Dominus Paradoxum

So, I suppose you believe that those with severe brain damage *might* think perfectly well, they just can't manifest it?

mfaber

So you want to force parenthood onto "irresponsible people" with the expectation that they will magically become "responsible" and look after a child???? You really are quite the gambler with that child's life you seem so hell-bent on "saving"!! Of course it costs YOU nothing to pontificate about what others "should" do.

If you're a male (you'll never to face being pregnant), then it really is SOOOO easy to be SOOOO righteous when you're SOOOO safe! In other words, talk is cheap.

If you are female, the by all means, have the baby, but don't expect other women to keep you company in your decision and/or misery (you can suffer your punishment for being "irresponsible" without me).

Why is it that the apostles of the Pregnancy Press Gang always seem to think that a whole passle of "Shakespeares and Einsteins" are being aborted? You seem to forget that the it is far more likely to be another Dahlmer, Hitler, Ted Bundy, murderer, rapist, or career criminal that is likely to be aborted (especially so if the unwanted child is mistreated and/or neglected by the "irresponsible people" you want to press into the slavery of involuntary parenthood).

mfaber

Anti-choicers are always saying that "life" begins at conception??? What do they really mean by that? Most of them are theists, who really mean God implants a "soul", but most will hesitate to admit that that is what they mean because they know good and well there is no evidence for a soul nor can they prove when such an "endowment" takes place (provided one could prove that such a thing as a soul exists.

Christians just get hoist on their own petard with the soul argument. A soul is important to Christians because that is the medium through which they experience eternal life. It is our "badge" of superiority over the rest of creation. This notion that it's okay to kill, eat, and experiment on animals is supposed to be because they don't have souls. What is really funny here is that many other religions believe that not only animals have souls, but so do "inanimate" objects like rocks, trees. Without some kind of empirical evidence, how does one decide which if, any religious viewpoint, is correct?

The question of just when a fetus gets this all-important soul arises (regardless of whether or not one is a theist) What many anti-choicers are ignorant of is that according to the early Church fathers, life did NOT "begin at conception". Aquinas and Augustine, following Aristotle's lead, declared that a male embryo acquired a soul at 40 days and the female embryo did so at 80 days. This is Christian example that leads to one big philosophical problem, namely the logical impossibility of precisely defining the "ensoulment line" (the "bald-hairy" distinction problem). For instance is beard not a beard after 5 days? 30 days? Or how can one precisely draw a line between day and night? The "hairy-bald" problem with the fetus, is how could one draw the line as to when the fetus gets a soul, which is impossible because the fetus is continually growing.

I would disagree with the proposition that "life begins at conception for the following reasons. Actually the egg and sperm are "alive", as is every functioning cell in the body of the woman in whom a conception may occur. All cells are BIOLOGICALLY alive in that they meet the 7 criteria biologists associate with life:

1. presence of carbon-All living things contain carbon. With few exceptions, carbon is found exclusively in association with living things.
2. organization & complexity-All living things exhibit remarkable organization in their body plans and when compared to non-living things are extremely complex.
3. metabolism-All living things absorb, convert, store, use and release energy in a variety of complex chemical reactions.
4. homeostasis-Living organisms regulate metabolic processes to maintain a "steady state".
5. response to stimuli-Living things respond to a variety of stimuli (Ex. temperature, moisture, concentration of chemicals, llight, scent, etc.)
6. growth-An organism continues to increase in size (even bacteria do this) til maturity is reached.
7. reproduction-Living organisms produce generations of like organisms.

This is what scientists mean when they say something is "alive", so

• Is a fertilized egg "alive"?===>Yes
• Is a zygote(3-7 day old pre-implantation) "alive"?===>Yes
• Is an embryo (before 8 wks., post-implantation) "alive"?===>Yes
• Is a fetus[older than 8 wks] "alive"?===>Yes

The real question is not is a conception/zygote/embryo/fetus "alive" and "human'", but when is it a human being. or a "person".

THE QUESTION OF "PERSONHOOD"

If the end of an individual's life is measured by the ending of his/her brain function ( brain-death as measured by brain waves on the EEG), would it not be logical to at least agree that a "person's" life begins with the onset of that same human brain function as measured by brain waves recorded on that same instrument ("brain-birth")? Anti-choicers like to fling about the MYTH that brain-waves appear as early as 40 days. However, the most recent finding show that intermittent brain-waves, don't appear until the 24th week, (give or take a week) when they begin to activate auditory and visual systems. The brain nor the neural network connecting the brain to the rest of the body aren't complete until shortly after this time. Brain-waves resembling those of
a new-born baby don't appear until the 26th WEEK.


THE DILEMMA OF THE MICROPREEMIE

Now consider this fact.. No micropreemie under 23 weeks has ever survived for more than a few hours. Many of them that small (23 weeks), even if they live (2% survival at 23 weeks), have severe neurodevelopmental defects (30% of surviving 23 week preemies) because they weren't sufficiently developed to respond well to life-support. This is primarily due to the fact that the fetal lungs are so immature. There is no technology on the horizon that can improve the prospect of survival because of this limitation. Given these developmental facts, it would seem logical to assume that a "person" is not there until after the 22nd week. (Remember that 50% of abortions occur before the 7th week and 90% have occurred by the 12th week, there is no brain to speak of at this time).

Let's go back in time before the 23rd week, back to the beginning. The vast majority of conceptions (~65%) DO NOT result in a successful pregnancy. (NOTE: A pregnancy is defined as the successful implantation of a zygote in the endometrium or uterine lining---it takes 3 to 7 days after fertilization for the dividing egg to reach the uterus). They are simply washed out as part of the endometrial detritus when a woman has her period (many women have conceived, but the zygote never manages to establish itself in the endometrium).

If the zygote manages to establish itself, the lucky resident (the embryo) is still not out of the woods because 30-40% of these 1st trimester pregnancies are spontaneously ABORTED (70% show gross chromosomal abnormalities incompatible with life). The bottom-line is that +65% of all conceptions fail (a conception does not a successful pregnancy make!)

Anti-choicers often quote Psalm 139:"Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. Remember that conception takes place in the Fallopian tube and the zygote takes up to 7days to reach the uterus. There is NO justification for claiming that ensoulment occurs at conception (where does it say so?). If one is aware of early Christain history, there is no theological basis for making such a declaration (remember Aquinas and Augustines' definition). There is also no reason to ban birth control devices that interfere with ovulation AND implantation of the zygote (trophoblastic stage). This is especially true when one considers that God seems to considers 65% of these 7 day old "humans" to be expendable at some point before the end of the first trimester (either don't implant in the lining or are spontaneously aborted)

If God really endows each and every conception (fertilized egg) with a soul (what theists REALLY mean when they say the conceptus is "alive" and a "person", not merely biologically alive), that makes GOD AN ABORTIONIST, and the biggest mass murderer of all time. (If one believes that personhood begins at fertilization)

When it come to abortions (the only reason we are really having this "personhood" discussion),50% have occurred on or before the 7th week and 90% have occurred before the 12th week. A functional brain is the sign of life as a person. AT this point NO person exists...not til after 22 weeks (really a bit early, because none survive that young anyway). A useful guide line here the one used by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology which sets the time for considering a fetus to be viable at 20 weeks. One thing to remember here is that only ~16,000 abortions occur after the 20th week, and one has to have one really good reason to get an abortion after 20 weeks.

WHY ADOPTION IS NOT A PANACEA

As of today, this year, ~42,900,000 people (one person every 2.4 seconds) will have died of starvation, 75% of them under the age of 5.. This is one reason that I think abortion should be legal and that the "adoption" argument put forth by anti-choicers is a canard. As long as one LIVING child starves to death, I have absolutely no sympathy for adoptive parents whose only problem really appears to be that they can't find a perfectly formed, white (usually) BABY to play the game of "Parenthood" with.

Let's not forget the 100,000 adoptable childen in the US foster care system. What is their "problem"? Most of them are too "old" (older than 2 years) or not "white". Pressing other womens's wombs into service so that some upper-middle class yuppie couple can have their dream-baby is nothing more than slavery, catering to the gross, self-involved selfishness of those who won't play "house" UNLESS they can have the "perfect" little white (usually) baby. Bottom-line here is that if we can't care for those already LIVING, it makes no sense to create more of them.

Let's do the math. In any one year since Roe v Wade, there have been ~1.1-1.4 million abortions per year. Now there are only 50,000-75,000 couples seeking babies to adopt. Imagine how easy it would be to sate the desire of adoptive couples for children, the market runneth over!!! Quite a short-fall in the parents department! A question to anti-choicers: Any recommendations on what to do with all the tens of millions of unadopted infants you plan on enslaving women to produce? Remember a "life" means more than just getting born, there are at least 72-79 years of AFTER the birth bit (education, food, health care, a job, and last but not least LOVE that goes with that 3 score and ten!!)


WHAT ALL THIS MEANS TO A WOMAN

Of course, if the fetus continues to grow, it WILL become a person! BUT ONLY at the EXPENSE of the WOMAN. People are not merely a means to an end, but ends in themselves. A woman treated as an incubator of a fetus by the law is merely a means to an end and is therefore not being regarded as a person. Most anti-choicers want to reduce her to the status of a SLAVE/INCUBATOR. A woman is a person, representing a large investment in time and resources, even on the part of those who regard women as inferior. An zygote/embryo/fetus is only a POTENTIAL person, representing no such investment. The bottomline for me is that the rights of a fully grown woman outweighs the "rights" of a fertilized egg/embyo/fetus until the fetus has developed to a point where a "person" is truly present (22+ weeks). Let's back that down to 20 weeks, the point a which the American College of Gynecology puts "viability" (even though none survive before 23 weeks).

The long and the short of it is that it isn't possible to be a person unless one is developed to a point where one can potentially experience and express that personhood (however limited that capacity might prove to be, i.,e., severely handicapped infants). In other words, let's assume a soul exists, it needs a physical vessel in order to function in this world, no matter how limited that functioning may prove to be. One thing, bringing up PEOPLE (those already born and accepted as PERSONS) who are asleep, unconscious, in a coma, or profoundly handicapped either at birth or through accidental injury is NOT an argument because they are already here and this argument constitutes a "red herring" (changing the subject to avoid arguing about the fetus). This is an argument over the personhood of the fetus not those already here. The same holds true for comparing a fetus to a slave. Slaves are fully developed beings and their social postion had nothing to do with their physical development and even at the beginning of the nation were still accorded them the status of persons, only "three-fifths" of a person, but still accorded personhood status in the original Constitution (Article I, Section 2, paragraph 3; Article I, Section 9; Article IV, Section 2, paragraph 3). NOTE: This is the infamous"Three-fifths Compromise")

References:

1) When Did I Begin?by Catholic theologian Dr. Norman Ford. 1988. C.U.P., pages 39-43, 193

2) Criteria for life from any up-to-date biology textbook. Embryonic development can be verified using a current textbook on medical physiology and/or mammalian embryology

3) New Republic: Abortion and the Brain

4) The Extremely Immature Newborn—The Dilemma of the Microbaby

5) Abortion statistics from the Center for Disease Control and the nonprofit Alan Guttmacher Institute which collect the only national abortion statistics. Guttmacher counts more abortions because it directly surveys clinics.

long winded fool

If you're arguing that consciousness is what ought to grant the right to life, then lets break it down into logical possibilities:

A living thing has the right to its life if:

1. it is presently conscious. (excludes asleep life)
2. it presently has the ability to become conscious. (includes sleeping life, excludes life in a coma)
3. it has been conscious in the past. (circular. Can never have a first conscious act without a history of conscious acts, therefore consciousness can never logically exist.)
4. it presently has the ability to be conscious in the future. (circular. Can never have a last conscious act without the ability to be conscious in the future, therefore consciousness can never logically exist.)

Are there any possibilities I've left out? Isn't "consciousness" irrelevant to the right to life? Isn't it on the quality of being a human being, not the quality of being conscious, that we base our inalienable rights as human beings? Don't unconscious living human beings have the right to life? Don't unconscious living human beings who are presently incapable of attaining consciousness have the right to life?

Arguing over which humans can be discriminated against by the label of "person" is pointless in a society of equal rights. It does not follow to say that, because E.T. ought to have the right to life, not all humans ought to have the right to life. All humans plus any additional species containing persons ought to have the right to life. The need to ensure that certain non-human persons have the right to life cannot logically be used to exclude non-person humans from the right to life.

We seem to agree that all persons ought to have the right to life. If any species contains persons, it is logical to assume that all members of the species are, or given time have the ability to become, persons. Therefore, all members of said species ought to have the right to life, if nothing else, whether they are all persons at any given time or not. "Person" should never be redefined to exclude some members of a species while including others, if equal inalienable rights is a good thing. Therefore it is logical to apply certain inalienable rights (the primary of which is the right to life) to all members of a species that contains any persons.

Dominus Paradoxum

I've asked you before, and I'll ask you again, why should membership in a species count for anything? The 'right to life' does not pertain equally to all species. I do not think anyone would be willing to grant a bacterium a right to life. If some species are more 'special' than others - and this specialness cannot consist in the mere fact that they are alive- then just what do you consider it to consist in?

Dominus Paradoxum

I believe I've spotted a flaw in your argument, lwf. You have said repeatedly that the right to life pertains to all members of the human species. Now I want to ask you a question: Are not sperm (and unfertilized eggs) members of the species homo sapiens sapiens? And you cannot compare these to mere skin cells. They are indeed potentially persons, and thus in some sense, able to become conscious. And moreover, when you use contraception, are you not *preventing* them from fullfilling their natural function: which is, if I mistake not, to develope into a fully human, fully conscious individual? And if that is indeed their natural function, is not just as true of one them as of a zygote that they are potential persons? Suppose that, without having had used protection on a certain occasion, you would have indeed had a child. Now by using protection, aren't you destroying that child just as much as if you had destroyed the zygote? For the result is the same: the potential child, which would have been, is not.

And for yguy: You say that a zygote might be conscious. Very well, why not go all out? A sperm (or an unfertilized egg) might be conscious too! Why not? But even if they were, I'd wager that you'd still manage to remain uninterested in their plight. Why so? What is this 'magic spark' you imagine to take place at conception?

openeyes

I can't "know" everything by studying it for myself firsthand, so I rely on educated others to do experiements and observations and come to valid conclusions. These people publish their results for others who also are in the field to critique and comment.

I see no evidence to refute the conclusion from scientists who study consciousness that there can't be consciousness, especially high-order consciousness (which distinguishes human from other mammals) without brain activity of a certain type. Consciousness isn't as hocus-pocusy as you're making it seem. It's a complicated process, but not mystical or magical.

Unwillingness to deal with life's complexities because they're difficult is not a reason to throw out good evidence.

openeyes

BTW, great post mfaber!

mfaber

[size=2.5]BBZZZTTTTT!!! Earth to LWF!!![/size]

IF you had really bothered to read what I wrote, the you would have realized that my argument had NOTHING to do with consciousness. My argument is that a fetus is not a person until it has a functioning brain, as indicated by the appearance of brainwaves. The "unconscious" (the comatose, profoundly mentally handicapped, the severely brain-damaged, the mentally ill, and the sleeping, etc.) all have brain-waves and as long as they do are protected by the law as persons. I don't think that anyone can argue that a 22-24 wk (when brain-waves begin appearing) fetus is "conscious". Allow me to repeat myself since you didn't bother to either read and/or comprehend what I wrote the first time...........

The fact remains that up until the 22-24 weeks, there is no brain to speak of ((please don't try the quoting me the hackneyed anti-choicer myth of brain waves appearing at 40 days.) At this gestational age, there are intermittent brain waves, indicating that the brain is forming and "test firing" the connections made to it as the neural hook-ups to brain become complete. Actual brain-waves resembling those of a new-born don't really appear until sometime around the 26th week.. If brain-death is used as the benchmark for determining a PERSON'S death, then I think it is also reasonable to use the appearance of brain-waves as an indication that PERSON is now "present" ("brain-birth"). the earliest known survival date for a micropreemie is 23 weeks. At this age, only 2% survive, with 90% of these survivors showing some kind of neurophysiological handicap(usual multiple), 30% of which are profoundly handicapped. The reason for this is simple, the lungs are developed and there is no technology on the horizon that can compensate for this limitation. Notice how the earliest possible date for physical survival corresponds to the earliest possible date for brain activation (don't expect full activation, just go back to the earliest possible date of activation).

Now consider that the American College of Obstetricians/Gynecologists has set the date for "viablilty" of the fetus at 20 weeks, even though no micropreemie younger than 23 weeks survives, even with the most heroic of efforts. In the case of abortions, one has to have a damn good reason for aborting after 20 weeks and this the exception rather than the rule. To read most anti-abortion literature with their florid "brain-sucking baby killer" language one would thing that most abortions are late term, but this is NOT true. The real truth is that when it come to abortions, 50% have occurred on or before the 7th week and 90% have occurred before the 12th week.

When pressed on the issue, anti-abortionists will grudgingly admit that ~16,000 of the 1.1 -1.4 million abortions perfomed are done AFTER the 20th week (only about 2000, the most generous estimate from the Pregnancy Press Gang, are the really "late-term", i.e., done after the 6th month) These are NOT done without considerable thought, contrary to the comments of the likes of Republicans like Joe Pitt, who has suggested women would chose these abortions if they "had a bad hair day". I have this one on video tape (courtesy of C-SPAN) from a debate over one of the many "partial birth abortion bans" flogged by Repubs during the Clinton Administration. I don't know what was more offensive, his words or the contempt he so clearly had for women (his expression was priceless!) This article mentions the remark (along with others)

Here is another article with a few more "gems".....

What a mockery of women indeed! I'll agree with that! The real issue here is about power and control over how others conduct their lives (read that as "sex-lives") and control over women.....it has NOTHING to do with "concern for life".

Once the brainwaves appear, then the fetus becomes a person under the law with all the rights that go with it. AT NO time did I make "consciousness" (what does this mean exactly, self-awareness, personality, what?) an issue. My "yardstick" for granting personhood is simply one of physical development of the brain ONLY. There is no requirement here for any kind of mental development as well (personality, self-awareness etc.). If a person is declared declared "dead" when the brain dies, I think it is perfectly logical to use the appears of brainwaves as an indication that a "person" (really the capacity to be one )is present ("brain-birth"). Notice that upon brain-death, a person is not declared a NON-PERSON, he/she is simply a DEAD PERSON. Under the law, once someone is recognized as a person, then there is nothing that can rescind that status. Even the corpse has "rights". I can't think of a state that doesn't prosecute a person who "tampers" (removes parts, mutilates, engages is sexual acts, etc) with the body ("abuse of corpse" laws).

You keep trying to equate "human" (quoting the taxonomic classification) with "human BEING". This is nothing but an equivocation fallacy on your part. By your definition all cells in the human body are "human BEINGS" just because they are "human" and have the "right to life".(These cells all have 46 chromosomes characteristic of "humans" and are "alive", using by the biochemical criteria used by scientists).

Your side claims that a "human BEING" is present. If that is in fact the case, the it should be easy for you to demonstrate that claim, otherwise why believe it and what is worse try to force that "belief" on others when you have no cooroborating evidence for that belief? No one is arguing that the conceptus/zygote/embryo/fetus is "human", just that before a certain point in development, it is NOT capable of BEING (not a human BEING).

However, I think it is perfectly reasonable to use development as a bench-mark for determining when a "person" is finally present because it is observable and lends itself to empirical testing. If you claim that a "person" is ALWAYS present, then you have to define EXACTLY what you mean by "person" and give evidence that the "entity" you describe, in fact exists. In other words, if you allege something like a "soul" is present, then that is something that you have to prove exist. Don't forget, the additional problem of trying to prove just when the body gets endowed with the alleged soul.

If all you got is "I think X should be so" or "God says", or the"Bible/Quran (whatever religious tome you may be flogging) says", then forget it. That is just a belief of yours and unless you can support your claim with more that "I've gotta a feeling" and/or the alleged "say-so" from some unevidenced, invisible "Authority, the you will just have to forgive me if I tell you to "push off" (get lost!) and/ or MYOB (mine your own business)!

References:
1) Facts on embryology verifiable from any up-to-date textbook on medical physiology and/or mammalian embryology

2) New Republic: Abortion and the Brain

3)The Extremely Immature Newborn—The Dilemma of the Microbaby

4) Abortion statistics from the Center for Disease Control and the nonprofit Alan Guttmacher Institute which collect the only national abortion statistics. (Guttmacher counts more abortions because it directly surveys clinics.)

Alonzo Fyfe

mfaber:

In spite of the quality of your arguments, I feel that there is a need to trim it a little around the edges and clean it up some.

First, you write, "The real question is not is a conception/zygote/embryo/fetus alive and human, but when is it a human being or a person?"

True enough -- except the implication that being a person and being human are somehow identical. The concept of nonhuman persons is very easy to grasp (e.g., we readily assume that if we were visited by an extraterrestrial species that they would readily qualify as nonhuman persons).

I believe that equating "human" with "person" generates a fair amount of confusion in a debate. For example, I often hear arguments where one argues that the mere existence of a distinct genetic code in the fetus is enough to declare it a "human" and thereby a "person." I believe it is important to keep these views distinct.


Second, your "dilemma of the micropreemie" seems to have no relevance to the concept of a person.
You seem to be saying that the property of being able to live a separate existence is a necessary component of personhood. Yet, this is not the case. Such a claim would make it the case that if I, for example, were struck by some disease and could only survive by being attached to another -- let us assume that I have that other's consent -- that I lose my personhood. That, for example, it would be permissible to perform medical experiments on me without my consent, because consent is only required of persons. Viability is not, in fact, relevant to personhood.


Third, on the issue of "adoption", it also makes no sense to argue that personhood depends in any way on adoptability. Certainly, you are not intending to argue that one who is unlikely to be adopted therefore lacks personhood and can thereby be killed. That is to say, the absence of adoptability does not argue for the permissibility of abortion. My claim is that the issue of adoptability and the permissibility of abortion are distinct issues, and nothing can be implied on the latter on the basis of the former.

Now, ultimately, I agree with you on the two most important points -- or, at least, our views are similar.

(1) A necessary (and perhaps sufficient, I do not know) condition of personhood is the capacity to have desires -- which requires a working brain. Until that happens, no person exists.

(2) Even at the point that the fetus becomes a person, no person has the right to the use of another person's body, even to preserve their own life, without the consent of the person being used. Anti-abortion laws are said to respect the personhood of the fetus. In fact, they deny the personhood of the mother by saying that a pregnant woman is a mere tool -- a biological piece of medical machinery.


Against these two claims, adoptability is irrelevant, and viability is a only loosely relevant to claim (2) and has no status as an independent argument either in favor of or in opposition to the concept of personhood.

The sections you wrote on micropreemies and adoption can easily be cut from your essay -- they are not relevant. Including them (1) gives the illusion of relevance, and (2) adds a thick undergrowth that makes it more difficult to see the core issues that are truly relevant.


Like I said, I am offering this merely as a suggestion for trimming and cleaning so that one can more easily see the core issues.