"Therefore, Abortion Must Remain Legal"

[alwight]

Let me guess: you don't understand what I meant by that...

I never understand what you mean LH, even if I do understand the words.

 

[mighty_duck]

She had control of what is going inside her body and she consented with the knowledge that letting this *ahem* "something" in could result in pregnancy.

We tell women they have the right to say no, even if they said yes earlier. At no point does it become OK to use their body without their explicit consent.

I simply feel that abortion irreversibly damages one party while the other party has options available that protects the basic liberties of both parties.

As it is, other options are available that balances the scale evenly.

Again, that is a reasonable position to take, as long as you acknowledge that there is in fact a scale and what sits on either side of it: The right of to life of the fetus vs the right to bodily sovereignty on the other.

Choosing one compromises the other, even if justifiably so.

Sure it is. Precautions can be taken but pregnancy is a natural possible result of consensual sex. Both parties involved take that risk when they engage in such.

Driving is not an implied consent to pay a speeding ticket if we follow the same logic.

But is driving an implied consent to give blood in case we injure someone with our car? Our body is where the law draws the line of implicit responsibility. :think:

We can agree to disagree on this point.

Fair enough.

The doctor can determine when the mother's life is in peril due to complications in pregnancy. "In the United States, the maternal death rate was 9.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births." - wiki

Death is only one of many possible complications. Should I copy paste from my link?

I'm sure you'd be wiling to wave off most of them as inconsequential, but is that your decision, or is it the decision of the mother who actually faces them?

But the more I thought about it and weighed the oppositions arguments, the more I realized I had it wrong. Especially in light of the 96%.

So how did you get to the point where you advocate banning abortion for the 4% as well?

I am not unwilling to engage the argument but simply want to A) agree on facts and B) point out that the "personhood" angle is a subjective crap-shoot.

Ask ten people, you'll get possibly ten different answers and values to go along with them.

Who's right? How to we determine such without allowing our own bias to fog the determination?

You're just shifting the problem. Ask ten pro-choicer's where the line should be when person rights are conferred given objective terms, and you'll also get ten answers - from conception, implantation, heart beat, lower brain function, sentience, quickening, upper brain function, viability, consciousness, all the way to birth.

We're not a very homogeneous bunch...

Value judgements are naturally subjective, and highly biased. You won't be able to see right or wrong in a microscope.

"Human" is an undeniable term. "Person" isn't. It's too ambiguous to let the entire premise lay on this semantic angle.

I wouldn't say the entire premise lays on it. I'd say it was the best way to convey our meaning. We care about people. We don't care about cells, even if they have the potential to become people.

It seems the pro-lifers care a lot more about cells than people, which is as disturbing to us as the thought that pro-choicers don't care about "humans" is to you.

 

[quip]

I am sure the same generality can be applied to any law. We should look at the specific merits of the choice being discussed rather than taking some anarchist view of choice in general.

That's a logical place to begin. Yet, our initial starting perspective influences our view regarding the choice. We need neither an anarchist view of choice nor a authoritarian view of its merits.

The same game can be played with other scenarios yet does little to actually define the value of those involved beyond the hypothetical emergency situation presented.

On the contrary. This scenario aptly illustrates that human value is a variable, we are creatures that make life and death determination daily. To dismiss it as a "game" is to simply place your head in the sand.

If a 5-year-old and a 90-year-old were in a burning building and you could only save one, is the one you choose not to save less valuable as a human?

Yes. forced into such a situation, you simply could not make such a choice without such an evaluative system. Yet, this is still not analogous to the first dilemma. The first one held a choice evaluating human-value in the abstract versus the value of an ostensible human-being, the second one poses the latter evaluation against its self. Pregnancy is a wholly unique situation, from a human-rights perspective. That's simply why the issue of abortion is such a thorny one.

 

[Yorzhik]

In the same way that "a human begins at 24 weeks" is not subjective.

Attributing VALUE to the statement "a human begins at a single cell stage" is just as subjective as any other arbitrary line in the sand.

There is a separate issue that our line in the sand is blurry. That doesn't automatically make it bad.

But the difference between all humans living and a never ending debate on what humans are allowed to be killed, as they are killed, is the blurry line. That much is clear.

In this case - there are two wrongs we must choose between - compromising the life of the fetus, or compromising the sovereignty of the mother over her own body. It is tricky balancing these two to achieve justice.

While I have some respect for those who claim the right to life outweighs the right to personal bodily sovereignty in this case,
most radical pro-lifers can't even acknowledge there is anything wrong at all with a system that tells a woman she no longer controls what happens inside her own body.

If an intrinsic wrong has no consequences then it really wouldn't matter if people did that wrong or not.

I would argue that deciding which humans are allowed to be killed is an intrinsic wrong with grave consequences, while forcing a woman to use her body parts against her will to keep her baby alive does not have grave consequences. There is a slippery slope with the one and not with the other.

 

[quip]

If an intrinsic wrong has no consequences then it really wouldn't matter if people did that wrong or not.

I would argue that deciding which humans are allowed to be killed is an intrinsic wrong with grave consequences, while forcing a woman to use her body parts against her will to keep her baby alive does not have grave consequences. There is a slippery slope with the one and not with the other.

there is nothing intrinsic regarding a normative value system. What you're asserting is simply a subjective 'ought' (prescriptive of the situation, not descriptive.)

 

[mighty_duck]

But the difference between all humans living and a never ending debate on what humans are allowed to be killed, as they are killed, is the blurry line. That much is clear.

Well, I suppose if we all accept one line in the sand, whether it is yours, mine, or anyone else's, there would be no debate.

But that is't really saying much.

If an intrinsic wrong has no consequences then it really wouldn't matter if people did that wrong or not.

Consequences have nothing to do with it. To use an unrelated example:

Bombing a 5 year old boy is an intrinsic wrong.

And yet, in war it happens all the time (under the title "collateral damage"), without any consequences,except for the occasional award.

I would argue that deciding which humans are allowed to be killed is an intrinsic wrong with grave consequences, while forcing a woman to use her body parts against her will to keep her baby alive does not have grave consequences. There is a slippery slope with the one and not with the other.

Slippery slopes are logical fallacies, and make poor arguments.

For the woman involved, losing sovereignty over her own body is already a grave consequence of the laws you are proposing.

 

[Yorzhik]

Well, I suppose if we all accept one line in the sand, whether it is yours, mine, or anyone else's, there would be no debate.

Even if the debate is ended, with your line there would still be grave consequences. That is avoided with my line.

And that's saying a lot.

Consequences have nothing to do with it. To use an unrelated example:

Bombing a 5 year old boy is an intrinsic wrong.

And yet, in war it happens all the time (under the title "collateral damage"), without any consequences,except for the occasional award.

Wouldn't you agree we need to strive as a society for the most happiness for the most people? If so, then consequences do matter. If not, then what do we strive for as a society?

Slippery slopes are logical fallacies, and make poor arguments.

For the woman involved, losing sovereignty over her own body is already a grave consequence of the laws you are proposing.

Since slippery slopes exist, they cannot be logical fallacies.

 

[Yorzhik]

there is nothing intrinsic regarding a normative value system. What you're asserting is simply a subjective 'ought' (prescriptive of the situation, not descriptive.)

To be sure, if one human killing another innocent human with intent has no consequences, then what you are claiming is true.

 

[WizardofOz]

I don’t understand why it is important to you to have a one-size-fits-all absolute legal definition about what women are allowed to do with their own bodies, perhaps you would explain?

There is already a one-size-fits-all absolute legal definition. It occurs after the 24th when they can no longer be performed.

Are you OK with the law telling women what they are allowed to do with their own bodies after the 24th week of pregnancy?

The precedent is already there. I am simply interested in sliding the scale.

I think you’re heading toward an argument that perhaps all contraception is immoral or wrong, or that just having sex for fun is wrong.

I have neither said nor implied either. Please stick to what I have actually said using quotes. Else, I think you're headed toward a strawman

Having sex obviously has inherent risks depending on the particular circumstances, be it STDs or simply a risk of an unwanted pregnancy, why should there be extra legally imposed secular consequences to having sex unless you perhaps think sex is wrong except to produce issue?

Because getting pregnant is an inherent risk. Getting pregnant is a (possible) inherent consequence. There are no "legally imposed secular consequences". Getting pregnant is the consequence.

Consenting adults are responsible for the consequence of their action(s).

You would seem to want a legal ban enforced before any consideration of what you term to be philosophical issues. But the morality of abortion is itself a philosophical issue, there is no absolute truth here. I think that those on one side of the argument should not be compelled to act by the morality of the other side. Being able to make our own choices about ourselves is what this is really about.

Then why is it morally wrong to receive an abortion after the 24th week? Does the morality of abortion change? If a woman doesn't find out until after week 24 that she is pregnant is it then immoral for her to abort? The dynamic changes but the fundamental principle is constant.

The central nervous system develops quite early. Do you support the ban of all abortions after this point or is the CNS argument a red herring? I predict this is the point where you no longer want to use the CNS as a guideline of any kind.

No, it is a starting safe point where I at least feel safe that there is no chance of a “person” (sorry) existing because this should be about extant persons imo not potential ones.

Please clarify. You feel there is no chance of a "person" prior to development of a CNS but after the development of a CNS we have one or just that there may possibly be one?

I only try to set a principle here that a human “person” clearly couldn’t exist at least in the earliest stages after conception but I think we can each work out for ourselves when we think there is enough neural functioning going on to make an abortion rather more worrying when balancing it with all the other relevant circumstances and factors around the particular woman.

It seems like you want to play both sides of this particular point. If you want to use the CNS as a defining marker, then you should oppose abortion after its development.

In general, why is it OK to abort after the development of the CNS? I understand why you feel it is OK to abort prior (no chance of feeling pain, etc) but then we have to come to a conclusion about what we are dealing with after the CNS develops.

I don’t really want or need to make specific suppositions for you to tilt at, but if the medical likelihood was of severe congenital dysfunction with all the resulting pain and hardships it would bring to all concerned, not just the child, then yes I could be persuaded that such an abortion was for the best. I’m really not seeking any late term abortions or killings only that responsible choices are made on what is best for each case, not whether it happens to be at odds with a current civil law or not at the time.

Then agree that killing the fetus should be illegal. Rather, the fetus should be removed with care and all efforts should be made to save it from death.

Well, if I’m not allowed to use the word “person” then perhaps you will need to define what “a living human” actually is in your terms? Is a piece of my skin say “a living human”?

If you back the development of a human as far as you can go, where does the development begin? Even a zygote is the (undeveloped) whole. A piece of skin is a part of the whole.

A zygote is human. A zygote is alive. A piece of skin is a part of a human.

Composition helps define the terms quite objectively. A zygote is an organism. A piece of skin is not.

Maybe I actually think that the USA should also ban abortion on demand, which would be more restrictions not less. But then poorer Americans perhaps can’t always afford to seek medical approval in the early stages. :think:

I'll take it! At least you can see that the current law is allowing for far too many elective abortions. At the very least, both sides should be able to agree that the right to an abortion is being severely abused.

What step can be taken to limit abortion on demand?

When you tell me what “a living human” is I’ll think on it.

See above. Why don't you tell me what you think a living human is.

I’d still like to know how much value you give to a zygote. Are each of the two out of three that fail living humans, are they all sacred or are they largely expendable at that point? IOW at what point would a law be required iyo, from conception?

Sacred or expendable has nothing to do with it. A woman might miscarry after the 24th week. Is that fetus expendable in your opinion? Acts of nature that result in death does nothing to lessen the value of the organism that died.

 

[oatmeal]

What are your rationalizations? How do you justify legal abortion? If you're pro-choice, let me know why!

What would it take to change your mind?

Genesis 2:7

The first man did not become a living soul until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

It is at the first breath that a baby becomes a living soul.

Note it says living soul, not alive.

The baby before it takes its first breath is alive as an appendage to its mother, but it is not a living soul until it takes it first breath.

However, any woman needing an abortion can pay for it herself, not one penny of tax dollars should help in any way.

It was her choice to have sex if is was consented to, it is her responsibility to deal with the pregnancy.

oatmeal

 

[WizardofOz]

We tell women they have the right to say no, even if they said yes earlier. At no point does it become OK to use their body without their explicit consent.

If she consented to have sex and gets pregnant she consented to the possibility of becoming pregnant whether you want to concede the point or not. That is the risk she took.

On the other hand, if a woman wants to stop having sex and says no, the sex should stop immediately. This is not an either/or scenario like becoming pregnant is. Either a person is pregnant or they are not.

But is driving an implied consent to give blood in case we injure someone with our car? Our body is where the law draws the line of implicit responsibility. :think:

See above. If a woman consented to have sex and gets pregnant she consented to the possibility of becoming pregnant. Having sex is the possibility that she is consenting to.

Another way to look at it: if a person is killed during the commission of a crime, the perpetrator is liable for that death even if they never intended to kill someone. They took part in the action and are culpable for the consequence of their action.

If a drunk driver hits a car with a pregnant woman in it, he can be charged for the death of the fetus even if the fetus is younger than 24 weeks.

I want this liberty the be protected uniformly.

The doctor can determine when the mother's life is in peril due to complications in pregnancy. "In the United States, the maternal death rate was 9.1 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births." - wiki

Death is only one of many possible complications. Should I copy paste from my link?

I am not denying that complications can arise during pregnancy. Pregnancy is a health risk. Having an abortion is a health risk. Therefore, it's largely moot point.

I'm sure you'd be wiling to wave off most of them as inconsequential, but is that your decision, or is it the decision of the mother who actually faces them?

Is it solely her decision after 24 weeks? :nono:
You have no problem with the decision not being hers alone either.

So how did you get to the point where you advocate banning abortion for the 4% as well?

It's a tougher sell but the principle remains unchanged. For the sake of debating individuals who consider themselves pro-choice, I'll focus on the 96% and this is where concessions must originate.

You're just shifting the problem. Ask ten pro-choicer's where the line should be when person rights are conferred given objective terms, and you'll also get ten answers - from conception, implantation, heart beat, lower brain function, sentience, quickening, upper brain function, viability, consciousness, all the way to birth.

We're not a very homogeneous bunch...

Which is why the "personhood" aspect of the abortion debate should never be where the conversation begins. And, due to what you have observed, it will likely never be where the debate is resolved.

There is such a large amount of ambiguity involved in such philosophical debates, which inherently revolve around semantics.

I am not shifting the problem. I want to lay a foundation before installing the front door.

Value judgements are naturally subjective, and highly biased. You won't be able to see right or wrong in a microscope.

My point.

 

[WizardofOz]

On the contrary. This scenario aptly illustrates that human value is a variable, we are creatures that make life and death determination daily.

This is where the hypothetical fails. If no action is taken when the building is burning down, all die. If the action of one individual can only save one, they must make a judgement call on who to save.

When a woman is pregnant and no action is taken, what occurs?

If a 5-year-old and a 90-year-old were in a burning building and you could only save one, is the one you choose not to save less valuable as a human?

Yes. forced into such a situation, you simply could not make such a choice without such an evaluative system. Yet, this is still not analogous to the first dilemma. The first one held a choice evaluating human-value in the abstract versus the value of an ostensible human-being, the second one poses the latter evaluation against its self. Pregnancy is a wholly unique situation, from a human-rights perspective. That's simply why the issue of abortion is such a thorny one.

Human intervention saves in one scenario and destroys in the next. Unless you're talking about a scenario in which the life of the mother is in immediate peril, the hypothetical is hardly applicable to abortion in general.

Try this scenario:
You have two women in a burning building and both of equal physical ability.
One just found out she was pregnant
You only have time to save one.

Which would you save and why?

 

[WizardofOz]

Genesis 2:7

The first man did not become a living soul until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

It is at the first breath that a baby becomes a living soul.

Note it says living soul, not alive.

The baby before it takes its first breath is alive as an appendage to its mother, but it is not a living soul until it takes it first breath.

However, any woman needing an abortion can pay for it herself, not one penny of tax dollars should help in any way.

It was her choice to have sex if is was consented to, it is her responsibility to deal with the pregnancy.

oatmeal

Exception fallacy. Adam and Eve were never in the womb.

 

[mighty_duck]

Even if the debate is ended, with your line there would still be grave consequences. That is avoided with my line.

There are "grave consequences" with any line we choose - that is the essence of choosing the lesser of two evils. There isn't a real moral high ground - only subjective value judgements.

Wouldn't you agree we need to strive as a society for the most happiness for the most people? If so, then consequences do matter. If not, then what do we strive for as a society?

Absolutely. Which is why we choose the lesser of the two evils.

But denying there is anything wrong with either choice is blindness - and it is something both radical pro-choicers and radical pro-lifers share.

Since slippery slopes exist, they cannot be logical fallacies.

It is an informal fallacy. The fact that slopes exist does not mean they apply to this case.

 

[quip]

This is where the hypothetical fails. If no action is taken when the building is burning down, all die. If the action of one individual can only save one, they must make a judgement call on who to save.

:idunno: Yes, and that judgement, at least in this scenario, employs and exposes the values we place upon a newborn over multple zygotes. Of course posed against the pro-life assertion that the value of zygotes are equal to post-natal human-beings; I fail to see how you view this as a failed hypothetical. Please extrapolate this for me.

When a woman is pregnant and no action is taken, what occurs?

Again, 'no action' is irrelevant to the point of the hypothetical. So, what was yours?
But to answer your question, the short answer is that (given a healthy gestation) she gives birth.
Of couse this begs the very question(s) that spurs this debate.

Human intervention saves in one scenario and destroys in the next. Unless you're talking about a scenario in which the life of the mother is in immediate peril, the hypothetical is hardly applicable to abortion in general.

To be accurate, the hypothetical is only indirectly relevant to abortion. Rather, as stated prior, it was penned more to illustrate the dubious value of the zygote than abortion per se. Let's not put the cart before horse.

Try this scenario:
You have two women in a burning building and both of equal physical ability.
One just found out she was pregnant
You only have time to save one.

Which would you save and why?

It would be arbitrary...based primarily on external situations. For example: Which one was closer to fire exits, or which one was less panicked...etc. Human value would be saved more for the sorrowful loss of the one I couldn't/didn't choose more than for the one I did!

 

[Alate_One]

I don't think so. I have differentiate sufficiently between a zygote and toenail clippings. Further, let nature run its course and a zygote will become more. Leave a toe nail and it will never become more.

As I said a toe nail won't become anything more, under any conditions since it is only protein, not cellular. However a skin cell, under the right conditions could become something more.

Letting nature take it's course with a zygote and you get, at best, 40% of them implanting. That's 60% that never become anything.

A cell has a body. The cell is human. Therefore, the body is human.

A skin cell has all of those things you declare. Therefore a skin cell is a human body. Your logic gets you in trouble quite quickly. You have to distinguish between one particular cell being a "human body" while other cells aren't.

A zygote is a body that is not yet fully developed.

Nope. A zygote is one cell that MAY differentiate into a human body. Most zygotes never get this opportunity, as I said before, because of either intrinsic problems with the zygote, or chance.

Is a fetus a human body?

Yes, albeit an underdeveloped one.

Yes and so is an embryo and so is a zygote. These are simply varying stages of the development the human body progresses through.

Nope. A body must be multi-cellular, it needs to have tissues, organs and organ systems.

Lets see what wiki says about the human body:

The human body is the entire structure of a human organism, and consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs. By the time the human reaches adulthood, the body consists of close to 100 trillion cells, the basic unit of life. These cells are organized biologically to eventually form the whole body.

Is that against the rules?

No, but normally I don't pretend to tell someone with a strong educational background in a subject that I don't share what "facts" are in their field. It's a bit . . . . odd.

The zygote isn't an adult human. It is a human zygote. A skin cell is a piece of a human body whereas a zygote is complete but simply not fully developed. There are no missing pieces (like with the toe-nail or skin cell); the pieces have not yet developed.

It's not complete at all. The only thing that's complete about it are the instructions. A building with all of the pieces outside that haven't been assembled isn't complete. You're looking at the blueprints and stating it's a building.

Needlessly ambiguous, philosophical, subjective, etymological prior to establishing and agreeing on objective facts.

It's essential to the argument. We can agree on cells being living and human, do they then deserve a right to life? You're making a logical jump and it's that jump that's the crux of the issue.

Composition fallacy

Again, a zygote is the underdeveloped whole. A broken off human cell is a piece of the whole.

It's no different than a zygote. It has a complete set of instructions, it can make a whole new person, just as a single cell of a tree can make a whole new tree. There's no biological basis for your distinction.

I fail to see the relevance. This sounds like alwights '2/3rds of zygotes fail to implant' argument.

It's not just that they fail to implant, even implanted many will NEVER form a human body. So asserting a zygote will develop into a human body isn't correct, there's not a one to one correlation. SOME zygotes will, some don't have the information to do so.

This is different from say a newborn turning into a toddler, it's an extremely small number that are intrinsically incapable of developing into a toddler. Nearly all will do so absent some outside force. But a fertilized egg, the odds can be very low (40-20% or less), especially if the mother or father are relatively old. So you're missing the correlation you have with born children. You are expending effort on protecting something that has a pretty high chance of never becoming a human body at all.

By all means, refute Maureen L. Condic's points here.

Especially the following:

Resolving the question of when human life begins is critical for advancing a reasoned public policy debate over abortion and human embryo research. This article considers the current scientific evidence in human embryology and addresses two central questions concerning the beginning of life: 1) in the course of sperm-egg interaction, when is a new cell formed that is distinct from either sperm or egg? and 2) is this new cell a new human organism—i.e., a new human being? Based on universally accepted scientific criteria, a new cell, the human zygote, comes into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion, an event that occurs in less than a second. Upon formation, the zygote immediately initiates a complex sequence of events that establish the molecular conditions required for continued embryonic development. The behavior of the zygote is radically unlike that of either sperm or egg separately and is characteristic of a human organism. Thus, the scientific evidence supports the conclusion that a zygote is a human organism and that the life of a new human being commences at a scientifically well defined “moment of conception.” This conclusion is objective, consistent with the factual evidence, and independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos.

Again, if one cell with human DNA is a "human being", then what criteria do we have for protecting human tissues? What of pluripotent stem cells generated in the laboratory from skin tissue? The line is non-existent by this definition.

 

[alwight]

I don’t understand why it is important to you to have a one-size-fits-all absolute legal definition about what women are allowed to do with their own bodies, perhaps you would explain?

There is already a one-size-fits-all absolute legal definition. It occurs after the 24th when they can no longer be performed.

Are you OK with the law telling women what they are allowed to do with their own bodies after the 24th week of pregnancy?

The precedent is already there. I am simply interested in sliding the scale.

I simply want to make sure that women at least get a chance to make a choice on being pregnant if it happened unplanned or by mistake. Five months is clearly long enough for that and some imo but still just a fairly arbitrary line if the specifics of each case are not considered in favour of an absolute ban.

I think you’re heading toward an argument that perhaps all contraception is immoral or wrong, or that just having sex for fun is wrong.

I have neither said nor implied either. Please stick to what I have actually said using quotes. Else, I think you're headed toward a strawman

I disagree since I think what I said does follow. If contraception failed then the intent was nevertheless not become pregnant. If you had your way then no remedial action after such an unwanted conception could then be allowed, effectively imo adding to a possibly routine sex act a perceived layer of unwarranted worries and extra risk, but anyway the real point is, if it is not immoral to use contraception then afaic it is not immoral to take action if and when it fails, belt and braces so to speak.

Having sex obviously has inherent risks depending on the particular circumstances, be it STDs or simply a risk of an unwanted pregnancy, why should there be extra legally imposed secular consequences to having sex unless you perhaps think sex is wrong except to produce issue?

Because getting pregnant is an inherent risk. Getting pregnant is a (possible) inherent consequence. There are no "legally imposed secular consequences". Getting pregnant is the consequence.

Consenting adults are responsible for the consequence of their action(s).

I think you are simply making more consequences than there need be.

You would seem to want a legal ban enforced before any consideration of what you term to be philosophical issues. But the morality of abortion is itself a philosophical issue, there is no absolute truth here. I think that those on one side of the argument should not be compelled to act by the morality of the other side. Being able to make our own choices about ourselves is what this is really about.

Then why is it morally wrong to receive an abortion after the 24th week? Does the morality of abortion change? If a woman doesn't find out until after week 24 that she is pregnant is it then immoral for her to abort? The dynamic changes but the fundamental principle is constant.

Now this really is a straw-man or red herring since the law doesn’t understand about morality it is simply a civil device that draws a line beyond which we do not cross. If we collectively want to reassess it then it can be done. However going from one extreme to the other isn’t what it should be about either imo, a general consensus seems fair enough and if that time period is not it, then change it.

The central nervous system develops quite early. Do you support the ban of all abortions after this point or is the CNS argument a red herring? I predict this is the point where you no longer want to use the CNS as a guideline of any kind.

No, it is a starting safe point where I at least feel safe that there is no chance of a “person” (sorry) existing because this should be about extant persons imo not potential ones.

Please clarify. You feel there is no chance of a "person" prior to development of a CNS but after the development of a CNS we have one or just that there may possibly be one?

You seem to miss the point that it isn’t a switch that just turns on, it’s hard to know and we may all disagree exactly when, but my point was that there is no “person” just after conception, can we agree that much?

I only try to set a principle here that a human “person” clearly couldn’t exist at least in the earliest stages after conception but I think we can each work out for ourselves when we think there is enough neural functioning going on to make an abortion rather more worrying when balancing it with all the other relevant circumstances and factors around the particular woman.

It seems like you want to play both sides of this particular point. If you want to use the CNS as a defining marker, then you should oppose abortion after its development.

I never said that, I was simply saying that before a proto-CNS we, or maybe only I, could feel safe.

In general, why is it OK to abort after the development of the CNS? I understand why you feel it is OK to abort prior (no chance of feeling pain, etc) but then we have to come to a conclusion about what we are dealing with after the CNS develops.

Mainly I don’t agree that a polarised law is actually helpful when dealing with each specific case with its own particular circumstances.

I don’t really want or need to make specific suppositions for you to tilt at, but if the medical likelihood was of severe congenital dysfunction with all the resulting pain and hardships it would bring to all concerned, not just the child, then yes I could be persuaded that such an abortion was for the best. I’m really not seeking any late term abortions or killings only that responsible choices are made on what is best for each case, not whether it happens to be at odds with a current civil law or not at the time.

Then agree that killing the fetus should be illegal. Rather, the fetus should be removed with care and all efforts should be made to save it from death.

I don’t generally disagree with your principles here while medical ethics dictates that first they must do no harm (Primum non nocere). In practice that doesn’t always work very well particularly in surgery where some harm is pretty much inevitable. Arguably however unnecessarily prolonging life is sometimes doing harm too, so again there is some scope for a range of very different honest opinions afaic, depending on each case.

Well, if I’m not allowed to use the word “person” then perhaps you will need to define what “a living human” actually is in your terms? Is a piece of my skin say “a living human”?

If you back the development of a human as far as you can go, where does the development begin? Even a zygote is the (undeveloped) whole. A piece of skin is a part of the whole.

A zygote is human. A zygote is alive. A piece of skin is a part of a human.

Composition helps define the terms quite objectively. A zygote is an organism. A piece of skin is not.

Yes but this doesn’t actually help us with trying to solve the problem of what is the best course of action for each case, you seem rather less keen to find ways to make an honest human choice based on all the facts than you are to have a fixed penalty in place for those who find themselves pregnant when they didn’t want to be.

Maybe I actually think that the USA should also ban abortion on demand, which would be more restrictions not less. But then poorer Americans perhaps can’t always afford to seek medical approval in the early stages. :think:

I'll take it! At least you can see that the current law is allowing for far too many elective abortions. At the very least, both sides should be able to agree that the right to an abortion is being severely abused.

What step can be taken to limit abortion on demand?

I was surprised to learn that the US had abortion on demand.

When you tell me what “a living human” is I’ll think on it.

See above. Why don't you tell me what you think a living human is.

When it is a living human person, no I can’t exactly define when that is.

I’d still like to know how much value you give to a zygote. Are each of the two out of three that fail living humans, are they all sacred or are they largely expendable at that point? IOW at what point would a law be required iyo, from conception?

Sacred or expendable has nothing to do with it. A woman might miscarry after the 24th week. Is that fetus expendable in your opinion? Acts of nature that result in death does nothing to lessen the value of the organism that died.

I think zygotes at least are expendable, while later on at some point I will probably conclude otherwise. Do you not have an opinion yourself?
We confound nature all the time with medical advances which require appropriate choices to be made to save lives or to make life better, why should appropriate human choices be banned regarding pregnancy?

 

[mighty_duck]

If she consented to have sex and gets pregnant she consented to the possibility of becoming pregnant whether you want to concede the point or not. That is the risk she took.

Ok. But consenting to the possibility of pregnancy is not the same as consenting to carry a baby a term.

Another way to look at it: if a person is killed during the commission of a crime, the perpetrator is liable for that death even if they never intended to kill someone. They took part in the action and are culpable for the consequence of their action.

While you have a point about prescribed responsibility, you ignored mine. The law stops at bodily sovereignty - there are never consequences for refusing to give others access to your body.

want this liberty the be protected uniformly.

I agree that there is a double standard here.

I am not denying that complications can arise during pregnancy. Pregnancy is a health risk. Having an abortion is a health risk. Therefore, it's largely moot point.

There is a risk with every medical procedure - but that is no reason to deny that decision to the person undergoing the procedure.

It should be the mother's decision which risks she is willing to accept and which she isn't in her own body. Not yours. Not mine.

Is it solely her decision after 24 weeks? :nono:
You have no problem with the decision not being hers alone either.

She had 6 months to weigh the decision. That is a reasonable amount of time to decide. And again, I don't look at it in a vacuum or in absolute terms.
No right is absolute. Not bodily sovereignty. Not the right to life.
The circumstances are important, and looking at them in isolation is a bad way to determine justice.

It's a tougher sell but the principle remains unchanged. For the sake of debating individuals who consider themselves pro-choice, I'll focus on the 96% and this is where concessions must originate.

In that case, the principle has nothing to do with consent or lack thereof. As far as you're concerned, it is a red herring.

Which is why the "personhood" aspect of the abortion debate should never be where the conversation begins. And, due to what you have observed, it will likely never be where the debate is resolved.

There is such a large amount of ambiguity involved in such philosophical debates, which inherently revolve around semantics.

I am not shifting the problem. I want to lay a foundation before installing the front door.

I don't think you're laying any kind of foundation. Instead you're laying down a layer of sand and calling it a foundation - it will break the second you try to build anything substantial on top of it. :dead:

We agree on the biological facts.

We disagree on the subjective value claims. Without an agreement on value, you won't be able to build any argument.

 

[WizardofOz]

:idunno: Yes, and that judgement, at least in this scenario, employs and exposes the values we place upon a newborn over multple zygotes. Of course posed against the pro-life assertion that the value of zygotes are equal to post-natal human-beings; I fail to see how you view this as a failed hypothetical. Please extrapolate this for me.

You're simply overestimating the conclusions that may be gleaned from the exercise. I am not stating that a zygote is necessarily equal to a newborn as far as worth, just as I would save a child before I would save an old man, even one with less physical ability.


Shall we then conclude that the elderly should be killed arbitrarily for the sake of convenience? Of course not.

The human zygote has worth; worth to have it's liberty and right to life given legal consideration against being killed electively.

Which someone chooses to rescue from a burning building does not define the implicit value of a being but rather pits two beings against one another in an effort to determine which being possesses the greater value to the individual making the arbitrary determination.

It's a needless, fight to the death, gladiator style exercise that defines nothing other than the worth of one being relative to that of another.

To be accurate, the hypothetical is only indirectly relevant to abortion. Rather, as stated prior, it was penned more to illustrate the dubious value of the zygote than abortion per se. Let's not put the cart before horse.

Would you save the zygotes if the building was otherwise empty and no harm would come to you during your attempt?

The above is a more apt hypothetical. When an abortion is performed, another being isn't necessarily saved in the process. Abortion is even worse as effort must be made to destroy life whereas in the hypothetical, effort must be made to preserve life.

It would be arbitrary...based primarily on external situations. For example: Which one was closer to fire exits, or which one was less panicked...etc. Human value would be saved more for the sorrowful loss of the one I couldn't/didn't choose more than for the one I did!

The women are identical in all facets save the pregnancy. Which do you save and why?

I understand your hesitation. You'll have to concede that even a zygote has worth, even to someone otherwise not it any way vested in it's survival.

 

[WizardofOz]

As I said a toe nail won't become anything more, under any conditions since it is only protein, not cellular. However a skin cell, under the right conditions could become something more.

Under natural conditions it will not, theoretical miracles of science notwithstanding.

Letting nature take it's course with a zygote and you get, at best, 40% of them implanting. That's 60% that never become anything.

Irrelevant to the topic.

A skin cell has all of those things you declare. Therefore a skin cell is a human body. Your logic gets you in trouble quite quickly. You have to distinguish between one particular cell being a "human body" while other cells aren't.

A skin cell is not an organism. A zygote is.

Yes, albeit an underdeveloped one. Nope. A body must be multi-cellular, it needs to have tissues, organs and organ systems.

Lets see what wiki says about the human body:

The human body is the entire structure of a human organism, and consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs. By the time the human reaches adulthood, the body consists of close to 100 trillion cells, the basic unit of life. These cells are organized biologically to eventually form the whole body.

A quadruple amputee is a human with an incomplete body much like the embryo is a human with an underdeveloped body.

Should it be illegal for a caretaker to electively kill a quadruple amputee because caring for them is inconvenient and/or expensive? This is rhetorical of course.

Your logic seems equally perilous if we are using it to determine what qualities (or parts) a human must possess in order to be granted right to life legal protection.

It's not complete at all. The only thing that's complete about it are the instructions. A building with all of the pieces outside that haven't been assembled isn't complete. You're looking at the blueprints and stating it's a building.

Perhaps "complete" is not the best term. The zygote is whole, given it's state of development. I'm not sure even this best conveys my point. Without getting bogged down in semantics I hope you understand my point when differentiating between a toenail and a zygote.

It comes down to composition. The skin cell or toenail is a part of a whole, a zygote is the (not yet fully developed) whole.

It's not just that they fail to implant, even implanted many will NEVER form a human body. So asserting a zygote will develop into a human body isn't correct, there's not a one to one correlation. SOME zygotes will, some don't have the information to do so.

Let's conduct a red herring test. Would you be in favor of granting all embryos legal protection?