It's obvious Abortion is wrong

I ask myself "what is" so I will not contribute to pointless laws that force unjustified burdens on other people. As we learn more facts, we improve our ability to make a judgement in such matters.

Why is the moment that the heart beats any more meaningful than the moment when the brain is able to think its first meaningful thought? If Tom's heart fails and we replace it with Bill's heart, is that person Bill from now on? No. It is still Tom because personhood is attached to Tom's brain. When did Tom become a unique person? When he was able to think his first thought (and the evidence indicates he could think his first thought as soon as he was born).

When do you believe personhood begins, and what is your basis for that belief?

 

What do you mean?

 

I wholeheartedly agree. But again, the accuracy or innumeracy of facts does not circumvent the is-ought gap.

To get straight to the point, and reiterate the main point of the original question: why is the emergence of mature "thought", or being a "unique person", the condition which makes a moral distinction between a newborn baby and a fetus? The key word here is "moral". If you're not a fan of that word, a more accurate one is "normative". In other words, why - accepting that all your facts are correct, which I have no intent to challenge - do these factual differences between newborns and fetuses have any normative weight on how we treat them? If this question cannot be answered, we have to conclude that these conditions you bring up are, morally/normatively speaking, merely arbitrary.

To respond your last question, I'm actually going to hold off, because my position on abortion is actually not pro-life, and not pro-choice either. You seem capable of holding a conversation about this stuff, which is nice for a change. So if we can make it through this first conversation, then you can ask me about my views. Right now we're talking about yours.

 

Your first sentence was, "They DO have the right to stop supporting it outside the UTERUS." Okay, that's consistent with the above argument for why a woman has a right to abort her fetus.

But then you said, "They can place it for adoption." Well, that's indeed possible. But what if they don't? What if they simply neglect their kid? If they don't put the child up for adoption, do they have any obligation to take care of the kid? If they do, why?

 

On the topic of the fetus as a parasitical intrusion (in the circumstance of an unwanted pregnancy)

If unrestricted abortion is legally available, and considered "acceptable" in society, the only parents who have children are parents who want children. Unlike an embryo, a child outside the womb can be cared for by others if, for some reason, the parents are unable to care for the child.

 

Wait, are you dodging my response?

At the time of birth, sure.

True. But what's your point?

 

My belief is that the human body is a life support system for the human mind (which only exists when the cerebral cortex is functioning). When your mind was awakened, it probably did not think anything very interesting (something to the effect of "Whaaaaat???"). At that point your mind began its attempt to understand and organize sensory input and learn how to operate your body.

Even in optimal conditions (good health, good genetics, full term) a newborn mind is not of great value to society, but it is now operational and its parents (whether natural or adoptive) can begin teaching it what it needs to know to continue on its journey through personhood. The newborn person is valuable because it is a living mind. Even if it lapses into a coma at some point, we protect the experience (the personhood) it has accumulated and sustain it until it can be revived (or until the cerebrum is no longer functional). At the end of life, it is possible that the body may continue to live even after the cerebrum is non-functional. In that situation we have general agreement in society that the "person" is already gone and we can terminate the body. During pregnancy, we have the same situation. The body is alive, but the cerebrum has not yet entertained a thought. There is no accumulated thought or experience, so this body is not yet inhabited by a "person."

 

This doesn't address my critique.

 

You sure have a problem addressing my posts with anything bearing a resemblance to an intelligent response.....are you sure this is the forum for you?

 

What has that got to do with abortion?

 

I quoted you in full over into this other discussion......
because what you wrote can assist almost anybody to understand the five poll questions better!


http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=465407&page=2&p=1066414669#post1066414669
Thread: M. P. Sean Fraser, proposed anti-feticide bill.

 

Exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

No other poster has ever proven a fetus is a baby....do you have proof?

 

You asked earlier "why is the emergence of mature "thought", or being a "unique person", the condition which makes a moral distinction between a newborn baby and a fetus?" (or normative distinction).

The fetus is alive, but we do not consider every life to be a person. The mouse that gets into your pantry is alive, but we do not think of that mouse as a person (unless we watch far too much Disney).

The properties of a human being that we value (in a moral sense) are properties of conscious thought (e.g. the ability to reason, communicate, to have an understanding of themselves and others). None of that is possible before birth because (a) the cerebrum lacks the "mechanical" ability to think until the last few weeks and (b) the blood chemistry within the womb suppresses any capacity it might have in those last weeks.

After birth, the human mind is operational so it can begin reasoning, communicating, and trying to understand life. All of this (from the first moment of thought) becomes a part of our personhood. This even applies to a premature birth because the birth process causes profound changes in blood chemistry that activate the brain (even if it is not prepared yet for meaningful thought). Until somebody can prove that the active brain, in that case, is not accumulating experience toward its personhood, I would argue that personhood consistently begins, in all cases, at birth.

The properties that makes us moral beings (versus animals who act on instinct) are all in the mind. We subvert animal instincts in many cases to behave as moral beings based on our thoughts and experiences (which start at the moment of birth). It is not possible to be a moral being unless the mind is functioning. It is not a matter of being conscious at every moment. You could view the brain as a magnetic storage device where our memories and thoughts could be stored from the moment of birth. As soon as you begin recording, the mind (actually the brain) becomes a physical repository for personhood. That does not change when you sleep, or go into a coma. If you have the potential to "wake up" you are still the person who started recording when your mind was activated at birth.

All those qualities we attribute to "human beings" are really qualities of the mind. At some point, it may be possible to transplant your brain into a new body. That would be absolute evidence that the body is just a life-support system for the mind. Based on what we already know about the brain, I think we would all be astonished if we transplanted Tom's brain into Bill's body and that body woke up with the personhood of Bill.

I suppose I am trying to say that all the philosophical arguments about the value of human life and the right to life actually apply to the mind. Furthermore, they only apply to the mind from the moment it is activated (which appears to be the moment of birth) through the moment it is no longer active (even if the body is still "alive"). Perhaps this answers your question. If not, I may need more parameters.

 

How do you justify this? Why is this not arbitrary? Could I not just as easily propose that the properties of human beings that we value (in the moral sense) are found in its biological uniqueness? In that case the moment of conception, when a new DNA is formed, would be the moment of moral importance.

And who are "we" in this statement? For such a controversial question, I doubt you will find unanimity, or near unanimity.

I agree that it's not possible to be a moral agent, i.e. a person whom we can hold accountable for their actions, without a functioning mind. But how do you make the jump from there to the implicit claim that: there are no normative rules for moral agents with respect to their treatment of non-moral agents? In other words, just because you're not a moral agent yourself, why aren't there any rules for how you are treated

We certainly don't strip a coma victim's rights just because their mind no longer has the capacity for moral agency. Such a person could potentially be a moral agent, but so can a fetus.

 

Para-psychology gives some pretty powerful evidence that a foetus has some sort of "soul' or hard drive that existed....
even before birth........... and even before conception?!


http://www.near-death.com/science/research/pre-existence.html
Pre-Existence and the Near-Death Experience

......

On one level Fox..... this fits with your accurate statement that the young women who
are facing the ethical dilemma of feeling that having an abortion is their best option.........

some of them feel that is almost their only option.......

Yes... those young women had tremendous courage to come down here into
four dimensional space - time knowing that they would probably face such

off the scale difficult dilemmas!

 

That's just screwy......and doesn't hide the fact that you can't prove a fetus is a baby...

 

Speaking of the properties we value in a human being, you said:

We (in general). Perhaps philosophers who examine the question. Honestly, most people follow whoever can tell an emotionally charged story so they don't have to actually think about it. I am talking about properties like sentience, consciousness, reasoning, self-awareness, self-motivation, communication, social interaction. Most people, when they think of what it means to be human, think of properties like this. If it takes two arms to be human, do we consider people born without arms to be non-human? Why would the number of fingers, or arms, or exact DNA define my personhood?

Suppose I get a virus next week that changes my DNA? Does that make me a different person? No.

If I am in an accident that destroys my brain in 20 years, maybe they will have the ability to transplant the brain of a person whose body has been severely damaged into my body. Does that make me a different person? Yes. My body would no longer be "mine" and it would have the personhood of Roger (or whoever resided within that brain). My DNA and Roger's brain = Roger's personhood.


Regarding: The properties that makes us moral beings (versus animals who act on instinct) are all in the mind.

But a coma victim is still considered a person because the mind was activated at birth, and represents a record of their personhood which may be "paused" at this point, but could be "resumed" if the victim recovers. The fetus is not "paused" because it has not yet started to become a person. It is still a life support system waiting for birth to press the "start" button.

It would be arbitrary to say "the embryo is a person because its heart is beating" because we now know it is possible to replace the heart without changing the personhood of that individual. It would be arbitrary to say the shape of the nose makes the fetus an individual, because we know people can go to a plastic surgeon to change their physical appearance. Can you name any aspect of personhood that really depends on the nature of the physical body?

 

You may offend some Christians who believe every single word of the Bible must be accepted as literal, but even the Bible suggests that the soul exists long before birth and long after death. Maybe the writers did not think we had a "need to know" if a given soul might appear in some other body at some other time, but we are certainly given the impression that this physical life is our only shot at taking the narrow or the broad path.

Do you believe the soul is the same thing we speak of as our "personhood" or self-awareness?

 

You seem to have to go off topic with another C&P rather than address the post.

 

I think most people would agree that sentience is a sufficient condition for personhood. But I think it's much less justifiable that most people would agree this is a necessary condition. After all, the entire abortion debate is related to this point, a great majority of the pro-life camp arguing for the moment of conception.

Bu whatever "most" people think, whatever that means and whatever that is, I think you're smart enough to realize that consensus is not an argument for the truth of things. If it were, then the Earth would be flat and be the center of the universe.

You're not making an argument for your conclusion, you're just saying "no". But that's begging the question.

In fact, you are correct to point out that any of these conditions - number of fingers, DNA, etc - are arbitrary vis-a-vis moral or normative implications. Why can't you see that your condition as well, "sentience" is just as arbitrary?

But this doesn't really address my criticism, which is a challenge to show why sentience matters at all with respect to normative behavior. Your argument just really shows, again, that the mind is sufficient to demonstrate uniqueness of a person (like I mentioned above). But it doesn't show that it is necessary.

If their personhood is "paused", as you say, then you should equally conclude that their rights as a person are "paused" as well. From this we must conclude that coma victims can be morally "aborted" or "terminated". Do you accept that? If not, then on what basis do you argue for preserving the coma victim's life? It cannot be sentience, because they are not sentient.

And again, you have to argue for why that condition is normative. That they used to be sentient is true, but on its own has no normative weight.

A distinction without a (normative) difference, so far as your argument is concerned so far.

It's equally arbitrary to say that the sentient being is a person (i.e. an entity with rights) because only facts have been used, no value judgements. You cannot bridge the is-ought gap without an ought.

Let me cut to the chase. Any way of defining a person, as far as normative behavior goes, is going to be arbitrary, that's just the way it is. Recognizing that you can still make pro-life or pro-choice arguments.

 

You make a valid point about consensus. The fact that 51% of people believe something does not make it the truth. I would, however, suggest that most people who argue against an activated brain as being a necessary condition for personhood are influenced primarily by their desire to have a definition that would include the zygote.

I would say that possession of sentience or conscious thought at every moment would be arbitrary and would put coma victims at risk of being declared non-persons. Note that I have been describing the brain as a physical medium that acts as a repository for personhood. That means there is a distinct difference between terminating a human body that has never initiated a thought, and terminating a human body that sustains the collection of thoughts and memories representing an actual person (even if brain function is "paused"). We sustain a coma victim because society accepts the responsibility that we should preserve an existing person (until we are reasonably certain that person cannot be recovered).

You ask what ought to be. It should be obvious that I think personhood should be defined as a process that begins at birth and ends when the cerebrum is no longer functional. Temporary suspension of brain function (e.g. in a coma) should not automatically terminate personhood because the person who was created in the mind of that newborn may still resume at some point.

Prior to birth, the developing human body is forming inside a person who may, or may not, want that to happen. Society ought to leave that decision to her, and support her decision by (a) protecting her unborn with UVVA laws, and (b) making safe and affordable abortion available.

I am relatively new to this debate so I am not yet convinced that it is impossible to define personhood in a way that is verifiable. I believe people who want to believe that personhood starts inside the womb have been misled by reflex responses. Only in recent years has science been able to learn that it would be impossible for the fetus to make a conscious decision to move away, or toward, pressure or sound in the womb.

Did you think of any aspect of personhood that is a property of the body, but not the mind?

 

Here is the connection.......
if perhaps ninety percent or more of all men and women in North America ... if hypnotized and regressed in time......would see lives as both men and women in what they subconsciously perceive as past lives then....
women have memories ..... of experiencing being abused, beaten or suffering......... that is often connected to being a mom.

If a woman in this lifetime has what her subconscious mind perceives as a past lives where she had ten kids..... and died in childbirth..... .then being pregnant
could be much scarier for her than being pregnant for somebody who, for whatever reason, had more positive subconscious images of being a mother?!

The para-psychology research does help to explain some of our fears and phobias.... that in some cases can scare some of us away from motherhood.

http://www.near-death.com/reincarnation/research/ian-stevenson.html

Dr. Ian Stevenson's Reincarnation Research

 

Yes.. .this research will be offensive to many Christians.

I believe that our human soul or hard drive is much more powerful than we tend to imagine.

This aspect of parapsychological research can cause us Christians to become much less self-righteous or proud. The problems in others that we see as most serious.....
we ourselves probably fell into something similar, or far worse, in a possible other lifetime.

http://www.politicalforum.com/relig...an-andreason-he-onto-something-important.html

 

Really? Who ever claimed that pregnancy doesn't hurt woman? Everybody has heard of going into labor, morning sickness, and what have you. What we are saying though is the abortion hurts women more so in both short and long term. We are also saying that despite the inconvience its still isn't justified in murdering the unborn. And really do you really think that pro lifers see women as cattle?