So what is the difference between a potential and an actual human being?

[Rau]

From memory, his argument didn’t necessarily consider that aspect. He focussed purely on the woman as the prime consideration.

His argument is that nothing could override the woman’s right to remove the “house sitter“ by any means including death. Join the dots.

If control over body is prime, the status of human being or not is thus irrelevant, since the same decision is reached by the woman not wanting a baby.

I now read your position to be a shandy. Control over body allows killing offspring up until 1 week shy of birth (or maybe earlier). So you are not completely aligned with Hume?

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

From memory, his argument didn’t necessarily consider that aspect. He focussed purely on the woman as the prime consideration.

His argument is that nothing could override the woman’s right to remove the “house sitter“ by any means including death. Join the dots.

If control over body is prime, the status of human being or not is thus irrelevant, since the same decision is reached by the woman not wanting a baby.

I now read your position to be a shandy. Control over body allows killing offspring up until 1 week shy of birth (or maybe earlier). So you are not completely aligned with Hume?

I didn’t involve myself in his thread and I didn’t read all the posts so I’m not sure of his exact position. I’m sure he’ll clarify.

But to state the obvious: there are a multitude of opinions on this matter. From absolutely no abortions whatsoever including cases where death of either the child or the mother is guaranteed, to allowing it for serious medical problems and then also allowing it for rape cases. And then allowing it up to a certain point (a more legalistic view) or allowing it at any stage.

And there are those who are not religious but take a very conservative view and those who are Catholic who are very liberal in this regard.

 

[Elf01]

After birth, anyone can shake up a bottle. Mom can walk away.

If access to a wet nurse or formula wasn’t possible would she have the duty to use her body to care for the baby after birth? I don’t care that it’s not realustic. Humor me

 

[goout]

Rau:

Freddy:

Now we can actually move on to when it should be allowed and when it shouldn’t.

When do we have a ‘human being‘? You seem to be saying you don’t know.

Let me get one thing straight to save you a lot of time. If you ask me for a specific time when that which a woman is carrying becomes a person/human being then you’re not going to get it. There is no specific time because we then get to a nonsensical position of saying that it’s ok an hour before but not an hour later. And I have posted that more than a couple of times. If you don’t understand that position now then asking the same question again and again isn’t going to change your comprehension of that position. I won’t be addressing it futher. You have my answer. If you don’t accept it or agree with it then that is up to you.

As to the difference between person and human being, in this context I am using the terms interchangeably. A baby at the point of being born is a human being/person. A blastocyst isn’t. When does one change to the other? See above.

The sane position is to give humanity the benefit of the doubt when your personal certainty fails you.
Evil isn’t just vague offenses against rules; it’s the loss of good reason (in-sanus means literally unhealthy thinking).

You are lowering the value of humanity to your own inability or unwillingness to acknowledge it.

 

[Hume]

Hence this argument, which takes your point as a given, that it’s her decision, and then tries to describe why in most cases she has no problem with it.

I see. Thank you for the clarification.

I think that’s a matter of individual psychology, then. My sister had an abortion and while she doesn’t reflect on the event with any great emotion, the idea that she “had no problem with it” isn’t accurate.

Something that would have likely been its own person was killed, after all. Even if it was just at the “ball of cells” stages.

So to the question, “baby” stage is the most likely answer. At that point you can more fully see it, interact with it. Look at its eyes and watch it breathe with its own lungs. Listen to the baby coo. It’s more than just movements in a third trimester belly.

It is more interactive and thus more real as a it’s own entity. Real reciprocal bonding occurs.

My argument doesn’t suggest the offspring as being relevant at some point or even concede it but states quite unequivocably that we reach a stage (a week before birth to give us a point of discussion) when the baby is certainly relevant.

That’s a solid point, and to that we can probably agree that its wonderful that abortions that late are very much a rarity.

But when we go about establishing laws, the line has to get drawn somewhere and it has to be drawn in a way we can commonly identify.

For example, in a 55mph speed zone is a guy doing 56mph going materially faster and being materially more dangerous than someone going 55mph?

No. Of course not. But the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Banning abortion after a certain period would be a practical impossibility. If done based on weeks, the regretfully pregnant woman can just lie about when her last period was. While she couldn’t stretch the truth much, individual development allows some range in the weekly developmental milestones.

This same problem extends to banning abortion after brainwaves or quickening are detectable. Not all these milestones are uniformly visible in all pregnancies at identical times, which creates a situation where the law gives one woman more opportunity to consider abortion than another.

I agree fully that a near-term abortion is a tragedy. But again, where is the most objectively and consistently identifiable place to draw the line if not birth? Serious question.

If access to a wet nurse or formula wasn’t possible would she have the duty to use her body to care for the baby after birth? I don’t care that it’s not realustic. Humor me

Duty? Probably not. We reproduce because it’s the Meaning of Life and we inherently want to for the most part (individual exceptions aside). It’s a well established “law” of the animal kingdom that in suddenly harsh circumstances, parents will abandon young and try again in a better season.

 

[Elf01]

Duty? Probably not. We reproduce because it’s the Meaning of Life and we inherently want to for the most part (individual exceptions aside). It’s a well established “law” of the animal kingdom that in suddenly harsh circumstances, parents will abandon young and try again in a better season.

So in a world without formula, if there was no wet nurse you wouldn’t charge the mother with at least neglect?

 

[Rau]

So in a world without formula, if there was no wet nurse you wouldn’t charge the mother with at least neglect?

I think the reasoning is - it’s her life, her house, her money…

 

[Hume]

So in a world without formula, if there was no wet nurse you wouldn’t charge the mother with at least neglect?

In a pre-formula world kids were abandoned absolutely all the time.
Spartans even had a little ritual for it.

Parenthood is such an enormous task that it must be the dominion of the willing. Signing up to care for a human being you don’t want for at least 18 years?

Forget tricking the Cyclops. That feat needs to be in Homer’s Odyssey.

 

[Hume]

I think the reasoning is - it’s her life, her house, her money…

I think kids that are cared for out of a sense of duty tend to be social deviants.

I think kids that are cared for by someone who loves and desires them tend to live successful lives.

 

[Hume]

Re: @Elf01 and @Rau

To keep it on topic, when do you think a person is worthy of legal rights apart from its mother?

And maybe more interesting, are there any situations where those rights are reversed?

 

[Elf01]

Re: @Elf01 and @Rau

To keep it on topic, when do you think a person is worthy of legal rights apart from its mother?

And maybe more interesting, are there any situations where those rights are reversed?

Human life begins at conception and I believe it should be legally protected from then.

I would consider exceptions if the pregnancy posed an immiment threat to the mothers life.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Rau:

Freddy:

Now we can actually move on to when it should be allowed and when it shouldn’t.

When do we have a ‘human being‘? You seem to be saying you don’t know.

Let me get one thing straight to save you a lot of time. If you ask me for a specific time when that which a woman is carrying becomes a person/human being then you’re not going to get it. There is no specific time because we then get to a nonsensical position of saying that it’s ok an hour before but not an hour later. And I have posted that more than a couple of times. If you don’t understand that position now then asking the same question again and again isn’t going to change your comprehension of that position. I won’t be addressing it futher. You have my answer. If you don’t accept it or agree with it then that is up to you.

As to the difference between person and human being, in this context I am using the terms interchangeably. A baby at the point of being born is a human being/person. A blastocyst isn’t. When does one change to the other? See above.

The sane position is to give humanity the benefit of the doubt when your personal certainty fails you.

Then I don’t have to when my personal certainty doesn’t. Is that fair enough?

 

[Freddy]

Hume:

Re: @Elf01 and @Rau

To keep it on topic, when do you think a person is worthy of legal rights apart from its mother?

And maybe more interesting, are there any situations where those rights are reversed?

I would consider exceptions if the pregnancy posed an immiment threat to the mothers life.

Then you end up in a very similar position to me. Is the woman definitely going to die? Is it almost certain? Is there a very strong chance? A good chance? A reasonable chance? A probability? A possibility? An outside chance? A slight chance?

Can we put a percentage on it? If we want a specific time for when a foetus reaches personhood or a point at which someone shouldn’t have an abortion then we should be able to come up with a specific figure.

If we say that it’s 100% if she will definitely die and 0% that she’ll have no problems, then what’s the figure you’d put on it? And who picks that figure? Her doctor? A team of doctors? Can she choose who decides? Does she have a say? What if she’s desperately afraid for her life and the doctor says she must continue with the pregnancy?

I’ll save some to-ing and fro-ing and suggest that you’d consider that it’s not possible to put a specific figure on something like that. It could be 100% and she’d still survive due to a medical miracle. So yes, both questions are inherently nonsensical.

 

[Elf01]

Then you end up in a very similar position to me. Is the woman definitely going to die? Is it almost certain? Is there a very strong chance? A good chance? A reasonable chance? A probability? A possibility? An outside chance? A slight chance?

Can we put a percentage on it? If we want a specific time for when a foetus reaches personhood or a point at which someone shouldn’t have an abortion then we should be able to come up with a specific figure.

If we say that it’s 100% if she will definitely die and 0% that she’ll have no problems, then what’s the figure you’d put on it? And who picks that figure? Her doctor? A team of doctors? Can she choose who decides? Does she have a say?

I’ll save some to-ing and fro-ing and suggest that you’d consider that it’s not possible to put a specific figure on something like that. It could be 100% and she’d still survive due to a medical miracle. So yes, both questions are inherently nonsensical.

It is difficult. I would say a good chance, and trust doctors to define that in individual cases. I would consider experr advice when drafting legislation.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Hence this argument, which takes your point as a given, that it’s her decision, and then tries to describe why in most cases she has no problem with it.

I think that’s a matter of individual psychology, then. My sister had an abortion and while she doesn’t reflect on the event with any great emotion, the idea that she “had no problem with it” isn’t accurate.

Something that would have likely been its own person was killed, after all. Even if it was just at the “ball of cells” stages.

I should revise my ‘most’ to ‘some’ I think. My wife fell pregnant with what would have been our third shortly after our second. And gee, it would have been a struggle. I broached the subject of abortion but she flatly refused. Decision made and accepted. Then nature made it’s own decision and she lost it a week or so later. And it was difficult to come to terms with what was felt keenly as a loss and the guilt that came with the feeling of relief.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Then you end up in a very similar position to me. Is the woman definitely going to die? Is it almost certain? Is there a very strong chance? A good chance? A reasonable chance? A probability? A possibility? An outside chance? A slight chance?

Can we put a percentage on it? If we want a specific time for when a foetus reaches personhood or a point at which someone shouldn’t have an abortion then we should be able to come up with a specific figure.

If we say that it’s 100% if she will definitely die and 0% that she’ll have no problems, then what’s the figure you’d put on it? And who picks that figure? Her doctor? A team of doctors? Can she choose who decides? Does she have a say?

I’ll save some to-ing and fro-ing and suggest that you’d consider that it’s not possible to put a specific figure on something like that. It could be 100% and she’d still survive due to a medical miracle. So yes, both questions are inherently nonsensical.

It is difficult.

No doubt about it, Elf.

 

[Elf01]

Then nature made it’s own decision and she lost it a week or so later. And it was difficult to come to terms with what was felt keenly as a loss and the guilt that came with the feeling of relief.

Being completely insensitive here in order to make a point

What exactly did you lose? Why did you feel guilty?

Apologies to any pro lifer who has been impacted by miscarriage.

 

[MamaJewel]

Just note the term ‘potential’ in each. It reinforces what I’ve been saying.

I beg to differ.

I happen to live in Florida, where it is against state and federal law to interact with a sea turtle nest, sea turtle eggs, hatchlings, young sea turtles and mature sea turtles. It might not be a mature sea turtle, it may not be a hatchling, but we recognize that it is a sea turtle in its egg. As such, it warrants federal and state protections as a member of a threatened or endangered species.

The “potential” to transition or grow to the next stage does not render the member of a species any less a part of their species at an earlier (or later) stage of existence, including the human species.

Actual human beings exist.

Agreed. Science has repeatedly evidenced this fact.

As such, before a working brain develops, there cannot be a “human being”…
These are medical and biological facts, not to be disputed. …
Learn biology.

You. Are. So. Wrong.

I would like to introduce you to Eva Grace.
She had no brain.
She was a fetus.
She was a baby.
She never took her first breath.
She was stillborn.

And…
she is a human being.
She is a very special person who greatly impacted society, medicine, and those who knew and loved her.
She is also a human organ donor who has an organ procurement protocol named after her.

:gift_heart:Eva Grace

She’s the first ever — not baby, but person — in the state of Oklahoma to donate a whole eye, and she donated two. Because of her, LifeShare has made connections in other states to set up eye transplants for the future. They have an infant organ donation plan they now are working with that they’d shared with other organ procurement organizations in Colorado and Texas. They call it the Eva Protocol.

Parents of Stillborn Baby Eva Plan for Organ Donation Prior to Birth — From New to ICU

There is no specific time because we then get to a nonsensical position of saying that it’s ok an hour before but not an hour later.

Then we default to the earliest moment of the existence of a member of the human species.
Science is literally questioning if it is ethical for doctors to study and experiment on specific human tissue (aka a “distinct individual”) in vitro beyond Day 14 of conception.

Day 14 or Day 15 is not nonsense.
It is a very serious ethical question in human embryonic research at this time.

First, do no harm.
Do good.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Then nature made it’s own decision and she lost it a week or so later. And it was difficult to come to terms with what was felt keenly as a loss and the guilt that came with the feeling of relief.

Being completely insensitive here in order to make a point

What exactly did you lose? Why did you feel guilty?

I think there’d be a sense of loss whether it was a miscarriage or an abortion. But if you have decided that you want the pregnancy to continue then you start thinking about 9 months down the track. And about how you’re going to need another bedroom and will it be a boy or a girl and you start to envisage the person it will become. And then that’s lost.

There can still be that sense of loss even if the woman decides to have an abortion. But during the internal discussion she has before making that decision I would imagine she would come to terms with that loss. I would imagine that there’d be less of a sense of loss. But I’m obviously a guy and you’d have to ask the individual woman for her individual feelings about whatever circumstances she went through.

And the guilt was because I had decided it was a bad idea to have another child but my wife decided she wanted it. And then her losing it brought on a selfish sense of relief.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

I think there’d be a sense of loss whether it was a miscarriage or an abortion. But if you have decided that you want the pregnancy to continue then you start thinking about 9 months down the track. And about how you’re going to need another bedroom and will it be a boy or a girl and you start to envisage the person it will become. And then that’s lost.

I’m not asking generally. Why did you feel a sense of loss over something that to you was definetely not a person, and that you would have had murdered if your wife agreed?

You will please change the terminology you use when talking about decisions made regarding past pregnancies. Especially when you refer to my wife. It’s not a term I would allow you to use if we were talking face to face and I don’t expect you to use it under the anonymity of a forum.