forced to sacrifice all but his right to life if doing so is the only possible way to save the life of another innocent human. Another way to save its life certainly ought to be explored in all circumstances, but in no circumstances should its life be taken if it can be saved without taking the life of another. This is logic and it is law. Changing one changes the other.

alek0

Shall we make then kidney, bone marrow etc. donations compulsory?

And please point out where have you proven that fetus is a person? You are of course aware that repeating over and over that it is a person is not a proof?

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by long winded fool
Then how can you administer punishment for breaking an ambiguous law? You can't, therefore you must make a line in order to make the law clear and thus enforceable.

As far as I'm concerned you shouldn't be able to. If there's any reasonable interpretation of the law that makes you innocent I don't think it should be possible to convict. Unfortunately, that's not how the courts see it.

You are a person and a human. The parts of a human do not share the properties of the whole. Your leg is not human in the noun sense, it is a part of a human. As long as the leg is attached to the human, it shares the rights of the human, however if it is removed, it loses the rights.

The body is human. You removed a part of it (the leg). How can what remains not be part of a human?? 1 - x = 1 for non-zero x?! That will get you an F in math 101!

These body parts belong to the human inside the woman. Since the human is innocent and can be saved, it ought not to be killed by the laws of the country.

Conclusion assumed in argument! I've got a programmable keypad, should I program this in?

When we meet ET, we'll have to make a separate but equal law forbidding the violation of its species inalienable rights.

If we don't blow ourselves up first we *WILL* meet ET--if not from the sky then from the computer. Should the first ones be murderable?

Keep in mind that according to the dictionary, a human is any hominid of the family homo. Killing a homo erectus would be murder under the constitution.

Ok, that solves that problem at least.

[BAnd I've shown that you are mistaken.[/B]

You have barely touched on your repeated assumption of your conclusion in your argument, you certainly haven't shown I'm mistaken in claiming it.

You can't start from a premise that abortion is wrong in an effort to prove abortion is wrong!

I have proven that the embryos of humans (or human embryos) are human beings. (Note that this is not assuming the conclusion in the argument.)

You haven't proven anything, merely defined them to be so.

(Again, this is not assuming the conclusion in the premise. It seems that way because this is an obvious axiom. "Cat food is food for cats.") There is no fallacy present.

But you are very often using your conclusion as your axiom--that's how you keep falling into the trap of assuming the conclusion.

And your definition is subjective and changeable. Mine is clear, objective and concise.

My definition is not subjective, it's merely beyond current medical technology to measure accurately.

Furthermore, being clear and concise doesn't mean accurate. "An adult human is one of over 5' in height." Clear, concise. Accurate?

It boils down to the fact that you don't know when a person is present.

As far as I'm concerned no person is present if there is no human-level mind present (even if not working perfectly). Just a clear and concise, but far harder to measure.

[Bb]Therefore you need a line so that you can safely destroy a human before it becomes a person and therefore avoid becoming a murderer.[/B]

6 months--that's when the brain begins to function.

Why wouldn't the doctors bother? Because the beheaded is no longer a viable life form.

Where is there anything about viable in your definition?

It can only be kept alive artificially and has no potential of life away from artificial respiration.

And someone on a respirator for life isn't a person?? Plenty of quads need one!

Assuming that persons alone have rights, then if a human in a coma has a chance of recovery, isn't it the potential regaining of his personhood (if personhood is defined by higher brain functions) that makes taking his life murder?

Correct--if he's in a coma with potential for recovery then he's still a person.

Since an embryo has a better chance of developing personhood than the coma victim, why wouldn't this apply equally, at least, to the embryo?

Because there is no personhood to be preserved yet.

What, exactly, is the rationale behind distinguishing "first consciousness" from any other consciousness? Is it the case that, "once a person, always a person?"

I consider personhood to reside in the one way we are quite different from the animals--our brain. Without a functioning, aware brain there can be no personhood. Thus it starts with first conciousness.

If so, then euthanasia would be murder.

It currently is seen as murder by the courts although in many cases it is not seen as thus by the doctors--speeding things up at the end to end suffering isn't exactly rare. One form is sufficiently common to have gotten the name "terminal sedation".
Personally I think it's something a patient should be able to request.

Is it the potential of higher brain functions? If so then euthanasia would not necessarily be murder, but abortion at any phase would be, since all human embryos have very high potential to develop higher brain functions, even if some don't in rare cases.

It's not the potential, it's the actual. Personhood resides in what's recorded in the brain. No recording (ie, before conciousness to record anything), no person. No playback (coma from which recovery is impossible), no person.

Loren Pechtel

No way for the surgeons to rebuild anything?! After all they can build a reasonable facimile starting from nothing--a common thing in sex-change operations.

long winded fool

You are a person and a human. The parts of a human do not share the properties of the whole. Your leg is not human in the noun sense, it is a part of a human. As long as the leg is attached to the human, it shares the rights of the human, however if it is removed, it loses the rights.

The body is human. You removed a part of it (the leg). How can what remains not be part of a human?? 1 - x = 1 for non-zero x?! That will get you an F in math 101!

Because what remains falls under the category of a living homo sapiens sapiens. It is part of a human, but it is still 100% a human being. The dead leg does not fall under this category. It is a part of a human and 0% a human being.

I am confused. Are you referring to my premise that an embryo is a human being, or that it is innocent or both? You are aware that this is not the conclusion of this argument, right?

I'll break this down and try to make my argument as clear as possible.

Murder: the premeditated killing of an innocent human being.
Human being: a member of the family Hominidae, of the group homo, specifically homo sapiens.

Since an embryo is inarguably an innocent human being by scientific definition, (guilty of no crimes, or at the very least, no crimes of which execution is justified) and since murder is illegal, abortion of the embryo should be illegal. If you dispute my premises then do so, but don't label a valid argument fallacious. Show how an embryo is not an innocent human being, or how murder is not always wrong by the laws of this country.

If we don't blow ourselves up first we *WILL* meet ET--if not from the sky then from the computer. Should the first ones be murderable?

They couldn't be murdered. Murder, so far, is the killing of a human being, not an ET. You are arguing from a personal moral code. I am arguing from law. It is morally reprehensible to kill a stray cat for no other reason than just to watch it kick. However there is very little the law can do to you in this situation. If we as a society deem stray cats as being equal in rights to humans, then killing stray cats would become murder. The same goes for ET's. You can't assume a moral code and use it to supplant the laws of the land. Say that, having no personal frame of reference (save fictitious characters) and therefore no care about ET's, it is no more reprehensible for me to kill an ET than to kill an animal under my moral code. Do you see that this is your belief turned around on you? You see no need to spare undeveloped humans in the same way that I see no need to respect the rights of a non-human ET. We have contradicting morals. What should we do? Obey the laws of the land. What do we do if some of the laws of the land are contrary to others? Identify the logical error, which I feel I've done, and correct the hypocritical law, which has yet to be done.

Arguing morality will be a never-ending debate. According to one law, abortion is clearly murder. According to another abortion is legal. Therefore, we have legalized murder in special circumstances in this society, and have therefore violated the constitution of the United States. If you disagree, don't accuse me of begging the question, refute my premise.

My definition is not subjective, it's merely beyond current medical technology to measure accurately.

Furthermore, being clear and concise doesn't mean accurate. "An adult human is one of over 5' in height." Clear, concise. Accurate?

Being beyond current medical technology makes it subjective. If a woman decides her 25-week-old embryo is not human, it becomes not human in this society. If a woman decides her 23-week-old embryo is human, it becomes human in this society and killing it is a murder charge. This is completely arbitrary and until it isn't, cannot stand as a basis for any law. "Whenever the 13-year-old girl says its human is when it is." This is completely illogical. Until there is an agreed upon point of first consciousness, and the definition of murder becomes "the killing of an innocent human being after its achievement of first consciousness," abortion must be illegal. It is not rational to take chances with human life. Ask the hunter.

As far as I'm concerned no person is present if there is no human-level mind present (even if not working perfectly). Just a clear and concise, but far harder to measure.

6 months--that's when the brain begins to function.

This is neither clear nor concise. You have too many ambiguous terms here. What constitutes a human-level mind? Do all human beings have the same level of mind? 1-year-olds through 90-year-olds? Do you mean, "person-level" mind? Because if you don't, then I remind you that embryos are human beings at every stage of development, even with only the stem of a nervous system. If you do then it is now you who is begging the question. And what is "not working perfectly?" And at what exact point are its workings too dysfunctional to allow a human being personhood? How is this determined? If it can't be determined, then it can't be a basis for a law, or the basis for the elimination of a law.

Where is there anything about viable in your definition?

Murder: the premeditated *killing* of an innocent human being. Not viable puts an entity into the not-technically-alive category. A headless corpse being respirated is not technically alive. Destroying it is not killing it and therefore not murder. Detaching the life support cannot kill it, it is simply no longer respirating it.

And someone on a respirator for life isn't a person?? Plenty of quads need one!

If the person is viable, it can hope to continue to function as a human being and is therefore a person. A thinking individual is both a human and a person. An embryo is only a human, and therefore protected by the constitution the same as a person. No amount of appeal to personal moral authority changes this fact. The constitution must be changed in order to change this legally and this has not been done, therefore abortion is wrong.

alek0
Shall we make then kidney, bone marrow etc. donations compulsory?

And please point out where have you proven that fetus is a person? You are of course aware that repeating over and over that it is a person is not a proof?

Good question. How could the law choose one single person and force them to donate to save another? I think in every case, someone will voluntarily donate a non-vital organ to save the life of another, therefore this need not be compulsory. I was thinking about the classic ethical dilemma of a terrorist threatening to kill a large number of people unless the police kill an innocent man. If there is absolutely no other alternative, many of the innocent man's rights can be violated, however he can't be murdered. Since he is not the threat to the innocent people about to be massacred, he can't be killed, but since temporarily revoking his other rights might save the lives of the innocent people, these can be revoked. While this may result in the death of many innocents, the blood will be on the hands of the terrorist who killed them, not the police who refused to kill an innocent man.

I have proven that the fetus is a human being and that's all that's needed to make abortion murder under the accepted definition of both words. If you change the definition of murder, you violate the constitution. If you change the definition of human, you violate science. Adding the criteria of personhood to humanity violates the scientific definition, and changing the criteria of applicable human rights to persons only violates the constitution. I can see no rational way to allow abortion to be legal in this society, yet there it is.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by long winded fool
Because what remains falls under the category of a living homo sapiens sapiens. It is part of a human, but it is still 100% a human being. The dead leg does not fall under this category. It is a part of a human and 0% a human being.

Conclusion: There is some part of the body that in reality comprises one's humanity. Based on your prior responses that part must be the brain, as you consider the removal of other parts to not remove humanity but the removal of the brain (or at least the head) to remove humanity.

Therefore you are basically agreeing with my position that personhood rests in the brain. How can a non-functional brain confer personhood??

I am confused. Are you referring to my premise that an embryo is a human being, or that it is innocent or both? You are aware that this is not the conclusion of this argument, right?

You are basically using as an axiom the notion that abortion is wrong. That might work from the pulpit but it's a non-starter in a debate.

Murder: the premeditated killing of an innocent human being.

And when the doctor pulls the plug on a brain-dead patient it's murder?

If we don't blow ourselves up first we *WILL* meet ET--if not from the sky then from the computer. Should the first ones be murderable?

They couldn't be murdered. Murder, so far, is the killing of a human being, not an ET. You are arguing from a personal moral code. I am arguing from law.

I agree, I am arguing personal morality. However, in this case I feel the law is clearly wrong. Supercomputers will reach human-level computing capacity within a decade. Nobody knows what true AI will require but it might show up soon thereafter. This isn't some far-distant case!

Being beyond current medical technology makes it subjective. If a woman decides her 25-week-old embryo is not human, it becomes not human in this society.

It's not something she decides! The medical profession should set the limit based on the best knowledge available and update it as new knowledge is discovered.

This is neither clear nor concise. You have too many ambiguous terms here. What constitutes a human-level mind?

A mind of a level similar to or superior to that of a normal human. When fully developed it can plan for the future and sacrifice now for later improvement. Lacking items for comparison it's hard to define it any better.

Where is there anything about viable in your definition?

Murder: the premeditated *killing* of an innocent human being. Not viable puts an entity into the not-technically-alive category.

You just shot down your own argument. Before 5 months the fetus isn't viable.

A headless corpse being respirated is not technically alive.

The cells are certainly still alive. It's the directing mind that's gone.

long winded fool

There is some part of the body that comprises a living human being. Since I don't think any biologist will agree that a brainless embryo is not alive, it is obviously the knowledge of the potential of personhood that ought to grant the embryo rights to life. I agree that your justification is logical if one forgets the scientific definition of humanity and ignores the laws of society. If we assume that the brain makes a human being, then abortion should be legal. Now why ought we to assume this? In order to make abortion legal? Again, you are so quick to assume I'm using logical fallacies, you fail to see yours.

You are basically using as an axiom the notion that abortion is wrong. That might work from the pulpit but it's a non-starter in a debate.

This is not accurate. I clearly defined my argument in my last post. This is blatantly attacking a strawman.

Murder: the premeditated killing of an innocent human being.

And when the doctor pulls the plug on a brain-dead patient it's murder?

I don't know. If it is the premeditated killing of an innocent human being, then it quite obviously is. If the law makes and exception in this case, ask yourself why. Because there is no chance for the human being to have any future away from life support and no chance for the regaining of consciousness. A normal embryo obviously does not fall into this category, therefore the only reason to make an exception to the murder of an embryo is for the convenience of the mother. This is not lawful.

I agree, I am arguing personal morality. However, in this case I feel the law is clearly wrong. Supercomputers will reach human-level computing capacity within a decade. Nobody knows what true AI will require but it might show up soon thereafter. This isn't some far-distant case!

But the change you're suggesting is arbitrary. Why should you get to decide who gets rights and who doesn't? How can you make this a law and not contradict other laws? Why can't I kill my misbehaving son? I own him! He's ruining my life and I don't have time to put up with him while I'm driving him to the orphanage. Who are you to tell me that I can't kill him and get instant gratification? Who are you to force me to go through the trouble of putting him up for adoption? I'll just push him out the window and be done with it. It's my right. If you appeal to laws then you are picking and choosing which laws you want to follow and which you don't. You are creating a hole in your rationality and failing to patch it up. You assume that your morality would work as law, but attempting to redefine humanity to allow the killing of some for the convenience of others is not a sound law system. Past attempts to do this have always resulted in failure. The minority whose rights are revoked are fought for by members of the society with rights until they've won the rights for the minority. Abortion is a hole in the constitution, and I've yet to find reasoning that can even begin to patch it while allowing legal abortion to exist.

It's not something she decides! The medical profession should set the limit based on the best knowledge available and update it as new knowledge is discovered.

But it is something she decides. A woman is free to have an abortion in this counrty whenever she wants. You are arguing that it SHOULD be something that YOU decide. The medical profession has already set a limit on humanity. A living member of the species homo sapiens. You argue that they should push it back and follow your moral code in order to legalize the killing of an embryo for the convenience of the one who conceived it. I've shown why this is illogical. Claiming I haven't is what makes me repeat myself.

A mind of a level similar to or superior to that of a normal human. When fully developed it can plan for the future and sacrifice now for later improvement. Lacking items for comparison it's hard to define it any better.

This is the very definition of arbitrary.

Where is there anything about viable in your definition?

You just shot down your own argument. Before 5 months the fetus isn't viable.


Yet it is a living example of the species homo sapiens sapiens. It is viable based on the knowledge that there is some chance, however remote, that it will become a person.

alek0

You have not proven that fetus is a person. You are redefining the word viable. Viable and alive are not the same.

What is your justification that a woman should risk her life and health for the chance that fetus will become a person? No problem if one decides to do this voluntarily, but I don't think it is right to force anyone to do so. Can you justify forcing the woman to continue pregnancy when one possible outcome is that she will die, while the fetus may end up brain damaged, retarded or die from SIDS few months later so her death would have been for nothing.

Since you talk about "convenience of the mother", I assume you are male. Do you have any idea about pregnancy complications? Also, how would you ensure that a woman who doesn't want to be pregnant leads a healthy lifestyle to gice fetus a good chance to be healthy? If a woman is at risk of miscarriage or premature labour, should she be forced to take treatment?

Finally, I would like to point out that most countries restrict abortions for non-medical reasons to first 12-16 weeks.