Abortion/Consciousness/Life

[Heywood]

No we grant human beings moral protection because they are human beings not because they might become human beings. This notion that fetuses let alone zygotes are human or should be treated as such is both new and modern.

Interesting footnote you might consider, we have historically provided some moral protection to past humans. Many societies have both honored the wishes of the dead in the form of wills and most have laws against dishonoring a corpse.

Zygotes are human beings. You can open up a biology text and look at the life cycle of a human being. It will show a zygote...or a fetus. From a purely scientific standpoint zygotes are human beings in the earliest stages of development.

Honoring the wishes made by dead people when they were alive is not providing moral protection to dead people. It is simply honoring the wishes made by a person when they were alive. To my knowledge there are no laws against dishonoring a corpse. There are laws against desecrating a corpse....but there are also laws against vandalizing a car....and cars aren't granted moral protection. Laws against desecrating a corpse do not exist to protect the corpse. They exist for public health reasons, they exist to for the sake of the loved ones left behind, they exist a means of criminalizing the cover-up of crimes.

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If in your mind future expectation of person-hood doesn't grant a being moral protection....then you should be okay with killing a perfectly healthy human being under general anesthesia. The moment a human is under general anesthesia...they are simply a piece of meat.....there is no person there....so it should be "okay" to kill that being....right?

Hell no. First of all: A perfectly healthy human being under anesthesia? Why the hell would anyone do that?
Most people under anesthesia choose to be sedated either implicitly or explicitly. And they do so in the expectation there will be efforts to heal the illness that causes the pain.

Most people expect that their future expected person-hood be morally protected.

Also this 'future person' of yours has lived a life, made friends, has people who love the 'future person'. And their love is why these friends and loved ones tend to say stuff like 'I hope he gets better' instead of 'I hope he becomes a person again'. Sheesh.

Murder is wrong because A)it robs a person of future expected person-hood. and/or B) It robs living members of society the companionship of the victim. I'm sure you will agree that a person doesn't have to have any friends or loved ones to be morally protected. It would be wrong to kill a human even if that human won't be missed by anyone.

Now I have considered adding past person-hood as a condition of moral protection. For instance moral protection should be granted to human beings who have a history of past person-hood and have an expectation of future person-hood. However if you think about it....the only reason whatsoever to add the condition of past personhood....is to justify abortion. It just doesn't feel right to add that provision to my moral code just so I can justify the killing of certain human beings. Without that provision, my code is coherent and consistent.