You need to read the previous post and the one prior to that. Men do not have the same rights as women. A man can not force a woman to be responsible for the consequences of his decision/desire in relation to an accidental pregnancy. A woman can force a man to be responsible for her decision/actions in relation to an accidental pregnancy. Your claim that I want men to have more rights than women is false. A woman has the right to legally abandon her born child - it is called adoption and this happens all the time. A man has no similar right.
I brought that up because the way you approached it before left the "human" part as meaningless, and only placed value on the self-awareness. Meaning that you would elevate certain non-humans over certain humans as a rule (in specific instances, there are many who do this though - think of any pet owner). If my statement that you were arguing with was, "golf balls and basketballs are both round", their utility would not be a meaningful difference. That you can't play golf with a basketball doesn't negate the statement that it is round. Well you have substantially disagreed with the article up to this point, as you said: But I have no issue with changing views in light of evidence. See, it isn't as if this evidence has done anything to show that you should use self-awareness as your measure, but since self-awareness is your measure, then it makes sense that this evidence would change your mind. I agree that there is a significant difference in the value of a human versus the value of any other animal, but it is not because we have higher brain functions or self-awareness. There are a few select animals which I think are about as smart as we are, and which are probably self-aware (for example, dolphins), and I do value them highly, but I do not value them over humans. No, I haven't misinterpreted or misstated your opinion on this matter. What you value is self-awareness - I did not say that, "what you value is the immediate presence of self-awareness", but the key factor for you is, quite obviously, self-awareness. At the very least, a self-aware human, or one who has been self-aware, is of value to you. I might well believe in a soul - but generally speaking that isn't an issue for legal personhood. I try not to mix religious and political/legal definitions. But as I've mentioned, your threshold isn't as secure as you suggest it is. You've taken the point where the part of the brain which governs self-awareness begins to form, and said that that is the point where the capacity for self-awareness begins, and therefore that is where we should consider legal personhood to begin. But that's a very flawed connection. It'd be like saying that a fetus starts to develop legs two months after conception, so that's when it gains the capacity to be a runner. idk about you, but I just don't buy that. There is a whole lot more to the capacity for self-awareness than having the part of the brain which governs self-awareness (which some studies suggest doesn't manifest until more than a year after birth), and there is a whole lot more to having the capacity to be a runner than simply having some kind of legs.
This is the issue I have been trying to pull forth from pro-life advocates. When we talk about "human beings" it is generally the individual personhood (the spirit or the soul) that we really mean. If a man gets artificial legs, he is still the same person before and after. If a man gets a heart transplant, he is still the same person before and after. I would venture to guess that you would not be the same person if you got a brain transplant (when that becomes possible). It just seems obvious, given what we know, that the brain is the seat of personhood and you cannot start that process until the brain is developed enough to perform the associated tasks. I do not propose waiting until a year after birth for proof of intelligence because I agree that we should give the benefit of a doubt when there is justification for that doubt. Most pro-lifers avoid talking about the soul in an abortion debate, which seems odd (and maybe a little bit dishonest) because there is not really much point in fighting against abortion unless you believe there is some special value to our individual self-awareness (which many people equate with the soul or spirit). If you do not believe in a soul, then what difference does it make to you if a woman gets an abortion just before the third trimester? If you do believe in a soul and that is the same thing we call self-awareness or meaningful thought, then science tells us it cannot inhabit the fetus before the third trimester, so (again) what difference does it make to you if a woman gets an abortion just before the third trimester? If you believe in a soul but you think it is something different from self-awareness or meaningful thought, what observations lead you to that belief?
You're correct. Anti-Choicers who would "graciously allow" a raped woman to abort are Big Hypocrits BUT they DO PROVE that they are only against abortion to punish women for having consensual sex..... However, those who want to force women to have the kid of their rapists are as low as the rapist....they want control of, and power over, women...punishing HER fro being raped...
Only in regard to your very specific, personal measure. The two qualifications for personhood are that they be regarded as a) human, and b) individual. I find it hard to believe that when a mother gets an ultrasound and sees the sex of the baby and gives it a name that they don't regard it as both human and an individual. The same difference it makes if Joe murders John when both are adults. You're getting into circular arguments again. Yes, if we all agreed with you that it is self-awareness alone which is valuable in a human, and we all agreed with you that it starts at that point (and none of us saw any issues with either the value judgement or starting point you've made), then we'd all be in agreement. Yes, your premises lead to your conclusion, but your premises are not on solid ground.
That's just it. Before there is a person in the womb (with its own individual thoughts) to consider, there is no other person whose measure matters except the pregnant woman. As you suggested, when a mother sees the ultrasound and gives the baby a name, she is assigning it a value based on her very specific, very personal, measure. You do not have the right to override her value system and insist that it must be aborted for population control or some other factor important to you. By the same token, a rape victim who gets the ultrasound and says (before the third trimester) I want an abortion before this fetus becomes a person, is assignit it a value based on her very specific, very personal, measure. You do not have the right to override her value system and insist that she must keep it because it has brain waves and YOU want to give it the benefit of the doubt. By the way (before you waste time on post-birth analogies) let me remind you I have no intention of applying the same threshold rules after birth. But it is not the same... You know that because you had to reach for post-birth examples so Joe and John have both crossed the threshold into personhood. I note that you still (like most pro-lifers) avoid taking a stand on the soul (which is relevant to a discussion on abortion and humanity). Is it your position that our self-aware mind, individuality, personhood, spirit, and soul are all basically the same thing? Or do you think the soul is something different from our personhood? If so, what and on what basis?
I agree rape should not be an exception. So do all pro-choicers. We believe abortion should be allowed up to a point, and that point allows plenty of time to abort if there was a rape or not. We just bring up the rape topic to show the "life at conception" people that their policy is bad. If a woman waits until 6 months to say she was raped and wants an abortion, I would say she knew she was raped long before that. Do current laws allow rape exceptions at 6 months? I doubt it, but now am curious. I think the main arguments now are how late a normal fetus may be aborted, and whether we may abort a deformed fetus when it is discovered after 5 months.
We're not talking about my rights, we're talking about law. We as a society have defined murder - others have defined it differently. Whether you like it or not, our very definition of murder is the result of general agreement in society of those personal measures/values. Other societies with different personal measures/values among their members have defined murder much differently. yes, a basketball and a golf ball are different, but they are same in the regard that they are both round. You asked "if you do not believe in a soul...", and it should be obvious that I don't need to believe in a soul to believe that murder should be illegal. We've been through this again and again and I don't know how to make it any more clear: you value self-awareness, I value human life. You keep begging the question, and it is circular. As you (like most pro-choicers) haven't taken a position on anti-disestablishmentarianism: and they both have as much place in a discussion of law regarding abortion.
Two things. 1) when you say "we", you are actually speaking for yourself, and quite clearly not speaking for "pro-choicers". Gallup has done these polls on abortion for a long time, and generally around 30% of Americans believe that abortion should always be legal, under "any circumstances", yet only 50% (in the latest poll) identify as pro-choice. It seems to stand to reason that a majority of the "Pro-choicers" believe that abortion should be legal, like Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, at any time and under any circumstances, even on a whim the day before the "fetus" is due. But if you're not of that mind, then you're in the category that I'm in, which gallup has as, "legal only under certain circumstances", which we can deductively say is about as common a stance in the pro-life camp is an the pro-choice camp. btw, there are far more "abortion the day before the baby is due" people than "life at conception" people. 2) I agree with you on the rape bit, clearly, but I'd note that there are many many many "pro-choicers" who will say that it's not fair to set a hard line like that (even at six months) because there are some rare cases where women have no idea that they're pregnant until later. For me, this is actually pretty simple, logically, even if tough to stomach emotionally. If the fetus in her womb is not a human individual (person), then it can't override her rights, and abortion is acceptable. but if it is, then it is a life, and the right to life comes first. The silly arguments people make about the fetus impeding the women's rights (namely the right to privacy) would have us believe that if someone were getting in my personal space it'd be okay for me to slit their throat.
Well if we are just going to go with the legal definition of murder then that is evidence that a fetus is not a person until actual birth. The UVVA stands as evidence that all those other laws addressing murder have nothing to do with the unborn human. I just thought it would be much more interesting to try to figure out the logical time when personhood might apply, and for most people the soul (or self-aware mind) is the most important issue in deciding when it might be immoral to have abortion. Until there is the capacity for self-awareness, the body under construction is just an extension of the pregnant woman's body and has whatever value she determines. Maybe for you, the capacity for self-awareness, personhood, or presence of a soul do not matter in a debate about abortion. If all you care about is the presence of human DNA + brain waves that is fine, and I support your right to use that threshold for yourself. If you think the law has no business dealing with issues of the soul, I agree. The law should only be concerned with making sure the procedure is performed by qualified medical staff.
It is likely that people who say abortion should be legal until the moment of birth are thinking along these lines: If abortion was available for the first 6 months of the pregnancy and the woman did not get an abortion, she probably wants the baby. She has certainly invested more of her life into the fetus than any of the Monday Morning pro-lifers who want control of the situation. If that woman is seeking an abortion in the final days of pregnancy, it is probably because of a critical health issue. If the government tries to control that decision, we will encounter the same kind of problems Ireland has (where the hospital is more concerned about avoiding an abortion than saving the life of the mother). The fact that a pro-choice person votes (in a poll) that abortion should be unrestricted does not mean that they want it to happen in the last moments of pregnancy. It just means that they want to stop the government from interfering in the privacy of the pregnant woman.
That's entirely separate. "I think it should be legal" and "I think it should be performed" are different questions.
In that case, I think we agree that saying "it should be legal with no restrictions" is not the same as saying "I want an abortion 'on a whim the day before the fetus is due.'" The poll data you provided does not indicate the reasons people voted for legal abortions with some restrictions. I think most people accept the idea of restrictions later in the pregnancy when you can demonstrate that there is an individual "person" to protect (although we do NOT want to see it taken to extremes as Ireland has done). Interesting that you did not respond to my earlier comment about Ireland's stance on abortion. That is the environment we would have in the US if the pro-life advocates had their way about it.
As usual like pretty much all pro-lifers you attempt to reduce the argument to simplistic terms when in reality it is far from that, you make an assumption that does not hold any water because you have other options available to you, options that a pregnant woman does not, she cannot retreat, she cannot request the fetus to leave her alone, she cannot use non-deadly force to stop the non-consented injuries, you have all of those options should a person invade your personal space, furthermore a person invading your personal space is not injuring you without consent, and no the right to life does not come first, the right to consent is one of the few rights that can, and does, over ride another persons right to life, as an American living with the 2nd Amendment I would have thought you knew that. Whether the unborn are persons or not they CANNOT over ride her right to consent or not, to who, what, where and when her body is used by another entity.
I thought about it and decided that I am pro-disestablishmentarianism, and you are correct about its relevance to abortion. Both issues (when does the fetus have an individual soul/spirit/awareness, and separation of church and state) are relevant to a discussion about abortion. It seems clear from the abortion discussions that even people who do not believe in a "soul" make a distinction between abortion in the first weeks (e.g. the "morning after pill") and abortion in the last few weeks of pregnancy. Why? Because even if they do not call it a "soul" they realize that a single-celled life-form with human DNA does not qualify as a person. Hundreds of thousands of them are washed away every year before they can attach to the uterus, but that is OK because they have not developed the capacity for meaningful thought. There is no justification to interfere with the pregnant woman's choice unless you have compelling evidence that there is an individual human person inhabiting the body, and that will not be possible until after the brain is operational (the last month or two of pregnancy). Even then, as you pointed out yourself, it might not be fully functional, so that argues for keeping the legal threshold for personhood where the law has it now (at birth). I just thought it would give the fetus the benefit of the doubt to have the threshold a bit earlier (at the point when meaningful thought is first possible) but you didn't want that
I disagree with the highlighted part of your comment, the status of the unborn is not relevant to whether elective abortion should remain legal or not (let us not forget that the main abortion argument is against elective abortion not medically necessary ones), all deeming the status of the unborn does is move the debate from an issue of privacy to an issue of consent, self-defence and equal protection. IMO, and a lot of the legal and medical evidence supports it, deeming the unborn as persons from conception actually makes the legal status of elective abortion far more secure, and would expand it to be at any time, for any reason and the state having to pay for it. The abortion debate needs to be moved away from what the unborn are to what they do.
A 2 week old baby will also die if left alone. That is a complete non argument. A woman does not have the right to choose whether another human being lives or dies. That is why abortion is illegal in many countries and should be in all.
Oh, I agree with your perspective. If the government took the position that the fetus is a "person" just like the already-born, that would not give it the right to demand to stay in the womb against the will of the host person (stealing resources and causing damage). If you invite a neighbor in for coffee and then you find out he is so high on drugs that he attacks you without any awareness of what he is doing, you still have a right to defend yourself. As a Christian, I am more familiar with the background of those who claim they are protecting the unborn based on the soul (individual personhood), so I am trying to understand what basis they might have for believing the soul enters before the brain is developed enough for the kind of self-aware thought that we associate with individuality. So far the arguments are no more compelling than "it is alive with human DNA so it must have the same value as those who are already born." When I was younger the argument (at least within Christian circles) was all about the soul, and now I cannot find a Christian involved in the debate who admits to believing it is about the soul. Odd.
My ideal threshold (based on what I know at this point) would be in the last month or so of pregnancy when the brain is developed enough so it has all of the neural connections and chemistry in place to make any meaningful thought possible. I would define that as the kind of self-directed, self-initiated, self-aware thought we generally associate with personhood. I do not consider primitive reflex movements or sleep-like EEG readings to be indications of meaningful thought. Others have pointed out that we might not have actual meaningful self-aware thought until sometime well after the actual birth, and I personally believe it is wrong for the government to interfere before birth, but if we must have a threshold before birth I submit that the capacity of the brain to sustain meaningful thought (the last month or so of pregnancy) is the most logical point to use as a threshold. Before that point the government is not protecting an individual person, they are just enforcing the will of the control enthusiasts on the pregnant woman.
The problem with bringing the soul into it is that the state couldn't justify any restrictions based on that or they would be violating the 1st amendment, and that is probably why pro-lifers have dropped it .. just as they have pretty much dropped the emphasis on the unborn, and are instead concentrating on the females health and doing so by citing thoroughly debunked "research".
I agree. The few who are willing to even use the word "soul" have admitted that there is no objective evidence for it, so it is a matter of religious faith, and they cannot legally enforce a religious belief in a country based on religious freedom. I am concerned because pro-life advocates (whether they believe in a soul or not) will use it in Christian circles to manipulate people into putting more and more restrictions on abortion. Many Christians just accept the rhetoric they hear at church (or Operation Rescue meetings) so they do not realize the Bible does not tell us when the soul inhabits the body, and scholars over the years have not agreed on it, and for most of Christian and Jewish history the newborn became a "person" at the moment of birth.
Two week old babies are cared for voluntarily. No one is ever forced to provide care, and no woman should be forced to provide care for a zef. Women have the right to choose whether "another human being" or a "pre-human-being" inhabits their bodies and whether they will give that being the gift of life or not. Abortion is not illegal in many developed countries and enforcing it in non-developed countries is impossible. Legality does not affect the number of abortions occurring.
No its not voluntary. If you leave your 2 week old baby to die then you will be tried for murder. You talk about women choosing whether another human being inhabits their bodies (which basically means taking care of the baby for a few months) but when they had intercourse they knew that was a definite possibility. If someone fires a gun in the approximate direction of other people he knows it is a definite possibility that one of them could die. That person would then be tried for murder. He would not get away with it because he was not sure it would happen. Women too must take responsibility for their actions. It is patronising and infantalising to women to say to them they do not have to take responsibility for their actions. If women want equality they must act like adults.
