So the issue for you is more to do with the mother going through the birthing process than whether or not the "clump of cells" is a human being or not, it seems. Nothing wrong with that, but your argument takes you to a place where you could absolutely, positively believe the fetus is a human being and still say the mother's rights trump. I'm not willing to go there and frankly am happy that SCOTUS isn't either. I'll leave alone the implications of the whole, "i don't find anything special about babies" argument. I read that book once, and liked it better when it was political satire and called "A Modest Proposal."
moes- good post, there are difficulties MadMax- another good post, I don't picture Jesus demonstrating in front of a clinic Nor do I picture Jesus volunteering at a planned parenthood clinic But I think we should get His picture and follow it.
There are some mentally challenged people who can't do much of what you've stated. Should we just kill them, too? I know you later said once it's out of the mother's body the moral equation changes. Why should that matter when you define one's worth by their ability to listen to Mozart and see a sunset?
Actually, he still is, because at least he's bringing up the animal argument. Abortions suck and I support measures that help reduce them, but no one seems to bat an eye when it's animals being killed. It's just sad to me how dogs and cats and dolphins and human fetuses are lionized but fully developed pigs and cows are happily slaughtered and eaten. When I think of the pain and suffering that a pig or cow endure when they are killed like assembly line products, the fright and the agony every single one of them endure, living beings with distinct personalities and traits, it kind of sours me toward the pro-life crowd, honestly. I don't get the indignation when there is so much suffering behind every meal we eat. Nor should a living being's worth be defined by whether they can talk, or reason, or theorize.
Since you brought that up I hope you understand the 3/5 rule in the great compromise had to do with census and citizenship rights. WOuld you be willing to have embryos and fetuses counted in a census and also granted rights under the 14th Ammendment?
My understanding is that there is signifigant neurological development still going from the 32 weeks up and the brain isn't fixed at the 32 week point. In fact as far as development goes the brain is still developing up until you die. Regarding response to auditory and other stimulus I'm not sure that is a good measure of determing higher neurological development as even lizards can respond to auditory stimuli. My own view is I'm not sure where the bright line is between saying an embryo is a fetus. I have a hard time buying that a blastocyst is a human while saying that a fetus the day before birth isn't. Also we are all just clumps of cells the difference is that we are clumps of cells that can exist as an independently functioning organisms. An embryo can't.
Did you graduate from ? Of course it's human, genetically. But it has yet to achieve, for lack of a better phrase, "humanhood," so the mother's choice (the mother, having already achieved "humanhood") should preside. Here's an excerpt from ethicist Peter Singer, which I've probably been badly paraphrasing the last ten years since I've read it, humorously titled "Justifying Infanticide and Non-Voluntary Euthanasia." [rquoter]...[W]e saw that the fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings. This conclusion is not limited to infants who, because of irreversible intellectual disabilities, will never be rational, self-conscious beings. We saw in our discussion of abortion that the potential of a fetus to become a rational, self-conscious being cannot count against killing it at a stage when it lacks these characteristics - not, that is, unless we are also prepared to count the value of rational self-conscious life as a reason against contraception and celibacy. No infant - disabled or not - has as strong a claim to life as beings capable of seeing themselves as distinct entities, existing over time...[/rquoter] Now, I suppose you could provide a case where a woman born without a brain has been raped/impregnated by her nursing attendant. I'd probably give the benefit of the doubt to the potential human inside her. But I side generally with Singer's take. Though, to repeat, I am not in favor of infanticide. I think the point at which we gradually acquire "humanhood" exists at some point after birth, but I'm willing to draw the line at birth because it removes the mother's agency over her own body as a deciding factor. (Also, perhaps influencing: tradition, and stuff.) Totally impractical! Surely, you will agree that Irish whelps are, though a renewable resource, a slowly gestating one. And it takes years for them to grow to maturity to have enough meat on their bones, even if you stuff them in a pen and force-milk-feed them like veal. So yeah, for the first year or two there'd be a great haul, and we'd have great eating, but after that, it'd be like overfishing lobsters off of Cape Cod: greatly diminishing returns. So no, I'm not arguing for devouring our young. Not yet, anyways. (Not as long as I have my steady cheeseburger w/ extra bacon supply intact.)
Humans are worth more to me than animals and always will be. If I have the option to choose to save an animal's life or a human's life I will choose the human 100% of the time. If it's a baby's life or another human's life, there's not such a clear cut line. That's the difference.
Actually, Mr. & Mrs. Tavern, I was lying. I've sworn off hamburgers for the time being, not from moral suasion, but out of fear. I made the mistake of reading this article on our ground beef supply. [Do not read! if you want to ever enjoy a medium-cooked burger again.] It's gonna take a few weeks for that article to be out of my memory. It was a turkey sandwich instead. No bacon. (Trichinosis at the Subway I frequent = highly likely.) You might like Singer. He's pro-infanticide, but generally comes down on the vegetarian side from the standpoint of utility (the middle man / waste involved in feeding the intermediate food source) and cruelty to animals, and considers himself a "flexible vegan." Dude likes complexity, or maybe just enjoys making his arguments more difficult.
Agreed. Great post. I think some pro-choice people have a problem with this woman because they view abortion as a "get out of jail free" card. On some level, they feel abortion is wrong but then they think about what they would do if they had an unwanted pregnancy. They think "well, I made a mistake but I'm not ready for this. One abortion and I'll learn my lesson." They want to have that choice and so they support women having that choice. In that case, their happiness trumps the life of another human (the embryo/fetus). Meanwhile, many pro-lifers have flaws in their reasoning as well. That's why so many of them are ok with women having abortions after being raped or if the mother's life is endanger. It's inconsistent. They wouldn't support a woman who decided she wanted to kill her 5 year old because the child was conceived by rape and knowing he exists can't allow her to get past the rape. If all human life is really equal then why are they condoning the same thing by allowing abortions (murder) ever? In both cases, you have people basically saying one human life (or one human's quality of life) is worth more than another. Isn't the pro-life argument the opposite of that? I'm pro-choice because I don't believe an embryo or fetus constitutes a human life. Either you support abortion choice for women or you don't. I do.
I don't agree with everything Singer says, and I frankly think his views on infanticide are nonsensical (he wouldn't be in favor of killing an infant animal), but "Animal Liberation" raises some very thought-provoking points about the philosophy of treating sentient beings as property or "product," as well as speciesism and the human supremacy theory. I personally think that snuffing out the life of a sentient being is just that, whether you open to it (such as yourself) or against it.
Cool. Ms. Tavern-Bound (forgive my earlier impudence in regards to your family name), How do you square the value of sentience in animal life to an acceptance of human abortion? Draw the line strictly after the first trimester, or at the development of the CNS as delineated above? An honest question; I'm not trying to play gotcha. I have trouble with that one. (And if I'm wrong or change my mind on any of this, my current thoughts on this topic will surely one day lead me shrieking into the mental abyss.) It would seem that a vegetarian would be okay with meat-eating, if the factory farm were somehow able to impale the animal's brainstem just before/after birth. Is it okay to eat steaks derived from anencephalic cows? Also, off topic, have you ever read David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster," an essay about the morality of shellfish-eating, which he somehow snuck into Gourmet Magazine? It's been rattling around in my head the last few days.
I like that. It's the difference between a novice viewing abortion as a one-time "Get Out of Jail Free" card, and a recidivist seeing it as Legal Aid. Morally, you're right, it's ultimately the same act for both.
First you need to assign a value to the human species, including yourself. Second abortion isn't an issue of humanhood at all. It is an issue of the human reproductive process. Every species has a reproductive process and every species has a value.
But I'm so self-loathing! How is life's value derived from the reproductive process? Every sperm is sacred? (NSFW - hilarity) Spoiler <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/U0kJHQpvgB8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/U0kJHQpvgB8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
I used to be strong pro-choice supporter. But after sat through my con-law class, I was not sure any more. I don't view pro-life from a religious perspective. But I think the fetus itself deserves a voice. There are two interests on the opposite ends. Of course, the debate is when life forms. I don't know, but I just felt it is wrong just to look at this issue using a set of hard scientific facts, and all of sudden we can draw the line. That's why I don't agree with Court's role getting into this line drawing business to say what is ok and what not. As a public policy matter, maybe anti-abortion is a good thing.
