alek0

If I remember correctly, pain issue doesn't come up before 17 weeks or so, which is the time frame where I feel comfortable with abortion for non-medical reasons.

I would also like to comment on the issue of 22 week fetus being viable. I would appreciate if those who made such claims would provide some statistics on survival rates of 22 week old fetuses, and also on rate of complications suffered later in life by those who survived being born at 22 weeks.

I would also like to ask about what is the moral justification, having in mind huge number of humans on this planet and large number of existing children in need of a home, to bring in another unwanted human?

long winded fool

LordSnooty, do humans have the same value as golden eagles or do they have more value? You stated both in your response. You also falsified my premises and then refuted my conclusion from the altered premises. The egg has value. A $10,000 value to be exact. My argument is not from subjective morality as I have stated time and time again. I am arguing from objective laws. If I argued from subjective morality, I could never refute you, or you me, since our arguments would be based entirely on personal conviction. If you argued from objective laws, I don't believe you could refute me.

The potential for an eagle equates to an eagle in the analogy, and both equate to a zygote and a human respectively. Why either is a protected species is irrelevant to the argument. The fact that the golden eagle is an endangered species, obviously, does not carry value in this case since humans are not an endangered species yet carry more value by law than eagles do. Two federally protected species can be paralleled without any consideration of why they are federally protected. I am not at the moment probing the question of why zygotes ought to have value; I am proving that by law they must.

"...Because humans are of more value to me, as a human, than eagles. That is entirely irrelevant, surely."

I agree. Your personal beliefs are irrelevant in this scenario as are mine. However, the laws of the country are NOT irrelevant, as they are the very subject of the argument: (my argument anyway,)

According to the laws of the country, value being determined objectively by level of protection warranted to each species, human beings ARE more valuable than eagles, eagle embryos are AS valuable as eagles and therefore less valuable than humans, and human embryos are less valuable than eagle embryos.

Do you agree with these observations? If so, do you see the glaring inconsistency that makes this irrational? Now we will address where the value comes from and explore "why" it must be this way and why there is this inconsistency:

If rarity carries value in this scenario then eagles ought to be more valuable than humans and, since both embryos and adults carry the same amount of rarity, (being of the same species,) the embryos of both species should be equal to the adults of both species respectively. (not the case.) If the species itself is what carries the value and the human species carries the most, then eagles and eagle embryos should be equal (same species) and less valuable than humans and human embryos, which should also logically be equal. (not the case.) If developed adults are what carry the value for a given species, then any not-fully-developed eagles should have less value than eagle adults (not the case) and any not-fully-developed humans should be less valuable than human adults (the case.)

Conclusion: we need to redefine our laws to make them logically consistent. I have an idea: Include human embryos in our definition of human beings and make murder (the willful destruction of innocent human beings) illegal except in cases of self-defense. This coincides with the above conjecture of the human species carrying value intrinsically, which is the only sensible way I can think of for the laws to be enforced. If you can think of a better way while remaining in the realm of logic, I'm all ears.

LordSnooty

They have the same intrinsic value, but the eagle eggs are given more value under law.
Well, since abortion is legal, I think I probably could.
Clearly this is not true. You know full well that you're twisting this argument. It's an entirely different set of circumstances to those you are proposing.

The embryos of eagles have value, because they are vital to the continuation of the species. Eagles are protected. Therefore human embryos are protected? That just doesn't make sense. I can see what you're saying, but it's a perversion of logic.

When humans become rare, I'm sure embryos will receive more protection. But the eagle/human positions are wholly incompatible.

Paul

Puck

LongWindedFool,

I understand where you are trying to come from, but pardon me, I am not possessed of a razor sharp legal or scientific mind. It seems to me you are comparing apples and oranges here. One, a species we have applied laws to in order to prevent the total annilation of that species (and that they are a National symbol), and the rights, if any, of a human zygot/fetus.

I really do kinda 'get' what you are saying, but what comes to mind for me is why we don't automatically extend those laws to chickens. Other than the endangered aspect of the eagle and our confering symbolism upon it, what's the difference?

What we do to food animals everyday is really cruel, yet we would never think to protect them, because first we like to eat their bodies, and secondly because they hold no other value to us. I understand what you are trying to say is that from a legal standpoint, if eagle egg=eagle then human egg=human, but then don't we open the door for chicken rights people to argue for confering rights to chickens? It's only in the human mind that eagles are of value moreso than chickens, once you take out the endangered aspect of an eagles value in your argument, you almost have to give the rest of the animals value, too. So, you have to take into consideration that the supposed value of the eagle egg is merely as a protection of an endangered speicies and not make the comparison of eagle egg=eagle, human egg=human. The law is there to give the eagle population a chance for survival, not to say egg=adult.

As I said, I am not possessed of a razor sharp mind, but most of the population in this country isn't either, and I just can't see your argument leading to the halt of abortions. Have you ever held a baby chicken in your hands? They are sooo cute and sweet. They are *living things*. Yet we hold them in cells and either force them to lay eggs untill they can't any longer, or feed them products to cause rapid growth so we can eat them. Where do we draw the line once we use eagle eggs to argue for banning abortion?

(I really shouldn't be allowed to debate when I've just woken up)

Puck

Marco, I've never researched this subject, thus have no sites to recommend. Having lived for awhile now, I have seen programs on TV and such showing the progress of the human fetus. I'm just not able from memory to attach data to pictures. Is the fetus in the picture 4" long, or 14"? Big difference.

SabineGrant has a good point about the ability to sense pain, another consideration that is slippery, however. At what point does a devoloping *anything* go from neuro response to actually feeling pain?

QueenofSwords, you sure got past the 'aww' factor better than I did. Instinct was telling me there was more to the picture than the aww part, but I just didn't connect pregnant woman to the picture right off. I was stuck in 'what's the data on this fetus?'. Still am, but now I see much more. It's natural I suppose, to use whatever means at hand to argue your point, and the anti-abortionists will use compelling pictures, without offering all of the data, including a picture of the woman who is struggling with the decision, or any fact about the fetus that would cause us to see that it's existence causes suffering for it or it's host.

Even though I don't have *all* the data I would like, I'm already leaning towards a 4-5 month range as a reasonable cut-off time for a no questions asked abortion. Not much different than what I believed before we started. After that, I would say that 1) a womans right to privacy must be protected 2) a doctor would have to be trusted to use the law in deciding to do an abortion after the 4-5 month range, in order to ensure #1. Never, ever should a woman be forced to explain her need for an abortion to a lay person, be it judge or jury.

long winded fool

"..comparing apples and oranges..." <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Very perceptive. What conclusions can be drawn from this, then? Would you say eagles and humans both carry value for different reasons? Eagles are valued for their rarity, but humans are valued for something else. Trees carry a certain value, but this value is not comparable to human value. Therefore, oak trees and acorns are not analogous to humans and human embryos, correct?

While it's true that seeds are not trees, the seeds are of the same species that the trees are, as the eggs are of the same species that eagles are, as human embryos are of the same species humans are. If human refers to the human species, then embryos are human. If human refers to a sufficiently developed homo sapiens sapiens, then embryos are not human, but they are still the human species. Since it is legal to destroy human embryos, then the human species must carry no intrinsic value, but developed humans do. So what IS this value? How is it determined? Is it determined by age? Specifically, that the human has no intrinsically human value until it has left the birth canal? But this is not true, because killing a pregnant woman results in two counts of murder. Say my neighbor has been trying to get pregnant for 3 years and finally has managed to do it. After decorating the baby's new room, she comes outside and I attack her, purposely killing her unborn baby but leaving her only bruised and hysterical. If embryos have no intrinsic value, then I can purposely cause a miscarriage in an innocent mother and get off with a charge of aggravated assault. Since I have a clean record, I might even get out of doing jail time. Does this seem right? Is this justice? Therefore the value of embryos is assigned on a case-by-case basis by the owner of the human. All women have the right to determine who is a human and who isn't in certain circumstances, and therefore grant and revoke inalienable rights at will, so long as the human is in her womb. If the government gives unborn humans rights in the sense that taking the life of said human against the mother's will is murder, then the mother legally has the power to take these rights away from the human if she would like to. So, certain humans have more rights than others, in the sense that a certain gender of the population has the authority to revoke rights given to humans of any gender by the government. This is dangerous, not to mention irrational.

When stated like this, we don't like it because we can understand and agree with the argument that "a woman has final say over her body." This makes sense. Certain humans have the right to revoke inalienable rights from other humans if said humans are an inconvenience. This doesn't make sense, yet must coexist with the first argument by the logic of a fetus being part of a woman's body AND a human. No one truly believes that a fetus is a part of a woman's body, because no one says that a woman grows two heads during pregnancy or has twenty fingers and twenty toes. People do believe that fetuses are human since killing one without consent of the mother can result in a murder charge. The only way to get a murder charge is by killing a human.

In wanted pregnancies, women have a human growing inside of them. In unwanted pregnancies women have the right to destroy an inconvenient part of their body. Having both of these scenarios be legally acceptable is not rational. By our laws, taking the life of an unborn baby against the mother's will should be aggravated assault at the most. The reason it's not is because the mother has final say over humanity. Thirteen-year-old girls have more legal authority over the definition of human being than any male biologist in the country. This is a problem, folks.

[ December 14, 2002: Message edited by: long winded fool ]</p>

LordSnooty

What's that, then?
Why don't you just tell us? You pose these theoretical questions a lot, but you STILL (after repeated requests) have NOT told us why an early fetus has any value.

I doubt you ever will. That's the major stumbling block of your argument, and no number of poor analogies or animal/plant comparisons can change that.

Paul

Puck

Long winded fool,

I have twisted my poor little brain through the convoluted maze you have created in defense of your reason for abortion being a bad thing. I can see you are trying to use logic and the law to base your argument.

The bottom line is, the endangered species law you use, makes no attempt to say eagle egg = eagle. I understand how you've used it to go from where you are to where you want to be, but it is simply twisted logic.

In an attempt to be fair and try to understand your reasoning, I have given your argument great thought. I discount it. No matter how many gerbil runs you build it isn't going to get you any cheese. I put on my gerbil suit and ran the maze, and I find no cheese at the end. Just air. No matter how many sections you add to the maze, you will always be one short of making the conncetion. Just because you can see the cheese on the other side of the gap, that gap still remains.

Puck

LordSnooty writes:
Why don't you just tell us? You pose these theoretical questions a lot, but you STILL (after repeated requests) have NOT told us why an early fetus has any value.

I can give you a reason, but not a universal reason. If the woman wants a baby with all her heart and soul, the value of that fetus is immeasurable. Thus we do need laws in place making the killing of this fetus a crime by someone *forcing the death against her will*.

If however, the woman, wants to prevent the fetus from becoming a baby in her body, then the fetus has no value to her.

I know using the tumor argument is ugly to some people, but it has a point, if you have an unwanted growth inside of your body. If something is growing inside of you, and it's killing you physically or emotionally, all you want is to get the damned thing out. Very often in an unwanted pregnancy, that's what it feels like, something inside of you (think the alien movie) sapping you against your will. How can anyone wish to force that horror on a woman? You see, there's more to pregnancy than meets the eye. I'm not sure many men can apprieciate the intimacy of pregnancy, of something growing inside of your body. While many women are overjoyed at the honor of bringing a new human life into the world, there are times when it's a nightmare of slasher movie proportions.

If we are to live in a world of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then we must be willing to make compromises with each other in order to respect anothers beliefs. That's why we don't use federal monies for abortion, out of respect to those who would feel awful knowing their money went towards what they believe is the killing of a baby. Personally, I think that's a waste of federal funds, it's cheaper to abort than raise a child to adulthood, and then so often, through that perosn's life, in jail, welfare, etc. But, I would never want to see someone living with what they would see as the horror of killing a baby. It costs us all alot of cash to respect those people.

Why am I willing to respect anothers beliefs, yet they are unwilling to respect mine?

LordSnooty

Well, obviously. I was taking it as given that the fetus was unwanted.

Paul