A secular debate about abortion

[Coito ergo sum]

I think an even biggrin difference is that one lives inside of another persons body. I don't think that little factor can be dismissed, or, reasonably, compared to having a boarder. Really.

Why not? The fetus was invited to live there, and like any tenant, can have its rights of occupancy protected by the law.

Tenants are subject to their lease agreements. If there is no written lease, then the tenancy depends on the frequency of rent payments. If it's weekly, then the tenant can be evicted weekly, etc. If the lease is gratuitious, however, and the tenant pays no rent, then the landlord can evict anytime. Since fetuses have no written leases, and since they pay no rent, the fetus can be evicted at the pleasure of the landlord (mother).

That's why not.

[Coito ergo sum]

I think an even biggrin difference is that one lives inside of another persons body. I don't think that little factor can be dismissed, or, reasonably, compared to having a boarder. Really.

Why not? The fetus was invited to live there, and like any tenant, can have its rights of occupancy protected by the law.

Ah but we go to the constitution. Nowhere does it say a fetus has rights. Even blacks were not humans back then. Then we have to consider where a law is active. The castle concept. A woman's body is her castle. The law cannot have any jurisdiction inside her. Law only deals with interactions of fully formed humans, lands, common areas.

This is incorrect, because if the law could not have any jurisdiction insider women, then it likewise could not have jurisdiction inside men. It does have jurisdiction inside men, as the law restricts access to alcohol and drugs, medications, etc. We cannot do whatever we want with our own bodies. We should be able to, in my view -- but, the law interferes in our bodies all the time. The law is even trying to prescribe what we eat and drink now, whether we can smoke, what we can smoke. All sorts of things.

[Kristie]

I think an even biggrin difference is that one lives inside of another persons body. I don't think that little factor can be dismissed, or, reasonably, compared to having a boarder. Really.

Why not? The fetus was invited to live there, and like any tenant, can have its rights of occupancy protected by the law.

Tenants are subject to their lease agreements. If there is no written lease, then the tenancy depends on the frequency of rent payments. If it's weekly, then the tenant can be evicted weekly, etc. If the lease is gratuitious, however, and the tenant pays no rent, then the landlord can evict anytime. Since fetuses have no written leases, and since they pay no rent, the fetus can be evicted at the pleasure of the landlord (mother).

That's why not.

And, if it was rape, then the fetus was not invited to live there.

[Animavore]

Perhaps you should be.

I'm not asking what you should be. I'm asking if you would be.

One act is an accident, the other is deliberate. Huge difference in motive, intent and opportunity.

So you would care as little about accidently killing a child as you would about knocking over a vial of zygotes? Or you would be equally distraught and plagued with nightmares in both cases?

Good thing your mom didn't stick a knitting needle up her twat when you were in utero isn't it? Ever stop to think what your life would have been like if she'd done that? You wouldn't be espousing any opinions at all, would you? It's easy to terminate someone else's life before they have had a chance to object. But I bet you'd object if someone tried to terminate your life right now, wouldn't you? That's rank hypocrisy of the highest order.

Nice little emotional outburst but I simply don't see microscopic zygotes as anything like a person so knocking over a vial of zygotes wouldn't matter to me.
As for asking about what my life would be like if my mum stuck a needle inside her! That's a poor analogy seeng as we're talking about zygotes specifically. Would've been more apt asking what I'd think if my mum had've taken a late morning-after pill? In which case I'd answer my life would never have begun in the first place, any more than if my father had've shot his load onto the bedsheet, for me to even care.
Of course I never said anything about my views on abortion. I was talking about accidently knocking over a vial of zygotes and how one would feel about it compared to killing a child (and saying I wouldn't feel at all similarly about the two) so I'm not sure where the hypocricy is supposed to lie.

[Warren Dew]

Only by denying the fundamental nature of the organism residing in the woman's womb can you begin to justify abortion.

To the contrary: many people don't care about the genetic nature of an organism, and assign moral and ethical standing based on phenotypic factors such as intelligence. There's no contradiction in giving an adult dolphin higher ethical standing than a zygote.

[Animavore]

A human zygote can also make more than one human. In fact when it divides in two you can make two people by taking the two apart. You can do this again and again indefinately. So I'm not sure in what sense it makes sense to say that a zygote is an idividual.

Also there is the case of chimerism in which two separte zygotes (potential paternal twins) fuse together to become one individual with two populations of genetically distinct cells. Should these people be seen as two people?

Then there are zygotes frozen in IVF clinics awaiting plantation (or destruction if all the ones they'll need are taken). Should these be traeted as people and their parents be allowed to clain a tax deduction or benefit on each?

[Seth]

Really? Then what is the domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species of that fetus pray tell?

Silly argument, Seth.

If I cut myself, and spill blood, so that the white blood cells (the ones with a nucleus) die, then each one is human by your implied standard, since each has human DNA.

If I accidentally cut off the tip of a finger, is that a human? It has the same DNA as what you are talking of. Is a baby born with anencephaly (no cerebral cortex) a human? It has a human body but no human brain. It normally dies soon after birth, luckily, which saves the parents from the agonising decision of whether to save a lump of living tissue looking like a human baby, but without a human brain.

If an adult is in a terrible accident, and is left with no functioning higher brain, but kept alive on sophisticated life support machinery, is that person still human? No, clearly not, and medical people recognise that fact by allowing that body without a human brain to die of starvation.

An early fetus, with a brain smaller than an earthworm, is not human. Given time, it may become human. But that statement applies to every sperm and egg combination ever produced, whether fertilisation ever occurs or not.

Evasion. Whatever you cut off or that which dies is still human tissue it's true. However, unlike your finger or your blood, a zygote, blastocyst, embryo and fetus is a complete living organism in development. Normally, that organism continues to grow and develop until it becomes a mature human adult. It's never anything else. It's always human and it has the capacity to mature into an adult human. Neither your finger nor your blood cells have this capacity on their own. They are different in nature and function than a human being.

Thus, it is appropriate to treat the zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus as different from mere human tissue.

[Seth]

I think an even biggrin difference is that one lives inside of another persons body. I don't think that little factor can be dismissed, or, reasonably, compared to having a boarder. Really.

Why not? The fetus was invited to live there, and like any tenant, can have its rights of occupancy protected by the law.

Ah but we go to the constitution. Nowhere does it say a fetus has rights. Even blacks were not humans back then.

They were not legally "persons." They are now, by virtue of a change in the laws of the land. Nothing inhibits the law from defining a zygote as a person if that's what the People demand.

Then we have to consider where a law is active. The castle concept. A woman's body is her castle. The law cannot have any jurisdiction inside her. Law only deals with interactions of fully formed humans, lands, common areas.

Wrong. The government enacts laws that control everyone's body all the time. Drug laws, drinking laws, medical laws, criminal laws, abortion laws. A woman's body is NOT "her castle" once she invites another human being to live there through the voluntary and knowing act of coitus. She subrogates her plenary control to the child, and in the child's stead, the State. That's true today in most places, as evidenced by the standing laws against late-term abortions. As the Supreme Court said, at some point in the gestation and development the interests of the State in protecting the growing life inside the woman override her rights to medical privacy. Where that point lies is a matter of law, not of nature or rights, and laws can be changed to suit the needs and desires of the society, including by banning abortion entirely.

[Coito ergo sum]

Really? Then what is the domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species of that fetus pray tell?

Silly argument, Seth.

If I cut myself, and spill blood, so that the white blood cells (the ones with a nucleus) die, then each one is human by your implied standard, since each has human DNA.

If I accidentally cut off the tip of a finger, is that a human? It has the same DNA as what you are talking of. Is a baby born with anencephaly (no cerebral cortex) a human? It has a human body but no human brain. It normally dies soon after birth, luckily, which saves the parents from the agonising decision of whether to save a lump of living tissue looking like a human baby, but without a human brain.

If an adult is in a terrible accident, and is left with no functioning higher brain, but kept alive on sophisticated life support machinery, is that person still human? No, clearly not, and medical people recognise that fact by allowing that body without a human brain to die of starvation.

An early fetus, with a brain smaller than an earthworm, is not human. Given time, it may become human. But that statement applies to every sperm and egg combination ever produced, whether fertilisation ever occurs or not.

Evasion. Whatever you cut off or that which dies is still human tissue it's true. However, unlike your finger or your blood, a zygote, blastocyst, embryo and fetus is a complete living organism in development. Normally, that organism continues to grow and develop until it becomes a mature human adult. It's never anything else. It's always human and it has the capacity to mature into an adult human. Neither your finger nor your blood cells have this capacity on their own. They are different in nature and function than a human being.

Thus, it is appropriate to treat the zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus as different from mere human tissue.

Fair distinctions.

However, it is also a fair distinction to treat zygotes and blastocysts as different than senior citizens. A zygote, even though it is in process, is still not a fetus or a baby or an adult, and that is a key distinction.

People used to be against contraception because a sperm and an egg would "normally" meet to to form a fertilized egg. To stop that process was to stop a life from forming normally. A blastocyst and a zygote may, but not necessarily will, develop into later stages of human development. However, that does not mean that the different stages are not different, and that some of the early stages can't be aborted.

[Animavore]

Actually the genes from your blood cells have the potential to be living humans. Clones, in fact.

[Seth]

I think an even biggrin difference is that one lives inside of another persons body. I don't think that little factor can be dismissed, or, reasonably, compared to having a boarder. Really.

Why not? The fetus was invited to live there, and like any tenant, can have its rights of occupancy protected by the law.

Tenants are subject to their lease agreements. If there is no written lease, then the tenancy depends on the frequency of rent payments. If it's weekly, then the tenant can be evicted weekly, etc. If the lease is gratuitious, however, and the tenant pays no rent, then the landlord can evict anytime. Since fetuses have no written leases, and since they pay no rent, the fetus can be evicted at the pleasure of the landlord (mother).

That's why not.

That's all a matter of landlord/tenant law, isn't it? Which means the law can be changed to afford the fetus greater rights, particularly since the penalty for eviction is death. Hell, you can't get your crazy ex-girlfriend out of your house without going through the legal eviction process, even if she isn't paying rent, and that can take six months or more.

[Seth]

Actually the genes from your blood cells have the potential to be living humans. Clones, in fact.

Not by themselves. It requires substantial artificial intervention to create a clone, but once created, it too begins from a zygote, and at that point it's an individual living human being just like any other zygote.

[Animavore]

Actually the genes from your blood cells have the potential to be living humans. Clones, in fact.

Not by themselves. It requires substantial artificial intervention to create a clone, but once created, it too begins from a zygote, and at that point it's an individual living human being just like any other zygote.

Zygotes can't become people by themselves either. They need a womb in which to gestate.

[Seth]

I think an even biggrin difference is that one lives inside of another persons body. I don't think that little factor can be dismissed, or, reasonably, compared to having a boarder. Really.

Why not? The fetus was invited to live there, and like any tenant, can have its rights of occupancy protected by the law.

Tenants are subject to their lease agreements. If there is no written lease, then the tenancy depends on the frequency of rent payments. If it's weekly, then the tenant can be evicted weekly, etc. If the lease is gratuitious, however, and the tenant pays no rent, then the landlord can evict anytime. Since fetuses have no written leases, and since they pay no rent, the fetus can be evicted at the pleasure of the landlord (mother).

That's why not.

And, if it was rape, then the fetus was not invited to live there.

And in which case that fact must be taken into consideration by the court as it weighs the rights of the mother against the rights of the unborn child.

In one case, it's normally an inconvenience of 9 months duration. In the other case it's death. The two actions are nowhere near equal in their impact, and the court may take this into consideration. I don't favor forcing rape victims to bear the child, but again that's a legal matter, not a matter of rights. Or to put it another way, as MrJonno would say, a woman's right to an abortion is granted by government (according to him) and therefore may be taken away by the government. That's what you get when you subscribe to collectivism.

I'm not saying that abortion should be banned, only that it could be without violating anyone's "rights" (as they are currently defined).

[Seth]

Actually the genes from your blood cells have the potential to be living humans. Clones, in fact.

Not by themselves. It requires substantial artificial intervention to create a clone, but once created, it too begins from a zygote, and at that point it's an individual living human being just like any other zygote.

Zygotess can't become people by themselves either. They need a womb in which to gestate.

Indeed. And therefore once invited there, the zygote can be afforded rights of occupancy for nine months if the law so chooses.