So is it or isn't it a human

[LittleSoldier]

Biggie, given that the Church has singularly failed to define vir, that’s an interesting criticism. Actually distinctions could be made on a non-arbitrary basis.
I think most Catholic’s definition of “human” would be found wanting if examined.

Well, then I suppose you will need to ascertain how most Catholics define “human.” Perhaps you should conduct a little research and once you have properly determined what most Catholics use as a definition, you can then pontificate on your findings.

Good luck on your research!

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[LittleSoldier]

That’s not the issue, I dont think. I’m pro-choice (ish) but obviously the foetus is human. The question is not its species but its rights vs. the mother’s rights, and how much the foetus is aware of, how much it can feel, at the time of abortion.

You agree that the fetus is human. The mother is human. So what rights are you referring to? Do you believe that the mother’s rights prevail because the fetus is inside her (well, yes he is, but then the mother is around the fetus), because the fetus cannot take care of itself (well, no he can’t, but the mother can’t either, and a born infant, toddler, and child can’t take care of himself either).

Then you introduce “how much the foetus is aware of, how much it can feel, at the time of abortion.” This seems a little strange to me. Awareness is a subjective means of deciding whether abortion is appropriate. I’m assuming you are concerned with how much “it” can feel at the time of abortion because you don’t want “it” to feel any pain (please correct me if I am wrong). I’ve had three back surgeries and felt no pain when I was under general anesthesia. So I’m wondering if you think it would be OK to abort me when I’m undergoing surgery.

If you aren’t referring to pain, but to a general ability to “feel,” then you are again using a subjective means of deciding whether abortion is appropriate and I can again use my example of being under general anesthesia. Quite honestly, I couldn’t feel a thing.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Well, then I suppose you will need to ascertain how most Catholics define “human.” Perhaps you should conduct a little research and once you have properly determined what most Catholics use as a definition, you can then pontificate on your findings.

Good luck on your research! .

I have research to do, and it’s not on this topic!

 

[Doc_Keele]

Biggie, there’s plenty of non-arbitrary ways of distinguishing human from human being, two being birth and viability.
If you’re saying lack of a definite border prevents distinguishing human from human being, then you must reject the notion of male and female then?
The Church has never been able to define vir.

 

[Timbothefiveth]

Biggie, there’s plenty of non-arbitrary ways of distinguishing human from human being, two being birth and viability.

But those are both incredibly flawed. Birth, please explain to me why birth makes it different? It’s okay to kill it at one point but 5 seconds later it’s not just because it’s changed location?

Viability is also an extremely flawed principle. Using this principle, why is it not okay to kill people on a ventilator?

 

[Doc_Keele]

If your problem is a boundary issue, I refer you to my point about male and female. I could take many other examples in the legal, moral, ecclesiastical and natural world of issues where a completely arbitrary definition is set. What constitutes obesity? Whatever measure you take, there will always be someone in the “grey” area.
An epistemic difficulty doesn’t actually affect the moral issues.
As for viability, you are mistaking the issue. Taking someone off a ventilator isn’t killing them in any case, as legal precedent shows.

 

[Ender]

Biggie, there’s plenty of non-arbitrary ways of distinguishing human from human being, two being birth and viability.

Birth seems like the very definition of arbitrary given that there is no intrinsic change whatever in the child that is caused by the birth, and given that normal births regularly happen over a period of 24 to 38 weeks it really is a stretch to contend that a preemie born at 24 weeks is more human than an overdue child unborn at 38. As for viability, doesn’t it strike you as just a bit arbitrary when the definition of a human being is not innate to the individual but is instead dependent on medical technology? Is there much doubt that a child born at 24 weeks in Johns Hopkins is more viable than a child born at 28 weeks in a remote village in Guatemala? We seem to have a different understanding of the meaning of “arbitrary.”

Ender

 

[Biggie]

Biggie, there’s plenty of non-arbitrary ways of distinguishing human from human being, two being birth and viability.
If you’re saying lack of a definite border prevents distinguishing human from human being, then you must reject the notion of male and female then?
The Church has never been able to define vir.

You apparently understand arbitrariness to mean something other than the opposite of inherency. Birth and viability are both arbitrary (er satz) as a means of establishing the humanity of the being. The only reason to chose either point is because some one says so, since they demark nothing inherent to the being.

Birth because it can and does occur at diverse times and either naturally or surgically. The child, one minute before birth, is the same as the child one minute after.

Viability because it is a point that moves depending upon circumstances. Many adults lack viability as the word is being used. Are we to conclude they are not human? And no adult is viable absent food, water and air. Viability is particularly troubling because it leads intractably to the life unworthy of life formula.

The rest of your comment makes no sense to me.

 

[Biggie]

If your problem is a boundary issue, I refer you to my point about male and female. I could take many other examples in the legal, moral, ecclesiastical and natural world of issues where a completely arbitrary definition is set. What constitutes obesity? Whatever measure you take, there will always be someone in the “grey” area.
An epistemic difficulty doesn’t actually affect the moral issues.
As for viability, you are mistaking the issue. Taking someone off a ventilator isn’t killing them in any case, as legal precedent shows.

No idea what “boundary issue” refers to in your lexicon but it has no meaning to me pertinent to the discussion. Defining gender or obesity does not have the magnitude of recognizing the existence of human life. While gray areas may exist on the fringes that challenge the evidence of the eyes, the significance is largely subjective and not a matter on which life itself depends. To draw an equivalence between difficulties defining obesity and defining the existence of human life is a reduction to absurdity.

Legal precedent is of less interest here than moral imperative. In moral terms, removing a person from a ventilator may or may not constitute an immoral taking of life depending upon circumstances, nor, by the way, do I accept that in all cases it would not legally be defined as murder.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Do you really think that defining gender isn’t a big issue? Focussing on the specifics of gender and obesity as examples is missing the point. You do understand that I’m just illustrating a point, right? Not actually comparing gender and obesity (or any of the other dozens of examples I could bring up) to the issue of human vs human being?
Because it’s very difficult to have a proper discussion if people get bogged down all the time in irrelevant specifics. It only seems absurd because of your concrete thinking.
The simple fact is that in any continuum, there will be a grey area, but that does not of itself mean that you cannot make divisions. Gender is an excellent example, because most people accept there is such a thing as male and female. Do you? Yes/No

Morally and legally taking someone off a ventilator is generally not murder.

Look up the definition of arbitrary and you’ll see that neither birth nor viability are arbitary.

 

[DOShea]

No one is saying that arbitrary divisions or distinctions are not useful in many applications. Doctors prescribe blood pressure medication on an arbitrary, subjective determination of blood pressure measurements and risk factors, for example.

What IS being said is that the topic deals with, literally, a matter of life or death; the distinction that is being made that human babies in case A have certain rights, but in case B they do not. So it isn’t just a matter of never accepting an arbitrary standard, it’s a matter of saying an arbitrary standard is not a good tool to use when it comes to human life and it’s possible termination.

If everyone can agree that human beings have a right to life, then it becomes a matter of prudently making sure that we don’t err when establishing any “boundary,” for the cost of that error is taking a human life, ergo: murder.

So where do we place the limit such that no error - no murder - occurs?

Viability isn’t a very good place to go for several reasons. First, two babies born prematurely, say 23 week, do not have equal chances for survival. Also, if you go down the “number of weeks along” road, you end up in the area of ethics, with another issue to resolve; if the mother carried the baby two weeks more instead of aborting it, would it then be viable? Then comes the question is this murder by deadline? Killing the baby by X date is okay, after which, it’s not. In other words, as long as you plan and carry out the extinguishing of the baby’s life before the deadline, you’re okay - but in terms of what? In terms of man-made law? God’s law? Truth? You tell me.

As has been pointed out, once you step into the swamp of viability issues, there is no getting out of the mud. If a baby at X weeks isn’t viable, then maybe an Alzheimer’s patient at X weeks isn’t viable either. Maybe coma victims after X weeks aren’t viable. Maybe blind people aren’t, deaf people aren’t, etc. etc. Where do you draw the line across which no more lines may be drawn? You can’t. Every one of those criteria were used in Germany during Hitler’s reign as justification to either terminate life or to force sterilization upon the person so their “deficient condition” would not be passed on. No, they didn’t have a full understanding of genetics… but would that have stopped them?

The horrors of what happened during that period were not achieved by one charismatic fellow showing up and delivering a lot of fiery speeches. They were achieved by the slow progression of ideas where people made decisions - arbitrary ones - about what made someone else a human being or one worthy of holding certain rights. That is the slippery slope we slide down when we start on that path.

Think I’m exaggerating the case? Then show me the Dr. Jack Kavorkian of the 19th century. Or the 17th. There isn’t one, because during that period the unanimous opinion of life was conception to natural death = human being with full rights to life. It’s only in the last century that those issues began being debated. So what is it about human existence in the 20th century that alters the definition of what a human life is or when it begins? Can you point to the single event that made us smarter, to where we can know that with any greater certainty then anyone in George Washington’s day?

 

[Doc_Keele]

Right - but I’m not talking about an arbitrary distinction. I am contrasting making a completely arbitrary distinction from the issues of defining where exactly a particular boundary is drawn. I am probably not a good rhetorician, but I believe my argument is sound.
What we’re arguing about is the difficulty of knowing where the line is drawn. That’s an epistemic issue, not a moral one.

According to Godwin’s law, the discussion is now officially over

 

[Timbothefiveth]

Taking someone off a ventilator isn’t killing them in any case, as legal precedent shows.

Taking someone off a ventilator might not be a punishable crime, but it’s certainly killing them.
However, I wasn’t talking about taking them off. I was talking about killing them through other means. A person on a ventilator is about as viable as a fetus in the womb, sometimes less. If we can apply the viability test to show whether or not it’s okay to kill someone, surely it would be no crime to stab someone on a ventilator.

If your problem is a boundary issue, I refer you to my point about male and female. I could take many other examples in the legal, moral, ecclesiastical and natural world of issues where a completely arbitrary definition is set

Another standard that doesn’t work when you stretch it out. Why on earth would it’s gender make a difference in whether it deserves to live? Why would whether or not we can tell make a difference?

 

[Ender]

The simple fact is that in any continuum, there will be a grey area, but that does not of itself mean that you cannot make divisions.

Life, however, is not a gray area; it is not a continuum in the sense that we cannot distinguish when it starts. It starts the moment the egg is fertilized.

Look up the definition of arbitrary and you’ll see that neither birth nor viability are arbitary.

Here is the Merriam-Webster definition:

based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something

This is the point that has been made: neither birth nor viability have anything to do with the intrinsic nature of an unborn human, therefore these points are arbitrarily chosen.

Ender

 

[Doc_Keele]

Life, however, is not a gray area; it is not a continuum in the sense that we cannot distinguish when it starts. It starts the moment the egg is fertilized.

Here is the Merriam-Webster definition:

based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something

This is the point that has been made: neither birth nor viability have anything to do with the intrinsic nature of an unborn human, therefore these points are arbitrarily chosen.

Ender

Birth and viability are related to the intrinsic nature of the human life. So not arbitrary.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Birth and viability are related to the intrinsic nature of the human life. So not arbitrary.

“Viability” isn’t arbitrary (every living unborn child is already viable in the environment in which he/she exists, and becomes viable outside the womb at some point unless he/she dies from natural causes or unless he/she is aborted (what you call “therapeutic abortion” but is really killing)) but “viability” is not really what people mean when they use it as a determinant of life.

Perhaps a better term to use would be “determination of viability outside the womb.” Using a set number of gestational weeks (or days) to determine viability outside the womb has two problems:

(1) Each unborn child is different and there are so many factors to take into consideration when determining viability outside the womb it is doubtful that anyone could make a determination that covers all unborn children, in all cases.

(2) Viability outside the womb can depend on the sophistication of the medical team and their equipment. The gestational age where children have been born and have lived has been decreasing, i.e. at one time a premature child was saved at 26 weeks, then 23 weeks, and so on.

It’s because of these two problems that “determination of viability” is arbitrary and subjective.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[Biggie]

Do you really think that defining gender isn’t a big issue? Focussing on the specifics of gender and obesity as examples is missing the point. You do understand that I’m just illustrating a point, right? Not actually comparing gender and obesity (or any of the other dozens of examples I could bring up) to the issue of human vs human being?
Because it’s very difficult to have a proper discussion if people get bogged down all the time in irrelevant specifics. It only seems absurd because of your concrete thinking.
The simple fact is that in any continuum, there will be a grey area, but that does not of itself mean that you cannot make divisions. Gender is an excellent example, because most people accept there is such a thing as male and female. Do you? Yes/No

Morally and legally taking someone off a ventilator is generally not murder.

Look up the definition of arbitrary and you’ll see that neither birth nor viability are arbitary.

Let’s dispatch with the ventilator issue by simply observing you have now modified it with the word “generally”. Therefore you have ceded the point you previously made.

You drew the comparison of determining obesity to determining life, not I, and were I to abandon the type of concrete thinking that makes the two cases coequal, I would have abandoned thinking entirely. Your point was absurd and of course you must back away from it.

You have ignored my position that as to gender, for example, the significance of the definition is largely subjective. That is not to say it is insignificant to persons needing that definition. But the definition does not objectively deny life itself.

The arbitrariness of birth and viability is as a measure of the humanity of that being born or viable. Have you found that in the dictionary?

 

[Doc_Keele]

Let’s dispatch with the ventilator issue by simply observing you have now modified it with the word “generally”. Therefore you have ceded the point you previously made

No, I haven’t ceded the point. Legally what turning the ventilator off depends on the circumstances, like nearly all legal questions - but it certainly isn’t automatically murder.

 

[Biggie]

As for viability, you are mistaking the issue. Taking someone off a ventilator isn’t killing them in any case, as legal precedent shows.

Where’s the word “generally” here? Or the room for it?

Look, Doc, you have painted yourself into a corner and you are trying to tiptoe over the wet paint without leaving marks. I am trying to help you out. If you have this argument your way, we cannot know when life begins because we cannot know, not whether someone is male or female, not even if someone is fat. I could let it rest there for you and allow anyone who reads you to understand that’s your position in all its absurdity.

We know a male from a female, a fat guy from a skinny guy, and we know we know. The aberrations at the edges do not make those determinations arbitrary but merely qualified. We can tolerate the qualification because the significance is subjective. They are of a different order than the determination of humanity.

It is possible to be less agnostic and take your position, and your profound agnosticism is prompted by your need to find a morality of sorts in your opinion. Surrendur that. Then you can simply hold we know but it doesn’t matter. Simple.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Taking someone off a ventilator might not be a punishable crime, but it’s certainly killing them.
However, I wasn’t talking about taking them off. I was talking about killing them through other means. A person on a ventilator is about as viable as a fetus in the womb, sometimes less. If we can apply the viability test to show whether or not it’s okay to kill someone, surely it would be no crime to stab someone on a ventilator.

Another standard that doesn’t work when you stretch it out. Why on earth would it’s gender make a difference in whether it deserves to live? Why would whether or not we can tell make a difference?

Saying that someone on a ventilator is as viable as a foetus (which is not the case anyway) and therefore someone on a ventilator can be killed is to mistake the nature of the argument for permitting abortion - that is, it is yet another straw man argument.