Abortion: can a mother hurt the embryo?

[PearlSeeker]

You only eliminate a " might have been". You do not eliminate a person. By your logic one could justify rape.

What does rape has to do with it? It's not an entity/body.

 

[leroy]

The vast majority of decisions we make are based on incomplete knowledge. We do the best we can. The problem is that if we pick one extreme, given the likelihood that this will never be totally settled, we've frozen the whole thing in a particular mold that can never be challenged. I have no doubt that the other side can come up with a similar argument in favor of choice.]

Yes, and we usually “play safe” and don’t do anything that could kill another person, for example if you are about to demolish a building and you see a shadow that may or may not belong to a human (you don’t know), you would not demolish the building until you are 100% sure (or nearly 100% sure) that there is not a person inside the building.

So by that same logic, if you don’t know with a very high degree of certainty that the embryo is not a human, you shouldn’t kill it. In other words pro life people have the benefit of the doubt

Agree?

Ah, that's the one argument that I don't have definite answer for. Do we value potentiality as highly as actuality?

Perhaps, not, but you don’t have to value potentiality as high as you would value actuality in order to be prolife.

The alternatives are usually not

1 ether you kill the fetus (potential consciousness and other mental states)

Or

2 the mother dies (actual conciseness and other mental states)

You don’t have to argue that a person in coma has the same value as a conscious person, in order to give the person in coma the , in the same way you don’t have to value the fetus as much as you value a born human in order reject abortion………

I am not saying that a fetus a person in comma and a normal person don’t have the same value, all I am saying is that you don’t have to agree with this statement in order to be prolife.

]. But it's still complicated.

Well as I said above, if it´s complicated and we can’t know if the fetus is a person or not // lets play safe and not kill it, (just in case he is a person)

You can use Pascal's wager

Imagine 2 persons, John and Mike John is prolife because he thinks that the embryo is a person, and john is pro-abortion because he thinks that the embryo is not a person. (this is the only reason he is pro abortion)............both agree that killign inocent persons is horrible and wrong.

John is an pro life activist, Mike is a pro abortion activist, both are very influential, both have many followers and both have succeeded in changing other people minds on the subject.


Now imagine that in 30 years someone presents absolute evidence that the embryo is a person .

Mike (the pro abortion activist) will feel guilty and feel like **** for being the cause of death of perhaps thousands of innocent people, one can hardly imagine the depression and sadness that he would feel.

Now imagine that someone presents evidence that the embryo is not a person.

John would feel stupid, for wasting time in saving a bunch of useless cells, and perhaps a little bit guilty for convincing woman to take care of the embryo for 9 months (sacrificing social life, gaining weight, and perhaps losing 1 semester of college)…….. but he will not feel nearly as bad as Mike

SO my point is that the potential consequences of supporting abortion are very bad compared to the consequences of being pro life, // so if this is hard controversial and we have incomplete knowledge you should pick the pro life side.


Whats your opinon on that?

 

[leroy]

And if y

for that matter, if the person was unconscious, he would still be a person.

Exactly, if the human is unconscious in this exact moment, (but will be conscious in the future) then nobody would kill this human, everybody would regard him as a person, and nobody should kill him, even if his existence bothers someone else. (assuming that this human is not a criminal or something like that)

So the same should be said about the embryo,

1 the embryo is a human (DNA test show this)

2 and it will be conscious in the future (in most of the cases)

So if the combination of 1 and 2 is not enough to establish personhood what else are we missing?

 

[leroy]

I empathize with the Ukrainians, who are sentient and are suffering unfairly, but not the fetuses, who are neither sentient nor able to suffer.

Well in this moment People in comma don’t suffer, nor feel pain, and are not aware , does that mean that they are not persons?

Obviously , not suffering or not being conscious in this moment, doesn’t removes the personhood of a person.

The "geography" matters because one location is inside the woman and the other not.

Irrelevant, we are discussing if the embryo is a person or not. And obviously geography doesn’t matter, if you are a person in this location, you will be a person in any other location.

If you what to argue “my body my choice” and that the woman can abort even if the embryo is a person, then I would disagree, but that is a different topic.

This is neither hard nor controversial to me. The objections are coming from anti-choicers based in values the skeptic doesn't share.

You shouldn’t kill innocent people,

It seems to me that this is a value that you do share , you are just making an arbitrary exception with pregnant woman.

It also demonstrates how using arbitrary and non-biological criteria like personhood is a bad idea in this arena. It muddies the issue, not clarify it.

Ok what criteria do you suggest?

How can you determine if someone is a person worthy of human rights?

My criteria is

1 if it´s a human (as can be shown with DNA)

2 has (or will have) consciousness and other mental states

If you have a better criteria feel free to share it

 

[leroy]

And arguing using the not very common exceptions is not proper either. When it comes to those sorts of abortions they are very rare and usually done due to serious health concerns for the pregnant women. Or sometimes the fetus is doomed to death by a severe birth defect. A Louisiana woman has to Leave Louisiana since her fetus, without a skull, cannot be aborted any longer by the new state law. The fetus will die shortly after birth. It is rather cruel to force a woman to continue a pregnancy knowing that when she is given her baby that it will very soon die a painful death.

I thought my mouse was going to be here today, I was off by one on the delivery. Search Louisiana Fatal Fetal Defect Abortion and you should be able to see hat story. There are almost no late term abortions done for convenience.

Again, the point being made is that “location” doesn’t determine personhood. If someone is a person outside the womb then it would also be a person inside the womb, if someone is not a person inside the womb, it will not be a person outside the womb.

This is the only point that is being made, so ether agree with it, or refute it.

 

[crossfire]

Ok but related to the OP

This woman, has a problem with having a 2 legged intruder in her body, but she has no problem is he only has 1 leg.

Can she (should she) remove a leg from the fetus?

I've already answered this a few times upthread, such as post 132 & post 152.

 

[crossfire]

Again, the point being made is that “location” doesn’t determine personhood. If someone is a person outside the womb then it would also be a person inside the womb, if someone is not a person inside the womb, it will not be a person outside the womb.

This is the only point that is being made, so ether agree with it, or refute it.

Geography does matter. A woman would have every right to expel a blastocyte from her body, but she doesn't have the right to go storm a fertility clinic and remove/expel/erase any blastocytes she might find there. Interestingly though, the "owners" of the blastocytes are free to donate their unused blastocytes for scientific research, which might mean that a donated blastocyte might wind up becoming a pluropotent human stem cell culture.

 

[leroy]

I've already answered this a few times upthread, such as post 132 & post 152.

Yes, the problem is that you don’t seem to understand the implications of “my body my choice”

If you accept the “my body my choice” (no excpetions) argument then it seems to me that it follows that woman can do anything with their body , including things that would harm the embryo

 

[leroy]

Geography does matter. A woman would have every right to expel a blastocyte from her body, but she doesn't have the right to go storm a fertility clinic and remove/expel/erase any blastocytes she might find there.

Again, the claim is that geography doesn’t matter when determining personhood.

So ether agree or refute the claim, but please do not answer with a strawman.

 

[crossfire]

Yes, the problem is that you don’t seem to understand the implications of “my body my choice”

If you accept the “my body my choice” (no excpetions) argument then it seems to me that it follows that woman can do anything with their body , including things that would harm the embryo

They can do things to their own body that might harm the embryo, like take medications to expel it from her uterus.. If she's a drug addict, some of the drugs she takes might also harm the embryo.

 

[crossfire]

Again, the claim is that geography doesn’t matter when determining personhood.

So ether agree or refute the claim, but please do not answer with a strawman.

I did refute it. She has the right to expel/evict it from her body, but she does not have the right to break into a fertility clinic and mutilate or "liberate" any blastocytes she might find there. In this case, geography does matter. (However, the owners of any blastocytes stored at the fertility clinic are free to donate them to research, and allow scientists to mutilate them.)

 

[Subduction Zone]

What does rape has to do with it? It's not an entity/body.

The fetus is only a potential person. If I rape a young girl she could potentially get pregnant. You are opposing the existence of that person. You are murdering that person. Granted it is only a potential person. But then so is a fetus. I do not think that potential persons have rights. You seem to disagree.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again, the point being made is that “location” doesn’t determine personhood. If someone is a person outside the womb then it would also be a person inside the womb, if someone is not a person inside the womb, it will not be a person outside the womb.

This is the only point that is being made, so ether agree with it, or refute it.

This has already been explained to you. Time to admit that you do not understand and move on.

Since you refuse to understand you need to answer a question. And remember you did not answer my previous one fully, so this one will be easier for you.


For some odd reason you are in a fertility clinic. All of a sudden a fire breaks out. People are panicking and fleeing the building. You are about to do the same when you hear a crying child in the next room. You open the door and there is a kid in wheelchair frightened to death. He can not get out on his own. As you begin to take him out you see a large flask that says "1,000 live frozen embryos". Now here is the problem. Due to a raging hangnail on your left pinky finger you will only be able to rescue one. Do you rescue the child or do you recognize what you claim to be 1,000 human lives?

I can tell you which one or ones I rescue and why, which one do you rescue?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If a woman can do whatever she wants with her body , including doing something that would end up killing the embryo.......... why cant she do stuff like smoking drink alcohol, or take legal drugs that would cause long term harm to the embryo?

The purpose of the two acts is different. Intent is relevant in moral considerations. Abortion is not cruel. Hobbling a fetus is.

Obviously , not suffering or not being conscious in this moment, doesn’t removes the personhood of a person.

I've explained that I don't use the words person or personhood in this context, but you seem to insist on doing so, so I will translate the word into the language that I DO use. If personhood means a right to be born, the fetus doesn't achieve that status until it is sentient. The fetus never had sentience (personhood), and therefore isn't a person or entitled to the rights of people. Killing a presentient fetus harms no people, but giving one fetal alcohol syndrome and allowing it to become a person is immoral.

we are discussing if the embryo is a person or not. And obviously geography doesn’t matter, if you are a person in this location, you will be a person in any other location.

Yes, but once again, to use your language, a presentient fetus in utero is not a person. Once it's sentient or out of the womb, its status changes (it becomes a "person"), and the moral status of acts that affect it change.

You shouldn’t kill innocent people

A presentient fetus is not a person in the sense you mean - a creature for which abortion is usually if not always immoral.

Ok what criteria do you suggest?

I've told you. If you are a presentient fetus, you can be aborted. I understand that you can't find a distinction between a presentient fetus and a sentient one. I do. It's a moral intuition. It's what my conscience tells me. And why do I consider that a reliable judgment? Two reasons. My moral compass has served me well since embracing humanism, and the distribution of people who share my opinion relative to those that share yours. You opinion clusters in groups that attend mosques, synagogues and churches, meaning that it is the result of indoctrination. Mine is seen just about everywhere else. People not subjected to Abrahamic doctrine rarely approve of criminalizing abortion.

That should tell you something about which is the natural position and which is the manufactured one. The feelings that anti-choicers feel are real and compelling to them, and abortion must really pain them the way that foster homes for unwanted children pain others, but that doesn't matter to the unbelievers, whose feelings are just as compelling to them, and weren't given to them by anybody else.

Anyway, bottom line is, I've given you my moral intuitions regarding abortion and where they apply. I cannot explain better than that, and it doesn't matter that others feel otherwise. I will never convince you that mine is a legitimate and moral position, nor will you change convince me that it isn't repeating how you feel any number of times more, so you needn't persist in this line of inquiry. You have my complete answer. This is how I feel and why, and I have no interest in repeating it.

 

[leroy]

They can do things to their own body that might harm the embryo, like take medications to expel it from her uterus.. If she's a drug addict, some of the drugs she takes might also harm the embryo.

So do they (or should they) have the right to take a unnecessary medication with the intend of harming (but not killing) the embryo?

 

[Sheldon]

So this what distinguishes one person from another is already written in the genetic code and in the process of developing and can later be observed.

No it isn't, this has already been explained, many things apart from genetics make us individuals.

 

[Sheldon]

Bad analogy. Your brain at sleep is nothing like that of a fetus.

Also he is still comparing sentient individuals to an insentient blastocyst or foetus. It's a false equivalence, and the reasons have been explained enough times by now surely. Though abortion for me is abut bodily autonomy, and as I said, it could be in there writing poetry, it still wouldn't be moral to let it use a woman's body against her will. The question has been put to several anti-choicers, and not one has accepted they would be ok with someone using their body against their will.

 

[Sheldon]

"Normally developing fetuses, healthy preterm infants, and full-term newborns show two main EEG patterns: “discontinuous” activity and “trace-alternant” activity (9). Discontinuous activity is a mixture of slow-wave activity and bursts that resemble event-related potentials. Trace-alternant activity refers to sharp bursts of electrical activity followed by multiple rhythms with high amplitude. Scientists have posited that trace-alternant activity represents quiet sleep, and discontinuous activity represents wakefulness or rapid eye movement sleep."

Source:
Fetal EEGs: Signals from the Dawn of Life - Charlotte Lozier Institute

That gets a massive so what. They're still not sentient, and I cited the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Even your previous link, refuted your claim that a foetus us ever sentient, and you just cherry picked that one, as you've done here.

 

[Sheldon]

.

↑
Bad analogy. Your brain at sleep is nothing like that of a fetus.

↑
Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists
"/.../ Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that the fetus never experiences a state of true wakefulness in utero and is kept, by the presence of its chemical environment, in a continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation.

How does quoting the RCOG refuting your claim, and stating unequivocally that a foetus is never sentient, help your argument?

 

[Sheldon]

EDIT: Wow! Your quote was incredibly misleading since the very next sentence refuted your implication:

. "This state can suppress higher cortical activation in the presence of intrusive external stimuli. This observation highlights the important differences between fetal and neonatal life and the difficulties of extrapolating from observations made in newborn preterm infants to the fetus."

In other words the fetus never has the brain working in a way that it could be called a person. Just because you do not read articles you should not assume that others do not. When context is added that article supported my claim.

Second time he's done that now, cherry picked some text he's Googled for, ad failed to read that the evidence contradicts his claim.

Too funny...we could make a sizable omelette with the egg on face.