I don’t think it is morally okay to terminate the human without a brain that is developing.
And I do.
If it doesn’t have a brain, it isn’t human yet. (or in the case of the brainless body, “anymore”)
Hope that it will eventually grow into a baby is not the same as it actually, morally, already being the case that it is a baby.
Moral equivalence, yes. Because it is a human life that will develop into a human being, maintaining it’s humanity throughout that development. By mentioning brain, nervous system, and other physical development, you were implying a physiological equivalence. That is what no one has considered equivalent - the previously-referred to “clump of cells” quite obviously bears no resemblence to a fully developed human body.
You speak with too much certainty. There is no guarantee that it WILL develop into a human being. It MIGHT – or just as likely at that early stage, it might be lost to miscarriage.
The point of mentioning the brain, specifically, is that without it – you are very definitely not a thinking, feeling, human being. “You”, as an individual, have no “being” without it.
Of course nothing is guaranteed. But every one of them has that ability to develop, and begin that development, whether circumstances result in that process completing or not. And the expectation going in is that it will develop.
But there is a guarantee that it WON’T develop into a human being if you abort it.
What is it? Human is a species. If it’s not human, it has to be another species. If you decapitate a human body, it’s still a human body. If you create an embryo with human sperm and human egg, it’s still a human embryo. Did you mean to say, if it doesn’t have a brain, it doesn’t have humanity yet? When you say humanity, are you essentially saying personhood? We all know that the pro-life, pro-choice crowd differ on personhood. I think we can both tell eachother are being consistent in our beliefs, so I’m good with “agree to disagree” on the personhood argument.
Since this is a thread about the SCOTUS decision, I’m more interested in the legal argument anyway. One thing I’ve always had a problem with, and you touched on it, was that, with the pro-choice stance, because it is rooted in feminism, a fetus is given rights almost immediately in one case - when a mother wants the baby. But a fetus doesn’t have rights until some arbitrary point (or until birth if you’re a monster) when the mother doesn’t want the baby. How exactly do you square that morally? Doesn’t it harken back to a time when unwanted people in our country weren’t given rights?
What is it? Human is a species. If it’s not human, it has to be another species.
Should have more accurately said “a human”. Meaning what would be morally/ethically considered a “human being”.
You disagree with me on the subject, but I don’t think an embryo meets that label.
When you say humanity, are you essentially saying personhood?
I mean both “personhood” (which is a secular term) as well as in any religious/spiritual sense (from the religious side of the argument on at what stage someone has a “soul”)
My argument fits either condition. i.e. we treat “humans” differently from other animals because we all agree that a living human is “special” relative to other animals (either in the secular or religious/spiritual sense – makes no difference to the argument, IMO)
a fetus is given rights almost immediately in one case - when a mother wants the baby. But a fetus doesn’t have rights until some arbitrary point (or until birth if you’re a monster) when the mother doesn’t want the baby. How exactly do you square that morally?
You’ll have to clarify what you mean about the fetus being given rights when the mother wants the baby.
I think the more consistent statement is that, up to some point in development (wherever one wants to define the line where you consider a fetus equivalent to a living human, morally) – prior to that point, the mother is the one given the authority to determine what rights of her own person-hood she is extending, or not extending to the fetus (which prior to that point doesn’t have those rights, by itself, absent the mother).
If fertilized embryos innately had those rights, independent of the mother, I’d expect you to have had a much stronger reaction to the earlier topic of IVF.
He’s saying it’s just a tumor in the woman’s body. A parasitic growth of nothingness that can be removed without consequence. Which, in a bubble within a certain period of time, is arguably what it is.
I’d say that the point where it develops a heart, brain, and whatever else is merely a reminder of what it’s been all along. Every life that you now hold sacred did in fact begin as one of those nasty parasitic clumps of cells. Look at your child, or any child, and consider that after he/she had been conceived and had begun to develop, it was considered ok to intentionally snuff out his/her future existence. At least to me, that makes it seem a lot less ok.
You forgot plenty of other exceptions. The fertilization may not be successful. The zygote may fail (or never have a plan, being in-vitro) to implant. And because there are so many exceptions and unknowns at this point, it may not be the beginning of a “new, unique, and distinct human being.” There’s simply no way to know whether it will or will not become a human being. It only has potential. Similarly, there’s no way to know whether an individual egg or sperm will ever become a human being. That is why I see them as equivalent, separately or together, and picking any point in time before, during, or shortly after is entirely arbitrary. You think that it is a natural point of distinction that “makes the most sense,” but it does not make any sense to me for the reasons mentioned here.
It’s not so different. You either consider a fertilized egg to be a separate human life worth protecting or you do not. Any laws that attempt to protect life at conception would have to make an explicit distinction. I don’t know whether existing or proposed trigger laws do this, and I have serious doubts.
So you’d force someone to get it implanted? Or force the government to pay for storage in perpetuity (people die, corporations dissolve)? Neither is realistic, so your idea would most likely make IVF impractical.
Your aunt had 3 kids through IVF, which statistically implies that she’s either extremely lucky or she had a few miscarriages along the way. Takes a hell of a woman to go through it so many times. But I also have to wonder why she chose that route over adoption. By the way adoption is very difficult in the US – nobody is giving up newborns, so most children in need of adoption come from difficult family situations (like child abuse or parents losing rights for other reasons) or have special needs (health / disability). Takes a huge heart and lots of money (or time) to care for them. And the patience knowing that when they’re teenagers they’ll inevitably tell you “you’re not their real parent”
I’m no psychologist, but I believe you’re invoking a cognitive bias – by knowing what the cells have become, you feel that it would not have been OK to stop them in the past. Such feelings and conclusions are irrational, IMO. If this child grows up to be the next Hitler, will you still feel the same?
Which is just as well with reports like this around the justices homes as well as groups encouraging violent attacks on pro-life clinics.
One might wonder why a bunch of Patriot Front guys were tied up and thrown in jail for “conspiring to riot” when they never got as far as actually doing anything to protest some gay pride event.
Police in northwest Idaho arrested more than two dozen members of a white nationalist group on Saturday and charged them with planning to stage a riot near a LGBTQ pride event, authorities said… 31 members of Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot and additional charges could come later.
Whereas these Ruth terrorists are actually rioting under the legal definition outside of Kavanaugh’s house and continue to do so in the days after his assassination attempt.
So hopefully this bill helps, but with selective enforcement being standard operating procedure for this admin (Hunter anyone?), I’m not holding my breath for the FBI to arrest these abortion activists and throw away the key like they did for Jan 6th peaceful protestors.
Neither am I, but I don’t think so. This is about a fetus being the beginning stage of life, not about if that life is judged to be worthy of being allowed to survive. But I don’t know.
What you list aren’t exceptions to when human life starts. They are examples of when human life ends very very early.
It is a human being. There is no way to know if it will develop to the point where it will be born and survive. There’s a difference.
It only has potential to be born. It is already a human, so it has passed the point of the potential to become a human being.
There is no way of knowing whether an egg or sperm will become a human being, but that doesn’t make it similar to a fertilized embryo. Because a fertilized embryo is already a human being.
It doesn’t make any sense to you because it would be inconvenient for your argument.
When it comes to laws, intent matters. That’s why it’s very different.
Agreed. That’s what laws do all the time. Just like how many abortion restriction laws make a distinction for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
I don’t blame you for having doubts. Politicians are notorious for writing terrible laws and ignoring unintended consequences even when they’ve been warned about it.
Agreed.
Accurate. I’m aware through close friends how difficult it is. I personally know several families that have adopted and I don’t think I know a single one that has adopted an infant from the USA. Most of the adoptive families I know have adopted babies/toddlers/young children from overseas (Eastern Europe, China, West Africa). The only USA adoption I personally know was a young girl (elementary school age) that was an emergency foster care situation (police were involved), that turned into long term foster care, that turned into an adoption.
I thought that. Or that there’s something unrealted buried somewhere in the bill, that most (be it Republicans or Democrats, I dont know how those 27 votes skewed) decided to swallow for the good of the bill but a few took a stand on principle.
The goal and the most likely outcome of the foster system is to reunite the children with their parents. I imagine that for someone who wants but can’t make children of their own, fostering comes with much heartache. IVF is a quicker and easier route today, and you’d be causing much heartache if you were king of the world. On the other hand, I’d expect adoption of infants from the trigger states to become easier within the year. One can only hope that the supply never exceeds demand.
That may frequently be the goal, but I dont know that it’s the most likely outcome. Way too many kids bounce around the foster care system until they eventually age out.
I think the kids bounce around for very few reasons: (a) their parents bounce around, and I believe if done for work and they have visitation rights, they can request their kids to be closer, (b) behavioral or health problems that the foster parents simply can’t deal with, and (c) they’re too old to be adopted.
I believe that for younger kids, those that a foster family might consider adopting, reunification is the most likely outcome.
It may be a tv/movie bias talking, but I have a hard time thinking that a parent getting cleaned up to the extent necessary to regain custody is the most likely thing to happen. Then add in all the orphans, who have no chance of being reunited with their parents…
I thought you just said reunification with the parents is the most likely outcome?
The family I know that adopted that way already had 4 of their own children.
I would also be causing heartache by banning abortion, but I wouldn’t bat an eye while doing it. I don’t know much about IVF today, but it isn’t inconceivable that IVF technology could improve to the point where there were no embryos left behind.
I wouldn’t expect a significant change. Abortion is already hard to get in those states. We’re talking single digit clinics.
Considering our our country’s birth rate and the overall decline in the abortion rate pre-Dobbs, I don’t see that happening.
