Whats the Harm...

Originally posted by vivify
Same with an infant. Doesn't mean it's not a life now, does it?

[quote]

The debate is absurd. A zygote is not a human life in any meaningful sense of the word. Neither is an embryo or a fetus. The contrary argument is based on a "feeling" that cannot be substantiated save with colorful interpretations of scripture or arrogant assumptions about what ...[text shortened]... that being pro-life has to do with "control" of the lives of others, is wrong.

Life is the wrong word.

Bacteria is alive... My body kills millions or billions every hour.

The steak I had for dinner used to be part of a life form.

As did all the vegetables.

Whether or not a zygote is alive is irrelevant.


The question is whether it's a person, and not just a hunk of meat.

That takes a mind, which finishes forming AFTER birth.

The whole reason we give birth to helpless infants is so that the brain
can continue growing and forming after birth.


A zygote is just a bunch of cells.

'Killing it' is no more morally troubling than killing an amoeba, or an ant.


My argument for allowing abortions is that a woman (any person, but men
can't currently give birth) has the right to complete autonomy over what
can or cannot be done with or in her body.

So it's utterly irrelevant to that argument as to what the 'status' of the
unborn is. The woman has the right to have it removed from her body at
any time she feels like it. If thing being removed is incapable of surviving being
removed then that's just tough.



However, that said.

The idea that it's morally wrong to kill a tiny bunch of cells with no thoughts or conciousness
is absurd.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Life is the wrong word.

Bacteria is alive... My body kills millions or billions every hour.

The steak I had for dinner used to be part of a life form.

As did all the vegetables.

Whether or not a zygote is alive is irrelevant.


The question is whether it's a person, and not just a hunk of meat.

That takes a mind, which finishes forming rally wrong to kill a tiny bunch of cells with no thoughts or conciousness
is absurd.

gentle reader lets take a moment to ponder the claims below,

The woman has the right to have it removed from her body at
any time she feels like it.

and let us ask ourselves, if this is morally sound?

How many women go to an abortion clinic and state that they want to have an
abortion because they have a right to have the foetus removed from their body? I
ask you to find any statistic, i searched and i could not find a single statistic or
study supporting the claim. On the contrary statistics demonstrate that they go to
clinics, not because they claim the right of self determination, but because of social
convenience, making a complete mockery of any attempt to legitimise it morally on
that basis.

Killing is no more troubling than killing an ant,

perhaps for the psychopath who uttered those words, but studies have
demonstrated that in many instances women who had undergone an abortion
underwent post abortion therapy, with intense feelings of guilt, inner conflict, grief
and other challenging emotions and yet we are to believe that it is no more troubling
than killing an ant. I wonder what percentage of those women underwent therapy
for killing an ant?

conclusion: there is no moral basis for claiming an abortion on the grounds of self
determination, women do not have abortions because they are motivated by the
right to claim self determination. There is no basis for claiming that abortion is as
simple as killing an ant, the experience of many women demonstrate otherwise.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Life is the wrong word.

Bacteria is alive... My body kills millions or billions every hour.

The steak I had for dinner used to be part of a life form.

As did all the vegetables.

Whether or not a zygote is alive is irrelevant.


The question is whether it's a person, and not just a hunk of meat.

That takes a mind, which finishes forming ...[text shortened]... rally wrong to kill a tiny bunch of cells with no thoughts or conciousness
is absurd.

So when does the mind "finish forming"? What properties must a mind have in order to be fully formed and thus comprise a person?

Originally posted by bbarr
So when does the mind "finish forming"? What properties must a mind have in order to be fully formed and thus comprise a person?

I don't know.

I don't think there is a magic point before which there is no person and after there is.

That doesn't mean however that you can't look at either end of the spectrum and say
there is definitely no mind/person here, and there is here.

A zygote, of undifferentiated cells, clearly and emphatically has no mind and is not a person.

A toddler taking their first steps clearly has a mind and is a person.

I can know this without being able to point to a magic point in between where they magically
switched from one to another.


Also 'finish forming' is probably not the right term, as there is significant neural restructuring and
development going on through your teenage years.
However you evidently have a functioning mind and personality before that.

Originally posted by googlefudge

I think the point that is being missed here is this. God is the one and the one only that starts the process of all life.
Nothing in the universe comes to life without God's spirit giving it that spark of being a living human, plant, animal, etc.

But god doesn't exist, there is no 'spark', no soul, no spirit, no life force, no afterli ...[text shortened]... n't
believe in your particular god) who will simply say "your god doesn't exist."

Again just one persons opinion.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I don't know.

I don't think there is a magic point before which there is no person and after there is.

That doesn't mean however that you can't look at either end of the spectrum and say
there is definitely no mind/person here, and there is here.

A zygote, of undifferentiated cells, clearly and emphatically has no mind and is not a person.

...[text shortened]... teenage years.
However you evidently have a functioning mind and personality before that.

So since you "don't know" when it is an actual life, it is still ok to kill it?

Originally posted by galveston75
Again just one persons opinion.

No. Scientific observable fact.

Originally posted by galveston75
So since you "don't know" when it is an actual life, it is still ok to kill it?

What part of my argument for allowing abortions do you not understand?

I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE ZYGOTE/EMBRYO/FOETUS in deciding
whether abortions should be allowed.

Because the ONLY thing that matters is the right of the mother to decide what happens
in her body.

Nobody has the right to legally require another person to act as a life support machine
without their continued and ongoing permission.


I am just pointing out as an aside that labelling a zygote or embryo as a person (I said person not life)
is medically idiotic.

Originally posted by googlefudge
What part of my argument for allowing abortions do you not understand?

I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE ZYGOTE/EMBRYO/FOETUS in deciding
whether abortions should be allowed.

Because the ONLY thing that matters is the right of the mother to decide what happens
in her body.

Nobody has the right to legally require another person to act as a ...[text shortened]... e that labelling a zygote or embryo as a person (I said person not life)
is medically idiotic.

Because the ONLY thing that matters is the right of the mother to decide what happens
in her body.

we have already established you are talking nonsense, no one ever gets an abortion on the basis of a claim to self determination. The argument in morally bankrupt!

Originally posted by galveston75
So since you "don't know" when it is an actual life, it is still ok to kill it?

he is talking pure nonsense, even the DNA is unique. You are correct he has not
provided a shred of evidence to back up any his now ludicrous claims.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I don't know.

I don't think there is a magic point before which there is no person and after there is.

That doesn't mean however that you can't look at either end of the spectrum and say
there is definitely no mind/person here, and there is here.

A zygote, of undifferentiated cells, clearly and emphatically has no mind and is not a person.

...[text shortened]... teenage years.
However you evidently have a functioning mind and personality before that.

Well, it wouldn't be magic, would it? There is no more a magic point where a man who's losing his hair becomes bald. But if you want to hang moral considerability on personhood, and if personhood is contingent on the possession of some set of mental properties, then you should probably have an account of those properties and their possession conditions.

Of course I can say that a human organism a week after conception lacks a mind, but a typical human in it's 30's has one. That doesn't provide much guidance in the current case though, does it? The neural architecture the activity of which is reliably correlated with reports of subjective experience (e.g., sensations, perceptions) is roughly present in the third trimester. There's a good chance that fetuses in the third trimester have subjective states. These may be non-conceptual, but pain may be among them. If so, then is this property sufficient for personhood, on your account? Or do they also need a robust conceptual system of the sort that would allow for judgment, deliberation and choice? If, as many do, you think that personhood requires something like autonomy (in a compatibilist sense), then it may well be the case that human organisms aren't persons until they're in elementary school!

Some account here would be helpful. So, what are the minimal conditions for personhood? What basic mental properties are sufficient for it?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Because the ONLY thing that matters is the right of the mother to decide what happens
in her body.

we have already established you are talking nonsense, no one ever gets an abortion on the basis of a claim to self determination. The argument in morally bankrupt!

This is confused. It doesn't matter what the claim is, it matters whether the claim is morally justified. A woman may get an abortion because she has plans for her life that don't involve, at the moment or ever, children. Suppose this is her reason. If you then ask why this reason is legitimate or justified, she may point to a more general principle specifying her right to self-determination or bodily integrity. Moral justification, just like epistemic justification, often has this hierarchical structure, with the particular beliefs, judgments or claims that actually motivate us being justifiable on the basis of background principles to which we're also committed.

Originally posted by bbarr
This is confused. It doesn't matter what the claim is, it matters whether the claim is morally justified. A woman may get an abortion because she has plans for her life that don't involve, at the moment or ever, children. Suppose this is her reason. If you then ask why this reason is legitimate or justified, she may point to a more general principle specif ...[text shortened]... ate us being justifiable on the basis of background principles to which we're also committed.

whether its morally justified or not depends on the motivation, does it not? even criminality takes this into consideration, as in the case of manslaughter as opposed to murder, where one may not be wholly culpable but in the later, because of its premeditation, one is fully held to be responsible, because of motive and intent. The reasons why women have abortions is well documented by numerous studies. To state that social convenience, for example, 'i cannot afford a child at present', is the same as self determination, ( i have a right to accept or deny a specific medical procedure, in this case, abortion) is a stretch to say the least. What if everyone begged off on the basis of social convenience? I don't want to go to prison because its inconvenient for me to do so? I don't want to have a child because its not convenient for me to do so? Its more convenient for me to commit suicide than live to grow old and die??? Such statements are absurd are they not? especially when we realise that engaging in consensual intercourse we are fully aware of the implications and should therefore be held responsible for our actions. Abortion appears to me to diminish sensitivity to that responsibility and is used as a kind of post conception contraceptive, if that makes sense.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Life is the wrong word.

Bacteria is alive... My body kills millions or billions every hour.

The steak I had for dinner used to be part of a life form.

As did all the vegetables.

Whether or not a zygote is alive is irrelevant.


The question is whether it's a person, and not just a hunk of meat.

That takes a mind, which finishes forming ...[text shortened]... rally wrong to kill a tiny bunch of cells with no thoughts or conciousness
is absurd.

If what you say is true, that a zygote is just a "hunk of meat", then why are women upset if they miscarry soon after finding out they are pregnant? After all, it's not like they lost a person, right?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
whether its morally justified or not depends on the motivation, does it not? even criminality takes this into consideration, as in the case of manslaughter as opposed to murder, where one may not be wholly culpable but in the later, because of its premeditation, one is fully held to be fully responsible, because of motive and intent. The reasons wh ...[text shortened]... ble for our actions. Abortion appears to me to diminish sensitivity to that responsibility.

No, moral justification is only partly based on motivation. I can have the best motivations and still act callously if I don't take the time to figure out what people actually need. If out of concern I move an injured person and, in the process, injure them further, I have acted badly despite having generally good motivations.

But even if moral justification did depend solely on motivation, it wouldn't be relevant to my post above. Above, I was giving a rough sketch of the way that motivations themselves are justified. Suppose that it is a woman's motivation that determines whether an abortion is justified. Suppose that she is motivated by the judgement that there are things in her life that are important to her and that having a child would make it very difficult to pursue those things. In short, suppose that "it would be inconvenient" (in your words). The question is: Is this motivation one that confers justification on the action of having an abortion? Is this a good enough reason? There are two responses: First, since this motivation is one that is grounded in a deeper principle of self-determination and autonomy, it does seem like it justifies. She has the right to live her life as she will, to do with her body as she will. That this general principle is not in the forefront of her mind is immaterial. It's not in her mind when she goes to get coffee in the morning either. But if you press her on why she thinks it's OK to get coffee, she'll get to the point where she says it's her life and she'll do what she wants as a free agent. This is the hierarchical structure I mentioned above. This is why your original claim about women not being motivated by these general principles is totally irrelevant to the debate. That's just not how moral justification works.

Now you can respond, rightly, that principles of freedom, self-determination and the like are constrained by considerations of the well-being of others. But that's not an objection here, because it is precisely whether there are such constraints in abortion cases that is at issue (and, also, whether fetuses are the sorts of things that are morally considerable). You would be begging the question with this objection.

The "taking responsibility" response is also irrelevant. When I take a ride in a car I know I am taking a risk of getting in an accident. That doesn't mean that if I do get in an accident I can't go to the hospital to be made well again. As though I would have to lie in a ditch somewhere because, you know, I knew the risks and now have to take responsibility for the consequences. Just because I consent to an action, I do not consent to every possible consequence, nor do I consent to passivity in the face of actual consequences. That is just silly, and indicates you haven't really thought about the implications of your claim here. In any case, if a woman does get an abortion, then there is sense in which she is taking responsibility for her actions; she's dealing with the consequences! Further, in many, many cases women consent to sex but clearly do not consent to pregnancy. When they use contraception it's a damn good indication they are explicitly not consenting to pregnancy. What your argument here relies on, I think, is the tacit claim that abortion is an abrogation of responsibility because a woman is dealing with consequences by harming another. But, again, that is question-begging. It is a live issue whether fetuses (at least before the third trimester) are the types of things that can be harmed in any meaningful sense (more than, say, a plant can be harmed). It is a further live question of whether fetuses have the sort of moral considerability that provides reasons not to abort that morally outweigh a woman's reasons to abort. You can't just assume these things; they're tendentious.