Abortion

[The Kilted Heathen]

So at what point during the reproductive process does it become A human?

21 weeks. Which is why past that point, abortion is illegal unless it directly endangers the life of the mother.

 

[dianaiad]

Well at least we are at this point. We agree that killing is OK in some instances. The most often instance that people agree killing is okay is self defense. But there are other instances as well.

But since you have started us with self defense, let us explore that?

Why is killing another human life okay in self defense?

Oh, dear. We are now getting Socratic, are we? I hate that. I feel herded and it feels VERY artificial and deceptive. However....what the hey...

The law (at least locally) is rather clear in terms of self defense. If one is faced with imminent and obvious danger to one's life because someone else is physically threatening one, defending oneself is not murder.

However, the criteria is still pretty strict: WORDS don't count, absent any obvious physical threat. If someone....obviously unarmed...says to you in anger 'I could KILL you for that!" you can't shoot him. Sorry, but you can't. He has to pull a weapon, or at least start swinging at you with obvious intent to harm.

His mere presence in your personal space isn't good enough.

How does this relate to pregnancy?

Pregnancy is a natural, physical process without which no human would exist. You wouldn't, and I wouldn't. Women were designed/evolved to be pregnant, bear children and RAISE them. It doesn't do humanity any good to have pregnancy be so dangerous that being so is a death sentence, or an obvious serious threat to health.

So in those cases where pregnancy IS a serious threat to life and health, then abortion might well be necessary. In that case it's usually a case of 'lose one or lose both,' and the baby isn't going to make it either way. It's more than a medical procedure; it's a tragedy for everybody involved, a necessary one.

However, simply BEING pregnant, absent any threats to health or life that don't automatically show up with all pregnancies, is not a case of 'self defense.'

 

[dianaiad]

21 weeks. Which is why past that point, abortion is illegal unless it directly endangers the life of the mother.

It's not illegal everywhere, y'know. That is a VERY arbitrary set point.

 

[McBell]

21 weeks. Which is why past that point, abortion is illegal unless it directly endangers the life of the mother.

What happens at 21 weeks to cement an individual?

 

[dianaiad]

what kind of life is an embryo and or zygote?
If it is in a human it is a human zygote or embryo.

At what point, in your opinion, doe sit become a human fetus?
What is it before it becomes a human zygote, embryo, fetus?
Canine?
Feline?
Ape?

Well, Mestemia, I believe that this post answers the two addressed to me, where you challenged me to show where, somewhere in this thread, someone claimed that zygotes were not human lives.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

It's not illegal everywhere, y'know. That is a VERY arbitrary set point.

We're talking about America, diana. And yes, in America it is illegal outside the given constraints.

What happens at 21 weeks to cement an individual?

Higher brain function as opposed to involuntary motor function is the basis of the line. As well as further developed organs - eyes (capable to see at 28 weeks), brain, skin, pancreas, lungs, ears, etc - fine motor function, fat being gained, development of genitalia (yeah, before 21 weeks there's not even that), sleep cycle, developed bones, muscle development... I think you get the point. Maybe.

After 21 weeks, there is significant development towards what can be considered a human infant. Everything before that, you can't even distinguish from a chicken.

 

[McBell]

Higher brain function as opposed to involuntary motor function is the basis of the line. As well as further developed organs - eyes (capable to see at 28 weeks), brain, skin, pancreas, lungs, ears, etc - fine motor function, fat being gained, development of genitalia (yeah, before 21 weeks there's not even that), sleep cycle, developed bones, muscle development... I think you get the point. Maybe.

After 21 weeks, there is significant development towards what can be considered a human infant. Everything before that, you can't even distinguish from a chicken.

So it is your claim that individualism starts with eyes, brain, skin pancreas, lungs, ears, etc?
One wonders...
Have you heard of DNA?

 

[McBell]

Well, Mestemia, I believe that this post answers the two addressed to me, where you challenged me to show where, somewhere in this thread, someone claimed that zygotes were not human lives.

Actually, it shows that some people claim they are not A human, not that they are not human.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

So it is your claim that individualism starts with eyes, brain, skin pancreas, lungs, ears, etc?

Do you name your sperm? Do you call them human beings?

 

[McBell]

Do you name your sperm? Do you call them human beings?

relevance?
Interesting how you completely ignore the meat of the post you reply to...

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

relevance?

You seem to be insisting - as diana has been - that zygotes and embryo are human beings, individuals, with the reasoning of DNA. You still seem hung-up on them being human, rather than my objection of a human; that they are human cells has never been the issue.

Prior to 21 weeks, a zygote, embryo, and prefetal organism has zero awareness. No individuality. No brain function. No sex, for biology's sake. Just like a sperm.

So do you consider sperm - who have DNA - to be human beings?

 

[Curious George]

You are quite right. However, can you show me where science says a human zygote (one that is not dead, anyway) is NOT alive?

You see, an appeal to authority, in order to be a fallacy, must have a couple of things: first, the authority appealed to must be specific and have some knowledge in his/her recognized field, and second, that this field has very little to do with the topic under discussion.

Thus, it is perfectly acceptable, in an argument as to whether a certain rock is igneous or sedimentary, to appeal to the professor of geology at the local college. That is NOT a fallacy.

However, if one were to say "well, my cousin the doctor says it's a sedimentary rock, so there!" that is 'appeal to authority' in a fallacious sense.

"Science" isn't actually an 'authority,' anyway; it's a method of observation/learning. By claiming that 'science says so,' I was claiming that anybody using that method...especially anybody who had specific knowledge OF that area, says so. You might convict me of generalization, but not 'appeal to authority."

the problem here is that I have never met a biology teacher, bioloGIST, doctor or researcher who says that zygotes which are actively growing and developing are NOT 'alive.' They ain't rock crystals, Curious George.

You were using science as an authority. You did not explain the definition of life that science gives or to which it leads. You didn't explain why this definition is better than another definition, nor did you explain how a zygote fits the definition. Thus it was an appeal to authority. There is nothing wrong with an appeal to authority per se. But combining this with begging the question in the question after accusing me of begging the question for asking a question earlier was a humorous tangent.

 

[Curious George]

What 'different' thing can it become? The word here is....as far as anything else goes...dead. Gene manipulation using lines fertylized FOR THE PURPOSE OF stem cell research is, imo, exactly like harvesting all the organs from a healthy person. Doing so is killing that person, and gene manipulation from fertylized ova is killing the human in order to harvest stuff.

Same/same.

.....and the only way it happens is through deliberate actions on the part of other humans. No human conceptus jumps itself into a petri dish and says 'I don't want to grow up....just play with my cells, please..."

We can harvest perfectly good stem cells from umbilical cord blood to use for such research.

Well we can turn it into an ear, or some organ, and if we had the technology we could turn it into another organism. And as it is still living in all of these situations it is not dead..

 

[Curious George]

Oh, dear. We are now getting Socratic, are we? I hate that. I feel herded and it feels VERY artificial and deceptive. However....what the hey...

I will try to keep the questions mostly open ended so as not to herd you. But thanks for entertaining and not just ignoring.

The law (at least locally) is rather clear in terms of self defense. If one is faced with imminent and obvious danger to one's life because someone else is physically threatening one, defending oneself is not murder.

However, the criteria is still pretty strict: WORDS don't count, absent any obvious physical threat. If someone....obviously unarmed...says to you in anger 'I could KILL you for that!" you can't shoot him. Sorry, but you can't. He has to pull a weapon, or at least start swinging at you with obvious intent to harm.

His mere presence in your personal space isn't good enough.

How does this relate to pregnancy?

Pregnancy is a natural, physical process without which no human would exist. You wouldn't, and I wouldn't. Women were designed/evolved to be pregnant, bear children and RAISE them. It doesn't do humanity any good to have pregnancy be so dangerous that being so is a death sentence, or an obvious serious threat to health.

So in those cases where pregnancy IS a serious threat to life and health, then abortion might well be necessary. In that case it's usually a case of 'lose one or lose both,' and the baby isn't going to make it either way. It's more than a medical procedure; it's a tragedy for everybody involved, a necessary one.

However, simply BEING pregnant, absent any threats to health or life that don't automatically show up with all pregnancies, is not a case of 'self defense.'

I am not asking in what cases is it legally justified. I am asking why we see this killing as ok.

 

[McBell]

You seem to be insisting - as diana has been - that zygotes and embryo are human beings, individuals, with the reasoning of DNA. You still seem hung-up on them being human, rather than my objection of a human; that they are human cells has never been the issue.

Prior to 21 weeks, a zygote, embryo, and prefetal organism has zero awareness. No individuality. No brain function. No sex, for biology's sake. Just like a sperm.

So do you consider sperm - who have DNA - to be human beings?

So it is your claim that awareness is required for individuality?
Is an individual in a coma no longer an individual?

I am attempting to get you to actually nail down exactly what makes an individual an individual?
It seems as though you really do not know.

The fact that you keep changing up the wording makes it appear as though you are intentionally clouding the issue.
person, human, A human, human being....

 

[sayak83]

What happens at 21 weeks to cement an individual?

An early term fetus is biologically continuous with a human individual, but it is not psychologically continuous with the human person. This is because the capacity to support mental states of any kind required for a human person to be a person, needs neural connections in the brain cortex, and these the fetus in early weeks do not have. Indeed, the period in which these neural network gets laid down is from Gestational Week 22. Here is the relevant excerpt:-

Once they have reached their target region of cortex, the young neurons need to become part of information processing networks. In order to become integrated into neural networks, the neurons need to develop neuronal processes (axons and dendrites) that allow them to communicate with other neurons. Axons are the principal means of sending signals from the neuron, while dendrites are major sites for receiving input from other neurons. Each cell has many dendrites that form dense “arbors” in the immediate vicinity of the cell, and a single axon that can extend for some distance away from the cell. At the tip of each axon is a structure called a growth cone. The growth cone is the site of axon elongation and extension (Brown et al. 2001). As the axon is extended, the growth cone samples the local environment for guidance molecules that direct the axon toward its target. Some guidance cues are attractive and signal movement toward a source, others are repulsive and guide movement away. Once the axon has reached its target, connections called synapses are formed with the target cell. Synapses allow for the transmission of electrochemical information which is the essential means of communication in the brain.

Two of the most important pathways in the brain are the ones that transmit sensorimotor information, the thalamocortical (TC) and corticothalamic (CT) pathways. The TC relays sensory and motor information from the receptors in the retina, cochlea, muscle or skin to the sensorimotor regions of the neocortex via the major subcortical sensorimotor relay, the thalamus. The CT pathway completes the feedback loop by transmitting information from cortex back to the thalamus. These essential pathways begin to form in the later part of the second trimester in humans, and are complete by GW 26 (Kostovic and Jovanov-Milosevic 2006). The cells of the transient subplate layer of the developing brain (see Fig. 9b) play an essential role in establishing these pathways. When TC axons arrive at the developing cortex during GW22 they do not immediately make connections with neurons in the primary input layer of cortex (layer 4). Rather, they initially make connections with the neurons of the subplate layer. The TC-subplate connections last for approximately 4 weeks, during which time the subplate neurons make connections with neurons in cortical layer 4. The subplate neurons appear to provide instructive input to the TC neurons during this period. In the absence of subplate neuron signaling, normal patterns of connectivity between TC axons and layer 4 cortical neurons do not develop. A similar pattern of instructive connectivity is seen in the development of the CT pathway. Prior to the establishment of connections between neurons from the deep layers of cortex (layers 5 and 6) and the thalamus, subplate neurons extend and establish connections with thalamic neurons. It is thought that the subplate connections may serve to guide the CT axons to their positions in the thalamus. Once the TC and CT pathways are complete, the subplate neurons retract their connections and the cells themselves gradually die off.
-The Basics of Brain Development by Stiles et al.

The early stages of cortex development contains two transitory structures (preplate and subplate) that act as temporary scaffoldings that help in the eventual construction of the permanent cortical structures. Once the cortex has fully developed, these transitional plates are dismantled.

As in the preplate, synaptic connections in the subplate serve as placeholders ahead of later, more enduring connections for thalamocortical neurons. Thus, subcortical afferents to the subplate may transiently connect to their future postsynaptic targets in layer IV of the cortex through intermediary subplate neurons (Ghosh et al, 1990; Ghosh and Shatz, 1992), which themselves project to the layers of the future cerebral cortex, the cortical plate, and marginal zone (Allendoerfer and Shatz, 1994; Kanold, 2004). After pausing in the subplate, subcortical afferents make more permanent connections within the cortical plate through a process of synaptic refinement that begins slowly around GA week 20, reaches its peak between GA weeks 24–28, and continues into the perinatal period. This refinement of synaptic connections causes the dissolution of the subplate, which can be observed in fetal MRI scans (Huisman et al, 2002; Kostović et al, 2002). After 28 weeks of gestation, the declining subplate largely contains neurons that are destined for association areas and commissural pathways, which are among the last of cortical regions and pathways to develop... As it develops, the cortical plate increasingly acquires the organizational features of the mature cortex. Lamination is present first in the primary sensory and motor cortices as early as GA week 25. By GA week 32, the developing cortex has a full adult complement of distinct vertical lamina (Kostovic et al, 1995) containing afferents of all the major neurotransmitter systems (Levitt, 2003) and a diversity of differentiated glia and neuronal cell types (Lund and Lewis, 1993), including excitatory glutamatergic spiny pyramidal neurons and GABAergic nonpyramidal interneurons (DeFelipe and Farinas, 1992; Nieuwenhuys, 1994).
- "Normal Development of Brain Circuits" by Tau et al.

It is seen that no neural connections that would form the basis of the mental life of a person are laid down before Gestational Week 20-22, and much of this happens between GW 22-34. Thus a 20 week old fetus does not have any capacity to support any mental state, while a 32 week old fetus does. Thus, being conservative, a fetus after week 21-23 may be considered sufficiently continuous with a person to get protection.


For a first pass, the definition of person (as opposed to man or soul) by Locke would do here.
Person, Man, and Substance

With the caveat that psychological continuity of the subconscious is sufficient to ground personal continuity. Locke did not know about the subconscious, but the the role of subconscious in the psychological states is apparent today, so I am including it.

Excerpts from Locke:-
7. Idea of identity suited to the idea it is applied to. It is not therefore unity of substance that comprehends all sorts of identity, or will determine it in every case; but to conceive and judge of it aright, we must consider what idea the word it is applied to stands for: it being one thing to be the same substance, another the same man, and a third the same person, if person, man, and substance, are three names standing for three different ideas;- for such as is the idea belonging to that name, such must be the identity; which, if it had been a little more carefully attended to, would possibly have prevented a great deal of that confusion which often occurs about this matter, with no small seeming difficulties, especially concerning personal identity, which therefore we shall in the next place a little consider.

 

[dianaiad]

Actually, it shows that some people claim they are not A human, not that they are not human.

What, the one who claimed that at certain stages that they are 'indistinguishable from a chicken?"

 

[dianaiad]

I will try to keep the questions mostly open ended so as not to herd you. But thanks for entertaining and not just ignoring.

I am not asking in what cases is it legally justified. I am asking why we see this killing as ok.

Some don't. I, not being a pacifist, believe that when someone makes a choice to physically end the life of another, it is permissible to prevent that from happening, in most cases. It's a choice; you attempt to kill me, one of us may die, and I'll do my best to see to it that it ain't me. Not because I think I'm 'better than' you, or more disposable, but because obviously you would be thinking that of me, and I didn't volunteer to be disposed of.

 

[Curious George]

Some don't. I, not being a pacifist, believe that when someone makes a choice to physically end the life of another, it is permissible to prevent that from happening, in most cases. It's a choice; you attempt to kill me, one of us may die, and I'll do my best to see to it that it ain't me. Not because I think I'm 'better than' you, or more disposable, but because obviously you would be thinking that of me, and I didn't volunteer to be disposed of.

Indeed, some view life as soon precious they would not concede that any destruction of life is okay.

So, your basis for killing being okay is based on another's thoughts?

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

So it is your claim that awareness is required for individuality?

When it comes to a being, and not a numerical quantity, yes.

Is an individual in a coma no longer an individual?

I knew this was coming. Comatose patients still have brain activity. More than this, they are developed human beings, already long since born. However on this strain, when a person loses complete brain function and is dead, they cease to be a human being, a "human individual" if you will, and become a corpse.

The fact that you keep changing up the wording makes it appear as though you are intentionally clouding the issue.
person, human, A human, human being....

I think I'm actually being quite clear - and patient, to boot - with my language.

Now, I've answered several questions, yet mine has gone ignored twice. Do you consider sperm to be human beings?

What, the one who claimed that at certain stages that they are 'indistinguishable from a chicken?"

That'd be me; as I'm a part of this discussion - often directly with you - it's somewhat rude to refer to me as "the one". And yes, at the embryonic stage human embryos are very nearly indistinguishable from chicken embryo. Just as you confused a pig embryo with a human embryo, the difference between chicken and human has been made before in other discussions that I've had.

Further than that, at the zygote stage all organism looks the same.