What I always wonder is to what extent beliefs translate into action. In a poll I made about abortion in the case of a threat to the mother’s life, the vast majority of responders said they would not have an abortion to save their life/their wife’s life.
. I identify the mind with the brain.I’m not going to do research for you, if you’re interested look into getting a book on the subject, searching scholar.google.com, or accessing a database of academic journals (which should be available to you for free if you’re a college student).
My goal here is not to convert you to my way of thinking, I’m just describing my views, so I am not going to spend time trying to prove to you that I’m right.
Why do you agree about sleep but not passing out? The stream of consciousness is broken during sleep as well.
Also note I am not talking about consciousness alone, but a brain capable of generating consciousness
I’m not sure about the exact numbers, I’ve read that babies recognize themselves in mirror at about 18 months.
I think we have a language issue, I always thought that “consciousness” was synonymous with “self awareness”. I’m talking about self awareness, response to stimuli is not what I’m interested in, since all kinds of systems (even non-living systems, or systems constructed by humans) can do this.what definition of consciousness are you using? there are several, and no one has ever agreed on just one. it’s one of those things the super educated like to study forever
as a nurse, I know one of the medical criteria for consciousness is response to painful stimuli, that is on the low end of consciousness. even a person who can’t talk, can’t swallow, can’t breathe, can respond to painful stimuli. fetus at I believe 18 weeks? gestation have been shown to respond to pain. if you’re talking about recognizing ones self in a mirror, that is not consciousness, that is self awareness really, known as the Lacan test, it tests a stage of the development of consciousness when the subject knows that the reflection is himself not another human (or ape, or dolphin etc.)
You realize that pyschologists, neurologists and philosophers have debated this point for centuries and do not agree with each other?
You mean they have disagreed about what we should call consciousness, or when human beings first acquire it?
Thank you for your offer, but I honestly don’t think that my mother’s abortion has anything to do with my views. As far as I remember, I had these types of thoughts before I found out my mother had an abortion.
*Oh but you do,
Now picture yourself in a room with about ten individuals who are about 20 to 30 years older than you. They do not consider you, as you are now, sophisticated enough to generate an understanding mind of their magnitude so they decide it is in their best interest and yours to terminate your life because your mind is just not quite up to where they think it should be. Its just not there yet… maybe some day it will be but because it has not achived it yet…
The trouble with such a poll, and the entire thrust of your point, is it is fundamentally counterfactual. There is never a need to have an abortion, that is, to intentionally murder an unborn child, to save a woman’s life. Ever. One can try as hard as possible to save the woman, and if the baby dies, that is licit. But that is not an abortion.
I said the mind doesn’t have to be sophisticated, it just has to be there…
In that very thread that I made, a Catholic woman gave herself as an example. She has a heart condition, and if she were to get pregnant it would likely kill her.The trouble with such a poll, and the entire thrust of your point, is it is fundamentally counterfactual. There is never a need to have an abortion, that is, to intentionally murder an unborn child, to save a woman’s life. Ever. One can try as hard as possible to save the woman, and if the baby dies, that is licit. But that is not an abortion.
You could get similar polling curiousities by asking if the Pope declared infallibly that (say) it is sinful to have red hair, and that all such people have an obligation to dye it. But they mean nothing, because it is a counterfactual. It could never happen. Just sayin.
Right, in fact my mother was in the same boat (well after me thank God
). Unfortunately, it facilitated her rejecting the sacredness of conjugal love, but that is the topic for another thread
. So it can happen. But that does not change my point.I don’t understand your point then, because it seems to me that in such a case having an abortion may well be the best and maybe even the only way to save a woman’s life and you claimed that there’s never a need to have an abortion to save the woman.Right, in fact my mother was in the same boat (well after me thank God
I have a experience with younger siblings, so I know stages of the child’s development. I have changed diapers, read to them before bed, helped with homework – all those things. In my experience, individual difference is larger than gender difference. Maybe you could try to articulate the different things you think you can only do with a girl, and why it is important. Are you sure you need a girl for those things? If there was important things that were lacking in your childhood, are you sure those things are all gender-dependant?
Well, I don’t think I want children yet. I would like 5 years (or more) without children. So, in my mind, this is no pressing matter, and my preferences would be a bit unrealistic because they are not tested against a real situation.
The chubbier the better. That’s about it (apart from obvious things like health).I’ll give you an example. Before I became a Franciscan brother, I was married. My wife and I had three children, a girl and two boys. When my wife was carrying our third child we were told by three separate doctors that she would die if she did not terminate the pregnancy (a fancy word for abortion), because she had an aneurism in her heart.
Yes you did miss it, so let me clarify then with a hypothetical example. Say a mother’s life is in dire danger, with the only reasonable intervention being an emergency hysterectomy (removal of the uterus). If that indeed is judged to be the only way to save the woman, it would be licit to perform it. Note the intent here. It is not to murder the child. It is to perform a valid accepted medical procedure on the woman. But the intent is not to kill the baby, even if the outcome is logically obvious. Note that it is in no way a (euphemism alert) procedure on the baby.
Maybe the main thing I would like to do is start education early, so my daughter would be learning advanced subjects at a young age. I suspect that part of the reason why this appeals to me is that throughout my life I had interest in and did well in traditionally male fields despite the social message that I wasn’t supposed do better than boys.
I actually thought about it, and to be honest I am confused about what is meant by pain. Can something without a mind feel, or is it more of a mindless response to a stimulus (like say my computer is mindlessly responding to my pressing on the keyboard).
Thank you for sharing your story.I’ll give you an example. Before I became a Franciscan brother, I was married. My wife and I had three children, a girl and two boys. When my wife was carrying our third child we were told by three separate doctors that she would die if she did not terminate the pregnancy (a fancy word for abortion), because she had an aneurism in her heart.
As the father of the child, I said, “I will not kill my child, not even to save my wife. The doctors will have to do the best they can with what they have to save both. If one is lost in the process, then it’s God’s design.” Let’s not forget that as a father, we do have rights regarding our unborn children.
My wife agreed that she would not kill oiur son to save her life, even though we had two more at home ages 4 and 2.
To make a very long story shorter. My wife delivered our son and both survived. Our son was born with brain damage as the result of a very complicated pregnancy. When he was four years old, my wife, my father and the three kids were in an auto accident. My wife, father and older son were killed. My daughter survived and the boy that everyone wanted to abort.
My wife died of other causes, not related to her aneurism. The son that died was the healthy one and my father who was not involved in the pregnancy. Today, my son is 21-years old. He’s a senior in college, majoring in art. He had many difficulties going thruogh school. We lost our home because we didn’t have enough money to pay the bills for all the doctors, therapies and special services that he needed over and beyond what the State and insurance covered. Our family consists of him, his sister and I. There is no one else left. I can’t imagine life without him. He is the joy of our lives. His pregnancy almost killed his mother, but the fact is that it did not. The doctors were wrong. The pregnancy did leave him with irreperable brain damage. He does not speak and he cannot do calculations. He is an excellent artist and writer. He takes care of his father when I am sick. He takes himself to school, plays sports, has friends, works in Respect Life as a volunteer, gives talks (through an interpreter) about how he is an abortion survivor and thansk his mother and father for it. He also speaks out in defense of the unborn who have brain damage and are threatened by abortion.
With all of our scientific knowledge, human life remains the greatest mystery.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
I think I understand what you’re saying, but it just doesn’t address the situation where there is no “double effect” way to save the woman. In some cases you might be able to remove a cancerous uterus, or a fallopian tube with the embryo inside it. But in other cases you might not.
