Forty Two wrote:Seth wrote:Forty Two wrote:
There is nothing to resolve there. Genetically, it's human. But, that doesn't resolve the ultimate issue of abortion.
As long as we agree that it is a human being, which is to say that it is a living organism comprised of human tissue based on unique human DNA formed at the formation of the zygote, we can agree.
I agree it is human. Human being has a slightly different connotation.
Yes, it does. A scientifically correct connotation that pro-abortionists don't like because it weakens their case, which hinges on staunch and unswerving denial of the humanity of the fetus for its persuasive ability, which is destroyed if the fetus is properly and scientifically identified as a "human being."
Seth wrote:
A fertilized human egg is not a human being. The biological materials involved are genetically identical to the parent donors until the maternal and paternal chromosomes align along the spindle apparatus 22 to 26 hours after fertilization. At that moment the biological materials change irrevocably from two distinct DNA patterns of the parents to a new, distinct and unique DNA pattern of the new human organism, which at that moment achieves the status of "being" (or existing) and is therefore properly classified at that moment, and at all time thereafter until death, as a "human being."
That's one way to look at it.
That's the scientific, rational and logical way to look at it.
However, even if we accept that as true for the sake of argument, it doesn't mean abortion has to be illegal in all instances.
True. In and of itself it doesn't mean that abortion has to be illegal at all. It's merely a scientific fact that has nothing whatever to do with social policy or law.
Seth wrote:
You are correct to say that "a thing", which I take to mean tissue originating from a human being, can be "human" without being a "human being." Thus, foreskin is "human" but not a "human being." The zygote, however, is something entirely different from every other cell in a human body in that it is a new and unique combination of DNA creating a new living human being at the zygotic stage of development. The new living human being never changes character thereafter, it merely continues to develop and mature. It becomes comprised of human tissue as the cells divide and differentiate into different roles, but at all times that tissue comprises a living human being, not some unknown or abstract creature of undefined genetic origin or purpose that suddenly and miraculously becomes a human being only when ejected from the birth canal.
I've never said the ejectment from the birth canal is the relevant cut-off point.
I know, but most radical pro-abortionists do, and they do so because admitting an earlier cut-off point fatally damages their fundamental claim supporting their position, which is that a fetus is not a human being and has no rights at all and that the mother's right to privacy trumps everything else right up until complete delivery from the birth canal.
If they concede that there is some point prior to that moment when the interests of the mother become subservient to other interests (like that of the father, the state or the fetus itself) their entire edifice comes crashing down around them because they are conceding the most fundamental belief they have, which is that a woman's body is hers to control at all times and under all circumstances and no one, not even the state, has any authority to interfere with that perfect and plenary autonomy, ever, under any circumstances. Destroy that foundational argument and their entire dogma evaporates, so they cannot concede or waver in the slightest from that absolutist position without entirely losing the battle for female autonomy.
And, as I noted, what you call it, whether human, human being, it, mob, whatever -- it doesn't change the analysis.
Yes, it does. By acknowledging the simple scientific facts involved it raises the bar and forces those who favor plenary female autonomy to justify their position to a much greater extent than they have to at this point, where they can preclude any debate at all simply by saying "My body, my decision." Remove the false scientific presumption that a viable fetus is a non-human part of the woman's anatomy and that argument falls apart, and they know it, which is why they refuse to recognize scientific fact.
Seth wrote:
Thus, the zygote, and all it's arbitrarily labeled stages such as blastocyst, embryo or fetus, is at all times a human being. That is simply a scientific fact.
Whether that human being is entitled to respect for its fundamental rights is an entirely different and non-scientific question.
Sure, but the term human being is not generally used synonymously with human, and the separate nature of the DNA is not an official definition. Science explains what it is -- and the DNA of the parents merge as you described. Whether it's a human being is not a scientific term.
If it's "human" and it is genetically distinct and unique from the parents and it "exists" it has achieved the state of "being" and therefore is properly defined as a "human being." The fact that you don't like the term is merely evidence of the bias and refusal to accept simple facts and logic I mention above. But we agree that merely because it's a "human being" does not necessarily mean that it's a "person" entitled to full 14th Amendment civil rights. But I will not abide the pettifoggery involved in denying the nature of the organism as the foundation for asserting maternal plenary control of the fetus. Pro-abortionists will have to come up with a better foundation and argument for the termination of a living human being at the fetal stage of development than "it's not a human being."
Seth wrote:
Forty Two wrote:
Not all pro choice folks use the exit of the birth canal as the point at which a human fetus becomes a human being.
Indeed. But they are still wrong no matter when they choose to draw that conclusion because they are simply scientifically ignorant and wrong.
No, because even if you say it's a human being, that doesn't mean it's wrong to have a compromise position on abortion.
I never said it was wrong. I'm merely demanding acceptance of scientific fact and logic as a pre-condition to discussing the political issues involved, for reasons I've previously mentioned.
You are making the leap that if we accept that science shows the embryo is a human being, then abortion must always be an illegal option.
No, I'm not. You are making the leap that if you accept the scientific fact that from zygote to death the organism involved is a living human being that I will argue that it is never justifiable in law or social policy to end that life by abortion.
One perfectly rational approach is to say that, sure, even assuming it's a human being, it makes sense to allow abortions under given circumstances.
Yes, it does.
Law does not have to track morality.
Laws are the codification of the moral beliefs of a particular society, which is why laws differ so much from culture to culture.
Like some folks who think that violence in self defense is wrong under all circumstances. it's still perfectly fine for a society to make a law that says you can kill a human being if you are in actually risk of being killed yourself. Heck, you can even make a law that says it's not illegal to kill someone who you only think is out to expose you to a risk of bodily injury (even if you 're wrong, and they never wanted to expose you to risk of bodily injury), and you can even have a law where if two people are in a lifeboat and there is only food and water to save one of them, that it wouldn't be illegal for one person to kill the other to survive.
Each of which would (hopefully though not inevitably) reflect the moral beliefs of the society which the law apply to.
That kind of thing. You seem to think that calling it a human being means any legal abortion is scientifically "Wrong." That's not logically the case.
You seem to think that that's what I think, probably based on your inherent bias against those who argue against unlimited at-will abortion, when that is not factually the case. I suggest you examine your prejudicial biases for a moment.
Seth wrote:
Forty Two wrote:
A pro-choicer like me doesn't know exactly when it becomes a human being, and frankly the term doesn't have much relevance to me in the abortion context.
It's always a human being, from the moment the zygote is formed. Whether it is endowed with independent rights is a political and social question, not a scientific one.
and, it's human-ness is one factor to consider in the moral and legal analysis. Some humans can be killed under given circumstances. The issue of law becomes a balancing of the interests, and that is open to a wide range of differing views, depending on what factors one thinks are most important.
Yup. You weren't expecting that agreement, were you? Bias check please.
Seth wrote:
Forty Two wrote: I view it more as a pragmatic balance. Whatever you call the developing embryo or fetus, there just, as a practical matter, has to be available abortion for a variety of reasons. However, that availability does not have to be unlimited. At a certain point, and I think this is before birth, there has been enough time to decide, and the fetus is too close to birth to be arbitrarily killed.
My position is not based on the humanity of the tissues. It's based no pragmatism, an attempt to sensibly balance competing necessities.
And therein lies the conundrum. It's easy to discount the rights of the fetus (if there are any) by refusing to admit that it's a human being, which makes the balancing you refer to tipped heavily in favor of killing the fetus. This is the essential disconnect of the pro-abortion contingent. They, which includes you, refuse to acknowledge the fundamental scientific facts involved by denying that the organism living within the woman is in fact a living human being. By denying its humanity you tilt the balance away from reason and logic and towards politics and emotion.
I haven't refused to acknowledge that. I've told you it's human. You refuse to acknowledge that I've acknowledged that.
Well, I meant "pro abortionists" in general rather than "you" in the specific sense.
There is, inevitably, balance-tilting no matter what. But, the fact remains that humans can be legally killed for lots of reasons. Calling it human doesn't mean that we have to make all abortions illegal. Isn't that correct?
It's possible that we might make a law imposing the death penalty for littering.
Yup. Or killing a lion in Africa for trophy reasons. Then again not all such laws are axiomatically rational or just.
Seth wrote:
Only by squarely facing the true facts involved, all of them, no matter how disturbing they might be to your political and social ideas, can a truly rational balancing of the competing "necessities" (I prefer "interests") be made.
Yes, and you should take your own advice. I've said that even if it's a human being, abortion should still be legal.
I have never said it shouldn't be.
Seth wrote:
As a philosophical exercise, try examining your pragmatic stance on abortion from the position of fully acknowledging that in authorizing abortion you are in fact authorizing the killing of a living human being.
Yes, and I support the legal killing of lots of human beings. So do you.
Indeed. The general distinction however is that where I support the legal killing of human beings (who are legal persons) it's always because the individual involved has committed some act against others that justifies the use of deadly physical force in self defense. I fail to see how in the course of a normal pregnancy such a justification could be found.
Seth wrote:
Under what circumstances do you think it is rational and logical, and moral and ethical, to end a human life, any human life?
Oh, under many different circumstances. But, first off, moral and legal are two different things. I think that cheating on one's spouse is immoral, but I don't think it should be illegal.
I support legal killings of human beings in a variety of circumstances -- punishment of some heinous crimes, self-defense, defense of others, to save one's own life in the "stater of nature," to protect oneself when one's life is accidentally threatened, under circumstances where one person's life might save millions of people -- that sort of thing. There are many many instances.
In sum, might we say that you support legal killing of human beings under circumstances where there are competing rights such as the right to life and safety that come into play that would justify the taking of one life over another? Might I extend that example to include circumstances not of the life-taking individual's creation or instigation?
In the case of an unborn human embryo, if it is determined that carrying it poses a significant risk to the life of the mother, I very much think it should be legal to abort it.
So do I.
That's one example. If during childbirth, there is a situation that arises where the mother or the child is going to die, then I think that someone has to make the decision to save one of them. These are unsavory decisions, but realities of life.
Indeed. But in that situation the need to decide is not occasioned by something the mother did to create that need, correct?
Also, I don't think that a small child of 10 or 12 who is raped and impregnated should have to bear 9 months of carrying her rapists child, when an early abortion can save her that trauma. Those are some examples.
I think there is adequate medical justification inherent in such a pregnancy and the severe risks of harm to the mother to justify an abortion in that circumstance. On the other hand, one must consider the fact that it is medically possible for a young girl of that age to successfully carry and deliver a child, which is not at fault, which can then be turned over for adoption. I also note that there are plenty of examples of young girls of similar or slightly older ages who CHOOSE to carry such a child to term and deliver it. Some of them actually CHOOSE to get pregnant specifically for that purpose.
This raises the question of female reproductive autonomy from the other side of the coin. Should such a "child" (who is demonstrably not a "child" but is a sexually mature person capable of bearing children) be FORCED to have an abortion because she's deemed "too young"? It's a conundrum, isn't it?
Seth wrote:
I certainly believe that there are circumstances in which it is justifiable, moral and ethical to end a human life. The question that remains here is whether, or at what point it becomes immoral, unethical and unjustifiable to end a human life inside the womb.
Sure, and there are lots of reasons why it would be justifiable to end a human life. Heck, one can think of it as horribly immoral to ever do it, and yet still be of the mind that it should be legal. Law and morality are not the same.
They should be, since law is the codification of morality and very little else.
Seth wrote:
And that is the core of the issue here, but it's an issue that cannot be rationally addressed when one side of the debate resorts to distorting and denying objective scientific fact as a central component of its argument. That's utterly irrational, which ought to be anathema here, of all places.
I don't see where I have done this.
You, who are among a very, very small contingent of people I've discussed this issue with in the last quarter-century, have not. My congratulations.
Seth wrote:
Forty Two wrote:
The morality has little to do with the legality, in my view. A great many immoral things not only "can" be legal, but "should" be legal. Legality, to me, should be based on a rational and pragmatic approach to what provides the best outcome while serving legitimate governmental interests and achieving proper governmental purposes. There will, of course, be a wide range of opinion as to what are legitimate interests and purposes of government. However, protecting life, liberty, property and pursuit of happiness of individual citizens, providing for the common defense and providing for the general welfare, are all pretty well accepted purposes of government. In the case of abortion, there is no clear or perfect way to serve those interests, so it's a balancing of interests -- life vs liberty -- what is in the general welfare? That kind of thing.
This presumes that a "legitimate government interest" or "proper government purpose" is the mandate of the law, which is to say it presumes (falsely I believe) that the interests of government (which is to say the collective in any democratic system) are always more important than the interests of the individual AGAINST the interests of the collective.
Not in the least. it does not presume that the government's interests are "always" more important. Neither the individual's rights nor the government's interest/purpose are "always" superior to the other. And, in the case of abortion, we don't just have one individual, we have two. So, we have the rights and interests of the mother along with the rights and interests of the unborn entity, and the governmental interests/purposes, to balance. Your assumption that the unborn entity's rights must take precedence over the woman's rights is another area where you simply make a declaration of what you believe to be a truism.
Thanks for admitting that there are two individuals involved. Of course, there are actually three or more. You forget the interests of the father and the state. And I don't make any claim that an unborn "entity's" right "must take precedence over the woman's rights," I merely say that there comes a time when the other interests and rights involved in a decision to carry or abort may well take precedence over the woman's desire to exercise plenary reproductive autonomy. So, as it happens, does the Supreme Court.
Seth wrote:
Your justification for abortion is more than a little fuzzy,
Of course, because as I said, it's pragmatic and based on a balancing of interests wherein people can have widely disparate opinions on what is most important and where the pragmatic line should be drawn (if at all). Life is not all black and white, and in some areas, we have a shade of grey where no perfect line can be drawn. Take ages of consent for sex between adults and minors. It's bright line drawn through a huge grey area, and many jurisdictions pick different lines. Some countries 18, some 16, some 14, some depend on if the parents consent, some depend on how old the respective sex partners are relative to each other, some have rules about relationships of trust (teacher/student, etc. that change the analysis). The science shows that we simply cannot say that all 15 year olds are not capable of consenting to sex with 21 year olds -- many 15 year olds know exactly what they're doing and are plenty mature. Heck, it used to be normal for 13, 14, and 15 year olds to marry and have children themselves. Romeo and Juliet were adolescents, etc. Yet, our culture has drawn a line that is a compromise of competing interests. It is imperfect.
Pragmatism has to be based on some sort of ethical and moral foundation, otherwise it is nothing more than random situational ethics indistinguishable from anarchy.
Seth wrote:
which indicates to me that you have not spent much time truly examining the issue and your rationalizations and justifications for your position. I was the same way for most of my life, until, frankly, I began examining my reasoning and motives in response to posts at RDF and its progeny, including Rationalia. I've spent a lot of time in introspection and examination of the facts and my beliefs, which have resulted in substantial changes in my attitudes about abortion through reason and logic.
However, you have your logic wrong. And, you draw moral conclusions and then extend them to legal conclusions, by a leap. You have acknowledged that a person can still be pro choice even if they acknowledge the embryo as human, haven't you? Well, that's where I stand - sometimes, it should be legal to abort, even if it's human.
We don't disagree in principle because I have never argued that all abortion should be illegal. I merely insist on examining the subject from a foundation of sound science, reason and logic rather than one of ideological bias and the denial of plain facts.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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