RE: Abortion is morally wrong
June 18, 2014 at 9:29 pm
(This post was last modified: June 18, 2014 at 9:33 pm by bennyboy.)
(June 18, 2014 at 7:02 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: Cthulhu, I have defined a human being as someone belonging to the species homo-sapien. I believe this to be the default view and indeed, the only coherant definition. Indeed, the zygote to the fetus, fetus to the child, child to adult. Are all just stages of their development. Since the fetus is informationally complete in its human informationit can be said it is a human being. Or similarly, as Alexander Pruss PhD in both mathematics and philosophy who holds a professorship at Baylor University states, if something exists and never ceases to exist than it can be said that thing is still alive. I am a fetus, I was a fetus just as I was a child and to say a fetus is any less human than a child is completely arbitrary.
Careful, now. What is the semantic difference between "human" and "human being?" What kind of existential statement does the extra word carry with it? I think it carries connotations of subjective existence: a personality, the ability to experience pleasure and pain, the ability to have perceptions about the outer world and to interact with the world. And for most of a fetus' development, it does not have these things.
As for the "informationally complete," this is true. The fetus has a unique genetic identity, separate from either the mother or the father. An abortion means not ever getting to find out what that new identity could grow into-- and for me, this is no trivial philosophical question. However, equating the destruction of a potential human with the destruction of an existent human being is kind of like equating the destruction of a dictionary with the destruction of the works of Shakespeare. Time matters.
(June 18, 2014 at 9:16 pm)Jenny A Wrote: I don't think you have been personally attacked. As a pro-late-term life, pro-early-choice, atheist, I'm in the minority. Only about 20 % of atheists are pro-choice.
Is this a real number? It seems to me almost every non-religious person is likely to be pro-early-choice and pro-late-term-life. Who are these 80% of atheists who are anti-abortion?
