Hi Everyone:

I see the other thread I started is still going strong but here is another topic to discuss. I also admit that it may not quite fit in with this forum, but I would like to keep it here instead of sending it to one of our political forums because I feel that there is a religious side to discussion on this topic. Anyway, it goes like this.

How could Thomas Jefferson, the person who wrote that all men are created equal and who supported the US Constitution that begins with the words "We the People" own slaves? In my view, the answer is simple, Jefferson did not believe that members of the slave population were "People," and thus members of other groups possibly weren't "People" either and thus these individuals did not deserve full rights.

Now as the years went by, for various reasons, including a great civil war, the definition of the word "People" was expanded. But today, there is one significant group that still are not members, and these are unborn babies.

I also understand that the Supreme Court decided that abortion is legal in Rowe v Wade based on a women's right to privacy, and of course many religious people don't agree since they believe that life begins at conception. But it seems to me that it really should be a "We the People" argument. That is should unborn babies be members of the group known as "People," or perhaps at some point in time during the pregnancy they should become members (which would have religious implications). And once they are "People," should unborn babies have the same rights as everyone else?

All comments are welcome.

Best wishes,
Mason

The relevant ethical concept is personhood which will be equivalent to becoming a member of "we the people". Some ethicists will expand the concept further to account for non human persons but I'll keep this to the human kind.

If we grant personhood prenatal we grant the foetus additional rights to born persons, namely the right to it's mothers body. We do not require mothers care for children post birth, they are free to seek adoption or place the child in the care of the state, and I think forcing the mother to carry the child an infringement of her rights as a person.

Another problem with attributing personhood prenatal is that any point is going to be arbitrary, although foetus develop at roughly the same pace if there's a line knowing exactly which side of it we are is extremely difficult when we are close to it.

Nor do I think that personhood necessarily obtains at birth, there's a debate about sapience being the relevant point at which personhood obtains, and while some have argued this should allow for post birth abortions my preference is that the right to terminate ends pre personhood. This does open up where I think that the right to terminate ends and this I struggle with personally, in principle at birth I think, in practice some time before this. In any case I'm conflicted and I'm not sure I have an entirely consistent position.

Hi dereds:

Just a small point, but good statisticians like to err on the conservative side (statistical, not religious or political). Thus the arbitrary point, if it exists, should probably be earlier than most people think.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mason, the problem remains in making a normative statement about an arbitrary point. The fact that it is arbitrary is the reason we can contest that one exists.

This doesn't seem to follow. I'm not sure that "arbitrary" is quite the right word for this. I'll use the example of "adult" as an analogy.

In the US, we understand that there are children and adult. We have placed an arbitrary line at age 18 for the legal transition from one to the other. Even if I consent to the idea that this transition point is completely arbitrary, I do not see this as a reason to contest that there is a transition point between being a child and being an adult. For legal purposes, that transition point is when you turn 18. For practical purposes, we legally treat people as adults at the age of 18, even though there are vastly different levels of maturity in 18 year olds.

It's true that we make exceptions. Children are tried as adults, and adults can be deemed mentally deficient in a way that we treat them like children. But this does not negate the legal force behind declaring the age of 18 to be the transition point, nor does it negate the idea that at some point there's a transition between being a child and being an adult.

I agree we can determine a point at which it is no longer legal to abort a foetus, x weeks into the pregnancy for instance, but in this case we are talking about a foetus obtaining personhood and the question is at what point the foetus should obtain those rights rather than the point at which they do.

We do this with the transition from child to adult at age 18. At that time, they obtain adulthood. At that point, they are obtain an extra set of rights that they did not have before (such as the ability to sign for themselves instead of needing a guardian to do it for them).

Yes and? What makes you think I don't understand this.

Does the fact that legal adulthood is arbitrary mean that we can contest that adulthood exists? Does it give sufficient reason to deny that we can assign a different legal status to people who turn 18?

Your statement seems to negate making normative claims on the basis of arbitrary standards. Adulthood at 18 is an arbitrary standard, but it seems that we are (at least functionally) declaring something normative about it (you are now responsible for your behaviors at a higher level than before) and assigning a different legal status.

There are not meaningful differences between white people and black people that motivates a moral distinction between them. There are MASSIVE differences between a fetus and most of everything else we call fetuses. Indeed, if you read the constitution, the vast majority of it is just nonsensical when thought of in terms of fetuses. It doesn't make sense for fetuses to be able to vote, to have free speech, to have guns, to become presidents, heck even to agree on constitutions. These are just absurdities.

Now this doesn't mean abortion is moral. It just means that we can't go "slavery was bad because blacks are people.....dot dot dot...abortion is bad!". I tend to agree with deregs that any attempt to draw hard moral lines on when things gets pretty arbitrary pretty quickly.

I'm not a fan of "fetuses are people" arguments, generally. I think someone once made a thread caleld the worst argument on the internet which is where you say X is an example (but an atypical one) of Y, and we treat the archetype of Y a certain way and thus should do the same for X. For instance, Fetus are people (but rather strange people), and we don't accept killing the archetype of people (children and adults) ergo we shouldn't kill fetuses. It is surprising how common this argument structure is.

I am much happier drawing arbitrary lines for legal purposes due to pragmatic reasons than arbitrary lines for binary moral claims.

This is it in a nutshell.

But in 1786 Jefferson was instrumental in bringing the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which basically allowed to more groups, Jews and Catholics, to become "People." Thus another example of Jefferson making distinctions among different groups. Here's some information on the law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgini...igious_Freedom

Best wishes,
Mason

This is appeal to consequences (or ROI for poker terms).

It's a very tricky subject deciding exactly when an embryo turns into what should be considered a person.

Religious prejudices aside, certainly a blastocyst (containing less cells than the brain of a fly) is not yet human. And just as certainly, there is a stage of embryonic development that should be considered human (my own uneducated opinion is that this occurs when a fetus can survive outside of the womb, as in the case of premature births, etc.).

It's worth noting that some philosophers (such as Peter Singer?) argue that after birth killings can be justified.

For me, it would be at the point where self consciousness occurs. And yes, I realize this might be siding with Singer if it's post natal. Personally, I'm willing to leave it up to science (which I don't think has the answers yet). But I have little doubt that a day old fetus is not human. How many days old? I don't know.

I also think it's worth noting that nobody, or almost no one, favors abortion. I don't and think it should be avoided at all cost. But I do feel there are situations when it is has more upside than birth.

So to answer your question: Yes. Once they are human they should have the same rights. The question is, when are they human? I think that answer can and should only come from science.

Given that science and technology advance then even given the bolded above the scale is still a sliding one on a, say, decade-to-decade timeframe. Unless you fix a firm line at surviving outside the womb without any aid from advanced medical techniques, lets say pre-1900.


Being human, thus gaining personhood, can be based on fully developed brainwave activity and nominal, normal fetal development. I think this occurs in the third trimester but did not look it up. This of course has it own adherents and detractors.

It is interesting, at least from a historical and legal perspective, to check out the entries for abortion and infanticide (after birth exposure) in the Oxford Classical Dictionary.

And the legal definition of 'personhood' or gaining certain legal rights based on age and other factors has varied and evolved in time and place. A point Mason has made.

The last portion bolded is something that is very contentious. This means that science makes the ethical and moral decisions. Something not within the strict preview of science IMO (What does Dennett say on this?). Science does have legitimate facts for input and contribution into the debate/decisions but no more than that. Philosophy, that adjunct to science, and legalist wrangling by ethicists and judges seem the proper social institutions for arbitration. In other words the courts of law, with input from experts. It is interesting, and I would lay odds on this, that some form of religious expert would have an opportunity for input in a court of law on these types of cases. I do not think that is a bad approach.

You missed my point. Jews and Catholics are not meaningfully different from Christians in the way blacks aren't meaningfully different from whites. All have the cognitive abilities to believe in religions, for instance, and inclusion of them I'm freedom of religion laws makes sense. Fetuses are tremendously different and such bills are absurd to be extended to them as they lack this cognitive functionality. That someone once expanded the definition of person to include creatures (blacks and jews) nearly identical on the metrics that are relevant does not lead one to expand to include creatures who are substantially different on these metrics.

Pointless formality from a different medium,
Uke

Hi Uke:

While they may not be meaningful from your perspective (which I think is reasonable), they were meaningful different under the law in 1786. Thus Jefferson moved to correct that and the group "People" became larger and more inclusive. The same thing happened during the Civil War when the 13th Amendment was passed (even though there was resistance to it in the South for many years).

Best wishes,
Mason

Pointless salutation Mason

So what? That at some point in history we corrected the idea of treating people with different skin colour differently just doesn't imply anything about abortion. That whites decided to include blacks in their conception of people is about as significant for including fetuses as it is for including frogs. Laws about freedom of religion are as equally absurd for either as neither has the cognitive abilities to make laws like the one you cited relevant.

Put another way, expanding the definition of person to include beings (jews, blacks, etc) whose intrinsic capabilities and characteristics are not meaningfully different does not imply we should do the same for beings who are substantially different like fetuses and frogs.

Your argument makes about as much sense as confusing the composition style of Internet forums and mail.

Pointless farewell,

Uke

The Hippocratic Oath up until our present times contained the " thou shalt not use a pessary" ; http://www.imagerynet.com/hippo.orig.html

From Wikipedia the two oaths are displayed ( recent and modern).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath

The modern oath leaves a lot to be desired and almost appears as a justification for any and all egregious acts.

Point is that the healing of the human being is now in the hands of the lawyers, politicians, and whomever, with the doctors displaying a loss of any currents of compassionate understanding.

By "almost" do you mean "not in the least"?

Well, when I got healed from my cancer, it was all done by compassionate doctors and not by lawyers, politicians or whomever? What are you talking about?

Yes abortion, assisted suicide, and to a lesser degree edge of viability births are issues that have gone into the larger sociopolitical conversation. But outside of that, it is largely decisions made by doctors. Unless you are trying to talk about how we finance health care?

This argument doesn't really do much. It's equally nonsensical to be discussing these things for children under the age of 1. At that stage, most of the conceptual questions one might ask (what does it mean for a 1 year old to vote?) can be equally applied to fetuses, in the sense that it's still pretty absurd.

Let me know when someone makes that argument, and I'll join you in saying that it's a bad argument.

I believe this is more about drawing practical lines. There's a reason that many states have laws against late-term abortions, defined by number of weeks into the pregnancy.

I agree with you in that most of those "arguments" tend be mostly about assertions.

I don't believe that conception is the moment of person-hood. To me, that a gross oversimplification of a complex process.

That being said, the fact that we have laws that define violence against a fetus as being equivalent to being violence against a person while carving out a unique exception for abortion to be morally ambiguous. It's not clear to me that the mental state of the parent (whether the parent wants the child or not) is a sufficient moral reason to view the fetus in two different ways at the equivalent moment of development.

We also have many laws against late-term abortions. Therefore, it seems that rejecting "fetuses are people" arguments broadly is probably an error.

In this conversation, there are many arbitrary lines that are drawn for pragmatic reasons. See late-term abortions as an example. The pragmatic counting of weeks of gestation is an arbitrary line that helps us to define viability.

It's also worth noting that if you accept that life begins at conception (which you probably don't), there lines being drawn are not arbitrary. The definitions are clear and does not suffer from the types of ambiguity that people who reject the claim suffer from.

Right. I thought it was obvious that my post was my opinion only and if not, I should have mentioned that. I'm not an expert in any field that could, or should, make decisions on this subject.

Of course doctors are caring and compassionate but the point is that the guides for the many life therapies are coming from a the legal/political considerations. the doctors, in a sense, are citizens of the governmental agencies and are expected to follow suit.

The "new oath" , to my mind is meaningless and nowhere contains the depth of soul that the original contains. If you haven't done it, read my first reference. This in no way implies that i advocate "return to Greece" but note that the modern oath can and does allow for euthanasia and of course abortion.

If the politicos want to legislate, that's it, but in no way should a doctor take an oath which allows for the taking of a life as in euthanasia. I am not making a political statement here but a statement of vocation. Of course, this type of procedure will be done, and more, in the future and so it is up to the individual whether in the practice of medicine or as a recipient.

Attempting to understand death and birth can give both doctor and patient a good basis for making this type of decision, not the fleeting whims of an abstracted and heartless political system.

End of rant.