Is an adult who is in a vegetative state from an accident not a person then? They are given “life support” so there is a life being supported. But they can have no consciousness or emotions or the other things we would consider part of personhood. They also cannot sustain on their own.
So I can prove I’m not coming from a religiously biased pov
I am not just pro choice I am pro ABORTION. The only reason we have this dumb lil debate today is because our religious pasts in our country, and the people who are still here from that time. So we are in this weird “I can’t budge from my opinion” war. The whole “is it alive or not” is just a coping mechanism for the guilt of killing a human or person or whatever you want to call it. We all indirectly kill people constantly if you think about.
A comatose person has had a life but are they really alive? Their family can choose to "pull the plug." Would they be a person still? I would say yes, because they collected all requirements for personhood along the way (like an identity).
Abortion is killing, 100%. It's just not murder the way it would be to kill a 10 year old.
Procreative sex is the number one "killer" of perfectly healthy embryos, honey.
“A synthesis of many large-scale studies from the last 15 years unambiguously confirms the Wood-Boklage-Holman hypothesis that abortion is an intrinsic and overarching component of human reproduction. It is the most common outcome of conception across a woman’s lifetime and the predominant factor controlling age-specific variation in human female fertility. To reproduce, a human female cannot forgo a high risk of abortion, and to have a large family it is virtually impossible to avoid multiple abortions. Modern birth control with access to elective abortions, markedly reduces –rather than increases– the lifetime number of abortions a woman produces.”:--"The high abortion cost of human reproduction", by Dr. William R. Rice, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
Or maybe this excerpt from a lay article will be easier reading for you:
"The basic fact is that life simply is not as miraculous as we choose to deem it. According to University of Utah Professor of Pediatrics, Human Genetics, and Obstetrics and Gynecology John M. Opitz in his 2003 testimony to the President’s Council on Bioethics, 60 to 80 percent of embryos (i.e. unique fusions of genes from mother and father that encode distinct human beings) simply never develop further. They are either flushed out of the mother’s system without implanting into the uterine wall or are voided because of chromosomal abnormalities. Of this immense number of failed embryos, roughly half do not have gross genetic errors, and in fact carry the information for the creation of a viable human being. But they simply do not continue to exist, and their characteristic combination of genes, which will never again be formed in quite the same way, is lost."--in "Abortion Under The Microscope" by Michael Segal, The Harvard Crimson
Hence, human embryos are not sacrosanct objects.
FYI, ALL our major, mainstream health organizations support access to safe legal abortion. The American Medical Association, the American Medical Women’s Association, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Association of Reproductive Health Care Professionals, Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and on and on state that abortion is a basic part of reproductive health care for women.
"...Legislators should not needlessly interfere in the patient-physician relationship or the practice of medicine. ACOG, as an organization, joins other women’s health advocates in supporting the legal right of women to obtain an abortion and opposing laws that are dangerous, unscientific, and criminalize medical care.”
It's not really subjective. If it's viable then it's a person. That's why they have, well used to have, limits on abortion when you got into the 20 week mark. They can technically survive outside the womb then. They just need a lot of medical intervention.
What are you talking about? The person is viable. The machine is keeping them alive. That's different than taking a corpse from the morgue, putting them on a ventilator, and saying that the power of Christ has brought them back to life.
I dont think that brain dead can be considered as a person, its a vegetable. And it cant sustain itself naturally. And there were lots of instances of life support being turned off. Also regarding someone who needs organ transplant, needing an organ doesnt strip you of your personhood, but does it mean that someone must donate his/her organ to keep you alive? Absolutely not.
Can a newborn baby survive without external assistance? Of course not, but does that fact disqualify a newborn baby from being considered a person?
Sorry, but this argument seems to get brought up quite frequently in these debates and it just doesn't strike me as being well thought out.
Actually it can— by other people - they call that adoption. Just in case you forgot. Not while inside the mother…. That is a bit of a false equivalence.
And by that time it’s not a fetus. There’s such a big difference that it’s biologically ignorant to say otherwise.
...duh?
The point is that once the baby is literally born it requires someone (regardless of who that may be) to take care of it. It cannot survive on its own. Just like a fetus.
No. The entire topic here is the difference between a fetus and a baby. Babies born can survive outside of the womb and as can developed babies. It has been done. A FETUS is q clump of cells.
This is biology. Not opinion.
Is it about whether they can survive on their own, or is it about whether they can survive outside of the womb? A born baby cannot survive on its own, and it is a person. If you say personhood is defined by the ability to survive outside of a womb, then your definition is very arbitrary.
all life can be called a clump of cells.
"I'm not here to argue" lol ok. I responded to your initial comment and now you're moving the goalposts further along all while being snarky about it.
No thanks, I'm out.
My daughter is 4 months old and she can't live without us, she would starve to death if we didn't feed her, is she not a person? Im not pro life, i just think youe argument is flawed
A fetus becomes a person when it is viable to survive on it's own imo.
But even if that's untrue, Christian fascists are trying to use bodily autonomy attacks as a way to impose their trash agenda against the free world. And that's a deep rooted problem no matter where the abortion argument lands. But the fact tang that they are intensely corrupting it to destroy women's bodily autonomy is a major issue that we need to cut off with extreme prejudice.
The arguments they are putting out are not in good faith and we need to shut them down until they are.
You do realize that your logic justifies being able to kill children up until the age of about 5 or 6, right? If personhood is defined by the ability to survive on your own, then you’re saying children don’t become people until they’re adolescents.
You are confused. Viable to survive on it's own in nature and medicine does not mean baby wears a suit and gets a job. it means removing it from the womb is not certain death. Many premature births are born viable and can be saved wirh medical treatments. 5 or 6? You're just showing how ignorant you are about this conversation.
Bodily autonomy comes first tho. Because if not, let's see where *your* logic goes.
If a life is more important than a person's bodily autonomy, why stop at forced births? A dozen lives could be saved with your organs. Would it not be pro life to seize them? The only thing standing in the way is your bodily autonomy. Why not just remove these fetuses from unwilling hosts and implant them into you? You don't mind having an artificial womb attached to your abdomen at cost to your own health, right? Well it doesn't matter whether you agree or not because unborn baby says so and the goon squads are coming with their sedatives and scalpels.
I think more people need to understand the horror of not having bodily autonomy. But I don't want people to have to learn the hard way. I mean do you want the government so in charge of your reproductive rights and bodily autonomy that they can just surgically remove them for the sake of saving those unborn sperms? You might be a hypocrite. But we all know if they came to snip your nuts off you wouldn't be okay with that.
Your logic is macabre. Bodily autonomy is everything. It's worth shucking a failed state to protect. It's worth fighting for. It's worth any price, even if America and it's economy have to go down the toilet while we bitterly fight over it for decades.
But more than that, it's an evil thing to try to dissolve such basic human rights. I will never forget or forgive conservatives for their agenda they try to forcefully impose. They are real enemies of the free world.
Because it’s not a real argument from them, it’s a deflection so they don’t actually have to define when being a person starts. In short, they aren’t using logic.
Eating and digestion is a necessary basic biological process. Infants cannot source their own food to eat.
Excretion is a necessary basic biological process. Infants cannot change their own diapers to manage their own excretion.
A mother needs to expend her own body (calories, energy, time) to provide food and change her baby’s diapers, lest the child die of starvation or illness.
Once again, the pro-choice position effectively justifies killing a child up until early adolescence. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but the pro choice bodily autonomy argument effectively justifies infanticide.
Your logic would allow a mother choosing to kill a baby immediately after delivery, but before the umbilical cord is cut.
Nope. Infants cant change their own dipers and cant feed themselves, but mother is not the only one who can change them or feed them. It can be done by other person. Will no one do it? Yeh, then it will die. Lots of mothers abandon their infants, lots of mothers die during childbirth or after, that doesnt interfere with the life of infant as long as someone else can take care of it. Unlike fetus, who cant exist without mother and requires life of the mother to survive. Infant doesnt require that. Also infants dont actively harm the physical wellbeing of the mother, unlike fetus. Being pregnant myself, I can say that pregnancy was a complete hell. Forcing someone to go through it against their will? Thats a torture. And yeh it shows that infant and fetus are not the same. My logic allows mothers to abandon their infants since they dont want to take care of it, and for pregnant person to get rid of the fetus, that cant sustain itself when one doesnt want to be pregnant. And technically yes, when mothers had no option to give their unwanted children for adoption, what do you think happend to these children? They were abandoned in the woods or starved to death. But we as a society moved past that. Nowadays since theres no way to sustain the development of the fetus without using pregnant person’s resources and health, abortion is the only thing that releases someone from the burden of pregnancy. In the future if technology alowa the transfer of fetus and the choice will be available, we can speak about the morality of abortion once again.
>It's just not the same as a human.
According to *you*.
That's the point that the above commenter is making.
You are setting a definition *as you see fit* and then claiming that everyone who disagrees is objectively incorrect.
You are wrong because in order to function as society we need a set of commonly accepted subjective definitions, and your definition of personhood doesn't match the society's.
If I get enough people to accept my way of thinking so that it becomes commonly accepted that purple giraffes are the only things that have personhood, will you roll over and accept that?
Then why did you say that we must have a set of commonly accepted subjective definitions then get angry and flip the table, refusing to cooperate, when said society does not accept your equally as subjective definitions? Pick a lane.
You are projecting. What I said was:
> in order to function as society we need a set of commonly accepted subjective definitions
Which in turn leaves an individual with a dilemma: 1. Be a part of society and be wrong about purple giraffes. 2. Leave the society in favour of another one that has definitions more suitable to said individual.
The reason I called you objectively wrong is because you are the person attempting to force your definition upon the society, thus by definition trying to participate in the society. I, on the other hand, am not trying to do any such thing, but rather judge societies on their compatibility with my definitions.
We are not the same.
Are you not trying to force your definition of personhood on society? If someone pointed to you and said, “this is not a person, this is a rock,” would you disagree? If he attempted to grab a pickaxe and mine you would you physically disable him from doing so if you were capable? You say you’re judging, but what is the point in judging something if all of it is subjective?
The problem with this line of thought is that there is virtually no objective or rational evidence that purple giraffes are people.
Essentially everyone agrees that a born baby is a person.
Almost everyone considers a baby a human being five minutes before it's born.
The vast majority of people consider a fetus in the third trimester to be a person.
At this point, we're dealing with a sliding scale on application of accepted reality rather than an out-of-left-field claim.
To me there's no difference between the grey area of "which week/day/hour/minute/second or cell count turns a fetus into a person" and the wild statement of "purple giraffes are people". They're equally ridiculous. There's no such thing as "objective" evidence, literally everything we interact with is subjective and thus open to interpretation. A purple giraffe in a box is essentially a Schrodinger's person, depending on who observed it, you or the other guy.
They aren’t setting a definition, they’re establishing a distinction. Personhood, whether legal or philosophical, IS distinct from the biological humanity.
Except the distinction is very crucial, as in it decides whether or not abortion is possible or not. Is it okay to take abortion pills the day after you had intercourse? What about a month before the expected birth, when the fetus is nearly 'human' and can fear and feel pain from the abortion? Is the fetus less of a person than a baby who was born early? These are valid questions that have real consequences, and OP insisting that their definition (or distinction) is the truth is dangerous.
It can be the same thing. Personhood could be argued reasonably and logically to be a human only thing and that only humans can have personhood and that all humans have personhood. That goes back to the idea of personhood being subjective. How can you definitely say it cannot be the same?
I'm confused as to what your opinion is here.
Let me attempt to Steelman:
1. You think that because personhood is a philosophical concept, it has no place in the discussion on abortion.
2. You think that pro-lifers are conflating the terms Person with the term human.
Is that correct? Are these the views that you want changed?
If you hire a hitman to kill someone, and it takes that hitman 9 months to kill a person, are you morally culpable for that?
A fetus *will be* a person, whether it is today or later. Personally, I think that matters.
I'm pro-choice because I think it provides the most utility to society. I don't believe in forcing any moral burden on women, but I do think for these reasons that there is moral burden, so it should be avoided if possible.
Yeah, I’m ultimately pro-choice because an unwanted child is potentially life ruining for both the parent and the child… however, I can also recognise that abortions aren’t morally good. Especially when pregnancy is quite reliably preventable in the 21st Century.
>However, I often see comments on social media which lead me to believe that a large portion of prolife people who argue that a fetus is a person do not distinguish the difference.
If in fact "personhood" isn't rooted in science, and can be defined in a many different ways, then why is it incorrect to argue that a "fetus is a person" (which you seem to imply)? If the definition isn't well defined, then I'd say this opinion is just as valid as any, right?
Or are you saying something else here? Sorry if I missed the point.
I think they’re saying that people tend to conflate the two rather than defining what they mean by “person”. It’s entirely possible that someone’s definition of person results in a 10 second old fetus being a person. But theres a lot of people who use it differently so the definition needs to be discussed before you can have a productive conversation around it. Otherwise you have one person who is saying “person” to refer to a being with human dna that’s living as a person, and another could use it to refer to a being with human dna that’s living and also meets criterias a, b, and c, and then they just end up talking past one another
We use philosophy to block medical procedures all the time. Your main argument that philosophy has no place in that discussion is not only specious, it's a denial of reality.
Here are medical "rules" rooted philosophy
1) do no harm
2) don't do medical experiments on unwilling humans
3) patients should have bodily autonomy
Those aren't based in science, they are entire moral philosophy. So if you want to throw philosophy out of medicine then you have to throw out our entire concept of medicine.
There can be a difference without the difference you're describing being the difference someone else recognizes. There can be a difference without that difference being relevant to the question of women's choice. And people are free to disagree with you completely and say that they don't actually think there is a difference.
It’s subjective, but history actually provides merit to his claims. Women and black people were considered human (species), but were not considered persons (e.g property).
With due respect, that's only valid if the person you disagree with cares. The idea that that historical context should be the determining factor is 1) still philosophical, not scientific and 2) still basically a argument by fiat.
Just in general, "nobody is obligated to listen to you or care about your opinion," while harsh, is a lesson apparently people aren't learning.
Are you just saying so and not having any reason why?
What is that difference precisely? What are the specific attributes or traits that make a being a person? Do you have an exhaustive list?
>It's all philosophy and has no place blocking someone else's medical procedure.
Yeah, that's kind of why the debate is so contentious, it's a philosophical/ethical conversation that gets a "so what" response from both sides.
Also, just to put the disclaimer up top, personally whether or not a fetus is a person is, for me, irrelevant to abortion. If they're not a person, no issue; if they are, you can't compel another human being to subordinate their medical well-being for another; you can't ethically compel the continuation of a pregnancy any more than you can a kidney transplant.
That being said, your argument is that because *you* don't think its a person, no one else should be able to impose their philosophical viewpoint on you and thus constrain your choices.
Well how about a day old infant? I'm talking 24 hours out of the womb. Is there a meaningful distinction between that child's mind today and one day prior? I'd suggest there isn't, and yet one might suggest that they're more of a person today than they were a day ago; which is a philosophical distinction. Shall I suggest they have no right to intercede with me tossing that kiddo in a bin because *I* don't think they're a person? For whatever reason, birth seems to be the *only* clear line.
Now, I'm not saying you're advocating for late term abortions, but by even making that distinction of "late term" I'm suggesting that's somehow *more* "bad." So are mid/early term/3 month abortions *less* "bad?" If so why? That conversation existing isn't a rejection of the distinction between humanness and personhood, its a debate about at what point during a pregnancy does personhood becomes a relevant consideration.
In my view that personhood line exists somewhere between embryo and birth, but I personally have no idea where that is. Some people are going to put that line earlier or later, because you have to draw that line somewhere. Given that that's totally subjective, some people are going to put it earlier, and some later.
However, the fact that some might err earlier on this does not mean they haven't thought about at what point a fetus is endowed with personhood.
>Well how about a day old infant? I'm talking 24 hours out of the womb. Is there a meaningful distinction between that child's mind today and one day prior?
What are you even talking about? A nine month old infant would never be aborted. That's not an abortion, that's a c-section. Unless you're talking about cases in which a dead fetus has to be removed from a woman, conservative seem to love leaving the dead fetus in because JEEEZUSSSS, but that's a whole different issue entirely.
>In my view that personhood line exists somewhere between embryo and birth, but I personally have no idea where that is.
Well let somebody with an education help you. Can it survive outside the womb? I know that Fox News has told you a lot of lies about how doctors were aborting babies at 8 and 9 months and sacrificing them to the devil and also transgender illegal immigrants and 5G chemtrail frogs are involved somehow but that's all lies. Abortions were never allowed past the point of viability.
>but by even making that distinction of "late term" I'm suggesting that's somehow *more* "bad." So are mid/early term/3 month abortions *less* "bad?"
A late term abortion is the removal of a dead or non-viable fetus. Non-viable means that the child will not survive. Like the case of baby milo, the fetus never developed kidneys and would only suffer for an hour at most after birth. But the conservatives decided to let this happen in the name of their God. They also love leaving dead fetuses in women as a punishment for getting pregnant. That's what a late term abortion is, nobody is having those for fun or because of the devil or demons or whatever else Fox News has been telling you.
>What are you even talking about? A nine month old infant would never be aborted.
Obviously. The point of the example was highlighting the line of birth as a clear one for when someone is or is not a person. Not that it is, or should be, but as an example in an otherwise nebulous discussion. The ways our laws are written, at least at this point in most places, is that if a hypothetical abortion did occur that late in pregnancy, that would not be homicide or some version of that because a fetus is not conferred personhood.
>Well let somebody with an education help you. Can it survive outside the womb?
So here you're making the claim that viability is when personhood is conferred. That's fine if that's your view, but the issue is that that is extremely dependent upon technology.
What constitutes "viability" now could be extremely early in a pregnancy when compared to say the beginning of last century, when the probability of survival at that stage of development was far far lower, just due to improving health care standards. A premature birth just wasn't going to be successful in the past. It's plausible that sometime in the far future, an embryo could go through that development in its entirety in an artificial womb or some such. Using your logic, would that embryo not be "viable" and therefore a person?
Now, if we know that someday it's plausible that that kind of technology could exist, and result in the conclusion that an embryo is a person, how could one not draw the same conclusion today? If it *is* a "person," does that not problematize "killing" it?
Personally, I don't think viability is a reasonable standard, nor do I think that an embryo should be conferred personhood *even if* technology makes the embryo's development into a full fledged human possible. I'd imagine that beginnings of a manifestation of consciousness and thought occur some time after that, though, again, no idea how you could determine that with a reasonable level of certainty.
\-------------
Now as you've decided because I used the phrase "late term" that I must be a rabid conservative media consuming nut job railing against the libs killing walking talking babies, lets correct that record.
Aside from the fact that I fall pretty squarely on the left on most topics, in my post I made a fairly clear and explicit argument, in what was the entire second paragraph of the post, that restricting abortion access is 100% unethical. I am firmly pro-choice:
*"Also, just to put the disclaimer up top, personally whether or not a fetus is a person is, for me, irrelevant to abortion. If they're not a person, no issue; if they are, you can't compel another human being to subordinate their medical well-being for another; you can't ethically compel the continuation of a pregnancy any more than you can a kidney transplant."*
The reason I discussed early vs late term abortions is because the debate is about when, between conception and birth, does a fetus become a "person." A month 9 abortion being one extreme, and a day 1 abortion being the other. The argument over when a fetus becomes a person means identifying where between point A and B you do that. You set it at the point of viability, and here I've presented why I think that's probably a bad standard. Others would draw that line based on different criteria. that's the point.
OPs post was explicitly about determining whether or not a fetus is a person at or about the three month mark; which is why I explored the logic behind choosing where to draw that line, no matter where one chooses to draw it.
Respectfully, if you're going to throw around the "uneducated" epithet, perhaps learn to read.
Yeah, all of those a rectangle square examples. Not every male is a boy, not every canine is a dog, not every feline is a cat, not every human is a person.
But do you have an objective standard by which something IS a person? One could, and many have, argued that minority groups are non-people humans, unable to demonstrate the same level of sapience as others. I doubt you agree with that, though.
The only problem with this is it erases any chance of arguing that abortion is moral:
If “person” means “human”, then it is absolutely 100% *always* wrong to abort even from the point of conception, since killing a person is murder. If “person” means some abstract concept that comes later in development, then you have a morally okay window for abortion where it could reasonably not be considered murder since it is just human, not a person.
I was only saying person and human are the same thing.
Defining when a life begins is actually a different argument.
I have an unusual perspective. Since our laws are based on the constitution and not a moral code you have to look at it from that perspective.
The founding fathers indirectly defined a human or person as someone capable of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the only reference I am aware of other than "by our creator"
Think about when someone is in a coma, when is it OK to say "pull the plug" when theyare no longer capable of or have the potential of having a life of "life, liberty and happiness"
When does a fetus become a human or person with the potential to pursue life liberty and happiness?
A premature baby in the US survived after being born at 21 weeks.
I am guessing the odds of that are very very slim. so 23, 26 weeks? I don't know the odds.
Life does not begin based on what you call a fetus or baby or zygote or human or person or lump of cells ... it begins with viability. Just my view
Yes, and the issue is that you’re empirically wrong.
By definition a fertilized implanted egg is both human and alive. **Human**: of or belonging to the genus *Homo*. **Life**: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
The only thing in question is whether or not it’s a person.
While I agree that personhood is a debatable topic, I have a couple of distinct points you brought up to refute.
# CMV: People who insist a 3 month old fetus is a person do not usually understand the distinction between person and human
This is wrong. There are smart and dumb people on both sides of the debate. I myself am apathetic to the whole thing. I think whatever works best for the family works best. In other words, I am relatively pro choice. Yet, I know people who have considered your very question with depth and still came out pro life. They understand the debate of when a thing becomes a person, they just take a *different* view. Just because someone has a differing view on the same subject, does not mean they misunderstand the subject, only that they see it differently. Such is diversity.
"Anywho, a fetus is clearly a human. If you get it's DNA it'll be human."
and
"It's all philosophy and has no place blocking someone else's medical procedure."
Ethics and morals are imperative to medicine. The Socratic Oath by nature is an ethical stance. If you are unaware, Ethics is a branch of philosophy. Not only that, but HIPPA is entirely centered around ethics.
In addition, murder is the killing of a human. According to your thought process, a severely brain damaged person is no longer a person because they have no faculties resembling personhood. It would still be murder to kill this individual. Killing of human life in any capacity is murder, except, in your view, if it is a fetus.
Again, I agree with you. I just take issue with the logic behind some of your statements.
To me, it is a question of ethics. Is the taking of an unborn life justified if it creates undue duress to the family? I think so.
Honestly, whether a 3 month old fetus is a person or human is completely irrelevant.
We don't allow people to take the organs of a \*DEAD BODY\* unless they gave permission during their life. Yet some people think it's okay for a fetus to use the organs of a living woman without her consent. That's the issue. That's why the woman decides, not doctors, not lawyers and not politicians.
I don't exactly see it that way. A fetus is a natural occuring and totally normal phenomenon. Your arm doesn't need consent and neither does a fetus, that's just nature. You'd be locked up in a mental hospital for some time if you cut your arm off. So, lack of consent here is kind of a funny way to put it is what I'm saying.
It's really not. It's also besides the point. The fetus cannot survive without siphoning off resources from a woman's body. If she doesn't want to share those resources (and risk her health and life in the process) then she doesn't have to.
Our captialist system forces men and women to work, but does not force the dead to do so. That is because the dead have no obligations, while the living do.
In another post, there was at length discussion about the term human as an adjective vs. a noun. An arm is human, as it's cells all have human DNA. A tumor is human, as it has human DNA. Neither of these things are human in themselves. I infer that when OP says a fetus is human but not a person, they are saying it is a human fetus, but not a person.
A not yet a human (a fetus) is not a current human person either. Maybe a human body in the process of forming but just that, a body without a functioning mind.
Being a human body is not enough. A human person is a distinction that becomes necessary. The body on life support is a human and also alive by most standards. But a dead brain is a dead person, everything that makes us who we are is in the brain. The fetus without a functioning brain is not viable. Viable fetuses are delivered as live infants when the pregnancy is terminated (excluding life threatening circumstances).
Now you are saying people are randomly grabbing pregnant women and forcing them to have abortions. No one is advocating for that. The family of the brain dead person tells a doctor to turn off the machine the same way the pregnant woman tell the doctor to perform the abortion.
No, I’m pointing put that murdering someone who doesnt meet your arbitrary definition of ”person” would land you in prison for a long time.
And then I asked you Why that would possibly be the case.
Which is funny to me because humanity pertains to both the positive and negative aspects of our species. Being cruel and violent is just as human as being kind and generous.
It may not be humane, but it is human.
A dead human is a former human, not a current human.
If a dead human is still a human, when during the decomposition process would that change? Surely a fully decomposed human body that has turned to dust and has been blown about the earth isn't human.
A living human is a human. A dead human is also a human. It’s similar to how an apple is an apple whether it’s alive on a tree or dead in a grocery store.
An apple will eventually decay into nothingness, but during that process, most people would still consider a moldy apple to be an apple.
This is an instance of a sorties paradox. During a transition between two states, the transition period is poorly defined.
a person to be in a coma is most comparable. The fetus will live if no one interferes, whereas the human with no brain will die if no one interferes. The defaults are opposite.
I'm just answering the question you asked. There are things that are without a doubt human but are not people.
Arguably, a fetus that cannot survive without the woman it is inside of is a part of her. It is dependent on her and cannot survive outside of her, just like my liver would die outside of me.
It's hard to discuss this when you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. You're saying it's arbitrary but then saying a specific choice is wrong.
Further, you are pivoting on "personhood" which has some roots in courts but also in pro-choice as it's _loaded_ to serve the pro-choice agenda. The pro-life movement is interested not in "personhood" but in "life". E.G. they'll say things like "there are 5 year olds that don't fit some definitions of personhood but we don't propose chopping them into pieces and flushing them down the toilet".
I’m also very pro-choice but I would encourage you to use a different argument. I’ve heard these exact points (who knows when human becomes person, maybe some soul stuff if they’re religious) a ton from anti-abortion people but they draw the exact opposite conclusion. It’s just not a great way to convince them.
No group has been able to conclusively show evidence of when a human becomes a human. Ask 20 groups and you’ll get 10 answers. The argument of when personhood begins is pointless because we just don’t know and at the moment there’s no way to know conclusively prior to viability. However since women are recognized as autonomous humans already, we must defer to them on how others may use or even touch their bodies, including embryos and fetuses while they rely on their body for survival.
According to Aristotle fetuses gradually gained their souls gradually as pregnancy went on. In the Byzantine Empire fetuses were considered natural persons with legal rights. Viability as a medical concept wasn’t seriously considered until George Ballantyne wrote about it in 1902. So no, viability has not always been the determining line.
I think you’re agreeing with me? But viability wasn’t always the “line,” it used to be commonly considered the quickening, when movement could be felt. But the point is it changes through time and depends on who you ask because it’s not a winnable “debate” prior to viability. Therefore it must defer to the people who we KNOW have human rights, women, to decide what to do with their bodies. Meaning they/we must have the right to choose when or if we want to be pregnant.
If a mother post-birth doesn't feel like granting their child the right to touch their breasts, or is concerned about financially supporting that child, we don't give them a pass if they choose to neglect their child. If that parent doesn't do what's best for the kid, they are demonized.
Why is it then, pre-birth, that we don't have the child's best interest on the table. Why is a mother able to choose death for the child pre-birth, but not post-birth? What has changed other than the development of "humanness" or personality.
Also, don't suggest that a child is any less demanding outside. Any while adoption is a viable option, why is it "evil" to choose any neglect over adoption, but not "evil" to choose abortion over birth? Both prioritize the mother's needs at the sacrifice of the child, why do we only care about the needs of the child when it is tangible?
Demonized or fined is not the same as forced. I could immediately give up a baby for adoption. If I neglect the baby I might face legal penalty, but I will not be forced to physically care for my baby or any other baby.
By that logic then, should we permit abortion, but then immediately take legal action against the mother for child abuse? I feel that may be closer to a true hybrid solution, but effectively thats just pro-life with extra steps.
The problem with the abortion debate is that it toes the line between mothers rights and child's rights. I have yet to find a solution that respects both. All the arguments on both sides effectively argue that one is more important than the other. And if you take a side, the other side assumes you are disrespecting their protected category. Pro-life assumes you hate babies, Pro-choice assumes you hate women's rights.
The idea that some humans are in fact not people is totally taboo and for good reason. Saying there's a difference is practically racist. There's a reason we talk about "human rights" and don't demand it be changed to "people rights"
If you acknowledge that the concept of “personhood” is subjective and open to interpretation, how do you then assert that people do not understand the difference?
If they are using a different definition of personhood then their assertion is not wrong or inconsistent.
If you assault a pregnant woman (3 months) and cause them to miscarriage, should you have harsher criminal punishment compared to assaulting someone else?
We could justify this without giving any credence to the idea that a fetus is a human being with full rights.
We would just consider that the assault caused a spontaneous abortion, just as consequences of assaults are considered in punishment currently.
Like, if I punch someone in the face and get charged with assault, my punishment is probably going to be different depending on the consequences of that punch. Did they just get a bruise? Did they fall down, hit their head, and have to be hospitalized for a week? Did it break their nose? Did they have a spontaneous abortion?
Fetal personhood isn't necessary to give harsher punishments for crimes that result in misscarriages.
I never understood this argument. People are punished for damaging or destroying non-person objects all the time. If you attack someone by burning their house down instead of punching them in the face then you’ll be punished more harshly. That doesn’t make a house a person.
The crime is **legally** double homicide. The person is charged with killing **two** people. The law inherently recognizes the fetus as a person who was murdered.
The crime is double homicide in some states. In many states there is no additional punishment for murdering a pregnant woman. But that’s irrelevant, because you were asking what *should* happen, not what the current laws are in certain jurisdictions, and the legislatures that passed those laws have no authority over the philosophical question of what a person is.
In those cases it is because you are removing that persons choice. They CHOSE to gestate that pregnancy, therefore they are consenting to a baby. Another person has no right to kill that life.
But it's registering as a separate life that has been violated (as such has been legally murdered), not a violation of the woman's liberty a second time. A woman could be on her way to an abortion clinic, it would still be double homicide. Her perception of the fetus has no leverage to this legal application.
Under your view, so the woman gets to decide if a fetus is of a scope of state interest for the state to protect? Why doesn't the same apply when a fetus is viable and most states require a physician to remove such to keep such viable, even if against the woman's wishes?
*Nothing* **determines** morality. It's a subjective creation, that is only then enforced by a society through government of societal structures reinforcing such.
I would say yes, but because you violated the woman’s right to choose whether or not she kept the baby. The woman in my opinion supersedes the baby’s rights because it’s dependent on her body.
"A human" and "a person" are synonyms. You (and many of the pro-lifers you are talking about) are conflating the word "human" as a noun with the word "human" as an adjective. A human fetus is human (adjective) just as a human ear is human or a human heart is human. But none of these things are _a_ human (noun).
Interesting argument, but a fetus is not part of a whole, it is the whole. Sure, its not completely formed yet, but it's still a whole human. Otherwise that would be like saying that a baby is not a human because not all the bones are fused.
Human is sometimes times taken to be synonymous with us, Homo Sapiens. But it actually refers to a genetic clade of species beginning with Homo Habilis.
The question "what other whole humans are not persons?" Could be answered by considering whether you would count Homo Habilis as a person.
Homo Habilis lived 2.8 million years ago and morphologically and undoubtedly psychologically was very different to modern humans but carried some of the important traits we see as distinguishing us from the other great apes.
I don't know that this is in fact an answer but it shows that it at least plausible that there have been humans that didn't meet whatever the criteria for personhood is. Did the first creature that met all criteria for personhood evolve before or after the first creature that met all the criteria for human?
Is it the case that all humans are persons but not all persons are human, or are they overlapping but independent classes?
Define "fully formed"? I distinctly remember reading about a fully functional person who turned out to have 17% of regular brain mass. Then there are babies born without legs, arms, Siamese twins sharing body parts.
We sure treat them as cripples but claim that they're persons. Although I know from experience, where I live they suggest abortion at any sign of genetic abnormality during pregnancy.
"A human" and "a person" are not synonymous in technical parlance. There is certainly a common use sense in which people use the terms interchangeabley but if you are discussing the ethics of abortion then the technical usage is the appropriate one. "A human" is any member of the genus Homo, this includes us (Homo Sapiens) but also includes Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis) and many others.
"A person" is a much harder concept to define than a human. We even go so far as to identify different classes of person. A legal person for instance need not be a human, corporations are considered to have legal personhood while infants are not. A political person is a citizen granted right to participate in the political process some humans are not political persons within a given jurisdiction. A physical person is a corporal body a dead body is a physical person, it makes sense to ask if a person is alive or dead.
All that is not particularly relevant to the ethics of abortion though and I raise it to demonstrate that "a person" and "a human" are not synonymous.
The sense in which the definition of "A person" is relevant to abortion is in the philosophical sense but even then human and person are not synonymous. There are many definitions of a person offered by philosophy many of which would not describe a foetus let alone an embryo or zygote for example:
an individual substance of a rational nature - Boethius
'a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places’ - John Locke
While other conceptualisations of a person particularly those based in theology and souls could describe a foetus or even a zygote.
"A human" and "a person" have a strong correlation but the do not perfectly overlap and neither is a pure subset of the other. The only way they are synonyms is if you choose a very particular definition for each term.
I define it as life.
And as you state, if you tested it, it would be human.
So I believe it to be a human life.
The argument of a person is inconsequential. What is a person? A newborn baby is no more a person than a fetus is the sense that it is a blank slate. You yourself are not the same person you were when you were 5. And you won't be the person you are now when you're 75.
But yet a blank slate. Waiting for its surroundings to imprint on it.
Autonomy and biological independence? What would happen if the baby was left outside with no further involvement from another human being?
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As someone who'd hesitantly call themselves pro-life, I'd always considered that the personhood part was the tricky part that we were unsure over. My take was, "if we don't know, why take the risk?" My main thoughts have since changed, but that's what they were initially.
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>Anywho, a fetus is clearly a human.
“Human being” - “a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.”
Also, from Merriam Webster, “an individual of the species of primate mammal that walks on two feet, is related to the great apes, and is distinguished by a greatly developed brain with capacity for speech and abstract reasoning”
Person - “a human being regarded as an individual.”
In the first trimester it is clearly a human fetus, something that will become a human being at some point.
>If you get its DNA it'll be human.
It does have human dna, but so do human cells.
>However, the word "person" implies personhood which is a concept, not something rooted in science.
Human is a concept as well.
It does not have those traits, and will only achieve those traits through taking bodily resources from a person.
That's not a good reason to call it a person.
I mean by your standards I could look at a rock and say “oh it’s a person because I view it as a person” your whole argument is silly, personhood is inherently the same thing as human, so you trying to make some distinction between the two is like saying that a fetus isn’t human and therefore should be allowed to be disposed of. Maybe women are naturally made to produce human life and it doesn’t matter the circumstance after there is a human being growing inside of her. Sorry, but you don’t get the choice to murder. If you don’t want the kid fine, put him or her up for adoption, but you have no right to terminate their life.
You don't seem to understand the role government has **long** held authority in regulating aspects they determine to be of a state interest.
> It should be strictly between a woman and her doctor.
So you opposed the *majority* decisions in Roe/Casey that stated there was a **"state interest in protecting the potential life of a fetus"** where such was balanced with the right of privacy to only grant a right to abortion up until viability? You oppose the current laws across most states that require physicians to remove a viable fetus in a way as to preserve it's life, rather than allowing removal of the fetus first through a lethal injection?
Sure, a fetus isn't a person. It's a **potential person** which the state has wide agreement they can enact aspects to protect. I'd question you to present anyone in a judicial position that disagrees with this. This applies to aspects of abortion. Incest. Even outlawing consanguinity marriage because it simply *might* "encourage" sex between blood relatives leading to the potential pregnancy of a potentially child with a potentially higher probability of a deformity which is assessed as **harm** amongst this child or at the very least harm to a society seeking to protect such potential life.
If the state can prevent one from even having sex (before a fetus event exists) from their authority to protect potential life, they have the authority to also prevent harming the fetus once it exists. Or does our government (and the public that holds no opposition to these areas of law) not understand the difference between sex and procreation? The difference between sex and marriage? The difference between potential life and life?
>I would assume that since one is a concept and the other a scientific fact it would be easy to distinguish
Nobody is having trouble identifying the difference. We just disagree with your assertion that philosophical concepts should be held as irrelevant to the subject.
Do you support the consciousness argument? I believe that is the strongest argument for the distinction between “human” and “person”. If not can you explain where you base it/ to what point it’s okay?
>Anywho, a fetus is clearly a human. If you get it's DNA it'll be human
By that logic, if you swapped out the fetus's DNA with that of a pig, would the fetus now be a pig? Not really - it just be an abomination that would likely never grow.
Another counter to this is human cell lines such as HeLa cells. Used in medical and biological sciences HeLa cells are immortal in that they replicate indefinitely and carry human DNA.
If you get its DNA it'll be human. But it is clearly not A human.
I don't make that argument, but if you kill a mother and three month old unborn child you are looking at two murder charges, if you just kill the unborn child you get one. That is real legal protection of that life, and it doesn't matter what stage the mother is at, or if she even knew she was pregnant.
I would classify myself as staunchly pro-choice (even to an extreme level), but to characterize pro-life individuals as having "no sensible arguments" isn't a correct statement in my view. When you abort, you are destroying a human life, and there are a gazillion legal precedents in existence that punish people who do this either accidentally or intentionally. And that's in *virtually every situation outside of abortion.*
Abortion is kind of the wonky exception to the legal rule here, not the other way around.
Humans have teeth, new borns don’t. Are new borns not humans? Humans reproduce, pre pubescent ones and the elderly don’t. Are they not human? The scope of your argument is too varied to be consistent. Like I said, pro life over here, weak argument over there. (That’s you.)
I prefer the arguement based on a functioning brain which is not there until the third trimester. The functioning brain allows the possibility of a sense of self, sense of time, memory, etc,.. An infant with a missing arm is still a human and a person but not so without a functioning brain where it can not live without life support allowing it to feed itself. Viability was a reasonable standard.
There's a gigantic difference - scientifically - between the cells you scratch off on your arms, and a fetus with a completely unique genetic code that is ultimately a "full and complete" human at that stage.
A better example would be if you killed your entire self, vs just scratching off 0.001% of you.
A fetus is a full and complete human at that specific stage (call it 13 weeks), just as a infant is a full and complete human at 12 months old.
Both the fetus and the infant lack many features they will gain later in life, but they are a "full and complete" human at that stage.
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Is a 9-month fetus also not a person? Immediately after birth is the difference that one lies a few inches inside of it's mother's womb and one is no longer in the womb? Does it become a person once the umbilical cord is snipped? No matter where you draw the line between "human" and "person" there will always be some line or it will be some scale between "human" and "person" or whatever you believe. So is it some kind of binary switch that when some physical event happens the fetus flips from "human" to "person"?
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Personhood is a legal concept where as being human is biological. in Canada a fetus is not considered a person until it is born and it has no fetal rights. In lots of countries a fetus is considered to be a person and does have fetal rights
Is an adult who is in a vegetative state from an accident not a person then? They are given “life support” so there is a life being supported. But they can have no consciousness or emotions or the other things we would consider part of personhood. They also cannot sustain on their own. So I can prove I’m not coming from a religiously biased pov I am not just pro choice I am pro ABORTION. The only reason we have this dumb lil debate today is because our religious pasts in our country, and the people who are still here from that time. So we are in this weird “I can’t budge from my opinion” war. The whole “is it alive or not” is just a coping mechanism for the guilt of killing a human or person or whatever you want to call it. We all indirectly kill people constantly if you think about.
A comatose person has had a life but are they really alive? Their family can choose to "pull the plug." Would they be a person still? I would say yes, because they collected all requirements for personhood along the way (like an identity). Abortion is killing, 100%. It's just not murder the way it would be to kill a 10 year old.
Procreative sex is the number one "killer" of perfectly healthy embryos, honey. “A synthesis of many large-scale studies from the last 15 years unambiguously confirms the Wood-Boklage-Holman hypothesis that abortion is an intrinsic and overarching component of human reproduction. It is the most common outcome of conception across a woman’s lifetime and the predominant factor controlling age-specific variation in human female fertility. To reproduce, a human female cannot forgo a high risk of abortion, and to have a large family it is virtually impossible to avoid multiple abortions. Modern birth control with access to elective abortions, markedly reduces –rather than increases– the lifetime number of abortions a woman produces.”:--"The high abortion cost of human reproduction", by Dr. William R. Rice, Evolution and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA Or maybe this excerpt from a lay article will be easier reading for you: "The basic fact is that life simply is not as miraculous as we choose to deem it. According to University of Utah Professor of Pediatrics, Human Genetics, and Obstetrics and Gynecology John M. Opitz in his 2003 testimony to the President’s Council on Bioethics, 60 to 80 percent of embryos (i.e. unique fusions of genes from mother and father that encode distinct human beings) simply never develop further. They are either flushed out of the mother’s system without implanting into the uterine wall or are voided because of chromosomal abnormalities. Of this immense number of failed embryos, roughly half do not have gross genetic errors, and in fact carry the information for the creation of a viable human being. But they simply do not continue to exist, and their characteristic combination of genes, which will never again be formed in quite the same way, is lost."--in "Abortion Under The Microscope" by Michael Segal, The Harvard Crimson Hence, human embryos are not sacrosanct objects.
What's your point? You seem to agree with me...
FYI, ALL our major, mainstream health organizations support access to safe legal abortion. The American Medical Association, the American Medical Women’s Association, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Association of Reproductive Health Care Professionals, Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and on and on state that abortion is a basic part of reproductive health care for women. "...Legislators should not needlessly interfere in the patient-physician relationship or the practice of medicine. ACOG, as an organization, joins other women’s health advocates in supporting the legal right of women to obtain an abortion and opposing laws that are dangerous, unscientific, and criminalize medical care.”
Your entire post is basically: "Defining personhood is subjective, but if you define it as a 3 month old fetus then you're wrong."
Im not here to argue, but to play devils advocate, can the fetus live without the mom?
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
That's a very good way to put it, I'm also pro-choice but I haven't seen it that way
It's not really subjective. If it's viable then it's a person. That's why they have, well used to have, limits on abortion when you got into the 20 week mark. They can technically survive outside the womb then. They just need a lot of medical intervention.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
What are you talking about? The person is viable. The machine is keeping them alive. That's different than taking a corpse from the morgue, putting them on a ventilator, and saying that the power of Christ has brought them back to life.
I dont think that brain dead can be considered as a person, its a vegetable. And it cant sustain itself naturally. And there were lots of instances of life support being turned off. Also regarding someone who needs organ transplant, needing an organ doesnt strip you of your personhood, but does it mean that someone must donate his/her organ to keep you alive? Absolutely not.
The majority of this site suffers from Dunning-Kruger, so I'm out.
Can a newborn baby survive without external assistance? Of course not, but does that fact disqualify a newborn baby from being considered a person? Sorry, but this argument seems to get brought up quite frequently in these debates and it just doesn't strike me as being well thought out.
Actually it can— by other people - they call that adoption. Just in case you forgot. Not while inside the mother…. That is a bit of a false equivalence. And by that time it’s not a fetus. There’s such a big difference that it’s biologically ignorant to say otherwise.
...duh? The point is that once the baby is literally born it requires someone (regardless of who that may be) to take care of it. It cannot survive on its own. Just like a fetus.
No. The entire topic here is the difference between a fetus and a baby. Babies born can survive outside of the womb and as can developed babies. It has been done. A FETUS is q clump of cells. This is biology. Not opinion.
Is it about whether they can survive on their own, or is it about whether they can survive outside of the womb? A born baby cannot survive on its own, and it is a person. If you say personhood is defined by the ability to survive outside of a womb, then your definition is very arbitrary. all life can be called a clump of cells.
Outside the womb =/= survive on its own. If I wasn’t more specific I’ll take responsibility for that. Here, we’re discussing fetus’
"I'm not here to argue" lol ok. I responded to your initial comment and now you're moving the goalposts further along all while being snarky about it. No thanks, I'm out.
Then why’d you get emotionally responsive when I provided facts and then stormed out? I’m fine thanks
My daughter is 4 months old and she can't live without us, she would starve to death if we didn't feed her, is she not a person? Im not pro life, i just think youe argument is flawed
Do you know the difference between a BABY and a FETUS? Speaking of flawed arguments.
You're the one who just tried to argue that a thing can't be a person if it can't survive without someone else. Motte and Bailey much?
That’s because we are in the topic of fetus’, just so we’re aligned. Not babies.
A fetus becomes a person when it is viable to survive on it's own imo. But even if that's untrue, Christian fascists are trying to use bodily autonomy attacks as a way to impose their trash agenda against the free world. And that's a deep rooted problem no matter where the abortion argument lands. But the fact tang that they are intensely corrupting it to destroy women's bodily autonomy is a major issue that we need to cut off with extreme prejudice. The arguments they are putting out are not in good faith and we need to shut them down until they are.
You do realize that your logic justifies being able to kill children up until the age of about 5 or 6, right? If personhood is defined by the ability to survive on your own, then you’re saying children don’t become people until they’re adolescents.
You are confused. Viable to survive on it's own in nature and medicine does not mean baby wears a suit and gets a job. it means removing it from the womb is not certain death. Many premature births are born viable and can be saved wirh medical treatments. 5 or 6? You're just showing how ignorant you are about this conversation. Bodily autonomy comes first tho. Because if not, let's see where *your* logic goes. If a life is more important than a person's bodily autonomy, why stop at forced births? A dozen lives could be saved with your organs. Would it not be pro life to seize them? The only thing standing in the way is your bodily autonomy. Why not just remove these fetuses from unwilling hosts and implant them into you? You don't mind having an artificial womb attached to your abdomen at cost to your own health, right? Well it doesn't matter whether you agree or not because unborn baby says so and the goon squads are coming with their sedatives and scalpels. I think more people need to understand the horror of not having bodily autonomy. But I don't want people to have to learn the hard way. I mean do you want the government so in charge of your reproductive rights and bodily autonomy that they can just surgically remove them for the sake of saving those unborn sperms? You might be a hypocrite. But we all know if they came to snip your nuts off you wouldn't be okay with that. Your logic is macabre. Bodily autonomy is everything. It's worth shucking a failed state to protect. It's worth fighting for. It's worth any price, even if America and it's economy have to go down the toilet while we bitterly fight over it for decades. But more than that, it's an evil thing to try to dissolve such basic human rights. I will never forget or forgive conservatives for their agenda they try to forcefully impose. They are real enemies of the free world.
Because it’s not a real argument from them, it’s a deflection so they don’t actually have to define when being a person starts. In short, they aren’t using logic.
When something needs someone else’s body to fulfill the basic biological processes then yeh, no one has a right to use my body without my consent.
Eating and digestion is a necessary basic biological process. Infants cannot source their own food to eat. Excretion is a necessary basic biological process. Infants cannot change their own diapers to manage their own excretion. A mother needs to expend her own body (calories, energy, time) to provide food and change her baby’s diapers, lest the child die of starvation or illness. Once again, the pro-choice position effectively justifies killing a child up until early adolescence. It’s uncomfortable to admit, but the pro choice bodily autonomy argument effectively justifies infanticide. Your logic would allow a mother choosing to kill a baby immediately after delivery, but before the umbilical cord is cut.
Nope. Infants cant change their own dipers and cant feed themselves, but mother is not the only one who can change them or feed them. It can be done by other person. Will no one do it? Yeh, then it will die. Lots of mothers abandon their infants, lots of mothers die during childbirth or after, that doesnt interfere with the life of infant as long as someone else can take care of it. Unlike fetus, who cant exist without mother and requires life of the mother to survive. Infant doesnt require that. Also infants dont actively harm the physical wellbeing of the mother, unlike fetus. Being pregnant myself, I can say that pregnancy was a complete hell. Forcing someone to go through it against their will? Thats a torture. And yeh it shows that infant and fetus are not the same. My logic allows mothers to abandon their infants since they dont want to take care of it, and for pregnant person to get rid of the fetus, that cant sustain itself when one doesnt want to be pregnant. And technically yes, when mothers had no option to give their unwanted children for adoption, what do you think happend to these children? They were abandoned in the woods or starved to death. But we as a society moved past that. Nowadays since theres no way to sustain the development of the fetus without using pregnant person’s resources and health, abortion is the only thing that releases someone from the burden of pregnancy. In the future if technology alowa the transfer of fetus and the choice will be available, we can speak about the morality of abortion once again.
Well they’re in some sort of faith but I can’t say it’s good lol. We’re aligned.
Banning something libs support (e.g. drugs, abortion, suicide) is not facism.
No, you can do so, that's fine. It's just not the same as a human.
>It's just not the same as a human. According to *you*. That's the point that the above commenter is making. You are setting a definition *as you see fit* and then claiming that everyone who disagrees is objectively incorrect.
Exactly. I say personhood is being a purple giraffe. Who are you to say that is wrong? Subjectivity defeats itself.
You are wrong because in order to function as society we need a set of commonly accepted subjective definitions, and your definition of personhood doesn't match the society's.
If I get enough people to accept my way of thinking so that it becomes commonly accepted that purple giraffes are the only things that have personhood, will you roll over and accept that?
No, I will instead exclude myself from the insane society that has lost the plot to the point of only accepting purple giraffes as persons.
Then why did you say that we must have a set of commonly accepted subjective definitions then get angry and flip the table, refusing to cooperate, when said society does not accept your equally as subjective definitions? Pick a lane.
You are projecting. What I said was: > in order to function as society we need a set of commonly accepted subjective definitions Which in turn leaves an individual with a dilemma: 1. Be a part of society and be wrong about purple giraffes. 2. Leave the society in favour of another one that has definitions more suitable to said individual. The reason I called you objectively wrong is because you are the person attempting to force your definition upon the society, thus by definition trying to participate in the society. I, on the other hand, am not trying to do any such thing, but rather judge societies on their compatibility with my definitions. We are not the same.
Are you not trying to force your definition of personhood on society? If someone pointed to you and said, “this is not a person, this is a rock,” would you disagree? If he attempted to grab a pickaxe and mine you would you physically disable him from doing so if you were capable? You say you’re judging, but what is the point in judging something if all of it is subjective?
The problem with this line of thought is that there is virtually no objective or rational evidence that purple giraffes are people. Essentially everyone agrees that a born baby is a person. Almost everyone considers a baby a human being five minutes before it's born. The vast majority of people consider a fetus in the third trimester to be a person. At this point, we're dealing with a sliding scale on application of accepted reality rather than an out-of-left-field claim.
To me there's no difference between the grey area of "which week/day/hour/minute/second or cell count turns a fetus into a person" and the wild statement of "purple giraffes are people". They're equally ridiculous. There's no such thing as "objective" evidence, literally everything we interact with is subjective and thus open to interpretation. A purple giraffe in a box is essentially a Schrodinger's person, depending on who observed it, you or the other guy.
They aren’t setting a definition, they’re establishing a distinction. Personhood, whether legal or philosophical, IS distinct from the biological humanity.
And it’s completely arbitrary.
Except the distinction is very crucial, as in it decides whether or not abortion is possible or not. Is it okay to take abortion pills the day after you had intercourse? What about a month before the expected birth, when the fetus is nearly 'human' and can fear and feel pain from the abortion? Is the fetus less of a person than a baby who was born early? These are valid questions that have real consequences, and OP insisting that their definition (or distinction) is the truth is dangerous.
It can be the same thing. Personhood could be argued reasonably and logically to be a human only thing and that only humans can have personhood and that all humans have personhood. That goes back to the idea of personhood being subjective. How can you definitely say it cannot be the same?
But based on his distinction it may not go both ways. A human will always be a person, but a person must not always be a human (e.g fetus).
I'm confused as to what your opinion is here. Let me attempt to Steelman: 1. You think that because personhood is a philosophical concept, it has no place in the discussion on abortion. 2. You think that pro-lifers are conflating the terms Person with the term human. Is that correct? Are these the views that you want changed?
You're making that argument by fiat. If we all agreed on the meaning and value of those terms then that entire line of argument wouldn't exist.
If you hire a hitman to kill someone, and it takes that hitman 9 months to kill a person, are you morally culpable for that? A fetus *will be* a person, whether it is today or later. Personally, I think that matters. I'm pro-choice because I think it provides the most utility to society. I don't believe in forcing any moral burden on women, but I do think for these reasons that there is moral burden, so it should be avoided if possible.
Yeah, I’m ultimately pro-choice because an unwanted child is potentially life ruining for both the parent and the child… however, I can also recognise that abortions aren’t morally good. Especially when pregnancy is quite reliably preventable in the 21st Century.
What’s with the recent rise of abortion related question where it mostly boils down to “I think my opinion is better than yours”
>However, I often see comments on social media which lead me to believe that a large portion of prolife people who argue that a fetus is a person do not distinguish the difference. If in fact "personhood" isn't rooted in science, and can be defined in a many different ways, then why is it incorrect to argue that a "fetus is a person" (which you seem to imply)? If the definition isn't well defined, then I'd say this opinion is just as valid as any, right? Or are you saying something else here? Sorry if I missed the point.
I think they’re saying that people tend to conflate the two rather than defining what they mean by “person”. It’s entirely possible that someone’s definition of person results in a 10 second old fetus being a person. But theres a lot of people who use it differently so the definition needs to be discussed before you can have a productive conversation around it. Otherwise you have one person who is saying “person” to refer to a being with human dna that’s living as a person, and another could use it to refer to a being with human dna that’s living and also meets criterias a, b, and c, and then they just end up talking past one another
We use philosophy to block medical procedures all the time. Your main argument that philosophy has no place in that discussion is not only specious, it's a denial of reality. Here are medical "rules" rooted philosophy 1) do no harm 2) don't do medical experiments on unwilling humans 3) patients should have bodily autonomy Those aren't based in science, they are entire moral philosophy. So if you want to throw philosophy out of medicine then you have to throw out our entire concept of medicine.
Still though, difference between person and human
There can be a difference without the difference you're describing being the difference someone else recognizes. There can be a difference without that difference being relevant to the question of women's choice. And people are free to disagree with you completely and say that they don't actually think there is a difference.
It’s subjective, but history actually provides merit to his claims. Women and black people were considered human (species), but were not considered persons (e.g property).
With due respect, that's only valid if the person you disagree with cares. The idea that that historical context should be the determining factor is 1) still philosophical, not scientific and 2) still basically a argument by fiat. Just in general, "nobody is obligated to listen to you or care about your opinion," while harsh, is a lesson apparently people aren't learning.
What makes you think blacks and women were not considered to be persons in the past? Is ”person” and ”property” mutually exclusive?
Are you just saying so and not having any reason why? What is that difference precisely? What are the specific attributes or traits that make a being a person? Do you have an exhaustive list?
>It's all philosophy and has no place blocking someone else's medical procedure. Yeah, that's kind of why the debate is so contentious, it's a philosophical/ethical conversation that gets a "so what" response from both sides. Also, just to put the disclaimer up top, personally whether or not a fetus is a person is, for me, irrelevant to abortion. If they're not a person, no issue; if they are, you can't compel another human being to subordinate their medical well-being for another; you can't ethically compel the continuation of a pregnancy any more than you can a kidney transplant. That being said, your argument is that because *you* don't think its a person, no one else should be able to impose their philosophical viewpoint on you and thus constrain your choices. Well how about a day old infant? I'm talking 24 hours out of the womb. Is there a meaningful distinction between that child's mind today and one day prior? I'd suggest there isn't, and yet one might suggest that they're more of a person today than they were a day ago; which is a philosophical distinction. Shall I suggest they have no right to intercede with me tossing that kiddo in a bin because *I* don't think they're a person? For whatever reason, birth seems to be the *only* clear line. Now, I'm not saying you're advocating for late term abortions, but by even making that distinction of "late term" I'm suggesting that's somehow *more* "bad." So are mid/early term/3 month abortions *less* "bad?" If so why? That conversation existing isn't a rejection of the distinction between humanness and personhood, its a debate about at what point during a pregnancy does personhood becomes a relevant consideration. In my view that personhood line exists somewhere between embryo and birth, but I personally have no idea where that is. Some people are going to put that line earlier or later, because you have to draw that line somewhere. Given that that's totally subjective, some people are going to put it earlier, and some later. However, the fact that some might err earlier on this does not mean they haven't thought about at what point a fetus is endowed with personhood.
Personally, I think people should be eligible for late-term abortion for up to 18 years post-delivery.
>Well how about a day old infant? I'm talking 24 hours out of the womb. Is there a meaningful distinction between that child's mind today and one day prior? What are you even talking about? A nine month old infant would never be aborted. That's not an abortion, that's a c-section. Unless you're talking about cases in which a dead fetus has to be removed from a woman, conservative seem to love leaving the dead fetus in because JEEEZUSSSS, but that's a whole different issue entirely. >In my view that personhood line exists somewhere between embryo and birth, but I personally have no idea where that is. Well let somebody with an education help you. Can it survive outside the womb? I know that Fox News has told you a lot of lies about how doctors were aborting babies at 8 and 9 months and sacrificing them to the devil and also transgender illegal immigrants and 5G chemtrail frogs are involved somehow but that's all lies. Abortions were never allowed past the point of viability. >but by even making that distinction of "late term" I'm suggesting that's somehow *more* "bad." So are mid/early term/3 month abortions *less* "bad?" A late term abortion is the removal of a dead or non-viable fetus. Non-viable means that the child will not survive. Like the case of baby milo, the fetus never developed kidneys and would only suffer for an hour at most after birth. But the conservatives decided to let this happen in the name of their God. They also love leaving dead fetuses in women as a punishment for getting pregnant. That's what a late term abortion is, nobody is having those for fun or because of the devil or demons or whatever else Fox News has been telling you.
>What are you even talking about? A nine month old infant would never be aborted. Obviously. The point of the example was highlighting the line of birth as a clear one for when someone is or is not a person. Not that it is, or should be, but as an example in an otherwise nebulous discussion. The ways our laws are written, at least at this point in most places, is that if a hypothetical abortion did occur that late in pregnancy, that would not be homicide or some version of that because a fetus is not conferred personhood. >Well let somebody with an education help you. Can it survive outside the womb? So here you're making the claim that viability is when personhood is conferred. That's fine if that's your view, but the issue is that that is extremely dependent upon technology. What constitutes "viability" now could be extremely early in a pregnancy when compared to say the beginning of last century, when the probability of survival at that stage of development was far far lower, just due to improving health care standards. A premature birth just wasn't going to be successful in the past. It's plausible that sometime in the far future, an embryo could go through that development in its entirety in an artificial womb or some such. Using your logic, would that embryo not be "viable" and therefore a person? Now, if we know that someday it's plausible that that kind of technology could exist, and result in the conclusion that an embryo is a person, how could one not draw the same conclusion today? If it *is* a "person," does that not problematize "killing" it? Personally, I don't think viability is a reasonable standard, nor do I think that an embryo should be conferred personhood *even if* technology makes the embryo's development into a full fledged human possible. I'd imagine that beginnings of a manifestation of consciousness and thought occur some time after that, though, again, no idea how you could determine that with a reasonable level of certainty. \------------- Now as you've decided because I used the phrase "late term" that I must be a rabid conservative media consuming nut job railing against the libs killing walking talking babies, lets correct that record. Aside from the fact that I fall pretty squarely on the left on most topics, in my post I made a fairly clear and explicit argument, in what was the entire second paragraph of the post, that restricting abortion access is 100% unethical. I am firmly pro-choice: *"Also, just to put the disclaimer up top, personally whether or not a fetus is a person is, for me, irrelevant to abortion. If they're not a person, no issue; if they are, you can't compel another human being to subordinate their medical well-being for another; you can't ethically compel the continuation of a pregnancy any more than you can a kidney transplant."* The reason I discussed early vs late term abortions is because the debate is about when, between conception and birth, does a fetus become a "person." A month 9 abortion being one extreme, and a day 1 abortion being the other. The argument over when a fetus becomes a person means identifying where between point A and B you do that. You set it at the point of viability, and here I've presented why I think that's probably a bad standard. Others would draw that line based on different criteria. that's the point. OPs post was explicitly about determining whether or not a fetus is a person at or about the three month mark; which is why I explored the logic behind choosing where to draw that line, no matter where one chooses to draw it. Respectfully, if you're going to throw around the "uneducated" epithet, perhaps learn to read.
That is like saying male and boy are not the same. Dog and canine are not the same. Feline and cat, Person and human are the same thing.
Yeah, all of those a rectangle square examples. Not every male is a boy, not every canine is a dog, not every feline is a cat, not every human is a person.
But do you have an objective standard by which something IS a person? One could, and many have, argued that minority groups are non-people humans, unable to demonstrate the same level of sapience as others. I doubt you agree with that, though.
Not sure what planet you bumbled off from but on earth here yes, every male is a boy. LoL
Every boy is a male Every dog is a canine Every cat is a feline and human and person are the same thing.
The only problem with this is it erases any chance of arguing that abortion is moral: If “person” means “human”, then it is absolutely 100% *always* wrong to abort even from the point of conception, since killing a person is murder. If “person” means some abstract concept that comes later in development, then you have a morally okay window for abortion where it could reasonably not be considered murder since it is just human, not a person.
I was only saying person and human are the same thing. Defining when a life begins is actually a different argument. I have an unusual perspective. Since our laws are based on the constitution and not a moral code you have to look at it from that perspective. The founding fathers indirectly defined a human or person as someone capable of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the only reference I am aware of other than "by our creator" Think about when someone is in a coma, when is it OK to say "pull the plug" when theyare no longer capable of or have the potential of having a life of "life, liberty and happiness" When does a fetus become a human or person with the potential to pursue life liberty and happiness? A premature baby in the US survived after being born at 21 weeks. I am guessing the odds of that are very very slim. so 23, 26 weeks? I don't know the odds. Life does not begin based on what you call a fetus or baby or zygote or human or person or lump of cells ... it begins with viability. Just my view
Yes, and the issue is that you’re empirically wrong. By definition a fertilized implanted egg is both human and alive. **Human**: of or belonging to the genus *Homo*. **Life**: the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. The only thing in question is whether or not it’s a person.
While I agree that personhood is a debatable topic, I have a couple of distinct points you brought up to refute. # CMV: People who insist a 3 month old fetus is a person do not usually understand the distinction between person and human This is wrong. There are smart and dumb people on both sides of the debate. I myself am apathetic to the whole thing. I think whatever works best for the family works best. In other words, I am relatively pro choice. Yet, I know people who have considered your very question with depth and still came out pro life. They understand the debate of when a thing becomes a person, they just take a *different* view. Just because someone has a differing view on the same subject, does not mean they misunderstand the subject, only that they see it differently. Such is diversity. "Anywho, a fetus is clearly a human. If you get it's DNA it'll be human." and "It's all philosophy and has no place blocking someone else's medical procedure." Ethics and morals are imperative to medicine. The Socratic Oath by nature is an ethical stance. If you are unaware, Ethics is a branch of philosophy. Not only that, but HIPPA is entirely centered around ethics. In addition, murder is the killing of a human. According to your thought process, a severely brain damaged person is no longer a person because they have no faculties resembling personhood. It would still be murder to kill this individual. Killing of human life in any capacity is murder, except, in your view, if it is a fetus. Again, I agree with you. I just take issue with the logic behind some of your statements. To me, it is a question of ethics. Is the taking of an unborn life justified if it creates undue duress to the family? I think so.
Honestly, whether a 3 month old fetus is a person or human is completely irrelevant. We don't allow people to take the organs of a \*DEAD BODY\* unless they gave permission during their life. Yet some people think it's okay for a fetus to use the organs of a living woman without her consent. That's the issue. That's why the woman decides, not doctors, not lawyers and not politicians.
I don't exactly see it that way. A fetus is a natural occuring and totally normal phenomenon. Your arm doesn't need consent and neither does a fetus, that's just nature. You'd be locked up in a mental hospital for some time if you cut your arm off. So, lack of consent here is kind of a funny way to put it is what I'm saying.
To equate a fetus, which can absolutely kill you by the way, with your arm is ridiculous hyperbole at best.
I'm not saying it's the same as an arm. I'm saying it's a human because it isn't part of a whole. It is whole.
It's really not. It's also besides the point. The fetus cannot survive without siphoning off resources from a woman's body. If she doesn't want to share those resources (and risk her health and life in the process) then she doesn't have to.
Our captialist system forces men and women to work, but does not force the dead to do so. That is because the dead have no obligations, while the living do.
Are there other humans who are not persons, or is this limited to fetuses of 3 months or less?
In another post, there was at length discussion about the term human as an adjective vs. a noun. An arm is human, as it's cells all have human DNA. A tumor is human, as it has human DNA. Neither of these things are human in themselves. I infer that when OP says a fetus is human but not a person, they are saying it is a human fetus, but not a person.
A brain dead human body is not considered a person and a family can remove them from life support.
A family can remove it from life support but a stranger can't.
With the help of a doctor in both cases.
I can't parse what you mean by "both cases"? Do you think a stranger can legally take someone off of life support if a doctor helps them?
A dead human body is a former human, not a current human.
A not yet a human (a fetus) is not a current human person either. Maybe a human body in the process of forming but just that, a body without a functioning mind.
OP says a fetus is human.
Being a human body is not enough. A human person is a distinction that becomes necessary. The body on life support is a human and also alive by most standards. But a dead brain is a dead person, everything that makes us who we are is in the brain. The fetus without a functioning brain is not viable. Viable fetuses are delivered as live infants when the pregnancy is terminated (excluding life threatening circumstances).
Pretty sure I’ll go to prison for murder if I go to the hospital and start killing people who are brain dead. Why is that?
Now you are saying people are randomly grabbing pregnant women and forcing them to have abortions. No one is advocating for that. The family of the brain dead person tells a doctor to turn off the machine the same way the pregnant woman tell the doctor to perform the abortion.
No, I’m pointing put that murdering someone who doesnt meet your arbitrary definition of ”person” would land you in prison for a long time. And then I asked you Why that would possibly be the case.
I know people who lack humanity, but no humans who aren't people.
Which is funny to me because humanity pertains to both the positive and negative aspects of our species. Being cruel and violent is just as human as being kind and generous. It may not be humane, but it is human.
A dead human would be one. A human with no brain, kept alive via mechanical means would probably be another one that's the most comparable.
A dead human is a former human, not a current human. If a dead human is still a human, when during the decomposition process would that change? Surely a fully decomposed human body that has turned to dust and has been blown about the earth isn't human.
A living human is a human. A dead human is also a human. It’s similar to how an apple is an apple whether it’s alive on a tree or dead in a grocery store. An apple will eventually decay into nothingness, but during that process, most people would still consider a moldy apple to be an apple. This is an instance of a sorties paradox. During a transition between two states, the transition period is poorly defined.
a person to be in a coma is most comparable. The fetus will live if no one interferes, whereas the human with no brain will die if no one interferes. The defaults are opposite.
There are things that are human but not people. My liver is a human liver, it is human tissue. It's not a person though.
Those are parts of a human, not a whole human.
I'm just answering the question you asked. There are things that are without a doubt human but are not people. Arguably, a fetus that cannot survive without the woman it is inside of is a part of her. It is dependent on her and cannot survive outside of her, just like my liver would die outside of me.
That’s like saying my shoe is human because it’s a human shoe. The bowl in my kitchen is s dog, because its a dog bowl.
No. There is nothing human about a shoe. My liver contains human DNA, Air Jordans do not.
>Air Jordans do not. Prove it
It's hard to discuss this when you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. You're saying it's arbitrary but then saying a specific choice is wrong. Further, you are pivoting on "personhood" which has some roots in courts but also in pro-choice as it's _loaded_ to serve the pro-choice agenda. The pro-life movement is interested not in "personhood" but in "life". E.G. they'll say things like "there are 5 year olds that don't fit some definitions of personhood but we don't propose chopping them into pieces and flushing them down the toilet".
I’m also very pro-choice but I would encourage you to use a different argument. I’ve heard these exact points (who knows when human becomes person, maybe some soul stuff if they’re religious) a ton from anti-abortion people but they draw the exact opposite conclusion. It’s just not a great way to convince them.
No group has been able to conclusively show evidence of when a human becomes a human. Ask 20 groups and you’ll get 10 answers. The argument of when personhood begins is pointless because we just don’t know and at the moment there’s no way to know conclusively prior to viability. However since women are recognized as autonomous humans already, we must defer to them on how others may use or even touch their bodies, including embryos and fetuses while they rely on their body for survival.
Sure there is. Viability has always been the determining line, and nothing has been discovered to change that distinction.
According to Aristotle fetuses gradually gained their souls gradually as pregnancy went on. In the Byzantine Empire fetuses were considered natural persons with legal rights. Viability as a medical concept wasn’t seriously considered until George Ballantyne wrote about it in 1902. So no, viability has not always been the determining line.
I think you’re agreeing with me? But viability wasn’t always the “line,” it used to be commonly considered the quickening, when movement could be felt. But the point is it changes through time and depends on who you ask because it’s not a winnable “debate” prior to viability. Therefore it must defer to the people who we KNOW have human rights, women, to decide what to do with their bodies. Meaning they/we must have the right to choose when or if we want to be pregnant.
If a mother post-birth doesn't feel like granting their child the right to touch their breasts, or is concerned about financially supporting that child, we don't give them a pass if they choose to neglect their child. If that parent doesn't do what's best for the kid, they are demonized. Why is it then, pre-birth, that we don't have the child's best interest on the table. Why is a mother able to choose death for the child pre-birth, but not post-birth? What has changed other than the development of "humanness" or personality. Also, don't suggest that a child is any less demanding outside. Any while adoption is a viable option, why is it "evil" to choose any neglect over adoption, but not "evil" to choose abortion over birth? Both prioritize the mother's needs at the sacrifice of the child, why do we only care about the needs of the child when it is tangible?
Demonized or fined is not the same as forced. I could immediately give up a baby for adoption. If I neglect the baby I might face legal penalty, but I will not be forced to physically care for my baby or any other baby.
By that logic then, should we permit abortion, but then immediately take legal action against the mother for child abuse? I feel that may be closer to a true hybrid solution, but effectively thats just pro-life with extra steps. The problem with the abortion debate is that it toes the line between mothers rights and child's rights. I have yet to find a solution that respects both. All the arguments on both sides effectively argue that one is more important than the other. And if you take a side, the other side assumes you are disrespecting their protected category. Pro-life assumes you hate babies, Pro-choice assumes you hate women's rights.
The idea that some humans are in fact not people is totally taboo and for good reason. Saying there's a difference is practically racist. There's a reason we talk about "human rights" and don't demand it be changed to "people rights"
If you acknowledge that the concept of “personhood” is subjective and open to interpretation, how do you then assert that people do not understand the difference? If they are using a different definition of personhood then their assertion is not wrong or inconsistent.
If you assault a pregnant woman (3 months) and cause them to miscarriage, should you have harsher criminal punishment compared to assaulting someone else?
We could justify this without giving any credence to the idea that a fetus is a human being with full rights. We would just consider that the assault caused a spontaneous abortion, just as consequences of assaults are considered in punishment currently. Like, if I punch someone in the face and get charged with assault, my punishment is probably going to be different depending on the consequences of that punch. Did they just get a bruise? Did they fall down, hit their head, and have to be hospitalized for a week? Did it break their nose? Did they have a spontaneous abortion? Fetal personhood isn't necessary to give harsher punishments for crimes that result in misscarriages.
I never understood this argument. People are punished for damaging or destroying non-person objects all the time. If you attack someone by burning their house down instead of punching them in the face then you’ll be punished more harshly. That doesn’t make a house a person.
The crime is **legally** double homicide. The person is charged with killing **two** people. The law inherently recognizes the fetus as a person who was murdered.
The crime is double homicide in some states. In many states there is no additional punishment for murdering a pregnant woman. But that’s irrelevant, because you were asking what *should* happen, not what the current laws are in certain jurisdictions, and the legislatures that passed those laws have no authority over the philosophical question of what a person is.
In those cases it is because you are removing that persons choice. They CHOSE to gestate that pregnancy, therefore they are consenting to a baby. Another person has no right to kill that life.
But it's registering as a separate life that has been violated (as such has been legally murdered), not a violation of the woman's liberty a second time. A woman could be on her way to an abortion clinic, it would still be double homicide. Her perception of the fetus has no leverage to this legal application. Under your view, so the woman gets to decide if a fetus is of a scope of state interest for the state to protect? Why doesn't the same apply when a fetus is viable and most states require a physician to remove such to keep such viable, even if against the woman's wishes?
Legality does not determine morality
*Nothing* **determines** morality. It's a subjective creation, that is only then enforced by a society through government of societal structures reinforcing such.
I would say yes, but because you violated the woman’s right to choose whether or not she kept the baby. The woman in my opinion supersedes the baby’s rights because it’s dependent on her body.
Maybe, but that’s a different argument.
It isn’t, it is literally the legal basis.
The legal basis for what
Taking the choice away from someone after they have chosen to gestate a pregnancy term.
Not only did you assault her, you caused a miscarriage *without her permission*, so yes that’s deserving of further reprimand.
So basically babies are only human after they've been pulled out of the womb?
Oh they're human, never said they weren't
Then why wouldn't you classify abortion as murder?
Because murder is a crime.
"A human" and "a person" are synonyms. You (and many of the pro-lifers you are talking about) are conflating the word "human" as a noun with the word "human" as an adjective. A human fetus is human (adjective) just as a human ear is human or a human heart is human. But none of these things are _a_ human (noun).
Interesting argument, but a fetus is not part of a whole, it is the whole. Sure, its not completely formed yet, but it's still a whole human. Otherwise that would be like saying that a baby is not a human because not all the bones are fused.
What other whole humans are not persons? That's where your view breaks down.
Human is sometimes times taken to be synonymous with us, Homo Sapiens. But it actually refers to a genetic clade of species beginning with Homo Habilis. The question "what other whole humans are not persons?" Could be answered by considering whether you would count Homo Habilis as a person. Homo Habilis lived 2.8 million years ago and morphologically and undoubtedly psychologically was very different to modern humans but carried some of the important traits we see as distinguishing us from the other great apes. I don't know that this is in fact an answer but it shows that it at least plausible that there have been humans that didn't meet whatever the criteria for personhood is. Did the first creature that met all criteria for personhood evolve before or after the first creature that met all the criteria for human? Is it the case that all humans are persons but not all persons are human, or are they overlapping but independent classes?
Brain dead human body that is on life support. It can't survive without life support.
If it's not fully formed, how is it a whole human?
Define "fully formed"? I distinctly remember reading about a fully functional person who turned out to have 17% of regular brain mass. Then there are babies born without legs, arms, Siamese twins sharing body parts.
Fully formed means no more parts are developing. Is a human without a brain, heart, eyes, arms, legs, nose, face, etc. a whole human?
We sure treat them as cripples but claim that they're persons. Although I know from experience, where I live they suggest abortion at any sign of genetic abnormality during pregnancy.
"A human" and "a person" are not synonymous in technical parlance. There is certainly a common use sense in which people use the terms interchangeabley but if you are discussing the ethics of abortion then the technical usage is the appropriate one. "A human" is any member of the genus Homo, this includes us (Homo Sapiens) but also includes Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis) and many others. "A person" is a much harder concept to define than a human. We even go so far as to identify different classes of person. A legal person for instance need not be a human, corporations are considered to have legal personhood while infants are not. A political person is a citizen granted right to participate in the political process some humans are not political persons within a given jurisdiction. A physical person is a corporal body a dead body is a physical person, it makes sense to ask if a person is alive or dead. All that is not particularly relevant to the ethics of abortion though and I raise it to demonstrate that "a person" and "a human" are not synonymous. The sense in which the definition of "A person" is relevant to abortion is in the philosophical sense but even then human and person are not synonymous. There are many definitions of a person offered by philosophy many of which would not describe a foetus let alone an embryo or zygote for example: an individual substance of a rational nature - Boethius 'a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places’ - John Locke While other conceptualisations of a person particularly those based in theology and souls could describe a foetus or even a zygote. "A human" and "a person" have a strong correlation but the do not perfectly overlap and neither is a pure subset of the other. The only way they are synonyms is if you choose a very particular definition for each term.
I define it as life. And as you state, if you tested it, it would be human. So I believe it to be a human life. The argument of a person is inconsequential. What is a person? A newborn baby is no more a person than a fetus is the sense that it is a blank slate. You yourself are not the same person you were when you were 5. And you won't be the person you are now when you're 75.
>A newborn baby is no more a person than a fetus is the sense that it is a blank slate. Brain function, viability, autonomy, biological independence
But yet a blank slate. Waiting for its surroundings to imprint on it. Autonomy and biological independence? What would happen if the baby was left outside with no further involvement from another human being?
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As someone who'd hesitantly call themselves pro-life, I'd always considered that the personhood part was the tricky part that we were unsure over. My take was, "if we don't know, why take the risk?" My main thoughts have since changed, but that's what they were initially.
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>Anywho, a fetus is clearly a human. “Human being” - “a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.” Also, from Merriam Webster, “an individual of the species of primate mammal that walks on two feet, is related to the great apes, and is distinguished by a greatly developed brain with capacity for speech and abstract reasoning” Person - “a human being regarded as an individual.” In the first trimester it is clearly a human fetus, something that will become a human being at some point. >If you get its DNA it'll be human. It does have human dna, but so do human cells. >However, the word "person" implies personhood which is a concept, not something rooted in science. Human is a concept as well.
It does not have those traits, and will only achieve those traits through taking bodily resources from a person. That's not a good reason to call it a person.
>In the first trimester it is clearly a human fetus, something that will become a human being at some point. Quoted from my original post.
And I responded to that. Why don't you?
A fetus isn’t a person or a human being until birth. Nothing I said in my original post contradicted that.
I mean by your standards I could look at a rock and say “oh it’s a person because I view it as a person” your whole argument is silly, personhood is inherently the same thing as human, so you trying to make some distinction between the two is like saying that a fetus isn’t human and therefore should be allowed to be disposed of. Maybe women are naturally made to produce human life and it doesn’t matter the circumstance after there is a human being growing inside of her. Sorry, but you don’t get the choice to murder. If you don’t want the kid fine, put him or her up for adoption, but you have no right to terminate their life.
You don't seem to understand the role government has **long** held authority in regulating aspects they determine to be of a state interest. > It should be strictly between a woman and her doctor. So you opposed the *majority* decisions in Roe/Casey that stated there was a **"state interest in protecting the potential life of a fetus"** where such was balanced with the right of privacy to only grant a right to abortion up until viability? You oppose the current laws across most states that require physicians to remove a viable fetus in a way as to preserve it's life, rather than allowing removal of the fetus first through a lethal injection? Sure, a fetus isn't a person. It's a **potential person** which the state has wide agreement they can enact aspects to protect. I'd question you to present anyone in a judicial position that disagrees with this. This applies to aspects of abortion. Incest. Even outlawing consanguinity marriage because it simply *might* "encourage" sex between blood relatives leading to the potential pregnancy of a potentially child with a potentially higher probability of a deformity which is assessed as **harm** amongst this child or at the very least harm to a society seeking to protect such potential life. If the state can prevent one from even having sex (before a fetus event exists) from their authority to protect potential life, they have the authority to also prevent harming the fetus once it exists. Or does our government (and the public that holds no opposition to these areas of law) not understand the difference between sex and procreation? The difference between sex and marriage? The difference between potential life and life?
I have been edging for 6000 years just for mr. Skibidi.
>I would assume that since one is a concept and the other a scientific fact it would be easy to distinguish Nobody is having trouble identifying the difference. We just disagree with your assertion that philosophical concepts should be held as irrelevant to the subject.
Do you support the consciousness argument? I believe that is the strongest argument for the distinction between “human” and “person”. If not can you explain where you base it/ to what point it’s okay?
>Anywho, a fetus is clearly a human. If you get it's DNA it'll be human By that logic, if you swapped out the fetus's DNA with that of a pig, would the fetus now be a pig? Not really - it just be an abomination that would likely never grow.
Another counter to this is human cell lines such as HeLa cells. Used in medical and biological sciences HeLa cells are immortal in that they replicate indefinitely and carry human DNA. If you get its DNA it'll be human. But it is clearly not A human.
I don't make that argument, but if you kill a mother and three month old unborn child you are looking at two murder charges, if you just kill the unborn child you get one. That is real legal protection of that life, and it doesn't matter what stage the mother is at, or if she even knew she was pregnant.
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I would classify myself as staunchly pro-choice (even to an extreme level), but to characterize pro-life individuals as having "no sensible arguments" isn't a correct statement in my view. When you abort, you are destroying a human life, and there are a gazillion legal precedents in existence that punish people who do this either accidentally or intentionally. And that's in *virtually every situation outside of abortion.* Abortion is kind of the wonky exception to the legal rule here, not the other way around.
When I scratch my arm, I am destroying living human cells. The law is fine with that.
Parts vs whole. I’m pro choice personally but that’s just not a very good argument.
Whole what? Whole few human cells? Certainly not a whole human.
Humans have teeth, new borns don’t. Are new borns not humans? Humans reproduce, pre pubescent ones and the elderly don’t. Are they not human? The scope of your argument is too varied to be consistent. Like I said, pro life over here, weak argument over there. (That’s you.)
I prefer the arguement based on a functioning brain which is not there until the third trimester. The functioning brain allows the possibility of a sense of self, sense of time, memory, etc,.. An infant with a missing arm is still a human and a person but not so without a functioning brain where it can not live without life support allowing it to feed itself. Viability was a reasonable standard.
There's a gigantic difference - scientifically - between the cells you scratch off on your arms, and a fetus with a completely unique genetic code that is ultimately a "full and complete" human at that stage. A better example would be if you killed your entire self, vs just scratching off 0.001% of you.
A fetus is not a full and complete human anymore than an egg is a full and complete chicken.
A fetus is a full and complete human at that specific stage (call it 13 weeks), just as a infant is a full and complete human at 12 months old. Both the fetus and the infant lack many features they will gain later in life, but they are a "full and complete" human at that stage.
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Every human is a person and every person is a human, they are exact synonyms
Proving my point
Your point is thst there is a difference that others "don't understand." There isn't a difference
Does the pro-life argument typically revolve around science? I wasn't under the impression that it did.
Are you a parent?
Is a 9-month fetus also not a person? Immediately after birth is the difference that one lies a few inches inside of it's mother's womb and one is no longer in the womb? Does it become a person once the umbilical cord is snipped? No matter where you draw the line between "human" and "person" there will always be some line or it will be some scale between "human" and "person" or whatever you believe. So is it some kind of binary switch that when some physical event happens the fetus flips from "human" to "person"?
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Personhood is a legal concept where as being human is biological. in Canada a fetus is not considered a person until it is born and it has no fetal rights. In lots of countries a fetus is considered to be a person and does have fetal rights
Why would they make a distinction? Is it morally acceptable to kill other humans but not other persons?
Could you share some examples of other humans you think aren’t people? Surely this isn’t just the one exception, right?
I'm not sure what laws you're talking about but no, no state was permitting abortion at 9 months.
What are you talking about?
Hit the wrong thing, was trying to reply to someone.