Jamie_L

It seems like we are steering back into a more general abortion thread, and away from a personhood thread. Perhaps because those of us involved have beat the personhood issue to death without anyone convincing anybody else.

Where have I ended up? Somewhere close to here:

A person (our legal definition here: an individual deserving of rights) is any member of a species capable of cognitive thought that is also mentally alive.

Practically, that reduces to any human being that is mentally alive.

By mentally alive, I mean carrying out processes that maintain a mind. In humans, a brain carries out these functions.

What is morally valuable about people is the existence of a mind. Killing someone destroys that mind. This is true of infants and people in comas. It is not true of the brain-dead, who have already had their mind destroyed by the cessation of brain functions.

Why species capable of cognition (i.e. humans)? In general, minds created by brains evolved for cognition have value over those that are not. Even young minds that aren't yet fully cognitive are carrying on processes unique to the minds of a cognitive species. This is what is valuable. An infant is not valuable simply because it will one day be cognitive. It is valuable because of the mind it presently has.

A handful of cells, regardless of their potential, are not mentally alive. Destroying them does not destroy a mind. Thus, abortion before the existence of brain structures is morally different from abortion after the existence of brain structures. Prior to the existence of the brain, there is no mind, and thus no person.

I think that's almost all have have left to say on this.

Jamie

dk

dk: I agree with you Jamie, and being a person that has seen a lot of these discussion travel down the low road into rhetorical daggers, appreciate the high road. This is what I call an irreconcilable argument because the consequences of abortion are both epoch and incomprehensible.

In PPA v. Casey Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter delivered the decision of the court, from parts [505 U.S. 833, 855-856] concluded, “The Roe rule's limitation on state power could not be repudiated without serious inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and social developments, have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. The Constitution serves human values, and while the effect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured, neither can the certain costs of overruling Roe for people who have ordered their thinking and living around that case be dismissed.”

The court said the only possible remedy for failed contraception is abortion. Ain’t life grand.
dk: I see little if any evidence most people put a high value on cognition. Heck, at universities around the world many young adults at the peak of their mental abilities expend great effort, take great risks, and spend their last $ to obliterate every cognitive brain cell in their head. Many people spend the greater part of their life drunk/high, figuring out how to get drunk or high, and do it for the sole reason they don’t want to be cognizant. This is a weak argument.
dk: That roughly puts abortion in the same neighborhood as ten year old huffing a bag glue.

[ April 27, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

dk

dk: - I’m not sure the statement is supportable on principles of ethical a) proportionalism, b) relativism or c) naturalism. Liberty entitles a person wield their power in a matter, and in the matter of abortion a pregnant women has the power. There are no constraints reasonable or otherwise. The only conceivable alternative to wanton abortion is that women are somehow forced/coerced/compelled to abort.
dk: - An interesting appeal to the natural law. The natural law requires equal treatment under the law. Lets take a non-hypothetical case. A man intentionally pushes or strikes a 25 week pregnant women to cause a spontaneous abortion. Is the man guilty of aggravated assault, or murder? What if the man strikes the 25 week pregnant women driving drunk or in the commission of a felony? Clearly in these circumstances the state has some obligation to protect the fetus, and the mother, father, grandparents etc… has suffered a grievous loss. What about the life saving operation given to one sickly fetus, while another perfectly healthy fetus gets hacked to pieces. The natural law doesn’t align with abortion in any order.

What about the pregnant women’s doctor, what part does the physician play in the decision to abort. A qualified physician is at liberty to comply or refuse the women’s request, but it’s strictly unethical for an abortion doctor to persuade or coerce a pregnant women to abort. The Hippocratic oath obliges a physician to do no harm, so abortion doctors skate on a thin line of strict neutrality. Surely you don’t propose its ethical for doctors to coerce/force a woman to abort for non-medical reasons. I’m afraid we must remove the doctor as a partner, unless there is some medical reason. To make the doctor an active participant in the decision would overturn Roe.
dk: - Whether or not it’s plausible to ground personhood in cognition is doubtful, people have raised all kinds of issues from alcohol induced comas to genetically engineered zombie creatures with human uteruses. At 9 weeks science says a fetus dreams, so cognition doesn’t really answer many questions, if any, and if anything it poses many new questions. There are many documented cases of failed abortions that ended in the birth of a dismembered, blind and mutated live babies; so it seems cognition whether it be latent or active doesn’t apply. Science keeps pushing the envelope that defines a viable fetus, so viability is likewise raises more questions than it answers. In my estimation the real concern about grounding personhood in cognition is a completed degradation of human rights and dignity along lines that are unimaginable.

I’m puzzled by this concern for aliens. If aliens ever do come a knocking, Why do you think aliens would fall under the jurisdiction of earthly governments, courts, or military justice? If aliens respect earth’s autonomy then they will abide by our laws. If they don’t? Well that’s too bad for humankind. We earth people are in no position to negotiate or impose our laws on creatures capable of interstellar space travel. The issue is beyond hypothetical it’s implausible.
The logic is circular. For example NAZI Germany defined Jews as non-persons, then systematically deprived them of their liberty, property and life. So we’re back at square one. The U.S. claims to be a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. An arbitrary definition of human life is an obstacle to the fundamental proposition. It’s unacceptable to arbitrarily say a human life is a non-person then when it travels six inches down a birth canal it is crowned a person.

Huh, a moral abortion requires a reasonable criteria. For example, it may be ethical to kill a man raping a woman at gun point, but not if the intent is to kill the man, the intent must be to save the women, killing the man is a secondary effect. The criteria you give is bogus. A woman is in no better position to assess the consequences of aborting or having her baby than anybody else! If she allows the pregnancy then she might have a spontaneous abortion the next day, or she may never get pregnant again, or she might contract a deadly infection during the abortion operation and die or she might suffer post abortion depression, or the child might give meaning to her life in ways unimaginable or the child might be a psychopath that blows up Columbine. Clearly a pregnant women is no better position than anyone else to evaluate the future, the notion is absurd.

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

Bubbly

Thanks for the "newcomer welcome"...(I love to hear reasonable dialogue from all views)...helps the mind to consider & to better understand.

With all the examples you've given of circumstances that a woman might find herself in and the possibilities and outcomes that she might have with regards to choosing to abort a prospective viable life, you're talking about millions of examples of case law...(the lawyers of the world are gonna love it - insuring them of permanent employment if abortions should ever be allotted out case by case)



Care & be well, bEv (lover of poetry)

"Seek not to pour the world into thy little mould,
Each as its nature is, its being must unfold;
Thou art but as a string in life's vast sounding-board,
And other strings as sweet may not with thine accord." - W. W. Story

"Every evil thought or deed has sentence against it speedily executed in the character" - Marion D. Shutter

"If God made poets for anything, it was to keep alive the traditions of the pure, the holy, and the beautiful" - Lowell.

Jerry Smith

DK,

If you will please read back through the relevant threads, you will see that most of your questions have been answered.

For one, you will see why we have all agreed that cognition is not an arbitrary distinction between person and non-person. You will see the means by which BD & I have dealt with the cases of the comatose & other objections to the criterion of cognition.

If you do not feel that cognition is a reasonable standard by which to recognize the right of an individual to life, what is the correct standard? You mention "human life" a lot: is the correct standard membership in the species homo sapiens? Why? Would an intelligent form of life of any other species be less deserving of rights?

Alternatively, if "speciesism" is not your arbitrary criterion for the recognition of the right to life, then do you include plants, cats, and goldfish when you recognize the right to life? After all, the Nazis defined Jews and Blacks as non-persons - are you going to do the same to Ferns and Kittens?

You claim my statement is false:
on this dubious basis:
I didn't claim that a pregnant woman is omniscient with regard to her gestating fetus. I merely claimed the obvious: that before the fetus becomes a person, she is in the best position to assess the consequences of continuing the pregnancy and her own ability to deal with them, under the sound guidance of her doctor(s). If you dispute that, you are basically saying that you do not feel that women are competent as independent moral agents, and that you can do a better job thinking for them than they can for themselves. That does not fit with our democratic philosophy of individual responsibility and freedom.

Please take the time to read what has already been posted and to reflect on the meaning of all of it. When you post, please try to bring up concerns that have not already been addressed, or at least offer a way of addressing them that you think is better, and why you think it is.

Thanks!
Jerry

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: Jerry Smith ]</p>

Jerry Smith

Bev, I can see where you are coming from on that. On the other hand, I think the fact is that if abortion is criminalized, the practice will go underground and circumvent the courts (as it has done in the past). On the other hand, there is no reason to criminalize early term abortion if the early term fetus/embryo/zygote is not yet a person, in whom we must recognize the right to life.

On the other hand, I'm sure trial lawyers would just love to get their fingers in the pie if they could find an angle.



P.S. we must be neighbors. I live in Chattanooga, TN, and live part of my childhood in Rome, GA. As a matter of fact, these forums are chock full of southern boys & girls.

Jerry Smith

DK, one more thing...

If this is true, it changes everything. Please provide a reference & I'll notify the AMA!

(the moral is.... don't throw "facts" around unless you are sure that they are true. Someone has jerked your chain.. probably in a convincing way... remember to always ask for good documentation...)

dk

dk:Not necessarily Jerry, here’s a link to an article that disputes what REM sleep means,

I reviewed several sites, so the 9 week claim is weak at best. REM sleep begins in the 5th month (20-24 weeks). Mind you a fetus’s eye movements indicate REM sleep, but the article from Columbia challenges the claim. Here’s a well documented article (with its sources well documented) <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/francis_beckwith_--.htm" target="_blank"> Vanderbilt University by Professor Francis J. Beckwith </a>

You seem think the claim is absurd, so here’s another article from Vanderbilt…

dk

dk: I read the discussion, and thought it was very good. You guys covered a lot of ground, and I think the scope and breath of the discussion trivialized some important points, but made a lot of good points.
dk: - I think cognition resurrects Descartes, so it’s more of a rehash than a new revelation. I don’t discount it out of hand, except to say replacing Descartes pituitary gateway with a subatomic neuro-network doesn’t add much in totality.
dk: - I think the universe of human ideas is infinite, and ideas (good or bad) shape the future. Ferns and kittens as subjects inspire people, but I don’t see how categorizing them as persons makes them anymore, or less inspirational. To animated plants and animals with human characteristics to some degree neglects their innate beauty, mystery and nature. In my opinion it’s a form of hubris that endangers humanity, and many other species on the planet. I’m not against animation, but not to the extent it subverts the true nature, beauty and mystery of the universe, that would be a corruption.
dk: - When a fetus becomes a human being isn’t at all obvious or trivial. I agree it’s obvious a pregnant women bares the primary burden of gestation, but that is not what you said. Whether the burden of womanhood is one of love or grief is an entirely different and more complex issue. To the degree I used hyperbole to make an obvious point I apologize, that wasn’t necessary.

Ok, I agree the non-trivial question is, “Does the burden of pregnancy entitle women to “independent moral agency?” I'd say no, and submit the it entitles women to greater status, but not independent moral agency. If women are independent moral agents, then by extension so are men. Why? Because the principle of equality under the law requires “My liberty to end where the rights of others begin”. If men and women are independent agents (moral) then they must have the liberty to act with independent rights, liberties and duties that flow “from and to the offspring of their union”. Since the baby may be male or female the proposition is self mutilating, conflicted and adversarial. Clearly men and women are entitled to distinct agency, but their agency is dependent or interdependent, not independent. Any principled resolution to the enigma requires liberties, rights and duties be assigned collectively i.e. assigned to an autonomous unit like a family, household, or community. I think this goes a long way to explain WHY the nuclear family has been fractured, and Hillary wrote the book, “it takes a community to raise a child”. Unfortunately this has taken us a long way off the topic of the thread, let me real it back into the ballpark. I submit any categorization of plant, creature, non-person, or personhood and the rights, liberties and freedoms subsequently assigned must consider the family the entire life cycle as primary factor, not a secondary consequent. Science learned the lesson from DTE and other pesticides, apparently neuro-ethicists are still playing catch up.
dk: - I’ll try harder Jerry and thanks for the constructive comments; I hope you recognize that consensus between two parties on a thread isn’t binding upon all participants. I hated to disrupt the thread earlier with my comments and thoughts precisely because the discussion was so interesting.

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: dk ]</p>

Jamie_L

I had an interesting thought over the weekend about comatose "persons". In some instances, we've talked about a person in a coma who will never recover as being a non-person. I don't think that should be true.

I believe personhood should be tied to a functioning brain that is maintaining the existence of a mind. Even if that mind shows no outward activities, it is still of value and it is wrong for others to end that mind's existence without its consent. Since we may not be able to know FOR CERTAIN if the comatose person is maintaining his mind, perhaps he should still be considered a person.

Practically speaking, this is what we do now, more or less. It's not a lack of "personhood" that allows family members to take a comatose person off life support and allow them to die. It's a voluntary act committed by the comatose person THROUGH INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE ASSUMED THOSE RIGHTS either through family connections or by means of a living will, etc.

I'm a little fuzzy on the law in these cases. If someone is comatose and doctors say he has no chance of recovery, but he survives without need of life support, is it legal for him to be killed? If not, is it murder, or some lesser crime?

Just a thought.

Jamie