Abortion and Feminism split from "Look at me" thread

[Jedidiah]

They are tough! I'll add in one more to tie my future-thought together:

5) North Dakota passes a personhood amendment on Nov. 4, 2014 which identifies a human fetus as a legal person from the moment of conception. On Aug. 20, 2019, a man shoots and kills his wife and is arrested on charges of homicide. An autopsy later reveals that the victim was four weeks pregnant. Based on this evidence, the man is charged with two counts of homicide.

Should be one count of homicide and one count of something lesser - unless the man knew his wife was pregnant the criteria for murder one are missing.

[Spartacus]

As for the brain death stuff, the right answer afaic is not whether it's a person worthy of dignity but what the cost (or, more precisely, opportunity cost) is. If keeping the person alive amounts to a substantial (an ambiguous term, I know) financial burden on the family, then it might be justifiable to end care even for someone who isn't brain-dead

[Sam]

Might we not expect one count of murder and one count of manslaughter?

For 3 and 4, it seems that steps were taken both times to prevent the cloned tissue from becoming a fully functioning human when it otherwise could have been.

Jed's right; it's probably a charge of manslaughter if the pregnancy was unknown to the man, murder if it was known.

For (3) and (4), the question is why (5) is manslaughter or murder when (3) and (4) wouldn't be, if you agree with that. Jed's wrong, of course, that such problems are merely a "gimmick."

I think I know where you're going with your argument, Spart, so I'll throw in one last question for you:

6) A man and a woman meet at a bar and "become amorous." The woman, not wanting to become pregnant, uses a spermicidal contraceptive sponge. When she confesses this the next Wednesday to her (Protestant) pastor and reveals she was ovulating at the time, the pastor accuses her of negligence tantamount to a conspiracy to commit murder.

Is the pastor on the right track? Did the decision to prevent to prevent a human from forming in woman by contraceptive amount to something like a conspiracy to commit murder?

[Spartacus]

Jed's right; it's probably a charge of manslaughter if the pregnancy was unknown to the man, murder if it was known.

For (3) and (4), the question is why (5) is manslaughter or murder when (3) and (4) wouldn't be, if you agree with that. Jed's wrong, of course, that such problems are merely a "gimmick."

I think I know where you're going with your argument, Spart, so I'll throw in one last question for you:

6) A man and a woman meet at a bar and "become amorous." The woman, not wanting to become pregnant, uses a spermicidal contraceptive sponge. When she confesses this the next Wednesday to her (Protestant) pastor and reveals she was ovulating at the time, the pastor accuses her of negligence tantamount to a conspiracy to commit murder.

Is the pastor on the right track? Did the decision to prevent to prevent a human from forming in woman by contraceptive amount to something like a conspiracy to commit murder?

There is a difference between preventing a person's existence and deliberately creating them with the intent of reducing them to nothing more than an organ donor.

[Sam]

There is a difference between preventing a person's existence and deliberately creating them with the intent of reducing them to nothing more than an organ donor.

Quite possibly but the intent isn't relevant to the question of personhood. In both cases, we're talking about active steps to prevent a potential person from fully forming, correct?

[Spartacus]

Quite possibly but the intent isn't relevant to the question of personhood. In both cases, we're talking about active steps to prevent a potential person from fully forming, correct?

Possibly? Possibly?!? There's a difference between preventing a human being from being conceived and turning them into an organ farm.

Under your logic, it seems that preventing someone from cloning a human or fertilizing eggs in vitro is tantamount to committing murder as well: you place the person who would prevent an in vitro fertilization and the person who throws the resultant embryos away (thereby ACTUALLY killing them) on more or less the same moral plane.

Contraception is wrong, but not because it's tantamount to murder. The egg is a part of the mother, the sperm a part of the father. The resultant embryo is a part of the human species: it's not part of any of us, but one of us.

[Jedidiah]

6) A man and a woman meet at a bar and "become amorous." The woman, not wanting to become pregnant, uses a spermicidal contraceptive sponge. When she confesses this the next Wednesday to her (Protestant) pastor and reveals she was ovulating at the time, the pastor accuses her of negligence tantamount to a conspiracy to commit murder.

Is the pastor on the right track? Did the decision to prevent to prevent a human from forming in woman by contraceptive amount to something like a conspiracy to commit murder?

A sperm is no more a human being than a hair. It must join with an ovum to become a human being.

[Sam]

Possibly? Possibly?!? There's a difference between preventing a human being from being conceived and turning them into an organ farm.

Under your logic, it seems that preventing someone from cloning a human or fertilizing eggs in vitro is tantamount to committing murder as well: you place the person who would prevent an in vitro fertilization and the person who throws the resultant embryos away (thereby ACTUALLY killing them) on more or less the same moral plane.

Contraception is wrong, but not because it's tantamount to murder. The egg is a part of the mother, the sperm a part of the father. The resultant embryo is a part of the human species: it's not part of any of us, but one of us.

I'm not actually arguing for anything, at the moment, much less introducing a moral logic. That's jumping pretty far ahead. Right now, we're interested in the narrow scope of defining personhood — adding intent and moral consequence is superfluous at the moment.

So you write that there's a difference between "preventing a human being from being conceived and turning them into an organ farm." But you had written that, for (4), "steps were taken both times to prevent the cloned tissue from becoming a fully functioning human when it otherwise could have been." Is (4) — the cloned body without a brain — a person, though it is not "fully formed"? Is (5) — the four-week old embryo — a person, though it is not fully formed? Is (6) a person, in the same sense of potential?

I'm just asking about whether these examples deal with persons — I am not, at this point, asking whether moral or legal protections should be expanded to them as non-persons.

[Jedidiah]

Quite possibly but the intent isn't relevant to the question of personhood. In both cases, we're talking about active steps to prevent a potential person from fully forming, correct?

Not so. Destroying a sperm prevents a human being from coming into existence. Killing a fetus, or embryo, is killing a person. Not the same at all.

[Sam]

A sperm is no more a human being than a hair. It must join with an ovum to become a human being.

We can say that there's a "spectrum of potential" and that a sperm, in the right conditions, has the potential to become a human being. Many anti-abortion arguments rest on this sense of potential when it comes to defining personhood so it's important to flesh it out in the conversation.

[Sam]

Not so. Destroying a sperm prevents a human being from coming into existence. Killing a fetus, or embryo, is killing a person. Not the same at all.

You still haven't defined "person" in such a way that encompasses embryos but excludes cloned tissue or human hair. What makes a four-week old embryo a person but doesn't make a developing organ in a laboratory one?

[Spartacus]

I'm not actually arguing for anything, at the moment, much less introducing a moral logic. That's jumping pretty far ahead. Right now, we're interested in the narrow scope of defining personhood — adding intent and moral consequence is superfluous at the moment.

So you write that there's a difference between "preventing a human being from being conceived and turning them into an organ farm." But you had written that, for (4), "steps were taken both times to prevent the cloned tissue from becoming a fully functioning human when it otherwise could have been." Is (4) — the cloned body without a brain — a person, though it is not "fully formed"? Is (5) — the four-week old embryo — a person, though it is not fully formed? Is (6) a person, in the same sense of potential?

I'm just asking about whether these examples deal with persons — I am not, at this point, asking whether moral or legal protections should be expanded to them as non-persons.

Presumably, a cloned person will develop a brain unless steps are deliberately taken to prevent the brain from fully forming: you've completed a prenatal lobotomy, not an abortion.

[Sam]

Presumably, a cloned person will develop a brain unless steps are deliberately taken to prevent the brain from fully forming: you've completed a prenatal lobotomy, not an abortion.

A lobotomy is removal of a non-essential part of a brain, not the entire brain. Just to be clear, you're arguing that (4) is not a person, as it lacks a functioning brain?

[Spartacus]

It's worth noting that (3), on closer examination, would be just fine, if accomplished with adult stem cells.

[Sam]

It's worth noting that (3), on closer examination, would be just fine, if accomplished with adult stem cells.

You're again talking about moral logic but I'm asking whether (3) constitutes a person, not whether the practice of cloning organs is morally acceptable.