I'm not making one. You actually agree with me here.
Wavelengths are a spectrum.
Agreed
Development is a spectrum
Agreed! So where is my assumption?
"Right to live" is not.
Is this what you mean? Because that's not an assumption, it's a personal value: it's my opinion. Last comment I stated that you just claim this as a bald assertion. I was fishing for your reason, but let me ask you directly. What, in your view, grants a human a "right to live"?
You are making the mistake that humans not being able to perceive small gradients in color is the same as humans not being able to discern changes in development.
That's NOT a mistake, you agreed above both are spectrums and both have small increments that we cannot differentiate.
The difference here is that "right to live" isn't a spectrum at all -- it's binary.
Which I agreed. My last comment:
But I've never said that the right to life is a sliding spectrum. I've only said our ability to classify what has a right to life is on a spectrum. In my view some early stage developing humans don't have it yet, just like they don't have working hearts, brains, spleens or pituitary.
It does not follow the "development" axis.
In your view it doesn't. In mine it does. Contradicting my views is not a rational argument. Please explain WHY it doesn't.
If it did you could point to something along the development pathway that determines a valuable human life from non-valuable one.
I've pointed to many things. The problem is our inability to verify these traits at specific ages.
You can't equate them in terms of development, but you can equate them in terms of "right to live".
Sure, I understand that's your view. My point is that development changes many properties of that being of the developing human life, even if they are imperceptible to when they exactly happen to us. I'm simply adding one more property that gets imperceptibly added during the developmental process. I have listed reasons why I do/believe this. I get that you disagree, but your'e going to have to tell me why you disagree if you ever hope to change my mind, rather than repeating that you disagree.
Most of those don't exist in a late-term fetus, yet you oppose abortion at that stage. Do you not see that as incongruous?
No, because in my first comment, I wrote:
It is a difficult problem because there is no clear delineation. Because of this, I don't support late term abortions or even midterm, but early term I do.
I am erring on the side of caution because of my respect for the serious matter at hand. While I believe a human baby has right to life and a embryo doesn't, I don't know exactly where in the process it changes. A late term fetus has or very likely has all the requirements I think qualifies for right to life. Midterm I'm against, because I am unsure, but I choose to err on the side of caution, and do not want to accidentally kill something that does have right to life.
No, you agreed to this earlier. You stated you are against late-term abortion.
Answered above.
Do you at least agree that a 2-day old newborn has this right? What makes it wrong to kill a 2 day old infant?
It's ability to think, feel, conscious experience, it has autonomy (not connected to mother's blood), and maintain its own homeostasis (basically it is its own entity and can live that way). A fetus 1 day from birth (still in womb) has almost all of these traits, and can easily be disconnected from the mother and go on to live without killing it (effectively jumping the gap).
You can't really equate ending a life for compassion reasons when a person is dying and cannot hope to live normally to a developing infant who will live a full life.
Right to life and even what counts as death changes with our medical technology and knowledge and capability. That's just how the world works. Used to be your heart stopped = dead. Now that's not the case. I did CPR on someone just this Sunday who I later saw "alive" a few days later, though with heavy medical intervention. I'm unsure of the patient's outcome at this time. Schrodinger's cat, kind of thing...he could be alive right now or dead. Point is, medical technology pushes the boundary of both life and death.
I'm not trying to equate the two, but I am comparing them. There are definitely people we could save, if we used more resources, more time, more money, new drugs trials etc. Yet we don't. There are people who we think will die when taken off a ventilator, but continue to live start breathing on their own. Yet "our" decision was to take away their life. And similarity, there are many fetuses who you say "will live a full life" that develop complications and don't make it to a live birth. Our inability to know everything cuts at the heart of all our problems and our definitions and worldviews.
The point I was making with the comparison, is that "we" outsiders to other's lives (or potential lives) often make decisions on when to end others'. Sometimes its for justice/punishment, sometimes in self defense, other times compassion. I believe we agree on that much. And in the case of compassion, the only reason we do it is because the person has lost all of the qualities that I mention as being valuable and what gives right to life. Consciousness, the ability to think and feel, maintaining homeostasis and autonomy. I view the people we "let go" very similar to the undeveloped. They call it the cycle of life...and two ends of a circle are the same point.
My point is that development changes many properties of that being of the developing human life, even if they are imperceptible to when they exactly happen to us. I'm simply adding one more property that gets imperceptibly added during the developmental process
If this is the case, then you should be able to definitively state the property that defines someone's right to exist, even if you can't specify the moment that it occurs. To extend the color analogy, even though you may not be able to state at what point a color shifts definitely, you can clearly that that blue is not red because it appears blue. You agree with this later on in the post, which I'll address.
It's ability to think, feel, conscious experience, it has autonomy (not connected to mother's blood), and maintain its own homeostasis (basically it is its own entity and can live that way)
I assume you mean it's the sum-total of all of these, and not any singular item? If the latter, then only the first one of these would matter, correct?
A 9 month old fetus does not have autonomy. Would there be no moral issues with killing it?
A newborn baby does not have homeostasis. It dies without food given to it by its mother. Are we content to let mothers terminate newborns?
The only point I happen to agree with is on the point of thought; humanness is by and large determined by our brains. It would then stand to reason that as soon as anything resembling thought exists in a developing human there should be consideration as to its human rights. The CNS develops around 8 weeks, which would be the precursor to any kind of thinking. Anything after that point and you have no real objective basis for deciding the "humanness" of a developing being.
I assume you mean it's the sum-total of all of these, and not any singular item?
Correct.
If the latter, then only the first one of these would matter, correct?
The first one is very important, for sure. But thinking is an internal experience. Just like people in comas that we often "let go" it's important for people to be able display their ability to think to others in order to demonstrate their value. There is a condition that can apparently cause others to mistake someone for dead when they are not. I bring this up only to show that if something had the ability to think and no other qualities that I listed, we wouldn't purposefully kill them, but we would discard their body because of our inability to determine their worth. I think this correlates with the topic at hand very much, and your question. While the ability to think is important, it is not a single quality that grants "right to live" in my view.
A 9 month old fetus does not have autonomy. Would there be no moral issues with killing it?
As I said in the previous reply:
A fetus 1 day from birth (still in womb) has almost all of these traits, and can easily be disconnected from the mother and go on to live without killing it (effectively jumping the gap).
A 9 month old fetus has almost all the properties and with medical expertise it can be safely removed from it's mother and jump the gap into fulfilling all requirements to right to life. As I say next in the reply, human medical intervention absolutely plays into our ability to declare life or death, and this is nothing unusual. It's why Roe V Wade mentions "viability" as the threshold for when it should be legal and when it shouldn't. As our ability to care for developing humans increasing, the gray area of when to protect life rather than not increases as well.
A newborn baby does not have homeostasis. It dies without food given to it by its mother.
Offspring need care (whether human or not, and some 20+ year olds still need care!) but they do not need care specifically from the mother. Neonates can perfectly be cared for by others. In fact, babies that are born premature are taken away from their mothers because they need advanced care from nurses and doctors. Only after a few days/weeks can a premature baby be returned to its mother. This is because our medical technology makes it possible. 50 years ago, it was not possible, and thus, we had more natural births end in death.
Are we content to let mothers terminate newborns?
Of course not, as reasoned above.
It would then stand to reason that as soon as anything resembling thought exists in a developing human there should be consideration as to its human rights.
Let me elaborate here. Conscious experience/thinking/feeling is basically describing one property. We agree it has value on what it means to be human. Having autonomy and being able to control one's own internal ability to continue living is the second prong of the property that I claim needs to be in place to grant right to life. I think it's important, but agree it may not be equally important as the first. The main reason I list the second prong requirement, is that it 1) allows others to be able to determine the first (against someone in a coma, or with the condition I linked to, etc). But it also explains the "capability to live". The way same that a boat with a giant whole in its hull that is taking on water does not have an ability to float is not much of a boat...it's going down fast...a human with a gaping hole in its head that is losing blood doesn't have much of an ability to live. In some cases, immediate death is certain (again, life and death is tied to human medical technology sometimes we can fix it). I guess what I'm trying to express is that a being does not have an actual right to life if nature does not grant it first. Only if it's granted by nature then we can assign the category to it. Because in the end, it doesn't matter what we want or wish. Reality does not care about our social constructs.
The CNS develops around 8 weeks, which would be the precursor to any kind of thinking. Anything after that point and you have no real objective basis for deciding the "humanness" of a developing being.
Based on only the first prong (consciousness/thought/feeling): correct. I do think the other prong is important. But even if we leave it here, that would be something I'm okay with. As I said before, I'm against late term, because they can "jump the gap" with medical technology, and I even said in the first comment I'm against mid term because of the respect for the gray area and I prefer to err on the side of caution by granting right to live in the absence of knowing whether the being actually has it. My argument really only goes to the very early stage of development (as said before when it's literally a clump of cells).
Honestly, this is the best discussion on the topic I've ever had, and I appreciate your ability to respond to my points and get me to think without resorting to namecalling or logical fallacies or other dishonest debate tactics. Just gotta say T_D is a wonderful place..nowhere else has anyone been able to engage with any depth before, and you have likely slightly nudged my position in places, and reinforced it in others. Much appreciated, I hope you got something out of this as well.
As I say next in the reply, human medical intervention absolutely plays into our ability to declare life or death,
This is an odd statement. It would suggest that the morality of killing an infant is contingent on the medical care in the area. Would it be moral to kill a 34 week old fetus in a very poor area without access to medical care? Would it have been moral to kill 34 week old fetuses a few decades ago? There's no rational reason why the quality of medical care would dictate the ethics of ending another being's life. If it is immoral today then surely it is something that was always immoral.
babies that are born premature are taken away from their mothers because they need advanced care from nurses and doctors
Not true. Some babies are born premature without need for care. Mine was born healthy at 35 weeks. If your delineating line is "can be born without any medical intervention and not need treatment" then the cutoff is around 34-35 weeks. Meaning you'd be okay with killing a 33 week old fetus. I imagine that's not true.
"capability to live
Babies do not have the capability to live. A 38 week old fetus has the exact same requirements for another to supply them with nutrition as a 2 month old baby does, same as with a 2 day old zygote. If your delineating line is "can survive by being fed by external means like formula" then you're looking at mid-30 weeks. Before that and they have gut issues and need special IV treatments. Again, I imagine you're not okay killing a 32 week old because of this.
The "survive out of the womb" argument is full of holes.
I'll take the chance to fallback on the argument that human capacity for thought is the only objective marker that does not have logical inconsistencies. Meaning anything after 8 weeks is fraught with ethical concerns.
I appreciate the opportunity to have had this conversation. It's rare to find someone who can articulate their thoughts well and still disagree with you. Thanks.
This is an odd statement. It would suggest that the morality of killing an infant is contingent on the medical care in the area.
It's one I've said before, and it is supported by what happens in the world. As said before, CPR, defibrillators and all the other fancy tools we have has pushed what we define as "death" and when we/how we declare it. It also plays into what is "viable" at the beginning of life.
Would it be moral to kill a 34 week old fetus in a very poor area without access to medical care?
Possibly. As I said before, I'm against late term abortions, but I must state that there can/should be exception for when the mother's life is at risk or if the fetus has become (or is) nonviable. As to your specific questions, because we have cars, planes, and helicopters, a specific area's level of medical capability plays less of a role in deciding this because we also have the capability to move people to better areas...but of course this is within reason. We don't transport expecting mothers from South Sudan to the US to get better care. Those people must deal with their environment they are in, and that plays out in statistics of positive outcomes. But we can absolutely move a poor women in a rural country to a major hospital when medical emergency happens, and not only can we do that, we often do!
Would it have been moral to kill 34 week old fetuses a few decades ago?
I'm not sure on the exact timeline, but absolutely as our medical tech advances the gray area of viability changes. I think the youngest ever premie is now around 24 weeks or so. But that's not always been the case. If we get better then it will be pushed back, and if our society crumbles and we lose our ability to care for the extremely young/premies then it will slide back.
There's no rational reason why the quality of medical care would dictate the ethics of ending another being's life. If it is immoral today then surely it is something that was always immoral.
The rational reason being if something is not possible you cannot will it to be possible. The same reason that we give up on dying people based on our medical tech, we can give up on early people, based on our medical tech.
Not true. Some babies are born premature without need for care.
Correct, I was not precise enough with my words. I meant some premies and/or all of the extremely early term premies.
Mine was born healthy at 35 weeks.
Congrats!
If your delineating line is "can be born without any medical intervention and not need treatment"
That's not my line, I am okay with treatment being used to cross the gap...as long as that treatment can be actualized.
then the cutoff is around 34-35 weeks. Meaning you'd be okay with killing a 33 week old fetus. I imagine that's not true.
As said before, I am against late term, and even precautionary against midterm.
Babies do not have the capability to live. A 38 week old fetus has the exact same requirements for another to supply them with nutrition as a 2 month old baby does, same as with a 2 day old zygote.
The specific that I laid out was that they no longer need "the mother" not that they no longer need "anyone" to help them. A 2 day old can be cared for by others. A 2 day old zygote simply cannot. If we ever get to a point where med tech can raise a 2 day old zygote outside of the mother, I will change my stance.
The "survive out of the womb" argument is full of holes.
Most things are if you zoom in close enough. But I'm not aware of the specifics you have in mind. I am okay with changing ethical practices based on what is possible at the time (as I've said many time, life and death changes with medical technology). You seem to be trying to find a universal, all time forever answer^TM to this question, and I see it as a moving target. That may be why we will never agree.
Meaning anything after 8 weeks is fraught with ethical concerns.
Yet I don't think you support pre-8 week termination. Why? I've asked for your views on what gives right to life a couple of times now but I've never gotten a response, that I can tell, to that question.
I'm not making one. You actually agree with me here.
Agreed
Agreed! So where is my assumption?
Is this what you mean? Because that's not an assumption, it's a personal value: it's my opinion. Last comment I stated that you just claim this as a bald assertion. I was fishing for your reason, but let me ask you directly. What, in your view, grants a human a "right to live"?
That's NOT a mistake, you agreed above both are spectrums and both have small increments that we cannot differentiate.
Which I agreed. My last comment:
In your view it doesn't. In mine it does. Contradicting my views is not a rational argument. Please explain WHY it doesn't.
I've pointed to many things. The problem is our inability to verify these traits at specific ages.
Sure, I understand that's your view. My point is that development changes many properties of that being of the developing human life, even if they are imperceptible to when they exactly happen to us. I'm simply adding one more property that gets imperceptibly added during the developmental process. I have listed reasons why I do/believe this. I get that you disagree, but your'e going to have to tell me why you disagree if you ever hope to change my mind, rather than repeating that you disagree.
No, because in my first comment, I wrote:
I am erring on the side of caution because of my respect for the serious matter at hand. While I believe a human baby has right to life and a embryo doesn't, I don't know exactly where in the process it changes. A late term fetus has or very likely has all the requirements I think qualifies for right to life. Midterm I'm against, because I am unsure, but I choose to err on the side of caution, and do not want to accidentally kill something that does have right to life.
Answered above.
It's ability to think, feel, conscious experience, it has autonomy (not connected to mother's blood), and maintain its own homeostasis (basically it is its own entity and can live that way). A fetus 1 day from birth (still in womb) has almost all of these traits, and can easily be disconnected from the mother and go on to live without killing it (effectively jumping the gap).
Right to life and even what counts as death changes with our medical technology and knowledge and capability. That's just how the world works. Used to be your heart stopped = dead. Now that's not the case. I did CPR on someone just this Sunday who I later saw "alive" a few days later, though with heavy medical intervention. I'm unsure of the patient's outcome at this time. Schrodinger's cat, kind of thing...he could be alive right now or dead. Point is, medical technology pushes the boundary of both life and death.
I'm not trying to equate the two, but I am comparing them. There are definitely people we could save, if we used more resources, more time, more money, new drugs trials etc. Yet we don't. There are people who we think will die when taken off a ventilator, but continue to live start breathing on their own. Yet "our" decision was to take away their life. And similarity, there are many fetuses who you say "will live a full life" that develop complications and don't make it to a live birth. Our inability to know everything cuts at the heart of all our problems and our definitions and worldviews.
The point I was making with the comparison, is that "we" outsiders to other's lives (or potential lives) often make decisions on when to end others'. Sometimes its for justice/punishment, sometimes in self defense, other times compassion. I believe we agree on that much. And in the case of compassion, the only reason we do it is because the person has lost all of the qualities that I mention as being valuable and what gives right to life. Consciousness, the ability to think and feel, maintaining homeostasis and autonomy. I view the people we "let go" very similar to the undeveloped. They call it the cycle of life...and two ends of a circle are the same point.
If this is the case, then you should be able to definitively state the property that defines someone's right to exist, even if you can't specify the moment that it occurs. To extend the color analogy, even though you may not be able to state at what point a color shifts definitely, you can clearly that that blue is not red because it appears blue. You agree with this later on in the post, which I'll address.
I assume you mean it's the sum-total of all of these, and not any singular item? If the latter, then only the first one of these would matter, correct?
A 9 month old fetus does not have autonomy. Would there be no moral issues with killing it?
A newborn baby does not have homeostasis. It dies without food given to it by its mother. Are we content to let mothers terminate newborns?
The only point I happen to agree with is on the point of thought; humanness is by and large determined by our brains. It would then stand to reason that as soon as anything resembling thought exists in a developing human there should be consideration as to its human rights. The CNS develops around 8 weeks, which would be the precursor to any kind of thinking. Anything after that point and you have no real objective basis for deciding the "humanness" of a developing being.
Correct.
The first one is very important, for sure. But thinking is an internal experience. Just like people in comas that we often "let go" it's important for people to be able display their ability to think to others in order to demonstrate their value. There is a condition that can apparently cause others to mistake someone for dead when they are not. I bring this up only to show that if something had the ability to think and no other qualities that I listed, we wouldn't purposefully kill them, but we would discard their body because of our inability to determine their worth. I think this correlates with the topic at hand very much, and your question. While the ability to think is important, it is not a single quality that grants "right to live" in my view.
As I said in the previous reply:
A 9 month old fetus has almost all the properties and with medical expertise it can be safely removed from it's mother and jump the gap into fulfilling all requirements to right to life. As I say next in the reply, human medical intervention absolutely plays into our ability to declare life or death, and this is nothing unusual. It's why Roe V Wade mentions "viability" as the threshold for when it should be legal and when it shouldn't. As our ability to care for developing humans increasing, the gray area of when to protect life rather than not increases as well.
Offspring need care (whether human or not, and some 20+ year olds still need care!) but they do not need care specifically from the mother. Neonates can perfectly be cared for by others. In fact, babies that are born premature are taken away from their mothers because they need advanced care from nurses and doctors. Only after a few days/weeks can a premature baby be returned to its mother. This is because our medical technology makes it possible. 50 years ago, it was not possible, and thus, we had more natural births end in death.
Of course not, as reasoned above.
Let me elaborate here. Conscious experience/thinking/feeling is basically describing one property. We agree it has value on what it means to be human. Having autonomy and being able to control one's own internal ability to continue living is the second prong of the property that I claim needs to be in place to grant right to life. I think it's important, but agree it may not be equally important as the first. The main reason I list the second prong requirement, is that it 1) allows others to be able to determine the first (against someone in a coma, or with the condition I linked to, etc). But it also explains the "capability to live". The way same that a boat with a giant whole in its hull that is taking on water does not have an ability to float is not much of a boat...it's going down fast...a human with a gaping hole in its head that is losing blood doesn't have much of an ability to live. In some cases, immediate death is certain (again, life and death is tied to human medical technology sometimes we can fix it). I guess what I'm trying to express is that a being does not have an actual right to life if nature does not grant it first. Only if it's granted by nature then we can assign the category to it. Because in the end, it doesn't matter what we want or wish. Reality does not care about our social constructs.
Based on only the first prong (consciousness/thought/feeling): correct. I do think the other prong is important. But even if we leave it here, that would be something I'm okay with. As I said before, I'm against late term, because they can "jump the gap" with medical technology, and I even said in the first comment I'm against mid term because of the respect for the gray area and I prefer to err on the side of caution by granting right to live in the absence of knowing whether the being actually has it. My argument really only goes to the very early stage of development (as said before when it's literally a clump of cells).
Honestly, this is the best discussion on the topic I've ever had, and I appreciate your ability to respond to my points and get me to think without resorting to namecalling or logical fallacies or other dishonest debate tactics. Just gotta say T_D is a wonderful place..nowhere else has anyone been able to engage with any depth before, and you have likely slightly nudged my position in places, and reinforced it in others. Much appreciated, I hope you got something out of this as well.
This is an odd statement. It would suggest that the morality of killing an infant is contingent on the medical care in the area. Would it be moral to kill a 34 week old fetus in a very poor area without access to medical care? Would it have been moral to kill 34 week old fetuses a few decades ago? There's no rational reason why the quality of medical care would dictate the ethics of ending another being's life. If it is immoral today then surely it is something that was always immoral.
Not true. Some babies are born premature without need for care. Mine was born healthy at 35 weeks. If your delineating line is "can be born without any medical intervention and not need treatment" then the cutoff is around 34-35 weeks. Meaning you'd be okay with killing a 33 week old fetus. I imagine that's not true.
Babies do not have the capability to live. A 38 week old fetus has the exact same requirements for another to supply them with nutrition as a 2 month old baby does, same as with a 2 day old zygote. If your delineating line is "can survive by being fed by external means like formula" then you're looking at mid-30 weeks. Before that and they have gut issues and need special IV treatments. Again, I imagine you're not okay killing a 32 week old because of this.
The "survive out of the womb" argument is full of holes.
I'll take the chance to fallback on the argument that human capacity for thought is the only objective marker that does not have logical inconsistencies. Meaning anything after 8 weeks is fraught with ethical concerns.
I appreciate the opportunity to have had this conversation. It's rare to find someone who can articulate their thoughts well and still disagree with you. Thanks.
It's one I've said before, and it is supported by what happens in the world. As said before, CPR, defibrillators and all the other fancy tools we have has pushed what we define as "death" and when we/how we declare it. It also plays into what is "viable" at the beginning of life.
Possibly. As I said before, I'm against late term abortions, but I must state that there can/should be exception for when the mother's life is at risk or if the fetus has become (or is) nonviable. As to your specific questions, because we have cars, planes, and helicopters, a specific area's level of medical capability plays less of a role in deciding this because we also have the capability to move people to better areas...but of course this is within reason. We don't transport expecting mothers from South Sudan to the US to get better care. Those people must deal with their environment they are in, and that plays out in statistics of positive outcomes. But we can absolutely move a poor women in a rural country to a major hospital when medical emergency happens, and not only can we do that, we often do!
I'm not sure on the exact timeline, but absolutely as our medical tech advances the gray area of viability changes. I think the youngest ever premie is now around 24 weeks or so. But that's not always been the case. If we get better then it will be pushed back, and if our society crumbles and we lose our ability to care for the extremely young/premies then it will slide back.
The rational reason being if something is not possible you cannot will it to be possible. The same reason that we give up on dying people based on our medical tech, we can give up on early people, based on our medical tech.
Correct, I was not precise enough with my words. I meant some premies and/or all of the extremely early term premies.
Congrats!
That's not my line, I am okay with treatment being used to cross the gap...as long as that treatment can be actualized.
As said before, I am against late term, and even precautionary against midterm.
The specific that I laid out was that they no longer need "the mother" not that they no longer need "anyone" to help them. A 2 day old can be cared for by others. A 2 day old zygote simply cannot. If we ever get to a point where med tech can raise a 2 day old zygote outside of the mother, I will change my stance.
Most things are if you zoom in close enough. But I'm not aware of the specifics you have in mind. I am okay with changing ethical practices based on what is possible at the time (as I've said many time, life and death changes with medical technology). You seem to be trying to find a universal, all time forever answer^TM to this question, and I see it as a moving target. That may be why we will never agree.
Yet I don't think you support pre-8 week termination. Why? I've asked for your views on what gives right to life a couple of times now but I've never gotten a response, that I can tell, to that question.