New Iowa Law Restricts Abortion To Before Most Women Know They're Pregnant

[Rev. Rye]

Two words: cerebral cortex.

[Amarok]

So are you arguing that they are not even alive (the fetus)?  I think that science would disagree. The ability to reproduce is also a qualifier for life as well, but we don’t say that the young or the old who can’t reproduce at the time, are not alive.

So is a person in a medically Induced coma, or in a coma from an accident (but thought to recover) still a human?

I'm saying that brain activity is THE crucial qualifier to count as human life. Individuals can and do go their entire lives without reproducing, but with no brain activity, nothing else can happen. Someone in a medically induced coma or someone in an accidental coma, but still expected to recover, still has brain activity. It's less than usual, but it's still there, and, in the case of someone in a coma from an accident who's still expected to recover, that's WHY they're even expected to recover in the first place. If activity in the cortex is gone, all chances of a recovery go down the toilet, because it's irreversible.

Plus there is a difference between a damaged or fully formed malformed brain and one that has to develop .

[RoadRunner79]

Two words: cerebral cortex.

You seem to keep changing things as the conversation moves along.   Why are you now changing the criteria to cerebral cortex?   Are you just arbitrarily picking things, that might make your argument.   That and unless you have changed your mind, you previously indicated, that you would support abortion after the third trimester anyway, so arguing that they are not a person until they have brain function (or now a cerebral cortex) seems like sophism.   Brain development is ongoing in the early years of child development as well.   Do you also support infanticide?

The problem with using brain functioning in this way, and relating it to the criteria of brain death, seems to lie in the reason why brain death is used for clinical death in the first place.  That is, that the brain is the central integrating component of the body.  As long as the brain is still sending signals, to muscles and other systems, then there is a chance that the person can be revived.  Once the brain quits telling the body to work, then even though the body may still be working (with the assistance of machines), there is no hope for recovery.  Which brings us back to our issue of people who have minimal brain activity, but lack conscientiousness.  As long as there is still hope for recovery, then they are still people with human rights.    Someone doesn't cease being a person, once they are sedated.  And killing someone with minimally developed or severely handicapped mental abilities is murder (as would be noted that there are fetal homicide laws).  I think that it is a slippery slope once you start de-humanizing people based on their mental capabilities.  

I think that part of the issue, is that you are trying to reason towards why it is wrong to kill other humans.  Now you may only wish to kill small, defenseless developing humans; however your reasoning doesn't only apply to just them.  And I think that is a large part of the problem.   You know that it is wrong to kill people, and you want to allow for the killing of the fetal baby.  So you are trying to reconcile the two things.  However I think the question is being begged;  why is it wrong to kill humans in the first place?   We both agree that it is (I assume);  but, how do we get there.   This is the issue of having an objective moral  basis for the belief.  You are having trouble reasoning your way out of them being human, because it was never reasoned that it is wrong to unjustly kill others in the first place.   Are humans special, do we have inalienable rights, which is based on a moral fact?  Or is it subjective, with each person or group deciding for themselves.  To what is it, that we appeal to any rights at all?  Can we do so, when society doesn't acknowledge those rights? Is there something outside of subjective opinion, that we are looking to, to say that anyone has a right to life?

[Rev. Rye]

You are the one who moved the discussion to a question of when personhood begins. Ultimately, my reasoning for keeping abortion legal is a utilitarian one, because, quite frankly, without it, I strongly suspect all moral issues end up devolving into the dead-end question of "how dare you worry about YOUR selfish needs and desires when you can worry about MY selfish needs and desires?" It's not about wanting to kill fetuses. It's about wanting to make sure mothers don't have to die trying to kill them. And yes, when it's more or less insensate (which, during the stage at which the vast majority of abortions happen, it is), I have no trouble whatsoever prioritizing the mother over the fetus inside her. Yes, it does suck that this is the choice we have to choose, but wanting for the rest of the world to be different is simply no more plausible than expecting to be able to jump out my roof and fly by my own wing power.

Also, when the cerebral cortex goes, my research tells me nobody recovers (this is why this isn't moving the goalposts, since what I said earlier applies to the cerebral cortex specifically), so your argument comparing those with subpar cognition to something which doesn't have ANY still does not stand (even in this case, the brainstem activity does not seem to even count as cognition).

[Amarok]

You are the one who moved the discussion to a question of when personhood begins. Ultimately, my reasoning for keeping abortion legal is a utilitarian one, because, quite frankly, without it, I strongly suspect all moral issues end up devolving into the dead-end question of "how dare you worry about YOUR selfish needs and desires when you can worry about MY selfish needs and desires?" It's not about wanting to kill fetuses. It's about wanting to make sure mothers don't have to die trying to kill them. And yes, when it's more or less insensate (which, during the stage at which the vast majority of abortions happen, it is), I have no trouble whatsoever prioritizing the mother over the fetus inside her. Yes, it does suck that this is the choice we have to choose, but wanting for the rest of the world to be different is simply no more plausible than expecting to be able to jump out my roof and fly by my own wing power.

Also, when the cerebral cortex goes, my research tells me nobody recovers (this is why this isn't moving the goalposts, since what I said earlier applies to the cerebral cortex specifically), so your argument comparing those with subpar cognition to something which doesn't have ANY still does not stand (even in this case, the brainstem activity does not seem to even count as cognition).

Or so a woman bodily sovereignty is not violated.