The Abortion Thread

[Galant]

Quite the contrary, I know how little about biology we understand, as such I think the line in the sand varies depending on the circumstance... SNIP for length

I'm sorry Animus, it seems you're very angry. I have tried to explore this question through logic without reference to any aspect of faith or religion. Saying that all I do is revert back to my faith is to entirely ignore everything I've said or tried to put across.

I've been somewhat frustrated that some of my posts seem to have been ignored and not engaged, and it seems this whole thing is only infuriating you more.

You seem to be really angry with Christianty and/or the church. Fair enough. I'm sure you have your reasons.

I don't have any desire to continue if all this does is en flame the matter.

I will simply say that I have tried to show that it is inconsistent to talk about the suffering or rights of one human being in order to justify the killing of another human being. That if we are bothered by the infringement of rights of one human being we should therefore be equally concerned about the infringement of rights of another.

I have understood that such a notion as applied to abortion is entirely dependent upon the status of an unborn foetus as a human being with full rights. What I have therefore tried to do is present a biological understanding of life which demonstrates that all unborn foetuses are human beings. Based upon that notion, which I believe is a valid one, the issue of abortion is a very weighty and serious one - at least as long as the defense of human rights, especially the right to live, is considered weighty and serious.

When that no longer matters, then abortion no longer matters. Nor do you or I.

You've stated to now believe me to be an ignorant bully. You are entitled to your belief. I'm sorry that is the case. I'm honestly not. I don't want to hurt women, or deprive them of anything. I actually hope to help the suffering with my life, and would be especially honoured if I can help women - who are many times the most downtrodden and abused in society.

I simply see the unborn foetus as a human being and therefore find it inconsistent to talk of killing one but helping the other. I desire and hope that we help them both.

That's it.

My apologies if I've somehow come across as rude or upset you greatly. I admit I was frustrated, as I mentioned. I just believe strongly in the importance of this issue, because if those foetuses are human individuals, then people are dying by the thousands. I would hope as a society, if we saw that, that we would do something about it and at the same time work hard to help the single mums and victims of rape and any others suffering with different problems and challenges. That every life, adult and child, would be valued and wanted and cared for.

That is my contention and why I raise the issue. It is the question - is there someone dying now that no-one sees?

Regards.

[TeePee]

Your argument falls short. The question isn't whether we have a mind or will or emotions - obviously those are part of human existence. The question is where do those things reside or originate. If they reside or originate somehow outside or apart from the physical body then you have the supernatural. If however, as I have been arguing, they reside within the body and are to be explained as the interaction of the various parts of your biology - as a naturalist argues - then it all comes back down to biology, life processes. For the naturalist there is no mind apart from the body, it is simply a product of biology. However, I stand willing to be corrected. I would appreciate it if you would please describe to me where the human consciousness resides and what it is.

It's a collection of electrical activity in the brain. Something an embryo does not have, which is why it cannot experience pain. A baby can experience the pain you would choose to inflict upon it.

Your humanity falls short. Have you considered that compassion is a positive trait? Why not try to be the best person you can be, treat others as humans, rather than obsessing over your religion?

[Galant]

It's a collection of electrical activity in the brain. Something an embryo does not have, which is why it cannot experience pain. A baby can experience the pain you would choose to inflict upon it.

Your humanity falls short. Have you considered that compassion is a positive trait? Why not try to be the best person you can be, treat others as humans, rather than obsessing over your religion?

So the mind is a part of the body, the product of electrical activity, why then do you single out that particular biological process as important above others? It never goes beyond being electrical activity. It always remains a biological process.

Treating others as humans is exactly what I'm trying to do. Treat everyone who is human, as human. Abortion, if the embryo is human, treats a human being as less than such.

I have argued, and argue again, that if the human life is understood as an unfolding of a biological process, then it is that process which holds human rights. Therefore the human process should be protected.

If you don't like the way I am putting it perhaps someone else can put it better:http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...interview?pg=1

Or for a longer look from the legal perspective in the USA's discussion of this subject:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/01/4577

[TeePee]

Because the electrical activity is consciousness. The same reason someone on a life support machine who is 'brain dead' is dead, even when their heart keeps pumping.

After you are dead, the bacteria in your body will continue to live and consume you. This is a biological process.

At what point do you think a person is dead? When the electrical activity stops? When the heart stops? When breathing stops?

An Embryo does none of these things.

An embryo is no more a human being than your sperm.

[billythewiz]

I have argued, and argue again, that if the human life is understood as an unfolding of a biological process, then it is that process which holds human rights. Therefore the human process should be protected.

Can you explain why ? I accept the first part of the sentence as a given ("human life is ... an unfolding of a biological process"). But the second part "that process which holds human rights" ... Why ?

Here's my view as to why the rights of "that process" are not always the same and initially are zero.

Most people believe things like "you get what you work for". They believe that hard work is a virtue and that you have no intrinsic right to luxuries. It you want something you work for it. After you've worked you will have earned the right to have "it" (whatever that is).

In our society the value we place on a person is usually proportional to how easy they are to replace. This is why we pay sargents more than privates and doctors more than nurses.

Few people question these ideas. Most people like and agree with them. I believe these rules apply equally to embryos and foetuses.

At the point of conception, when all the sperm are banging their heads against that egg shell and one of them manages to get in, the newly formed zygote hasn't done anything to earn any rights. So far all effort has been made by the parents. This condition continues for quite some time. The developing embryo starts to earn its right to life by developing correctly. If it doesn't develop correctly, then the mother's body will reject it and miscarry. This happens a lot more frequently than most people realise.

It may seem harsh, but to me it obvious that the "value" of foetus is dependent on three things,

1. It is proportional to the amount of effort that the parents have put into it.
2. How easy it would be to replace (just like doctors and nurses).
3. How much cost/damage it will cause or joy/reward it will cause.

One of the features of science is that you can't just go making stuff up. If you suggest a hypothesis (as I just have) you have to devise ways to test it, i.e. an experiment.

So to test my first hypothesis we get a group of women, half of which miscarried at under 10 weeks and the other half that miscarried at greater than 30 weeks. We then get a man to tell the >30 week group that their loss is no greater than for the other group !

For hypothesis 2, we run the same experiment but the two groups would be women carrying their 10th child and women who have managed to conceive after their 10th round of IVF.

For the 3rd we consider only happily married women of about 30 years, who already have two young, healthy children and are now unexpectedly pregnant with a 3rd. Half have normal pregnancies and half have medical complications that are very likely to result in the death of the mother.

In this last case there are two grandparents who have considerable investment in their (mortally endangered) daughter and her two children. There is a man (and his parents) who has considerable investment in his wife and their children. And there are two children who still have considerable dependency on (and a right to) their mother. And we also have one foetus that is threatening all of that (perhaps because it implanted itself inside a fallopian tube).

From a biological point of view I think it's easy to see that the value of a life starts off at zero and increases as the creature gets older. It reaches a maximum when the creature is a fertile, reproducing adult and decreases there after. As a "pro-choicer" this is why I also have a great deal of sympathy for Terry Pratchett and his campaigning on assisted death.

So I ask again, how can a newly fertilised egg have exactly the same human rights and right to life as a 30 year old mother of two children ? Please explain why, don't just state it. I understand that it's what you believe, but why ?

[TheAnimus]

I'm sorry Animus, it seems you're very angry. I have tried to explore this question through logic without reference to any aspect of faith or religion. Saying that all I do is revert back to my faith is to entirely ignore everything I've said or tried to put across.

I've been somewhat frustrated that some of my posts seem to have been ignored and not engaged, and it seems this whole thing is only infuriating you more.

The issue is your ignoring ideas, you confuse and seperate concepts you have a bizzare idea of what makes human.

You talk about emotions, I talk about animals which exhibit the same ones, you ignore this concept.

You talk about the value of life, in http://forums.hexus.net/question-tim...ml#post2308845 I talk about how people generally do not put their money where their mouth is on such matters, I ask you directly if you do, you ignore it.

If you see any ideas you dislike, you don't seem to want to engage, you ignore them..

I can not understand your reasoning that an embreo at 2 days old is holding some "right to life" yet a matured pig, which is clearly able to demonstrate said emtions, which you describe as human, can be killed.

I do not understand how if you care about life so much you think aborting a 4 week old is wrong, yet my spending say £10 on a bottle of wine which will last an hour, money which if spent humainily would have saved the life of someone for a couple of weeks, isn't a damning indightment of how much I value human life, and everyone else who does that.

We all know there are people right now dieing for want of water, food, simple medication.

Yet we do not help them. We have the power, and for us its nothing, one less pint a week, no sky tv, no new graphics card, no new book. We don't choose to sacrifice a pure luxury to save the life of a fellow human.

That is the reality of the value of a human life.

You can argue morning into night about what you claim to think it is, but actions do not tally.

[Galant]

Because the electrical activity is consciousness. The same reason someone on a life support machine who is 'brain dead' is dead, even when their heart keeps pumping.

After you are dead, the bacteria in your body will continue to live and consume you. This is a biological process.

At what point do you think a person is dead? When the electrical activity stops? When the heart stops? When breathing stops?

An Embryo does none of these things.

Why is brain death the current, popular method for determining death? It hasn't always been that way. It used to be the case that death was considered to have occurred when the heart stopped beating and people stopped breathing. Then we learned how to resuscitate people from that state and it no longer became viable as a method of determining death. So now we use brain 'death' as a measure.

Considering that fact, I have a quote for you:

Your argument is that ""since at brain death a human being goes out of existence (at least in this mortal realm), the presence of a functioning human brain is the property which makes one fully human. Hence, it would only follow that the start of brain functioning is the beginning of full humanness."

The fundamental difficulty with this argument is that...

"Brain death indicates the end of human life as we know it, the dead brain having no capacity to revive itself. But the developing embryo has the natural capacity to bring on the functioning of the brain. That is to say, an entity's irreversible absence of brain waves after the brain waves have come into existence indicates that the entity no longer has the natural, inherent capacity to function as a human being, since our current technology is incapable of “reactivating” the brain. However, the unborn entity who has yet to reach the stage in (his or) her development at which brain waves can be detected, unlike the brain dead individual, possesses the inherent capacity to have brain waves. She is like a patient with a temporarily flat EEG.

The two stages of human life are, then, entirely different from the point of view of brain functioning. The embryo contains the natural capacity to develop all the human activities: perceiving, reasoning, willing and relating to others. Death means the end of natural growth, the cessation of these abilities.""

Francis J. Beckwith quoting Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life: A Philosophical View (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1975), and Andrew Varga, The Main Issues in Bioethics, Second edition (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), pp. 61-62.

An embryo is no more a human being than your sperm.

As for this - it's nonsense. By definition a human being comes from a sperm and an egg interacting, so of course an embryo is, at the very least more human than a sperm. I can't believe I'm even having to spell that out. I feel like I'm being trolled.

[Phage]

Given the ability to clone. That potential is also true of every cell in your body. Potential does not define human.

[TeePee]

If death is the end of human growth, then we are alive until our fingernails stop growing?

No brain waves means no human consciousness. That is what makes a human being.

As for this - it's nonsense. By definition a human being comes from a sperm and an egg interacting, so of course an embryo is, at the very least more human than a sperm. I can't believe I'm even having to spell that out. I feel like I'm being trolled.

Because you are incorrect. And going to increasing lengths to try to justify a position which isn't just incorrect, but morally wrong.

[Galant]

If death is the end of human growth, then we are alive until our fingernails stop growing?

http://www.snopes.com/science/nailgrow.asp

No brain waves means no human consciousness. That is what makes a human being.

So you're just going to ignore my last point? We already talked about this. Human consciousness is nothing in itself. It is simply the outworking of electrical activity in the brain. There is nothing special about it. You might like to think you're special somehow, that you're a special kind of animal, but you're not. The only reason we use brain activity as a marker of death is because it's the furthest point we've reached in being able to revive someone. Should we break that barrier then you will find that consciousness means nothing, it's just electricity. The difference between life and death is simply the difference between a organism which is functioning and an organism which was functioning but has ceased to function. That is how you define it. Singling out one element of that function is a misdirection. The element is simply an outworking of the living whole function. Your definition of life is arbitrary. You're just picking and choosing whatever suits you, maybe out of some romantic notion about the human animal.

The only reason we consider humans to be special is because we are humans. So we give ourselves rights that we don't give to others. It's survival of the fittest. Now, if society has given those rights to human beings, then we, as our own moral authority, have made a declaration. Who are you to take away those rights from another human being just the same as you, only younger?

No?

[TeePee]

No.

If science fiction becomes fact, and medical science improves to the point where we can store that electrical activity and download it into new bodies. Would it be OK steal the plot of a dozen movies and to erase the electrical activity from one person and replace it with someone else's? Of course not!

Why not?

It isn't just meaningless electrical activity that makes bodies run. That electrical activity is thoughts, feelings, emotions, and most importantly in this context, perception. We try to avoid causing pain in animals, because they also have an ability to perceive.

Think of a poor baby who will die in agony hours after death. What causes that agony? Can a malformed embryo feel it? No. Could that agony be prevented from being felt? Yes. Where is the humanity in forcing that child to feel that agony?

Look away from your pointless vindictive religion. Stop deliberately missing the point and twisting what you know to be true in an attempt to validate it.

[billythewiz]

So you're just going to ignore my last point?

Don't get too upset, you repeatedly ignore my entire posts (in this and your "to be or not to be" thread). I can only presume that it's because you don't know how to respond. Interesting.

FWIW I think your "last point" (that en embryo still has the potential to develop brain activity, but a brain dead cadaver has no possibility of restoration) has merit against the argument you responded to. It's entirely irrelevant to the argument I presented. It's almost as if this atheist has applied same level of logical scrutiny to his own philosophy as he has to others.

[aidanjt]

Human consciousness is nothing in itself. It is simply the outworking of electrical activity in the brain. There is nothing special about it.

That's misleading. You don't just lose conciousness when electrical activity ceases in the brain, your entire personality, your 'soul', if you will, is erased, it ceases to exist. You can't just connect jumpleads to both of your ears and reboot the brain by pumping electricity back into it.

Who are you to take away those rights from another human being just the same as you, only younger?

Younger, and without a brain. Who are you to take away the right of another human being just the same as you, to not irresponsibly bring yet another person into this overpopulated impoverished world, to turn all women into breeding vessels against their will?

And this is what all this Christian objection to abortion (and more specifically for Catholics, contraception) is all about, after all, bolstering the number of people to control and furnish the Church with cash.

[Galant]

No.

If science fiction becomes fact, and medical science improves to the point where we can store that electrical activity and download it into new bodies. Would it be OK steal the plot of a dozen movies and to erase the electrical activity from one person and replace it with someone else's? Of course not!

Why not?

It isn't just meaningless electrical activity that makes bodies run. That electrical activity is thoughts, feelings, emotions, and most importantly in this context, perception. We try to avoid causing pain in animals, because they also have an ability to perceive.

Think of a poor baby who will die in agony hours after death. What causes that agony? Can a malformed embryo feel it? No. Could that agony be prevented from being felt? Yes. Where is the humanity in forcing that child to feel that agony?

Look away from your pointless vindictive religion. Stop deliberately missing the point and twisting what you know to be true in an attempt to validate it.

How do you get to electrical activity being thoughts? You have it the wrong way round. It is thoughts that are electrical activity. That is the whole point. What you are in fact arguing for, from a naturalistic perspective, is that human beings have a soul. I know you wont admit it. You can't, it's a priori against what you believe. Nevertheless, it is what you are saying - that the physical elements of human bodies interact in such a way as to create something which is separate from them. If this wasn't the case then all perceived soulish activity can and should be reduced down to its bare component parts - a bio-chemical process that has no intrinsic meaning.

Still, there is a positive side to all this. We have at least gotten to the point where we are now arguing only for the acceptability of abortions before the start of electrical activity in the brain. I feel I can say this since you seem quite set on the notion that it is unjust to take a life once electrical activity has started, and especially once you reach the stage where pain is felt by the foetus. Right?

As for a baby who will feel agony in death, I'll try to answer my own conundrum. Since that baby has the right to life and since we are compassionate enough to not want suffering, I will endeavour to do the best I can and honour life by not taking it, but honour compassion by using medical knowledge to ease or remove the pain - palliative care. It also allows for the possibility of surprise situations where the baby might live even when it was not expected to, and perhaps have the chance to experience and enjoy life and make a positive contribution to society. If it dies, I have upheld the human right to life and yet also eased the pain of the child.

Don't get too upset, you repeatedly ignore my entire posts (in this and your "to be or not to be" thread). I can only presume that it's because you don't know how to respond. Interesting.

My apologies for the delay. As you might have noticed I've been a bit busy on these threads and I only have so much time in the day which also has to include work, other commitments, and time for my wife and child. I'm sorry you're the ones - with Phage - who have fallen through the cracks.

As regards your comments in this particular thread I'll be honest and say I was honestly left speechless. Do you realise that if you continue to follow the logic of removing the equal right to life amongst all human beings you also remove the right to freedom, and free speech, and you also open the door to the justification of killing any human being for almost any reason? That's actually where that path leads. Ask yourself, in your proposed society of lives of differing values who is it who gets to decide what's valuable and what's not? Depending upon the notion of value anyone can be removed from society. Population too big? Kill a few thousand off. Overall standards of education and knowledge slipping? Kill the less intelligent people. Does the human race seem to be getting too weak or have too many imperfections in the population? Kill off the weak people. If this all sounds too far fetched or unrealistic you only need to turn to the East where little baby girls were, and still are, regularly killed because they were little girls. Their perceived value to that society was far less than that of little boys. Are you really okay with that? That is exactly where your logic would lead if you are happy to dispense with equal human rights. Human rights as an equal standard exist in order to ensure fairness and good treatment of all people. Without them injustice and murder would rein and has already done so.

[TeePee]

Thoughts are electrical activity are thoughts. I do not get the distinction. You should re-read if you think I'm arguing for anything separate from the body. No electricity means no thoughts, means death. There is no magic being that swooshes into an embryo at conception.

You haven't eased the pain of the child, you've caused it. Sick and wrong. You show a total lack of humanity. Your obsessive religion is starting to make sense. You use it as a crutch, a way of believing yourself to be a better person than you are.

[Galant]

That's misleading. You don't just lose conciousness when electrical activity ceases in the brain, your entire personality, your 'soul', if you will, is erased, it ceases to exist.

See my previous post. You're not actually making a progression with this point you're only adding another step to the same path. The point of the argument is that there is no 'soul' as separate from the body. The electrical impulses might seem to be something more than they are but they are not. It's just your perception. Electrical impulses aren't emotions or souls, rather it is souls and emotions that are really electrical impulses. What else is there to explain it? You might think you have some sort of spiritual worth, but in fact, you're just a physical entity that is biological deceived into thinking it is more than it is, and then degrades and dies.

You can't just connect jumpleads to both of your ears and reboot the brain by pumping electricity back into it.

This is for two possible reasons or a combination of both. First, it could be because the electrical impulses aren't all that matters - if the biological channel, or wiring, for the impulses degrades, no amount of bio-electric charge will change that. Alternatively, it could be because we just don't have the tech for it yet. We didn't used to be able to restart a heart but now we can, precisely by the application of high tech jump leads. Either way, bio-electrical impulses are just bio-electrical impulses.

Younger, and without a brain. Who are you to take away the right of another human being just the same as you, to not irresponsibly bring yet another person into this overpopulated impoverished world, to turn all women into breeding vessels against their will?

First, Billy's idea of removing equal human rights notwithstanding, either we all have rights or we don't It's useless to talk about saving the rights of one person by taking away the rights of another. It's self-contradictory. Second, if you wish to talk about reasons (overpopulation being one) for killing people then you return to Billy's proposition of eliminating human rights as they now stand and instead making relative judgement calls about who gets to live and who gets to die - without even a choice. By that argument it would be just as plausible to decide that if the world is overpopulated we should just kill all the older people (desirous or not) since they're taking up space, and wasting money, time and energy on housing and medical care. Some of them aren't even making a proper contribution to society but are just living in retirement. We could 'retire' them entirely? Again, see the above post for more examples. Besides all this, I don't believe anyone was, or has been, arguing for abortion as population control (except possibly Billy by extension of logic). We were talking about the rights of suffering or inconvenienced women. About the challenging problem of the right to life versus the right to freedom. How did we even get onto this notion of killing people for other reasons? Third, turning all women into breeding vessels beyond their choice is both an overstatement and also isn't at all the argument against abortion. As mentioned before, there are a number of very important related concerns attached to the question of abortion - the reasons why a woman might want an abortion, the challenges and problems she might face, the help and compassion a suffering pregnant woman might and does need. These are serious and urgent issues that need addressing. The argument against abortion simply states that the answer to these problems does not, and must not, be found in the taking of another human life but rather should be sought in the further investment of society into advanced, effective care, of all types, encouraging compassion towards those who are in need and responsibility among those who are not in that position, as well as addressing the societal problems that even lead a woman to consider such an operation, all with them aim of seeking to honour and value every human life, and never seeing any human being as expendable.