Attempt At A Mutually Respectful Abortion Discussion

[Abrosz]

Breathing and not breathing does not qualify as such a distinction.

Your opinion is noted. Dead bodies do not breathe. Look below for the significant differences.

Forgive me for not accepting your definitions. I don’t see how brain activity determines personhood at all. You have yet to prove it’s not arbitrary.

Sure, I will give you the reasoning. Take a normal, regular human being, like Joe, or you or I. We are all persons. Now let’s start a-not-really-thought experiment (some of it is possible today). Let’s replace each organ of Joe with an artificial prosthesis. Start with one leg. Then take another organ, and replace it an identically working prosthesis. And then keep going until it comes to the brain.

At every step of the way, Joe is still a person. He might lose some functionality, or might gain some (The million dollar man ). Instead of a “biological” human we have a cyborg. But as long as the prostheses “work” identically to the original, we still have the same person.

Now, let’s do the same scenario again, but keep all the organs, and transfer someone else’s brain into the same body. Different brain, different memories, different thoughts - therefore we have a different person (frontal lobe!).

Q. E. D.

 

[Aquinas11]

Someone whose EEG shows no brain activity does not qualify to be considered a “person”

You first said brain activity determines personhood

Then take another organ, and replace it an identically working prosthesis. And then keep going until it comes to the brain.At every step of the way, Joe is still a person.

someone else’s brain into the same body. Different brain, different memories, different thoughts - therefore we have a different person (frontal lobe!).

Now you’re saying brain identity determines personhood

Different brains can have the same activity and the same brain can have different activity, so you’re using two different criteria now

Also, the fetus doesn’t have a “different brain” than the born baby, so you’ve just proven that the fetus has same personhood as the born baby.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

Now, let’s do the same scenario again, but keep all the organs, and transfer someone else’s brain into the same body. Different brain, different memories, different thoughts - therefore we have a different person (frontal lobe!).

Is there any reason to think that would work?

 

[Abrosz]

Is there any reason to think that would work?

Sure. The same operation has been performed on primates. But otherwise in a thought experiment everything is permitted, except logically contradictory elements.

But we already know that the personality is stored in the frontal lobe. Without is there is no person.

Different brains can have the same activity and the same brain can have different activity, so you’re using two different criteria now

No, they cannot. Brain identity and brain activity are interconnected. Without a brain activity, without a frontal lobe, there is no personhood. This is a medical truth.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

This is a medical truth.

Once again, forgive me for rolling my eyes at your arbitrary assertions.

If I cut off my frontal lobe, am I no longer a person?

If I cut someone’s frontal lobe out, then shoot them, did I commit murder or assault?

 

[stpurl]

So if two children (identical twins let’s say) are conceived and brought to term, and one of the children born has microcephaly and the other twin does not, are you telling us only one of the children is a person?

 

[Aquinas11]

No, they cannot.

So a dead persons brain has the same activity as when they were alive? Nope

Brain identity and brain activity are interconnected

Your claim is they’re equivalent which they’re not. A dead person has a brain but no brain activity

 

[EmmaSowl]

That is not for me answer. I never had one. But many women reported it, and it makes sense.

I don’t think one needs to personally know the trauma to speak of it - especially since it is the reason for the wish that abortion be rare. What do the women report that makes sense?

However we need to define what we mean by the generic term of abortion. Does it include the morning-after pill? Or other abortifacient drugs which just force the zygote out of the uterus, just like any other menstrual cycle?

For me, it is all those things.

Hasta manana!

 

[Ender]

Your opinion is noted. Dead bodies do not breathe. Look below for the significant differences.

The issue you have not resolved is to identify a biological difference that distinguishes a human from a non-human, or from a less-than-human. If we’re going to say one entity enjoys human rights, and another doesn’t we have to be very clear about what separates humans from not-humans. Given that, biologically speaking, human life begins at conception, it isn’t clear how this can be done.

 

[Abrosz]

The issue you have not resolved is to identify a biological difference that distinguishes a human from a non-human, or from a less-than-human.

Without a working brain there is no life. The brain has two parts, the grey cells and white cells. The grey cells provide the conscious thoughts, the white cells regulate the subconscious activity. The frontal lobe contains the information of the personality, therefore without a frontal lobe there can be no person.

And, of course “rights” are social constructs, they have nothing to with biology.

The “material” someone is “made of” is irrelevant as long as it “works” appropriately. An artificial prosthesis does not add nor distract from the “humanness” of someone. Short summary, but should be enough.

 

[Ender]

Without a working brain there is no life. The brain has two parts, the grey cells and white cells. The grey cells provide the conscious thoughts, the white cells regulate the subconscious activity. The frontal lobe contains the information of the personality, therefore without a frontal lobe there can be no person.

And, of course “rights” are social constructs, they have nothing to with biology.

The “material” someone is “made of” is irrelevant as long as it “works” appropriately. An artificial prosthesis does not add nor distract from the “humanness” of someone. Short summary, but should be enough.

None of this is relevant. You asserted that a fundamental biological distinction could be made between human and non-human, yet all you have done is identify differences between one human entity and another. What is the biological marker that makes this organism human and that one not?

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Yep. You would turn into a human vegetable. The story of "One flew over the cuckoo’s nest does not describe a hypothetical scenario. It has been amply documented.

Didn’t answer part 2. Why don’t murderers remove the frontal lobe before their kill? It’d make them much less criminal, since their only act against a person is an assault.

Your insistence on this framework and on other random rules of conduct makes me think you and everyone else here are operating on completely different frameworks here and if you aren’t gonna accept society’s rules, how can we be reasonably convincing at all?

 

[Abrosz]

None of this is relevant.

Your opinion is noted.

Your insistence on this framework and on other random rules of conduct makes me think you and everyone else here are operating on completely different frameworks here and if you aren’t gonna accept society’s rules, how can we be reasonably convincing at all?

You are always welcome to present an argument, and the supporting evidence. Go for it!

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

I already have.

Members of homo sapiens must necessarily be considered as persons. Any attempt to redraw these boundaries represents an arbitrary attempt by a human to redraw them, comparable to many others throughout history which shall be unnamed at the moment.

Under current US law, at least, the killing of those in vegetative states is murder. That means that the United States doesn’t accept your moral framework. My argument is that the US is hypocritical in making arbitrary dividers between groups of humans based on their state in life. This needs to stop, or the US cannot call out others doing the same thing, just not to fetuses.

 

[Abrosz]

Members of homo sapiens must necessarily be considered as persons.

This begs the question.

Under current US law, at least, the killing of those in vegetative states is murder.

We are on a philosophy forum, not on a legal forum.

What you suggest is equating a human person to its DNA. And the DNA is not a precise entity. And it slips the problem of mutations. Speciesism, nothing else.

I would like to see a detailed analysis of what I suggested, not some generic dismissal.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

This begs the question.

Negative, captain. All I’ve said is that if you belong to the human species, that you are human. There’s no difference between the two. If you are x, then you are y. Don’t see how that begs the question.

We are on a philosophy forum, not on a legal forum.

The fault is yours for assuming my argument is based on philosophy. Your entire framework of morality is different than mine. I can’t tell you that abortion is wrong because you don’t even believe the same things about who’s human and not.

What you suggest is equating a human person to its DNA. And the DNA is not a precise entity. And it slips the problem of mutations. Speciesism, nothing else.

Forgive me for following modern science and its definition of a species instead of your dismissal of it.

I would like to see a detailed analysis of what I suggested, not some generic dismissal.

So long as you refuse to step out of your framework, that’s all you’re getting. Sorry. You can’t dismiss entire groups of people as subhuman that aren’t seen as such by the rest of humanity and expect me to tailor my abortion argument to you.

 

[Abrosz]

All I’ve said is that if you belong to the human species, that you are human.

Which begs the question, what is a member of the “human” species. As long as you equate human and some configuration of the DNA, you cannot deal with mutations. And a tumor also becomes a “human”. Can we get over it?

The fault is yours for assuming my argument is based on philosophy.

On a philosophy forum the arguments should be philosophy based. “Morality” does not even get into the picture.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Which begs the question, what is a member of the “human” species.

Homo sapiens as defined by geneticists and biologists is what I refer to as human. Anything outside of this, we won’t consider. If your DNA was sequenced and determined to be human within the bounds of modern science, you’re human. Can we end this stupid line of questioning now?

On a philosophy forum the arguments should be philosophy based. “Morality” does not even get into the picture.

We’re on a Catholic forum. Morality and philosophy go hand in hand. Besides, again, my argument isn’t for you, it’s for people who don’t exclude the vegitative from humanity, who follow US law.

 

[Ender]

Your opinion is noted.

You were the one who asserted your position was based on simple biology. If that is so why are you unable to identify a biological distinction between human and non-human, or human and less-than-human? Distinctions between “normal” and abnormal humans don’t make your case, nor between the living and the dead.

The thread topic is abortion so the relevant question is what fundamental biological distinction exists in the human developmental time line that justifies the destruction of this human entity but not that one? Where does “humanness” begin if not at conception? Biologically speaking, of course.

 

[JimG]

From a biological standpoint, a new individual of the human species has its beginning at conception. The new individual is human, and is distinct from the mother and father, and begins a continuous development which leads to birth and adulthood. The developmental process does not end at birth, of course, and the new human remains the same unique individual throughout.