So does that meant there can be a threshold before death where someone’s humanity disappears, but they are still alive? I also disagree with that belief.
What does happen at the point of fertilization? A biological transformation happens, right? Why is that biological transformation not significant enough to instill humanity? Are you saying a brain is formed at (for instance) 2 months, 8 days, 4 hours, 32 minutes, 16 seconds gestation, but at 2m 8d 04:32:15, it wasn’t formed? Even though it is still doing a bunch more formation after 2h 8d 4:32:16?
Why is that biological transformation not significant enough to instill humanity?
It depends on what you mean when you say “humanity”.
So does that meant there can be a threshold before death where someone’s humanity disappears, but they are still alive? I also disagree with that belief.
Imagine the extreme case if it was possible to keep a decapitated body “alive” and otherwise functional. Does that body still have “humanity”?
While it’s your dirt, it isnt just your seeds that are growing there. They’re my seeds, which you affirmatively allowed/directed me to plant in that location. Now do you still have the unilateral right to change your mind and destroy them, or do I now get a say too, until those seeds produce crops and are harvested?
Did anyone call it an equivalent? It represents a future human being, and it will attain that potential through the natural course of development requiring no external intervention.
They’re my seeds, which you affirmatively allowed/directed me to plant in that location. Now do you still have the unilateral right to change your mind and destroy them, or do I now get a say too, until those seeds produce crops and are harvested?
That isn’t the general argument against abortion rights, though.
If you want to try and sort out rules for both potential parents needing to consent to an abortion (while I don’t necessarily agree) – that is a fundamentally different discussion than what was going on previously.
Yes, it is. It’s third parties advocating for the seed that is unable to advocate for itself. Re-reading it, I know my comment implied I was talking about parental rights, but it was to refer to the seed not being your property, at least sole property, despite being in your dirt. Thus “my dirt, my choice” doesnt apply, because there are other stakeholders involved including the seed itself.
It depends. Why is the body being kept alive? Is it because they are going to attempt to put the head put back on in the hopes that the effects of the decapitation could be “alleviated?”
Imagine the extreme case if it was possible for a woman to undergo a minimally invasive procedure to have her unviable fetus removed and developed in an artificial womb.
These are indeed hypothetical scientific breakthroughs with ethical, legal, and philosophical implications that, depending on how they actually work, are questions that we may someday have to answer.
Yes, it is. It’s third parties advocating for the seed that is unable to advocate for itself. Re-reading it, I know my comment implied I was talking about parental rights, but it was to refer to the seed not being your property, at least sole property, despite being in your dirt. Thus “my dirt, my choice” doesnt apply, because there are other stakeholders involved including the seed itself.
If your post was about some disinterested 3rd party and not a potential parent, then I apologize for misunderstanding.
But the point is – the 3rd party just doesn’t and shouldn’t, have a say about medical decisions that another person makes, if they aren’t somehow directly affected by them.
It depends. Why is the body being kept alive? Is it because they are going to attempt to put the head put back on in the hopes that the effects of the decapitation could be “alleviated?”
I thought it was implicit in the extreme example that the decapitated head was “gone” for all intents and purposes, and not coming back. Sorry for not being more clear.
Same example, less ambiguous – you have a person who has somehow completely lost the brain (it is destroyed and gone forever) – but medical science is able to keep the rest of their body running.
Does that body still have “humanity”, to you? (in the sense of “being” a living human, not just parts)
No, I didnt skip most of it. “Humanity” isnt “the equivalent of a human being”. As I said, the fertilized egg isnt a human being, it represents a life that will develop into a human being And that development will progress naturally with no need for intervention (as opposed to, say, IVF, where a subsequent medical procedure is required before an embryo will have any development ability).
Yet 90% of the rabblerousing we hear these days about cops and racists and rights and whatnot, are from disinterested third parties who sticking up for those they perceived to be victims. An unborn baby on the brink of being terminated is the ultimate vicitim.
If it’s a case of shut-up-and-mind-your-own-business, then there’s an awful lot of shutting up that needs to be done these days before you even get anywhere near the subject of abortion.
We, as a society, tend to hold private medical decisions in a different regard from government-inflicted rights abuses.
Also, you are making some very specific appeal-to-emotion word choices, by characterizing aborting an early stage of pregnancy like an embryo as an “unborn baby”.
My wife and I dealt with a miscarriage at 11 weeks, or so. It wasn’t an “unborn baby” at that point, and it was in no way tantamount to losing a child.
You are trying to get me to say that when someone is brain dead, which is generally the point at which our society is okay with pulling the plug, is okay and then connect that to your claim that terminating a pregnancy before an unborn baby is developed enough to have brain function is okay. For the legal discussion, this point has some merit and can be debated. But for the philosophical discussion, I think it’s a losing point. That is primarily because the brain dead person in the hospital is clearly at the end of her life, while the not yet brain developed person in the womb is at the beginning of her life. While it might be morally okay to pull the plug on a human without a brain that lived her life and will never have that opportunity ever again, I don’t think it is morally okay to terminate the human without a brain that is developing. This is where we come to @glitch99’s point. That unborn baby is “a life that will develop into a human being. And that development will progress naturally with [generally] no need for intervention.” The same thing can’t be said for the brain dead or decapitated person being kept alive by medical science.
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.
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?