How Quickly Should We Overturn Roe?

[benjamin1973]

To me, a single word ends the discussion: rape.

I can only imagine what it’s like for a woman, impregnated by a rapist, to be told she is compelled by law to carry the progeny of her rapist to term. She must take the worst person she’s ever met, and then guarantee that another human is brought into existence who shares half of his genetic makeup. She must guarantee his reproductive success.

 

[meltzerboy2]

It’s hard for us men to fully comprehend the emotional distress such a woman must feel: first being raped, then carrying her rapist’s baby. That is why a TOTAL ban on abortion without taking into account such terrible circumstances as rape and incest, the life and health of the mother, and carrying a baby that is so sickly that s/he, if born alive at all, will be terribly deformed and in pain, is not likely to take place, especially in this day and age of women’s rights. While all of the above make up a relatively small percentage of all abortions, they do occur. So what about abortion on demand on the part of the woman for no other reason than she believes she is not ready for a baby psychologically, financially, age-wise, career-wise, etc.? What about a ban on this kind of abortion, which comprises the vast majority? A compromise solution or still too harsh for the woman and her right to privacy?

 

[benjamin1973]

In order to establish a secular law, you’ll have to demonstrate that harm is done which is not contingent upon an arbitrary philosophical position.

We already accept that human suffering, for the most part, constitutes harm. Therefore if a fetus is developed enough that it can feel pain, you can make an excellent case against abortion. If it has not developed a nervous system, then you’ll need other criteria.

The two main criteria Catholics seem to use are: 1) potentiality; 2) the fate of a human soul

The first is a deeply philosophical issue. How do you establish the potential value of a thing’s existence which does not already exist? Yes, the DNA exists and is unique to the parents. However, DNA exists in coma patients and dead bodies as well.

That leaves us with the idea of “supposed to.” A fetus, if left untouched, is supposed to develop into an adult-- i.e. if things follow their normal progression, it will likely reach that state over time. A failed pregnancy, especially of a fertilized egg that doesn’t “take,” isn’t really supposed to survive-- that is left as an accident from our standards, and the mysterious will of God in objective standards.

But legislating “supposed to” is very difficult in my opinion. A modern woman is supposed to have a career, to prepare a nest egg because raising children is so expensive, and so on. In a secular view, an abortion now might buy a woman a lot of time to fulfill the “supposed to” requirements of motherhood-- so that she can have a pregnancy later, and raise her little human in a more fostering environment, with a doctor for a mom instead of a welfare recipient.

I’m not a fan of abortion. However, I’m even less a fan of a moral climate in which people (mistakenly in my opinion) think that they will find fulfillment through sex for its own sake. Infinitely more abortions will be prevented by changing the culture of ideas which leads women to see a baby as an enemy, or sex as an innocent act of pleasure, than in making the choice to abort a crime.

 

[kkerwin1]

Here’s the thing. At what stage a fertilized egg becomes a human being is a matter of much philosophical debate. No matter how strong your feelings on the issue, there is no non-arbitrary cut line there without an appeal to your religious tradition-- specifically, the idea of a soul infused into the egg upon conception.

This seems backwards to my sensibilities. Essentially, you argue that “If we are uncertain that a fetus is a human person deserving of rights, then it is OK to kill it via abortion”. I remember when I was growing up as a boy scout and learning to fire a gun for the first time, one of the cardinal rules was “Loaded or not, never point a gun at anything unless you intend to destroy it”. It seems philosophically extreme to advocate the destruction of an entity when its moral status as a person is ambiguous.

If you’ve studied pregnancy, you’ll know that very many fertilizations do not “take.” An egg is fertilized, but is flushed out anyway. Are we now going to legislate this as child neglect? Should a woman go to a doctor every day to make sure all these precious little souls aren’t lost, and be charged with neglect causing death if she does not?

No. That would be silly. The value of a fertilized egg is NOT equivalent to the value of an actual sentient infant. One is conscious, and is beginning its path of learning about the world it now finds itself in. One is on its way to becoming that, but has not yet achieved that state. They are different.

This is a strange line of argumentation, as it appears to be a strawman. There is no intent to be neglectful nor any true negligence since, as you point out, this happens naturally. Additionally, such miscarriages are difficult to impossible to detect, let alone prevent.

 

[kkerwin1]

If unique DNA is sufficient to establish humanity, then I’d better dig up my grandfather. His cells also have unique DNA. With modern science, by refusing to do that, I’m refusing to allow the creation of a potential living human being. And in your view, not acting to allow a potential human being to exist is murder, right?

This line of argumentation fails as any non-totipotent cell is incapable of establishing a body plan; ie. organizing cells to become a separate human individual. It is possible to take an “adult” non-totipotent cell and turn it into a totipotent one, but it is quite difficult and I’m pretty sure does not occur naturally. The process by which a cell becomes cancerous, and most particularly – undifferentiated – does come close, but the defining feature of cancer is the absence of an ability to follow a body plan; it is this distinguishing characteristic in particular that makes a cancer “malignant”.

 

[kkerwin1]

Being” means existing as a thinking, feeling agent; we do not normally talk about rock beings or river beings. That’s why fertilized eggs are not human beings. You can call a fertilized human egg as opposed to a bovine one. You can say it has the potential, with a willful decision on the mother’s part, to BECOME a human being. But until it develops a nervous system, it’s less conscious than a cow or even a worm, and has no place among the sentient agents which we value as human beings .

"benjamin1973:

The two main criteria Catholics seem to use are: 1) potentiality

These quotes, or more specifically the sentiment behind them, seem to be a large part of the misunderstanding, here. Catholics don’t argue from “potentiality” – the possibility of being, but rather from identity, what something is. We’re talking about the essence of a thing, about a branch of philosophy called “ontology”. We’re not talking about characteristics of a thing: including a thing’s traits, abilities, potential futures, and location. I admit that I have a degree in science, not philosophy, so this is going to be tough for me since I lack exposure to the relevant philosophical arguments and paradigms.

To a non-Catholic, talking about the essence of a human sounds an awful lot like talking about a soul. Which makes sense, as the “essence” or fundamental principle of a human is called the soul by Catholics. However, one can still talk about the essence of humanity, and about individual identity, without resorting to religious vocabulary and intent.

What I want to try to convince you of is that there is something transcendentally metaphysical about personhood that is more than the mind or body.

Unique DNA, on its own, does not make a person. Examples of this include:

1. Identical twins and the hypothetical clone (two persons, one DNA code)
2. Choriocarcinoma or molar pregnancy (unique DNA vs mother/father, no body plan, a tumor, not a person)
3. Human chimerism (a special kind of conjoined twin: two sets of human DNA in one complete human body, often without deformity; this was two persons at one point, but one person died in utero, and only one remains. Now, ask me “which one”, and I’ll tell you that I don’t know).

One body, on its own, does not make a person. Conjoined twins are an example of this: two persons, one body.

Changes in the physical component parts of the body do not make a “new person”. Individual atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and even organs often change over completely, but identity stays the same despite the changes.

A person is not contingent upon their memory, personality, awareness, or other aspects of their mental status. A person with retrograde amnesia (forgets who they were before, think Jason Bourne) is still the same person. Persons with “multiple personality disorder” (now called disassociative identity disorder) are not multiple people. Becoming unaware through coma does not make a person not a person; I intend for this to be a different matter than brain death.

 

[kkerwin1]

As I said, my goal in the preceding section was to attempt to demonstrate a need to differentiate a person’s identity from mere aspects or traits of them, including their minds. I admit that the mind appears, at first glance, to be a good candidate trait to “hang” identity from, as the mind itself (as distinct from the brain) is a metaphysical thing. However, the mind is quite mutable as discussed above, and therefore is not a good candidate to be the sum of a person’s identity or essence. No, traits in general are not sufficient to comprise an identity, although they are helpful in describing it.

At conception, there is a separate human organism. As above, its identity and essence are not contingent upon its ability to think, its biological or neuropsychological development, or its potential to grow into an adult. Its essence is contingent, rather, solely upon what it is: a human individual, and not an individual of any other species.

 

[benjamin1973]

No, it’s not uncertainty, it’s a matter of definition. It’s no that we’re unsure what a fetus is-- it’s an unfeeling collection of cells. It does not experience pain, and has no memories or social relationships to lose. It also has a unique DNA, and the potential to become something which has not yet existed in the world.

The question is whether it is so important to bring in every single pregnancy into the world that a woman must be forced by legislation to do so. I don’t think anyone really thinks that preventing babies is a bad thing, for the following reason: almost EVERY woman in developed countries exercises some kind of birth control-- even if it’s using the rhythm method or simple abstinence, the fact is that every egg that passes through her is a potential missed chance at an existent human being. God said “be fruitful and multiply,” not “restrict your behavior to have the right number of kids that you prefer.” In each married couple’s fertile month (i.e. where the woman has her period), a potential human being is lost.

As for it being a “strange line of argumentation.” My point is that nobody weeps over all these unborn fertilized eggs. If they were ACTUALLY equivalent to real human babies, then we would be horrified at the consequences of every single naturally aborted pregnancy, and would do the research necessary to make sure it can’t happen. But we don’t do that, because whatever anybody says, an early fetus is in fact NOT a baby. That’s my point.

 

[robertmidwest]

Hi Kris I have question for you about this:

I have a degree in Chemistry Education, and spent two years teaching high school science in Chicago Public Schools. Presently, I work making the medical decisions on disability cases for Social Security.

How do you make decisions about someone’s disability claims without being an M.D.?

 

[benjamin1973]

This is down to philosophical discussion. If I forget everything I care about, am I really me? Or am I essentially a zombie?

But I didn’t actually argue that a fetus isn’t human. I argued that it isn’t a human being, because being refers to the present capacity for human agency, which an early bundle of cells don’t collectively possess yet.

 

[benjamin1973]

One body, on its own, does not make a person. Conjoined twins are an example of this: two persons, one body.

That’s right. It is their distinct mental processes, their ability to act as agents of free will as provided by God, which determines their personality.

But consider the following (very rare and possibly hypothetical only) case:

Sometimes, one twin is consumed by the development of the other such that non-neurological parts (like an arm) are embedded in the more viable twin. So you get something like a little arm sticking out of his forehead or something.

What now, if it’s a non-identical twin. Should the offending member be surgically removed, or, since it’s alive and has unique DNA, should it be carefully preserved?

 

[benjamin1973]

How then would you differentiate that contingency from someone who is brain dead, or even dead and buried?

The body is distinct from other bodies. It’s clearly human. It has its own DNA. In the case of the deceased, there’s even a name and people who remember the person.

Should we, if we develop sufficient technology, be digging up bodies because they might be made (potentially, mind you) to walk and talk again at some point?

 

[benjamin1973]

The answer to that should be pretty obvious: the person is not making MEDICAL decisions, but administrative decisions about who does/doesn’t meet the bureaucratic criteria for various kinds of assistance.

 

[kkerwin1]

Many individual posts being copied and pasted. Sorry for so many; the argument is too long for a single post on these forums.

This is down to philosophical discussion. If I forget everything I care about, am I really me? Or am I essentially a zombie?

But I didn’t actually argue that a fetus isn’t human. I argued that it isn’t a human being , because being refers to the present capacity for human agency, which an early bundle of cells don’t collectively possess yet.

Not only is this down to philosophical discussion, it appears to be down to semantics. One that closely reminds me of Bill Clinton’s infamous quote, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. You argue that a “being” is an individual capable of an internal experience. I disagree that this is the most apt definition of “being”. The thesis behind my posts last night is that what you call a “being” is a contingent only upon a “being’s” existence itself, and not on its subjective experience of its existence. To state this directly and in the form of a definition, a being is anything that is or exists. This is the simplest definition, and the definition that is most-consistent with the word’s root, the infinitive “to be”.

In this paradigm, an animal, a tree, a rock, and even created objects are “beings”, or more simply things. This does not mean that these things are each due the dignity owed to a human. But, it does mean that each of these things has a distinct, quantized essence that is independent of its traits, attributes, and even constituents. A rock that is chipped and thus is reduced in mass is still the same rock; the chip that was removed is now a different and most-especially a separate rock. In this manner, an embryo is a being that is human in its nature.

What does entitle a human being to special dignity is human exceptionalism. An “internal experience” is not enough; many animals possess that. As a Catholic who believes in a spiritual soul (as opposed to a “natural soul” found in plants and animals which is the “animative principle” that distinguishes a living organism from a dead one), and knowing that a spiritual soul consists of the intellect and will or the capacity to know and choose, I posit that human exceptionalism consists of these capacities. Looking over the text of another of your posts (#274) that I quote below, it looks like you agree with that assertion, specifically, “It is their distinct mental processes, their ability to act as agents of free will”. Yes, it is true that at one point in its development, the fetus lacks the neurological capacity to possess an intellect and a will, and that at another point, it possesses that capacity. However, at no point during that development does the fetus cease to be one thing, and begin to be another. Therefore, a fetus without the neurological capacity for an intellect and will, and the fetus later in its development with that capacity are ontologically the same thing. A trait about them has changed, yes, but it is the same fetus and the same person.

 

[kkerwin1]

You ask rhetorically, “If I forget everything I care about, am I really me? Or am I essentially a zombie?”. In case it is not otherwise clear, my position is that you are the same person, regardless of your memories. To attempt to use different words here, it is the same life.

That’s right. It is their distinct mental processes, their ability to act as agents of free will as provided by God, which determines their personality.

But consider the following (very rare and possibly hypothetical only) case:

Sometimes, one twin is consumed by the development of the other such that non-neurological parts (like an arm) are embedded in the more viable twin. So you get something like a little arm sticking out of his forehead or something.

What now, if it’s a non-identical twin. Should the offending member be surgically removed, or, since it’s alive and has unique DNA, should it be carefully preserved?

I would have hoped that your specific questions here would have been answered by the chimera example I provided above, as what you are talking about is human chimerism. But, I guess I wasn’t very concrete. Fortunately, we don’t have to treat your questions as purely hypothetical situations; we can be quite concrete.

This Wikipedia page on Lydia Fairchild is one of my favorites, although the general chimera page has more interesting examples. Ms. Fairchild’s case is one where her children were born with maternal DNA that did not match hers, and Ms. Fairchild’s children were in danger of being taken from her as part of a suspected surrogacy scam. Further research ended up revealing that Ms. Fairchild was in fact a chimera, and that her ovaries and the eggs within them (which form while a woman is still in utero) were actually tissue from her fraternal twin sister, whom Ms. Fairchild had assimilated during fetal development. Ms. Fairchild never knew this had happened before the legal case. Ultimately, the court ruled correctly that the children were the offspring of Ms. Fairchild.

To answer your specific questions, both of them have the same answer and for the same reason. Both absorbed twins, identical and fraternal, are deceased lives. Their lives, which once existed, no longer do. Tissue consisting of cells containing their DNA continue to live, yes. But, we instinctively and semantically differentiate between the life of individual cells and that of an entire organism. There is a sort of “gestalt life” of all multi-cellular organisms, and it is this gestalt life that I am interested in. Individual cells on our bodies are dying all the time, but we continue to live. While the arm is attached and has a distinct DNA from the rest of the tissue in the body, it is still part of the organism to which the whole body belongs. When the arm is removed, its cells that have DNA distinct from the rest of the body continue to live. However, none of those cells possess the capacity to execute a body plan and grow into a separate gestalt life. It remains just an arm. Therefore, there is no moral objection to removing and safely disposing it.

 

[kkerwin1]

How then would you differentiate that contingency from someone who is brain dead, or even dead and buried?

The body is distinct from other bodies. It’s clearly human. It has its own DNA. In the case of the deceased, there’s even a name and people who remember the person.

Should we, if we develop sufficient technology, be digging up bodies because they might be made (potentially, mind you) to walk and talk again at some point?

Regarding brain death: The best answer that I can give you here is that neither medical science, philosophy, nor religion know precisely when a “dead” brain is beyond the point of recovery. We seem to continually be getting surprised on that point; the brain is very “plastic” or neurologically flexible. There are probably a couple of good candidates out there, including total lack of intracranial blood flow for a certain amount of time above a certain temperature, but I’m not sure that we know when exactly that is (it’s likely not more than a few minutes at a normal body temperature or even room temperature). Beyond the discrete topic of recoverability, the Wikipedia page on brain death discusses inconsistent medical definitions as to how much of the brain needs to be without activity in order for the whole brain to be considered to be dead; specifically, it notes that Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary defines brain death as whole cerebral death, whereas the US National Library of Medicine’s Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) defines brain death as including the brain stem. The difference is that a brain with mere cerebral death could continue to independently support a heart beat and breathing, whereas a brain without activity in the brain stem would not be able to support these functions. Personally, I prefer the MeSH criteria over Dorland’s for philosophical and religious reasons.

Regarding “dead and buried”: This is much more clear than brain death. Once necrosis has set in, no matter how much technology we have, the only remaining “hope” would be cloning. Technologically, we’re probably going to get there at some point. No, we’re not going to talk about the morality of cloning in itself. However, for what it is worth, a clone would be a separate life and a separate person. The clone would remain a separate person even if we were to hypothetically develop the capacity to read and imprint a personality and memory on a clone’s brain, such that the clone effectively “woke up” one day. Note that a clone, however, is not grown fully developed as seen in the movies; it has to go through the normal embryonic and childhood development to reach adulthood.

 

[kkerwin1]

I will also note that it is possible to take an adult, fully-differentiated cell, and subject it to a great deal of biochemical stress whereby the cell is rendered into a state that it is like an embryo. Presumably, one might be able to locate one or more cells that are still individually alive on some corpses, and rebuild a gestalt life in this fashion. But, such a cell would be a clone, and therefore a distinct life and person from the person it was taken from. It’s important to note, here, that this is a prime example of where you are incorrect in assuming that Catholics argue from potentiality. Yes, even the living cells could potentially be turned into a new embryo and thus a new person. But, without this intervention, these adult cells ARE NOT an embryo. It is this distinction, that of being and essence rather than potentiality, that Catholics argue from. Therefore, there is no moral problem with not digging up corpses in order to perform the procedure.

To summarize, there exists from conception until death a “gestalt life” in all multi-cellular organisms as discussed above. This gestalt life is distinct from, yet related to, the life of each organism’s individual cells. The gestalt life totally comprises the organism’s essence and identity. In the specific case of humans, particular dignity is assigned due to the exceptionalism of the human species. This exceptionalism consists of the human species’ ability to know and to choose freely; that is, the intellect and the will. Yes, these faculties are developed over time in each individual, barring disability. But, neither the disabled nor the non-disabled but under-developed become “new lives” when fully-developed, and so remain ontologically the same as their non-disabled and fully-developed selves. Therefore, where one human life exists and persists, the dignity normally afforded to all human lives is owed to that individual, regardless of their stage of development or disability.

Now to answer your guys’ questions about my job.

 

[kkerwin1]

Hi Kris I have question for you about this:

I have a degree in Chemistry Education, and spent two years teaching high school science in Chicago Public Schools. Presently, I work making the medical decisions on disability cases for Social Security.

How do you make decisions about someone’s disability claims without being an M.D.?

Very carefully!

No, it’s actually not as hard as what it sounds. First and foremost, it is important to mention that most disability cases have to have a doctor’s signature. There are some “single decision makers” who are not doctors, but they only have the authority to sign cases that are (1) being decided as an allowance rather than a denial, and (2) have already been pre-screened by a computer and determined to present a high likelihood of being both an allowance and one that can be decided very quickly (as in, a couple of minutes to hours). Examples of such cases would include those involving acute leukemia, ALS, kidney disease on chronic dialysis, and one very specific kind of pancreatic cancer. Impairments like these can usually be fully documented with a single phone call to a hospital requesting them to fax very specific information, rather than the entire medical record. They’re the “home run” or “slam dunk” cases.

More importantly, the disability program administered by Social Security is more interested in functioning than it is in particular medical disorders. In a way, one might say that this makes the decision “less medical” and “more functional”. We do have to make sure that there is (1) a diagnosis by a doctor or other acceptable source that could reasonably be expected to result in the functional limitations; (2) imaging, lab testing, clinical findings present on a physical or mental exam, and/or other objective data to support the diagnosis; and (3) objectively measure how MUCH the disorder limits the claimant’s functioning (as opposed to taking the claimant at their word that their knee arthritis results in outright inability to walk, vs need of a walker, vs need of a cane, vs only a limp, vs no functional limitation at all).

Some examples of what I mean by functioning:

Sometimes, parents will apply for disability benefits for each of their kids at the same time. Usually, each of these “siblings’ cases” are assigned to the same adjudicator. One day, I was assigned the cases of two brothers who both had the same rare, progressive, congenital disorder. The older brother was further along than the younger one, and his case turned out to be a home run allowance, in and out in a couple of hours. The younger brother’s case showed limitations, but turned out not to be so bad as to be consistent with disability as defined by the program … yet. He’ll probably get there when he’s older. That case took months to decide. So, same disease, different levels of function, and different determinations.

…

 

[kkerwin1]

…

On the other hand, different diseases or combinations of diseases can result in the same functional impairment. For example, one … I’ll call it a “functional template” … is “ineffective ambulation”. In order to have effective ambulation, there are a few requirements, and missing any one of them is ineffective ambulation. One such requirement is the ability to walk at least 50 feet with at least one hand free and able to carry at least 10 pounds. There’s a couple of ways to get there: a skin disease to the feet or weight bearing joints, arthritis, neuropathy, peripheral vascular disease, stroke … the list might be endless. The need for a walker or two canes, vs a single cane, is synonymous with ineffective ambulation: there’s no free hand to carry the weight. Someone who had a hand or arm amputation when they were younger and now requires a cane to walk has ineffective ambulation: they have one hand to hold the cane, and no free hand to carry the weight.

If you have further questions, please feel free to direct them to me via private message; let’s keep this thread for the discussion at hand. Alternatively, you might like to read at disabilitysecrets.com.

he answer to that should be pretty obvious: the person is not making MEDICAL decisions, but administrative decisions about who does/doesn’t meet the bureaucratic criteria for various kinds of assistance.

A single disability determination is comprised of many smaller decisions. Broadly, they seem to fall into the categories of medical, functional, vocational (related to job duties), and administrative or medicolegal.

 

[benjamin1973]

I have a feeling we are about to get post expansion that is out of control. If I don’t quote any part of your answer which you feel you really wanted to be addressed, then please let me know.

Not only is this down to philosophical discussion, it appears to be down to semantics. One that closely reminds me of Bill Clinton’s infamous quote, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. You argue that a “being” is an individual capable of an internal experience. I disagree that this is the most apt definition of “being”. The thesis behind my posts last night is that what you call a “being” is a contingent only upon a “being’s” existence itself, and not on its subjective experience of its existence. To state this directly and in the form of a definition, a being is anything that is or exists. This is the simplest definition, and the definition that is most-consistent with the word’s root, the infinitive “to be”.

A don’t agree with these semantics, which is why I gave the fairly gruesome examples of a braindead coma patient and a corpse.

Saying that something IS, i.e. using the verb “to be” with respect to an object being locatable in space and time, is really not how I think we use the term, “being.” We could have talked about rock beings and tree beings-- but we don’t. I’ve never heard the word “being” used except in the context of living, sentient agents-- people, hypothetical aliens, God, etc.

As for the chronology of development. I’d liken it to tracing the colors across a rainbow. If we start at red, there’s no specific point at which red can be said to have changed to yellow. We can point to a large mixed region in which the color has some of the appearance of both colors, i.e; orange. But we can also say-- at this point, I would definitely call the color yellow, and not red at all, and at that point, I would definitely call the color red, and not yellow at all.

That you cannot point to the precise moment, or that the exact point you determine is somewhat arbitrary, doesn’t mean those two colors are identical. Red and yellow are different colors, and a zygote, an infant at birth and a corpse are all very different things.

Thank you for your many thoughtful posts. I will try to address them all, but I think one post per session is about all that I can manage right now. Give me a couple of days, if you would, to address the others.