Abortion/Consciousness/Life

[Mister Agenda]

A person under general anesthesia isn't conscious either.

No, but they have been conscious. They have hopes and dreams and relationships. What they are experiencing is akin to a computer being rebooted. If all goes well, it will come back on.

Would it be okay for a scorned woman to kill her cheating husband while he is under general anesthesia? Of course not. Given time that person under general anesthesia will become conscious and live a life. A person under general anesthesia has a future expectation of person-hood and that is what we give moral protection. A brain dead person has no future expectation of person-hood which is why many don't find it immoral to simply pull the plug. A fetus on the other hand does have a future expectation of person-hood which is why it is wrong to kill it.

Fetuses don't expect anything.

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A brain dead person has a history of being too.....yet the reason you pull the plug has nothing to do with that history of person-hood but rather the lack of expectation of future person-hood....or future being.

Not future personhood. Restored personhood.

The fact that we pull the plug on brain dead people is evidence that a history of person-hood....a history of being....isn't what confers moral protection.

Certainly it is. Why would we even hesitate to pull the plug if the brain-dead person had never been conscious in the first place? We'd be like 'finally this person who has been in a coma their whole life is brain dead, finally we can pull the plug!'. No crying wife, probably no parents that still visit if the unfortunate is physically adult. It's almost a mercy compared to what would happen if they woke up, an infant in an adult's body, their crucial brain development years lost. Such a person would probably never be able to learn to talk.

The OP is making the claim that pro-lifers are inconsistent because they are willing to pull the plug on an unconscious brain dead person but find it morally reprehensible to abort an unconscious fetus. I am showing that it isn't inconsistent....and in fact the opposite is true.

By pretending the brain-dead patient's history of consciousness is irrelevant.

When you take the position that future expectation of person-hood is what is deserving of moral protection everything makes sense.

Why should YOUR expectation be what's critical? If I go under general anaesthesia, I have an expectation that I will be revived, if possible. I wouldn't go under the knife without that implicit understanding. The medical staff and I have a social contract that they'll try to restore me and won't let crazy people murder me all willy nilly. My expectation, my trust, is the key to the procedure going forward. The situation for a fetus is quite different.

It is okay to pull the plug on a brain dead person because there is no expectation of future person-hood.

It is okay to pull the plug on a brain dead person because there is no expectation that we can restore their previous personhood.

It is wrong to kill an person under general anesthesia because there is a future expectation of person-hood.

It is wrong to kill a person under GA because they are already a person, or, if you insist, their personhood can be restored.

The OP's fixation with consciousness actually causes inconsistencies. If it is okay to kill a fetus because it is unconscious.....why then is it wrong to kill unconscious sleeping human being?

An unconscious human being has a 'life' to lose in a different sense than a fetus has. Relationships, history, choices, education, accomplishments, mistakes, and so on. A fetus, by comparison, is more 'biologically active', not 'inert material'.

[i]life/līf/
noun
1.the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
2.the existence of an individual human being or animal.
3.the period between the birth and death of a living thing, especially a human being.

An unconscious person has a life in all these senses. I'm not sure a fetus has life in any sense but the first...it's not really an individual yet, it is a part of the mother that has never known consciousness. It's alive, but it hasn't truly lived.

I acknowledge this adds a new element besides consciousness.

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Similarly, the woman who refuses to carry to term can do so, for the same reason (no reason given) and the effect will be the same. Law shouldn't be able to compel you to carry the child.

It's still different. In the first you just say 'No'. On the second you need to positively have a conduct that leads to terminating your pregnancy. Am I the only one seeing these are conceptually and physically different actions despite the same result?

Say in the first case you say 'Yes'. But a month in you change your mind and need to postively have a conduct that leads to the 2 year old being disconnected from you and the child dying. Are the cases sufficiently similar now for you not to base your objection on their differences?