Abortion Debate-All

I think it's "abortifacient", not "abortifact".

While we're being pedantic, it's "uterine," not "uteran." The Uteran are a race of sapient sponges in the upcoming Paradox game Stellaris.

But Mix, your post otherwise reminds me of the old Python song "Every Sperm Is Sacred."

I am in no way religious, and am definitely not Christian, so my stance is "it's your body, do what you want with it". There are BILLIONS of people on this planet, and population is rising rapidly. HOWEVER, I will say that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control. That's, at the very least, immoral. If the condom breaks though, or you are raped, and you can't financially support the child, then have it.

In addition, it infuriates me that white males think they know what is best for a woman, and it maddens me even more when they defend their beliefs with "the Bible says so".

This is, of course, my opinion, and I know that my lack of belief heavily influences me.

Vrikk wrote:

HOWEVER, I will say that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control.

This is another bullsh*t line from the right. Don't buy it.

Go talk to your female friends. Ask them about their abortion experiences. I guarantee you that not a single one among them has any desire to repeat that experience, if they can avoid it. It's not exactly a fun day out.

"Using abortion as regular birth control" is not something that's happening outside of a tiny few fringe cases.

BadKen wrote:

the upcoming Paradox game Stellaris.

Uh legally it's just a random collection of code until release date, no different from a virus. *folds arms*

Jonman wrote:
Vrikk wrote:

HOWEVER, I will say that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control.

This is another bullsh*t line from the right. Don't buy it.

Go talk to your female friends. Ask them about their abortion experiences. I guarantee you that not a single one among them has any desire to repeat that experience, if they can avoid it. It's not exactly a fun day out.

"Using abortion as regular birth control" is not something that's happening outside of a tiny few fringe cases.

In some areas though abortion is used to ensure the birth of sons which are more socially and economically desirable than daughters, nbd.

Vrikk wrote:

I am in no way religious, and am definitely not Christian, so my stance is "it's your body, do what you want with it". There are BILLIONS of people on this planet, and population is rising rapidly.

This is another thing that irks me. We are getting so overpopulated that the earth won't be able to sustain us for much longer without some catastrophic world event to compensate. When this happens with animals, humans cull the herd so that a species doesn't create a huge imbalance with other species. Not so with humans.

I'm not suggesting we routinely "cull the herd" with each other, but good grief...why continue to *encourage* people to keep having children and *especially* unwanted ones that aren't going to be taken care of anyway? Given this perspective, abortion could be considered the most humane choice for the greater good. When God said to go forth and multiply on the earth (an excuse that some anti-choice people use to force as many babies as possible into existence), there were barely any humans alive compared to now. I'm willing to bet he wouldn't be giving the same command to people nowadays as humans have become a scourge to practically everything else living with us.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
Jonman wrote:
Vrikk wrote:

HOWEVER, I will say that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control.

This is another bullsh*t line from the right. Don't buy it.

Go talk to your female friends. Ask them about their abortion experiences. I guarantee you that not a single one among them has any desire to repeat that experience, if they can avoid it. It's not exactly a fun day out.

"Using abortion as regular birth control" is not something that's happening outside of a tiny few fringe cases.

In some areas though abortion is used to ensure the birth of sons which are more socially and economically desirable than daughters, nbd.

Sex selective abortions are a different issue from "abortion as birth control", largely because there's no other way to achieve the same goal (although now I say that, does IVF allow for sex selection of the implanted eggs?).

Jonman wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

In some areas though abortion is used to ensure the birth of sons which are more socially and economically desirable than daughters, nbd.

Sex selective abortions are a different issue from "abortion as birth control", largely because there's no other way to achieve the same goal (although now I say that, does IVF allow for sex selection of the implanted eggs?).

And China is now having huge problems due to this sex selection practice:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5953508/ns...

I've always seen "abortion as birth control" as being something that people depend on whenever a pregnancy occurs due to unprotected sex rather than using birth control methods. I have doubts it's as widespread as some would want us to believe.

Jonman wrote:

(although now I say that, does IVF allow for sex selection of the implanted eggs?).

Yes, IVF eggs are large enough pre-implant that you can take samples and test them for genetic traits. You can then discard the unwanted eggs and freeze/implant the eggs with desired (or without undesired) traits.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
BadKen wrote:

the upcoming Paradox game Stellaris.

Uh legally it's just a random collection of code until release date, no different from a virus. *folds arms*

If you are going to wink suggestively at an argument that a fetus is a person, do you care to take my "name a set of abilities that a young human infant has that an enormous fraction of adult animals do not share" challenge?

Im good thanks.

bekkilyn wrote:

When God said to go forth and multiply on the earth (an excuse that some anti-choice people use to force as many babies as possible into existence), there were barely any humans alive compared to now. I'm willing to bet he wouldn't be giving the same command to people nowadays as humans have become a scourge to practically everything else living with us.

I don't want to derail this fascinating thread, but I've always suspected that was a big reason for some religions' discouragement of homosexuality as well as contraception.

Vrikk wrote:

HOWEVER, I will say that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control. That's, at the very least, immoral. If the condom breaks though, or you are raped, and you can't financially support the child, then have it.

I'm confused: If the condom breaks and you're using abortion as a back-up, then how is that not a form of birth control?

bekkilyn wrote:

I'm not suggesting we routinely "cull the herd" with each other, but good grief...why continue to *encourage* people to keep having children and *especially* unwanted ones that aren't going to be taken care of anyway? Given this perspective, abortion could be considered the most humane choice for the greater good.

I can't agree. In the context of fighting overpopulation, then the most humane choice would be wider, cheaper access to contraceptives and the education on how to use them. Abortion is a band-aid that solves nothing.

Jonman wrote:
Vrikk wrote:

HOWEVER, I will say that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control.

This is another bullsh*t line from the right. Don't buy it..."Using abortion as regular birth control" is not something that's happening outside of a tiny few fringe cases.

In the thread that spawned this one, abortion came up as a way to prevent the birth of children with disabilities. And as Norman pointed out, it is used in some places for sex selection. Neither is quite the same as using abortion as contraceptives, per se, but they are a form of birth control, in that you are controlling what kind of human gets born. Does it happen regularly? I don't know, but it turns my stomach to think of abortion used for those purposes.

Yonder wrote:

2. I don't think that fetuses are people. I feel that very strongly. In order to convince me that fetuses are people you would necessarily have to convince me that infants are people.

I know I'm going to regret asking this, but: At what point do you believe that a human effectively becomes a "person"? If not even infants that have already been born count as people, then at what age or cognition level or other threshold do you believe "personhood" achieved?

And does this mean that you do not consider infanticide murder, since, after all, infants aren't people?

KaterinLHC wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

I'm not suggesting we routinely "cull the herd" with each other, but good grief...why continue to *encourage* people to keep having children and *especially* unwanted ones that aren't going to be taken care of anyway? Given this perspective, abortion could be considered the most humane choice for the greater good.

I can't agree. In the context of fighting overpopulation, then the most humane choice would be wider, cheaper access to contraceptives and the education on how to use them. Abortion is a band-aid that solves nothing.

Oh I fully agree with you. My statement was more in the general context of abortion being allowed vs. being banned and thus forcing more humans into existence, and not as the desired form of birth control. Ideally, all the preventative measures and education would be the primary options with abortion as more of a last resort. I still view it as a choice though.

Running Man wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

When God said to go forth and multiply on the earth (an excuse that some anti-choice people use to force as many babies as possible into existence), there were barely any humans alive compared to now. I'm willing to bet he wouldn't be giving the same command to people nowadays as humans have become a scourge to practically everything else living with us.

I don't want to derail this fascinating thread, but I've always suspected that was a big reason for some religions' discouragement of homosexuality as well as contraception.

Interesting. So maybe there's a nod and a wink if you do your duty and produce progeny aside from whatever else you get up to? That'd explain the annual CPAC buttsecksapalooza.

KaterinLHC wrote:
Yonder wrote:

2. I don't think that fetuses are people. I feel that very strongly. In order to convince me that fetuses are people you would necessarily have to convince me that infants are people.

I know I'm going to regret asking this, but: At what point do you believe that a human effectively becomes a "person"? If not even infants that have already been born count as people, then at what age or cognition level or other threshold do you believe "personhood" achieved?

And does this mean that you do not consider infanticide murder, since, after all, infants aren't people?

TLDR: I don't have answers to your questions because there hasn't been a real world reason for me to take the time to determine things that narrowly.

I haven't followed the logic train down because I don't particularly care where it leads. Regardless of whether or not infants are sapient/sentient/persons what possible reason is there to kill them? Do I think it's murder? I mean, I suppose it's not technically if you logically follow my thinking, but it's still obviously at least as disgusting and immoral as crushing a baby chick under your foot.

Whether fetuses are people actually matters because it informs their opinion or whether females can be forced to gestate (at least for anyone who doesn't care about bodily autonomy). Whether infants are people doesn't matter in any real world scenario, so there is literally nothing to be gained at revisiting any laws about them. Sure, if some two day old was a carrier Super SARS-bird flu-black death-zombie virus-meningitus and people were pulling their hair out about how we could ensure it lived a happy life without the disease getting out and ending humanity I would chime in with "or we could just kill it", but I don't foresee that coming up in real life.

As far as when a child becomes a person, I don't know that either. Humans can't drive until 16, or vote until 18, and humans are definitely persons by then. Before that a human can't really exert it's will on me or society in any direct way, so once again, it hasn't merited severe scrutiny. If someone was trying to make the voting age 3, well then we'd need to have a conversation over whether humans are really sapient at the age of three, and if we're going to let a three year old vote maybe we should stop by a zoo and collect a ballot from the Chimps and Gorillas while we are at it.

My off the cuff MAXIMUM, absolutely by six. I can't think of a time in any animal documentary about intellect where they've said "humans get this ability by age X" and the X has been below six or even 5. Recognizing themselves in a mirror, solving multi-step tasks, empathy, extrapolating 2D images to 3d objects, basic language skills, recognizing when they do and don't know a piece of knowledge, the vast majority of six year olds have every one of those abilities.

It's not that I have a set definition of sapience, I think it makes more sense to use the rest of the animal kingdom as markers to help us determine what sapience is, and then compare it with human development as a gut check. For example, if you believe "humans are the only animal that are people" then I don't see how that is consistent with "an infant is a person" if you truly think humans are the only people then it seems like a consistent ranking would have you putting the person line at at least 5-6 years old.

If instead you say "humans are people, and so are Chimps, Bonobos, Gorillas, Dolphins, Dogs, and Elephants" then maybe we're at the 3 year old mark. Add Parrots, Crows, and some other animals to that list and maybe we're down to 2 years old.

TLDR: I don't have answers to your questions because there hasn't been a real world reason for me to take the time to determine things that narrowly.

Yonder wrote:

Regardless of whether or not infants are sapient/sentient/persons what possible reason is there to kill them?

1) I'd counter that with: What possible reason is there to kill adults?

2) As to why this question is relevant: You made the argument earlier that it's okay to kill fetuses because they aren't people, then you followed it up by saying that infants aren't people either. Which I think begs the question: Does that mean you believe it's okay to kill infants too?

Whether fetuses are people actually matters because it informs their opinion or whether females can be forced to gestate (at least for anyone who doesn't care about bodily autonomy).

I don't see why believing fetuses are inherently people necessarily means you must believe uterus-bearers can be forced to gestate a fetus to term. Can you explain how one follows the other?

Whether infants are people doesn't matter in any real world scenario, so there is literally nothing to be gained at revisiting any laws about them.

It does matter to this conversation, since you've demanded more than once that posters provide some sort of cognition test to prove infants count as people (I would counter that infants count as people purely by the fact that they are both alive and possess human DNA.)

It also matters to the abortion conversation as a whole, because babies can be born pre-term -- up to 27 weeks, I think? -- and survive, even grow up to be healthy human adults. Meaning that, at the very least, fetuses of 27 weeks and up are capable of becoming infants -- which most people (but not you) would define as "people". And if they're people, then they're worthy of all the same protections we as a society offer any other person, such as the right not to be murdered.

My off the cuff MAXIMUM, absolutely by six. I can't think of a time in any animal documentary about intellect where they've said "humans get this ability by age X" and the X has been below six or even 5. Recognizing themselves in a mirror, solving multi-step tasks, empathy, extrapolating 2D images to 3d objects, basic language skills, recognizing when they do and don't know a piece of knowledge, the vast majority of six year olds have every one of those abilities.

The fact that you've based this cut-off on animal documentaries and not scientific studies, or even personal experience with infants, suggests a lack of knowledge about the cognitive ability of infants. Before they are a year old, most babies can recognize themselves in mirrors, solve multi-step tasks, demonstrate empathy and basic language skills, and so on. Likewise, there are many adult humans with disabilities or mental anomalies who cannot demonstrate empathy, or who lack basic language skills, or have trouble solving multi-step tasks, etc.

If you're curious to learn more about the cognitive abilities of infants, I highly recommend the book Experimenting With Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform On Your Kid. All the "experiments" are based off real peer-reviewed experiments, and they shed a fascinating light on how the human brain develops what functions when. It's a really cool book.

Anyway, even while still in the womb, fetuses do display an amazing amount of cognitive function, including the ability to move limbs independently, respond to light and sound and motion stimuli, sleep and waking cycles -- they even practice sucking and crying. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mother who has carried a child who didn't notice at least some of these activities while pregnant.

It's not that I have a set definition of sapience, I think it makes more sense to use the rest of the animal kingdom as markers to help us determine what sapience is, and then compare it with human development as a gut check.

Again, that's assuming we're all basing our definition of "personhood" on some established level of cognitive function. But I think that's a poor way to define "personhood", because there are plenty of adults we'd define as "people" who may not meet those cognitive tests, and as you say, there are plenty of animals who would satisfy them. Rather, I think "personhood" is a concept innate to humans that extends to all humans, regardless of age or cognitive ability.

KaterinLHC wrote:

1) I'd counter that with: What possible reason is there to kill adults?

I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, so the only time I would support killing an adult is in the immediate defense of yourself or others, if non-lethal force would be ineffective. I don't really get why that is a counter.

2) As to why this question is relevant: You made the argument earlier that it's okay to kill fetuses because they aren't people, then you followed it up by saying that infants aren't people either. Which I think begs the question: Does that mean you believe it's okay to kill infants too?

I think it's a stretch to say that it was ok to kill fetuses because they aren't people. After all, I said that it was wrong to kill baby chicks even though baby chicks aren't people. What I said was that assuming that fetuses weren't people that meant that it's wrong to force an unwilling woman to carry a fetus to term. That is different from saying it's ok to kill them. Going back to the baby chick example, saying that baby chicks aren't people doesn't mean that it's ok to kill them, but if baby chicks aren't people it makes it hard to argue that you should forcibly hook human woman up to some sort of chicken gestation machine.

Put another way, this is similar to one of the atheism scarecrows. Just like a religious person saying to an atheist "wait, so since you don't believe in God, so you can kill anyone you want" doesn't follow, saying "so if you don't think infants are people that means you can murder them" doesn't follow.

Whether fetuses are people actually matters because it informs their opinion or whether females can be forced to gestate (at least for anyone who doesn't care about bodily autonomy).

I don't see why believing fetuses are inherently people necessarily means you must believe uterus-bearers can be forced to gestate a fetus to term. Can you explain how one follows the other?

My three prong rationale for being pro-choice was

1) bodily autonomy, 2) fetuses aren't people, 3) free access to abortion correlates to lower abortion rates.

In my quote I have specifically removed bodily autonomy from consideration, so that doesn't apply. The third is a bit of a cop out, if you remove the first and second the third basically means "abortion is murder, but statistically allowing the murder seems to lead to less murder, so I guess we should allow it until we can figure out how to outlaw it without increasing it." So you're allowing it, but you're still saying it's wrong.

So yes, without 1) and 3) the only thing left to defend abortion is 2) fetuses aren't people. If they are people, and the lack of 1) means that the woman doesn't get special veto powers, then the moral dilemma becomes pretty strictly utilitarian. If both lives are at risk abortion is good, if neither life is at risk abortion is bad, if the fetus's life is at risk abortion is inconsequential. The only gray area left is if somehow the woman's life was at risk but not the fetus, in which case there is no obvious way to determine the "utilitarian" path to take. I suppose whichever person was expected to live the longest according to actuarial tables would be the "correct" choice to win. Unmodified Utilitarianism is pretty weird and intuitively feels like it breaks down in lots of cases, which is why we like to make lots of rules like bodily autonomy to supersede it.

I've actually never heard of an argument for abortion that didn't rely on one of those three rationales, so if there is one I'd be really interested to hear it.

Whether infants are people doesn't matter in any real world scenario, so there is literally nothing to be gained at revisiting any laws about them.

It does matter to this conversation, since you've demanded more than once that posters provide some sort of cognition test to prove infants count as people (I would counter that infants count as people purely by the fact that they are both alive and possess human DNA.)

Cancer is alive and has human DNA. If being alive and having human DNA makes you a person that the most personingest person who ever lived is Henrietta Lacks. Every scientist who has ever incinerated a petri dish of her (which is probably most Western biologists) should be brought up on murder charges. I think sperm and eggs would be alright, because they only possess half of human DNA, but all sorts of things like blood cells become people too.

Also, human DNA seems like a cop out in my mind. So no matter how good we ever get at AI AI can never be people, we will always be morally allowed to copy, paste, modify, and delete them? No animals are people, not even Chimps? What if we decide to "uplift" an animal later on, still not a person? What about aliens? No aliens, no matter how intelligent, can ever be morally considered a person? I suppose that's alright, we just have to hope that when the Xyyrgians swing by they don't feel the same way.

I know that some of that is a little out there, and it's ok to not have a standard that extrapolates out into the sci fi cases, although for me I'd like to have at least some wiggle room, but having a standard with zero extrapolation or general applicability, even for the here and now cases of Chimps et al, just doesn't sit right with me.

And you're misinterpreting my intention. I am not meaning to ask people to prove that infants are people. I am asking people that believe infants are people to provide some sort of standard for that. Then to judge the standard we could look at what animals pass that standard. If the person says "yes, infants are people because of that standard, and those animals pass that standard, so those animals are also people" then everything is great. If I liked that standard maybe I'd go for it too. If instead that person says "yes, infants are people because they pass that standard, but all/most of those other animals that pass that standard aren't people" then obviously it wasn't a very good standard (meaning, the standard didn't actually capture their true beliefs on what constituted a person).

In your case your standard is completely fine in that it's internally consistent since you don't seem to think any animals are people, and cancer and Henrietta Lacks seem like decent "you've got to be kidding me" exclusions. It's just not a good standard for me because I do think some animals are certainly people, I just don't know exactly how many or which ones.

It also matters to the abortion conversation as a whole, because babies can be born pre-term -- up to 27 weeks, I think? -- and survive, even grow up to be healthy human adults. Meaning that, at the very least, fetuses of 27 weeks and up are capable of becoming infants -- which most people (but not you) would define as "people". And if they're people, then they're worthy of all the same protections we as a society offer any other person, such as the right not to be murdered.

Sorry, I meant it didn't directly matter, in that I couldn't think of a single real world moral question about what to do with an infant where it's person hood matters. Should I kill this baby? No. Even if it's not a person? Correct. Should I keep this baby fed? Yes. Even if it's not a person? Correct. Etc, etc.

My off the cuff MAXIMUM, absolutely by six. I can't think of a time in any animal documentary about intellect where they've said "humans get this ability by age X" and the X has been below six or even 5. Recognizing themselves in a mirror, solving multi-step tasks, empathy, extrapolating 2D images to 3d objects, basic language skills, recognizing when they do and don't know a piece of knowledge, the vast majority of six year olds have every one of those abilities.

The fact that you've based this cut-off on animal documentaries and not scientific studies, or even personal experience with infants, suggests a lack of knowledge about the cognitive ability of infants. Before they are a year old, most babies can recognize themselves in mirrors, solve multi-step tasks, demonstrate empathy and basic language skills, and so on. Likewise, there are many adult humans with disabilities or mental anomalies who cannot demonstrate empathy, or who lack basic language skills, or have trouble solving multi-step tasks, etc.

I've looked for scientific studies along these lines now and then, and it's never budged me from the opinion that humans aren't persons at birth. For example, if I search right now. Google scholar search "cognitive abilities of infants": predictor (ie not a direct cognitive test, but some super basic thing a raccoon could do then being correlated with actual cognition later on), 16 and 20 months (obviously way too old for an examination of a fetus, it would only be useful if I wanted to determine exactly what age to draw the person line at, which I don't care to do), predictor, 8 year olds (preemies, which is why they triggered the search), 2 years, predictor, 42 months, another looking at preemies when they get older, another of those.

If I specify "cognitive abilities of infants three months" I get some actual useful results: This study shows that if you build up a representation of dogs and cats 3-month olds know that dogs and cats belong in it but birds don't. If you build up a representation of cats then they know cats belong in it but dogs don't, and if you build up a representation of dogs then they think that both cats and dogs belong in it. So all cats are dogs, but not all dogs are cats, and no birds are dogs. That's not nothing, but that rough level of ability as a standard for personhood would let in a lot of animals. Probably most mammals.

Here's another one where 3-month olds show some basic starting abilities to link watching another person accomplish a goal with their own goal. Unfortunately the abstract of this one isn't as clear, but it sounds like it shows that three month olds are starting to make the first steps towards being as good of a learner as this octopus.

As far as personal experience, I do have personal experience with infants actually! However I am hesitant to put too much weight into that (my own or others) because history has shown us that typically controlled scientific experiments are more reliable. That's not bullet proof by any means, but it's a good rule of thumb (to be fair I specifically think that it's proven to be a bad rule of thumb in animal cognition, where it seems relatively recently where scientists have started to confirm a lot of basic obvious stuff, so I'm aware of the actual utility of direct observation by normal people in every day circumstances. However... my personal experience with infants includes a lot of experience with their family... generously describing their developments. Starting out with "smiles" that look suspiciously like farts and all the way up.

Humans are really, really good at anthropomorphism things. We do it to the weather, to our cars, to our dogs, we do it to everything. We are way too wired to find sapience in things for me to accept impressions of cognitive abilities in miniature people that can't be verified in controlled settings.

Even the behavior that you describe (which I don't think is an exaggeration, to be clear) doesn't particularly compel me, in either direction. Self-recognition, empathy, multi-step tasks, and basic language skills must describe dozens of species. Dogs, elephants, all the great apes, most monkeys, crows, who knows what else. And a year is a really long time. Human infants develop really fast, even if I was willing to accept that the definition of person should include crows I still wouldn't accept that a year old infant having the cognitive abilities of a person implied that a week old infant did too. Way too much development happens in that year.

I did try to look and see exactly when humans pass the mirror test to see if I could find a more definitive source that said it was that young, but I couldn't. This study tested children from six months to 24 months, but I don't have access to it so I don't know the results at the six month or year mark. I would assume that those times were chosen because almost no six-month olds can do it and almost all 24 month olds can. This paper compares the results of the mirror test with other methods on 18-month olds, which implies to me that at 18 months you can expect a large number of successful and unsuccessful infants.

If you're curious to learn more about the cognitive abilities of infants, I highly recommend the book Experimenting With Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform On Your Kid. All the "experiments" are based off real peer-reviewed experiments, and they shed a fascinating light on how the human brain develops what functions when. It's a really cool book.

That book does sound cool, thanks!

Anyway, even while still in the womb, fetuses do display an amazing amount of cognitive function, including the ability to move limbs independently, respond to light and sound and motion stimuli, sleep and waking cycles -- they even practice sucking and crying. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a mother who has carried a child who didn't notice at least some of these activities while pregnant.

None of those things are really impressive from a person-hood standpoint. Cockroaches are great at moving their limbs and responding to sensory stimuli, for example.

It's not that I have a set definition of sapience, I think it makes more sense to use the rest of the animal kingdom as markers to help us determine what sapience is, and then compare it with human development as a gut check.

Again, that's assuming we're all basing our definition of "personhood" on some established level of cognitive function. But I think that's a poor way to define "personhood", because there are plenty of adults we'd define as "people" who may not meet those cognitive tests, and as you say, there are plenty of animals who would satisfy them. Rather, I think "personhood" is a concept innate to humans that extends to all humans, regardless of age or cognitive ability.

Like I said before, I am expressly not talking about granular definitions of person-hood within a species. At least not in any way that matters to a non-fetus. I am not talking about knocking disabled people down a peg to hang out with the rhesus monkeys. I know that historically people have used similar logic to argue exactly that, but that is exactly the opposite direction I am arguing for. The only non-fetus/abortion point I'm making is that there are several very intelligent animal species out there that probably deserve a lot more protection/status than they are getting. Obviously that's not a conversation for this thread, but those are the non-abortion ramifications.

Prior people have said "1) monkeys aren't people, 2) some humans have similar intellectual abilities as monkeys, 3) some humans aren't people." I am saying "1) humans are people 2) humans become people at a pretty early age 3) some animal species have the same traits that humans do around that early age where they become people 4) some animal species are people. The logic shares the same traits and language, but it starts at the opposite assumption and moves in the opposite direction to get the opposite result.

edit: eh, maybe not my place to jump in here.

Good post, Yonder. There is so much to cover, but it'll have to be in the morning.

Still, there was one point you made that caught me:

Yonder wrote:

The only non-fetus/abortion point I'm making is that there are several very intelligent animal species out there that probably deserve a lot more protection/status than they are getting.

I 110% agree with that. I still wouldn't call those animals "people" or give them "personhood" status, because like I said, I consider that a human thing. But that doesn't mean they're not intelligent (indeed, maybe they're as intelligent as we are, or moreso), nor worthy of protection. They are. I just don't think that the intelligence of other species has any bearing on the question of whether or not fetuses should be counted as people.

KaterinLHC wrote:

Good post, Yonder. There is so much to cover, but it'll have to be in the morning.

Thank goodness, if you responded in depth I may have stayed up too, and I was already up past my bed time writing the last post! The elections didn't help either.

Yonder wrote:

Prior people have said "1) monkeys aren't people, 2) some humans have similar intellectual abilities as monkeys, 3) some humans aren't people." I am saying "1) humans are people 2) humans become people at a pretty early age 3) some animal species have the same traits that humans do around that early age where they become people 4) some animal species are people. The logic shares the same traits and language, but it starts at the opposite assumption and moves in the opposite direction to get the opposite result.

I was thinking about this right as I went to bed and realized it wasn't true. The logic of my argument as it specifically refers to abortion and fetuses is

1) Certain animals, like, say, chickens have significantly less cognitive ability than any animal that could be considered a person.
2) Chickens have greater cognitive abilities than, say, a typical 9-month old.
3) 9-month old humans are far more cognitively developed than newborns
4) Newborns are the upper limit of cognitive abilities possible for a fetus.
5) Fetuses are way less cognitively developed than chickens.
6) Fetuses are not people.

So yeah, the overall structure of the fetus part is definitely in the same direction as the Nazi version, it's the corollary that works in the opposite direction. However considering how much "lower" of an animal I start with, and the big built in buffers, I'm comfortable with the difference between my chain of logic, and, say, Brandt's. I think the difference in conclusions helps bear that out, although I suppose someone who strongly felt fetuses WERE people would disagree with that latter point.

Personhood seems to me to be derived from consciousness, and consciousness is not unique to humans. The combination of functional intelligence and consciousness, to me, means that we can grade various animals as compared to humans. And I believe that there are a lot of animals whose "personhood" approaches that of humans.

Dualism is dead. Humans don't have a special "spirit" which infuses them and separates them from the animals and makes them special. That's a neurological illusion (as is, indeed, consciousness). But this has not yet really arrived in the public understanding at this time, and it will probably take a long time to shed the idea of the soul as underpinning the human cognitive experience.

There is no ghost in the machine that is not generated by the machine.

Edit - What I mean by this is that the development of the person takes far longer than gestation. Treating fetuses as if they were fully developed humans is misleading. There are cognitive deficits in fetuses that, taken alone, would lead us to put them in a category with much less sophisticated animals. As noted, many companion animals are more capable than *babies*, much less fetuses.

And the fact that we treat very intelligent and conscious animals as feedstock, while creating special protections for human fetuses (but not adult humans), says to me that the idea of the fetus as possessing "special" features worthy of privileging them is incomplete reasoning. If that's the thinking, then most animals we raise for food require the same (or more) protection, because they undergo far more suffering in being killed for food than a fetus does in an abortion. And what we put humans through in war and other institutionalized violence is also far worse.

Our morals are selective, and species centric. We moralize out of self-interest and based on flawed reasoning. All of this goes by the wayside if your moral stance is "humans first".

But then you have to explain support for the death penalty, wars, suffering through poverty and bias, and all the other policy detritus that affects the born, but is usually ignored in discussions of abortion. The same moral principles *should* apply, but often don't.

Mother Theresa has been getting a fair amount of press lately with her recent sainthood developments in the Catholic Church, but to many cultures she is a revered worker of peace and love. Here is her take on abortion from a US prayer breakfast in the 90s while the Clinton's were first in office.

Mother Theresa wrote:

"But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.
And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."

She was truly pro-life. Spending her life caring for some of the poorest orphans in the world, no one can accuse her of not caring for children once they left the womb.

The sick must suffer like Christ on the cross

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as "homes for the dying" by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money--the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars--but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.

OG_slinger wrote:

The sick must suffer like Christ on the cross

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as "homes for the dying" by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money--the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars--but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.

If you are going for character assassination, I'd choose your source a little more selectively than a self admitted raging alcoholic with an unquenchable hatred for all things religious. I don't happen to be Catholic or believe that the Sainthood process they follow is found in scripture, but it doesn't mean that I discount every word spoken by a Catholic Saint as rubbish.

Nomad wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The sick must suffer like Christ on the cross

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as "homes for the dying" by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money--the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars--but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.

If you are going for character assassination, I'd choose your source a little more selectively than a self admitted raging alcoholic with an unquenchable hatred for all things religious. I don't happen to be Catholic or believe that the Sainthood process they follow is found in scripture, but it doesn't mean that I discount every word spoken by a Catholic Saint as rubbish.

Hitchens may be what you said, but he also wasn't wrong.

Dr.Ghastly wrote:
Nomad wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

The sick must suffer like Christ on the cross

At the time of her death, Mother Teresa had opened 517 missions welcoming the poor and sick in more than 100 countries. The missions have been described as "homes for the dying" by doctors visiting several of these establishments in Calcutta. Two-thirds of the people coming to these missions hoped to a find a doctor to treat them, while the other third lay dying without receiving appropriate care. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food, and no painkillers. The problem is not a lack of money--the Foundation created by Mother Teresa has raised hundreds of millions of dollars--but rather a particular conception of suffering and death: "There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's Passion. The world gains much from their suffering," was her reply to criticism, cites the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Nevertheless, when Mother Teresa required palliative care, she received it in a modern American hospital.

If you are going for character assassination, I'd choose your source a little more selectively than a self admitted raging alcoholic with an unquenchable hatred for all things religious. I don't happen to be Catholic or believe that the Sainthood process they follow is found in scripture, but it doesn't mean that I discount every word spoken by a Catholic Saint as rubbish.

Hitchens may be what you said, but he also wasn't wrong.

Aren't you refuting your own style of argument with that statement?
(Mother Theresa may be what you said, but she also wasn't wrong.)