Sectorgame

I didn't really want to continue this, but your last post impelled me too because hardly any of it made sense.

Goober5000 wrote: What is your definition of "force", incidentally? The word is thrown about so much in this thread that it could mean something as generic as "restrained exercise of will". Our wills are restrained in all sorts of ways, both within and without our control.

In any case, this is a zero-sum game, because either the child or the mother is going to be "restrained" in some way. I could throw that right back at you and say you're "forcing" unborn children to take the risk of being aborted.

That makes no sense. First you attack a definition of a word rather than dispute the sentence and meaning it was used in, then you 'throw back' a completely incomprehensibile retort. An unborn child to take the risk of being aborted? o.O
It's not a child yet.

It's so easy to get caught up in a 'do gooder' society and forget the individual, which is in this case the mother. Could you honestly look a woman in the eye and tell her she has to have a child that is the result of rape or incest?
I know I could honestly tell a mother she has a right to abort or have the child with a clear conscience.

Goober5000 wrote: Only with abortion is there a need to protect a person from loss of life, liberty, or property (in this case, life).

Who's life?
The 2 week old group of cells that has yet to manifest any likeliness to a human?
What about the mother?

Goober5000 wrote: I hope you can see that Top Gun and I have demonstrated repeatedly that we do not "completely disregard" these circumstances or their consequences.

But you do. Sure support groups are out there, but do you think they even come close to supporting 1/100th of the total number of cases out there?
No. And you'd rather the option to abort be cut off at the neck, and make that 0.00001% get support and many others live a life of torment and depression?
I wish abortion wasn't necessary. But in todays society, people deserve that choice.

Goober5000 wrote:

I completely understand your viewpoint, and even respect it.
But to me the greater evil is interfering in another persons life for the sake of a potential life. Can you understand that viewpoint?

I can understand it, but that doesn't mean it's correct. Turn that around and abortion is interfering in someone's life for the sake of someone else's convenience.

Who's that other life?
The 2 week old clump of cells with no resemblence to a human?

*cough* Convenience!?
You think people do this at the drop of a hat?
It is in no way convenient, it is something that person or couple lives with for the rest of their lives.

Honestly, you have no idea what your talking about going by that. You only have one half of the story, and are either watering down or dismissing the other side. And that comment kind of made me sick...

Goober5000 wrote:

To argue further is futile, da?

Perhaps so. It certainly doesn't seem like anyone is about to change their minds.

Changing our minds?
Is that why your so persistent?

At the end of the day, this thread means a big fat 0. If you want to change minds, go work in a 'pro life' support group or promote it at the appropriate places. All you've managed here is help to pull a thread off topic and scratch at some strong emotional feelings to people who have actually witnessed the event.

Goober5000 wrote:

At the state of being foetus, there is no sentience, no individuality, no person.

Argue that way if you wish, but if you do that you can't draw on science to support your conclusions.

Draw on science?
What the hell do you think the current laws and medical science are based on?

Goober5000 wrote: Life has pretty clear-cut requirements to me. Regardless, in an important matter such as this, the prudent thing to do is to err on the side of caution. Therefore if there was legislation pertaining to protecting microscopic life forms, and there was uncertainty whether it applied to viruses, then viruses would have to be included.

That retort kills itself.

Goober5000 wrote: On the contrary, there's plenty of evidence to support that. But it's based on personal accounts, not professional evaluations, so you'll probably dismiss it as invalid.

Yet your fine to dismiss personal accounts to the contrary, which ultimately far out number the other side of the tale. >..>

Goober5000 wrote: It's more than a belief... it has scientific and philosophical evidence to back it up. And it's a matter of life or death.

Didn't you say something about philosophical views being a moot point?
This side of the fence has scientific evidence to back it up as well as common sense for the basic rights of the mother. You automotically dismiss it because you are somehow automatically right. No matter how contrary to current medical science and law.

Goober5000 wrote: This is not about "rippling consequences". This is about a very distinct boundary: the beginning of existence of a human person.

This is about a very distinct boundary: the right a mother has over her own body and life.

Goober5000 wrote:

aldo wrote:

Alive = growing, responding to stimulus, taking in food and expelling waste, etc. These are all neutrally researched scientific definitions.

I said human life, actually.

A human being is alive if and only if it satisfies those same scientific requirements. If you impose other requirements, you lose the scientific basis.

So the scientific medical community has lost scientific basis? o.O

Goober5000 wrote: The unborn child, though in the body, is not part of it. It's biologically and genetically distinct. The mother has authority over it, just as she has authority over a born child, but that authority does not extend to killing it.

Say that to a mother and watch her rip your balls off as you scream for your mummy.
At such an early stage it is part of her, and I could quite confidently say that every mother will swear that their child is part of them no matter how far along pregnancy. The umbillical chord is part of the mother. Look at your own belly button, that was once part of your mother.
But this is before all that anyway, this is when it is not a child. You even said yourself 'it'.

Goober5000 wrote:

So all the lawyers, doctors, etc who have allowed and endorsed the legalisation of choice have an ulterior mtive and are ignoring science? Every one of them? All irrational, wanting to kill children? Why?

Usually because they want to get paid and are looking no further than that. If you follow the abortion arguments down to their core principles, you end up with a very strong opinion either way.

I bet you also rally at the Microsoft is evil meetings, at the irish are stupid club, at the New Zealander's are sheep shaggers, at the Australians all talk like Steve Erwin fan club, and at the all American's are stupid society. >..>

Goober5000 wrote: The legal definition of a person, in the few sources I've Googled just now, is merely "a living human being". Doesn't say anything about consciousness or lack thereof, or self-awareness or lack thereof.

How, then, would you define a person, either from a legal or a scientific basis?

As it is now? o.O

Complete Definition of person:

1. A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; spokesperson; salesperson.
2. An individual of specified character: a person of importance.
3. The composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality; the self.
4. The living body of a human: searched the prisoner's person.
5. Physique and general appearance.
6. Law. A human or organization with legal rights and duties.
7. Christianity. Any of the three separate individualities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as distinguished from the essence of the Godhead that unites them.
8. Grammar.


a. Any of three groups of pronoun forms with corresponding verb inflections that distinguish the speaker (first person), the individual addressed (second person), and the individual or thing spoken of (third person).
b. Any of the different forms or inflections expressing these distinctions.

9. A character or role, as in a play; a guise: “Well, in her person, I say I will not have you” (Shakespeare).

Its more than just a 'living human', thats just one part of the meaning, and put in context above refers to a person in society. 'Person' refers to a human individual in society.
A 2 week old clump of cells has no sense of sentience, self-awareness, or sapience. It is just a gentically pre-programmed chemical and biological reaction.
Violating the rights of an actual person for the sake of some moral objection is downright discriminatory.
It may ultimately be killing 'life' and a 'potentialhuman life', but it is not killing a person at that early development stage. I'm not to fond on late abortions personally, but I think, as disgusting as it sounds, the right should still be there under heavily mitigation and only at the utmost extreme circumstances.

Ultimately abortion is allowed because of respect to a woman's privacy and her right's. Something "pro-life people" seem to forget and / or reject.

Goober5000 wrote: EDIT: On a related note, the South Dakotan government did something right.

If they succeed in overturning the ruling, women would still be able to cross state lines to have abortions in liberal preserves such as New York and California. In practice, many women already do so to avoid legal ostacles and moral condemnation in midwestern states.

It's already happening see?
Woman are already having to go outer state because they are being condemned by the majority.

has signalled his opposition to the South Dakota law because it provides no exemption for cases of rape or incest.
...
He said: “They’ve gone too far. They’re essentially saying that if your daughter gets raped, she has no choice but to have that criminal’s baby. It shows how extreme they are.”

That sickens me to the core. =/


I might suggest having a listen to Sean Kennedy's abortion Rant.

I'm not usually a fan of this guy, but he makes some good points, though I think he was targeting more the full on 'pro-life' people.

Taristin wrote:Yes. By removing the right of choice, and forcing it's will upon the people, it's doing something right...

Forcing women who have been raped or molested by family members to have the resulting children. Totally, totally immoral and a throwback to the dark ages IMO.

A tumor isn't distinct from its host, either biologically, genetically, or physically.


Identical twins are only genetically identical. They're biologically and physically distinct.

Identical (monozygotic) twins aren't genetically, biologically or physically distinct as embryos (they share the same DNA). During the foetal stage of development, the biological or physical 'build' intrinsically related to the genetic instructions. If you wish to qualify monozygotic twins as being physically different during the foetal stages, you need to introduce concepts of distinction which don't biologically exist during the developmental stage, as at this point each twin is effectively a clone of the other.

It's actually nurture that introduces personality differences, as an aside.

Argue that way if you wish, but if you do that you can't draw on science to support your conclusions.

Nuerology and EEG scans.

Life has pretty clear-cut requirements to me. Regardless, in an important matter such as this, the prudent thing to do is to err on the side of caution. Therefore if there was legislation pertaining to protecting microscopic life forms, and there was uncertainty whether it applied to viruses, then viruses would have to be included.

No, then life would have to be defined more specifically; the requirements of legality abhor grey areas. In any case, the clear cut - or otherwise - requirements are, as you put it, only requirements for you. To me the restriction of personal choice upon an issue such as this, where the basis of personal opinion is used as justification, is wrong simply because we have no right to hold one opinion over another unless there is unequivocal and unbiased proof.

On the contrary, there's plenty of evidence to support that. But it's based on personal accounts, not professional evaluations, so you'll probably dismiss it as invalid. Doubt

Of course it is invalid if it's personal accounts, as they are, well, personal. i.e. biased, preconceived, subject to personal feelings or emotions. Perhaps due to regret, a desire to blame someone else for their own decision. In any case, there are countries with total prohibition of abortion yet higher rates than the US, so it's scarcely something that can be 'blamed' upon some organisaiton forcing it.

With the stigma that you and others of your opinion place upon abortion and women who take that option (the Nazi allegories come to mind), how many will feel publicly safe to even state they don't regret it, when the first result will be their being attacked for that opinion and action?

EDIT; such as in Mexico;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4784666.stm

"In an overwhelmingly Catholic country, abortion is illegal in Mexico unless the woman concerned was raped
....
Pregnant rape victims are intimidated, insulted and threatened.

For example, some public prosecutors have told rape victims that having an abortion would kill them. "

How many women, do you think, would then speak out in Mexico about a positive experience arising from abortion? And from the looks of it, that's exactly the type of climate the anti-choice camp wishes (and has largely suceeded in this) to create.

It's more than a belief... it has scientific and philosophical evidence to back it up. And it's a matter of life or death.

Philosophical evidence is not valid, as philosphy has a variation of views upon what is and what is not life; in some cultures life was not considered to begin till well after birth, in others upon conception.

Scientific evidence - find me a study that says human individuality and life begins at conception. Give me a basis for asserting that the foetus exists as a legal 'person' at a stage when it is undifferentiated cells, or has no EEG. Prove that the mother does not have the right of control over her body - prove that the doctors, lawyers, etc who legalised this are wrong. Because all the 'science' you've claimed sounds like claptrap to me when referring to a human person.

This is not about "rippling consequences". This is about a very distinct boundary: the beginning of existence of a human person.

Exactly, and a person does not exist without consciouness, because the boundary of death - and thus, it follows, life - is based on EEG readings indicating mental capacity and self-awareness. you cannot have 2 disparate standards for the beginning and end of life.

A human being is alive if and only if it satisfies those same scientific requirements. If you impose other requirements, you lose the scientific basis.

Then why isn't it wrong to kill a cattle for food? Because if you want to justify this in terms of human life, you have to justify what makes that life sacrosanct - and AFAIK the basis of that legal sanctity has always been intelligence and self awareness, 'I think, therefore I am'. That killing is the removal of an existing selfawareness and persona.

The unborn child, though in the body, is not part of it. It's biologically and genetically distinct. The mother has authority over it, just as she has authority over a born child, but that authority does not extend to killing it.

Foetus isn't born though; the whole barrier is the beginnings of self awareness and individual survivability. At the developmental stages, it's essentially a growing parasite feeding off the placental cord and still to develop the physical ability to feed itself. Essentially, the mother is using her bodily resources to feed a cell cluster. And if that cluster threatens, in particular, her physical or mental health despite not being an individual person, why should she not have the choice? Why should you excise the choice over her wishes?

Usually because they want to get paid and are looking no further than that. If you follow the abortion arguments down to their core principles, you end up with a very strong opinion either way.

boll##ks. I'm sorry, but that's absolute slander - saying that these people are either deliberate murderers or callous mercenaries. do you even consider them human, then?

The legal definition of a person, in the few sources I've Googled just now, is merely "a living human being". Doesn't say anything about consciousness or lack thereof, or self-awareness or lack thereof.

How, then, would you define a person, either from a legal or a scientific basis?

A living, self aware & conscious human being, with the self-aware part illustrated by EEG brain activity beyond reflex action, i.e. the same neurological / scientific criteria used to determine death.

Some legal defs (make up your own decisions on this) http://eileen.250x.com/Main/KreeftBeckw ... Being.html

Most define it as a point of viability, IMO, i.e. when the baby can survive independently; it's worth noting that the foetus does not breathe until bortn. I think I've actually pushed (the deadline that would be set) that back a bit by placing it as individual sentience.

Australia
Division 3 - Homicide: Suicide: Concealment of Birth: Abortion

156. When a child becomes a human being A child becomes a person capable of being killed when it has completely proceeded in a living state from the body of its mother, whether it has breathed or not and whether the umbilical cord is severed or not.


Canada
(Hansard Extract)

Currently a human being is defined in section 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada as follows: A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not

(a) it has breathed,
(b) it has independent circulation, or
(c) the navel string is severed.

USA
In current United States law, at the moment of birth a biological being becomes a human being. By contrast, in declaring in 1973 that abortion is a permissible medical procedure, the U.S. Supreme Court said, "The unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense." (Hardin 1982:138) The transition to the status of full humanity is viewed not as a biological fact, but as a legal or cultural fact. There is a practical aspect pointed out by Retired Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark: the moment of birth is known, but the moment of conception is speculative. "...the law deals in reality not obscurity--the known rather than the unknown. When sperm meets egg, life may eventually form, but quite often it does not. The law does not deal in speculation." (Swomley 1983:1)

UK
DISCUSSION POINT: What is a human being?

What do the Courts say about this?

The courts have asked this question in relation to the foetus and a corpse. In this context the courts are very much guided by medical opinion, and less by moral principles. The central question they ask themselves is at what stage in the process of birth does a foetus become a person, and at what stage in the process of death does a person become a corpse. Essentially the courts have decided that foetuses and corpses are not persons.

(further links on the page itself)

Taristin wrote:Yes. By removing the right of choice, and forcing it's will upon the people, it's doing something right...

Taristin wrote:What I find most ironic is he waves the banner of being a libertarian, but advocates the removal of women's rights.

Both of these quotes presuppose that the rights of the woman are the only things under consideration here. You need to take into account the rights of the child. If you conclude that the unborn child has rights, then the mother cannot infringe on them.

I've said all along that "my rights end where yours begin, and vice versa", and that's a perfectly consistent libertarian position. Aside from that, I don't see how I'm "waving the banner" of being a libertarian - it's not like I'm trumpeting it in every thread like Deepblue's XBox obsession.

Grug wrote:First you attack a definition of a word rather than dispute the sentence and meaning it was used in, then you 'throw back' a completely incomprehensibile retort. An unborn child to take the risk of being aborted? o.O

It's not a child yet.

And that's the fundamental point where we disagree: I say it's a child, and you say it isn't. We could probably even call it a "postulate": if it's a child, then my position logically follows. If it's not, then your position logically follows. Don't you see that this is the point where everything diverges? I acknowledge that your argument is consistent, well-reasoned, and logically valid - but a logically valid argument that rests on a flawed premise will result in a flawed conclusion. I hold that you are relying on a false premise.

It's so easy to get caught up in a 'do gooder' society and forget the individual, which is in this case the mother. Could you honestly look a woman in the eye and tell her she has to have a child that is the result of rape or incest?

And I counter: It's so easy to get caught up in a "protect the mother's rights" mindset and forget the rights of the unborn child. Could you (hypothetically) look an unborn child in the eye and tell it that her mother must be allowed to abort it if she so chooses?

Again, this comes back to the central premise.

Goober5000 wrote:Only with abortion is there a need to protect a person from loss of life, liberty, or property (in this case, life).

The 2 week old group of cells that has yet to manifest any likeliness to a human?

Who is, nonetheless, a human.

Goober5000 wrote:I hope you can see that Top Gun and I have demonstrated repeatedly that we do not "completely disregard" these circumstances or their consequences.

But you do. Sure support groups are out there, but do you think they even come close to supporting 1/100th of the total number of cases out there?

Do pro-abortion advocates come close to supporting the total number of cases? Of course not; they acknowledge that there are problems all over the place. Anyway, if you're going to question someone's motives, shouldn't you be focusing on how hard they work rather than how much they accomplish (if you had to pick one)?

The 2 week old clump of cells with no resemblence to a human?

As above, it is, nevertheless, biologically and genetically a living human.

*cough* Convenience!?
You think people do this at the drop of a hat?
It is in no way convenient, it is something that person or couple lives with for the rest of their lives.

Having an abortion is definitely more convenient than putting a child up for adoption or raising it for 18 years. So, yes: the child, who is human and entitled to a human life, is killed for the sake of convenience.

Changing our minds?
Is that why your so persistent?

Ideally, yes. But right now, I'll just settle for defending my position.

You're being as persistent as me, don't forget.

Goober5000 wrote:

At the state of being foetus, there is no sentience, no individuality, no person.

Argue that way if you wish, but if you do that you can't draw on science to support your conclusions.

Draw on science?

What the hell do you think the current laws and medical science are based on?

You cannot use science to prove someone's sentience or individuality. Therefore, a definition of a "person" that includes "sentience or individuality" is not scientific.

Goober5000 wrote:Life has pretty clear-cut requirements to me. Regardless, in an important matter such as this, the prudent thing to do is to err on the side of caution. Therefore if there was legislation pertaining to protecting microscopic life forms, and there was uncertainty whether it applied to viruses, then viruses would have to be included.

That retort kills itself.

A bald assertion like that, with no supporting arguments, has nothing to stand on.

Erring on the side of caution is the proper strategy in any unknown situation. If you're out hunting, and you see a rustling in the bushes, you should err on the side of caution. You shouldn't fire, because you don't know whether it's a deer or a friend of yours. Dick Cheney proved this point quite dramatically just the other week.

In the same way, if you don't know if the unborn child is a person or not, you should err on the side of caution by not taking its life.

Goober5000 wrote:On the contrary, there's plenty of evidence to support that. But it's based on personal accounts, not professional evaluations, so you'll probably dismiss it as invalid.

Yet your fine to dismiss personal accounts to the contrary, which ultimately far out number the other side of the tale. >..>

I'm not dismissing any of the personal accounts you cite. I'm just saying that the implications of the unborn child being a person are far more important.

Goober5000 wrote:It's more than a belief... it has scientific and philosophical evidence to back it up. And it's a matter of life or death.

Didn't you say something about philosophical views being a moot point?

You're conflating the two. Science is what defines the unborn child as a living human being. Philosophy is what motivates me to defend it.

A human being is alive if and only if it satisfies those same scientific requirements. If you impose other requirements, you lose the scientific basis.

So the scientific medical community has lost scientific basis? o.O

If it imposes philosophical requirments, yes. Let's examine the scientific definition of "life", from Wikipedia:

1. Organization
2. Metabolism
3. Growth
4. Adaptation
5. Response to stimuli
6. Reproduction

All of these, except 6, are fulfilled by the unborn child.

Goober5000 wrote:The unborn child, though in the body, is not part of it. It's biologically and genetically distinct. The mother has authority over it, just as she has authority over a born child, but that authority does not extend to killing it.

Say that to a mother and watch her rip your balls off as you scream for your mummy.

How is that relevant to the discussion? Or is that a threat?

At such an early stage it is part of her, and I could quite confidently say that every mother will swear that their child is part of them no matter how far along pregnancy. The umbillical chord is part of the mother. Look at your own belly button, that was once part of your mother.
But this is before all that anyway, this is when it is not a child. You even said yourself 'it'.

It is a gender-neutral pronoun referring to the gender-neutral term child.

The child is not part of her. It is in her, but it is an entirely separate organism. It has different organs, a different blood type, and half the time a different gender.

I bet you also rally at the Microsoft is evil meetings, at the irish are stupid club, at the New Zealander's are sheep shaggers, at the Australians all talk like Steve Erwin fan club, and at the all American's are stupid society. >..>

No, I don't. But again, how is this relevant to the discussion?

Complete Definition of person:

1. A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; spokesperson; salesperson.
2. An individual of specified character: a person of importance.
3. The composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality; the self.
4. The living body of a human: searched the prisoner's person.
5. Physique and general appearance.
6. Law. A human or organization with legal rights and duties.
7. Christianity. Any of the three separate individualities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as distinguished from the essence of the Godhead that unites them.
8. Grammar.
a. Any of three groups of pronoun forms with corresponding verb inflections that distinguish the speaker (first person), the individual addressed (second person), and the individual or thing spoken of (third person).
b. Any of the different forms or inflections expressing these distinctions.
9. A character or role, as in a play; a guise: “Well, in her person, I say I will not have you” (Shakespeare).

Its more than just a 'living human', thats just one part of the meaning, and put in context above refers to a person in society. 'Person' refers to a human individual in society.

Ah, I see your strategy. "Definition 1 doesn't support my position, therefore it doesn't count."

You seem to be relying most on definitions 2 and 3. Yet definitions 1, 4, and 6 support my position.

Additionally, from Wikipedia:

In jurisprudence, a natural person is a human being perceptible through the senses and subject to physical laws, as opposed to an artificial person, i.e., an organization that the law treats for some purposes as if it were a person distinct from its members or owners.

An unborn child is a human being, is perceptible, and is subject to physical laws. Thus it is a natural person.

Ultimately abortion is allowed because of respect to a woman's privacy and her right's. Something "pro-life people" seem to forget and / or reject.

Ultimately, abortion should be outlawed because of respect for an unborn child's rights. Something "pro-choice" people seem to reject and trample on.

He said: “They’ve gone too far. They’re essentially saying that if your daughter gets raped, she has no choice but to have that criminal’s baby. It shows how extreme they are.”

That sickens me to the core. =/

What sickens me is hearing that the rapist escaped and the child was killed.

The rapist committed a crime and should be punished. The child committed no crime and should not be killed.

aldo wrote:Identical (monozygotic) twins aren't genetically, biologically or physically distinct as embryos (they share the same DNA).

And they split off from a parent zygote too, if I'm not mistaken. Point.

Nuerology and EEG scans

They show brain activity. Does that imply sentience? Sentience is an extremely nebulous concept.

No, then life would have to be defined more specifically; the requirements of legality abhor grey areas. In any case, the clear cut - or otherwise - requirements are, as you put it, only requirements for you. To me the restriction of personal choice upon an issue such as this, where the basis of personal opinion is used as justification, is wrong simply because we have no right to hold one opinion over another unless there is unequivocal and unbiased proof.

Then the prudent thing to do is to avoid committing to a decision either way - which is why the Supreme Court often remands judgements without commenting or establishing precedent. But that's not possible in this case, because people are going to get pregnant, and some of them are not going to want the child. The child is going to be either born or not born, so you need to decide one way or the other and then deal with the consequences.

The problem arises when those consequences have significant repercussions. So in that situation you err on the side of caution. See my hunter analogy above.

With the stigma that you and others of your opinion place upon abortion and women who take that option (the Nazi allegories come to mind), how many will feel publicly safe to even state they don't regret it, when the first result will be their being attacked for that opinion and action?

EDIT; such as in Mexico;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4784666.stm

I read that earlier today, and I was thinking of this very thread at the time. What needs to happen there is for the abortion opponents to follow through with their convictions and provide support to those women.

"In an overwhelmingly Catholic country, abortion is illegal in Mexico unless the woman concerned was raped
....
Pregnant rape victims are intimidated, insulted and threatened.

For example, some public prosecutors have told rape victims that having an abortion would kill them. "

Sounds like they're not consistently Catholic. The Bible says "thou shalt not murder" but it also says "thou shalt not bear false witness". In some of the less well-read passages it focuses very strongly on social issues like "look after orphans and widows [presumably that includes unmarried women] in their distress".

It's more than a belief... it has scientific and philosophical evidence to back it up. And it's a matter of life or death.

Philosophical evidence is not valid, as philosphy has a variation of views upon what is and what is not life; in some cultures life was not considered to begin till well after birth, in others upon conception.

Agreed.

Scientific evidence - find me a study that says human individuality and life begins at conception. Give me a basis for asserting that the foetus exists as a legal 'person' at a stage when it is undifferentiated cells, or has no EEG.

There are no such studies. Now, let me ask you this: find a study that says human individuality and life begin at birth. Prove that you can determine if someone is sentient by examining their EEG.

Prove that the mother does not have the right of control over her body

Never said she didn't. But note that the unborn child is not an integral part of her body. Inside the body, yes. Part of the body, no. Separate entity.

Exactly, and a person does not exist without consciouness, because the boundary of death - and thus, it follows, life - is based on EEG readings indicating mental capacity and self-awareness. you cannot have 2 disparate standards for the beginning and end of life.

You can't prove sentience from EEG, though. But I'm curious: you've mentioned EEG for several posts now. Does this mean you support abortion up until the age EEGs are detected and then oppose it afterward?

A human being is alive if and only if it satisfies those same scientific requirements. If you impose other requirements, you lose the scientific basis.

Then why isn't it wrong to kill a cattle for food? Because if you want to justify this in terms of human life, you have to justify what makes that life sacrosanct - and AFAIK the basis of that legal sanctity has always been intelligence and self awareness, 'I think, therefore I am'. That killing is the removal of an existing selfawareness and persona.

Ah, I see. This is getting into philosophy though.

From a dispassionate scientific standpoint, the answer would be that humans are the dominant species and we have a vested interest in maintaining our status as such.

From a legal standpoint, that question doesn't really need to be answered. You could simply say that our legal system values humans far more than it values cattle. We have prohibitions on killing full-grown humans but no prohibitions (for all intents and purposes) on killing full-grown cattle.

If one were to seek to make killing animals illegal, they'd be better off establishing an easily-defendable position (e.g. killing cattle) and work from there towards the less-easily-defendable positions (e.g. killing insects).

But again, sentience and consciousness is more philosophical than scientific.

Foetus isn't born though; the whole barrier is the beginnings of self awareness and individual survivability. At the developmental stages, it's essentially a growing parasite feeding off the placental cord and still to develop the physical ability to feed itself. Essentially, the mother is using her bodily resources to feed a cell cluster. And if that cluster threatens, in particular, her physical or mental health despite not being an individual person, why should she not have the choice? Why should you excise the choice over her wishes?

You've italicized the key point here. As I said way back at the beginning of the post, that's the central premise of this whole thing. If it isn't an individual person, it makes no sense to restrict a woman's wishes in this matter. But if it is, this whole dynamic completely changes.

boll##ks. I'm sorry, but that's absolute slander - saying that these people are either deliberate murderers or callous mercenaries. do you even consider them human, then?

Humans in general are prone to all sorts of moral faults, and I include myself in this. Sometimes all it takes is looking the other way.

How, then, would you define a person, either from a legal or a scientific basis?

A living, self aware & conscious human being, with the self-aware part illustrated by EEG brain activity beyond reflex action, i.e. the same neurological / scientific criteria used to determine death.

Now that is a reasonable definition. I disagree that you can "prove" either self-awareness or consciousness (in the sense of self) being definable via EEG, but the definition is pretty much equivalent to 1) human being, 2) alive, 3) brain activity. I would support a law using that definition, even if I think it's incomplete.

So I've read that fetal scans have detected brain waves as early as 7 weeks. Would you support that as the cut-off date for abortion?

My ultimate goal would be to outlaw abortion entirely, but from a practical standpoint based on the principle of medical triage, I'll take what I can get.

Goober5000 wrote:

Taristin wrote:Yes. By removing the right of choice, and forcing it's will upon the people, it's doing something right...

Taristin wrote:What I find most ironic is he waves the banner of being a libertarian, but advocates the removal of women's rights.

Both of these quotes presuppose that the rights of the woman are the only things under consideration here. You need to take into account the rights of the child. If you conclude that the unborn child has rights, then the mother cannot infringe on them.

I've said all along that "my rights end where yours begin, and vice versa", and that's a perfectly consistent libertarian position. Aside from that, I don't see how I'm "waving the banner" of being a libertarian - it's not like I'm trumpeting it in every thread like Deepblue's XBox obsession.

But at the stage that abortion is legal the fetus is as much a person as a boyle. When it has developed more, then sure, abortion shouldn't be allowed. I'm not disputing that, I just don't agree that it is a person yet.

And removing abortion entirely, such as has been done in the law quoted is as much ignoring the rights of the woman as allowing it at any stage of the process is ignoring the rights of the child.

That's the whole thing though, the development of a foetus is a process, like the development of the universe, it's only the fact that we have minds geared towards cause/effect and a definite line between them that means we need to find a place where we can say 'Here is the point that a foetus becomes a baby'.

That's why we stumble over questions like 'What was here before the universe'. The closest answer we can get is 'Nothing', but that is pretty far from the truth, nothing requires something to be compared with, you cannot go back in time and look, because there is no time to go back to.

The law must, by definition, deal with Black and White, but a lot of the really nasty questions exist simply because there is no black and white answer to the question.

I agree it's a process, but does that make it any more or less human? Suggesting that a fetus aborted in the first trimester is only one-third human, for example, sounds rather odd.

Even if that's the case, do we want to be killing half-humans?

I don't think anyone wants to be killing. But it always boils down to a balance between the rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child.

It's easy to take the side of the voiceless, because they are weak and defenceless, and so it's easy to look at harming them being the act of bullies. God knows that's been played on enough in Iraq in the last few years by those who would choose to, but we cannot ignore either side of the problem. The solution must by definition involve some loss of rights on either side.

Once again it's easy to fall back on the 'The mother will live but the baby will die' argument to go against abortion, after all, they will both live if there is no abortion, but it's like saying that because Roe is anti-abortion now, that the decision of Roe vs Wade was wrong. It was not a question of 'Can Roe have an abortion', it was a question of 'Does the mother have the right to choose regarding her own life and her own body?'. If she chooses later to wrap that child up in 'What might have been' it's a whole other story, and something she will have to deal with.

I do agree, and have always agreed that abortion should be a final option, not the first one. However, to take the choice away from the mother creates a role-reversal. Now she is the one who is powerless, who has no say in her own life, she is being forced to carry a child full term by the government when she does not want to. That, in many ways, is a step backwards, she is now a baby-making machine from the moment she discovers she is pregnant. Treating a woman like that is no more 'right' in my opinon than looking on abortion as a form of contraception.

Edit : I will say, that's why I like discussing this sort of thing here and yet would stay out of the thread entirely on HLP. Apart from the unfortunate Nazi reference, we've all managed to discuss this without resorting to personal insults, and without taking any comments as some kind of attack on each other.

And they split off from a parent zygote too, if I'm not mistaken. Point.

That you can't define human individuality via DNA uniqueness; that developing monozygotic twins are not biologically distinct until they have self-awareness (at which point the neural networks form, i.e. nurture not nature).

They show brain activity. Does that imply sentience? Sentience is an extremely nebulous concept.

The biological capacity for thought, learning, etc (i.e. beyond simple input-output bodily functions). EEG specifically identifies type of brain activity (such as a sleep - delta IIRC - brain waves) through the waveform pattern, and the form representing wakefulness (i.e. cogniscence) does not occur until at least the 29th week (which is also the point at which the foetus can feel pain, i.e. the spinal cord connection completes and allows these signals to reach the relevant areas of the brain). In other words, up to 29 weeks the foetus can neither feel pain nor take any form of conscious action/reaction, there is simply not a physical capacity for it.

Then the prudent thing to do is to avoid committing to a decision either way - which is why the Supreme Court often remands judgements without commenting or establishing precedent. But that's not possible in this case, because people are going to get pregnant, and some of them are not going to want the child. The child is going to be either born or not born, so you need to decide one way or the other and then deal with the consequences.

The problem arises when those consequences have significant repercussions. So in that situation you err on the side of caution. See my hunter analogy above.

You're making a wrong analogy though, by assuming not aborting can never be harmful which is wrong on both a psychological and physical basis (not to mention societal repercussions of denying reproductive choice). In the hunter analogy, unless you need deer to eat to live, you don't lose anything by holding fire. By denying abortion, aside from physical complications, you face a very real risk of post-natal depression (for example), and the risk of the mother harming herself prior to or after the birth (if we're seeing women in Nigeria trying to self-abort with a coathanger, it stands to reason this isn't something trivial to consider).

I read that earlier today, and I was thinking of this very thread at the time. Smile What needs to happen there is for the abortion opponents to follow through with their convictions and provide support to those women.

Sounds like they're not consistently Catholic. The Bible says "thou shalt not murder" but it also says "thou shalt not bear false witness". In some of the less well-read passages it focuses very strongly on social issues like "look after orphans and widows [presumably that includes unmarried women] in their distress".

But presumably you can see how a vocal and denegrating pro-life/anti-choice group/s act to manipulate opinion though stigma. That in this type of situation it's a [ilot[/i] easier for women X to say 'I regret aborting' than women y - or W,Z, etc - to say they don't.

Never said she didn't. But note that the unborn child is not an integral part of her body. Inside the body, yes. Part of the body, no. Separate entity.

Then why can't it be removed and placed somewhere else?

You can't prove sentience from EEG, though. But I'm curious: you've mentioned EEG for several posts now. Does this mean you support abortion up until the age EEGs are detected and then oppose it afterward?

See above; the EEG shows that a foetus is neither conscious nor able to feel pain (in fact, make that stimuli) until 29 weeks, based upon known and proven principles of brainwave analysis and the physical brain formation. Unless you're suggesting that sentience does not require consciousness, or the ability to consciously react.

Ah, I see. This is getting into philosophy though. Smile

From a dispassionate scientific standpoint, the answer would be that humans are the dominant species and we have a vested interest in maintaining our status as such.

From a legal standpoint, that question doesn't really need to be answered. You could simply say that our legal system values humans far more than it values cattle. We have prohibitions on killing full-grown humans but no prohibitions (for all intents and purposes) on killing full-grown cattle.

If one were to seek to make killing animals illegal, they'd be better off establishing an easily-defendable position (e.g. killing cattle) and work from there towards the less-easily-defendable positions (e.g. killing insects).

But again, sentience and consciousness is more philosophical than scientific.

We can measure thought. We can identify brain activity. We know which parts of the brain are responsible for handling which inputs (such as a CAT scan), and how learning develops.

Our protection of our species is justified by our use of that brain in establishing the concept of an individual, with responsibilities, and crucially the comprehension of death; that our totality of existence has some value which our intelligence allows us to assign. I don't see any reason why that's not scientifically testable and identifiable. If you look at things which make cattle 'sacrificeable', it comes down to material value, and the lack of identifiable intelligence/consciousness/self-awareness. So a person is defined by that, and that is visible in brain scans.

Humans in general are prone to all sorts of moral faults, and I include myself in this. Smile Sometimes all it takes is looking the other way. Sad

So they're all faulty? All wrong? All somehow looking the other 'wrong' way? A mass societal blindness?

Now that is a reasonable definition. I disagree that you can "prove" either self-awareness or consciousness (in the sense of self) being definable via EEG, but the definition is pretty much equivalent to 1) human being, 2) alive, 3) brain activity. I would support a law using that definition, even if I think it's incomplete. Smile

So I've read that fetal scans have detected brain waves as early as 7 weeks. Would you support that as the cut-off date for abortion?

My ultimate goal would be to outlaw abortion entirely, but from a practical standpoint based on the principle of medical triage, I'll take what I can get. Wink

Said that above. EEG indications put recognisable cogniscence beginning at 29 weeks, I believe the surviveable time period (outside the mother) is around 24 weeks, so I support the current (UK) limit of that with exceptions made when the mothers' health is in danger. Bear in mind the brain waves at 7 weeks are not that of a conscious human brain; for example, the foetus has pain sensor signals but no brain capacity to receive them (this forms at 29 weeks).

Actually, to expand. An EEG scan measures electrical activity; any cell has a degree of this - you'll actually get an EEG result from hooking it up to a plant. The 7 week/40 day (which seems more commonly quoted) figure appears to originate from a number of misquotes and backed up by non-peer reviewed letters; the first of which (in an article by a Dr. Hannibal Hamlin in 1964) actually did the test (on aborted embryos from Japan) at age over 90 days (Hamlin apparently mis-quoted his source), and referred to 'irregular slow waves', etc rather than actual cognitive activity. In any case, the whole quote was referring to a plea to use the EEG to define death, not life, as it was still based on no heartbeat in the 60s.

Additionally, later studies did not detect EEg brainwaves, indicating the original study was picking up artifacts. No brainwaves (let alone congnitive brainwaves) have ever been detected in a foetus younger than 120 days. R.M. Bergstrom detected irregular EEG patterns at 12 weeks, but these were 'bursts' (highly unlike developed brain function, from) of activity with the same pattern as the leg muscles when stimulated - i.e. the brain cells were there, but were in no way connnected (this is how the brain develops in the foetus, BTW; it grows a mass of cells, and then begins letting them die off as it begins to form actual working connections - it actually loses mass as the foetus develops). Specifically, this activity was individual cell firing rather than any sort of cognitive brain activity.

The cortex doesn't actually form to the previously mentioned 29-30 week period, which is when you have 'working' brainwaves.

Okay, my last post was getting a little emotional so I'm taking a step back and centering myself again.

I think flip summarizes the issue quite well actually. It is about balance in accordance with society's morals and environment as well as the mother's situation. While the process of a developing fetus is part of the issue, it should not be the single deciding factor of whether a mother has the right to abort or not.

Considerations include: (As I see it.)
- It is the mother's own body and should she not have the right to decide what she does with it, why should it be anyone else's business. Why should anyone else interfere with someone elses life. Acting on behalf of a so called "defenceless seperate entity" (which is disputable) that is the result of someone elses actions and a part of their life, could be considered interfering, and ultimately a conflict with freedom of speech and will. Primarily because the fact of a fetus being a completely seperate entity and human deserving of rights and protections is objectional and subject to each individual's own point of view.

- Aborting a young fetus (under the assumption \ acknowledgement that studies prove that a young fetus has not yet developed brain capacity to be conscience or pain receptive ) is more so preventing a human life from occuring, it is not necessarily terminating a human that has conscience or has developed the brain capacity to feel pain and interpret it as such.

- Terminating a potential or developing human is morally disputable in the fact that it is at least partially human, it is ethically in a grey area and can seem cold or inhuman to go through such a process.

- Today's society means that there is often little or no support for mother's who choose or are forced to progress through pregnancy and give birth to a child, and said child is possibly exposed to bad experiences throughout childhood in foster homes, orphanages, etc. Though the child does have a chance for at life.

- A pregnancy due to rape and / or incest is most distressing to the mother and can often only add to the emotional scarring of said crime, and could quite possibly lead to suicide.

- A mother forced to give birth to an unwanted baby can often suffer from emotional scarring and leave the child through a distressing life.

- Outright banning of abortion clinics can often lead to 'black market' abortions, home self abortions which ultimately endanger both lives, and woman being emotionally damaged due to lack of support from family, friends, and society in general.

- Abortion is often the last and final resort. The parents have discussed and considered all options available and decided that abortion is the best decision for their situation. Parents / woman should make the right choice for themselves, not have an objectional viewpoint or belief forced onto them.


To me, the cons of why abortion should not be outlawed still far outway the reasons for banning it, my final viewpoint is based on this, with all points considered. There does need to be a balance of how it should be regulated, but ultimately I think the best solution is prevention.

I believe that society should work towards no abortion by fixing the problems that count towards why it should be allowed. The adoption and orphanage systems have heaps of room for improvement, there is still no 100% safe sex method available, the education of youth in safe sex and reproduction is still far from being taught to all teenagers (often due to similar belief's that prevent abortion). Society needs to work its way up, not cut an issue off at the head and ultimately create millions of more problems.

Saying "stop abortions now" is ignoring many other considerations and problems. A "stop abortions plan" would be a much more self serving and logical approach.

Might I finish with a continuation from what I discussed in my first consideration point. The fact that because a fetus being "a completely seperate entity and human deserving of rights and protections" is objectional and subject to each individual's own point of view, one cannot assume to impose a single viewpoint on any one individual. Thus why abortion is a choice, it should neither be compulsory or outlawed in todays society.

If humans laid eggs rather than gave live birth, their would be no such argument, eggs are a seperate entity and are self sustainable given the right environment. Humans however do not lay eggs. The mother grows the baby in herself. For this reason the embryo / fetus is not a completely seperate entity. It is part of the mother. Naturally they co-exist, only technology allows the seperation of the two. Should technology be allowed as part of the equation when deciding if it is a seperate entity capable of surviving on its own when naturally it cannot?

Interesting fact:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fetus&db=*

1. The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal.
2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo.

*It is not considered a fetus until the end of the eighth week of development from conception. (In this definition at least)

aldo wrote:You're making a wrong analogy though, by assuming not aborting can never be harmful which is wrong on both a psychological and physical basis (not to mention societal repercussions of denying reproductive choice). In the hunter analogy, unless you need deer to eat to live, you don't lose anything by holding fire. By denying abortion, aside from physical complications, you face a very real risk of post-natal depression (for example), and the risk of the mother harming herself prior to or after the birth (if we're seeing women in Nigeria trying to self-abort with a coathanger, it stands to reason this isn't something trivial to consider).

So we have two different risks that need to be weighed. But in my opinion the risk of taking a human life trumps any other risks.

I guess this is where science gives way to belief... science provides you the facts, but your moral compass provides the interpretation.

But presumably you can see how a vocal and denegrating pro-life/anti-choice group/s act to manipulate opinion though stigma. That in this type of situation it's a [ilot[/i] easier for women X to say 'I regret aborting' than women y - or W,Z, etc - to say they don't.

Oh absolutely. Inconsistency on this sort of thing is one of the major forces damaging religious credibility.

Never said she didn't. But note that the unborn child is not an integral part of her body. Inside the body, yes. Part of the body, no. Separate entity.

Then why can't it be removed and placed somewhere else?

What about in-vitro fertilization? Surrogate mother transplants?

In any case, even organs can be removed and placed in different bodies, so this doesn't hold up very well.

See above; the EEG shows that a foetus is neither conscious nor able to feel pain (in fact, make that stimuli) until 29 weeks, based upon known and proven principles of brainwave analysis and the physical brain formation. Unless you're suggesting that sentience does not require consciousness, or the ability to consciously react.

Reflexes develop earlier, though, if I'm not mistaken - because they're dependent on the spinal cord.

Anyway, while this is a definition I would support as a temporary measure, my ultimate goal would be recognition from conception, independent of consciousness or lack thereof, simply by virtue of being a living human being.

We can measure thought. We can identify brain activity. We know which parts of the brain are responsible for handling which inputs (such as a CAT scan), and how learning develops.

It's still very imprecise though. You can't tell what someone is thinking, except on a very coarse level. And self-awareness is even more imprecise than that, since although we might be able to tell that the brain is going through certain motions, we can't verify that it's aware of it.

Humans in general are prone to all sorts of moral faults, and I include myself in this. Sometimes all it takes is looking the other way.

So they're all faulty? All wrong? All somehow looking the other 'wrong' way? A mass societal blindness?

Bingo.

Grug wrote:Considerations include: (As I see it.)
...
Why should anyone else interfere with someone elses life.

As I see it, this is precisely the argument used in support of the opposite viewpoint.

could be considered interfering, and ultimately a conflict with freedom of speech and will.

Freedom of speech?

- Aborting a young fetus (under the assumption \ acknowledgement that studies prove that a young fetus has not yet developed brain capacity to be conscience or pain receptive ) is more so preventing a human life from occuring, it is not necessarily terminating a human that has conscience or has developed the brain capacity to feel pain and interpret it as such.

Yeah, but I would say that they deserve not to be aborted simply by virtue of the fact that they're human. Regardless of whether they're conscious yet.

- Terminating a potential or developing human is morally disputable in the fact that it is at least partially human, it is ethically in a grey area and can seem cold or inhuman to go through such a process.

Agreed, and I'm glad you conceded that at least.

- Today's society means that there is often little or no support for mother's who choose or are forced to progress through pregnancy and give birth to a child, and said child is possibly exposed to bad experiences throughout childhood in foster homes, orphanages, etc. Though the child does have a chance for at life.

- A pregnancy due to rape and / or incest is most distressing to the mother and can often only add to the emotional scarring of said crime, and could quite possibly lead to suicide.

- A mother forced to give birth to an unwanted baby can often suffer from emotional scarring and leave the child through a distressing life.

- Outright banning of abortion clinics can often lead to 'black market' abortions, home self abortions which ultimately endanger both lives, and woman being emotionally damaged due to lack of support from family, friends, and society in general.

Agreed again.

- Abortion is often the last and final resort. The parents have discussed and considered all options available and decided that abortion is the best decision for their situation. Parents / woman should make the right choice for themselves, not have an objectional viewpoint or belief forced onto them.

I would dispute this, since I doubt this is what happens in practice. Abortion is comparatively easy; all it takes is a visit to an abortion clinic and perhaps some counseling afterwards. Adoption is harder; it requires paperwork, time, effort, and emotional stress associated with transferring guardianship. Raising it yourself is the hardest of all.

Basically, the option of last resort is seldom the easiest, and vice versa, so I would assume abortion isn't the last resort for a lot of people.

Saying "stop abortions now" is ignoring many other considerations and problems. A "stop abortions plan" would be a much more self serving and logical approach.

I'm not sure "self serving" is the term you meant, but I agree with the basic sentiment. Just like the immediate freedom of the slaves after the Civil War caused a lot more turmoil than the gradual compensation done in Britain.

Might I finish with a continuation from what I discussed in my first consideration point. The fact that because a fetus being "a completely seperate entity and human deserving of rights and protections" is objectional and subject to each individual's own point of view, one cannot assume to impose a single viewpoint on any one individual.

What do you mean, objectional? As in, offensive, obscene, repugnant?

If the concept of an unborn child having rights and protections is offensive to you, I really don't know what to say in response to that.

If humans laid eggs rather than gave live birth, their would be no such argument, eggs are a seperate entity and are self sustainable given the right environment. Humans however do not lay eggs.... Should technology be allowed as part of the equation when deciding if it is a seperate entity capable of surviving on its own when naturally it cannot?

What is an egg (in the laying sense)? It's not the same thing as an ovum, since it contains an outer shell and food in addition to the developing chick. It's just a womb that exists outside the mother hen and is powered by heat. So you'd need the same sort of technology to transfer a chick from an egg to an artificial environment as you'd need to transfer an embryo from a womb to an artificial environment.

Now I think that's possible, or will be in the future with the proper technology. But you can launch humans into space with the right technology too. Viability inside vs. outside the womb, or on Earth vs. in outer space, is independent of a human's rights.

So we have two different risks that need to be weighed. But in my opinion the risk of taking a human life trumps any other risks.

I guess this is where science gives way to belief... science provides you the facts, but your moral compass provides the interpretation.

To me the right to have bodily control for the mother trumps all other issues until the foetus reaches the state of viable self-awareness and hence 'personhood'. but you know that

What about in-vitro fertilization? Surrogate mother transplants?

Do these take place with anything beyond a single fertilized egg (single cell)?

Or are you saying a single fertilized egg is a person? In which case, is IVF then wrong as it has less than 100% success rate, resulting in the loss of fertilized eggs?

In any case, even organs can be removed and placed in different bodies, so this doesn't hold up very well. Razz.

And we don't class organs as living entities with rights, etc, so what exactly is your point?

Reflexes develop earlier, though, if I'm not mistaken - because they're dependent on the spinal cord.

Reflex actions are not cognitive thoughts, though, so I don't see what bearing it has. If you were to prick a brain dead persons arm, platelets would still go to work sealing the wound, so it's not something of value in defining life (or more appropriately, personhood).

Anyway, while this is a definition I would support as a temporary measure, my ultimate goal would be recognition from conception, independent of consciousness or lack thereof, simply by virtue of being a living human being.

Well, you know I disagree with that, principally with the concept of holding the rights of what is effectively a group of cells above that of a mother with an actual individual consciousness.

It's still very imprecise though. You can't tell what someone is thinking, except on a very coarse level. And self-awareness is even more imprecise than that, since although we might be able to tell that the brain is going through certain motions, we can't verify that it's aware of it.

You don't need to know what someone is thinking, just the way in which the brain is operating. Synapses alone don't form until somewhere between (I've seen multiple different sources for this) 20-26 weeks (before that it is thus biologically impossible to have EEG brainwaves, and we have the prior mentioned random individual 'firings' seen in random muscle twitches), and brainwaves indicating conscious thought (i.e. stimuli response) don't occur until 29-30 weeks after the spinal cord 'joins' the brain.

We can know this, because we can test this using EEG and both developing (the brain continues to develop into childhood) and developed patients, and we can use biological knowledge of both the functioning of the EEG and the foetal brain development to know the results are reliable and how to interpret them.

AFAIK no definition of consciousness - or of self awareness - defines it as not requiring an ability to react to anything, to form memories, or to recieve information.

If you honestly believe EEGs are that unreliable, presumably you wouldn't use them to determine (brain?) death then?

This page - http://www.devbio.com/article.php?ch=21&id=7 - give various possible definitions of life; my reason for selecting neurological is simple due to that standards' use to define death. I don't see how we can possibly use 2 different criteria to define the beginning and end of life.

Bingo. Razz

Well, I coudl say you're blind, and as I have society (and more importantly, the medical and legal experts who wished legalisation) backing me up in this one thanks to its aforementioned legality, I would feel quite comfortable in doing so.

Some other things really regarding Grug (sorry for butting in )...

Freedom of speech? Confused

Freedom of will would be key here; although labelling people as nazis (i.e. criminals) for proposing a pro-choice viewpoint would be infringing freedom of speech.

Yeah, but I would say that they deserve not to be aborted simply by virtue of the fact that they're human. Regardless of whether they're conscious yet.

The definition of human and human person is a key contentious issue here. Are humans defined by genetic code, by biological structure, or by the capacity to 'think human'? That's fundamental IMO.

I would dispute this, since I doubt this is what happens in practice. Abortion is comparatively easy; all it takes is a visit to an abortion clinic and perhaps some counseling afterwards. Adoption is harder; it requires paperwork, time, effort, and emotional stress associated with transferring guardianship. Raising it yourself is the hardest of all.

Basically, the option of last resort is seldom the easiest, and vice versa, so I would assume abortion isn't the last resort for a lot of people.

Which I think is a reason why you are so comfortable to dismiss it; What you maybe have to address here is the seeming contradiction between citing stuff like post-abortive depression, and abortion as being the 'easy' option. Also to focus on the physical/temporal side avoids the mental side; it is a moral choice and thus not an easy one. I would note that the Abortion Act 1967 (UK) requires 2 doctors to consent on the basis of;

(1) Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith--

[(a) that the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family; or

(b) that the termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman; or

(c) that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated; or

(d) that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.]

(2) In determining whether the continuance of a pregnancy would involve such risk of injury to health as is mentioned in paragraph (a) [or (b)] of subsection (1) of this section, account may be taken of the pregnant woman's actual or reasonably foreseeable environment.

(NB: the 2 doctor consent is waived for when 'termination is immediately necessary to save the life or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman')

I'd note that to base difficulty on any temporal grounds is wrong, as the nature of abortion requires a more rapid process than, say, adoption. And that characterising the relative difficulty of abortion, adoption, etc, is rather dangerous as there will be massive differences between countries.

What do you mean, objectional? As in, offensive, obscene, repugnant?

If the concept of an unborn child having rights and protections is offensive to you, I really don't know what to say in response to that.

Objection::
# expostulation: the act of expressing earnest opposition or protest
# the speech act of objecting
# protest: the act of protesting; a public (often organized) manifestation of dissent
# (law) a procedure whereby a party to a suit says that a particular line of questioning or a particular witness or a piece of evidence or other matter is improper and should not be continued and asks the court to rule on its impropriety or illegality

I would suggest that Grugs' meaning is either that it can be objected to / protested against on fair and honest grounds.

I'd note that you're inserting words like 'repugnant' to try and create a strawman here (both by creating the assumption that what you state as fact is a fact - i.e. that a developing foetus is a full human person - and by attempting to twist this to imply that Grug objects to any protection to any form unborn children, which I'd note would include those past, say, the neural activity watershed I've been referring to), which is very nasty IMO.

I'd also re-emphasise the whole issue here is whether a pre-24 (for example) week foetus is a conscious, self-aware person.

What is an egg (in the laying sense)? It's not the same thing as an ovum, since it contains an outer shell and food in addition to the developing chick. It's just a womb that exists outside the mother hen and is powered by heat. So you'd need the same sort of technology to transfer a chick from an egg to an artificial environment as you'd need to transfer an embryo from a womb to an artificial environment.

Now I think that's possible, or will be in the future with the proper technology. But you can launch humans into space with the right technology too. Viability inside vs. outside the womb, or on Earth vs. in outer space, is independent of a human's rights.

Unless that human is the mother, then it has a major relevance in her bodily control and what options are available. Especially if the mother needs an abortion on medical grounds.

Some other things really regarding Grug (sorry for butting in Smile )...

Saves me the trouble.

@Goober

Yeah, but I would say that they deserve not to be aborted simply by virtue of the fact that they're human. Regardless of whether they're conscious yet.

"Yet." The world of "what ifs". I know what your trying to say, the loss of any partial / full human is morally conflicting. Agreed. But to give full rights to a partial / still developing human and prevent the mother's rights as an already grown up, fully developed human?

Its like some kind of warped invasion of political correctness impeding on the way people treat their own bodies. =/

To me the blatantly logical choice is preference to the mother, at least until the embryo \ fetus \ baby matures some.

I would dispute this, since I doubt this is what happens in practice. Abortion is comparatively easy; all it takes is a visit to an abortion clinic and perhaps some counseling afterwards. Adoption is harder; it requires paperwork, time, effort, and emotional stress associated with transferring guardianship. Raising it yourself is the hardest of all.

Basically, the option of last resort is seldom the easiest, and vice versa, so I would assume abortion isn't the last resort for a lot of people.

Again, further result of you never having been faced / witnessed that process take place. It's easy to say it's easy when you havn't experienced it yourself.
It may not happen all the time, but the majority of the time the emotional decision of having to consider what would happen if they had the baby, kept it, gave it up for adoption, etc or abortion, it is far from easy.

You yourself even presented cases where woman were supposedly traumatised by the process. It is not an easy thing to consider and follow through regardless of what way you go.

The original meaning I was trying to get across for that point is that abortion being the final resort indicates everything else has been at least considered. Banning abortion does not take into account the rights a woman has over her own body.

I'm not sure "self serving" is the term you meant, but I agree with the basic sentiment. Just like the immediate freedom of the slaves after the Civil War caused a lot more turmoil than the gradual compensation done in Britain.

Self serving as in promotion \ support of the ideals and final outcome the plan stands for.

What do you mean, objectional? As in, offensive, obscene, repugnant?

If the concept of an unborn child having rights and protections is offensive to you, I really don't know what to say in response to that.

Aldo pretty much answered that one for me.
I was referring to the fact that the statement "a completely seperate entity and human deserving of rights and protections" is one opinion and is not always of the same opinion of everyone.

What is an egg (in the laying sense)? It's not the same thing as an ovum, since it contains an outer shell and food in addition to the developing chick. It's just a womb that exists outside the mother hen and is powered by heat. So you'd need the same sort of technology to transfer a chick from an egg to an artificial environment as you'd need to transfer an embryo from a womb to an artificial environment.

Now I think that's possible, or will be in the future with the proper technology. But you can launch humans into space with the right technology too. Viability inside vs. outside the womb, or on Earth vs. in outer space, is independent of a human's rights.

Aldo pretty much nailed that one too.
The space stuff your started to lose me a bit.

Allow me to go off on a slight tangent here:
A lot of your analogy's seem to compare a fully developed human to the embryo or fetus in the womb. Which suggest to me you consider a freshly concieved egg or a cluster of 3 day old rapidly splitting cells an equal to a fully developed human.

Now I agree they are human. In the sense that it contains our DNA, our cells and our blood etc. Yet I hardly consider a bunch of growing cells an equal equivalent to a fully developed human no more than a bunch of dying or dead skin cells scratched off on the side of a door.

I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that your faith constitutes the reasoning behind this. You consider a fertilized egg or a 2 week old embryo the starting of life in the sense of it possessing a soul.

Now, if we all assumed souls existed and abortion was killing a soul, a human spirit. Then even I may rally behind the no abortion banners.

This is just an observation mind, and not intended to be a completely off track attack or something. I'm trying to get at the heart of why you believe abortion to be so wrong. You said yourself that it was your basic moral compass instincts that tell you abortion is wrong iirc.

The point I'm trying to get to is that if you believe the above (that abortion is killing a soul), then at heart that is your prime reasoning. Your searching of science to back the point of view that abortion is wrong, is ultimately driven by this belief. The 'killing' isn't a human body as such, its the soul that is being destroyed to you, the 'life'.
Just an observation. I'm just trying to establish what your "moral compass" is rigged to. If that makes sense.

I think at my core, seeing as I don't believe in a soul in the sense of one being evident at conception, I default straight to the mother. As here we have a fully developed human being, who has lived out her life thus far and for some unbeknownst reason has fallen [url=http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pregnant&db=*]pregnant.[/u The woman now has this tiny thing growing inside her, that consists of a tiny part of her, and a tiny part of the father. She didn't plan it, she decides she definitly cannot \ does not wish to have it. Decides on abortion. Now someone comes along, and tells her she is not allowed to harm that tiny part of her and tiny part of the father within her, that may one day become a human.
She asks why. "Because it is not your right. It's the right of [the tiny part of her and the tiny part of the father - now developing fast to grow in] to a life."

I just fail to see how a group of cells that may one day grow to become a human, gains the rights of a fully developed human person, when at that point in time it is not a person in the sense of a member of society or human being that has atleast a partially developed human brain and body. It's down right mind boggling that a future possibility / human is gaining rights to prevent the mother from terminating a possibility. Hence my above observation \ exploration into your true core belief. (Again I may be wrong.)

Ultimately because without the soul, what is the point in protecting it?
Morals / ethics ~ A part of your brain that an embryo definitly doesn't have functioning at so young an age?
I see that as selfish. It denys a woman rights to her body because someone she'll probably never meet wants to feel better about her not stopping something that may result in a child.

I think I put it best when I said:
"Its like some kind of warped invasion of political correctness impeding on the way people treat their own bodies. =/"

Albeit on the issue of souls, doesn't that mean that the souls of aborted eggs (including the effects of day-after pill and destroyed IVF cells) would go to heaven?

There's something I've wanted to interject for a while; it involves putting aside the whole question of rape/incest for the moment. I've heard a few of you reference the right of women to control what happens to their own body. I fully agree with that; in fact, I think that every woman already has that right. If you don't want to run the risk of getting pregnant, there's a simple solution: don't have sex. We all know that no form of birth control is 100% effective, besides complete abstinence, so if you're willing to have sex, you should always have that consequence in front of you. It may not be a big percentage, but it's still there. Like I said, I don't ever want to demonize women who choose to have abortions, but I always have to think about whether or not they ever considered the possible consequences of being sexually active. If a woman absolutely doesn't want to become pregnant and isn't open in the slightest to that possibility, why is she engaging in an activity that carries that potential consequence?

At least in some cases (and before you get up in arms, I said some), I see abortion as the attempt to forego personal responsibility for one's actions, an attempt to escape the consequences of what one has done. That applies equally to men who pressure women to have an abortion. Now, I'm not naive; I know that there are a hell of a lot of people out there who have sex on a daily basis who most definitely don't want to have a child. What I don't know is if even a small percentage of them has considered that ever-present possibility. In my mind, at least, if you aren't open to that remote possibility, then you shouldn't be playing the field. That's where the true "choice" lies.

Top Gun wrote:There's something I've wanted to interject for a while; it involves putting aside the whole question of rape/incest for the moment. I've heard a few of you reference the right of women to control what happens to their own body. I fully agree with that; in fact, I think that every woman already has that right. If you don't want to run the risk of getting pregnant, there's a simple solution: don't have sex. We all know that no form of birth control is 100% effective, besides complete abstinence, so if you're willing to have sex, you should always have that consequence in front of you. It may not be a big percentage, but it's still there. Like I said, I don't ever want to demonize women who choose to have abortions, but I always have to think about whether or not they ever considered the possible consequences of being sexually active. If a woman absolutely doesn't want to become pregnant and isn't open in the slightest to that possibility, why is she engaging in an activity that carries that potential consequence?

At least in some cases (and before you get up in arms, I said some), I see abortion as the attempt to forego personal responsibility for one's actions, an attempt to escape the consequences of what one has done. That applies equally to men who pressure women to have an abortion. Now, I'm not naive; I know that there are a hell of a lot of people out there who have sex on a daily basis who most definitely don't want to have a child. What I don't know is if even a small percentage of them has considered that ever-present possibility. In my mind, at least, if you aren't open to that remote possibility, then you shouldn't be playing the field. That's where the true "choice" lies.

Human psychology uses sex as a method for identifying the suitability of mating (i.e. through intentionally reproductive sex) partners. We are also wired up to enjoy it, and to persue activities we enjoy (for obvious mental health reasons that benefit survival).

EDIT; this is also likely why human females hide when they are ovulating (ready for reproduction) in comparison to other higher primates.

The problem with tagging personal responsibility in this, is that you (i.e. anti-choice/pro-life) define only one course of action as 'responsible' based on your wide-ranging belief, rather than recognising the right of individual consideration as to what is appropriate for them. Of course, UK abortion law legislates that aspect of responsibility anyways (see about 4 posts back, quoted italics)