Jinto

lwf, I find it interesting that you use the UDHR as a basis for your definitions, and then change the definition by adding a qualification that did not exist previously. Specifically, you add a qualification that in addition to being members of the human family, that you must also be a member of the human genus, which does not appear anywhere in the UDHR. I would like to know what your basis is for adding this qualification in the first place, aside from the fact that you don't like what the definition includes without that qualification.

First, I am intellectually offended by your statement because even in it's revised form, it attempts to connect the validity of abortion to the character of it's proponents, which is pure ad hominem.

Second, contrary to your assertation, I do not have a commitment to abortion, which you should have figured out from my relative lack of interest in this thread. More to the point however, I find abortion acceptable because I do not regard fetuses as qualifying as human beings. I do NOT regard fetuses as not qualifying as human beings because I find abortion acceptable. In fact, the latter line of reasoning would be quite absurd. However, your post seems to imply this is my reasoning, and I would like to correct this misconception.

Third, my reasons for not finding this a crime have nothing to do with callousness - I certainly sympathize with the plight of the mother, who now has a stillbirth on her hands. But while the prospective mother will almost certainly disagree with me on this, no one died in that hypothetical accident, and I would be guilty of a terrible miscarriage of justice if I let my sympathy for the victim get in the way of making a ruling based on the legal principles that I have set forth here.

Fourth, I recognize that you disagree with me on the idea that the mother was the victim here. You are a proponent of the idea that a fetus qualifies as a human being. I do not agree with this idea, and therefore cannot be expected to treat a fetus as a human being. It's not that I am callous towards the needs of a fetus, I simply do not believe that it is deserving of higher legal regard than, say, the placenta. Accusing me of being callous towars human life (by which I assume you mean the life of human beings, rather than all human life, as I cannot see why you would have regard for the life of human skin cells) because I do not believe a fetus to qualify as a human being is like acusing me of being callous toward God's feeling because I don't believe that God exists. The analogy is stretched a little, but I hope you get the idea.

Was that pun intentional?

Dr Rick

is a non sequitur because it is blatantly contradictory.

The assertions that 1) human beings are born free and equal in dignity can neither specifically include nor exclude fetuses, and 2) the inalienable rights of all members of the human family can only logically include fetuses cannot both be true. The inadequate rationalizations that you employ for the latter are equally applicable to the former. Fetuses are taxonomic members of human beings as well as the human family, so if the first neither specifically excludes nor includes fetuses in the UNDHR, then neither does the second.

Indeed it is.

Well, this is a new strategy; first you explicitly identify your strawman, and now you are explicitly showing us your equivocation.

You are honest if nothing else, lwf.

You have removed all doubt.

Rick

long winded fool

The UDHR is not a basis for my definition of human and never was. My definitions come from the dictionary alone, and as such are axioms. The UDHR uses the word human, it does not define it and doesn't need to with the availability of dictionaries. The question to ask is "what is a human?" It is more rational to consult a dictionary to answer this question than to make up your own definition and assume that it's true because your peers agree. According to the dictionary, any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae and of the group homo is a human. I don't know if anything else is a human, but anything that falls into the above category IS a human. This has been the definition I have used since I first posted. Anything that does not fall into the above category I can only assume is not a human. The human fetus falls into the above category. The UDHR does not define human being. By using the word human, it applies rights to all members of the family Hominidae and group homo. (hence the name 'Human Rights'.) Therefore the genus homo DOES appear in the UDHR by way of being in the definition of what a human is. Just like the words fetus and scuba diver don't appear in the text, they are explicitly implied and can be thought of as present as long as they are human. Human rights are applied to all things which are human and no things which are not. This is really not hard. Dr. Rick has successfully clouded the issue for you with fallacies of distraction.

Good. This is what I was looking for. You have just made an error. You statement does not follow. "Human beings are born free and equal in dignity" doesn't mean that fetuses absolutely do not have dignity, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they do. They are not included nor excluded because of the word born. It could very well be the case (as in the 'walk the earth' example,) that in addition to those that are born, those that are not born also have dignity. You cannot derive this from the above statement of course, but you CAN derive it from the previous statement that "All members of the human family have inalienable rights." The inclusion of the word ALL makes it a universal statement. Since born free and equal CANNOT when taken on it's own include or exclude any particular human beings, and since "all members of the human family" MUST include all particular human beings, the logical conclusion is that fetuses are included in the UDHR. "All members of the human family" is a modifier to the phrase "All are born free and equal." This is why it is in the preamble. It tells the reader to whom inalienable rights apply.

The two assertions you have mentioned can logically coexist. They cannot be contradictory until one contradicts the other. "Born free and equal" does NOT contradict "all humans have human rights." Only if fetuses were specifically excluded, i.e. "Only born humans are free and equal," could the statement be contradictory. There is a very good reason why words like "only" are never used to discriminate against individual human beings. "Only" makes a statement particular. Human rights are not particular. Human rights according to the laws of this country are universal, equal, and inalienable. This makes legal abortion contradictory.

Please don't label my last statements as fallacious without reading them. If you honestly think they are fallacious, you will do me the courtesy of showing me the error I've made in this particular post as I did with yours. Refute this above statement. Do not pick quotes from previous posts, assemble them, and then refute the argument. I do not do this to your arguments.

yguy

Of course they can, because 1) doesn't address the question of membership of fetuses in the human family; therefore it cannot logically contradict the assertion in 2) that fetuses are part of the human family.

Dr Rick

Lwf:

You've only repeated you fallacious reasoning, again, but let's straighten-out a couple of your misstatements before we once again easily expose and pick-apart your illogical arguement.

Contrary to your assertion above, the definitons you have used have varied throughout this thread, and that equivocation not only is fallacious but may also be part of the reason that you cannot see the fallacies that are so obvious to rational people.

You've variously defined human family as applying to the family Homidinae, then the group homo, and then only to homo sapeins sapiens in your attempt to include fetuses in the meanings of the UNDHR. Unfortunately, your argument that human family applies to fetuses could also be applied to chimpazees. If human beings must apply to fetuses because of taxonomy, then human family must apply to chimpazees. Just as the statement "human beings are born free and equal in dignity" can neither specifically include nor exclude fetuses, it can neither exclude or include chimpanzees from those same rights. The statement is as silent on chimpanzees as it is on fetuses.

If, as you insist:

...then the UNDHR MUST include chimpanzees. The same rules and definitions that you argue for apply to chimpanzees. Here it is, re-worded without the fallaicous equivocation you used in the above paragraph:

"All members of the human family have inalienable rights. The inclusion of the word ALL makes it a universal statement. Since born free and equal CANNOT when taken on it's own include or exclude any particular member of the human family, and since "all members of the human family" MUST include all particular members of the human family, the logical conclusion is that chimpanzees are included in the UDHR"

Either the UNDHR applies to chimpazees, or your argument is flawed. The UNDHR was not meant to apply to chimpanzees, so the only rational conclusion is that your argument is fallacious.

The UN did not mean to use the rules and definitons you inconsistently apply to include fetuses; if it did, it would have been explicitly written in a way that would include fetuses and not include chimpazees. Either the DHR does not address the rights of fetuses and chimpanzees, or it does, and you contradict yourself when you try to argue otherwise. It isn't contradictory to argue that fetuses and chimpazees have rights under the UNDHR, but it's ridiculous to use reasoning that leads to such a conclusion. It is contradictory to say that fetuses must and chimpanzees can't under the definitions and rules which you have arbitrarily and inconsistently applied in your bizzare attempt to argue that the document "logically" prohibits abortion.

Contradictions are not logical.

Your arguement is wrong, lwf; it is not rational.

Rick

long winded fool

Never did I argue that only homo sapiens are human, (though I do argue that absolutely all homo sapiens are human.) Only animals of the genus homo are human. Members of the family Hominidae are human, but apparently not ALL members of the family must be human. (Though there seem to be two opnions on whether or not some apes are of the family Hominidae.)

"All members of the human family have inalienable rights. The inclusion of the word ALL makes it a universal statement. Since born free and equal CANNOT when taken on it's own include or exclude any particular member of the human family, and since "all members of the human family" MUST include all particular members of the human family, the logical conclusion is that chimpanzees are included in the UDHR"

This is patently false. Chimpanzees are not and never were members of the human family. They may share the taxonomic family of Hominidae with humans, but they are not members of the human family. To be a member of the human family, an animal must first be a human. To be a human, an animal must be of the genus homo. To be a member of the family to which all humans belong, an animal need only be a hominid. As you can see, the equivocation is in assuming all members of the human family means all members of the hominid family. Since not all hominids are human, "All members of the human family" cannot apply to all hominids.

Either the UNDHR applies to chimpazees, or your argument is flawed. The UNDHR was not meant to apply to chimpanzees, so the only rational conclusion is that your argument is fallacious.

The above shows that this is not the case.

The UN did not mean to use the rules and definitons you inconsistently apply to include fetuses; if it did, it would have been explicitly written in a way that would include fetuses and not include chimpazees. Either the DHR does not address the rights of fetuses and chimpanzees, or it does, and you contradict yourself when you try to argue otherwise.

I don't argue otherwise. The UDHR clearly addresses both fetuses and chimpanzees with the word human.

It isn't contradictory to argue that fetuses and chimpazees have rights under the UNDHR, but it's ridiculous to use reasoning that leads to such a conclusion. It is contradictory to say that fetuses must and chimpanzees can't under the definitions and rules which you have arbitrarily and inconsistently applied in your bizzare attempt to argue that the document "logically" prohibits abortion.

Not true. There isn't a contradiction as shown in the definition of the word "human." Saying that a fetus is a human and that a chimpanzee is not is not contradictory.

Again Dr. Rick, in order for your argument to stand, the UDHR must be worded "All members of the hominid family." You are using too broad a definition of human, which is a logical fallacy. Since not all members of the hominid family are human, you cannot interchange the word hominid with human and proceed logically. "All members of the human family" can only logically be interchanged with "All members of the family (or set) of living or extinct things which are of the family Hominidae AND genus homo." "Members of the human family" cannot take away something from the word human that is required for a thing to be identified as human.

Dr Rick

"The assertions that 1) human beings are born free and equal in dignity can neither specifically include nor exclude fetuses, and 2) the inalienable rights of all members of the human family can only logically include fetuses cannot both be true."

The assertion that fetuses must be included in the human family but may be excluded from human beings is nonsensical. Fetuses can only be members of the human family by being part of a species that belongs to the family, in this case, human beings. If you can exclude them from a statement about human beings, you can exclude them from a statement about the human family.

If a statement about human beings can not be inclusive of fetuses, as 1) is, then a statement about the human family can similarly be not inclusive of fetuses, and so the asertion in 2) is false because it contradicts 1)

Rick

Dr Rick

Actually, it can apply, but it doesn't have to, just as it can apply to fetuses, but doesn't have to.

There's a couple of strawmen in your post, such as "Saying that a fetus is a human and that a chimpanzee is not is not contradictory," and at least one contradiction, "To be a member of the family to which all humans belong, an animal need only be a hominid", but overall your argument in it is pretty good.

You've just shown that your entire arguement that fetuses must be included in the UNDHR is false; it has been based upon the taxonomy of fetuses as members of the human family, which you have now decently argued against. Just as chimpanzees can be excluded from the term human family, so may fetuses. As you have well-demonstrated, taxonomy is not the only way of defining the terms used in the UNDHR. Your assertion that the UNDHR must logically include fetuses has been trampled by you.

Good job, lwf.

Rick

yguy

So it would seem, but where has such an assertion been made?

Not true, as I believe I pointed out about 10 pages ago. The statement "Human beings are born free and equal in dignity" does not contradict the statement, "Fetuses are human beings" in the slightest.

Members of set H(human beings) have the property X (upon their birth, they are free, etc.).

F(fetus) is a member of set H.

Where is the contradiction, especially in light of the fact that "born free..." is in no way exclusive of the preborn?

Dr Rick

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" can neither specifically include nor exclude fetuses...in the phrase "All members of the humans family"...they can only logically be specifically included since fetuses are members of the human family...

lwf's intial ackward wording was "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" can neither specifically include nor exclude fetuses. You cannot then say that fetuses are specifically excluded in the phrase "All members of the humans family" because of the first article. They can only logically be specifically included since fetuses are members of the human family, or the set of animals which are human, being of the taxonomic family Hominidae and the genus homo" which partially obsures his fallacy because it breaks it up and combines it with another, independent assertion: "You cannot then say that fetuses are specifically excluded in the phrase "All members of the humans family" because of the first article." That's a seperate issue from the assertion that they "can only logically be included."

True, but that 's not what we're arguing. lwf aserts that human beings (born with dignity and human rights) neither includes nor excludes fetuses, which it may. If a statement about human beings may be made that does not include fetuses, then a statement about the human family may also be made that does not include fetuses. It doesn't have to exclude them, but it may. That contradicts the assertion that "they can only be logically included."

Rick