Abortion -cpr on the fetus?

[Cato]

@Cato. A moral question is not predicated on the incidence of the issue but the intrinsic moral question at hand. If it happens at a rate >0 then addressing it on its merits is worthwhile in a philosophical sense (This is a philosophy forum). I am sure the incidence of being murdere by a blowtorch is low compared to the overall murder rate, but does that
somehow change it's morality?  
Next you add conditions I have never specified such as carrying to full term. When did I propose this in this discussion? My only question was regarding a fetus that had been taken to the point of potential viability when the decision for abortion is made. You have made a straw man arguement.  Next I would like you to demonstrate when I have ever attributed any motivation to the mother's decision to end her pregnancy. I have neither stated it was well thought out nor have I stated it was willy nilly. You are arguing suppositions that you made not arguement said I have asserted. These are again straw men.  I have not asked that women be saved from them selves nor have I asserted a superior conscious. My simple arguement is if a woman wishes to terminate her pregnancy (as is her right based on a bodily autonomy arguement - I may not fully subscribe to this arguement but that is irrelevant as I will grant it for the sake of the discussion) how does that extend to necessarily terminating the fetus (not her body just located within it ) if a means of removal that could potentially allow the fetus to survive is available ?  For the trolls out there that symbol is called a question mark, it denotes a question NOT a statement. The question is what MORAL PRINCIPLES justify this action. The most common retorts I have heard are she doesn't want (why should that matter once it is out of her bodily autonomy does not apply), outcomes based (who is going to pay, overcrowding, ect. However outcome based morality leads to slippery slope arguement such as genocide to prevent overcrowding and k already addressed the payer question on multiple occasions) , or special pleading. Finally, as I stated before the incidence of the issue is irrelevant to its morality. It may effect its practicality or ability to legislate but it doesn't change the intrinsic Moral questions In play. This is a thought exercise to see if moral principles are rationally justified.

I have not made a straw man argument. I invoked term pregnancies for to establish the mother as the normal moral actor on behalf of the child. I thought that was pretty clear.

To argue that a mother has forfeited her position as the moral decision maker for the child she carries simply because the fetus reaches a stage of some non zero chance of viability with no regard as to why she is seeking an abortion is absurd. This is the basis for my term willy-nilly and is an apt description of what you are doing; therefore, not a straw man.

To argue that the abortion is immoral you would have to establish a victim. Without access to relevant information, some low non zero chance of survival is insufficient justification to render the fetus a victim. A scenario in which there was nothing wrong with mother or child, but the child was extracted due to some unfortunate accident would set up a scenario where it would be immoral not to assist the fetus in surviving. Arbitrarily attempting to assist fetus survival outside the womb based solely on gestation length can easily be immoral if efforts prolong needless suffering.

The short answer to your question regarding the morality of abortion at 21 weeks due to the small chance of fetus survival is "there is insufficient information to make a judgement" if all that is considered is gestation length.

[answer-is-42]

@Pyrro
Thanks for an on point discussion. You bring up a number of good points, though I do not agree with you on all of them. I will do my best to address them.
Regarding the frozen embryo problem, it is indeed a problem, however my personal moral opinion is that while the embryo may have personhood, there is no moral obligation in most situations to put yourself in jeopardy or harm to save another, it is admirable but not required. As such we certainly cannot impose implantation on a woman to save the embryo and just as a person with a terminal disease, if there is no treatment (no available womb) then allowing nature to take it's own course is not immoral. This is my same point to the frivolous argument about spontaneous miscarriage being some type of crime (I know you did not bring it up, but it comes up so often). Many pregnancies end in miscarriage, often before the mother even knows she is pregnant. If she was not actively trying to miscarriage (ie it occurred "naturally" due to the imperfections of biology) then she has not morally culpability and I see no problem. Regarding the others, that's a broader discussion on abortion that I was not trying to engage here. In fact I may have already taken us a bit out into the weeds, for that I apologize.
Ultimately, though, I agree that the crux of the discussion does hinge on your definition of person hood. I will touch on this in a moment, but before I do I did want to take a second to disagree a little stronger with this false analogy that I recurrently hear and again, unfortunately, heard from you basically equating a single human cell with a person. I would more aptly use the term organism. At the time of fertilization the organism may only be 1 cell , however as an adult it is billions of cells and a small cluster of specialized tissue does not constitute the entire organism any more than a single bolt defines a jumbo jet. If you discard the single cell embryo you are indeed discarding an organism (the morality is complex as noted above) but it is not the same as when an adult has his appendix removed (small part of the organism, not the entire organism itself) even though many more cells are removed. It is not the number of cells, but the relationship to the organism as a whole.
Back to person hood, certainly at least you and I agree that a person has more "worth" then a pig or a dog. While all life has worth, we agree that human life has more worth then others. By the way, I am a vegetarian so your later argument about killing does not apply to me, I try to be as internally consistent as I can be. I agree completely with you that putting any arbitrary requirements on personhood can lead to a terrible mess. Is it intelligence? As you noted newborns aren't smart and being self aware is not achieve for some time, yet I hope we both agree killing infants is not ok. It can't be consciousness otherwise people who fall unconscious lose their person hood. The list of unacceptable outcomes for any arbitrary metric is long and I have yet to find one that can not be used to justify an UN-acceptible loss or absence of personhood. For that reason, my view is that all ORGANISMS that are human should be afforded the rights and privileges of personhood. That is honestly why I fixated on the bodily autonomy argument, it can accept the fetus as a person, but still justify termination of the pregnancy and remain rationally consistent. While I do no wholly agree with the bodily autonomy arguement, that is not the point I was wanting to bring up. I wanted to take that out of the equation and deal exclusively on the personhood of the fetus and if you accept that a fetus deserves person hood then attempting to save it if possible and no risk to others is moral. If you do not then the next step is the discussion of what is a person and why is a fetus not a person. Regarding your statements about sperm and eggs, I am not hard-pressed at all and it goes right back to the discussion I had above, the difference between an organism and a part of an organsim, infact sperms and eggs are not even part of the organism in the sense that they only contain 50% of the DNA of the parent organism so they in no way individually represent even a potential person any more then a bolt represents a potential jumbo jet, with out a lot of other stuff happening they are just what they are.
Sorry, could not load your adobe flash video so I really can not comment on it
I have actually seen an abortion and participated in a number of live births (delivered 13 babies myself as a med student), but you are correct, I have nothing to do with this in my career at this time. This is more of an intellectual and moral exercise for me and I am interested in hearing lucid counter points to see if my position is justified or if I should adjust it.
As you can tell from much of the tenor of the thread intelligent conversation is hard to find so I do truly appreciate your counter points.
Anyway, I hope I have address your questions about my position on person hood, why I don't feel that specialized tissue constitute personhood,

[Pyrrho]

@Pyrro
Thanks for an on point discussion. You bring up a number of good points, though I do not agree with you on all of them. I will do my best to address them.
Regarding the frozen embryo problem, it is indeed a problem, however my personal moral opinion is that while the embryo may have personhood, there is no moral obligation in most situations to put yourself in jeopardy or harm to save another, it is admirable but not required. As such we certainly cannot impose implantation on a woman to save the embryo and just as a person with a terminal disease, if there is no treatment (no available womb) then allowing nature to take it's own course is not immoral. This is my same point to the frivolous argument about spontaneous miscarriage being some type of crime  (I know you did not bring it up, but it comes up so often). Many pregnancies end in miscarriage, often before the mother even knows she is pregnant. If she was not actively trying to miscarriage (ie it occurred "naturally" due to the imperfections of biology) then she has not morally culpability and I see no problem. Regarding the others, that's a broader discussion on abortion that I was not trying to engage here. In fact I may have already taken us a bit out into the weeds, for that I apologize.
Ultimately, though, I agree that the crux of the discussion does hinge on your definition of person hood. I will touch on this in a moment, but before I do I did want to take a second to disagree a little stronger with this false analogy that I recurrently hear and again, unfortunately, heard from you basically equating a single human cell with a person. I would more aptly use the term organism. At the time of fertilization the organism may only be 1 cell , however as an adult it is billions of cells and a small cluster of specialized tissue does not constitute the entire organism any more than a single bolt defines a jumbo jet. If you discard the single cell embryo you are indeed discarding an organism (the morality is complex as noted above) but it is not the same as when an adult has his appendix removed (small part of the organism, not the entire organism itself) even though many more cells are removed. It is not the number of cells, but the relationship to the organism as a whole.
Back to person hood, certainly at least you and I agree that a person has more "worth" then a pig or a dog. While all life has worth, we agree that human life has more worth then others. By the way, I am a vegetarian so your later argument about killing does not apply to me, I try to be as internally consistent as I can be. I agree completely with you that putting any arbitrary requirements on personhood can lead to a terrible mess. Is it intelligence? As you noted newborns aren't smart and being self aware is not achieve for some time, yet I hope we both agree killing infants is not ok.  It can't be consciousness otherwise people who fall unconscious lose their person hood. The list of unacceptable outcomes for any arbitrary metric is long and I have yet to find one that can not be used to justify an UN-acceptible loss or absence of personhood. For that reason, my view is that all ORGANISMS that are human should be afforded the rights and privileges of personhood. That is honestly why I fixated on the bodily autonomy argument,  it can accept the fetus as a person, but still justify termination of the pregnancy and remain rationally consistent. While I do no wholly agree with the bodily autonomy arguement, that is not the point I was wanting to bring up. I wanted to take that out of the equation and deal exclusively on the personhood of the fetus and if you accept that a fetus deserves person hood then attempting to save it if possible and no risk to others is moral. If you do not then the next step is the discussion of what is a person and why is a fetus not a person. Regarding your statements about sperm and eggs, I am not hard-pressed at all and it goes right back to the discussion I had above, the difference between an organism and a part of an organsim, infact sperms and eggs are not even part of the organism in the sense that they only contain 50% of the DNA of the parent organism so they in no way individually represent even a potential person any more then a bolt represents a potential jumbo jet, with out a lot of other stuff happening they are just what they are.
Sorry, could not load your adobe flash video so I really can not comment on it
I have actually seen an abortion and participated in a number of live births (delivered 13 babies myself as a med student), but you are correct, I have nothing to do with this in my career at this time.  This is more of an intellectual and moral exercise for me and I am interested in hearing lucid counter points to see if my position is justified or if I should adjust it.
As you can tell from much of the tenor of the thread intelligent conversation is hard to find so I do truly appreciate your counter points.
Anyway, I hope I have address your questions about my position on person hood, why I don't feel that specialized tissue constitute personhood,

I do not find your comment about a fertilized egg being a "person" compelling at all.  Why would that be a person?  It does not think or feel as far as we can tell.  It seems far less a person than an adult dog.  Why do you regard it as a person at all?  What motivates you to make that assessment?

Also, an embryo is not a separate organism, but is attached to a woman.  It does not exist as a separate organism until after birth.  Thus, by the criteria you proclaim, it is not a person at all.  What seems to follow from what you say is that birth is the key moment, which is what I have been suggesting as a practical point of determination.

As for a sperm or egg cell having only 50% of the DNA of an adult, a small child has much less than 50% of the mass of an adult.  Why should anyone care about either of those?  And if one does care about either of those, why give a preference to DNA over mass?  Do you seriously think that DNA entails personhood?  If so, then when I cut my hand, I kill cells with 100% human DNA.  Am I thus a murderer?

Also, regarding your statement:

"Regarding your statements about sperm and eggs, I am not hard-pressed at all and it goes right back to the discussion I had above, the difference between an organism and a part of an organsim, infact sperms and eggs are not even part of the organism in the sense that they only contain 50% of the DNA of the parent organism so they in no way individually represent even a potential person any more then a bolt represents a potential jumbo jet, with out a lot of other stuff happening they are just what they are."

A fertilized egg, or even an embryo, requires a good deal more added to it to make an adult person.  Following your analogy, neither are persons.


Not that it matters for the particular discussion, but I eat as a vegan, and have been a vegetarian for over 20 years.  But I do not regard a non-sentient collection of cells as being of any significance in themselves, and certainly not a person.

We should also look at end of life decisions in connection with this.  I have no problems with "pulling the plug" on braindead humans.  Do you?  And if so, why?

As for not agreeing with me, I rather expect that.

[bennyboy]

@answwer-is-42

You have specified the lines you have drawn in your sand. But you have assumed very much-- starting with the value of human life. But this is a religious idea-- life is not intrinsically valuable, even human life. There are plenty of people whose lives I see little value in, some of them adults, and I wouldn't mind much if the shitty memories and shitty ideas that lead to their shitty behavior were erased from the Earth. If that shitty behavior is directed toward me or my family, then I will take steps of my own to make that disregard for those lives a reality in practice.

What is it about a baby-- particularly the baby of an uneducated, single 14 year-old, that shows so much promise that you think it needs to be extended the same protections that you and I enjoy?