Where should the line be drawn on abortion?

[catzmeow]

You are still confused.

Being able to feel has no impact on the equation, the key word here is "ability."

Humans, as a species have the ability to think and feel. Regardless of whether certain members of the species lack the ability to think and feel, the SPECIES has this as defining characteristic.

Humans after 24 weeks have this ability. Before that point, they don't. That's where the line exists.

We cannot declare that a sociopath, lacking empathy, is not human. (You might, but doing so is irrational.)

A sociopath can see, touch, taste, smell, and think. A 20-week old fetus can't do any of those things. But, we do declare that sociopaths who commit serious crimes aren't human and should be culled from the herd. I doubt that you have a problem with that sort of culling. So, you only value SOME human life, not all.

So you would claim that a person anesthetized forfeits all rights and can be killed at will?

Strawman. Try reading the quote again, and let's see if you can figure out Lewis's point without me having to explain it.

Yet civilized societies continue to regard them as human.

Civilized is a subjective term. What is regarded as human is cultural. Infanticide was normal throughout human history in many so-called civilized societies.

The ability to feel is lost in many spinal injuries, is your argument that the inability to feel renders the person "non-human" and without legal protection?

NO, because the person who's lost sensory ability retains the ability to think.

I don't imply anything, I am openly stating that the philosophical construct of "sentient" is applicable to a species, not on an individual basis. The desire to dehumanize intended victims notwithstanding.

You are creating a new definition of the term which is not standard and designed only to support your paradigm. Edited
Provide a source which substantiates your attempt to redefine the term, and we can discuss it. Otherwise, try to keep up.

 

[catzmeow]

Not really, as a person in a persistent vegetative state is never going to become a walking, talking, thinking person ever again. Persistent vegetative state isn't a development stage that someone will grow out of if left alone. If it was, that would paint a completely different picture.

The rights of sentient humans outweigh the rights of non-sentient humans.

 

[koshergrl]

Support that.

 

[catzmeow]

Support that.

I don't have to. The Supreme Court already did, in Rowe v. Wade (1973). I support the role of the supreme court in interpreting the rights of Americans as outlined in our constitution and bill of rights.


Roe v. Wade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Court asserted that the government had two competing interests – protecting the mother's health and protecting the "potentiality of human life". Following its earlier logic, the Court stated that during the first trimester, when the procedure is more safe than childbirth, the decision to abort must be left to the mother and her physician. The State has the right to intervene prior to fetal viability only to protect the health of the mother, and may regulate the procedure after viability so long as there is always an exception for preserving maternal health. The Court additionally added that the primary right being preserved in the Roe decision was that of the physician's right to practice medicine freely absent a compelling state interest – not women's rights in general.[25] The Court explicitly rejected a fetal "right to life" argument.[26]

Roe v. Wade explicitly stated that in the first trimester, when abortion is safer than childbirth, and the child is non-viable, the mother's rights trump that of the child. In the third trimester, when the fetus becomes viable (and sentience occurs), the right of the fetus then is equal to the mother's rights, and the pregnancy cannot be terminated unless the mother's heatlh is in jeopardy.

My views are in line with Roe v. Wade. You wish to push for a state incursion that significantly exceeds Roe v. Wade, thus the onus of proving the need for this change rests with you.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Are hospitals justified in pulling the plug on life support of a permanently vegetative adult?

Edited.

Is a permanently vegetative adult going to be perfectly self sustaining in 6 months?

Otherwise, you have created another false dichotomy.

The parallels are the same.

Not even close. One has no chance of recovery, while the other is undamaged. The baby is perfectly healthy.

When brain function ceases, the person is considered medically dead. So, in other words, it is a direct extension of Rousseau: "I do not think, therefore, I am not." I, of course, being the awareness of self and any other thing.

I find it telling that you gravitate to Rousseau; he who declared that the underclasses were "Ape Men" not worthy of civil protection, that property rights were a farce; and like all of the left, a totalitarian opposed to the very concept of liberty.

{The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man}

The thinking is what makes us human.

Rousseau postulates that obedience to rulers is what makes us human. Without submission to rulers, we are but a " stupid and unimaginative animal." Rousseau promoted a dictatorship of the proletarians a full century before Marx and was unquestionably the catalyst for many of the ideals that would ultimately form Marxism.

Perhaps love of abortion is simply a manifestation of the hatred one feels for the species in general?

It doesn't have to be high level thinking, but that thinking has to occur, otherwise, it's still life, but it isn't really human life. What separates humans from mice or dogs or cows or cockroaches is sentience. You recognize this separation, you just believe that fetuses are somehow mystically more important than an adult human in a vegetative state.

Edited.

"The worth of a man is not what he is, but the potential of what he may become," - Voltaire

We are more than a snapshot in time, otherwise one would be justified in killing those asleep or who have fallen ill.

I've provided clear evidence that fetuses are not able to sense ANYTHING until around the 20th week.

You have provided the limitations of our technology to determine precisely what developments are present or absent.

At 6 weeks gestation, we have DNA that confirms the species as human, blood type distinct from the mother, a functioning brain and a functioning heart. Further, we have irrefutable evidence that the condition will IMPROVE, rather than degrade.

Your position is spurious and defies scientific fact, a justification made for a conclusion held, rather than a conclusion drawn from the available facts.

They don't hear, feel, think, see or perceive.

{Ann Byrd began reading her baby Dr. Seuss books as soon as she became pregnant. She read emails aloud at work and her husband recited whatever he was reading in bed. She also played the fetus a classical music CD for 30 minutes each day. “My husband and I have a long-standing joke that our gene pool has a little too much chlorine in it,” she says. “We were going to do everything we could to make him as smart as possible.”

She believes her son recognized that music when he was born. “It was the CD we used to calm him,” Byrd says. Today, the 4 year old’s vocabulary is advanced and he tested into his district’s gifted program. “There’s no proof that any of this did anything for his intelligence, but I honestly believe it played a role,” she says.

While babies may recognize the stories they were read or music they listened to in the womb, experts say there’s no evidence that prenatal exposure to classical music or books will make your baby smarter. We do know that once they’re born, babies know the sound of their mother’s voice and prefer hearing it. They also prefer to hear whatever language she’s been speaking, since they’re familiar with those sounds.}

Pregnancy Magazine | Baby's First Classroom

Up until the brain develops to a degree of complexity that these tasks are possible, these higher level thinking functions do not exist. Thus, terminating a pregnancy before the point of sentience is not the same, morally, as killing someone. Because, in order to kill someone, they have to be sentient. Otherwise, it isn't isn't killing. It's dinner.

Edited. you abuse the word "sentient." Which is the CAPACITY not the actuality.

You have zero problems with dinner, you're just having religious objections to being classified in the same way that you classify other living beings.

Edited.

The last refuge of the pro-abort.

Tell us, which "religion" is it that I follow?

 

[catzmeow]

Another straw man.

It isn't a strawman. Human viability/sentience is determined by brain function. This is the legal standard used by Roe v. Wade to determine that the rights of the mother trumped the rights of the fetus until the fetus attained viability.

Otherwise, you have created another false dichotomy.

My argument isn't a false dichotomy.

Not even close. One has no chance of recovery, while the other is undamaged. The baby is perfectly healthy.

The baby isn't a baby yet. It's a non-sentient fetus who is who has no rights.

I find it telling that you gravitate to Rousseau; he who declared that the underclasses were "Ape Men" not worthy of civil protection, that property rights were a farce; and like all of the left, a totalitarian opposed to the very concept of liberty.

{The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man}

Rousseau postulates that obedience to rulers is what makes us human. Without submission to rulers, we are but a " stupid and unimaginative animal." Rousseau promoted a dictatorship of the proletarians a full century before Marx and was unquestionably the catalyst for many of the ideals that would ultimately form Marxism.

The above quote is a logical fallacy called "poisoning the well" and is irrelevant to this discussion.

We are more than a snapshot in time, otherwise one would be justified in killing those asleep or who have fallen ill.

Strawman

You have provided the limitations of our technology to determine precisely what developments are present or absent.

Multiple studies have documented the absence of fetal sentience prior to 24 weeks and in some cases, after 24 weeks. Thanks to neo-natal care capacity increases, research has been conducted on fetal response in premature infants.

At 6 weeks gestation, we have DNA that confirms the species as human, blood type distinct from the mother, a functioning brain and a functioning heart. Further, we have irrefutable evidence that the condition will IMPROVE, rather than degrade.

The rights of a 6 week old clump of cells are not equal to the rights of a fully functioning adult woman.

{Ann Byrd began reading her baby Dr. Seuss books as soon as she became pregnant. She read emails aloud at work and her husband recited whatever he was reading in bed. She also played the fetus a classical music CD for 30 minutes each day. “My husband and I have a long-standing joke that our gene pool has a little too much chlorine in it,” she says. “We were going to do everything we could to make him as smart as possible.”

She believes her son recognized that music when he was born. “It was the CD we used to calm him,” Byrd says. Today, the 4 year old’s vocabulary is advanced and he tested into his district’s gifted program. “There’s no proof that any of this did anything for his intelligence, but I honestly believe it played a role,” she says.

Reaching for straws here?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Abortion before the fetus is viable is no one's business but the woman's.

I don't know why so many people believe they have the right to control women's bodies but if you turned the question around ... Ask who has the right to control YOUR body, you would say the same. Your body is yours and only you should have control over what you do with it.

No exceptions.

 

[koshergrl]

Your body is yours.

A child's body is not your body.

 

[koshergrl]

Catz please provide the law that says only sentient humans are afforded rights established by the Declaration of Independence....

Still waiting.

Meanwhile, if sentience is the only thing that determines whether a being is afforded protection of the law, then animals would have equal rights, as they are sentient beings.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Your body is yours.

A child's body is not your body.

IF it can survive without the woman.

 

[koshergrl]

No, that's not true. If an unborn baby was just a part of the mother's body, it wouldn't be called an abortion, it would be an amputation.

Abortion means to kill the fetus. If you can kill the baby without killing the mother, it is a separate life. Therefore, she has no right to kill it.

 

[catzmeow]

Catz please provide the law that says only sentient humans are afforded rights established by the Declaration of Independence....

The Declaration of Independence applies to adults. Children don't have rights, per se, but are considered property of their parents until they turn 18 by U.S. law. Most of the rights elaborated in the constitution do not apply to children. Children are not considered to necessarily have a right to free expression, a right to free speech, a right to privacy, a right to free association, or a right to keep and bear arms. This is why schools are able to implement dress code policies, etc.,; why buying a firearm has an age limit; and why parents/legal guardians have to sign their consent for children to receive services/medical treatment, etc. It's also why you can search your children's rooms on an at-will basis, legally speaking.

Are you espousing a position of being a child liberationist? That's interesting, but not really relevant in this thread.

 

[catzmeow]

Therefore, she has no right to kill it.

Actually, this is wishful thinking on your part. The Supreme Court has determined that she does, within the first and second trimesters.

 

[koshergrl]

I'm not talking about whether she can legally kill it. I'm talking about whether she has the right to, and rights are not determined by law. If they were, then human rights violations could not take place if they are legal. But we know that they do.

 

[catzmeow]

I'm not talking about whether she can legally kill it. I'm talking about whether she has the right to, and rights are not determined by law. If they were, then human rights violations could not take place if they are legal. But we know that they do.

Actually, the only role of the Supreme Court is to interpret legislation in the context of rights as outlined in the constitution and bill of rights. So, when the court decided in Roe v. Wade, they clarifying the balance between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child and the rights of the state.

Civics ftw.

 

[koshergrl]

As I said, rights exist separate from law.

 

[freedombecki]

Two Questions.

What is a Soul?

When is it first present in a Human Life?

I'd say a soul is a spiritual presence of a human being

I associate life beginning when a fertilized egg attaches to the mother's body and begins the process of growing when being nurtured by her body's agreement to do so by chemically accepting its attachment and beginning a process of feeding it.

These are not conscious decisions. They are physical decisions, detached from reason by chemical messages on cell membranes. Our forbears called it the miracle of God.

People who hate new life call it inconvenient and set out to get rid of the life growing in their body. That is a conscious decision, just like agreeing to unprotected sex was a decision, or deciding to rape an underage girl or not use protection in a casual act of sexual intercourse is a decision.

 

[catzmeow]

As I said, rights exist separate from law.

Supreme court decisions delineate rights and overturn/uphold laws. Thanks for playing.

 

[emilynghiem]

1. in terms of prevention of abortion,
in order for laws not to burden the woman more than the man with unequal responsibility
the line should be drawn at the first report of "relationship abuse"
where both parties can be subject to counseling to correct the cause of the problem

if any instance of unwanted sex/children/pregnancy/abortion
were reported as "relationship abuse"
then both parties could be held responsible for resolving the conflicts by getting help

2. in terms of aborting pregnancy,
this should be a medical and spiritual decision
where no coercion should be imposed on any party, for or against.

as long as people don't agree where to draw the line legally, the
pressure to lobby and compete politically, as well as the division
between groups and resources, obstructs access to freer choices.

it is best to make decisions by consensus, using all available input
information and resources, and to keep politics out of it.

Once people agree how to work together to solve problems, both before and after, better policies can be made that reflect such agreements instead of skewing them with politics.

 

[emilynghiem]

I'm not talking about whether she can legally kill it. I'm talking about whether she has the right to, and rights are not determined by law. If they were, then human rights violations could not take place if they are legal. But we know that they do.

Actually, the only role of the Supreme Court is to interpret legislation in the context of rights as outlined in the constitution and bill of rights. So, when the court decided in Roe v. Wade, they clarifying the balance between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child and the rights of the state.

Civics ftw.

from what I understand, the reason the Courts found the law against abortion unconstitutional is that it criminalized the woman without providing for "due process" and a chance to defend herself based on mitigating circumstances and causes.

if the issue were focused on regarding how to eliminate unfair criminalization,
maybe the dialogue debates and efforts would turn to resolving problems causing
unwanted pregnancy and abortion in ways that don't unequally discriminate against the women more than the men in the situation.