But Tycho is right, it can vary, sometimes.

But as a red blooded male, everything is in its own little waffle square.  Don't let it touch, don't let it touch!!!!

I would agree that L is the largest point of contention with this argument, and indeed, for this argument to go forward, you almost have to assume that the Pro-Life principles are true, which makes it kinda like a self-fulfilling argument. I don't think this argument will persuade anyone who isn't already pro-life to agree with it.

"D" is one I find questionable as well, and it's linked with my aforementioned objection with "E". That these don't really translate well with the pridicament that is pregnancy. As Tycho so elequently pointed out, being inside another person and hooked upto their vitals is a little more complicated than being inside a car, or in a train, or at the beach.

But the biggest difference from comes from Dependancy on this one. Even accepting that this embryo is a person, I'm not entirely sure how much of a right a person, any person, has to forcibly take your body for it's habitat. When animals do this, we call them parasites and we take it upon ourselves to rid us of them asap if we don't want them (and I can't imagine why anyone would). Do parasites not have a right to live? Even if we are to say that this is a unique attribute to humanity, I'm wondering how much of a right you have, gammaknight, to take my body without permission and hook yourself upto it, even if that was your only chance to live, and how much of a right I have to refuse.

To take a page from Judith Thompson, imagine one day you woke up and found yourself hooked up in medical facility, with a tube comming out of your abdomin, which on the other end was connected to an unconscious man. As you discover this, several men, claiming to be this man's friends, apologize to you, but they say that they needed to do this for him to live, and you were the only one who could do it. The doctor with them states that after this process, you will recover just fine, but you will need to be attached to him for a length of time, roughly nine months, possibly more, possibly less, but around that rough estimate. So, now we have a person, who's undeniably a person, hooked up to you for survival, through no fault of his own, nor yours. Do you have a right to unhook yourself, or would such an action make you a murderer?

What conclusion would we have if we took the SLED approach? Well, let's go down the line:

"S" - Size. Well, there's no doubt on this one. He's without a doubt a fully grown adult person.

"L" - Level of Development. Admittedly, normally, in an abortion situation, this would come into question. However, in this case, there is no doubt whatsoever. It grants the Pro-lifer their argument on this one. This is a fully grown person.

"E" - Environment. You're both stuck in this medical room, but this argument says that even this environment doesn't make a person not a person. So, check.

"D" - Dependancy. In this case, this person is completely dependant on your body, through no fault of your own, nor his.  According to SLED, no matter what dependancy, this person is still a person.

So, this is without a doubt a person, and he needs your body for 9 months to live. It would seem then that those who use the SLED argument would behold you to give you no authority to free yourself. It is your moral responsibility to stay this way and allow him to live off your body, even if it impedes you in every way, interferes with your life, and causes a heavy period of discomfort. Because he's a person, and human life is more sacred than any of that.

Do you happen to agree with this? Do you feel that people who are hooked up without their concent to others for their survival shoudl be required to consent with it and go the full term? If people are taken against their will and required to share an organ or two, does it mean that these people are murderers if they choose to free themselves of it?
This message was last edited by the player at 00:28, Thu 16 Oct 2008.

I don't feel Tycho is correct, or right in this instance. Can you name an example where someone is 90% human? Does it require you to be diminished mental capacity? Does age make you less human? Such as being younger than 6 makes you 98% human, and being older than 82 makes you 94%? Does being inside the womb make you only 80% human? One hour from birth is 98% human?

Some countries have differing rules on when abortion can take place. So what who can place an objective value on what is considered human, and the percentage there of.

Firstly, it's ot like the embryo is doing this on purpose, intentionally abusing its rights to do so.  Secondly, we do agree that every person has a right to life, and that when rights conflict (for instance, the right to life vs. the right to property), we have to choose which trumps, and right to life generally trumps just about all of them.

Also, I think we all agree that a mother who refuses to breastfeed her infant and lets it starve, or the mother who has a c-section for no medical reason at 5 months for her convenience, knowing the child will grow up to have extreme mental retardation, asthma, and ultimately a very reduced quality of life are both doing wicked things, even though their rationale may be "their right to their own bodies outweighs the child's right to life".



There are some critical differences;
1)  This is a parasite you made.  If you make an animal, even a parasite, you are therefore responsible for it, whether that creation was intentional or not.  This isn't a leech you caught because you were swimming in dirty water, it's a living creature YOU made.
2)  This is a human.  Whether it's a human being is under some debate, but no one debates this is in fact a human.
3)  I know you don't have your own kids, but kids are financial and emotional parasites for most of their young lives.  They ruin marriages, take all your money, and give you a greater surplus of poop than you will ever possibly need.  Yet no one condones killing them (well, some people do, but generally not seriously).



I have to imagine it's about the same amount of right that you have to create another human, then destroy it for your own convenience.  Again, it's not like the fetus has any choice in the matter.  You as an adult do.



I don't think I need to explain why the example is false.  It seems to run on the supposition that women get pregnant by baby gnomes sneaking into their beds at night and planting baby pods in any unguarded... flowers.  It shifts all responsibility from the woman, the adult, and puts it instead on an embryo the size of her thumb and some mysterious men.  Since in the Thompson example, the woman (the victim) is put in that place through no action of her own, while most (and here I am excepting rape victims) women get pregnant through a direct action of their own.  Hence, they assume responsibility for their actions, and the risks inherent with them.  Driving drunk may be fun (in that it is fun to go to parties, to get drunk, and not fall asleep on the sidewalk), and most of us will engage in, or toe the line with this behavior at some point in our lifetime, but if we get into an accident doing this, no one says "oh, that family they hit in the minivan, they really had it coming.  Every person has a right to do to his body as he pleases, even if that results in his putting his car through a new family's vehile."

We decide out actions, we take our risks, we take our lumps.  Putting the responsibility for those lumps on the people who are hurt by them is, well, it's akin to making trillions of dollars in bad loans with high payoffs, then expecting a 700 billion dollar payout from the taxpayers when those loans fail to pan out!



So let me modify the example a little bit.

You hang around a hospital a lot.  You randomly sign up for tests or procedures.  It's never properly advertised what the procedure is until well after you've committed to it.  In most cases it's really nothing.  Now and again you may suffer permanent physical after effects, or even die, or other weird side effects.  But 24 times out of 28, nothing negative will come of it.  Every time you sign up though, you get a really delicious cookie and you really like those.  As it happens, you can also limit yourself to tests from certain doctors, so you may form a trust relationship with that doctor, but ultimately, each test you're still signing a paper without knowing precisely what you're signing up for until the next month.

As it happens, one day you wake up hooked up to another person.  The doctor comes over and says "great news, that test you volunteered for?  It's a complete success.  This man owes his life to you and your great sacrifice.  After 10 more months, it will be complete and this man will go on to live a perfectly normal life.  I hope you emjoyed your cookie!"

Now, at this point, do you have a right to say "you know what?  I changed my mind.  I really only did it for the cookie anyway.  Cut the guy off, I don't like this test."  After all, you made the decision.  This fellow had no choice at all, but now here he is, his life hanging in the balance.  Who should be punished in this case, the person who made a choice she regrets, or the person who made no choice at all?

I'm not sure it does. In your opinion, it does, appearently. But if right to life trumphs all, the death penalty wouldn't exist. If right to life trumphs all, no one should have the right to leathal force to defend property, and often times they do. If a person said "give me your coat or I'm going to kill myself" and life trumphs all, you'd have no right to refuse. If right to life trumphs all, no one would be allowed to deny medical proceedures based on whether or not medical insurance covers it. I think it's pretty clear that there's plenty of areas were right to life isn't a top priority. If we are to extend it to animals, in fact, I'd say it's very rarely a top priorty.



I'm sure you realise that there are other ways other than breastfeeding to feed an infant. I don't see how the right to their own bodies comes into a contradiction in this case. There's a difference between right to their bodies, and neglect. If she doesn't want the child after it's born, she could give it up for adoption, or give it to someone else. There's no right to body that I know of that would permit her to neglect a child after birth.

I'm curious as to what your solution would be in the latter case. Force her to have the child? The government stepping into her life to make sure that she goes to appointments and keeps herself healthy or be thrown into prison? Charge the doctor, because he decided to try to do what he could to ensure the safety of both best he can, instead of taking the chance of letting her take the more dangerous route of an illicit abortion that could threaten both her life and the child's? How would you choose to solve the situation that she no longer wanted the child?



Curious. If there was a parasite you made, would you have to let it live within you? Have you given up your right to deny it, and change your mind? What if you created a creature unintentionally, such as in the case of rape, or simply accidental impregnation (long shot, but there is a statistical chance that even those who never had sex could become pregnant).? If, say, there was a creature that used your genetic information to create young, would you have a responsibility to ensure their safety?



No, but I do sometimes wonder how much being a human really gives you in terms of innate rights. We humans kill other creatures all the time, for survival as well as mere comfort and enjoyment. We can kill people over property, we can kill over vengence, we can kill in the name of "justice". While in this case, the invader clearly isn't human, I think it's still worth it to debate what level of rights humans have, and how much better we are than other creatures.



Perhaps, but you would also argue that people who want kids get something out of it, don't you think? Such people who choose to raise children generally seem to place value from the expereince that far outweights that. Naturally, there are those that disagree, but don't many people have the choice of adoption if they don't think it's worth it? Should we outlaw adoption now, because the kids have a right to be with their natural parents, even if their parents don't want them?

I think you're confusing a pro-choice option as a pro-killing option. Most people's primary reason for doing this isn't that they want the child to die, simply that they don't want this pregnancy. The case of killing children above is a desire to kill, because there are other methods to get rid of the children right then. If I were adamant about having an abortion, and there was a way the child could live, say, an artificial incubation chamber, I wouldn't mind that option. There's no malice there, they simply want to be rid of the child within them, and if there was another way to not have this pregnancy but the child to live, I think they wouldn't mind choosing this option. There are acceptions, of course, aborting a child with heavy genetic defeats or one that has a high probability of being born with a life threatening condition (AIDS, for example), then that would obviously be a call for abortion, but I think that's not the intent of most people.



I think it's an unfair characterization to say that those that have an abortion all do it as a matter of convenience. And I think very few people who have an abortion were trying to have a baby in the firstplace. You place it almost as if women chose to create a baby, just to destroy it.

I wonder just how much choice matters though. Let's say a fetus had the ability to see it's future, and decided that this life wasn't worth living, and thus wanted to die. In that case, would you respond differently?



Well, you don't need to explain if you don't want to, but I would appreciate it if you did, because I have a few questions regarding this.

First, the exception of rape victims. Why? Sure, she didn't do anything that led to the creation of this child save living, but I thought this was about a child's right to life? What's special about this child that it no longer has that right to life? A child concieved out of a willing action is no more responsible for it than a child that's concieved by force. Why the exception?

If I may comment, it's almost as if you percieve pregnancy as a punishment, a consequence for taking certain actions. I know you don't mean it that way, simply because I've kinda grown to know you a little better than that over the past year, but taking straight from this argument, it would seem as if it were the case. And, that if you haven't done anything to contribute to it's taking place, you shouldn't have to suffer it. Keyword, suffer.

The responsibility debate has it's limits as well. You seem to argue that, if a woman did a risky action that may result in pregnancy, it's her fault, she should had known from the start. If you drink, that it's your responsibility of what happen while you're drunk. I'm not stating that this is necessarily wrong, but there's some interesting arguments to be made if you believe this too far.

For example, victim blaming. It's very similar to the radical muslim take on woman's issues. If there's the possible risk, it's the woman's fault to putting herself there. If a woman drinks, becomes drunk, and has sex in her state, it's her fault, because she shouldn't had been drinking. If a woman walks down a dark alley, and get's blindsided and raped, it's her fault, because she shouldn't had been walking down the dark alley alone. If a woman goes to a party and someone spikes her drink, it's her fault, because she should had known someone could do that. If a woman goes into a car with four men and is raped, it's her fault, because she shouldn't had been places with men who aren't her family members. This is the basis for the woman's restrictions in radical Islamic countries, and why a woman can be punished for being raped. Because she shouldn't had been in that place, at that time, wearing those clothes. It doesn't absolve the other participants, but she shares a stake in the responsibility as well, and should suffer the consequences.



Once again, it seems as if you're painting pregnancy as a punishment. What about those who didn't have a say in the matter? Granted, not the most common case, but it happens often enough. Why is it you seem to give a freebee to the rape victim, even though the child has nothing to do with it?

I think Thomson's arguments on this matter have given me two conclusions about abortion, according to her arguments (there are several in her rather famous essay, A Defense of Abortion: it's either permissiable in every case, or it's not permissiable in any case. No one is saying commendable. Contrary to what many abortion critics seem to state, no one views this as a fun or easy decision. But you either have the right to do it as you think is best, or no one ever does. Even in the case of a life threatening pregnancy, why is the child's right to life considered negligable in this case? Why is it okay now? That child's right to live has to be accounted for just as much as the mother's. If anything, it would veto the mother's decision to abort, leaving no choice.




I'm not sure that change made it much different from what it already was. Yes, it means it was resulting from a more consentual action, but the implications are more or less the same.

Persoonally, I would say she does have a right, in fact, to get out. Now, I'm not sure it would be considered a commendable action, and maybe not terribly reasonable, I could agree with that. I wouldn't particularly blame the doctor or the man's friends trying to convince her otherwise. I'm not sure it would be an ideal action. But I think she has a right to do it, yes.

The person on the other side has been put in an unfortunate possition, horrific indeed, but so is a person who's dependong in an organ donation. If someone originally decided to give an organ to that person, but backout at the last moment. Are we to force that person to give the organ afterall? Should we have government agents hunt this person down and forcibly take their organ from them? It's not a perfect anology, admittedly, but I think the reason that it's objectable there could be applied to here as well. It's certainly not the other persons fault he's in his position, but it's simply an unfortunate circumstance that we can't force someone to give their body for.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:08, Thu 16 Oct 2008.

This is more of a moral issue that the woman has to come to terms with, but she should be given all the information rather than just yanking the poor kid out.



If you created a parasite, it is your creation and you should be allowed to destroy it, but, with only one case, no woman has ever created a child without the help of a man.  Rape is a hard thing.  I am not taking away from how horrible the act is and if it was up to me, I would make it punishable by death, but is the rape the child's fault?



Better than animals?  Animals don't kill there kids in the womb, some do after their born, but not before.  They're at least given a chance to run away.



Sometimes this is unavoidable, but I'm sure you already know this. :)  At least the parents giving their children up gives the kids a chance to live.



Pro-choice is just a touchy feely way of saying pro-abortion.  Why do they call it pro-choice?  Because if you call it pro-preinfacy slaying then everyone would be against it, but wrap it up in something nicey nice then less people will stand against you.  Still I think you should give them the chance to live and not destroy them just because you don't want them or you think it will be to hard on them.



Like I tell my boys, if you have sex expect to get her pregnant, because maybe not today and maybe not tommorow, but eventually the numbers will catch up with you and then what?  If you are ingadging in sex you have a chance of geting pregnant or catching an STD.  What planed parenthood wants you to believe is that you sould be able to ingage in reckless behaivor without any consiquences, but this is just not true.



This is a mute arguement, what if pigs could talk?  Would that make them less tasty?  What if's that are improbable are not a good example.



I second the need to explain.  Though I don't agree with Vexen, you should at least explain your arguement. :)



As I covered earlier there shouldn't be an exception.  If you allow one, then you have to allow them all.  It is still not the child's fault the female in question was raped.



This is how our laws are suppossed to be set up.  Fine do what you want, but you have to suffer the consiquences.  I don't know of any kind of sex that can't lead to pregnacy.  Oral - could dribble down you chin into the vagina.  Hand - could shoot at you into the vagina.  Anal - hello! It's right next to it.  Though the chances are extreme, they are not impossible.  I personally know a girl that was not ingaging in any penetration, just dry humping.  They both had there underwear on, but she still go pregnant.  So the chance is out there, just slim.



See above.  The system, I think, doesn't punish this act well enough.  I like the Old Testament way of thinking.  Do wrong - Death!!  But will never happen in this country, because we are all to soft.



You still signed up for the tests in the above, so, even though you didn't forsee the consiquenses, neither did you try to find them out.

There is a differenc in your arguement.  In katisara's, she stated you were in the program by choice.  Vexen, you are seting up a program by force.  The two are not the same.

My point, though, is that that isn't the main question.  Again, you're trying to push the definition of "human" or "human being" to include embryos, but once you get people to agree with that, tacitly revert to a different definition of "human being," for which all (well, most) people agree it's wrong to kill them.  Like I said, it's not the fact that they're "human" that makes it wrong to kill people, it's the fact that they have these certain qualities.  "Human" is just a label.  It's not the actual important thing.  What "human" describes is the important thing.  Again, it's the qualities of humans that make it wrong to kill them, not just the fact that they're "human."


It's not so much an issue of "less human," but rather qualitatively different.  Operations occur to remove one siamese twin from the other.  There is debate about whether this is right or wrong, but its a different type of debate than would occur over whether its right or wrong to shot people at random from your window.


Again, I think you're missing the point.  The important thing isn't "what makes a human human," but rather, "what makes it wrong to kill a human?"

The last letter, D, stands for degree of dependancy, which lawyers and politicians call "viability."


Once again, you're ignoring the issue of degree, and treating every type of dependence as equal.  You're applying words with broad meaning to all cases, and ignoring the fact that the cases aren't equal just because they can be described by the same word.  How dependent and upon what something is dependent matters, not just that it is dependent.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:07, Thu 16 Oct 2008.

Yes, just because I believe it doesn't mean it's reality.  We both have our opinions, but let's put it this way:  can you tell the difference between a fetus and an adult human?  If so, that means they are qualitatively different.  If differences exist, then treating them as 100% the same may not be appropriate.  The question becomes, which differences matter, and how much do they matter.

The "it's 100% human" and the "it's 0% human" arguments both are attempts to use a definition to solve the problem, rather than looking at the real issue of what qualities the embryo actually has.  It's using a prior assumption of "it's wrong to kill people," and trying to stretch or contract the definition of "people" to apply or not to apply.  Both sides are ignoring the more fundamental point of why it's wrong to kill people.  Both sides are ignoring the question of what qualities people have that make it wrong to kill them.

I think this is falling into the same trap as the pro-life camp, though.  It's expecting everything to be either 100% okay, or 0% okay, with no in between.  What we need to realize is that it's an issue of how okay it is.  As you say, it's not commendable in any case.  It's something everyone would rather never happen.  There is some level of "not okay" involved in every case.  The question, though, is whether is more okay to abort it, or to force the woman to have it against her will.  It's an issue of selecting a lesser evil, rather than an issue of whether it's an evil or not.

I think we all agree (correct me if I'm wrong, everyone), that there are two competing interests: that of the woman, and that of the embryo (and arguably a third interest, that of those who value the embryo).  I think expecting one interest to trump the other in every single case is unrealistic.  In different situations, the different interests have different values.

I think exploring this question would actually help us get a better handle on the abortion issue:
What is/are the difference(s) between humans and, say, chickens that makes it okay to kill one but not the other?  (for those who don't think it's okay to kill chickens, make it worms, or mosquitoes or whatever you do feel is okay to kill).

I'm not trying to show a baby yet to be born is an adult human. Human rights are not given only to adult humans.

Again, your opinion does not make it the real issue just because you think it is the real issue. I feel my point is saying that if you cannot accurately describe what makes someone 100%, that's its pretty clear you cannot say it's ok to kill someone at any other percentage.

You have this scale of a gradual increase, and then do not give any attributes to show where someone is along that percentage. That's rather useless to describe it one way, but then have no markers to show how that scale is even used. Compare that to a game of darts, where each spot is unnumbered. While for fun it is good, for telling where someone is along the game, it is useless.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:47, Thu 16 Oct 2008.

To a child, then?  To a baby?  Whatever you are trying to show it is equal to, put that into my question again, and ask it again.


Can the same be said of your opinion?


It's not pretty clear.  In fact, it's not clear at all.


You're stuck looking for absolutes, TitL, rather than observing relative differences.  If you stand two people next to each other, I can tell which one is taller, even if I don't have a tape measure to determine how tall each of them are.  If you walk into the living room, and your friend is watching a baseball game, and you ask "what's the score?" and they answer "Red Soxs are up by two," you still don't know the score, but you do know who's winning, and how close the game is.  You're looking for absolute numbers, but in this case, the numbers aren't particularly meaningful, as you'd just use them to draw another hard-and-fast line in someplace on a gradual spectrum.  What I keep trying to tell you is that looking for something that's 100% okay or 100% wrong is what's causing all the disagreement.  What you should be looking for are things like "is this worse than that?"  or "Given these two bad choices, which do we prefer?"

Also, you didn't give an answer to the question I put in msg #35.  Care to give it a try?

I'm going mostly off of legal interpretations.  Most states say you cannot kill in self-defense unless you feel your life or the life of someone else is DIRECTLY threatened.  So I can't shoot someone who is stealing my car.  This is because the law says the right to life, even a criminal's life, outweighs my right to property, even as a victim.  Similarly, if someone attacks me with his fists, I cannot pull a knife (since my right to be safe from harm is less than his right to life).  So this isn't something I'm making up, there are hundreds of years of caselaw supporting it.  If you feel that the legal system is wrong, well that's a different matter.  But it isn't MY opinion.



We can go into the difference between ommission and commission and how that changes right to life vs. right to property if you'd like, but that is a a different discussion (which we may go into soon :P)

But yes, in most states, while it is legal to deny a life-saving medical procedure to someone who cannot afford it, it is NOT legal to kill that same person if he is stealing that same amount of money from your home.

You could argue that, if the embryo were to die naturally unless you did something to save it, that you could decide not to take that action and let the embryo and therefore you're okay.  But that isn't the same as an abortion, which is intentionally seeking out and destroying the embryo.





Fair enough.  A woman on a deserted tropical island who decides she doesn't care to breastfeed any more would be morally liable for her decision (there are no other options, either she gives up some control of her body to support the baby, or she doesn't).



If she waited until the fetus is viable, and there's no medical need?  Yes.  I would make it illegal to abort the baby at that point.  Carry it, at minimum, until it can be birthed without serious ramifications.  The whole health checkups are the sort of minutae I wouldn't care to hammer out here and now, but it would be a possibility.  At that point, where the fetus is literally three inches short of the full rights of personhood (as in, the fetus is the size, level of development, etc. of normal people), that child's (because it IS a child at that point) rights need to be protected.



This argument has come up before and frankly, I consider it sort of silly.  If we decide that an abortion is morally wrong (note, that's an assumption), how does it make it okay suddenly as long as it's done in a "safe" method?  Would murder be alright as long as we put in the controls necessary to avoid any collateral damage?  Of course not.  So if we decide abortion at that point is wrong, hiring a professional instead of an untrained abortionist isn't any better.



Probably the same way I'd solve the situation if I decided I didn't want to have a house any more.  I would have to wait until the situation allows me to sell.  I can't just say 'meh, I don't feel like cleaning my house today.  I'll just walk away and let the bank deal with it.'

I make decisions, I take responsibility.  Sometimes that means I have to suffer a little for poor choices.  In this case, not only was the decision that led to conception in the first place, but the decision to wait five or six months before addressing it.  It would take a pretty extraordinary situation to justify an abortion in this case (maybe if a woman is raped by her brother while on a desert island and was only just rescued.)




Yes, if I made an animal of any sort, I would feel some responsibility for it.  If that animal happens to also be human, I would feel a lot more responsibility for it.  You don't create something just to cause it to suffer.  That's wasteful and wrong.  Even now that I raise rabbits for food, I wouldn't kill baby bunnies just because I didn't think ahead to make enough space for them.  I'm responsible for them.



If I accidentally made another animal, I would feel just as responsible for it (although it's more likely to require that given the circumstances).  Heck, right now we're caring for a kitten we found in a neighbor's yard.  I didn't even make the cat, but we're looking at how much we'll have to spend to get it fit for adoption.  You don't kill needlessly, and you don't create life where you put that life in that situation.




You mean like a mosquito?  No.  At that point it took that from me without my knowledge or consent, and did things I had no control over.  The fact that it's my genetics has nothing to do with it.  It's consent, responsibility for actions and a respect for life.



Some, but not all, and certainly not all the time.



I don't think anyone has argued that is a right.  However, we do outlaw killing your children (for any reason), because children have a right to life.



But here's the thing, that is the result.  Again, no one can deny that abortion results in a death.  I think most people would agree it's okay to want money, but that doesn't mean I'm allowed to kill people to get it.  We have to weigh the ends (a fetus dying) against the cause (not wanting to be pregnant any more).

I'm not saying you can't make the case.  Tycho has done a good job.  But the idea that my comfort outweighs another's life seems sort of weak.

However, if you want to argue that abortion is more like manslaughter than murder, I'll agree with that.



Convenience meaning "The quality of being suitable to one's comfort, purposes, or needs:"

Yes, I think that's a fair characterization.  I am exempting those cases where the mother's life or serious health is at stake.  If the the mother would lose her legs as a result, that wouldn't be 'for convenience'.  If the mother would have to move to another apartment or change jobs, that IS for convenience.

We can discuss those abortions caused by reasons beyond convenience (mother's life in danger, baby would be unable to survive, etc.) at another time.  I'm focusing primarily on those who COULD carry the baby to term without serious risk, but doesn't care to.



In almost all cases, the women (and men) do choose behaviors which they know results in making babies.  If the woman did not know pregnancy results from sex, she may be exempted.



That's a question about suicide.  The fetus chooses, not the mother.  Since it's the fetuses life, it's a different question.  Do I support suicide made by rational actors?  I don't know.  Falkus does make a compelling argument.  For fun, I'll say yes.





I sort of did anyway, but I'll go over it again.

Most people know that babies are made by sex.
Most babies are the result of consensual sex.
Sex is not a required behavior.  It is easy to choose not to have sex, or to use appropriate methods to substantially reduce the risks of pregnancy.

Anyone in this place who gets pregnancy has, with knowledge, intention and foresight, engaged in behavior with a strong risk of negative repurcussions.  As they have chosen this course of action themselves with no lack of knowledge and foresight, they and only they are responsible for the results of that action.

If any of those are missing, if the person were not aware sex results in babies, was forced into sex without consent, or was unable to determine that THIS sex might result in babies (for instance, if she engaged in oral sex but somehow got pregnant anyway), responsibility for the fetus would be substantially reduced.

However, the example paints it as though she had neither knowledge, intention OR foresight.  Hence why it is a false example.



To go back to what Tycho said, we need to weigh values and resonsibilities.  If you maintain your car, but your tire explodes, sending you into someone else's car and killing that person, you would not be responsible for that death.  Abortion in the case of rape is still an intentional choice, but it would be less unethical.

At this point I hope we can also agree that abortion at any stage is at least a little unethical.  To touch on Tycho's point, eating chicken is probably also a little unethical.  Killing an animal to eat it, while necessary and natural, still results in a death, even a justified one.  It is ending the life of another.  It is not desirable.  The only reason why people would choose an abortion is because the unethical and painful choice of going through the procedure is (in theory) less than the painful and unethical result of not.  It's choosing the lesser of two evils.  If anyone truly thinks that there is nothing about an abortion which makes it an undesirable course (even if it is at times necessary), please feel free to correct me.



Not a punishment, but yes, a consequence for taking actions.  My paying a mortgage isn't a punishment, but it is a consequence.  Pregnancy is not very fun.  Even women who want to get pregnant almost never enjoy the pregnancy.  But it isn't a punishment, just a natural consequence.



This ignores the intention, knowledge and foresight of the rapist.  She was responsible for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She wasn't responsible as soon as the rapist started using force to get what he wanted.

That's the critical difference.  The sperm, the egg, the embryo, none of them have intention, knowledge or foresight.  All of that falls back onto the last rational actors, the man and woman having sex.

That isn't to say it's right.  I don't think pregnancy is great.  But neither is abortion.  Abortion is not undoing what happened.  Again, I'm assuming you agree here that abortion is an unhappy situation, to be avoided whenever possible, and only chosen because it is the lesser of two wrongs.  Should women who choose to have sex have to suffer either abortion or pregnancy?  Well, I don't think they should have to.  But clearly the physical world is such that they do.




"Should have known" does not cut it.  If "she knew", THAT would suffice.  Knowledge, not 'should have knowledge'.  So not only does she not hold responsibility because she is not the actor in spiking the drink, (and when she drank it, she lacked knowledge), but she clearly lacked knowledge that the place was risky at all.  Her responsibility is basically negligible.



I disagree in that the woman is responsible for her decision in this case.  But since you don't seem to think responsibility is an important factor, I can understand why you wouldn't see it as a significant difference.



But didn't she make a commitment?  And how does her convenience outweigh someone else's life?  Is it okay for me to tell people I'll help them scale buildings by holding the rope, then decide it's hurting my hands and let go?



The difference there is the recipient is not in any worse a case than he would have been otherwise.  If she backed out while the recipient was laying on the operating table, chest split open, liver removed, yes, that would not be acceptable.

So tell me what the main question is.  Also I'm not trying to push the definition, I am only showing that to say that birth alone makes you human is a flawed idea.  In that case, when a person murders a pregant woman, that person should not be charged with killing two people.



But is the siamese twin that has a lesser cell count, less human?  Yes or No.  Weither they should be seperated or not is irrelevant.



But the definition of what is a human is the main reason it is okay to kill the innocent babies.  People don't abort children because they know its a human, they kill it because it has been pushed on them that it isn't.  What makes it wrong to kill a human is a totally different arguement from the one I am bringing up.



I have heard that too.



Then tell me what the difference is between the two.  What is the difference of a child being dependant on it mother and a lung cancer patient dependant on an iron lung?  The only differance I can see is one is biological and one is mechanical, but I am interested in finding out how you would answer the question.

A rather charged issue, abortion.  My feelings are that it should only be performed if the mother was raped and can't/won't have anything to do with the child, or if a compotent medical professional states that the pregnancy has severe health risks for the mother or child.  A lot of the people that are having abortions simply because a child would be inconvienient should probably be sterilized, since they obviously haven't been taking enough care with their birth control stuff.  And many of the children who have been aborted should have been adopted into a loving family - plenty of those around.

The main question is what I've been talking about the whole time: avoiding semantics of human/non-human, and asking what are the qualities that matter.  I agree that the idea that birth alone makes you human is flawed.  But that's a matter of the definition of human, and definitions shouldn't change what's right or wrong.  If it's wrong to kill a fetus, then it should be wrong no matter if we call it human or not.  If it's okay to kill a fetus, then it should be okay regardless of whether its called a human or not.  What determines whether it's okay or not isn't the word we use to describe it, but the actually properties that it has.


Yeah, and I think they shouldn't.  They should be charged with killing a pregnant woman and a fetus.  That can and should be considered worse than killing just one woman.  But I don't think it should be considered the exact same thing as killing two women, because it's not the same thing.



Yes or no?  Depends on how we define "human," which is a purely semantic issue, not a moral one.  Contrary to what you say, it's not at all irrelevant if they should be separated or not.  That's the whole point.  What should or shouldn't be is what we're talking about.  But you're trying to solve that with semantics, by using word play, rather than getting at the heart of the matter, which is "what is it about a fetus that makes it wrong to kill it?"  What are the traits, properties, etc., that make it important.  And how do those compare to the traits that the woman has?  The human/not-human debate is an attempt to avoid the more difficult issue, and just "define" the issue away.



I find it very sad if you can't think of a better reason not to kill something than the label that someone has attached to it.  If the only reason you think its wrong to kill children is because we call them human, then I don't think you've thought deep enough about the issue.  You're following simple rules without knowing why the rules exist.  While I agree, to a degree, that it is because people are convinced that a fetus isn't a person that they think it's okay to kill it, I think it's wrong of them to use that line of reasoning.  They're falling into the same mistake that you are, they just draw a different imaginary line somewhere, and treat it like it's not imaginary.


Then you're missing the real issue.  What makes it wrong to kill a human is exactly what we should be talking about, because that's what we need to look at to determine if its wrong (or how wrong it is) to kill a fetus.  Again, you're making a semantic argument, rather than making an argument based on reality.  You're talking about labels, rather than about actual qualities.  Go deeper.  Look at the real issue, not just the words we use to describe the issue.


Well, for one, the iron lung doesn't have a preference about the existence of the person attached to it.  It doesn't have any desires or goals or rights to consider, whereas a mother does.  If the mother weren't involved in a pregnancy, but instead some mindless machine gave birth, then it would be a very different situation.  Like I've said before, it's not an issue of saying "oh, there's absolutely nothing wrong at all with killing a fetus," but rather an issue of saying "how does the badness of killing the fetus compare to the badness of requiring the woman to give birth to an unwanted child?"
Another aspect of your analogy is important:  disconnecting someone from life support is very different from going out into the street and randomly shooting someone.  Both kill someone, but we view the two acts very differently, because while they both result in someone dying, they are qualitatively different. That's what I'm talking about with the issue of degrees.  You're looking at this in a "perfectly 100% okay or 0% not at all okay" way, where I'm saying you have to look at it in continuum.  It's not a switch, but a dial.  It's not an issue of "is bad or not" but one of "how bad is it?"

I am trying to compare an unborn human is a human.


Sure it can. So let's talk about the real issue, killing humans. Just in case it's overlooked, it's the wording that is problematic. You're stating the other views are not the real issue, but offer nothing that is even supportable by your own definitions. You're reducing their views as not real, but there doesn't seem to be any real way of showing their views are not the issue.



Can you give me any reason it's ok to kill someone without using any descriptions that are qualitative?  To be clear, if there is nothing that can stand up to making it ok, then there is nothing that can say it is not ok either.

The kicker is people are saying it's ok at less than 100% but cannot actually show where it is not 100%, or what brings it up from 70 to 71%, or any other point along that line.


I'm still unclear how you can show there is any differences. I get you're saying there are differences, but I don't get where or how you are showing there is any gradual change that matches up with what actually happens. For example, a baby 8 inches from the womb entrance is what percentage?

  100% ok, and 100% not ok seems realistic, since there is no sort of killing, or 50% dead, or 96% alive. Relative and human life can be discussed, but in the end, absolutes are the reality of how we decide things.


It's ok to kill animals, because they are food.

Like TitL said, their not human.  We are higher beings that are at the top of our food chain, so we should be able to kill and/or eat them if we wish.  I'm not saying we should just open wholesale killing on anything, but killing the creatures below us in the chain should not carry any guilt.

By the by, I am perposely not putting in anything about my religious beliefs into the above so as to avoid the obvious. :)

Okay.  And can you honestly tell me that you can't tell the difference between the two?  If I brought in a 25 year old person, and a 25 day old embryo, could you tell which was unborn?


Your making an entirely semantic argument here, TitL.  I'm saying that we shouldn't be making decisions based simply off arbitrary labels, but rather based on something more substantial.  If it's wrong to kill a fetus, then you should be able to demonstrate that even to someone who doesn't agree that it should be called a human.  The debate over person/not person misses the point, because regardless of what we call the fetus, its properties don't change.  It's the exact same thing whether you call it a person or not.  The label you attach to it isn't the important thing, but what it actually is, the qualities that it has, are important.  That's what I'm trying to get you talk focus on, rather than just using a purely semantic argument.


I'm not asking you to not use qualitative descriptions, but rather asking you to use them.  I want you to use qualitative descriptions, and avoid just using label that people don't agree upon.  In answer to your question, an example would be self defense.  Most people think it's okay to kill someone who's trying to kill you.  It's not that the person trying to kill you isn't human, or isn't a person, so it's okay to kill them.  They're still a human, still a person, but it's considered okay to kill them in that particular instance because of the special circumstances involved.  Now, we could debate if it's really okay to kill in self-defense, or under what situations it would be okay, etc., and it wouldn't come down to an issue of human/not human.  We would have to debate the qualities of the different situations.  We'd have to make statements like "it'd be okay to kill in that case because X, Y, and Z."  That's what I'm trying to get this discussion to be like.  I want you to make statements like "it's wrong to kill fetuses because they're X, they're Y, and they're Z," where X, Y, and Z, aren't just labels, but are actually objective descriptions that we all agree on.  You think a fetus is a human being, other people don't.  That's just a label.  It's just what other people call it.  It's not a true property of the fetus itself.  There are true, objective properties of the fetus that everyone can agree on, though.  Those are what people should be talking about.


Well, I'm not sure if "people" are saying this, since I haven't had much luck convincing anyone to look at it this way yet.  Most pro-choice advocates say it's okay at 0%, and not okay at 100%, just like you do, they just see a different point the things magically flip from 0% to 100%.
As for the difference between 70% and 71%, I think that is, roughly possible.  Maybe not down to a 1% accuracy, but we could definitely tell 25% from 75%, for example.


Are you honestly saying you can't tell a difference between a fertilized egg cell and an 8 month fetus?  I don't feel it should be too controversial that there is a gradual change that takes place over 9 months from a single cell into a baby.


You mean just minutes before birth?  99.9% or so, then.  If you mean 4.5 months before birth, then about 50%.  This isn't exactly rocket science here.  It starts at 0%, or just a tiny bit over, and reaches 100% at birth.  We could debate if it's a linear change or not, but I think that's not particularly important.


Yes, we do have to kill it entirely, or not at all.  But that doesn't mean all the killings are the same.  Just as killing someone who's attacking your family with a knife isn't the same as randomly shooting a stranger, even though they're both 100% dead, killing a few cells isn't the same as killing a 8.5 month old fetus.  Both are dead, but the killings aren't equal, and we need to realize that there is a difference, and figure out just how bad the different kinds are.


Then it would be okay to kill fetuses as long as we ate them afterwards?  Would you say it's okay to kill people and eat them?  "Food" just means something you eat.  Eating something, in my opinion, doesn't make it necessarily okay to kill it.  What about mosquitos?  If a skeeter bites you, and you slap it, have you committed a crime if you don't then eat it?  I think the argument that something is "food" so it's okay to kill it is a bit weak.  Dig a bit deeper.  Why is it okay, in your view, to kill a pig, but not a person? What are the differences that make killing at eating one natural, and killing and eating the other horrible to you?

So anything that eats us is higher on the food chain than us, and should be free to kill us?  Is it okay to kill people if we then eat them?  Do you have any problem with people killing chimpanzees?  Whales?  Gorillas?  Are there any animals you don't think it's okay to kill?

Sure I can. But that doesn't change what I'm saying. I'm sure you can compare an African person versus an Asian person and see differences. I'm sure you can see differences between a woman and a man. Sure we can say there are differences, but that doesn't make them more or less human. Differences of what a human looks like doesn't make them less human. In my examples, we can point out where one is Asian, or where one is a woman, we're making statements that qualifies a person is one of the categories.


Actually, the part I'm challenging you on is your use of "real issue", and the idea that your degree of humanity is mostly useless without any way to base it from. So far the only baseline anyone has pointed out is born and not born. So people say there are degrees, and a percentage of humanness, but in the end no one seems to be able to make a clear statement on level unless it is a yes/no, or human/not human degree.

You're right that I should also make my point of where I'm coming from, but so far, I'm still working on the flaws of the arguments presented. If I can point out a problem with the system, it opens room for other systems to be presented.



I get your point, but I'm still waiting for where you can show a percentage of humanness that isn't 100% and show why it is 70%, or 80%, or 95%. So far we have 99.9%(about to be born), and 100% (born), but I just see issues with trying to explain any other percentage as it would appear relative, and killing a human yet to be born is not relative, but absolute. If we're saying it is ok to kill, we need to use absolutes.

You say the degree of humanness is the real issue, but I don't see anyway to show that is the real issue. So if you could explain more about W%, X%, Y%, Z%.


Ok, what does 25% from 75% look like?


Sure I can tell the difference. I didn't say there isn't any change. You said it's a percentage, could you give a firm percentage in your question so we can apply this gradual scale you speak of? I'm not disputing there is a difference in age. There's a difference between a 3 year old, and a 90 year old person, but neither of them are less than 100% human. So the point I'm making is I don't feel you can point out the difference between human and not human on any percentage scale. I can only see human and not human. If you can point out degrees of humanness that will give us more to discuss if there really is different percentages of humanness.



See one problem I see with that relative system is there have been millions of babies born at 5 months old, so it can't be close to 50% at 4.5 months. That cannot be a good method to determine percentage, if it can be wrong so many times.


Is killing a person at 3 years old worse or better than killing a person who's ten years old? 20 years old? 50 years old? Killing a defenseless person is considered quite terrible. A baby not yet born is very defenseless.


Killing an animal is different than a human. We kill animals because they are not human. We eat animals because of taste and nutrition. I suspect if we placed no value on human life, we would eat humans too. Human life has value, and animal life does not have that same value.

Please feel free to make your point.


You need to get out of the okay/not okay mindset.  You need to realize it's question of how bad it is, not just if it's bad.  You also need to get over the semantic argument of "humanness."  You need to get onto discussing how we can determine if its okay to kill an thing, without just using a label that everyone can't agree on.  Stick to the objective qualities that we can all agree on.  That's what I'm trying to get you to do.


No, it's not the degree of humanness that matters.  It's the actual properties that matter.  "Degree of humanness" is just sort of a short-hand, that's obviously not working for you.  So toss it out.  It's just a label too.  If you don't think it's possible to have anything other than 100% or 0% humanness, then we're just back to the issue of labels.  Let's take it to the level of objective qualities.


Do a google search, and find pictures of a 2 month fetus, and a six month fetus.  See if you can tell the difference. See if you can spot any significant, qualitative differences.  If you can, then you've just shown that we can tell a 25% developed fetus from a 75% developed one.  I really don't feel like this idea should be too controversial.  I think you're still hung up on the label aspect of it.  Let's skip the label, then, and get to objective qualities.


Okay, you don't agree with the label.  You're simply stating that you don't accept my definition, which is exactly what pro-choice people tell you.  It doesn't get us anywhere, because what we call something is an arbitrary choice.  Let's talk about objective qualities, then.


Would you be fine with a system where women were allowed to induce labor at any point during pregnancy, and then we just see if the fetus survives?  I'm assuming not.  Because those months are necessary.  Even when babies are born at 5 months, they're not fully developed.  They're not the same as a baby born after 9 months.


Depends entirely on the situation in each case.  If the 20 year old is a soldier, and you're in a war, then it's better to kill him than a 3 year old.  If the three year old is part of a siamese twin, and both twins will die unless one is removed, then it'd better better to kill the 3 year-old.  Etc.  Not all killings are equal.


Yes, but why is it different from killing a human?  What are the qualities of animals or humans that are important in that difference?


I really, really hope that you have a better reason than that.


Again, why do they have different values?  What is the cause of that difference?  Why do you value one more than the other?

I just thought of perhaps a better way to get across the point I'm trying to make.  Imagine in the future we can travel to distance stars, explore new planets, etc., and we find new types of life.  You're on a space ship that's exploring a new world, and there's some sort of problem where the food you brought with you has all gone bad, and you need to find a new source of food.  The crew have found lots of different creatures on this new planet, and suggest that you can all survive eating these animals.  There's lots of different types of animals there, how do you decide which are okay to eat, and which aren't?  Would it be okay to kill the ones that walk up to you and say "welcome to Zirton, earth-creatures?" How about the slug-like ones?  The single-celled stuff?  The ones that mud huts and hunt with sticks?  None of them are human, but some have more in common with humans than others.  Which traits are the important ones for this decision?  What questions do you want to know the answers to before you make the decision?

Right now, I'm just going over the current ones. Honestly, I don't like when we have posts that include 14 different quotes, with multiple points on a variety of ideas. It results in excessive back and forth and reading previously read details to make sure the information is accurate. I'm going to stick with the current issues first before I add more to the topic.


Why do I need to get out of the okay/not okay mindset? Even the ideas are looking at examples of killing that are okay, not okay. I understand you feel I should not look at it that way, but I don't understand why you feel that way.



I don't mind removing the percentages of humanness idea. It seemed far too difficult a premise to use, and no objective way of using it properly and consistently.


http://msnbcmedia4.msn.com/j/m...ie_vlrg_6a.widec.jpg
This picture is of a baby born after just 5 months in the womb. That's 1 month younger than your example of 6 months, and considered only 75% human in your example.

Your example doesn't work in this situation. Using percentages will not work considering that humans do not give birth at 274 days, 7 hours, and 10 minutes after conception takes place. Percentages of the average does not work, as we do not protect the average person, we protect the weakest person. For example, if you get into a car accident, and the person in the other car has a spinal condition, and they die, you can be charged with manslaughter depending on circumstances. It may not have killed a person with an average healthy spine, but we protect people on the basis of the weakest, not the fittest, or the average.

Percentages just don't work as any number you come up with will not be suitable if all, never mind most situations.


Yes, I agree. I want that too.


That's not a very good system. Medical care does not make someone less human. Otherwise, we should just allow people to not go through surgery, and see how they do with their cancer, pancreas shutting down, liver diseased, lung collapsed.

We need medical care to survive various illnesses at times, medical care does not make someone less human. Dependency does not make someone less human.

Kat brought up the point earlier that a 1 year old would not fare well on their own, so does that make them less human?


Only one quality makes someone human. Being conceived from humans. Intelligence is not important. The number of limbs is not important. The color of skin, the gender, the ability to see, taste, touch, hear, or smell doesn't make someone more or less human.


Animals are not humans.

Just doing some additional research here. A 1993 study by Dr. Joel Brind, and he found a woman who has an abortion has a 800% increase of breast cancer if they are younger than 18 at the time of abortion. It also goes on to mention that abortions increase chance of breast cancer for older women, and that if a woman does have breast cancer, and had an abortion in the past, it will result in a cancer that is more difficult to treat, and slower to recover from cancer. Multiple abortions increase breast cancer chances even further.

Did anyone else know that? Do woman get told this when they are being told about options? This report is over 15 years ago, and research should have even more now, so do other people know about complications due to abortion?