The nonreligious conclusion I came to as the result of lasting (lifelong) regret of an abortion is that if an embryo or fetus is regarded as disposable, then you are, too. I guess it's a version of what Mother Theresa was saying. An individual either is unique and uniquely valuable or isn't. All are or none are. If your existence had happened at the wrong time (I won't use the demeaning word "inconvenient" because sometimes it's little more than that, but sometimes it's a lot worse), you could have been disposed of. Your existence is accidental and contingent.Annie has another comment, that links to an important post of hers from 2005:
(Of course if you believe human beings are nothing special, even a plague on the planet, then by all means let's declare open season on 'em and hasten their extinction. Oh, uh, "us" is "them.")
To consider abortion acceptable is to make a philosophical decision about the world without even knowing it.
It's a tricky thing to write into law. Nearly all traditions have recognized the primacy of the mother's life and circumstances (including economic) in the early stages of pregnancy. The irony is that they knew a lot less than we do about what's involved. They really did believe it was a "blob." We know better.
But they also believed pregnancy was something like an act of God. That's why sex was so severely policed. I can understand why Catholics believe that there's a connection between the casual attitude made possible by birth control and a casual attitude toward life itself.
But is that inevitable? If people choose, for a time or for all time, to use sex to "make self" -- to make their own lives and relationships richer, which I do believe is one of its lifegiving uses -- then they should use birth control religiously. One of the big pro-choice arguments is that "birth control fails." Certainly some percentage of that failure rate is due to wrong or careless use of it. The rest -- the true failures -- might be seen as successes of someone who is just hellbent on being here. And the unwitting invitation of such a person should be viewed at all times as one of the ineradicable risks of sex.
You know there are pro-life people who would make it mandatory that a woman be shown an ultrasound of her fetus before she can have an abortion.Thanks for writing all that over here, Amba.
I was once at the hospital with a woman who was beginning to miscarry, and I watched the live ultrasound. She was, I forget, maybe 8 or 10 weeks pregnant. The embryo/fetus didn't look like a baby yet, but you could see its heart beating.
I wonder if I would have been able to go through with an abortion if I'd seen that.
I'm very interested in this idea that sex has become, as you put it, a way to "make self." It reminds me of the way people used to talk about taking drugs — especially LSD — back in the 1960s. It was supposed to be a profound journey of self-actualization. I remember being surprised to see kids only a few years younger than me taking drugs just to have fun or because they had nothing else to do. When you first break from the old traditions, maybe you have to make up a big, weighty story about how you are proceeding onto some higher ground. I'm sure you can use sex for profound self-actualization. In fact, you can still use drugs that way if you set your mind to it. But how many people do?
Posts
260 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 260 of 260I'm wondering how many commenters have read Amba's essays on this topic--all three of them.
LOL. Posting at 8.01 about going off to save some lives and then again at 8:37. That was fast. How many lives did you save? Was it hard changing into your super hero outfit at the same time?
Off to keep the engine of capitalism humming, short some stocks, sell some calls and buy some puts. After this next cup of coffee of course. Wooosh!!!
"try to have a sense of humor, if that's not too much to ask"
From The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis, Letter XI (emphasis mine):
"The real use of Jokes or Humour is in quite a different direction, and it is specially promising among the English who take their "sense of humour" so seriously that a deficiency in this sense is almost the only deficiency at which they feel shame. Humour is for them the all-consoling and (mark this) the all-excusing, grace of life. Hence it is invaluable as a means of destroying shame. If a man simply lets others pay for him, he is "mean"; if he boasts of it in a jocular manner and twits his fellows with having been scored off, he is no longer "mean" but a comical fellow. Mere cowardice is shameful; cowardice boasted of with humorous exaggerations and grotesque gestures can passed off as funny. Cruelty is shameful—unless the cruel man can represent it as a practical joke. A thousand bawdy, or even blasphemous, jokes do not help towards a man's damnation so much as his discovery that almost anything he wants to do can be done, not only without the disapproval but with the admiration of his fellows, if only it can get itself treated as a Joke. And this temptation can be almost entirely hidden from your patient by that English seriousness about Humour. Any suggestion that there might be too much of it can be represented to him as "Puritanical" or as betraying a "lack of humour".
But flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practise it."
How does the blog attract such people as cyrus and montana--geez. the issue is this Montana: you do not like the definitions that some bring to the table; eg, life starts at conception. What you fail to recognize or take cognizance of, is the yes, these statements are biologically inaccurate. But, my learned friend, they are not statements of science at all; they are value statements. They are statements of "ought." As such they cannot be right or wrong in a scientific sense.
In all you presumed education did no one teach you the difference between a fact and a a value? Apparently not. Now go publish your research in some biology journal, provide your CV to the group or on your profile so we can evaluate your assereted credentials, and let the adults debate philosophy. I suspect however, your credentials will not see the light of day.
Boy, I am sorry I came back for a cameo appearance. See ya.
I'm glad you perceive me to be a superhero, DBQ. Not every job has requirements that can be broken up into the intervals neatly set aside in a 9 to 5 job. Such are the contingencies of natural events.
(1)Pogo is a god.
(2)MUL is likely an abortionist.
The great thing about value-statements is that you do not get to assert the superiority of your values over anyone else's, Roger. Appealing to facts is the only way to get around a value versus value debate and make it a discussion that can be, uh valuable to anyone who isn't stuck (or who doesn't care to remain stuck) inside their own preconceived notions.
My credentials and publications provide me or anyone with the assereted (sic) credentials to evaluate them with some pride or admiration. But that's not the point. The point is that by refusing to address what I stated, you already admit that you lack the credentials to do even that.
Debate philosophy all you want, but don't pretend that doing so as a way to avoid or ignore factual considerations is an adult thing to do. None of the adults you look up to in the thread is approving of that approach.
I'm pretty much pro-choice for what individuals want to do with non-sentient tissues in their bodies (at least until someone presents me with a good reason for why I shouldn't be), Bissage, but I'm not even a "likely" abortionist, let alone an "abortionist".
Like "Darwinist", or "evolutionist", ascribing "-ism" or the accompanying particle "-ist" to terms that have nothing to do with ideology, may be in vogue among people who substitute values for thought. But that doesn't make doing so a legitimate approach to things.
Montana: You might consider going back and reading your own first couple or so comments.
Montana: then rather than assert your credentials, as if you had some, post them. You will note that mine are transparent if you chose to look at my profile.
You miss the point entirely: Value statements--questions of ought--are, perhaps regretably in your calculus, independent of scientific fact. Thats why they are value question.
You have the stench of Cyrus about you. Not a good thing.
Revenant said: I cited the presence of a human-quality mind, not the presence of brain function and ability. The brain of an infant human performs incredible feats of learning without any known parallel in the rest of the world -- but it starts off without comprehension, reasoning, a sense of self as distinct from others, a concept of time, proprioception, self-control, or any of the other things that comprise the human mind.
You're missing my point. Our brains are not fully developed until we're in our early 20s; the changes that take place in teenagers' brains are as profound as those taking place in newborns. Does their incomplete brain development make them eligible for termination, since their minds aren't "fully" human? The brain you have now is a product of everything that has ever happened to you since conception.
Sense of self doesn't develop at birth, it comes much later. True conscious awareness, with memory, may begin when you're two or three years old, but inner speech and reasoning ability don't develop until you're about 6 years old or even later. Did your brain become fully human when you could consciously think and reason? We can think before we know we're thinking, but does the ability to think equal consciousness? That doesn't sound to me like what you're arguing; all kinds of animals can think, but they're not sentient. You're echoing Singer, who says it's OK to kill neonates because they're not really human yet.
Moving on to other commenters' points: Do we have to consider cancer "life"? I'm sure you know that if you allow cancer to grow and thrive, it ends up killing its host organism, and under no conditions will it ever become sentient in and of itself. That's got to be one of the most repulsive straw men I've ever seen. Similarly there is no need to mourn unfertilized eggs lost through menstruation, although I know women who were very sad that they didn't conceive. There are enough issues of substance to discuss here without muddying the waters with these distractions.
I got the point, Roger. It's not regrettable to me that value statements exist, or that they are different things from statements of fact. But the idea that they should occupy some exalted stratum of being untouchable and impermeable to fact is what I object to. And for the record, I also object to the stench of such an assertion.
I prefer pseudonymity, Roger. I'd have no problem posting credentials and other identifiers, but too many people have enough trouble with an impersonal, factually-guided discussion, as is. I can tolerate being flamed for what I say. But the "values over facts" mindset obviates my interest in participating in a forum where people are just given ammunition to flame me for how it suits them to make a caricature who I really am. That would allow for too easy of a mental crutch.
Joan, what I said was no straw man. It's a logical conclusion from your appeal to the "growth and development" meme. But what you said was a poor example in the first place. The tissues of old (and comatose) people continue to grow and develop. Those processes are dynamic ones that occur throughout life.
In all likelihood lifespans are limited is so that individuals will make sense of the impulse to reproduce in the first place. The act of reproduction and childbirth isn't intended to kill those engaging in it. It just makes them biologically irrelevant to their offspring down the road.
I, too, can make this metaphysical.
And I pray to George Carlin to help some commenters understand how that can be.
It just makes them biologically irrelevant to their offspring down the road.
Hardly. The biological act of creating their offspring is very relevant. Had they not contributed their genes to the next generation, the young would not exist and the quality, makeup and heritage of those genes is very very relevant to how the offspring down the road will live. Just ask Arlo Guthrie.
I'll ask Arlo Guthrie if he understands the meaning of the phrase "down the road", meaning "in the future". Once an organism or autonomous piece of tissue in question exists, it has inherited the genes it will ever inherit, and the existence of a parent carrying some of the same genes it already has is meaningless to its own genetic existence. But all this is basic biology. It's not about ancestor worship or genealogy.
In other developments, I approve of Joan's interest in re-focusing on sentience. It's a hallmark of personhood.
Of course, there is nothing illegitimate about grieving the loss of a pregnancy - potential or otherwise. There are also good biological reasons for such phenomena. I don't disparage it. And I don't mean to offend anyone with comments that address the implications for personhood that arise from those phenomena; I am merely responding to the opposite perceptions that arise in reference to those same implications.
the idea that they should occupy some exalted stratum of being untouchable and impermeable to fact is what I object to
No one suggests values are unrelated to facts, only that values cannot be derived from facts.
The idea about "growth and development" applies to cancers only in the most narrow definition, one that does not meet any minimum for discussion about what is human?, and serves merely as an unnecessary monkeywrench to throw off the discussion.
In all likelihood lifespans are limited is so that...
Says you.
On what is this based? Certainly not derived from any set of facts, even though it purports to be so.
That statement is a value judgement. Mere facts cannot lead to demand it be accepted as true. That's why we argue about metaphysics.
My knowledge about such issues pales before others', but I know this much: you are switching between is and ought without a rudder.
Amba said "if an embryo or fetus is regarded as disposable, then you are, too."
I think this is quite true.
But I cannot prove it.
You cannot prove it without addressing personhood, Pogo, which is the relevant criterion that is being avoided.
What I stated was in no way a value judgment. I personally am completely in favor of people living forever, if one could find a way to do so within space constraints. But the facts that inform what I stated are obvious. The lifespans of organisms that reproduce sexually are finite. Sexual reproduction contributes to the diversity that drives evolution. But the enzyme that allows for immortality (telomerase) does exist in our bodies - and only in the germ cells. I find that highly intriguing, and in a completely metaphysical sense. I do not rejoice at the fact that our bodies seem to be destined to decay - except for the parts designed for reproduction. I think that's actually quite sad, and even shallow on some level.
Growth and development is an extremely narrow input into definitions. It is also one that Joan chose, not me. I responded to that narrow ingredient in her definition. I didn't make it any narrower than it already was.
Using facts to inform values is what I approve of and what I do. I am not saying that values can be wholly derived from facts alone. There is a big difference.
Ahh Montana: so it looks like that most of the commenters are agreeing on the issue of facts and values--and if I may be so bold, that most of the commenters would prefer that to the extent possible, value statements have more validity if rooted in facts. But, they do remain two distinct constructs.
But the issue of personhood it seems to me to be impervious to a discussion of facts--Personhood is a derivative and ultimately value laden construct. We can reason back from what we would probably agree upon as a sentient person to the preceeding sex cells. If you reject the argument of reduction, then you can reject the construct--but it seems to me thats a stretch.
Personhood is, like the existence of a God/Goddess one of the most fundamental constructs we deal with; yet, it one about which facts only loosely inform us. As such arguments which are fact based are useful as far as they go; but they fail at the fundamental levels at which policy in created.
On a different note: you may not be Amanda/Cyrus--but I need to tell you that you employ all the rhetorical principles, the insistency on anonymnity and assertions of self importance that lead me, at least, to believe that you are one and the same poster. Other members of the commentariat can reach their own conclusions.
I agree that personhood is the relevant criterion. But mere biological facts will not help determine that definition anymore than would the arrangement of tea leaves in a cup or stars in the sky.
So religions define it one way or another. Atheism has little useful to offer here, in my view, relying unwittingly on Enlightenment ideas borne from religion or bowing to simple utilitarianism or Randian solipsism.
My religion defines personhood existing even before sentience, before formation of the heart and guts, and coincident with the spark of life, when He knew my name.
I agree that, to live among each other, we must come to some sort of useful compromise, and would accept abortion decisions left to the people involved until the end of the first trimester. After that, we veer too close to killing babies by any pregnant mother's definition.
As rhhardin stated earlier, even at this point, women call it my baby. One has to forcibly rename it fetus to make oneself comfoprtable with abortion.
Point of clarification and full disclosure: I honestly had/have no idea who Amanda and Cyrus are. I thought the former was Theo Boehm's way of mutilating the word "Montana". ;-)
I loosely agree with where you are going in your final two paragraphs, Pogo. I also agree that personhood is the (or at least, personhood is a) relevent criterion. And I state that in acceptance of your caveat regarding the difficulties involved in defining personhood.
I like to lean toward sentience, even though perhaps that gets us away from personhood as possibly the ideal criterion for the purposes of this discussion.
I can respect where religious appeals are coming from, too - even though constructing straightforward interpretations of religious texts in such a way as to make them applicable to modern life is not always an easy task. I take it that you may perhaps come from a religious tradition that pronounces interpretations on such matters in a centralized fashion and with the implication of unquestionable authority; mine definitely does not do that but rather respects the re-enactment of various historical schools of religious thought within its tradition when it comes to legal interpretations of the source text - almost always siding with the interpretation that is deemed most humane and compatible with the ways that modernity has made obvious and available to mankind things that weren't obvious and available to mankind then - during the purported period of authorship of the divine text used.
Montana, the issues I was discussing were first brought up by Revenant.
I know, Joan. It is true that there have been others (including yourself and revenant) who were not instinctively hostile to biological considerations.
"research shows that brain development is a continuum that begins shortly after conception and continues throughout life, blasting many existing preconceptions about brain function and development out of the water."
HOORAY!!! (a cheer erupts as bongs are gleefully loaded across the land...)
Montana, let yourself go.
http://www.discogs.com/release/122271
There is no such thing as a brain that can develop prior to the establishment of neural tissue, DJ VVV. This happens perhaps 4 to 6 weeks after conception (which may correspond to "shortly after conception"), so it's impossible to know what you may or may not have been serious about (especially lacking a citation) - other than your apparent interest in bongs.
Conversely, I feel that my sense of self is being regarded as disposable when I am not permitted to make decisions about what happens inside my organs. In my very own organs!! Hell, the placenta is an organ made completely from scratch for pregnancy. I can respect the view that an adult woman is just the same as a fetus whose entire body has been formed by the food she ate and the energy her body spends pumping nutrients through her blood to keep it growing, sustained by a temporary organ that her body created, but I can't logically make sense of it.
montana urban legend wrote:
"If growth and development (of sorts) were criteria for human life at the cellular level then we mustn't forget the growth and development of cancer."
Cancer? Well, if cancerous growths posed no threat to the life of the host, and could reasonably be expected to develop into a happy bouncing baby boy or girl, you might have a point.
As it is, though, you're a poster child for a policy that make death penalty victims out of the insufferably obtuse.
You're missing my point.
Well, no; you're missing mine.
Our brains are not fully developed until we're in our early 20s
I'm talking about when our mental development passes a certain critical threshold. It does not matter if either our brains or our minds continue to develop for 20 years after birth or 120 years after birth. What matters is when they reach a stage of being developed enough to merit the right to life that we extend to human beings.
Sense of self doesn't develop at birth, it comes much later.
Yes, I know. I said in my original post that I favor drawing the line at birth because while we don't know exactly when we develop that, we know it isn't until after birth. A parallel would be the "do not exceed X pills in 24 hours" warnings on pill bottles, where "X" is always a value WELL less than the amount needed to harm the person taking them, just to err on the side of caution.
You're echoing Singer, who says it's OK to kill neonates because they're not really human yet.
The problem I have with Singer's argument is that it is entirely hypothetical; it requires the ability to distinguish between an infant that has crossed the threshold into human sentience and one which has not, and we don't have that ability.
As for your objections to tying rights to mental development, I don't think you've realized that you and basically everyone else recognizes that doing so is acceptable. Keeping a twenty year old locked in a house against his will is a federal crime; keeping a two year old locked in a house against his will is good parenting.
A thought experiment: suppose a tumor caused doctors to have to remove large sections of your brain, rendering you permanently the mental equivalent of a child one hour old. Unable to recognize anyone, understand speech, or comprehend what was going on around you; capable only of screaming when hungry or soiled, and entirely at the mercy of others. Would you mind if they pulled the plug? Would you refrain from pulling the plug on a similarly-afflicted loved one? For me the answer is an easy "no" for both questions; indeed, I hope that in that situation they do pull the plug on me.
I suppose you might say that a baby is different because a baby's mind develops. But that's an argument about potential, not about current state. We do not generally grant rights based on what something might one day become.
So religions define it one way or another. Atheism has little useful to offer here, in my view
That's like saying that golf has very little useful to offer here. Atheism is the non-belief in gods; it has no moral, ethical, physical, or metaphysical beliefs other than that, so of course it won't tell you what a person is.
relying unwittingly on Enlightenment ideas borne from religion
By that logic Christianity has nothing to offer because its ideas were borne from Judaism. Similarly, American democracy can have nothing to offer because it traces its roots back to European feudalism.
Every idea in history was derived from the ideas of other people who thought differently; that's how human understanding evolves. Obviously all secular ideas can be traced back to theistic ones, since gods were once used to explain absolutely every aspect of life. You could say "secular philosophy is just a lesser derivative of theistic philosophy", but it could just as easily be said that secular philosophy is theistic philosophy stripped of those axioms which were either incorrect or irrelevant.
or bowing to simple utilitarianism or Randian solipsism.
Solipsism is the belief that nothing but me exists. The belief that nobody's rights are more or less important than my own is called "individualism". Also, how is a utilitarian moral framework not "useful"? You might disagree with it, but plenty of people disagree with your moral framework as well.
As rhhardin stated earlier, even at this point, women call it my baby. One has to forcibly rename it fetus to make oneself comfoprtable with abortion.
Women who are planning to have the child call it "my baby", for the same reason a person having a home built will talk about "my house" even though no actual house exists yet and for the same reason a director will refer to a picture that hasn't even started filming yet as "my movie". Women who are planning to have an abortion to not, to my knowledge, generally talk about "my baby". You can claim that they call it a "fetus" so that they can feel better about killing it, but it is equally likely that they feel ok about killing it because they think of it as a fetus. Not a person, but an unwanted tumor.
Revenant, you're weaving and bobbing more than usual. You say that consciousness is still your benchmark, but then you set the bar at birth, knowing full well that self-awareness takes some weeks or months to develop. Singer's ideas are not hypothetical, he's saying that there are no self-aware neonates, and therefore how the parents choose to dispose of them is none of our business. But you're saying you disagree with that, because you're drawing an arbitrary line at birth even though you know that there are no self-aware neonates.
And your thought experiment is bizarre. What surgeon would ever perform such a surgery? What rational person would ever consent to such a surgery? Such a tumor would, in reality, be classified as "inoperable." It's a non-starter.
We do not generally grant rights based on what something might one day become.
Of course we do. Comatose patients must have rights based on the idea that they'll regain consciousness someday, otherwise no one would ever have to agonize about pulling the plug.
Jason,
Re-read the thread. I humbly invite you to do that.
"Cancer? Well, if cancerous growths posed no threat to the life of the host, and could reasonably be expected to develop into a happy bouncing baby boy or girl, you might have a point."
The fact that you use the phrase "no threat to the life of the host" in reference to pregnancy, shows that you know nothing about pregnancy. Surely you can't be so obtuse as to assert something like that.
"Comatose patients must have rights based on the idea that they'll regain consciousness someday, otherwise no one would ever have to agonize about pulling the plug."
Joan, the rights of comatose patients are defined (or expressed, or exercised) by whomever they have issued durable power of attorney. This is about as analogous to the autonomy held by a pregnant woman or couple over the disposition of a fetus as it gets. The differences are there, namely that a comatose individual could have spelled out their wishes beforehand. But by and large, the rights that a comatose patient are not that much greater than a fetus in this regard. The latitude exercised by whomever they have given the decision on whether or not to retain life support is immense - great enough to parallel the example in question. Surely you must recognize that.
MUL, you realize that not every comatose patient has appointed someone power of attorney, right? There are comas and there are comas, and I'd guess that the vast majority of people in comas do not have someone they have appointed PoA. So what happens then? I'm not positive but I'm thinking the hospital doesn't just yank them off life support.
Montana,
You are smart person but you are not a wise one. Your scientific approach is rigid and very narrowly applied.
How one approaches the question of when life begins, depends on one's value and belief system. We all know the data points of a person's existence, starting with conception (there was nothing before) and ending in death (there is nothing after, at least in a non-theological sense). The problem is how one defines "human life." That definition drives the selection of the relevant data points, not the other way around. In other words, science can show and describe each data point but is powerless to go beyond that; it cannot factually say that "human life" starts here (say viability), it can only say that viability normally occurs at this time and is characterized by x, y, and z.
So, some folks believe that human life starts at conception--and, this would be right for all those folks who believe that the variations at each stage of existence do not matter as much as the reality of the existence itself. To me this is a logical position for a host of reasons, including the fact that it does not permit the intrusion of personal values, philosophy, religion, and personal whims and preferences.
Other folks, believe that human life is defined, among other things, by cognitive ability; brain activity; ability to feel pain and/or pleasure; having a certain "quality of life"; racial background; and even the wishes of the mother. Each of these positions are determined by value systems, ideologies, religious beliefs, and ultimately personal preferences. Not science (unless it is one's religion of course).
Respectfully,
Carl,
I respect your tone and your argument.
I also want to clarify that I am not insensitive to amba's feelings. I can see now how my comments may have initially come across that way, and for that I apologize. Grieving a pregnancy is an incredibly legitimate thing to do. There are biological factors at play, but I'll get away from the science for a moment. It's a human reaction that requires our respectful consideration - and in a sense that resonates with me deeply. Period.
Now, to address what you've said, (since in my background, it would be disrespectful not to offer the courtesy of replying to your points), you are absolutely right that these concepts are bound up by other considerations and traditions - some of which we have reason to respect, and some that, I believe, we should be encouraged to question. All societies change. And that's not an argument that societies should change for the sake of change alone (they shouldn't) but an acknowledgment of a basic fact.
In any event, I understand your argument (at least, I think I do, because in the past I had related to it) about when "life", in the abstract sense, begins. Someone earlier tried to correct me on this and asserted that the term "life" is shorthand for the specific life of that being or entity. And i addressed that. But I am glad you get back to a generalized frame of reference for "life" because I identify with that approach as well.
In your penultimate paragraph, you exhort me (or us?) to consider a logical position for a variety of reasons, but namely, because "it does not permit the intrusion of personal values, philosophy, religion and personal whims or preferences". At first I wondered if this was a typo, because I absolutely agree with it. And that is why I take the position I do.
My position is that it can only be due to those prejudicial influences that one would define "life" in the sense of a human life, at conception. My position is, that after years of studying molecular biology and doctoral and postgraduate training, we are being imprecise with our terms, and that imprecision corrupts our conceptual framework. And I say this with the utmost concern for a humane approach in mind.
Although many people consider science to be abstract and esoteric, it can also be clarifying, and clarification is what I think we all agree that this discussion requires. And clarification, to me, means that we are honest about what exactly occurs at conception. At the moment of conception, on a biological level (because life is biology, and none of these arguments can occur absent considerations of life and what it is, as you rightly recognize), what happens is that a biological identity is formed. Nothing more. That biological identity has "potential", it will grow and divide, what have you. But it is unclear to say that "life" in the abstract sense, started then as the gametes that produced it were also, in fact, alive. And it is not a "human life" in any sense that we would understand. The phrase "human life" has a meaning, and to divorce that meaning with all the experiences we associate with being human is also disingenuous. Experiences are at the basest level made up of things we can sense and we cannot sense anything when we lack the biological apparatuses to do so.
So that is my argument. It benefits us all to be honest about the meaning of a particular "biological identity" (and this concept will gain increasing importance and currency as we continue to advance through this age of biology), and to continue to explore the concept of a "biological identity". But to do so, we must distinguish that concept from "human life" in the abstract, as well as from any particular human life. For the sake of logic (and I'll entertain notions that it was for expediency) I use extraordinarily generous neurological considerations in defining the latter. But I would be incredibly intellectually dishonest to say that I can endorse a viewpoint on pregnancy, miscarriage and abortion that blindly merges those latter two concepts with one that is incredibly meaningful, if underused, underappreciated and not yet well understood (even if one day soon it certainly will be) - that of mere "biological identity".
Hope that helps.
Regards,
Revenant, you're weaving and bobbing more than usual. You say that consciousness is still your benchmark, but then you set the bar at birth,
Sigh.
Joan, I think the bar should be set at birth because I think "accidentally killing beings with human minds" is obviously worse than "refraining from killing beings you could legitimately have killed". It is better for an unwanted human being to survive long enough to develop though than it is for a thinking human being to be murdered. I would hope that wasn't a controversial thing to say.
I've explained this to you twice in plain language, and despite your bitchy little "weaving more than usual" remark I'll try again: while I know that our brains make the transition from "not really human" to "human" sometime *after* birth, neither you nor I nor anyone else can put a hard date on when exactly that happens. That means we must either (a) accept the idea of destroying human beings with human minds occasionally or (b) draw the line at a point where we can be certain NO such minds will be destroyed. That is why I draw the line at birth. It is simple caution.
Singer's ideas are not hypothetical, he's saying that there are no self-aware neonates, and therefore how the parents choose to dispose of them is none of our business
You're conflating his axioms with the reasoning that follows from them. The reasoning that the parents of non-self-aware children can dispose of them is based on the axiom that those children are not yet self-aware. The reason his argument is hypothetical is that we have no way of knowing if, for example, a three-month-old is self-aware, so we can't know if the axiom is valid for a three-month-old. If we had some mind-reading machine that we could feed a baby through and confirm that, yes, "the lights are on but nobody's home yet", then Singer's moral argument would rest on a solid foundation.
What surgeon would ever perform such a surgery?
Joan, a thought experiment asks you to imagine your reactions if a certain scenario -- however unlikely -- came to pass. Saying "that would never happen" is asinine. But if I'm asking too much of your imagination, fine; replace "surgery" with "massive head trauma". Then answer the question.
"We do not generally grant rights based on what something might one day become."
Of course we do. Comatose patients must have rights based on the idea that they'll regain consciousness someday, otherwise no one would ever have to agonize about pulling the plug.
Coma patients aren't being granted new rights; they're being allowed to retain rights they previously had. The reason is that we know they at least *used* to be people, so even though their present and future "personhood" is in question it is best to err on the side of caution.
Joan,
At that point it gets dicey and prone to regulation from the state (obviously), but we tend to follow the cultural norm of assuming whatever measures could be applied. So having power of attorney (as well as a living will) tends to work in the negative sense of specifying no extraordinary procedures or to not resuscitate. That's not my judgment, but where the society tends to come down in the absence of advanced directives, which I don't have a problem with ethically.
So, in essence the state becomes the incubating entity and assumes the "pregnancy", carrying on the with the assistance of life-supporting functions for the individual in question. But again, just because we tend to default one way when your decisions are made on your behalf by the state doesn't mean that a loved one, who knows you better, is making a wrong decision for going against what would be the state's default mode, which only occurs if your loved one had no one else to speak for him or her.
I will be completely honest and admit that the influence of loved ones creates a powerful incentive on healthcare providers in terms of how personally and emotionally invested they feel in carrying out the advanced directives (especially when it comes to extraordinary measures with poor medical prospects) of a neurologically dead or dying person. When those things are absent, it's harder. This is not to say that family members don't sometimes desire extraordinary measures that are entirely unrealistic given the prospects of a patient, and that those scenarios don't create a sense of antagonism toward the family's inability to cope with reality, but I am veering off from the topic in question and into the more easily charted but equally edifying waters of related issues when it comes to end-of-life considerations.
At the risk of pissing you off, Montana, the responses you just gave are the reason I posted on this thread at all. (Just two, prior to this one, one more generic, but you were among the people of whom I was thinking, and the other specifically directed to you.)
I'm not saying those have anything to do with your latest posts. But those are more in line with what I've thought for a long time you could do, if you wanted to.
***
[Um, I'm aware I don't do those types of extended, thoughtful, position-post comments, anymore either. It surely is both fair and reasonable to put my comment now in that context, and raise an eyebrow or look askance or whatever, or not, thereof.
Still, I wanted to express my reaction you latest posts and how you approached them--quite apart from any disagreement or agreement on my part.
I myself don't "do" online abortion discussions, with the rarest of exceptions, so FWIW, I do admire everyone who has seriously contributed to the discussion on this thread.]
Montana,
Thank you for your considered reply.
You said "At the moment of conception, on a biological level (because life is biology, and none of these arguments can occur absent considerations of life and what it is, as you rightly recognize), what happens is that a biological identity is formed. Nothing more. That biological identity has "potential", it will grow and divide, what have you. But it is unclear to say that "life" in the abstract sense, started then as the gametes that produced it were also, in fact, alive."
I can only agree with you on the science. However, I think that the biological entity formed at conception is that of a human being, indeed that of a unique human. To say that it is only potentially human is not terribly meaningful, is it not, as nobody proposes that this entity can be anything else.
You continued to say "And it is not a "human life" in any sense that we would understand. The phrase "human life" has a meaning, and to divorce that meaning with all the experiences we associate with being human is also disingenuous."
I believe you have just illustrated my point and you may well be right--except in one sense. Once you go beyond the fact of human life to what it means to be human, you necessarily introduce opinions, values, etc.
I am afraid that the most value-neutral position (almost perversely in this day and age) is that human life begins at conception.
Please keep in mind that I do not mean to devalue your stance. We must decide this issue in the political arena, using the avenues made available to us under the federal and respective state constitutions. And, as with all such deliberations, we would expect values, religious beliefs, self-interest, ideologies, politics, etc. to play as big a part as science.
Again, thank you for your response. I take back my assertion that you are smart but not wise. I should have said that you are a very smart person who is striving for wisdom. :-)
I don't "do" them because, right when Roe vs. Wade was originally "in the news," I was in middle school, a pretty "cutting-edge" one, and so got assigned to debate it in the thick of things. The assigned debate opponent was a friend (we were also assigned sides, by the way). After the debate day, we were friends no longer (not much choice). That was writing on the wall, as I came to pretty quickly realize, and though I certainly discussed it thereafter, I pretty much gave up, for the most part, heated group debates at some point in the '80s. Don't really remember, exactly, anymore.
Not much choice, meaning, it wasn't MY choice.
Thank you, reader_iam and carl, for your kind words.
Rev: I meant what I said about engaging online group debates. But that insistence on the "at birth" cut off ...
Do you mean, to be specific, 40 weeks? (Nine months, of course, is somewhat a misnomer.) Because ... well, I'm certain you can tell where one could go with that.
Your position is precisely my father's, so I've heard it, from that source alone, countless times over the last 35 years.
Interestingly, he's never one to talk about the fact that I was born something like 7 weeks early (very early, in 1961) and his oldest grandchild, my niece, was born at 28 weeks, a few weeks after her mother's water broke. (At the time, that was a revelation to me! I thought that if that happened, it was all over! But it wasn't, and she's a perfectly normal, even high achieving, 11-year-old).
Me, I'm 47.
Anecdote is not fact. It's not even statistic, or probability. I grant all of that, and I absolutely take it into consideration.
But still.
When I say "all over," I meant that I thought my niece's time in utero was over, and that in any case, big time troubles. But in fact, she was delivered quite a later, relatively speaking. Medical technology is a remarkable thing, along with other things.
Revenant, sigh at me all you want, but this is by far the weakest argument I have ever heard you make. You routinely shred me in every exchange we have, and I thoroughly enjoy reading you and learning from your replies. I would love to debate you in a conversation because this format is so unwieldy. Here, I understand what you're saying, and I understand that you think you're being consistent and logical, but you're refusing to see that you are not. You set the bar at birth to err on the side of caution, to be "on the safe side." But you're not on the safe side of anything, and you're refusing to acknowledge it. Reader's point is well taken; does it matter to you when birth occurs? I know happy children who were born at 25, 28, and 32 weeks gestation. What happens when medical tech advances to the point where we have artificial wombs?
Your rejection of Singer's ideas fails, also; we can't set a definitive age at which every child has achieved self-awareness, but we could easily test any particular child to determine whether or not he was self-aware. Have you ever tried to play peek-a-boo with a newborn? Doesn't work, but it will in a few months. Why you think we need a mind-reading machine to determine what's going on is odd; earlier in this thread you were telling me that you were aware of the new research made possible by the technological and medical advancements in recent years. We can see what's happening in terms of brain density and synaptic growth; we can observe how the infant responds to various stimuli, and those responses can tell us how aware the child is, both of his environment, and of himself. I'm sure you know it takes a while for babies to realize that they can affect the world around them physically, but ask any mother, and she'll tell you it's pretty obvious when they do.
Forgive me for criticizing the setting of your original thought experiment, which was beyond my imagining. All you really needed to ask was how I would treat a loved one with advanced Alzheimer's, no need to posit a bizarre brain surgery scenario. Would I pull the plug on a completely incapacitated loved one, left in the state you originally described? No, for many, many reasons, which I can summarize as faith, love, and hope.
Who the H*ll is Amanda?
Where's that scorecard?
Randy: The "Amanda" being referred to is Amanda Marcotte. And, no, I do not think Montana is she.
Randy: 'Amanda' is Amanda Marcotte, the American feminist author, alleged plagiarist, and pain in the ass. I know she is a pain in the ass, because I've had a nasty contretemps with her sock puppet, 'Cyrus Pinkerton.' I didn't realise it at the time. I thought 'Cyrus' was a particularly obnoxious guy. I later found to my satisfaction that 'Cyrus' = Amanda.
Theo and others think montana=Cyrus=Amanda, but, like reader, I'm now not at all sure. As Pogo, Roger J. and others have pointed out, the initial style of montana bears a close resemblence to 'Cyrus.' As the discussion evolved, however, it became clear to me, as someone hard bitten by 'Cyrus,' that there were some essential differences. I understand how Theo, Pogo, et al. may have thought the way they did, but I am now certain they are wrong.
Because the waters have been thoroughly muddied by 'Cyrus,' Theo went on a mocking spree when montana first appeared, picked up in the morning in a more straightforward way by Pogo. This is an example of why trolls should not be allowed. They put everyone on edge, and other commenters may suffer for the trolls' sins.
Do you mean, to be specific, 40 weeks? (Nine months, of course, is somewhat a misnomer.) Because ... well, I'm certain you can tell where one could go with that.
I mean "at birth", as in "when the baby leaves its mother's body for good". Unlike sentience, that's something we can immediately detect. :)
But you're not on the safe side of anything, and you're refusing to acknowledge it.
The only way I'm not erring on the safe side is if there is a noteworthy chance of a sentient human mind existing inside a newborn. I assume you believe this is possible, since otherwise I don't see what your basis is for saying that I'm not erring on the side of caution.
Let me ask you this -- if there is in fact a sentient human mind inside of a newborn's skull, why do no humans ever remember the period after birth? Why do newborns not respond to any but the most primitive stimuli? Why, in other words, is there no sign of this alleged mind's presence until months later? What is your basis for believing this mind might exist when everything we know about the world says it doesn't yet?
does it matter to you when birth occurs?
No. I don't understand why you would think it might.
we can't set a definitive age at which every child has achieved self-awareness, but we could easily test any particular child to determine whether or not he was self-aware.
There are three obvious problems with that. The first is that our tests for self-awareness are nowhere close to perfect, which means that we might fail to detect that a baby is self-aware. That puts us back in the business of occasionally killing sentient human beings by mistake. That is bad.
The second problem is that all we can test is whether or not the baby was self-aware when the test was given. If there is any gap between when the test is given and when the infanticide is performed, we cannot rule out the possibility of self-awareness arising during that gap in time. So we'd need some sort of magical technology that detects sentience with extreme accuracy and then immediately executes an organism found not to possess it. This is not possible, at least given our current technology. So Singer's hypothetical scenario remains hypothetical.
The third problem is that we don't have an objective standard for "sufficiently human mind", so we're stuck assigning an arbitrary standard no matter what we do. Singer doesn't define exactly what this standard is, let alone how he would classify infants under it.
We can see what's happening in terms of brain density and synaptic growth; we can observe how the infant responds to various stimuli, and those responses can tell us how aware the child is, both of his environment, and of himself.
You're confusing detecting vital signs and stimulus responses with detecting the presence of a human mind. We can do the former. We can not do the later, yet.
I'm sure you know it takes a while for babies to realize that they can affect the world around them physically, but ask any mother, and she'll tell you it's pretty obvious when they do.
"It is obvious THAT they do", not "it is obvious WHEN they do" -- and not "it is obvious when they don't", which is the really important bit. A child can act in a way that indicates it understands it exists as an entity in a larger universe. But we can't say whether the first time the child acted in such a manner was his first moment of self-awareness, or if he was self-aware for a while beforehand and just not acting in a manner that obviously showed it.
In closing, I'd just like to say that you seem to be simultaneously arguing (a) that newborns possess a mind we would call human, such that drawing the line at birth is still dangerous, and (b) that the point at which babies develop a human mind occurs months later, and is detectable with near-certainty. Those two positions do not mesh with each other. Which is it?
"As Pogo, Roger J. and others have pointed out, the initial style of montana bears a close resemblence to 'Cyrus.' As the discussion evolved, however, it became clear to me, as someone hard bitten by 'Cyrus,' that there were some essential differences."
Uhhh, thanks... I guess!
I suppose one could come up with a fool-proof definition of trolling behavior, but that's bound to vary by blog. The blogosphere has apparently become as polarized as the political spectrum, or so they say. In any event, although to some here I might be easily categorized politically, or chase politicized ideas in a way that strikes some as troll-like, that's definitely not my intention. On other sites, where my ideas and tone might be more in touch with the "mainstream", I've run across others who strike me personally as trolls. I think that dealing with people who irk you personally can be challenging, but I tend to prefer the challenge of figuring out exactly how to either make your case better (which can embarrass said troll, especially when their game is mere one-upsmanship). It can involve a healthy dose of applied psychology, subtlety and nuance, varying your approaches and tone, etc. But it can work.
I feel I've achieved more respect for certain people who comment here than I might have initially, especially Pogo (from this round), and that's good. This has also been the case with Trooper York, and some, like Mortimer Brezny and rhhardin, even though I've never interacted with them myself, I've always generally agreed with both in terms of tone/approach and ideas. And of course, it's been rewarding to interact with Joan here.
As for the rest, some I agree with, some not, but the big breakdown is in terms of approach. Trooper York actually got me to realize that the ideological mix here is more diverse than I'd tended to see at first. But my only issue is with those who instinctively react with anger/contempt to anyone they don't like or agree with. I do that too from time to time - don't get me wrong. But I never assume that righteous indignation alone will win me anything... with a troll or anyone else. If it's not a troll and it involves having to develop a more open-mind about their ideas, well, then that's rewarding in and of itself. And if it is a troll (or more accurately, someone whom I would deem as such), then I find that stepping back, retreating from the anger for a moment, and playing them for a good psychological and intellectual game/mind-fuck works pretty well.
In any event, as long as your sincerest interest is in the exchange and development of good and/or interesting ideas, then I think that's as good a purpose as any for being here... or anywhere else.
In closing, I'd just like to say that you seem to be simultaneously arguing (a) that newborns possess a mind we would call human, such that drawing the line at birth is still dangerous, and (b) that the point at which babies develop a human mind occurs months later, and is detectable with near-certainty. Those two positions do not mesh with each other. Which is it?
My position is that a unique human life begins at conception, and that all this discussion about determining when "personhood" is achieved based on self-awareness is just so much hand-waving. My point in discussing the continuum of development was to show that your position is arbitrary and illogical: what's so special about birth as a dividing line, when children are surviving shorter and shorter gestations?
Singer's a ghoul, and you know it, too; why else would you go through that exercise of refuting him? You go through this whole tortured explanation of "it doesn't work because we can't tell when self-awareness is achieved." That's a straw-man, because we're not talking about killing 3-month-olds, we're talking about killing newborns, babies less than a day old. (Or are you saying that Singer said parents need to be able to give their kids a trial run and decide later -- because if you are, that's a completely different issue that does not relate as directly to the abortion question.) If you're going to operate on the idea of self-awareness as you define it, you could safely kill a newborn -- not an infant, a newborn -- and never have a moment's qualm about it. Just because a neonate knows his mother doesn't mean he's a person after all, right? He's not self-aware.
The logical conclusion of the "self-aware" criteria is Singer's position. You just don't want to admit it.
My point in discussing the continuum of development was to show that your position is arbitrary and illogical:
It is obvious from your questions that you don't even understand what my position is. For example, you ask:
what's so special about birth as a dividing line when children are surviving shorter and shorter gestations?
The length of the gestation is completely irrelevant, and there is nothing special about the moment of birth. What IS special is the moment at which the increasing complexity of the infant's mind finally crosses the line into "human enough for human rights" territory, which is sometime *after* birth. The reason for drawing the line AT birth -- as I have repeatedly explained -- is that the moment of birth is (a) easily recognizable without tests or subjective judgment calls and (b) a point at which the infant isn't sentient yet. It gives a margin of safety.
Now, your problem is that you don't agree that an infant qualifies as non-sentient; therefore you don't see any safety value in picking the moment of birth because in your view the moment of birth comes nine months AFTER there is a "human" inside the infant's body. But your belief doesn't undermine my argument or make it inconsistent or illogical. When judging the consistency and logic of my argument all that matters is whether my arguments agree with MY stated belief that we don't develop truly human minds until some time after we're born. They do, ergo while they may be incorrect they are neither inconsistent nor illogical.
Singer's a ghoul, and you know it, too; why else would you go through that exercise of refuting him?
First of all, if you want to call me a liar you may feel free to do so. It isn't like your opinion of my honesty matters to me.
Secondly I have not refuted Singer; I have said that his argument is merely hypothetical. *If* we had a way of knowing, at the very instant of death, that a neonate was still non-sentient then killing it would be morally acceptable, just as Singer claims. In reality we cannot know that, ergo we cannot say that the act was moral. Its like asking "if you knew for certain that a child would grow up to be the next Hitler, would it be morally acceptable to murder that child". The answer is "yes, but in reality it is impossible to ever know that so you can't use that argument to justify murdering a child".
That's a straw-man, because we're not talking about killing 3-month-olds, we're talking about killing newborns, babies less than a day old.
You never said that you were limiting the argument against Singer to the first day of life. You used the term "neonate", which applies to children up to a month old. Singer himself applies his argument to children even older than that.
If you're going to operate on the idea of self-awareness as you define it, you could safely kill a newborn -- not an infant, a newborn -- and never have a moment's qualm about it.
You could kill a newborn without, in my opinion, committing murder, yes. That's not the same thing as not having qualms about it, of course, as humans have an inborn aversion to harming babies. And before you claim that the fact that that's a natural moral sense speaking, I'd like to point out that human instinct tells us to do plenty of BAD things too, like steal or commit adultery. Our instincts give an indication of what our ancestors had to do to produce surviving progemy (e.g., have lots of sex, hoard wealth, and keep the kids healthy), but it does not tell us what is right and wrong. Our reason tells us that.
The logical conclusion of the "self-aware" criteria is Singer's position. You just don't want to admit it.
The difference you are failing to grasp is that Singer is making a philosophical argument and I am making a pragmatic one.
When you look at a pill bottle and it says "do not take more than 8 pills in any 24-hour period", does that mean that taking 9 is unhealthy or fatal? That's easy: no. It doesn't mean that at all. The maximum dosage is set safely far away from whatever dose will actually cause you lasting harm.
I'm saying the limit should be 8 pills in 24 hours. You're saying the correct number is zero, because the treatment itself is inherently bad. Singer is saying "the limit should be one pill less than whatever would do lasting harm to that person". That's nice, but since it isn't practical for us to what what that number IS for any given person it doesn't tell us how many pills it is safe to take. Saying that he and I have the same position is inaccurate, because I'm making a practical suggestion aimed at avoiding mishaps and he's making a philosophical argument about an unobtainable ideal state.
Revenant, I understand you just fine, thanks. I just think your arguments don't hold any water.
The length of the gestation is completely irrelevant, and there is nothing special about the moment of birth.
Well, you and I agree on this point. And your words-of-one-syllable explanation doesn't make a bit of difference; you've chosen "birth" as an arbitrary cut-off, even though you acknowledge that infants at birth don't meet your criteria. You've drawn up a bogus standard "to be on the safe side," even though that standard betrays your ideal.
Now, your problem is that you don't agree that an infant qualifies as non-sentient;
I never argued this point: neonates are not self-aware the way adults are. They're just not. I do reject this criterion for judging "personhood".
When judging the consistency and logic of my argument all that matters is whether my arguments agree with MY stated belief that we don't develop truly human minds until some time after we're born. They do, ergo while they may be incorrect they are neither inconsistent nor illogical.
But your argument doesn't agree with your stated belief, because you've set birth as your arbitrary cut-off, and you've also said it doesn't matter how many weeks into gestation that birth occurs. You know premature babies lag in development, and very premature babies suffer significant lags and developmental issues from being ex-utero for so long. Birth is too fungible a deadline for such an important issue, but you're willing to brush the huge differences in development between preemies and full-term infants aside as inconsequential, just because birth is an easily identifiable event.
You could kill a newborn without, in my opinion, committing murder, yes.
I admit to being surprised that you would say that in public.
That's not the same thing as not having qualms about it, of course, as humans have an inborn aversion to harming babies.
If we do, it's a recent development... many was the newborn left to die at the mercy of the elements in earlier ages.
And before you claim that the fact that that's a natural moral sense speaking,
Ha! I don't believe there is such a thing. Have you ever spent any time with a 2-year-old? Civilization and morals are things that are imposed on individuals by their parents and the rest of society.
[Instinct] does not tell us what is right and wrong. Our reason tells us that.
Only if you've been socialized to think that way, and only within the context of your particular culture.
The difference you are failing to grasp is that Singer is making a philosophical argument and I am making a pragmatic one. [snip]
Saying that he and I have the same position is inaccurate, because I'm making a practical suggestion aimed at avoiding mishaps and he's making a philosophical argument about an unobtainable ideal state.
Six of one, half a dozen of another. The net result is two guys who agree that killing newborns isn't murder. Also: "avoidng mishaps"? You meant to say "preventing murder," right? Or is murdering a newly self-aware baby just a "mishap"?
And your "safe dosage" simile falls short. The difference between you taking 8 pills and swallowing the whole bottle is that you are the only one who would be affected. In talking about abortion, there are side effects for the mother, but the child dies. Comparing abortion to a therapeutic drug treatment makes no sense because there is no "safe" level of abortion, at least not from the child's perspective.
Hey you should check out www.forgivenme.com. It's a really great website. :)
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