DigitalDruid

Geo, you wrote:
Also:
If you deem both a fetus and its mother to be ‘persons’ (in whatever sense) to the same degree, why is this preference for saving one ‘person’ (the mother) at the expense of the other ‘person’ (the fetus) if necessary? If anything, our inclination, following the principle of protecting the weaker, should be to save the fetus at the expense of its mother. That is, to save the fetus, it should be OK for a surgeon to take the mother’s life if necessary. At the very least, there should be no preference. Going by what you are saying (the second quote above), I think you do distinguish between the ‘person-hood’ of the fetus and its mother. In that case, you are treating them as ‘persons’ to different degrees.

Also, if a fetus is a person just as its mother is, then those women who get abortion (except to save their lives - the only exception you allow), possibly along with their doctors, should get the maximum possible penalty (usually life-imprisonment or death penalty depending on the State) for planned and deliberate killing. Would you support such legislation? If not, again I think you do distinguish between the ‘person-hood’ of a fetus and its mother in some way.

Albion

Geo, you're not going to persuade me on moral grounds that it's the wrong thing to do, and calling a fertilised egg a person isn't going to make any difference. People just look at things differently. You can look at a dish of cells and see a bunch of bonny bouncing babies, and I could look at that same dish of cells and see a bunch of cells. You aren't going to convince me I'm looking at people any more than I'm going to convince you that you aren't.

The argument about when a foetus becomes a person or deserves protection as an individual is one that's going to go on forever because there are so many different possibilities. There's no consensus in the medical profession (that I know of) about when a human life starts; the AMA's position on abortion is that within the law as it stands, it's a matter for the conscience of each individual doctor.

My personal position on this, which I'd be the first to admit isn't totally set in rock just because you are trying to draw a line somewhere across a continuum, is that life begins at the point of viability, which I think is the point where the lungs develop since they're the last of the vital organs to come on line. Otherwise I'd say that maybe personhood starts when a foetus has enough of a brain and nervous system to be able to develop a personality, since to me that's what defines an individual. But there is no way I'd say that human life or personhood starts at the moment of conception. I think that's a sort of "it's hard to know where to draw the line, so we'll just avoid that probelm and ratchet to the extreme" cop-out position.

Alonzo Fyfe

First, you speak as if the decision between two "persons" is up to a third party. It is not. The mother, as a person, has a right to deny the use of her body without her consent.

Second, if the fetus is not viable, then there is no way to save the fetus at the cost of the mother's life. We save either one life (the mother's) or none.


None of this follows from claiming that the fetus is a "person". My refusal to donate my kidney to is not grounds for a murder charge, even if the kidney could have saved another's life.

Ultimtely, I do not believe that the concept of "person" that you are using to reach these conclusions can be defended without the assumption of intrinsic values. Since there are no intrinsic values, the conclusions that you claim are associated with calling a fetus a "person" do not stand. Theories of objective, extrinsic values do not yield such drastic conclusions, even in granting personhood to the fetus.

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

As I have argued elsewhere, viability does not work for personhood unless people on pacemakers and other life-support technology also fail to qualify as persons.

The only sense of personhood that I have found of any merit is that which holds that associated with the existence of desires (e.g., aversion to pain). People with pacemakers have desires. If a fetus has desires, then this is sufficient for the fetus to be called a person.

I admit, this concept of personhood does not fit in well with the absolutist "rights" theory used two posts above. But the problem is not with the concept of personhood, but with the the absolutist account of rights. Being a "person" simply means that the interests of the fetus are not morally trivial. It does not mean that the interests of the fetus trump all other concerns and that the interests of other [p]persons[/i] are to be considered as trivial and irrelevant when weighed against the interests of the fetus.

To illustrate this point, I ask a simple question. All else being equal, is a fetus in great pain versus a fetus in no pain (assuming no lasting damage -- i.e., an intention to abort the fetus in a few days anyway) morally irrelevant?

To say that the interests of the fetus are morally irrelevant is to say that the decision between the fetus in great pain versus the fetus in no pain is morally trivial. To say that this choice is not morally trivial is to say that the fetus has interests.

Don't get me wrong. I am pro-choice. I think that making abortion illegal is to deny the personhood of the woman -- to treat the woman as no more than a fetus-incubator and to deny her interests -- including her interest not to have her body used by another person without her consent.

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

abe smith

Refer to original qy at this thread &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt; How about "A *person* is an entity ( = existing thing) which calls itself/can call itself 'I'."
This definition is a shorthand glyph to include all the other competencies wh/ being-able to call oneself "I" implies. Abe

DigitalDruid

Heh heh, if anything you should be arguing with Geo, not me. All I have done is quoted two of Geo's (not mine) assertions and expanded on them (by deriving logical implications) to show what I believe to be inconsistencies. They are not my arguments, but they are what I deem to be what is implied by Geo's assertions.

You are questioning calling a fetus a 'person' and I concur with you. But since the conceptual analysis of such terms has already been done in this thread, I am trying to show another kind of weakness in Geo's argument - that of internal inconsistency. The only way Geo can avoid internal incosistency, as I see it, is by adopting an extremely radical absolutely no-exception position on abortion. Currently he allows for one exception to save the mother's life.
Hope that clears it up.
Cheers.

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: DigitalDruid ]</p>

Nataraja

Simple enough question to answer.
Anything that considers itself a person would qualify as such.

Clutch

GeoTheo,
Maybe this is just a typo, GT. But it's a common enough attempted move in reasoning that it's worth pointing out the fallacy. Human just means having a human genetic code. This is not sufficient for all the rights associated with personhood, nor, arguably, is it even necessary.

Something that completely lacks a mind cannot be said to be a person. Certainly there are borderline cases, but in at least some stages of development, the pre-born do not even have brains. Surely nothing lacking a brain counts as a person.

You are correct that the developmental transition from non-personhood to personhood is gradual, and resists characterization in terms of some sharp divide. But this is a familiar phenomenon, and one that simply fails to support extending the later categorization back to the earlier stages. The fact that no single point or event definitively marks the point of sufficient maturity to vote, or drink, or drive, or screw, or whatever, does not mean that we extend the rights to vote, drink, drive and screw to three year-olds. There is no general pattern of reasoning that supports the extension of a right to life to two or four or eight-celled organisms in spite of their lacking every one of the morally significant properties associated with persons: consciousness, interests, desires, agency... As we've seen, it's quite the opposite; in such cases, our usual practice is to stipulate rough and ready conventional demarcations.

elwoodblues

Not to be a pain, but...

What if this entity in question, even though it posesses human DNA, a brain, heart, liver, etc., considers itself to be a potted plant?

Nataraja

This depends on how the nutjob feels about potted plants and how they are supposed to think and behave. If $weirdo truly thinks of zirself as a potted plant, in the sense that most of us understand, you just ignore zir, except to occassionally sprinkle zir with water to insure that zir doesn't go psycho.

Anyone born with human DNA must be automatically considered a person, by law. Most humans consider themselves people, in one sense or another so, in interest of convenience, it is for the best to treat them all as such.

If people want to keep potted plants in mental wards, that's their business.

The point is that self-awareness is what makes a person a person (unlike half the people I knew in High School).

It's generally a good rule of thumb not to kill something that can ask you not to. I really don't see any reason to go about making creatures miserable for no reason, though, so whatever.

Any questions?

[ October 30, 2002: Message edited by: Nataraja ]</p>