Dr Rick

You can makes all the judgements you want, but you have no right to arbitrarily impose them on everyone

<strong> You would rather give more rights to an egg than to a full-grown, sentient woman.

<strong> You can make any assumption you want, but you may not force your arbitrary opinions on others.

<strong> Under your view, women would be deprived of their freedom and lives would be lost in back-alley abortions. May not make a big difference to you, not being a women.

I never said babies shouldn't have any protections, any more than you said women have no rights.

A full-term baby does deserve protection, but a zygote or embryo does not.

Rick

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

The hypothetical proposition, "If we were to meet an alien species such as Vulcans, they would have all of the rights of persons," is a true statement. We do not need to actually meet any vulcans to know that it is a true statement.

And this true statement breaks any conceptual link between human genetic makeup and persons.

Ignoring this fact does not prevent it from being a fact.


We are talking about claiming that a being is not a "person" because it cannot survive if its environment were drastically changed without technological assistance.

The fact that a being cannot survive in a drastically altered environment (a fetus out of the womb, a man at the bottom of a lake) does not justify saying that the being is not a "person."


I believe this is true. However, the title of this thread says nothing about abortion. It asks simply "What is a person?"

And that is the question I am answering.

I think that personhood is only marginally relevant with respect to the legitimacy of abortion. As I have said before, even if the fetus is a person, no person has the right to hijack the body of another and use it for life support. The mother is also a person and, as such, deny the use of her body for such purposes by any other person.

'Person' does not depend on having a human genetic code.

'Person' does not depend on having the capacity to survive in a drastically different environment (e.g., outside the womb) - even if, at a later stage of life, it can survive in that environment.

'Person' does not depend on being wanted.

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

Well, I use pain as an example. My criterion is that the being must have desires and aversions (such as an aversion to pain).

However, you are correct that this ties in with the development of a nervous system.

Yet, I want to make it clear that even when the fetus can feel pain and becomes a person, this still does not give the right to the use of another person's body without her consent.

To deny this is to treat the woman as a mere thing, a tool to put at the disposal of others. The personhood of the woman cannot be legitimately ignored.

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

The question, "What is a person?", though relevant to the issue of abortion, is not restricted to it.

Other relevant questions include:

"What criteria must an alien species meet for its members to be considered 'persons'?"

"What capabilities must a machine have in order for the machine to be a 'person'?"

"Whereas it is only legitimate to punish the guilty, what must the person being punished have in common with the person who committed a crime for it to make sense to say that we are punishing 'the same person'?"

The best account of personhood is that which is broadly applicable -- a type of 'universal personhood theory'.

To do otherwise is to allow one's position on abortion to determine one's concept of a person -- which is a bit backwards.

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Jamie_L

There is a point that abortion is a separate issue from personhood, personhood can enter into the abortion debate. If anyone wants to hack into the abortion debate again, that would be a good topic for another thread.

Jamie

The Other Michael

Hi Alonzo,

By that criterion wouldn't a cat or dog be a person since they certainly show an aversion to pain?

cheers,
Michael

Alonzo Fyfe

Short answer: Yes -- in that there exist a prima facie reason not to subject a dog or cat to pain. All else being equal, in deciding upon an which action to perform -- one which inflicts pain on a dog or a cat and one that does not -- the latter is morally preferable.

Really, does anybody disagree with this? Does anybody think that, all else being equal, it does not matter whether the dog or cat is suffering?

At this point, I think it is relevant to identify some things that I am and am not saying when I use the word "person."

One sense is that a "person" is the holder of absolute rights -- e.g., a right not to be killed. I do not believe in absolute rights, thus I hold that no "persons" of this type exist.

[Note: Many who argue for the fetus being a "person" couch this claim in a theory of absolute rights. In which case, the proper response is not to deny the personhood of the fetus, but to deny the soundness of their absolutist ethical theory.]

The sense of "person" that I think is applicable in the real world holds that for all "persons", there exists a prima facie reason to do or forbear from certain actions -- namely, actions that would fulfill or thwart their desires.

On this criterion, since there are prima facie reasons to forbear from inflicting pain on dogs and cats, they count as "persons" in the only sense of the word "persons" that has applicability in the real world.

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

CuriosityKills

Hey Rick,

Do you shreik in horror when encountering spermacide at the pharmacy?

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: CuriosityKills ]</p>

Dr Rick

Only if I get some in my eyes.

Rick

Pseudonymph

The Goggles do nothing!


I guess you had to actually see that episode