Abortion

[obfuscator]

Fetuses aren't people because they aren't sentient. You can't use this on already born humans because they do not restrict the rights of anyone else and can survive on their own, plus we don't actually know when humans become sentient.

 

 

Yes, there are humans who have been born who are not people. Most humans under age 2 are probably not people (were you sentient at 2 years old?).

Lmao, I guess we can just kill them when they restrict their parents' right to liberty and happiness, because, you know, they aren't people.

 

I hope you realize how ridiculous this is. But on the one hand, you've nicely demonstrated why this pro-abortion argument is so flawed.

[Sly_Wizard]

Fetuses aren't people because they aren't sentient. You can't use this on already born humans because they do not restrict the rights of anyone else and can survive on their own, plus we don't actually know when humans become sentient.

 

Yes, there are humans who have been born who are not people. Most humans under age 2 are probably not people (were you sentient at 2 years old?).

 

.........

 

Well, first off, I think you mean self-aware, not sentient. If you poke a newborn with a needle, it will cry. Newborns, however, fail the mirror test, meaning they have no concept of themselves as individuals (which is what I think you mean). But regardless, did you really just say that it's okay to kill a newborn because (s)he might not be a person? I... I don't really even know what to say to you., aside from saying that these are the kinds of conclusions you reach when you start trying to justify why some subset of the population are persons and why others are not.

[Alg]

Well, first off, I think you mean self-aware, not sentient. If you poke a newborn with a needle, it will cry. Newborns, however, fail the mirror test, meaning they have no concept of themselves as individuals (which is what I think you mean). But regardless, did you really just say that it's okay to kill a newborn because (s)he might not be a person? I... I don't really even know what to say to you., aside from saying that these are the kinds of conclusions you reach when you start trying to justify why some subset of the population are persons and why others are not.

The idea is that both a newborn and a fetus will, under normal circumstances, develop to fit any arbitrary definition of personhood you can make. That would be the problem, though, coming up with a definition of personhood that fits whatever side you're taking.

 

I mean, humans take 15 years to reach sexual maturity, and for more than half of that they would have a lot of trouble surviving on their own (If they can at all) and you can probably even extrapolate by saying that any individual without the means to support himself financially is not a person, if you were into that kind of thing. You really can't use the mirror test either, since that is most likely intended to represent a species as a whole, rather than a species at different stages in its life cycle. These arguments would probably work quite well if humans weren't a k-selected species (Few individuals born at a time, long development time, large investment by parents before young can survive on its own).

[Nomrombom]

Fetuses aren't people because they aren't sentient. You can't use this on already born humans because they do not restrict the rights of anyone else and can survive on their own, plus we don't actually know when humans become sentient.

 

 

Yes, there are humans who have been born who are not people. Most humans under age 2 are probably not people (were you sentient at 2 years old?).

Lmao, I guess we can just kill them when they restrict their parents' right to liberty and happiness, because, you know, they aren't people.

 

I hope you realize how ridiculous this is. But on the one hand, you've nicely demonstrated why this pro-abortion argument is so flawed.

 

As I said in the post, "you can't use this on already born humans...". Meaning no, you cannot kill them because (read the post).

 

No, they're not people, but they do have a right to life since they do not restrict anyone else's rights and can survive on their own.

 

Fetuses aren't people because they aren't sentient. You can't use this on already born humans because they do not restrict the rights of anyone else and can survive on their own, plus we don't actually know when humans become sentient.

 

Yes, there are humans who have been born who are not people. Most humans under age 2 are probably not people (were you sentient at 2 years old?).

 

.........

 

Well, first off, I think you mean self-aware, not sentient. If you poke a newborn with a needle, it will cry. Newborns, however, fail the mirror test, meaning they have no concept of themselves as individuals (which is what I think you mean). But regardless, did you really just say that it's okay to kill a newborn because (s)he might not be a person? I... I don't really even know what to say to you., aside from saying that these are the kinds of conclusions you reach when you start trying to justify why some subset of the population are persons and why others are not.

 

Yes, I mean self-aware.

 

I did not say it was okay to kill a newborn. Do not put words in my mouth.

[obfuscator]

As I said in the post, "you can't use this on already born humans...". Meaning no, you cannot kill them because (read the post).

 

No, they're not people, but they do have a right to life since they do not restrict anyone else's rights and can survive on their own.

A two year old can survive on their own?

[Nomrombom]

You know exactly what I mean.

[Assume Nothing]

As I said in the post, "you can't use this on already born humans...". Meaning no, you cannot kill them because (read the post).

 

No, they're not people, but they do have a right to life since they do not restrict anyone else's rights and can survive on their own.

A two year old can survive on their own?

 

Different context - their parents dying would not stop them from living.

[obfuscator]

No, I don't know exactly what you mean.

 

You're seriously attempting to claim that a two year old is not a person, which is completely ridiculous.

[Assume Nothing]

I did not make that claim.

[Sly_Wizard]

The idea is that both a newborn and a fetus will, under normal circumstances, develop to fit any arbitrary definition of personhood you can make. That would be the problem, though, coming up with a definition of personhood that fits whatever side you're taking.

 

There is only a problem when you argue that personhood is not synonymous with human. At that point, you're burdened with coming up with a definition fo personhood which either doesn't lead to extreme conclusions or a definition which does not excuse a group you want to include.

 

You really can't use the mirror test either, since that is most likely intended to represent a species as a whole, rather than a species at different stages in its life cycle. These arguments would probably work quite well if humans weren't a k-selected species (Few individuals born at a time, long development time, large investment by parents before young can survive on its own).

 

Why can't I use the mirror test? Some people in this thread aren't arguing that it's permissible to kill humans, as a species, because they're not self-aware, but that it's permissable to kill a human at a specific stage of development or time because it isn't self-aware. Therefore, the use of the mirror test to show that if Human A at stage of development X can be killed on the basis that it's not self-aware (or, more specifically, it has no right to not be killed), then Human B at stage of development Y can be killed under the same rationale is perfectly justified.

 

Yes, I mean self-aware.

 

I did not say it was okay to kill a newborn. Do not put words in my mouth.

 

I'm not putting words in your mouth. You said that newborns, and people under the age of two, were "probably not people". If they're not persons, then what right do they have to not be killed? What's the point of pointing out that they're "probably not people" if not to insinuate that it's okay to kill them?

[Alg]

I was trying to agree with you :razz:

[Sly_Wizard]

Oh. My apologies then :mrgreen:

[obfuscator]

I did not make that claim.

That was directed at nomrombom.

 

@Alg: defining personhood is basically the core issue here. I agree it's difficult to define.

[Nomrombom]

No, I don't know exactly what you mean.

 

You're seriously attempting to claim that a two year old is not a person, which is completely ridiculous.

 

 

What I meant by "can survive on its own" is that it does not require the parents to live on its own. Physical independence.

 

 

A two year old is (probably) not a person because it is (probably) not conscious. Consciousness is what let humans control the Earth. Consciousness is what separates us from nearly all other species. This is what makes us people rather than just apes.

[obfuscator]

No, I don't know exactly what you mean.

 

You're seriously attempting to claim that a two year old is not a person, which is completely ridiculous.

 

 

What I meant by "can survive on its own" is that it does not require the parents to live on its own. Physical independence.

 

 

A two year old is (probably) not a person because it is (probably) not conscious. Consciousness is what let humans control the Earth. Consciousness is what separates us from nearly all other species. This is what makes us people rather than just apes.

Then is someone in a coma no longer a person? What about someone with a developmental brain disease? Someone with alzheimers? At what point does someone become conscious?

 

I'll leave off with a quote from Christoper Hitchens:

 

Two instances—one of immoral teaching and the other of immoral practice—may be adduced. The immoral teaching concerns abortion. As a materialist, I think it has been demonstrated that an embryo is a separate body and entity, and not merely (as some really did used to argue) a growth on or in the female body. There used to be feminists who would say that it was more like an appendix or even—'this was seriously maintained—a tumor, That nonsense seems to have stopped. Of the considerations that have stopped it, one is the fascinating and moving view provided by the sonogram, and another is the survival of "premature" babies of featherlike weight, who have achieved "viability" outside the womb. This is yet another way in which science can make common cause with humanism. Just as no human being of average moral capacity could be indifferent to the sight of a woman being kicked in the stomach, so nobody could fail to be far more outraged if the woman in question were pregnant. Embryology confirms morality. The words "unborn child," even when used in a politicized manner, describe a material reality.

 

Basically, stop while you're...not as far away as you could be from being ahead.

[Furah]

Just wondering, does anyone else here think that a lot of people who say they're 'pro-life' seem to be anti-life once the foetus is born? I've seen one-too-many people protest against allowing women the right to chose, and then go around and protest against vaccinations for kids, support the death sentence for criminals, and not care when the mother-to-be dies during pregnancy.

[obfuscator]

Just wondering, does anyone else here think that a lot of people who say they're 'pro-life' seem to be anti-life once the foetus is born? I've seen one-too-many people protest against allowing women the right to chose, and then go around and protest against vaccinations for kids, support the death sentence for criminals, and not care when the mother-to-be dies during pregnancy.

I'm sure there are some people like that. But saying there's any frequent connection is nothing more than generalization and stereotyping.

[Sly_Wizard]

Just wondering, does anyone else here think that a lot of people who say they're 'pro-life' seem to be anti-life once the foetus is born? I've seen one-too-many people protest against allowing women the right to chose, and then go around and protest against vaccinations for kids, support the death sentence for criminals, and not care when the mother-to-be dies during pregnancy.

 

No, because (1) it's a bald-faced lie to say that pro-lifers don't care about the fetus once it's born (good luck proving this assertion, as it's very easy to disprove) and (2) some of that stuff, i.e. the death penalty, has nothing to do with abortion.

[Nomrombom]

Someone in a coma will either die or return to consciousness, and they were conscious before. You never know when they might return.

 

A person with a severe enough brain disease may or may not be conscious. If they are not conscious, then no, they are not a person. They are human, however, and have the right to life, liberty, blah blah blah.

 

A person with Alzheimers was conscious and may drift in and out of consciousness (we can't really know). Thus, like the coma patient, they are still a person, though temporarily incapacitated.

 

 

As I've said before, it's quite difficult to define consciousness, but you know what I mean, as does every other conscious person on Earth if asked. It's innate.

 

 

There is, and most people inherently know it, but they have trouble verbalizing it for one very specific reason.

 

The defining mark between something that is human and someone who is a person is 'consciousness.' It is the self-aware quality of consciousness that makes us uniquely different from others. This self-awareness, this sentient consciousness is also what separates us from every other animal life form on the planet. We think about ourselves. We use language to describe ourselves. We are aware of ourselves as a part of the greater whole.

 

The problem is that consciousness normally doesn't occur until months, even years, after a baby is born. This creates a moral dilemma for the defender of abortion rights. Indeed, they inherently know what makes a human into a person, but they are also aware such individual personhood doesn't occur until well after birth. To use personhood as an argument for abortion rights, therefore, also leads to the argument that it should be okay to kill a 3-month-old baby since it hasn't obtained consciousness either.

 

Anti-abortionists use this perceived problem in an attempt to prove their point. In a debate, a Pro Choice defender will rightly state that the difference between a fetus and a full-term human being is that the fetus isn't a person. The anti-abortion activist, being quite sly, will reply by asking his opponent to define what makes someone into a person. Suddenly the Pro Choice defender is at a loss for words to describe what he or she knows innately. We know it because we lived it. We know we have no memory of self-awareness before our first birthday, or even before our second. But we also quickly become aware of the "problem" we create if we say a human doesn't become a person until well after its birth. And we end up saying nothing. The anti-abortionist then takes this inability to verbalize the nature of personhood as proof of their claim that a human is a person at conception.

 

But they are wrong. Their "logic" is greatly flawed. Just because someone is afraid to speak the truth doesn't make it any less true.

 

And in reality, the Pro Choice defender's fear is unfounded. They are right, and they can state it without hesitation. A human indeed does not become a full person until consciousness. And consciousness doesn't occur until well after the birth of the child. But that does not automatically lend credence to the anti-abortionist's argument that it should, therefore, be acceptable to kill a three-month-old baby because it is not yet a person.

 

It is still a potential person. And after birth it is an independent potential person whose existence no longer poses a threat to the physical wellbeing of another. To understand this better, we need to look at the next question.

 

http://www.elroy.net/ehr/abortionanswers.html#person

[obfuscator]

Okay, so what makes a human then?

[Nomrombom]

Human DNA. An individual creature.

[obfuscator]

Human DNA. An individual creature.

Sounds a lot like a fetus.

 

 

They are human, however, and have the right to life, liberty, blah blah blah.

[Sly_Wizard]

To put it kindly, the above given link by Nomrombom a load of crap and I seriously could write paragraphs upon paragraphs as to why this is, but I won't. Instead, I pose the following (rhetorical) question; what if the pregnancy poses no threat to the mother's physical health, and we know this with absolute certainty? Would the author argue that abortion is thereby impermissible?

[aspeeder]

To put it kindly, the above given link by Nomrombom a load of crap and I seriously could write paragraphs upon paragraphs as to why this is, but I won't. Instead, I pose the following (rhetorical) question; what if the pregnancy poses no threat to the mother's physical health, and we know this with absolute certainty? Would the author argue that abortion is thereby impermissible?

Yes it is, for one thing because even a normal pregnancy poses much larger health risks than getting an abortion. And also because it threatens her personal and financial dependance, often the structure of her already existing family (A majority of women who have abortions already have children Source), and they were often doing the most to prevent pregnancy (Source). And get writing, I'd be interested what your retorts are. As to what makes something human, it is DNA. My liver is no less alive nor less human than a fetus, a child, or an adult.

[sees_all1]

Yes it is, for one thing because even a normal pregnancy poses much larger health risks than getting an abortion.

http://afterabortion.org/2004/death-rate-of-abortion-three-times-higher-than-childbirth/

 

There are many things wrong with your statement. Firstly, all statistics for abortions are lumped into pregnancy statistics. Secondly, all women with previous abortions are lumped into pregnancy statistics. The risk for complications in the pregnancy after an abortion greatly increase due to scarring.

Also, post-abortion complications are under reported due to the secret nature of the procedure itself. About 10% of women have complications after abortion, with about 2% being major.

 

Also lumped into pregnancy statistics are the conditions of the babies themselves, a premature baby might not pose much of a risk to its mother but the complication is certainly life threatening to the baby.

 

 

Basically anything saying otherwise and NOT reporting/removing these factors is likely to have a serious flaw in its statistic, and quite probably a biased source.