Moderated Debate: Abortion [Archive] - Individualist Community

Anenome

11-01-2008, 06:50 PM

I hope I can interject here, since there's been no new posts lately. This debate is bit of a specialty of mine. I once spent 2 years on a feminist forum debating mostly this issue >.>

It comes down to choice and choices have consequences. The pro-abortion folk frame the issue as pregnancy being an unwanted effect they did not choose. Under this framing, it's logical to accept that abortion should be perfectly legal.

However, it is commonly understood that sex causes pregnancy. And also that birth-control is not 100%. Thus, the choice to engage in sex knowing the potential consequences is the acceptance of those consequences, including pregnancy. Becoming pregnant 'accidentally' is a laughable statement unless you can also have sex accidentally... which is a bit hard to imagine ;P

This, however, leaves out cases of forced sex. Then it comes down to a question of when the baby can be considered 'alive'. Some pro-abortionists even try to claim the baby isn't even human until a certain point. However both points are silly. Life can only come from life, and type from type. None of us have ever been dead at any point and then later been 'not dead'. Nor have we, whom are human, ever been 'not human'. The principle that 'like comes from like' and the doctrine of abiogenesis both force the idea that life comes from life, and humans can only birth humans.

The more objective approach, attempting to remove all emotional context, would be to say that a unique human is made at the point of conception. There it is both alive, human, distinct, and unique.

A more general argument is that of independence, saying that a child should be abortable until the point at which it can survive outside the womb on its own. This I find a bit silly, too. All of us are innately dependent on environment. Can any of us survive on our own out in space, or in the middle of a fire? Not really. And if someone placed us in an environment guaranteed to produce death that does not absolve them of a crime. And also, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb is continually decreasing and may eventually hit the point of conception.

Finally is the argument of government regulating your body. The gov regulates our body in many ways already in terms of what drugs we can use, how much alcohol we can drive with, forcing the wearing of a seatbelt, etc. I think it perfectly acceptable to ask women to acknowledge the results of their choices if that choice results in pregnancy. We ask no less of men who become fathers in the same way and cannot dodge that responsibility, legally.

In the end my primary objection is the unwarranted violence of human against human, in this case mother against child. But the above is my collection of arguments to destroy the typical objections I have run into in support of abortion.

kerrin

11-02-2008, 09:08 PM

Anenome,

I welcome your interjection. However, where John and I took the debate was theoretical—outside the American context. Feel free to respond to my theoretical response to John (he will probably respond when he can, I understand him to be a busy man).

I will, however, respond to your valid points raised within the context of the current American "debate."

The more objective approach, attempting to remove all emotional context, would be to say that a unique human is made at the point of conception. There it is both alive, human, distinct, and unique.
I'm going to take issue with this point, as this is a falsehood (or semantic manipulation) the Republican party likes to frequently push. Conception (biological), commonly understood as the federalization of a sperm and ovum, can take place across species, but if it does in fact occur across species it never reaches the implementation stage (fertilized egg reaching and attaching to the uterus). Thus while some life may begin at conception it cannot be said that human life always begins at conception within a human woman. Rather human life may begin at conception but is definitely human life at the implementation stage within a human woman. Thus the "life at conception" statement is misleading at best, but I like to refer to it as semantic manipulation.

You raise the point of 'viability', I agree it is not a helpful distinction, because of the advance of technology making it a moving target.

Finally is the argument of government regulating your body. The gov regulates our body in many ways already in terms of what drugs we can use, how much alcohol we can drive with, forcing the wearing of a seatbelt, etc.
This is true, though, it does not make it right. I find this a weak argument especially from the standpoint of an individualist. The government may do this now, but why should they? People should be free to ingest what they wish and drive in a car without a seat belt if they so choose. If I know anybody ingesting harmful chemicals or driving without a seat-belt I will reason with them to not do so. I don't think they should be made criminals for these personally irresponsible choices.

Personally I object to abortion, on the similar grounds that you do, especially when done to correct ones "mistake." However, I find little evidence that the Constitution affords protection to the unborn. Roe/Wade extended the protection to the 'viable.' If the unborn are to be protected an Amendment to The Constitution is needed, for the good of the country and the social contract we call The Constitution.

My original position, in the context of the American debate:
Abortion is a legal medical procedure with or with out Roe vs. Wade. The Constitution of the U.S. provides the "liberty" to kill an unborn fetus.

I welcome your thoughts/response.

firetown

11-04-2008, 03:57 AM

Have you guys ever watched documentaries about women who actually had abortions and were interviewed later?
Most of them regretted it, many fell into deep depressions, some couldn't even speak about it, and that included women whose unborn child was conceived thru rape.
I suggest that those who support pro choice watch it and then ask themselves if indeed abortion should be legal.
Some of the women talked about how they were talked into it by their ex, their families etc.
When you legalize abortion, it becomes the easy way out. There are abortions out of desperation and abortion out of convenience, and convenience abortions will increase when the law allows it. ("well, no, I am not ready for a kid yet, I guess I'm not having this one and give it a couple of years when I have a better job blah blah")

I don't think abortion should be legal unless there is a medical circumstance where the mom would die if continuing the pregnancy, but even then my opinion is that when you have a choice between saving the parent and the child ... save the child.

kerrin

11-04-2008, 06:13 PM

Have you guys ever watched documentaries about women who actually had abortions and were interviewed later?
Most of them regretted it, many fell into deep depressions, some couldn't even speak about it, and that included women whose unborn child was conceived thru rape.
I suggest that those who support pro choice watch it and then ask themselves if indeed abortion should be legal.
Some of the women talked about how they were talked into it by their ex, their families etc.

No I have not watched them. But I would advocate anyone contemplating having an abortion watch these to be informed before they make such a decision.

When you legalize abortion, it becomes the easy way out.
Abortion is a legal medical procedure. Whether it should be or not is the debate at hand. What laws are based on stopping the "easy way out?" I've never heard that as a reason to make something illegal.

I will not force someone legally to do something based on the personal negative consequences as you suggest from these videos.

I have seen videos of people dying because they were drunk (decapitated by trains, etc.) and I know people who have wrecked their family because of perpetual drunkenness. You could say they "regretted" their decisions. Should we then make it illegal to be drunk? Or make alcohol illegal?

Anenome

11-05-2008, 08:30 PM

I will give it a sporting try:

Common definitions:
Kill - To end the life of another
Murder - To kill (another human) unlawfully

My argument
P1 Laws exists through the social contract
P2 An individual must consent to the social contract to be protected & constrained by it's laws
P3 An unborn human cannot consent to a social contract

Therefore one can only kill and not murder an unborn life
- Mmm, it's a bit too theorhetical. Ultimately by this reasoning you would also have to conclude that all contracts are individualistic, not collective. Therefore, you'd be perfectly fine to murder strangers who you've never met before and therefore cannot contract with you. I find the social contract arguments less compelling than natural law arguments. If we look at abortion from a property-rights question things fall in line much easier. A child owns its body as a matter of course. Our body is our most important property and most rigidly protected by law. We define murder as the deprivation of life/body from an individual against their will. Life/body is something they own. Society does not and should not allow property to be stolen at whim, especially not this particular kind of property which deprives a person of life itself that most quintessential possession, and therefore it is the most egregious form of theft.

Natural law framing takes care of all questions of ability to contract, which even minors cannot enter into, and you'll never argue it's OK to kill juveniles ;P A child can inherit monetary and real property from their parents even at the moment of birth. In this case, a child inherits life and body. Even if a parent attempts to thieve actual money or real property from a child society does not allow it. So the attempt to allow a parent to deprive the child of a far more important property: life and body, should even more so not be allowed.

And so the question of when life and body is inherited becomes important. Medically, it cannot cogently be argued otherwise than that the life and body are transferred at the moment of conception to the child as wholly owned property, as a complete body is not more than a collection of many more of that first cell, which should in no way diminish rights. We don't say that fat people have more rights than skinny people, amount of cells is not a basis of differentiation when it comes to rights and property. (I'll stop here, while aware of possible objections raise-able to that assertion in order to move on to the next argument in a timely manner ;)

Originally Posted by Anenome View Post
The more objective approach, attempting to remove all emotional context, would be to say that a unique human is made at the point of conception. There it is both alive, human, distinct, and unique.

I'm going to take issue with this point, as this is a falsehood (or semantic manipulation) the Republican party likes to frequently push. Conception (biological), commonly understood as the federalization of a sperm and ovum, can take place across species, but if it does in fact occur across species never reaches the implementation stage (fertilized egg reaching and attaching to the uterus). Thus while some life may begin at conception it cannot be said that human life always begins at conception within a human woman. Rather human life may begin at conception but is definitely human life at the implementation stage within a human woman. Thus the "life at conception" statement is misleading at best, but I like to refer to it as semantic manipulation.
- You're right, cross-species fertilization is possible, however the life-form produced is not able to undergo mitosis and soon dies. At least that is my current understanding from what I remember of college Biology and my studies :P I'd be interested if it were not the case. What is true is that cross-species fertilization does not result in a viable embryo under any circumstances. It produces a life which is fated to die unfailingly. One may cite horse+mule=donkey, but it should be noted they are close enough that basing an argument on the artificial human division of the word 'species' is a weak tack to take. There's no viability in obviously unrelated species, say horse+bat or poodle+elephant (ha! Take those mental images!)

Even taking your semantic deconstruction at face value the essential point remains because your point only shows that a 50% human 50% X creature is alive in the womb, and pro-abortion advocates attempt to say that 0% human embryos exist at conception as a pretext for avoiding the 'murder of a human being' act. Your counter does not attempt to say a foolish thing like that, so the point stands.

Originally Posted by Anenome View Post
Finally is the argument of government regulating your body. The gov regulates our body in many ways already in terms of what drugs we can use, how much alcohol we can drive with, forcing the wearing of a seatbelt, etc.

This is true, though, it does not make it right. I find this a weak argument especially from the standpoint of an individualist.

- That's the genius of it, and a lesson I've long since learned. You're absolutely right, it is a horrible argument for an individualist. But my concern is more to change a mind than to win the Individualist of the Year award. I've learned that the best way to assault a position is to use the arguer's own logic against them. In this case I have found this to be an efficacious argument to people who do believe in such things. It jolts them, they take a propaganda line about controlling their own body and realize they'd never applied that principle to other areas, such as seat-belts, etc. Here's the great things about it: it both causes them to rethink their position on abortion and possibly become more individualistic causing them to ask why the government should control people's bodies when it comes to those other areas >:D

So yeah, I use that argument and that style of argument every time, it's extremely effective.

The government may do this now but why should they? People should be free to ingest what they wish and drive in a car without a seat belt if they so choose. If I know anybody ingesting harmful chemicals or driving without a seat-belt I will reason with them to not do so. I don't think they should be made criminals for these personally irresponsible choices.
- Yep.

Personally I object to abortion, on the similar grounds that you do, especially when done to correct ones "mistake." However, I find little evidence that the Constitution affords protection to the unborn. Roe/Wade extended the protection to the 'viable.' If the unborn are to be protected an Amendment to The Constitution is needed, for the good of the country and the social contract we call The Constitution.
- True enough. In that sense the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were in fact written by two different sets of people with very different philosophies and it shows in this case. The Declaration provides right to 'life, liberty, pursuit of happiness' (though it was almost 'life, liberty, and property', SO CLOSE!). Meanwhile the Constitution says no such thing and the Declaration has zero legal standing.

My original position, in the context of the American debate:
Originally Posted by kerrin View Post
Abortion is a legal medical procedure with or with out Roe vs. Wade. The Constitution of the U.S. provides the "liberty" to kill an unborn fetus.
I welcome your thoughts/response.
- Cool. As it stands the easy way to attack it is to point out that there is no essential difference between the life of an unborn baby and the life of a born baby. We all, out here, are born babies of various ages, and the only difference between us and a newly conceived single-celled human being is time to grow. Period. In every other essential way we are exactly alike as human beings having both a body and being alive. Left alone the child will be born, ignoring pregnancy difficulties, etc, so the child not being born implies intervention, implies deprivation of life.

The Constitution does in fact provide procedures for the conditions under which a person can deprived of life:

"Amendment V

No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."

Thus has those in favor of abortion attempted to avert the clear application of the 5th amendment by defining the unborn as either not human or not alive and therefore not legally a 'person', when medically and biologically nothing could be further from the truth.

Anenome

11-05-2008, 08:49 PM

I don't think abortion should be legal unless there is a medical circumstance where the mom would die if continuing the pregnancy, but even then my opinion is that when you have a choice between saving the parent and the child ... save the child.

- Actually I think the mother should decide in such cases. Women often do choose the child over their own life when doctors have asked. Some do not. I don't fault her either way in such a case, that is a truly morally neutral choice if ever there was one. What's amazing is that women ever do choose to save the baby over themselves but it does happen fairly frequently when the situation and choice is presented.

m42

11-05-2008, 09:06 PM

- Actually I think the mother should decide in such cases. Women often do choose the child over their own life when doctors have asked. Some do not. I don't fault her either way in such a case, that is a truly morally neutral choice if ever there was one. What's amazing is that women ever do choose to save the baby over themselves but it does happen fairly frequently when the situation and choice is presented.

Which means you condone murder.

firetown

11-05-2008, 09:08 PM

Which means you condone murder.

I am against murder, so I am against "pro choice"

m42

11-05-2008, 09:11 PM

I am against murder, so I am against "pro choice"

I simply won't tolerate government intervention.

firetown

11-05-2008, 09:13 PM

I simply won't tolerate government intervention.

I believe that abortion is murder babe

m42

11-05-2008, 09:14 PM

I believe that abortion is murder babe

It is, dear. But people appear to have lost sight of that.

At this point, my concern is that the abortion argument is merely a precursor to further government involvement in the decisions we make about our bodies.

firetown

11-05-2008, 09:17 PM

It is, dear. But people appear to have lost sight of that. ;)

One of my family members is a product of rape. He has produced 12 kids and gorgeous grand kids. For one minute I will NOT buy into the excuse to abort anybody, no matter what reason. But at other forums I was banned for saying it, so maybe this one is truly a forum where my view will be respected.

m42

11-05-2008, 09:19 PM

One of my family members is a product of rape. He has produced 12 kids and gorgeous grand kids. For one minute I will NOT buy into the excuse to abort anybody, no matter what reason. But at other forums I was banned for saying it, so maybe this one is truly a forum where my view will be respected.

It's all in the delivery. ;)

firetown

11-05-2008, 09:54 PM

It's all in the delivery. ;)

And the village :)

Anenome

11-05-2008, 10:37 PM

Which means you condone murder.

I'm surprised you would call it murder, perhaps you misunderstand the circumstances I'm talking about. I am talking about things like an ectopic pregnancy where the mother's life is threatened. At that point, when its one or the other, I think the mother has the right of self-defense in that situaiton, to choose whom she wants to survive. In my experience even the most die-hard pro-life people have been fine with the mother deciding to live in the case of ectopic pregnancies O.o

Anenome

11-05-2008, 10:39 PM

It is, dear. But people appear to have lost sight of that.

At this point, my concern is that the abortion argument is merely a precursor to further government involvement in the decisions we make about our bodies.

Ah, but some would also say that the decision to abort is the decision to kill anothers body. If there is a legitimate government role, one of them is surely to enforce basic laws against unwarranted violence between individuals.

The biggest problem with the abortion debate is the emotion involved. Forget it when you try to discuss children from rape and abortion in such cases, does it get more charged than that? Not really, detachment is hard to achieve when a girl starts putting herself in that situation and imagining it and generating emotions based on that imagination to come at you with. Logically it's not a huge issue, but the emotion overshadows it, as pehaps with most issues. Again, man is an emotional creature. Reason is not winning.

firetown

11-05-2008, 10:41 PM

m42

11-05-2008, 10:53 PM

I'm surprised you would call it murder, perhaps you misunderstand the circumstances I'm talking about. I am talking about things like an ectopic pregnancy where the mother's life is threatened. At that point, when its one or the other, I think the mother has the right of self-defense in that situaiton, to choose whom she wants to survive. In my experience even the most die-hard pro-life people have been fine with the mother deciding to live in the case of ectopic pregnancies O.o

To clarify:

We are talking about the decision of any person to terminate a fetus that would otherwise have some chance at reaching gestation/post gestational viability.

Ectopic pregnancies have a slim to none chance at viability. Although extremely rare, ectopic pregnancies do occasionally make it to gestation.

Where do you draw the line?

Ah, but some would also say that the decision to abort is the decision to kill anothers body.

The decision to abort is a decision to kill another's body. I flat out stated that it is murder.

Some people believe it to be a necessary evil. It's still murder.

Anenome

11-05-2008, 11:58 PM

So your position is it's murder and its allowable? O.o

As for ectopic pregnancies it's generally easy to diagnose which ones have a chance of embryo viability and which ones do not. The determining factor being primarily where the embryo attached, with abdominal locations being the only known successful-to-term ectopic pregnancies. In any case, any ectopic pregnancy carries the risk of hemmorage or uncontrollable bleeding at some stage.

Either way there's a high chance of death for either the embryo or the mother in the best of cases. And usually there's zero chance of viability for the embryo and high chance of complication and possible death, in which cases you'd have to acede that it's cut'n'dry that the pregnancy should be removed. In cases where it's medically determined that the embryo might be viable in the location it's attached to I would still leave it up to the mother as she still faces a significant chance of hemorrage, rupture, death.

I see your point tho, drawing the line in there has become difficult. After all, normal pregnancies have a small chance of death for the mother. Nothing near what an ectopic pregnancy allows. Still, for the vast majortiy where the embryo is not viable in any case and only the mother's life is threatened you can safely remove the pregnancy, conundrum free. You could use the standard of 'imminent danger' for an abdominal pregnancy, such as wating for the hemorrage to occur, but that is extreme. I think simply the knowledge that there's a very good chance for her to die is enough. Unlike the remote chance of death as with pregnancy. =\

m42

11-06-2008, 08:44 AM

So your position is it's murder and its allowable? O.o

Where did I say that?

As for ectopic pregnancies it's generally easy to diagnose which ones have a chance of embryo viability and which ones do not. The determining factor being primarily where the embryo attached, with abdominal locations being the only known successful-to-term ectopic pregnancies. In any case, any ectopic pregnancy carries the risk of hemmorage or uncontrollable bleeding at some stage....

Yes. I have access to Wikipedia as well. ;)

I see your point tho, drawing the line in there has become difficult. After all, normal pregnancies have a small chance of death for the mother. Nothing near what an ectopic pregnancy allows. Still, for the vast majortiy where the embryo is not viable in any case and only the mother's life is threatened you can safely remove the pregnancy, conundrum free. You could use the standard of 'imminent danger' for an abdominal pregnancy, such as wating for the hemorrage to occur, but that is extreme. I think simply the knowledge that there's a very good chance for her to die is enough. Unlike the remote chance of death as with pregnancy. =\

An ectopic pregnancy makes it very clear. Zero viability is equivalent to miscarrying. Again, a nonviable ectopic pregnancy is not in question:

We are talking about the decision of any person to terminate a fetus that would otherwise have some chance at reaching gestation/post gestational viability.

...the knowledge that there's a very good chance for her to die is enough.

That statement covers more than just ectopic pregnancies. You still appear to condone murder.

What makes the mother's life more valuable than the childs?

Cricket

11-06-2008, 01:14 PM

My mother was involved in a very serious wreck when she was seven months pregnant and was hemorrhaging badly. During the process of saving her life the doctors began demanding permission to abort the "fetus" to help stabilize her.

Following multiple tests, they assured my parents repeatedly that the "fetus" would never live and was likely already brain dead. If by some miracle the "fetus" survived it there would be no hope that the "fetus" would have anything close to a normal life.

My parent truly felt that it was not their choice (or the doctors choice to make) and they refused to sign for the procedure. My father said that he had faith that what was supposed to happen would. If the "baby" should die, then so be it, but not by their signature.

That fetus that would never live, that was likely already brain dead, was born a screaming and loudly hiccupping healthy baby girl with absolutely no effects from the wreck beyond being a full month late coming into the world.

They gave that miracle baby the middle name of Faith.

I am pretty happy they felt it wasn't their decision to make. ;)

kerrin

11-06-2008, 05:34 PM

Cricket,

Thanks for the story. I fail to see it's relevance to a debate about abortion though. I'm sure an endless number of similar heart-warming stories could be told. This however would not change the debate as it stands in the form of American law or theoretical debate about abortion.

My parent truly felt that it was not their choice (or the doctors choice to make)
But they made a choice:

and they refused to sign for the procedure.
This was a choice. To not authorize a procedure was a choice they made.

I am pretty happy they felt it wasn't their decision to make. ;)
They made a choice and it was theirs to make. Why they 'felt' this way should not be something that is forced, by way of legislation, on everybody else.

m42

11-06-2008, 06:10 PM

Thanks for the story. I fail to see it's relevance to a debate about abortion though.

I'd say it's extremely relevant considering Cricket Faith Walker would not be active in this debate if her parents had made a different choice. ;)

I'm rather fond of having her around.

kerrin

11-06-2008, 06:20 PM

I'd say it's extremely relevant considering Cricket Faith Walker would not be active in this debate if her parents had made a different choice. ;)

I'm rather fond of having her around.
Good point. I relent with tail-between-legs. :cry:

Cricket

11-06-2008, 06:33 PM

It feels relevant to me. ;)

*smiles*

kerrin

11-06-2008, 06:40 PM

Anenome

11-06-2008, 07:32 PM

That statement covers more than just ectopic pregnancies. You still appear to condone murder.

What makes the mother's life more valuable than the childs?

- My position is that neither life is more valuable. I consider an ectopic pregnancy a special case because of the accidental nature of that type of pregnancy, and we haven't been treating it as such up to this point.

Terminating a pregnancy that has no chance of viability, I think you've conceded now, cannot be considered morally wrong. So the question is only ectopic cases which have a chance of mother and/or baby surviving.

Something has gone wrong with the pregnancy, it is not a normal situation, it is in fact an accident which has placed both of their lives in peril, though not quite in the same way. Murder does not involve accident, we usually call accidental-killing 'manslaughter' but even is not manslaughter as we'll see later. Murder requires intent. In this case it is the accident of the type of pregnancy which is forcing the choice, thus this is definitely not in the 'murder' category for it is not intent to kill which is causing this choice to be made but rather a complete accident of biology.

We must liken the case of an ectopic pregnancy to a similar moral situation which may bring some clarity. Say you were hiking with a friend and you suddenly slip as does your friend and you end up with one hand on the ledge and one hand holding your friend who is below you and was knocked out in the fall, asleep. Now, if you hold on long enough another hiker may come by and save you (we'll call this analogous to carrying the baby 9 months to delivery). However, you don't know how long your grip may last (an ectopic pregnancy my hemorrhage at any time leading to the quick death of both mother and child) and if your hand slips you both die. You might be able to pull yourself up and survive, but only if you drop your friend, who is now completely at your mercy.

In such a situation, when the movies present it, the one hanging at the bottom tells the hero to go ahead and drop them and save themself :P But would the first person have committed murder by dropping the second?

Historically such an act has not been considered murder, or even manslaughter to my knowledge. It's simply an unfortunate accident, even if you drop the other and survive there was little else you could do and people are glad one of your survived. Just as an ectopic pregnancy is simply an accident.

In the end, I would give the mother a choice whether to go through with an ectopic pregnancy that has a chance of success or risk her own life by going through with it. And again, I'll note that when faced with the question quite a few women have chosen to go through with it. Some died and some survived. And those who chose to abort a dangerous ectopic pregnancy may then go on to have other children and lament that ectopic accident, but should remember it guilt free, in my opinion.

Anenome

11-06-2008, 08:01 PM

Anenome,

I have purposefully, for the sake of space, chosen not to respond to your response to the "bit too theoretical" argument. We can continue that at a later time if you wish. Instead I will focus on what you originally were arguing, which was within the American context of the abortion debate.

- Of course, I'd actually like to hear more about your social contract argument, because I can say at this point that it strikes me as a bit slim. The flaw is in proposition 2, with certainty. I think the solution of a property-based ethic far superior, but -yes, a debate for another forum.

And as for remarking it as being 'too theoretical', I did not mean to offend. I perhaps tend to approach these things with the idea of a debate in mind more than philosophical proofs. And I don't think anyone would be convinced by rattling off proofs for an argument. But in these forums you're right that they are a productive way to approach the issue.

Which is enough for my point to stand. Conception does not equal human life 100% of the time. So the Republicans and religious-right need to stop saying that!!!! It's semantic manipulation, period.
- Hmm, I felt sure that you would agree with me on this one :< The salient point is that pro-abortion people say the baby at conception can be 0% human, 0% alive, 0% person. But the clear testament of biology is that life comes from life, and like comes from like. A human cannot contribute even half the genetic material of a zygote and have it be considered 0% human. That's completely illogical. That refutes their 0% human argument. The way you've framed the argument you did destroy the 100% human claim, but you did it by using a special case which is not actually important to the discussion. No one's claiming rights for half human/pig nonviable embryos. You raise a special case, that of a cross-species fertilization resulting in a non-viable embryo, and completely dismiss the implications of the normal and typical case. Your reasoning to destroy the Rights argument is, granted, clever, and you seem quite pleased with it :D But I don't think it refutes the Rights claim, merely sidetracks the discussion. Your special case does not show an instance of a human fertilization showing 0% human-ness; which is what you'd have to show for your point to stick. If there's a hole in my logic somewhere please point it out, but I don't see it right now.

If 'person' in this context was a biological human life, then why was the 14th amendment needed to protect thousands of disenfranchised southerners and former slaves (certainly they are 'persons') that needed the protection and 'rights' provided by the Constitution?
- Because back then, as with many countries, you were only a citizen if your parents where citizens. Blacks were not considered citizens at that point. 'Birth' became a convenient way to delineate who was now a citizen and why, based on a past, verifiable event.

The problem I have with this line of reasoning is the attempt to misuse the intent of the language to apply it to a tangential problem. This -is- the use of semantics to skirt the law. The law which clearly previously provided a right to life barring due process, zygotes are in fact alive and can be killed, can be murdered. The 5th directly applies, and people have even been prosecuted for murder / manslaughter for killing unborn children through physical violence against the mother, etc. True, you aren't legally a citizen until you are born, because that produces an event, and also because conception is hard to prove. But that doesn't make you non-alive pre-birth in a biological sense. The law likes to use the standard of the 'reasonable person' and I don't think you're being reasonable in denying the 5th applicability and applying the 14ths unintended wording for such a situation.

In context of the 5th amendment the 'person' is the same born or naturalized citizen in the 14th amendment. 'Person' used within these legal documents was not used to describe a biological or natural human being, but has a "technical legal meaning" in which "a 'person' is any subject of legal rights and duties"*(source: John Chipman Gray, The Nature and Sources of the Law). Because these entities may have legal rights and duties, they are considered 'legal persons' to distinguish them from natural, biological persons. The 'person' referred to in these legal documents is a legal entity not a biological person. Thus as I stated before an amendment is needed to protect the unborn.
- Effectively an amendment is needed due to the way law works, that is certainly true. I'd still rather see the states deal with it, why should the Fed be embroiled in the issue? The clear wording of the 5th amendment is easily extendable to the unborn, since 'birth' is a mere technicality in the road to life. Lawyers twisted the law far further to produce an ephemeral right to privacy out of whole cloth, twisting the Constitution far more than it would take to extend the 5th amendment to the unborn, which is already easily implied.

m42

11-06-2008, 08:05 PM

- My position is that neither life is more valuable.

By your previously stated logic, it's OK for a mother to terminate a pregnancy at her discretion. That implies that you condone a mother's belief that her life is more valuable than her child's.

I consider an ectopic pregnancy a special case because of the accidental nature of that type of pregnancy, and we haven't been treating it as such up to this point.

Terminating a pregnancy that has no chance of viability, I think you've conceded now, cannot be considered morally wrong.

Interesting choice of words. Conceded implies a grudging acknowledgment. You have not convinced me of anything.

Let me clarify this one last time, nonviable ectopic pregnancies have no place in this discussion as nonviable ectopic pregnancies are not in question. Morality has little if nothing to do with them. The fetus is effectively dead.

Note: I know I sound bitchy but I dislike repetition. Let's put it this way, I've had a nonviable ectopic pregnancy. Please don't assume everyone else is stupid. It's infuriating.

So the question is only ectopic cases which have a chance of mother and/or baby surviving.

Something has gone wrong with the pregnancy, it is not a normal situation, it is in fact an accident which has placed both of their lives in peril, though not quite in the same way. Murder does not involve accident, we usually call accidental-killing 'manslaughter' but even is not manslaughter as we'll see later. Murder requires intent. In this case it is the accident of the type of pregnancy which is forcing the choice, thus this is definitely not in the 'murder' category for it is not intent to kill which is causing this choice to be made but rather a complete accident of biology.

We must liken the case of an ectopic pregnancy to a similar moral situation which may bring some clarity. Say you were hiking with a friend and you suddenly slip as does your friend and you end up with one hand on the ledge and one hand holding your friend who is below you and was knocked out in the fall, asleep. Now, if you hold on long enough another hiker may come by and save you (we'll call this analogous to carrying the baby 9 months to delivery). However, you don't know how long your grip may last (an ectopic pregnancy my hemorrhage at any time leading to the quick death of both mother and child) and if your hand slips you both die. You might be able to pull yourself up and survive, but only if you drop your friend, who is now completely at your mercy.

In such a situation, when the movies present it, the one hanging at the bottom tells the hero to go ahead and drop them and save themself :P But would the first person have committed murder by dropping the second?

Historically such an act has not been considered murder, or even manslaughter to my knowledge. It's simply an unfortunate accident, even if you drop the other and survive there was little else you could do and people are glad one of your survived. Just as an ectopic pregnancy is simply an accident.

In the end, I would give the mother a choice whether to go through with an ectopic pregnancy that has a chance of success or risk her own life by going through with it. And again, I'll note that when faced with the question quite a few women have chosen to go through with it. Some died and some survived. And those who chose to abort a dangerous ectopic pregnancy may then go on to have other children and lament that ectopic accident, but should remember it guilt free, in my opinion.

Then a) You are still pro-choice and b) It's still voluntary manslaughter.

Circumstances are irrelevant. You can't sugar coat it with what if's. The mother and child may also survive, just like Cricket. You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder.

Anenome

11-06-2008, 08:31 PM

By your previously stated logic, it's OK for a mother to terminate a pregnancy at her discretion. That implies that you condone a mother's belief that her life is more valuable than her child's.
- I suppose you could characterize it that way. I see it more as the right to defend her life in a situation neither of them chose, like I said a choice forced by the accident of the ectopic pregnancy.

Let me clarify this one last time, nonviable ectopic pregnancies have no place in this discussion as nonviable ectopic pregnancies are not in question. Morality has little if nothing to do with them. The fetus is effectively dead.

Note: I know I sound bitchy but I dislike repetition. Let's put it this way, I've had a nonviable ectopic pregnancy. Please don't assume everyone else is stupid. It's infuriating.
- If I'm repeating and clarifying it's because several of your last posts have come across as contradictory, perhaps my fault in reading them. For instance, I previously believed you to be saying that you were pro-abortion and actively thought it was murder, and therefore concluded you thought murder in the case of abortion was fine. You however dismissed that idea too :P So forgive me for making sure and covering ground again.

Then a) You are still pro-choice and b) It's still voluntary manslaughter.
- Unless they choose to have an ectopic pregnancy I don't think you can characterize me as pro-choice, anymore than I'm pro-dropping-people-off-ledges when the two people in my moral analogy are thrust into that situation and I say it's morally acceptable for the first to drop the second without guilt or prosecution.

And, legally, even voluntary manslaughter requires intent to kill. There is no such intent displayed either in the case of a terminated ectopic pregnancy nor my moral analogy. You may as well condemn those who ran out of the Twin Towers as being guilty of voluntary manslaughter for putting their life over people they possibly could've saved before the towers fell. But that would be ridiculous, and I think the same standard applies here.

Circumstances are irrelevant. You can't sugar coat it with what if's. The mother and child may also survive, just like Cricket. You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder.
- Such a blanket statement is simplistic and far too categorical. I'm surprised M, I expect better of you. You're making the claim that any intervention resulting in the loss of life of an embryo is categorically murder? Really? Even despite the cases we've already gone through where you said the opposite? Now, I'll try to be fair and assume you aren't contradicting your previous statements and address that.

If your claim is that if the mother and child have as little as a 1% chance of living that it is murder if you abort, we can go from there. Let's take another analogy:

You're a police officer, the suspect in front of you pulls a gun from his waistband and begins motioning to shoot you. There is a chance that the fun is fake, that it could misfire, that the bullets won't hit you, or that your armor will stop it all. Should we then call the cop who shoots first a murderer?

Perhaps you don't like that one because intent to kill is displayed by the suspect when an ectopic pregnancy displays no such intent, and a 'medical condition' cannot be convicted of a crime or commit a violation worthy of death :P Would be funny if your toe tried to kill you, but it simply doesn't happen. A suspect also provides imminent danger of death whereas an ectopic pregnancy does not.

I can't help but return to the fact that an ectopic pregnancy is nothing more than an accident of biology and that that has great weight on the moral choices presented by the condition, and only by the condition. You don't agree, ok :) But that is my conclusion. Circumstances are not irrelevant and have never been irrelevant. These are some reaching claims for someone coming across as otherwise logical. In fact there are few things that cannot be made moral, that are otherwise considered immoral, by the right circumstances. Child rape is one of the few things I haven't seen anyone come up with a circumstance for that makes it a moral act (thank God).

m42

11-06-2008, 09:17 PM

You're making the claim that any intervention resulting in the loss of life of an embryo is categorically murder? Really? Even despite the cases we've already gone through where you said the opposite? Now, I'll try to be fair and assume you aren't contradicting your previous statements and address that.

Where did I say that? Where did I state the opposite?

I said kill. That's pretty specific. Shall we review the definition?

Dictionary:

Main Entry: kill
Pronunciation:
\ˈkil\
transitive verb1 a: to deprive of life : cause the death of b (1): to slaughter (as a hog) for food (2): to convert a food animal into (a kind of meat) by slaughtering2 a: to put an end to <kill competition> b: defeat , veto <killed the amendment> c: to mark for omission ; also : delete d: annihilate , destroy <kill an enemy>3 a: to destroy the vital or essential quality of <killed the pain with drugs>

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kill

Thesaurus:

Entry Word:
kill
Function:
verb

Text: 1 to deprive of life<the soldier was killed in battle>Synonymscroak [slang], destroy, dispatch, do in, fell, slayRelated Wordsannihilate, blot out, butcher, decimate, massacre, slaughter, wipe out; cut down, finish, nip, snuff; assassinate, execute, murder, smitePhrasesdo away withNear Antonymsrestore, resurrect, resuscitate, revive; nurture

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/kill

I have not contradicted myself.

You're a police officer, the suspect in front of you pulls a gun from his waistband and begins motioning to shoot you. There is a chance that the fun is fake, that it could misfire, that the bullets won't hit you, or that your armor will stop it all. Should we then call the cop who shoots first a murderer?

Perhaps you don't like that one because intent to kill is displayed by the suspect when an ectopic pregnancy displays no such intent, and a 'medical condition' cannot be convicted of a crime or commit a violation worthy of death :P Would be funny if your toe tried to kill you, but it simply doesn't happen. A suspect also provides imminent danger of death whereas an ectopic pregnancy does not.

I can't help but return to the fact that an ectopic pregnancy is nothing more than an accident of biology and that that has great weight on the moral choices presented by the condition, and only by the condition. You don't agree, ok :) But that is my conclusion. Circumstances are not irrelevant and have never been irrelevant. These are some reaching claims for someone coming across as otherwise logical. In fact there are few things that cannot be made moral, that are otherwise considered immoral, by the right circumstances. Child rape is one of the few things I haven't seen anyone come up with a circumstance for that makes it a moral act (thank God).

If you agree to carry a gun, you agree to the possibility of using it. Again, it doesn't make it less of a murder. :) It all quite deliberate from the moment you get your hands on a gun.

Is your goal to justify murder in the guise of something seemingly more benign? I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. Murder is murder. Either you accept it, or you don't.

You are correct, I do not agree with your conclusions. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. :)

Anenome

11-07-2008, 01:07 AM

Where did I say that? Where did I state the opposite?

I said kill. That's pretty specific. Shall we review the definition?

Sure, let's review what you said:

M42 said: "You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder."

You said 'murder'. And kill and murder are distinct despite your thesaurus definition. Murder has a component of intent. Kill is a statement of the result of an action in which intent is not ascribed. Let's not mix-up legal and colloquial definitions. Murder is not the same thing as killing in a legal sense. 'Murder' is always used for an unlawful act. 'Kill' encompasses both moral deaths and immoral deaths. An execution is a killing, not a murder, for instance.

Well, I think I see why you are saying that, showing those two definitions, however there's a error in your reasoning. While it is true that all murders are killings, it is also true that not all killings are murders. The street doesn't go both ways. You cannot blanket all killings with the word 'murder', this fact is not expressed through the definitions you gave but is plain from a legal point of view. If you're trying to equate the two words without taking into account their distinct uses then your previous statement is also non-sensical, which may also be why I'm a bit confused here. It would be the same thing as saying, "You kill a human being at any stage and you've killed them."

If you agree to carry a gun, you agree to the possibility of using it. Again, it doesn't make it less of a murder. :) It all quite deliberate from the moment you get your hands on a gun.

Is your goal to justify murder in the guise of something seemingly more benign? I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way. Murder is murder. Either you accept it, or you don't.

You are correct, I do not agree with your conclusions. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. :)

- Ah, perhaps I see the problem now. You have been using the word 'murder' as if it were synonymous with 'kill'? A police officer defending himself in the situation I presented does not murder the other man, he kills him. He will not be prosecuted for 1st degree murder or manslaughter because he is acting in self-defense, in fear of his life. He did kill the man, but he did not murder him. My usage of the word 'murder' it seems adheres closer to the legal definition.

As a further explanation, some have said it is impossible to murder a non-human being. Some counter that you can kill an animal with premeditated malicious intent. They're both kinda right, in the sense that you can only be prosecuted for murder for killing a human-being. Murder is a word we use for the special category of people killing other people unjustly.

Thus, if what you meant to say is that I condone 'killing' in the case I listed, then I agree. There are many more scenarios where I think killing is completely justified as well, besides the special case of an ectopic pregnancy. Again, grasping at straws here to understand where you're coming from, M42, but it sounds like your position is that you're against all killing of humans by other humans (and using the word murder to mean 'kill')? Because saying that a cop shooting to defend himself is always a case of wrongful-killing (ie: murder) is, respectfully, ludicrous.

m42

11-07-2008, 10:58 AM

I have not yet stated my position as ProLife or ProChoice in this thread, yet you seem hell bent on guessing it. My position is my concern. If I choose to share it, I will.

You're making the claim that any intervention resulting in the loss of life of an embryo is categorically murder? Really? Even despite the cases we've already gone through where you said the opposite?

I have not made that claim. You have. Here's a glaring reason why the intervention response sounds moronic:

An intervention could imply an attempt to save a child's life.

Please stop putting words in my mouth.

I've repeatedly told you that killing a potentially viable embryo is murder. Show me exactly where I have contradicted that statement. Don't give me a long paragraph on why I'm contradicting myself. Don't try to psychoanalyse me, your assumptions are completely wrong. ;)

I did not say kill == murder. I provided a qualifier with "to kill a viable human being."

I did not state that all killings are murders. You did.

We are discussing the termination of embryos prior to gestation, not a person who violates the terms of a social contract. Stick to the thread topic.

As a further explanation, some have said it is impossible to murder a non-human being.

An embryo's DNA clearly shows it's human.

Re: Cops:

Cops are recruited to actively uphold the terms of the social contract. My point is, whether justified in killing or not, it becomes voluntary from the moment they obtain a gun.

And anyone who waves a gun (real or fake) at a cop probably deserves to be shot, keeping in mind that cops don't usually shoot kids who do it. ;)

Anenome

11-07-2008, 01:31 PM

I have not yet stated my position as ProLife or ProChoice in this thread, yet you seem hell bent on guessing it. My position is my concern. If I choose to share it, I will.
- Well, I did assume you had a point when you made previous statements. My bad. Making a point implies taking a position. Your stated position was that any killing of a viable embryo = murder.

Originally Posted by anenome
"You're making the claim that any intervention resulting in the loss of life of an embryo is categorically murder?"

I have not made that claim. You have.
- I must ask you to explain this quote of yours then: "You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder."
Because that's exactly what you said.

Here's a glaring reason why the intervention response sounds moronic:

An intervention could imply an attempt to save a child's life.

Please stop putting words in my mouth.
- Haha, I was being nice due to being new and all, but I really think you're pulling my leg now. You're actually gonna cordon off one word in a statement and take it out of context completely? I clearly said, "any intervention resulting in the loss of life" so it expressely excludes cases where intervention exists to save a child's life. I'm a bit at a loss for words right now over this glaring obviousness. Since I expressely excluded intervention to save a life, in my statement, why even make this point? Thus I conclude you're testing the limits of my patience deliberately. I say that because I don't want to conclude that you're being legitimately moronic, but maybe so.

I've repeatedly told you that killing a potentially viable embryo is murder. Show me exactly where I have contradicted that statement. Don't give me a long paragraph on why I'm contradicting myself. Don't try to psychoanalyse me, your assumptions are completely wrong. ;)
- Yeah, you've said that. And that is, by the way, called taking a position on the topic. And I've showed cases where it's not the case, where a viable embryo can be killed with wrongful death being committed. Because viability is not a 100% / 0% dichotomy, and accidental medical conditions which have no ill-intent ascribed to them can complicate the matter morally.

I did not say kill == murder. I provided a qualifier with "to kill a viable human being."

I did not state that all killings are murders. You did.
- Did I? I'll have to look back on my statements and see if I misspoke, because I do not believe that and never have. This is the part where quotes come in useful, seems I thought you were making the claim.

We are discussing the termination of embryos prior to gestation, not a person who violates the terms of a social contract. Stick to the thread topic.
- Your and my discussion is not happening in a vacuum here. Kerrin brought up issues of the social contract as they relate to abortion. I'm sticking just fine. Or perhaps you mean my moral analogies, which are being used to illuminate the abortion issue morally.

An embryo's DNA clearly shows it's human.
- At least 50% human, as in Kerrin's example ;P

Cops are recruited to actively uphold the terms of the social contract. My point is, whether justified in killing or not, it becomes voluntary from the moment they obtain a gun.
- Yes, but you also implied that any killing a cop did would be murder, which I strongly disagreed with. Voluntary killing is not the definition of murder.

I can honestly say I've not had such a strange forum discussion in a very long time, M.

edit: ----

Here's the first time that killing and murder are brought up in the thread:

Originally Posted by Anenome
Ah, but some would also say that the decision to abort is the decision to kill anothers body.

The decision to abort is a decision to kill another's body. I flat out stated that it is murder.
Some people believe it to be a necessary evil. It's still murder.

Seems it was in fact you who first equated killing and murder. I'll pass the buck to you to find the quote you're referring to.
This is also the quote which led me to believe you thought abortion was both acceptable as a necessary evil and also murder. I think any reasonable person could take that from this statement of yours. True you qualify it with 'some people believe...' which I why I challenged you on it to see if you were willing to defend it.

I'm also not sure how you can say something like this and not believe you've taken a position on the subject. Your position is: "Abortion for any reason is murder." Which at face value would be construed as a very pro-life position.

kerrin

11-07-2008, 03:10 PM

Anenome,

Again for the sake of space I only choose a few of your claims. Let me know if I missed anything for which you would like an answer.

Of course, I'd actually like to hear more about your social contract argument...
I'd rather discuss this with John. He is the social contract expert. I setup my argument to debate with John because I want to hear his thoughts, but perhaps you and I can discuss later.

And as for remarking it as being 'too theoretical', I did not mean to offend.
None taken. I am very hard to offend. In fact it'll be a marvelous accomplishment if you do offend me. I have "tough skin" as they say.

The salient point is that pro-abortion people say the baby at conception can be 0% human, 0% alive, 0% person.
Again, I am not pro-abortion. So perhaps a salient point somewhere else, but irrelevant to my arguments. I am anti-government intervention in the matter as it stands now. I remain such, until an amendment consented to by the people that includes the unborn in the social contract, by declaring them to be citizens, is ratified. The way our crazy representative republic is supposed to work!

But the clear testament of biology is that life comes from life, and like comes from like.
Evolution theory would disagree with you. Eventually new species come from the previously unlike species. Then it may be life but is it human life as we know human life? This, however, is probably not the appropriate thread for an evolution debate.

The way you've framed the argument you did destroy the 100% human claim, but you did it by using a special case which is not actually important to the discussion. No one's claiming rights for half human/pig nonviable embryos.
They do when they claim that all life begins at conception and therefore must be afforded rights by the government. Do all the 100% human zygotes not yet attached to the uterus have the 'right to life'? If so, you will need the government doing everything in its power to ensure that every zygote attaches to the wall of the uterus (as you know, some 100% human zygotes don't always reach implementation). The mother can do or not do many things such as diet & exercise that could hinder the attachment of the zygote, government should enforce the best practices here, right? Oh, and while you're at it you could use tax dollars to insure ever zygote's 'right to life' by reaching implementation. ;)

Because back then, as with many countries, you were only a citizen if your parents where citizens. Blacks were not considered citizens at that point. 'Birth' became a convenient way to delineate who was now a citizen and why, based on a past, verifiable event.
Up until 1973 citizens were seen as those who were born or naturalized in the United States. In section VI.3 of Roe/Wade the Christian view of when the soul is infused (animation) in a 'person' is even briefly mentioned and considered:*"Christian theology and the canon law came to fix the point of animation at 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female, a view that persisted until the 19th century, there was otherwise little agreement about the precise time of formation or animation. There was agreement, however, that prior to this point the fetus was to be regarded as part of the mother, and its destruction, therefore, was not homicide."

This then lead to viability.

The 5th directly applies, and people have even been prosecuted for murder / manslaughter for killing unborn children through physical violence against the mother, etc.
I think you're going to need to fall back to 'viability' on this one, or state law created after 1973. Do you have some court cases preceding 1973 you would like to sight as successful prosecution in favor of your argument, ones that use just the 5th amendment?

State law used for this type of prosecution uses "unborn child" to protect the 'unborn.' For some reason they found it "convenient" to use the novel word 'unborn' to protect them. ;)

True, you aren't legally a citizen until you are born, because that produces an event, and also because conception is hard to prove. But that doesn't make you non-alive pre-birth in a biological sense.
I never said the unborn are non-alive pre-birth, are you being silly? They are alive just not a legally protected entity via the Constitution. Legal citizenship is the issue, which you agreed with me on.

The law likes to use the standard of the 'reasonable person' and I don't think you're being reasonable in denying the 5th applicability and applying the 14ths unintended wording for such a situation.
I am using a common understanding of the legal use of 'person,' which you have not refuted. I used both 5th and 14th because both had a similar purpose to protect a previously unprotected group of people. It is not clear that the unborn are protected therefore another amendment is needed.

You claimed the "right to life" for a zygote is protected by the 5th amendment because of the word 'person'. Yet, you totally ignored my point about the legal context of 'person' and its meaning in these legal documents.

Again for your consideration:
'Person' used within these legal documents (constitution and amendments) was not used to describe a biological or natural human being, but has a "technical legal meaning" in which "a 'person' is any subject of legal rights and duties."* Because these entities may have legal rights and duties, they are considered 'legal persons' to distinguish them from natural, biological persons. The 'person' referred to in these legal documents is a legal entity not a biological person.

*(source: John Chipman Gray, The Nature and Sources of the Law)

I'd still rather see the states deal with it, why should the Fed be embroiled in the issue?
The solution, perhaps, should be left for another thread, but of course I disagree.

Lawyers twisted the law far further to produce an ephemeral right to privacy out of whole cloth
Religious-right propaganda used by most Republicans. While there is no express right in the Constitution it is mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Also there are plenty of previous court rulings that have upheld the 'right to privacy' dating back to the 1920's encompassing decisions about child rearing, procreation, marriage, and termination of medical treatment. I do not want the 'right to privacy' done away with for many obvious reasons.

m42

11-07-2008, 03:32 PM

Well, I did assume you had a point when you made previous statements. My bad. Making a point implies taking a position. Your stated position was that any killing of a viable embryo = murder.

Yes. I have a specific point, but you are failing to grasp it, so for all you know I'm arguing for both positions. You really need to stop making assumptions.

- I must ask you to explain this quote of yours then: "You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder."
Because that's exactly what you said.

I'm sorry, I'm failing to see what you don't understand about the words potentially viable in an abortion discussion. An embryo is a potentially viable developing human being. If you avoid killing it, it will likely become a fully developed viable human being. ;)

If you do opt to deliberately kill it, you are murdering a potentially viable human being. You want social contract? Try this: The social contract grants pretty much everyone the right to life. The exception being, people who violate the social contract. Wanna tell me how a potentially viable human violates the social contract?

And for the record, even if not fully developed, a child has a full set of DNA at conception. Your statement that it is at least 50% human is valid, but misleading. A human at conception is 100% human. DNA doesn't lie.

I do not know how to make this more clear.

I clearly said, "any intervention resulting in the loss of life" so it expressely excludes cases where intervention exists to save a child's life. I'm a bit at a loss for words right now over this glaring obviousness. Since I expressely excluded intervention to save a life, in my statement, why even make this point? Thus I conclude you're testing the limits of my patience deliberately. I say that because I don't want to conclude that you're being legitimately moronic, but maybe so.

I did not take it out of context. You did not expressly exclude intervention to save a life. You stated “any intervention resulting in the loss of life.” There are no real exceptions if you use the word “any.”

The basis for your intervention statement was to attempt to generalize my statement, not to express your stance. If you're going to rewrite my statements, be sure to keep them true to what I've actually stated, not your continuously erroneous interpretations of what I've stated.

- Yeah, you've said that. And that is, by the way, called taking a position on the topic. And I've showed cases where it's not the case, where a viable embryo can be killed with wrongful death being committed. Because viability is not a 100% / 0% dichotomy, and accidental medical conditions which have no ill-intent ascribed to them can complicate the matter morally

Wow. Have you considered the possibility that you aren't nearly as intelligent as you believe you are? For all you know, I condone murder.

Abortion in this discussion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. Miscarriage is the accidental termination of a pregnancy. You have yet to show an actual case where the deliberate killing of a child is not murder. All you have done is convey that if a mother's life is at risk, you condone abortion. You've stated that neither life is more valuable, yet you back a mother's decision to choose her own life over the life of another human being. If you support that decision, you just may support the possibility that one life is indeed more valuable. Here's the clue...the life that can't exactly defend itself usually loses. ;)

I am not questioning your point. Your point is clear. You condone abortion. Whether or not I agree with your stance is irrelevant. Now try to convince me that abortion isn't murder. The cases you've stated still involve a conscious decision to terminate the life of a human embryo that could potentially live.

Since you yourself have stated that it isn't 100%, why take the negative route? Why choose one life over another when there are no guarantees both will die?

Did I? I'll have to look back on my statements and see if I misspoke, because I do not believe that and never have. This is the part where quotes come in useful, seems I thought you were making the claim.

Yes. I never told you all killing = murder. You stated it during your attempt to put words in my mouth.

Your and my discussion is not happening in a vacuum here. Kerrin brought up issues of the social contract as they relate to abortion. I'm sticking just fine. Or perhaps you mean my moral analogies, which are being used to illuminate the abortion issue morally.

Way to take responsibility for your statements! Kerrin's statements were focused on the topic of the abortion, yours were general and fell well outside the topic of abortion.

Yes, but you also implied that any killing a cop did would be murder, which I strongly disagreed with. Voluntary killing is not the definition of murder.

No. Voluntary killing of a person you aren't certain is a threat, is murder. You might have to ask the victims family on that one. It is clear your brain can't parse simple statements.

Seems it was in fact you who first equated killing and murder. I'll pass the buck to you to find the quote you're referring to.
This is also the quote which led me to believe you thought abortion was both acceptable as a necessary evil and also murder. I think any reasonable person could take that from this statement of yours. True you qualify it with 'some people believe...' which I why I challenged you on it to see if you were willing to defend it.

I'm also not sure how you can say something like this and not believe you've taken a position on the subject. Your position is: "Abortion for any reason is murder." Which at face value would be construed as a very pro-life position.

I equated killing via abortion to murder. Let me reiterate the part of this discussion where I said for all you know I condone murder. See my previous statement on miscarriages if you really want to go back to nonviable pregnancies.

I'm sorry, are you illiterate? Or do you just insist on parsing partial statements and regurgitating them as erroneous generalizations?

I have made this extremely clear. If you don't get it, there isn't much more I can say.

Anenome

11-07-2008, 08:07 PM

Originally Posted by anenome
Yes, but you also implied that any killing a cop did would be murder, which I strongly disagreed with. Voluntary killing is not the definition of murder.

M42: "No. Voluntary killing of a person you aren't certain is a threat, is murder."
That standard is unreasonable, and not what the courts use currently. By that standard a police officer would have to make sure there are actually bullets in a suspects gun even if its pointed at him. The only reasonable way to do this would be to let the suspect get off the first shot, since he can't be certain a gun is a threat unless you know it also has bullets in it. Guns are quite harmless without bullets after all.

All that's actually needed to voluntarily kill someone and have it not be murder is for you to be reasonably in fear of your life. That can be as little as someone reaching into their waistband or jacket in a sudden action.

As far as an ectopic pregnancy goes, all that is needed is the reasonable fear that the situation may take your life. This can be medically determined.

Anenome

11-07-2008, 08:32 PM

Anenome

11-07-2008, 08:46 PM

To clarify:

We are talking about the decision of any person to terminate a fetus that would otherwise have some chance at reaching gestation/post gestational viability.

Ectopic pregnancies have a slim to none chance at viability. Although extremely rare, ectopic pregnancies do occasionally make it to gestation.

Where do you draw the line?

I draw the line where things have gone wrong, where the accident of circumstance places lives in danger. And in an ectopic pregnancy things have already gone wrong. Again, ectopic pregnancy is a biological accident. This biological accident is also life-threatening to both mother and baby.

Anenome

11-07-2008, 08:50 PM

That statement covers more than just ectopic pregnancies. You still appear to condone murder.

What makes the mother's life more valuable than the childs?

- It's not a question of valuing one over the other, it's the asymmetrical consequences involved. Mother can survive w/o baby. Baby cannot survive w/o mother. Fixing the situation can only involve removing the baby. We cannot remove mother and let baby continue, so your assertion is moot. By giving her a choice I'm conceding that neither is more important objectively and she should decide which she thinks it more important.

Accidental death happens all time and the word 'murder' is not ascribed to them. I'm curious why you persist on calling an abortion on the basis of ectopic condition 'murder' when it is a condition that falls into the realm of an accident.

Anenome

11-07-2008, 09:07 PM

Then a) You are still pro-choice and b) It's still voluntary manslaughter.

c) Circumstances are irrelevant. You can't sugar coat it with what if's. The mother and child may also survive, just like Cricket. You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder.

a) I am pro-choice in the situation of the mother's life being in actual medical danger, and in that situation alone. It's not fair to use that caveat, non-standard situation to paint me as pro-choice in general, so I reject this. I do not consider my position that of pro-choice in-general.

b) It doesn't meet the standard for Manslaughter, I have contended it's akin to accidental death, with the accidental nature of the medical condition forcing the choice.

c) "You kill a potentially viable human being, at ANY stage in its development, and it is murder."
I did misspeak before, I said that murder was taking a life against that person's will. I left out the word 'wrongful'. And actually I would reformulate it, since murder can be carried out even when someone wishes to be killed. So the better definition is simply a wrongful killing. Most abortions are wrongful killings. Abortions in which medical conditions threaten life of mother and child I still maintain should be classified as accidental situations necessitating a choice, thus no murder can be construed. Please address that specifically.

kerrin

11-07-2008, 10:30 PM

(I'll take a theoretical tack with you, Kerrin :) I see now how this thread started, and my original post began, with entirely cross purposes. My own fault for being too exuberant, etc.)
Does this mean you are abandoning your "pro-life" arguments in the American context of abortion?

Anyway, thanks for acknowledging your over exuberance.

I would contend that willingly engaging in sex means acceptance of the risk of pregnancy, which is itself means an obligation to any life produced by it.
To which of my propositions are you disagreeing by using this contention? I fail to see its relevance.

Besides the irrelevance, it's silly because it does not support your previous arguments in this thread: First, one who is unwillingly engaged in sex is under no such "obligation" and can abort consequences at will. Second, a 'willingness' to engage in sex accompanied with an ignorance of consequences also affords no such "obligation" and they can abort such consequences at will.

Furthermore, the only way to put aside the social contract is to violate it...
'Consent to' precedes 'to violate.' P2 stands.

Although I still prefer thinking in terms of property rights ;P
By all means, continue thinking that way if you prefer. However, if this is your preference I would recommend you abandon your engagement in this debate.

Anenome

11-07-2008, 11:01 PM

Does this mean you are abandoning your "pro-life" arguments in the American context of abortion?
- With you, yes, I'll likely continue it with M42.

Anyway, thanks for acknowledging your over exuberance.
/Nod

Originally Posted by Anenome http://individualism.com/community/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://individualism.com/community/showthread.php?p=1135#post1135) :"I would contend that willingly engaging in sex means acceptance of the risk of pregnancy, which is itself means an obligation to any life produced by it."

To which of my propositions are you disagreeing by using this contention? I fail to see its relevance.
- Fair enough. I want to ask you about the condition of entering into the social contract first however. It would seem that entering into it is implied not express. We don't meet strangers and ask them to contract with us over basic rights between us, however we assume it unless they break a tenet of the social contract. I'd rather ask you now than proceed as if I know the answer, since in this assertion I assumed part of the answer. In the end, assuming you give the answer I expect, I could use my argument to attack each premise in different ways, including arguing P1 applies to the unborn.

Besides the irrelevance, it's silly because it does not support your previous arguments in this thread: First, one who is unwillingly engaged in sex is under no such "obligation" and can abort consequences at will.
- True, and I contend that there are various circumstances or categories of abortions which have their own moral considerations. Typically I speak assuming the vast majority of which are the product of consensual sex. Rape is a tough issue to deal with, very emotional, but to sum it up: punish the rapist. I may have, again, delved too far into my standard reasonings with pro-choice feminists with this assertion, we shall see.

My main line of attack is in P2 and P3 right now. I have concerns about your strict usage of active contracting as a condition of ethical behavior. If the social contract is assumed the be in place unless proven otherwise then P2 & P3 is null. Is active consent required for the SC to exist between individuals and what is the mechanism by which one enters into the SC with a society or its individuals? And as for P3 there are born humans who cannot consent to anything whom it would also be murder to kill. Examples would be those in coma's or otherwise born unable to communicate. Should give you an idea of where I'm heading.

'Consent to' precedes 'to violate.' P2 stands.

- Right, unless 'consent to' is implied up-front, which is why I want you to clarify the mechanism or conditions of consent :)

By all means, continue thinking that way if you prefer. However, if this is your preference I would recommend you abandon your engagement in this debate.
- Oh no way! >:D Viewing things in terms of property-rights is a beautiful solution to many problems :D Adding a lens of property-rights to social contract considerations can clarify things greatly, IMO. Instead of speaking about when or if someone contracts into the SC, we merely say that they have property, we have property, we respect each others property.

Anenome

11-07-2008, 11:18 PM

I am anti-government intervention in the matter as it stands now. I remain such, until an amendment consented to by the people that includes the unborn in the social contract, by declaring them to be citizens, is ratified. The way our crazy representative republic is supposed to work!
- I know what you're saying. How do you respond to the challenge that one may also be convicted for murdering non-citizens? Citizens or not, murder is murder. Protecting citizens from killing each other unlawfully is a legitimate function of government, I think we would all concede.

They do when they claim that all life begins at conception and therefore must be afforded rights by the government. Do all the 100% human zygotes not yet attached to the uterus have the 'right to life'? If so, you will need the government doing everything in its power to ensure that every zygote attaches to the wall of the uterus (as you know, some 100% human zygotes don't always reach implementation).
- Ah, but now you venture into the idea that a right implies a duty on the part of the gov, ie: right to speak doesn't mean the government has to move your mouth for you. And the duty of the gov is to discourage other people from unlawfully ending your life and punish them if they do, there is no social contract with the impersonal forces of nature governing implantation of an embryo.

Up until 1973 citizens were seen as those who were born or naturalized in the United States. In section VI.3 of Roe/Wade the Christian view of when the soul is infused (animation) in a 'person' is even briefly mentioned and considered:*"Christian theology and the canon law came to fix the point of animation at 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female, a view that persisted until the 19th century, there was otherwise little agreement about the precise time of formation or animation. There was agreement, however, that prior to this point the fetus was to be regarded as part of the mother, and its destruction, therefore, was not homicide."
This then lead to viability.
- The so-called 'quickening' of the baby. See previous statement about citizenship not being a necessary consideration in questions of murder.

I think you're going to need to fall back to 'viability' on this one, or state law created after 1973. Do you have some court cases preceding 1973 you would like to sight as successful prosecution in favor of your argument, ones that use just the 5th amendment?

State law used for this type of prosecution uses "unborn child" to protect the 'unborn.' For some reason they found it "convenient" to use the novel word 'unborn' to protect them. ;)
- Nope you got me there, not married to the assertion enough to do actual work looking something up, heaven forbid ;P But rather I'll appeal to the plain reading of the document. Right to life is a right to life. If a human being is alive he has a right to life and due-process. I'll concede its original writing most likely didn't take pre-birth life into consideration. That said I still think it a natural place to extend the right.

I never said the unborn are non-alive pre-birth, are you being silly? They are alive just not a legally protected entity via the Constitution. Legal citizenship is the issue, which you agreed with me on.
- My point was that the 5th amendment applied to the living, and the offspring of citizens are citizens. 'Birth' then is merely a mechanism of proof to the state. So the 14th applies strongly there, just as you'd said about slavery, etc. But the 5th talks about life. And life predates birth. My argument here is not recognized as a legal principle! I think that's how it should be interpreted, however. I would be interested in the legal definition of 'person' at the time of the writing.

I am using a common understanding of the legal use of 'person,' which you have not refuted.
- Actually I will take exception to the definition you cited.
Black's Law Dictionary (7th Ed.) (1999) defines "person" as: 1. A human being.
2. An entity (such as a corporation) that is recognized by law as having the rights and duties of a human being.The general rule of statutory interpretation is that words and sentences must be construed in their ordinary meaning, unless the context requires some special or particular meaning to be given to them. I must disagree strongly with the definition you gave as it relates to the Constitution's use of it. Do you have any supporting information on why that definition is to be used over the words normative definition?

I just cannot accept the use of a legal technicality to justify what is potentially murder. So while you're right, and the practicalities of proving citizenship for the 14th involved using birth, I think if it were practical to use conception as a basis of proof we would use conception over births, if that makes sense. I suppose if we were all somewhat like kangaroos and birth and conception occurred on the same day things would be like that :P

You claimed the "right to life" for a zygote is protected by the 5th amendment because of the word 'person'. Yet, you totally ignored my point about the legal context of 'person' and its meaning in these legal documents.
- Hmm, quote me please, I can't find where I used the word 'person' during my discussion of it with you in that post. My reasoning was based on the word phrase, "right to life" solely, since the question of personhood is exactly as you put it.

Religious-right propaganda used by most Republicans. While there is no express right in the Constitution it is mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Also there are plenty of previous court rulings that have upheld the 'right to privacy' dating back to the 1920's encompassing decisions about child rearing, procreation, marriage, and termination of medical treatment. I do not want the 'right to privacy' done away with for many obvious reasons.
- Nor would I. Republicans use it in the context of committing crimes, however. No one thinks that the right to privacy extends to allowing offenders to rape children, or somesuch, within the confines of their homes and private domiciles. So to, if abortion is ethically to be considered murder, it cannot be outweighed by a right to privacy.

m42

11-07-2008, 11:39 PM

[I]Yes, but you also implied that any killing a cop did would be murder, which I strongly disagreed with. Voluntary killing is not the definition of murder.

I actually provided you with three separate statements in response to your stated police scenario. You chose to combine and generalize them into one incorrect assumption.

That standard is unreasonable, and not what the courts use currently. By that standard a police officer would have to make sure there are actually bullets in a suspects gun even if its pointed at him. The only reasonable way to do this would be to let the suspect get off the first shot, since he can't be certain a gun is a threat unless you know it also has bullets in it. Guns are quite harmless without bullets after all.

No, by that standard the courts would introduce a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, even if it was deliberate. The family of the victim would still be entitled to a civil suit against the cop. The courts would simply deem it a necessary evil and move on.

As far as an ectopic pregnancy goes, all that is needed is the reasonable fear that the situation may take your life. This can be medically determined.

Reasonable fear does not equate to a guarantee. If there is a a chance the child will survive, the child has just as much of a right to fight for survival as the mother.

The only difference is, the child cannot defend itself.

m42

11-07-2008, 11:52 PM

I draw the line where things have gone wrong, where the accident of circumstance places lives in danger. And in an ectopic pregnancy things have already gone wrong. Again, ectopic pregnancy is a biological accident. This biological accident is also life-threatening to both mother and baby.

Not all ectopic pregnancies are life threatening.

Biological accidents happen. Unless that biological accident renders a child completely (100%) nonviable, that child still has a chance at life.

Anenome

11-08-2008, 12:10 AM

Not all ectopic pregnancies are life threatening.

Biological accidents happen. Unless that biological accident renders a child completely (100%) nonviable, that child still has a chance at life.

In this and your previous statement you keep using the 100% standard, or 'guarantee'. There are no guarantees in real life like that. There is only what is reasonable.

The cases you've stated still involve a conscious decision to terminate the life of a human embryo that could potentially live.
- You also seem to be stacking the deck and defining a decision to kill as inevitably murder. I've tried to show you that murder requires intent to kill. In cases where the mother's life is threatened by biologic accident intent to kill is not the motivating factor but rather self-preservation from a situation which also unfortunately involves another human life but circumstances make that impossible to deal with otherwise, unless the mother accepts the risk and decides to go ahead with the pregnancy. My cliff-hanging analogy has not been addressed as a moral elaboration of why this decision is in fact not murder. Unless you can show me people prosecuted for murder when in similar cliff-hanging situations then the point stands. You dismissed it as voluntary manslaughter and said circumstances were irrelevant. Fact is this constitutes an affirmation of my point, because voluntary manslaughter is not murder. And in any case, the ethics of the cliff-hanging example constitute a case in which the survivor would not be charged or convicted, because it was an accident.

m42

11-08-2008, 12:18 AM

Accidental death happens all time and the word 'murder' is not ascribed to them. I'm curious why you persist on calling an abortion on the basis of ectopic condition 'murder' when it is a condition that falls into the realm of an accident.

I have repeatedly differentiated between nonviable ectopic pregnancies which are effectively miscarriages/accidental deaths, and potentially viable ectopic pregnancies, which can:

a) miscarry - truly accidental/not murder
b) live to see live birth - not murder
c) be deliberately aborted - murder.

I do not disagree that ectopic pregnancies are biological accidents. I persist in calling an abortion on the basis of ectopic conditions '"murder" because it is.

I do not deny that an accident has created suboptimal conditions. In cases of potentially viable ectopic pregnancy, the fetus has survived the suboptimal conditions and will potentially see gestation.

I classify the abortion of a potentially viable ectopic pregnancy as murder because unless the fetus is rendered 100% nonviable, you are actively killing a human being who might otherwise live to see viability -- even if in accidental or suboptimal conditions.

m42

11-08-2008, 12:31 AM

c) Abortions in which medical conditions threaten life of mother and child I still maintain should be classified as accidental situations necessitating a choice, thus no murder can be construed. Please address that specifically.

Then you might wish to consider siding with the people who consider it a necessary evil.

I see it for what it is. It is not accidental.

Anenome

11-08-2008, 12:38 AM

I have repeatedly differentiated between nonviable ectopic pregnancies which are effectively miscarriages/accidental deaths, and potentially viable ectopic pregnancies, which can:

a) miscarry - truly accidental/not murder
b) live to see live birth - not murder
c) be deliberately aborted - murder.

I do not disagree that ectopic pregnancies are biological accidents. I persist in calling an abortion on the basis of ectopic conditions '"murder" because it is.

I do not deny that an accident has created suboptimal conditions. In cases of potentially viable ectopic pregnancy, the fetus has survived the suboptimal conditions and will potentially see gestation.

I classify the abortion of a potentially viable ectopic pregnancy as murder because unless the fetus is rendered 100% nonviable, you are actively killing a human being who might otherwise live to see viability -- even if in accidental or suboptimal conditions.

Good good, then this is where you and I stop. For we have a fundamental and irreconcilable disagreement on whether the suboptimal conditions created by a biological accident equate to the moral condition of an accidental death.

I place it there because I believe that a time difference between the accident and the event is largely irrelevant and that a strict standard of 100% confidence is both unreasonable and only achievable by actually playing out the event. If there were not the life of the mother to deal with an ectopic pregnancy would be left to term every single time. However, since it is the biologic accident which forces the surgeons hand I cannot ascribe ill-motive to the event should the mother choose her life over the child's chance based on the medical information. Without malicious intent to kill I cannot call it murder, and self-defense is a valid reason to kill without guilt, as we have seen in the police-analogy. Unfortunately the mother is forced into a spot of self-defense against a condition which the child is inextricable from. That's nobody's fault.

You've repeated this assertion, "I persist in calling an abortion on the basis of ectopic conditions '"murder" because it is." This is a tautology, quite weak as an argument. Can you show me where unlawful intent along with the killing is being displayed to justify this claim? I see mere self-defense against an accidental situation.

I concede that you can't know what's gonna happen to a kid 100%. However, as a legal principle that falls wholly flat and cannot be used as a test. As an ethical principle it can be argued, but I don't believe murderous intent can be shown to justify the label.

Anenome

11-08-2008, 12:40 AM

Then you might wish to consider siding with the people who consider it a necessary evil.

I see it for what it is. It is not accidental.

- That would require agreeing that biological accidents are necessary evils, which is a nonsensical statement.

m42

11-08-2008, 12:50 AM

In this and your previous statement you keep using the 100% standard, or 'guarantee'. There are no guarantees in real life like that. There is only what is reasonable.

There are some guarantees. For example, I can guarantee you that the ectopic fetus they extracted from me was 100% nonviable. Want a doctors note?

You, however, cannot tell me definitively that an aborted fetus would have died anyway.

- You also seem to be stacking the deck and defining a decision to kill as inevitably murder.

No. Watch the generalizations. I've specifically stated the decision to kill a potentially viable human is murder.

I've tried to show you that murder requires intent to kill. In cases where the mother's life is threatened by biologic accident intent to kill is not the motivating factor but rather self-preservation from a situation which also unfortunately involves another human life

Intent to kill doesn't have to be the motivating factor. In this case, the intent is a byproduct of a mother's decision that self preservation is more important than the life of her child.

but circumstances make that impossible to deal with otherwise, unless the mother accepts the risk and decides to go ahead with the pregnancy.

Pregnancy is risky. If a woman doesn't wish to deal with the potential risks, she should avoid getting pregnant.

My cliff-hanging analogy has not been addressed as a moral elaboration of why this decision is in fact not murder. Unless you can show me people prosecuted for murder when in similar cliff-hanging situations then the point stands. You dismissed it as voluntary manslaughter and said circumstances were irrelevant. Fact is this constitutes an affirmation of my point, because voluntary manslaughter is not murder. And in any case, the ethics of the cliff-hanging example constitute a case in which the survivor would not be charged or convicted, because it was an accident.

Your cliff hanging analogy is completely irrelevant to this discussion unless one of the participants happened to deliberately push another over the cliff.

m42

11-08-2008, 12:59 AM

- That would require agreeing that biological accidents are necessary evils, which is a nonsensical statement.

No.

Biological accidents don't always result in the death of the fetus. If the fetus survives a biological accident, is deemed potentially viable, and you abort it anyway, the fetus was not killed by a biological accident, it was killed by the abortion.

Abortions in this context are not accidents, no matter how much you wish to classify an abortion as an accident.

Hence the suggestion that you join up with the abortion is a necessary evil stance.

Anenome

11-08-2008, 01:05 AM

Originally Posted by anenome
- You also seem to be stacking the deck and defining a decision to kill as inevitably murder.

No. Watch the generalizations. I've specifically stated the decision to kill a potentially viable human is murder.
- Yes, but you keep failing to back that up with anything beyond the statement that it is murder, nor addressing my reasons why it's not. Your argument, so far, has come down to 'if you kill it, it's murder'. If I'm wrong then quote where you explained it.
You have said things like "c) be deliberately aborted - murder." Which comes down to "you killed it therefore it's murder". Murder requires unlawful intent which you've failed to show. In fact I've showed repeatedly why there is no unlawful intent.

Intent to kill doesn't have to be the motivating factor. In this case, the intent is a byproduct of a mother's decision that self preservation is more important than the life of her child.
- Which defines an intent of self-defense, a reaction forced on her by the situation: a biological accident. Shortening the causality tree: the decision is caused by a life-threatening accident. It is no different ethically than my cliff-hanging example, which you've still failed to address directly.

Pregnancy is risky. If a woman doesn't wish to deal with the potential risks, she should avoid getting pregnant.
- I agree, this is one of my key original arguments. Similarly one accepts the risk of crashing when you ride in a car with your kid. But one does not sit in a burning car when one can escape from it before the tank explodes. And if you leave your kid behind to save yourself, you've still not committed murder.

Your cliff hanging analogy is completely irrelevant to this discussion unless one of the participants happened to deliberately push another over the cliff.
- I completely disagree. What aspect of an ectopic pregnancy makes it analogous to one of the people pushing the other? The acceptance of risk, if anything, is in taking the hike in the first place. I see no flaws in the ledge analogy. Neither baby nor mother cause an ectopic pregnancy. Neither of my hikers pushed the other off the cliff. Make one of my hikers hiking with a baby and have to drop the baby to save herself, that's even more analogous, and the analogy stands.

m42

11-08-2008, 01:41 AM

However, since it is the biologic accident which forces the surgeons hand

The biologic accident doesn't force the surgeons hand. The mother does in her belief that her life is more valuable than her child's. Let's be clear on this. That child has just as much a right to life as the mother. If the biologic accident leaves both the child and mother alive, and the mother aborts the child, the biologic accident is not the cause of the child's death. The abortion is. This isn't rocket science.

I cannot ascribe ill-motive to the event should the mother choose her life over the child's chance based on the medical information. Without malicious intent to kill I cannot call it murder, and self-defense is a valid reason to kill without guilt, as we have seen in the police-analogy.

Murder isn't always malicious. Your reasoning is flawed.

The police analogy is completely irrelevant to this discussion. The child cannot defend itself. The child has not violated the social contract. With the child, you can effectively see and count the "bullets" via medical assessments. If there is a potential that both will live, and you have preemptively killed the child because there is also a chance both will die, it isn't self defense.

That would be like killing people in cars stopped at a traffic light because you wish to safely cross the street.

Unfortunately the mother is forced into a spot of self-defense against a condition which the child is inextricable from. That's nobody's fault.

You've repeated this assertion, "I persist in calling an abortion on the basis of ectopic conditions '"murder" because it is." This is a tautology, quite weak as an argument.

It is a tautology you failed to grasp several times. Shall I paste the posts where you ask for additional clarification, or the ones where you insist I'm contradicting myself despite the clear repitition?

I think you'd like for it to be a weak argument. I've elaborated on why it's murder. You either accept it, or you don't. Don't get upset that you can't sway me.

If you tire of this discussion, you have the option of not responding.

Can you show me where unlawful intent along with the killing is being displayed to justify this claim? I see mere self-defense against an accidental situation.

The child has not violated the social contract. Unlawful intent would be the mother's decision to terminate an otherwise potentially viable child who's life is not forfeit under the social contract.

I do not agree with your self defense assessment.

I concede that you can't know what's gonna happen to a kid 100%. However, as a legal principle that falls wholly flat and cannot be used as a test.

It is very much taken into consideration. I refer you to Cricket's story as proof that you are wrong on that point.

m42

11-08-2008, 01:58 AM

- Yes, but you keep failing to back that up with anything beyond the statement that it is murder, nor addressing my reasons why it's not. Your argument, so far, has come down to 'if you kill it, it's murder'. If I'm wrong then quote where you explained it.
You have said things like "c) be deliberately aborted - murder." Which comes down to "you killed it therefore it's murder". Murder requires unlawful intent which you've failed to show. In fact I've showed repeatedly why there is no unlawful intent.

I have backed it up with a) a very clear definition and b) a clear statement as to how it violates the terms of the social contract. You have chosen to ignore both. That sounds more like a problem with you.

You haven't shown repeatedly why there's no unlawful intent. You have failed to sell the self defense argument.

What aspect of an ectopic pregnancy makes it analogous to one of the people pushing the other?

The aspect where you deliberately terminate the pregnancy regardless of the potential for viability.

Not helping the cliff hanger is equivalent to letting the situation play out on its own. The cliff hanger may fall a couple of feet and hit a small ledge with little to no damage, he may manage to pull himself up.

The mother may suffer minimal damage and both may survive.

That should have been obvious.

Anenome

11-08-2008, 12:55 PM

The biologic accident doesn't force the surgeons hand. The mother does in her belief that her life is more valuable than her child's. Let's be clear on this. That child has just as much a right to life as the mother. If the biologic accident leaves both the child and mother alive, and the mother aborts the child, the biologic accident is not the cause of the child's death. The abortion is. This isn't rocket science.
- I think you're mischaracterizing my reasoning. Straw-men are being blasted aside left and right, it's raining straw ;P You choose one sentence to mischaracterize absent the context of my reasoning. The biologic situation forces the choice. That is key. So, we're back to the fact that I don't consider either objectively more valuable and leave it up to the mother to decide which lives when the odds are good that one or the other, or both, or neither, will live. You claim I'm putting the mother's life first by allowing the choice in the first place. There is some merit in your 'acceptance of risk' argument, but ultimately I reject it because of its extreme accidental nature. And acceptance of risk is not acceptance of it barring all efforts to avoid it. Socrates was a fool and should have fled.

Murder isn't always malicious. Your reasoning is flawed.
- This is simply wrong. And I've tried to pin you down on this a number of times and you keep weasling out. Murder ALWAYS involves malicious intent. I think you have in mind a flawed definition of murder, or have chosen one which allows you to continue this argument, because this is simply not the case and it could not be more straightforward:

"Murder is the unlawful killing of another human person with malice aforethought, as defined in Common Law countries. Murder is generally distinguished from other forms of homicide by the elements of malice aforethought and the lack of lawful justification."

The procedure I condone lacks both malice-aforethought because the decision is forced through the accidental biologic occurrence, and has lawful justification because taking a life in self-defense when your life is threatened is 100% allowed and not a crime.

You seem intent on the idea that the baby is paying the ultimate price despite being wholly innocent. I'll grant you that, again this being a special case. Problem is that the baby and the biologic accident are wholly inseparable. Mother has the right of self-defense against the biologic accident. It could not be more clear. And I think I've long since crossed bounds of 'reasonable-ness' that would place the vast majority of outside observes squarely in my camp. We can continue beating out heads against it if you like, I do not intend to walk away just because you insist on being stubborn and unreasonable and using definitions of murder which suit your rhetorical point.

The police analogy is completely irrelevant to this discussion. The child cannot defend itself. The child has not violated the social contract.
No, but the child is involved in a situation which is violating the social contract, in a way. Though the social contract has nothing to do with defense against a non-living condition. Again, absent the mother, every ectopic pregnancy would be left to term. Absent the baby, every ectopic pregnancy would be removed. The ethical considerations are entirely equal. So the choice should be left to the mother. You keep talking about how aborting the child would be akin to murder. However, leaving the ectopic pregnancy in could be considered as the baby murdering the parent, a fact which you want to allow happen. After all it's a condition caused by the baby which can result in parental death. However both positions are silly and I'm not about to start calling you in favor of murder as you are me.

As another analogy we might call the child collateral damage. The child is like the baby of a terrorist living in Afghanistan who has been targeted for bombing by the US. The gov is going to bomb his house because he's a threat and anyone nearby him is collateral damage with no way to extricate them from their non-guilt. Not a perfect analogy, but the inability to extricate is on target.

With the child, you can effectively see and count the "bullets" via medical assessments. If there is a potential that both will live, and you have preemptively killed the child because there is also a chance both will die, it isn't self defense.
- Again, the problem is your 100% standard. If we were to use your 100% standard in everyday life there would be severe consequences. First thing to happen is there would never be another person convicted of a crime again, ever. Because there can always be doubt as to a person's guilt. That is why we convict on the basis of 'reasonable doubt'. Is this not obvious? You've taken an extreme theoretical approach whereas I'm thinking about how we can really operate in the world. No 100% standard exists outside witnessing the event itself. You said your ectopic pregnancy was 100% nonviable, that's not true unless you let it die of its own accord. After all, your doctor could have been just as wrong about it as Crickett's was. He could've overlooked something, or your body could've near-miraculously adapted to changing conditions. There's always a chance! But operating on that basis is simply not done.

It is a tautology you failed to grasp several times. Shall I paste the posts where you ask for additional clarification, or the ones where you insist I'm contradicting myself despite the clear repetition?
- What's so hard about my request for a quote? I asked you to quote yourself where you explained you def. of murder. Why on earth would you attack me on that or propose to quote me? Shall I now unfairly ask you if you're illiterate as well?

I think you'd like for it to be a weak argument.
- A tautology is by definition a weak argument.

I've elaborated on why it's murder. You either accept it, or you don't. Don't get upset that you can't sway me.
- In this post I've showed that you have a faulty definition of murder. Your 'showing' of why its murder has typically come down to little more than showing that it's death. That is patently insufficient.

If you tire of this discussion, you have the option of not responding.
- If you cannot define your terms you can do the same.

The child has not violated the social contract.
- It is however inextricable from a situation which is violating it. It's not guilty of a crime in the traditional sense. But it is wrapped in a cause which a person otherwise has a right to avoid. We do not refuse to treat those with hemorrhages otherwise, etc.

Unlawful intent would be the mother's decision to terminate an otherwise potentially viable child who's life is not forfeit under the social contract.
- Social contract theory alone is inadequate to address this question.

kerrin

11-08-2008, 11:35 PM

How do you respond to the challenge that one may also be convicted for murdering non-citizens?
America affords some protection to non-citizens, but more importantly does not allow the citizen to kill an 'illegal alien' (a legal status or a recognized 'legal entity'). This is unrelated to my point because the unborn do not have a legal status and are not recognized as a 'legal entity'.

Citizens or not, murder is murder. Protecting citizens from killing each other unlawfully is a legitimate function of government, I think we would all concede.
"Murder is murder." A most brilliant and excellent point. You have won me with this statement, I see it your way now.

It just so happens that abortion is allowable under the Constitution, Amendments, and the Bill of Rights because they do not clearly afford the "right to life" to the unborn, but they do however allow for private moral autonomy via 'liberty' for the legal person. Your scenario applies to unlawful killing, we are talking about abortion, which is lawful killing unless the unborn is at a 'viable' stage.

...the duty of the gov is to discourage other people from unlawfully ending your life and punish them if they do, there is no social contract with the impersonal forces of nature governing implantation of an embryo.
You conveniently left out the scenario I including in my example where a woman's diet (let's just say for simplicity, includes large amounts of alcohol) would hinder a zygote from implementation (personal forces do govern here). This would then, according to your view of "right to life," make her a criminal because she willingly did something that stopped the 'life' from progressing to implementation.

Anyway, abortion is not an unlawful way to end a life according to the Constitution, Amendments, Bill of Rights, and the USSC. You have yet to show otherwise. Must we keep going in circles on this?

...rather I'll appeal to the plain reading of the document. Right to life is a right to life.
The "right to life" is directly tied to the legal entity referred to as 'person' in both 5th an 14th amendments.

You may use the "plain reading" but judicial philosophy does not only use "plain reading." Textualism, originalism, or even strict constructionism...take your pick, "plain reading" is not the only mechanism used. I think what you seek is judicial activism or perhaps strict constructionism, which will legislate morality from the bench.

If a human being is alive he has a right to life and due-process. I'll concede its original writing most likely didn't take pre-birth life into consideration. That said I still think it a natural place to extend the right.
Then extend the right though the proper process, an amendment. The "right to life" currently applies to a legal 'person'.

My point was that the 5th amendment applied to the living, and the offspring of citizens are citizens.
No evidence for this, care to give some?

The general rule of statutory interpretation is that words and sentences must be construed in their ordinary meaning, unless the context requires some special or particular meaning to be given to them. I must disagree strongly with the definition you gave as it relates to the Constitution's use of it. Do you have any supporting information on why that definition is to be used over the words normative definition?
On what ground do you "disagree strongly?" You gave no reason(s). The answer is in your textbook rule of 'statutory interpretation'. The legal definition of 'person' is used in a legal document (the context). If it was used in a science book we would choose the "normative definition."

I just cannot accept the use of a legal technicality to justify what is potentially murder.
An inability to accept a legal fact makes you a perfect candidate for the Republican party, you'll do great winning the religious-right vote.

So while you're right, and the practicalities of proving citizenship for the 14th involved using birth, I think if it were practical to use conception as a basis of proof we would use conception over births, if that makes sense.
Not really because of stated problems with the "life begins at conception" sentiment. Implementation might be better, but I'm not writing law. I'm defending a position with facts and reason.

I can't find where I used the word 'person' during my discussion of it with you in that post. My reasoning was based on the word phrase, "right to life" solely, since the question of personhood is exactly as you put it.
The phrase is inextricably linked to the legal 'person' in the 5th amendment. You use "the phrase" you use the word. The "right to life" is given to the legal 'person'.

Republicans use [the right to privacy made out of whole cloth] in the context of committing crimes...
You have yet to show that abortion is a crime according to the rule of our current law. Even if they use it in that context, it was not made out of "whole cloth." I already gave evidence that this is an erroneous semantic manipulation often used by "the right" in the context of abortion.

No one thinks that the right to privacy extends to allowing offenders to rape children, or some such, within the confines of their homes and private domiciles. So to, if abortion is ethically to be considered murder, it cannot be outweighed by a right to privacy.
I am not talking about ethicality or morality of abortion, but the liberty of an individual citizen. The theory behind "liberty" contained in the founding documents allows for private moral autonomy. The ridiculous cases you present involve other legally protected entities and therefore private moral autonomy does not apply.

Anenome

11-09-2008, 11:29 AM

Well, Kerrin, you ripped apart half my arguments by skipping over my treatment of the word 'person' which I provided a definition for:
Person = human being (I'll take part responsibility for not starting with that definition). I quote a law textbook. Thus, a legal person is a human being. Will you concede that my arguments are good if a live human-being at any stage of development is considered a 'person'? Your definition of 'legal person' seems to rest on the idea that 'human being' is not part of the definition. And in fact the definition you gave does not define it so. The differentiation between natural and legal person is to divide between living humans and corporate entities, which are 'persons' under the law. Of the two the Bill of Rights applies to human beings primarily, obviously corporations don't have a 'right to life' etc. The term exists to include corporations into some of the rights of a person, not to exclude natural human beings. So I completely disagree with your assessment that human beings, at any stage of development, can be defined as not a legal person. In fact a stricter definition of 'legal person' gives it as purely corporate entities and defines the word 'person' as purely natural persons, ie, human beings. By that standard you're in even more trouble with your usage of it for this discussion.
"Legal person = A Legal Entity that is recognised at law, but is not a Natural Person. Examples include corporations, incorporated associations and trusts."
Clearly positing that the BoR applies only to corporate entities everytime it uses the word 'person' is nonsensical. It's quite obvious that it is referring to the normative definition of 'person', ie: human being. So the question comes down to is an embryo at conception both human and alive.

I've also shown that a fetus at conception is both alive and human. Thus it is a person and has all the rights accorded to person in the 5th amendment, including the right to life. I'm a bit dismayed that you skipped over the definition of 'person' = human being, portion of the argument, since it was key to the rest of it. But since you did I think we should now focus on this issue solely until we can either reach agreement or agree to disagree ;P

kerrin

11-09-2008, 05:56 PM

Well, Kerrin, you ripped apart half my arguments by skipping over my treatment of the word 'person' which I provided a definition for:
You provided two definitions. The second is more acceptable given the context. Perhaps I wasn't clear in addressing your preferred definition of 'person'. I already defended my technical treatment of 'person' earlier in this thread, but I will restate it now more clearly.

The second definition you provided:
2. An entity (such as a corporation) that is recognized by law as having the rights and duties of a human being.

For your consideration an authority on the matter John Chipman Gray (a scholar of American property law) from his book The Nature and Sources of the Law (1909) page 27:
In book of Law, as in other books, and in common speech, "person" is often used as meaning a human being, but the technical legal meaning of a "person" is a subject of legal rights and duties.
One who has rights but not duties, or who has duties but no rights, is, I suppose, a person. An instance which would commonly be given of the former is the King of England; of the latter, a slave. Whether in truth the King of England has no legal duties, or duties through no rights, he is, a person in the eye of the Law.

The context (a legal social contract dealing with rights) determines the meaning of the word and in that context 'person' is not meant to be a natural or biological human being, but "a subject of legal rights." Thus the technical treatment of 'person' in the context of the Constitution and Amendments.

Anenome

11-09-2008, 09:45 PM

You provided two definitions. The second is more acceptable given the context.

Let's review the one I gave: "Black's Law Dictionary (7th Ed.) (1999) defines "person" as: 1. A human being.
2. An entity (such as a corporation) that is recognized by law as having the rights and duties of a human being."
So your claim is that the context of the Constitution's BoR favors the second definition and excludes the first? Despite the fact that the 2nd only applies to corporations and trusts, etc? So, only corporations, for instance have a right to bear arms or free speech? Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. You seem to be making a confusing argument that the unborn fall into def. 1, but the born fall into def. 2 when that is clearly not what's being communicated.

The plain reading of the document, and the context, in no way excludes human beings from the Constitution's use of 'person', this is self-evident. Neither the 14th or 5th can be read as exclusionary of the first definition. Rather saying so sounds far more like a weak legal justification attempt for pushing abortion, and an attempt to remove the 'human-ness' question from the application of human rights to a person. In any case the modern definition has more force in modern law, to which we're speaking. But let's address the passage you quote.

"In book of Law, as in other books, and in common speech, "person" is often used as meaning a human being, but the technical legal meaning of a "person" is a subject of legal rights and duties. One who has rights but not duties, or who has duties but no rights, is, I suppose, a person. An instance which would commonly be given of the former is the King of England; of the latter, a slave. Whether in truth the King of England has no legal duties, or duties through no rights, he is, a person in the eye of the Law."

You are taking that quote and, correct me if I'm wrong, saying that those whom aren't 'subjects of legal rights' are not persons legally. But the quote you give does not establish this fact, and in fact overturns your point, as I will show.

In the case of the unborn we have a perosn who has rights but not duties. So you quote of Gray affirms the rights of the unborn, as a person with rights but not duties. How will you claim that it has no rights and therefore isn't a person, just by saying it doesn't have any duties? Gray says it need not have duties to be considered a person legally. Even the reverse was true, slaves had duties but not rights and were still persons. Gray could have as easily substituted "King of England" for "Unborn" and the quote would have worked out the same way, with him declaring the unborn as 'persons'. Rights by virtue of being a human being (and alive) are self-evident. We aren't accorded human-ness by taking a right or duty, the human-ness comes first. In my quote, the 2nd definition of person is not exclusionary towards to first, it is inclusionary towards the social construct of a coroporation / legal-entity.

But I can foresee that you will disagree with me on this, so I want to ask you to explain what the salient difference is between a fetus and a born human in the context of this definition? What makes a newborn subject to definition 2 or your definition and not def.1 of mine, and thus in your view not deserving of Constitutional protection - what makes a fetus subject only to definition one. Furthermore, how can a human being not have rights, since the point of your argument is to deny rights to the unborn, though a human being it is?

There is another sentence just beyond the one you quote Gray on that goes like this, "But if there is any one who has rights though no duties, or duties though no rights, he is, I take it, a person in the eye of the Law."

Therefore Gray agrees with my assessment, and the quote you list cannot be taken as depriving an unborn living human being of rights such as the right to life listed in the 5th.

Furthermore, the Bill of Rights is not a contract in any way, though you call it a "legal social contract dealing with rights". It is a recognition of rights that pre-exist in natural persons. It is composed of "declaratory and restrictive clauses" according to its own preamble, clauses designed to restrict the government and declare rights tha already exist in the citizenry.

So, in short, I would need something besides the misinterpretation of Gray's quote to accept that the unborn are not legally considered 'person's' when it comes to the accordance of rights. From what I've seen, the standard is they need be only human-beings and alive. They clearly meet that standard.

The context of Grays quote is one of differentiating between the various types of persons. Ultimately it comes down to legal persons, with regards to the Consitution, being only those persons whom have a will. And natural persons (ie: human beings) fall into that category. He lists several other types of persons:

"...Different kinds of person are recognized. They may be classified thus: (I) Normal human beings; (II) abnormal human beings, such as idiots; (III) supernatural beings; (IV) animals; (V) inanimate objects, such as ships; (VI) juristic persons, such as corporations."

Later, Gray quotes a definition of a person from author Karlowa, which he says he himself accepts. I will reproduce it here,

"The body is not merely the house in which the human personality dwells; it is, together with the soul, which now for this life is inseparably bound with it, the personality. So not only as a being which has the possibility of willing, but as a being which can have manifold bodily and spiritual needs and interests, as a human centre of interest, is a man a person."

Gray then goes on to say immediately afterwards, "It is this last definition which American and English jurists imliedly, if not expressely, adopt as the true definition of a person. It is that which I shall accept." (p28-29)

Scarcely a paragraph later Gray speaks to our debate from beyond the grave, "(II) Some human beings have no will. Such are new-born babies and idiots. [And by extension for our discussion the pre-born.] Perhaps it is not correct to say that they are absolutely without wills, but their potentiality of will is so limited that it may be neglected. Yet, though without wills, new-born babies and idiots have rights." (p.29)

I submit that there is no ethical difference between a newborn baby and a pre-born baby. In fact Gray says this himself, using an example of a child born 5 minutes after and 5 minutes before birth. Thus, by the quote of your own source, you must concede that the unborn are legal persons, can have rights, and in fact do have rights as living human beings. But it gets better...

In direct contradiction to your attempt to use his previous quote to deny that the unborn can be persons legally, or accorded rights therein he later says this, and this should end the argument, addressing the unborn specifically he says,

"Included in human beings, normal and abnormal [that is, 'idiots' or the mentally incapacitated], as legal persons, are all living beings having a human form. But they must be living beings; corpses have no legal rights. Has a child begotten, but not born, rights? There is no difficult in giving them to it." (p38)

In fact he goes on, in footnotes, to note that the Unborn have even been deemed able to inherit property (in Britain) dating back to the end of the 1600's, and to be accorded all other manner of rights where those rights benefitted them. Shall we say that a right to life does not benefit the unborn?

I don't think picking that quote from Gray helped your argument in the wider context of his text and its surrounding quotes and context. I would be curious where you pulled that quote from, as that person is assuredly biased in favor of abortion and cherry picking quotes.

kerrin

11-10-2008, 08:16 AM

Anenome,

Before I address your points I want to give you insight to my personal views because I think it may help you. Personally, I do not agree with either "pro-choice/pro-abortion" or "pro-life/anti-abortion" arguments. Personally, I dislike abortion and desire that all unborn children have a chance to live.

We have not begun to discuss the other side of this argument, which pertains to 'liberty' contained in our great Constitution, but it captures much of the my view of the government's role in civil society. In short, using a Lockean understanding of 'liberty' the government's role is one of moral tolerance without moral indifference.

Anyway, to the subject at hand.

So your claim is that the context of the Constitution's BoR favors the second definition and excludes the first?
In the context 'a subject' in constitution law may be a human person (def 1), but it does not necessitate that it is a biological human person.

Despite the fact that the 2nd only applies to corporations and trusts, etc?
I don't think it only applies to corporations.

So, only corporations, for instance have a right to bear arms or free speech?
No. Certain legal entities (persons) have these rights and others do not. Different legal persons have different sets of legal rights and duties.

You seem to be making a confusing argument that the unborn fall into def. 1, but the born fall into def. 2 ...
No. I have not made that claim. You misunderstand me. In Constitutional law 'persons' are one of the two main classes which are:
1.) the subject of rights, powers, and duties,
2.) the other being "citizens"
Persons in constitutional law can be both 'natural' or 'corporate'. In this sense, to avoid confusion, 'natural' does not always refer to human being (biological) but a non corporate legal entity.

The plain reading of the document, and the context, in no way excludes human beings from the Constitution's use of 'person', this is self-evident. Neither the 14th or 5th can be read as exclusionary of the first definition.
I have not excluded a human being from the Constitution's use of person. A legal entity (person) may very well be a biological human, but the use of the word 'person' is not meant to exclusively refer to biological human person. A person in Constitutional law is "a subject of rights and duties."

In the case of the unborn we have a perosn who has rights but not duties.
No. That would require sovereignty which the unborn does not have (as in the case of a King per Grey).

How will you claim that it has no rights and therefore isn't a person, just by saying it doesn't have any duties?
No, by saying it is not a sovereign. Only a sovereign has no duties and is a legal person and a subject of rights. The unborn both has no duties and does not posses its own sovereignty or rather it is not a sovereign in its domain.

Even the reverse was true, slaves had duties but not rights and were still persons.
No. Unfortunately, they required the 14th amendment to be recognized as legal persons. Yes, they were human begins (persons), but they were not legal persons included in the Constitution as being protected by government.

Rights by virtue of being a human being (and alive) are self-evident.
Rights within civil society are protected by government and come from the individual's inclusion in the Constitution.

We aren't accorded human-ness by taking a right or duty, the human-ness comes first.
True, but "Human-ness" alone does not include one in the legal status of 'person.' If it did then the 14th amendment would not have been needed to include slaves, who were quite obviously human. If we use your definition of 'person' the 5th amendment should have been adequate to include slaves. Why was the 14th necessary if the 5th states, "nor shall any person...be deprived of life, liberty, and possessions"? According to you biological humans are 'any person,' so why the necessity of 14th?

Anenome

11-10-2008, 10:13 AM

Well, I simply fundamentally reject your reasoning. It's funny when you say you're talking about the Constitution and its amendments but not the Bill of Rights, as if the Bill of Rights was not the list of amendments. You seem to make a distinction between the first 10 and the rest, but they are all amendments.

And again, the Constitution is not a social contract. Guess we can't agree on that. It is, however, the document on which the idea of the social contract is expressed within the American context. It did not create rights, it recognized pre-existing rights.

Being a 'subject of rights and duties' means being a person who has will, in the context of the quote you give, because that's what Gray himself says. You then proceed to gloss over the voluminous quotes I gave destroying your usage of the phrase 'subject of rights and duties' to deny the unborn can legally be a person. The better understanding of Grays quote is that there are two types of persons who are SUBJECTS of rights and duties, and that would be human beings and corporations, with the other types of 'persons' listed not being subject to rights and duties because they have no will and thus cannot exercise rights or duties, and thus are not legal persons. You ignore this. Gray ties the 'subjects of rights and duties' to possession of a will, and also affirms that the unborn can be considered to have a will and are persons. I quote him directly where he says the unborn are persons legally. So again, I fundamentally disagree with your usage and your reasoning. The meaning of the quote you give is clear, and it's not the understanding you list it in. The question then should shift to whether the unborn have will, and therefore are subject to rights and duties. However we do not need to ask this question because Gray himself answers it in the affirmative that there is no problem according the unborn the legal status of 'person' anymore than it would be for those whom are mentally incapacitated and yet are also persons.

Kerrin, you are really being unreasonable if I show you've misused the Gray quote and you insist on using your previous understanding. If we can't move past your flawed usage of the Gray quote then there's no use in moving forward anymore.

And as far as your personal beliefs are concerned you sure seem to be emotionally attached to this line of reasoning for a guy who claims to have simply picked it out of a book for the purpose of an academic debate. Presumably if you're not emotionally invested in this line of reasoning then my investigations and illuminations into the flawed usage of the Gray quote should be accepted by you immediately.

kerrin

11-10-2008, 03:38 PM

I am probably one of the least emotional people you will ever meet. So I find it funny that you can actually sense any emotion in my writing. ;) I am far from attached emotional to my arguments. In fact, personally, I wish it is as black and white an issue as you paint it to be. Like I said before I desire all unborn children to have a chance to live...if it was up to me and I had the power I would make this happen. For the sake of this discussion, though, I am seeking to throw that aside and I'm trying to look at it from a legal, historical, or philosophical view as it relates to American law.

In many ways I am testing my thoughts out here, I hope you don't mind, but certainly I'm not married emotionally to any part of my arguments. I didn't mean to blow by your additional analysis of Gray, but I was seeking to slow down and examine thoughts related to the first quote I provided. We can go back if you like.

the Constitution is not a social contract. Guess we can't agree on that.
We can agree that the constitution is not a pure social contract, according to social contract theory. Please excuse me for referring to it as such. However, the concept of the social contract is the fundamental basis for our government and law, according to which human beings as individuals in a state of nature, and create a society by establishing a contract whereby they agree to live together in harmony for their mutual benefit, after which they are said to live in a state of society ('We the people...').

It's funny when you say you're talking about the Constitution and its amendments but not the Bill of Rights, as if the Bill of Rights was not the list of amendments.
You got me here. I was not thinking completely straight (possible a little much wine & little sleep) when I typed that late last night and didn't proof it this morning when I posted. I have made the appropriate changes in reflection. Thanks.

Gray's use of the Sovereign in that example was not to claim that the King was the only person who had rights but not duties! It's because the King of England is a figurehead in the British government! I can't believe that wasn't clear from the context of his quote and its usage. Applying his quote to the unborn works perfectly.

His example plus the Hobbe/Locke theories of the individual sovereignty, which influenced the founders in creation of the Declaration and Constitution, does not allow his example to be extended to the unborn. It works perfectly for your argument, the way you present it, I'll give you that. However, the understanding of individual sovereignty and the fact that the King was the sovereign not just a figure head does not lend perfectly to your treatment of Gray. I was using Gray's example plus the understanding/thinking that influenced the founders in regard to 'person'.

I will say this, I probably should have waited to bring up Gray, because my line of reasoning precedes his treatment of 'person.' I thought it appropriate given where we were going, but I see now that it was not.

I guess where I went with this is not exactly what I intended, or at least it didn't make my thoughts any more clear. Let me try and rephrase or clarify and get your response:
A 'person' in the BoR may be a natural person (human), but that doesn't mean all natural persons (humans) are included in the rights afforded to it this 'person.' Since the 'person' in the Constitution has a certain legal status that others do not all share. Every legal 'person' cannot be said to possess all the same rights, as there are different forms of legal persons (even among def. 1 & 2). Just because a natural person (human) is include in the legal 'person' contained in the BoR it does not follow that all natural persons are therefore the same type of legal person.

Let me also try in the form of a question:
If 'person' in the 5th refers to all natural people (humans) then why was the 14th amendment needed to include slaves, who were quite obviously human? If we use your definition of 'person' the 5th amendment should have been adequate to include slaves. Why was the 14th necessary if the 5th states, "nor shall any person...be deprived of life, liberty, and possessions"?

So that we can continue our conversation I removed mistakes and or things you out right reject in my last post. Thanks.

Anenome

11-10-2008, 04:47 PM

Let me also try in the form of a question:
If 'person' in the 5th refers to all natural people (humans) then why was the 14th amendment needed to include slaves, who were quite obviously human? If we use your definition of 'person' the 5th amendment should have been adequate to include slaves. Why was the 14th necessary if the 5th states, "nor shall any person...be deprived of life, liberty, and possessions"?

- Slaves were at that time, persons under the law, Gray expressly uses them as an example in the later quotes I gave and calls them persons. They were persons who were being denied the rights of a person by the states because they were not citizens. The 5th only constrained the federal government, not the states, as we shall see. The 14th both made slaves into citizens and removed the possibility of the states legalizing slavery for any other class of person (even non-citizens, etc), by using the blanket term of 'person' to extend to them the same 5th amendment rights that the Fed gov had recognized. This effectively abolished slavery because there is no class of living human-beings whom are not persons under the law now. It made unconstitutional every State-law which did not recognize these rights for any class of people they chose to divide by any means, extending equal protection to all.
Key is the recognition that the 14th amendment forced the recognition of 5th amendment rights on all the states.

Here's the text:
"XIVth Amendment, Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The breakdown: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
- Previous to this amendment persons born in the US did were not automatically citizens. As with many countries still today, you were then a citizen only if your parents were citizens. Thus slaves, though considered persons under the law when it came to such things as punishing the masters who murdered them on occasion, etc, were not citizens. The 14th clearly grants citizenship, not personhood, to the slaves. Gray recognizes them as persons in the quotes I gave, as having a will also, and says they are persons without rights with only duties, but persons nonetheless. Furthermore the 5th amendment grants its protection to persons, not solely citizens, and only constrained the Federal government, whereas the states had been left to make slavery legal or illegal as they decided, a fact with which any student of the 19th century should be familiar.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;"
- Having made slaves born here into citizens with the first clause this second clause now strikes down all slavery laws in the states, etc. This clause does not give them rights, it abolishes the laws which states had passed which were denying them the rights they already possessed as human beings / persons on the basis of them not being citizens. These rights were denied them on the basis of lacking citizenship and on the sovereignty of the states to decide matters not addressed in the Constitution.

"...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
- This clause, a continuation of the previous, goes on to reaffirm the 5th amendment and also applies it to all the States as well as the federal government. This is the key reason why it is restated. The 5th did not apply to the States! It restricted only the Fed Gov. Rather than being redundant with the 5th, notice that it now restricts the individual states as well. One of your key objections is why the 14th has to restate this clause, and now you have the reason, to force it on the States.

Section 2 of the amendment fixes the 3/5 representation of slaves when counting representatives, etc. The rest of the amendment is immaterial to our question.

So, to answer your question directly and sum up my argument: "If 'person' in the 5th refers to all natural people (humans) then why was the 14th amendment needed to include slaves, who were quite obviously human? If we use your definition of 'person' the 5th amendment should have been adequate to include slaves. Why was the 14th necessary if the 5th states, 'nor shall any person...be deprived of life, liberty, and possessions'?"

The slaves were human, but not citizens and had rights denied them on the basis of lacking citizenship. The states got around the 5th because they passed laws on the basis of State sovereignty making slavery legal since the 5th only constrained the Federal government and the right of the Fed to strike down state laws not in accord with the Constitution was not an established legal practice yet. The federal government would have needed an amendment to the Constitution to make slavery illegal among the state, to overrule the states laws on the subject. This is exactly what happened and the 14th amendment was passed and ratified. The 5th amendment applied only to the Federal government, limiting what it could do to 'persons'. And the 14th amendment applied the rule of protection of the 5th to the States as well. That is the overarching reason why the 14th was necessary. Federalism.
Basically the 14th makes them citizens, claims jurisdiction over them as such, and smacks the states around preventing them from messing with its citizens in the way they had been making slavery legal, etc.

Anenome

11-10-2008, 07:38 PM

There are some guarantees. For example, I can guarantee you that the ectopic fetus they extracted from me was 100% nonviable. Want a doctors note?
...
You, however, cannot tell me definitively that an aborted fetus would have died anyway.
...
No. Watch the generalizations. I've specifically stated the decision to kill a potentially viable human is murder.

- You apply your 100% standard to babies that may live, yet consistently fail to apply that standard to your own ectopic pregnancy, which is only potentially nonviable. It may have survived as well, there's always a chance! I've shown that the only way to show 100% certainty of any probability is to actually let the probability play out, which is why that standard is not used legally or in any court of law.

The same is true in cases ruled 100% nonviable, there's always a chance the baby is viable despite the medical prognosis. A doctor can always be wrong, as in Crickett's case, or your body can adapt. The only way to be absolutely sure is to let it play out.
So, by your own standard, if you had a doctor remove your ectopic pregnancy, you are a murderer.

However, I would not judge you as harshly as you have judged yourself by your own reasoning.

kerrin

11-10-2008, 08:37 PM

The slaves were human, but not citizens and had rights denied them on the basis of lacking citizenship. The states got around the 5th because they passed laws on the basis of state sovereignty making slavery legal. The federal government would have needed an amendment to the Constitution to make slavery illegal and overrule the states laws on the subject. This is exactly what happened and the 14th amendment was passed and ratified. The 5th amendment applied only to the Federal government. And the 14th amendment applied the rule of protection of the 5th to the States as well. That is the overarching reason why the 14th was necessary. Federalism. Basically the 14th makes them citizens, claims jurisdiction over them as such, and smacks the states around preventing them from messing with its citizens in the way they were.
I agree with your answer. This would seem to support my contention that an amendment is needed to protect the unborn who currently are not identified as citizens in the BoR. The 5th amendment alone is not adequate, just like slaves and their prior status without the 14th.

Slaves were, then, persons under the law...They were persons who were being denied rights.
Persons denied rights because they were without express rights. The same as the unborn. There is no express rights afforded to the unborn. There exists a legal state of 'person' were there are no expressly afforded rights via our Constitution (the slaves were in this position). It could even be said that under 'natural law' the unborn have a 'duty' to rely on mother for sustenance and thus exclude them from your use of Gray's king with no duties.

...slaves had duties but not rights and were still persons.
Still legal persons without express rights. Just like the unborn... for this argument i'll give them the legal status 'person' but they are not identified in the 5th or the 14th with express rights to life. The legal status of a 'person' is not always the same. The unborn human can be a 'person' and have no legal status in the Constitution, just like slaves. In addition they are not like a king without duties because they are not sovereign in their domain and according to natural law they do have duties.

Rights by virtue of being a human being (and alive) are self-evident. We aren't accorded human-ness by taking a right or duty, the human-ness comes first.
Human-ness does not currently afford one citizenship of the US unless born or naturalized.

The unborn lack citizenship. I cannot declare an unborn child a citizen or obtain a SS# until it is born and thus is not recognized by the state as a citizen until birth. Only in the case of certain state laws are the unborn protected in violent crimes against the mother, but this does not grant them citizenship.

But I can foresee that you will disagree with me on this, so I want to ask you to explain what the salient difference is between a fetus and a born human in the context of this definition?
The difference is the rights afford via the Constitution to a citizen.

Furthermore, how can a human being not have rights, since the point of your argument is to deny rights to the unborn, though a human being it is?"
A slave, clearly a human being, did not have rights because they were not citizens. The unborn similarly are not citizens.

An amendment is needed to protect the unborn.

Anenome

11-10-2008, 09:43 PM

I can't accept an argument based on the lack of citizenship, since that is exactly what the 14th prohibits, and the Constitution in both the 5th and 14th amendments use the standard of person-hood, not citizenship, for the accordance of rights. As to your argument of the unborn having duties, a duty demands the positive use of the will. The unborn, being unconscious, cannot reasonably be ascribed duties, only rights. Being unable to effect its will it also cannot fail in any duty ascribed. It is legally nonsensical to apply a duty to an unborn person. I see the point you were trying to make, but I don't think it applies when the word 'duty' is understood in its legal sense as opposed to its philosophic or other senses.

I'm surprised you would take the tack of using citizenship, since the point of the 5th and the 14th is to apply those listed protections to all persons, not simply all citizens. Giving citizenship to slaves was not the main thrust of the law, the meat of it was to apply the rights of the 5th to all 'persons' in the US, under both federal and state sovereignty, which then means all persons in the US. Even non-citizens have the same rights as citizens, right to life, property, etc, with due process. No one is allowed to murder illegal aliens / deprive of life w/o due process, etc.

The unborn, though not citizens necessarily (arguable still, one might call them meta-citizens or eventual citizens, technically leaving the mothers womb in any way constitutes birth, even if it's on the edge of the abortionists blade, in all other ways they satisfy the conditions needed for citizenship)... the unborn can clearly be considered persons under the jurisdiction of the USA (locality-based) and thus given all the rights listed in the 5th and 14th.

Your argument has some merit, but if the unborn are considered 'persons' then the rights given equally by the 5th and 14th can be in fact considered 'express' since, as persons, it names them directly in the amendments and includes them in its protections.

So, I think you'll agree, the standard comes down to whether the unborn can be considered persons. You've got a difficult road to prove the unborn are not persons legally, given Gray's already-quoted affirmation that they are persons, and the clear definition of them as alive and human in a biologic sense.

(Aside: Sounds like echoes of arguments I've heard made before here ;P It's kinda funny to find ourselves in the same position given the voluminous arguments we've all heard calling the unborn persons or not, etc. While I wouldn't be against an amendment, I'd rather the Fed get out of it entirely. There is also no amendment allowing the Fed to regulate abortion nor privacy concerns. The States have jurisdiction over legal matters not listed in the Constitution, including the right of privacy. However, the Left vastly prefers taking control of the institution's of central power (SCOTUS, etc) to get its way rather than fighting 51 battles across the nation over abortion.)

I'll give you the best argument I've seen, which was suggested to me by reading Gray's work myself. That of the mother being an agent of the unborn, and thereby being able to make legal decisions for that child. In my talks with M42, I make the argument that a mother should be given agent-status as the only potential decision-maker when a medical condition threatens both their lives. Clearly, agent-status has its own limitations which I believe does not threaten my position on the topic. No agent is allowed to murder their charge legally, for instance.

Human-ness does not currently afford one citizenship of the US unless born or naturalized.- That language was to end slavery. And since the term 'natural born' citizen had no definition in the Constitution, the Founding Fathers early on passed a law to define it. I'm afraid it doesn't help your case, as it defines the children of citizens as 'natural born citizens'.
"The 1790 Congress, many of whose members had been members of the Constitutional Convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_Convention), provided in the Naturalization Act of 1790 that 'And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens.'"

So, even if one could murder a non-citizen, is there anything fundamentally different between a child 5 min. from birth and one 5 min. after birth when it comes to citizenship? No, it's just a legal construct, since birth can be proved and documented and conception / gestation is much harder. So the legal system uses the term birth and the event. That doesn't mean that a child who already possesses the legal right of citizenship as the offspring of citizens isn't already in existence pre-birth, the right is there and waiting to be claimed, and as I pointed out is in fact claimed even if it's at the edge of the abortionists knife. So while the letter of the law gives you the victory on this, the spirit of the law would not. And it's moot anyway, since person-hood is the standard used by the Constitution. I just wanted to point out that the offspring of citizens are also citizens, and the unborn are most certainly the children of citizens, born or not.

kerrin

11-11-2008, 09:27 PM

My argument/challenge is both towards declaring the unborn as definitively 'legal person' or definitively a 'citizen'.

As to your argument of the unborn having duties, a duty demands the positive use of the will.
The will of life is to live. Natural law tells us this. The life of the unborn fetus' will is to live, that is their duty.

The unborn, being unconscious, cannot reasonably be ascribed duties, only rights. Being unable to effect its will it also cannot fail in any duty ascribed. It is legally nonsensical to apply a duty to an unborn person. I see the point you were trying to make, but I don't think it applies when the word 'duty' is understood in its legal sense as opposed to its philosophic or other senses.
But the legal formation of our Constitution came from philosophy and observed natural law ('self-evident'). You use natural law to show the fetus is alive and human, which I'm fine with. Why can't I use philosophical arguments that underpin the creation of the Constitution and Natural Law to show the fetus has 'duty'? Or why will you not accept this line of reasoning?

The unborn, though not citizens necessarily (arguable still, one might call them meta-citizens or eventual citizens, technically leaving the mothers womb in any way constitutes birth, even if it's on the edge of the abortionists blade, in all other ways they satisfy the conditions needed for citizenship)...
So a still-born is a citizen? A miscarriage was a citizen? 'Meta' or 'eventual' does not definitively make them citizens.

Your argument has some merit, but if the unborn are considered 'persons' then the rights given equally by the 5th and 14th can be in fact considered 'express' since, as persons, it names them directly in the amendments and includes them in its protections.

Rights by virtue of being a human being (and alive) are self-evident. We aren't accorded human-ness by taking a right or duty, the human-ness comes first.
Human-ness does not currently make one a citizen or 'legal person' of the US unless 'born or naturalized'.
"Human-ness" alone does not include one in the legal status of 'person.' If it did then the 14th amendment would not have been needed to include slaves, who were quite obviously human. If we use your definition of 'person' (humans) the 5th amendment should have been adequate to include slaves. The 14th would not have been necessary since the 5th states, "nor shall any person [human]...be deprived of life, liberty, and possessions"

What I think I have shown is that it is problematic at best, possibly even not definitive, to say an unborn human is absolutely a 'legal person' or absolutely a 'citizen.' They could be. It's simply not clear given current Constitutional law. If it was clear States would not have seen the necessity to write "unborn" into their constitutions to protect them from violent crimes against the mother.

I am interested if you can give me a sufficient answer to my example of a woman's diet (let's just say for simplicity, includes large amounts of alcohol) who conceives a fetus, but her diet hinders a zygote from implementation (personal forces do govern here) thus implicating her in killing the unborn. Government should enforce the best practices here or make illegal her hinderance of life proceeding to implementation, right?

Do you believe abortion is immoral, illegal, or both?

So, even if one could murder a non-citizen, is there anything fundamentally different between a child 5 min. from birth and one 5 min. after birth when it comes to citizenship?
No there is no difference because they are capable of being their own sovereign at this stage.

Anenome

11-12-2008, 12:09 PM

The will of life is to live. Natural law tells us this. The life of the unborn fetus' will is to live, that is their duty.
- That is not 'will' in the sense that Gray uses it. And we're talking about Gray's use of the term 'will' in regards to whether someone is a person or not. I addressed this previously, quoting Gray directly on both the requirement of will to make one a person and even whether the unborn can be considered persons legally, Gray answers in the affirmative.

But the legal formation of our Constitution came from philosophy and observed natural law ('self-evident'). You use natural law to show the fetus is alive and human, which I'm fine with. Why can't I use philosophical arguments that underpin the creation of the Constitution and Natural Law to show the fetus has 'duty'? Or why will you not accept this line of reasoning?
- I use biology to show it's alive and human, those are just medical facts.

And we're using the term 'duty' in the context of who is a person and who is not in the context of Gray's quote, not a Constitutional quote, and Gray defines it. Gray defines a legal duty, the other sense of the word 'duty' aren't particularly relevant. You've spent the majority of this argument defying the normative understanding of the word 'person' and then make this argument? Lol? The term 'duty' has philosophical uses which aren't... actually they probably are the same.

I'll just say you're using duty wrongly in both its legal and 'natural law'/philosophic sense. In both, the term duty requires a positive use of will. I'll stick with that unless you can cite another definition besides that one, which is Gray's definition. One has a duty not to infringe on other's rights. Rights can be both passive and active, but duties are active. Thus, the unborn can do nothing and retain all its rights. As far as the 'duty to live', I still say that's backwards. To fulfill that duty it simply has to keep living.

The more correct formulation of that sentiment would be 'right to live' which is exactly what the 5th and 14th give it. 'Duty to live' implies that if the unborn cannot fight off the abortionists knife at any stage then it has not right to live. Furthermore you would then have to apply this wording to all 'persons' meaning that you've essentially codified jungle-rule in society. Those who are strong are able to fulfill their 'duty to live' by virtue of surviving, and the burden of survival is placed on the individual. Those who do not survive against the now unchecked aggressors in society are considered to be in the wrong for not fulfilling their 'duty to live'. Meanwhile aggressors are not considered unethical at all. Heh, funny to imagine.

There's no question of how the term 'duty' should be understood in the Constitution because the Constitution does not use the term 'duty' in the 5th or 14th, etc. The usage of 'duty' came from Gray's definition of a person, during which he shows that duty requires the positive use of will, that is the exercise of will, or 'action'. I can go back into the text and quote him directly if you like? The unborn are incapable of taking action being unconscious, though they are still considered to possess will as unconsciousness doesn't negate its existence. So, I won't accept it because I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding Gray's use of the term 'rights and duties' in regards to persons, and its will-component which is all important.

So a still-born is a citizen? A miscarriage was a citizen? 'Meta' or 'eventual' does not definitively make them citizens.
- Yes, a still-born is a dead-citizen, if its parents were citizens, etc. I say 'meta-citizens' because the law requires birth. But that requirement is not fundamental to the question of citizenship, the fundamental question is descent and the other rules of citizenship. A child of citizens is itself a citizen. That is true. However, a child can be either born or unborn. Which is more important, descent or the timing question of birth. Clearly descent is more important. There's nothing about pre-birth that can ever prevent one from being a citizen. If the legal question ever came to a head I believe the un-born children of citizens, I believe, would be called citizens. But again, this question is immaterial to our debate since citizens and non-citizens have the same rights under the law.

"Human-ness" alone does not include one in the legal status of 'person.'
- Yes it does. We need to focus on this question, clearly, since we cannot agree.

The law-book definition of a person, the first definition:

"1. Human-being."

There is no qualification on that. Human-ness alone is the legal definition of a person. If there were a qualification it would be 'living human-being'.

Being a 'human being' de facto makes one a person. Both in the recent definition I gave and in Gray's quote. I would encourage you to read you Gray quote in context, or at least read again the later quotes of his I gave where he expressely says that human-beings are persons, even the unborn. I'm a bit dismayed to see you gloss over those quotes, you should've abandoned this line of argument because it was refuted by Gray.

If it did then the 14th amendment would not have been needed to include slaves, who were quite obviously human.
- Again, and I'm surprised to see you repeat this, the 5th did not apply to the States. Because of this the 14th was necessary to force 5th amendment protections on the States. And the 14th did it on the basis of personhood, including citizens, noncitizens, illegal aliens, etc, including the unborn - if the unborn are persons. The 14th does not say 'slaves' it says 'persons' (ie: human beings).

Let's delve a little deeper. The Constitution, earlier than the BoR calls slaves persons and specifically excludes them over the question of slavery:

"The contentious issue of slavery was too controversial to be resolved during the convention. As a result, the original Constitution contained four provisions tacitly allowing slavery to continue for the next 20 years. Section 9 of Article I allowed the continued "importation" of such persons..." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution)

If we use your definition of 'person' (humans) the 5th amendment should have been adequate to include slaves.
- It would not, because you apparently do not understand the federalism of the time. The 5th did not apply to the states. The 14th does. I must not have made this point very clearly before, since we're covering this ground again. The Consitution only told the Federal government what it couldn't do. The 14th tells the States what they can't do. If the Consitution's BOR told the states what they couldn't do also, then yes the 14th wouldn't be necessary, except that it would still have been needed to remove other sections of the Constitution that made slavery legal in the body of the Consitution itself. So unless you can show me a section of the Constitution that expressely exclude the Unborn from the provisions of the 5th, in the same way that Slaves were expressely excluded from the provisions of the 5th, then you have no case.

The 14th would not have been necessary since the 5th states, "nor shall any person [human]...be deprived of life, liberty, and possessions"
- Exactly. But the 5th did not apply to the states.

What I think I have shown is that it is problematic at best, possibly even not definitive, to say an unborn human is absolutely a 'legal person' or absolutely a 'citizen.' They could be. It's simply not clear given current Constitutional law.
- This is true when it comes to citizenship, but not true when it comes to being legally considered a person. Fortunately my position does not require them to be citizens.

To be considered a person requires you to be a human being and alive. Period.

The term 'legal person' was designed to apply some of the protections accorded to 'persons' in the law to things that were not human and alive, namely corporations, trusts, etc. The term 'legal person' was never meant to exclude the primary definition of persons as human and alive. You can say 'person' and 'legal person', and use the term 'legal person' to differentiate between natural persons and corporate persons.

But the Consitution does not use the term 'legal persons' to differentiate so. It says 'persons' which always means natural persons first and foremost, but can also mean corporate persons. And the context is only used to decide if the second definition applies or not. If you want to mean expressely corporate persons you can imply that by saying 'legal persons' or 'corporate persons' because the term 'person' always implies living human beings and only can imply corporate human beings.

The only persons which are not 'subjects of rights and duties' according to Gray are things I quoted him on, boats, buildings, etc, things which do not have a will. Boats aren't legal persons because they are not subjects of rights and duties because they cannot make any choices, and as such cannot exercise rights or effect duties.

If it was clear, States would not have seen the necessity to write "unborn" into their constitutions to protect them from violent crimes against the mother.
- Why bother, when the word 'person' suits all parties, including unborn and born. The States did not find it necessary to specifically exclude the unborn either, perhaps thinking the term 'person' covered them. So that idea can go either way. Violent crime against pregnant mothers is generally punished more and legally recognized as such when a mother loses a child as a result of that violence.

Anenome

11-12-2008, 12:09 PM

(seems we exceededthe character limit, so this is a continuation >.> )

I am interested if you can give me a sufficient answer to my example of a woman's diet (let's just say for simplicity, includes large amounts of alcohol) who conceives a fetus, but her diet hinders a zygote from implementation (personal forces do govern here) thus implicating her in killing the unborn. Government should enforce the best practices here or make illegal her hinderance of life proceeding to implementation, right?
- I didn't answer it because I considered it a very weak argument perhaps obvious in its resolution, not a very strong one. Firstly, its unreasonable to know when one has a zygote. It is often several weeks after implantation before a mother may question if she's pregnant. It may be as many as 6 weeks before she's sure. But the bigger issue is that of proving that it was the actions of the mother and not 'natural causes' that prevented implantation. Medically, the fact is that there's very little a mother can do that would prevent implantation when it comes to such things as diet, alcohol, etc. Lastly, chances are if a zygote does not implant that she would not even realize she missed a chance at being pregnant, as the then dead zygote would pass with the menstrual cycle.

Do you believe abortion is immoral, illegal, or both?
- I believe murder is unethical and cannot be advocated by the government in a civil society.

No there is no difference because they are capable of being their own sovereign at this stage.
- What makes them 'capable of being their own sovereign' at that stage? The ability to make reasoned choices for themselves? The ability to live outside the womb? See, problem is, if you supplied the right atmosphere a child at any stage would survive outside the womb. That's a false variable that you previously said was problematic due to it being a moving target that is destined to move earlier and earlier as science advances.

kerrin

11-17-2008, 07:53 PM

Sorry for the delayed response...busy with family issues.

Anyway, I am truly doing a poor job of communicating my point to you, but I have thought of another way, which may make it more clear. As you have picked up on I am not the best pro-choice advocate because I am not completely pro-choice in the popular form. I do, however, have a few responses for you and possibly a new direction for discussion. I am learning a lot from this discussion and I am grateful for your thoughts and responses.

That is not 'will' in the sense that Gray uses it. And we're talking about Gray's use of the term 'will' in regards to whether someone is a person or not. I addressed this previously, quoting Gray directly on both the requirement of will to make one a person and even whether the unborn can be considered persons legally, Gray answers in the affirmative.
Gray may be an authority, but he is not exhaustive in his treatment of 'person' and 'will/duty'. Besides he did not write the Constitution or influence the drafters thinking and philosophy behind its creation. It's even provable biologically that life exerts a positive force ('will') to live... survival is the positive pursuit of a life. This idea of 'will' comes from the observation of nature similar to the way Gray's use of 'will' comes from an observation of nature, though I contend his was not an extensive treatment.

Grays example of 5min. before and 5min. after only works for the 'viable.' There are obvious biologically differences between recently conceived fetus and 5min from birth fetus.

To dismiss nature's law in this discussion, I believe, would be a grave intellectual mistake on your behalf. I'm afraid your marriage to Gray will leave us at an impasse to discuss this aspect further. However, I would recommend you look beyond/before Gray.

I want to briefly look at a woman's right to property, historically, not as it relates to ownership of the fetus, but as it relates to 'person,' since this has been a constant point of disagreement between us.

After the 5th, ratified in 1791, women did not have legal rights to their property. Why would the States need to pass laws that gave women legal rights to their property if the words of the 5th: "no person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, and property" truly afforded all women, under jurisdiction of the federal government, with legal rights?

New York’s Married Women’s Property Act (1848) established the right for women to own property. Other states of course modeled their legalization after New York's.

Now you may say that this was because of culture and historical understanding and treatment of women. I would say the same to be true of the unborn and views on abortion, even religious views, prior to 1973.

Again my contention is the unborn from the point of conception on are not given express rights to life, liberty, and property because they are not clearly included as a 'person' in the 5th.

Which leads me to your restriction of a person's right to liberty. That of the women. Liberty in the Declaration and Constitution has historical been interpreted broadly and was philosophically backed by the observation that each individual has the right to personal moral autonomy as long as it does not infringe on another sovereign individual's rights. The Constitution is meant to limit government coercion in personal moral matters and protect that individual's right to liberty. Now, there are limits to this liberty of course and I am not advocating abortion as a right under all circumstances, but abortion is an allowable personal moral decision as long as it does not infringe on another sovereign individual's ('person') rights.

I believe murder is unethical and cannot be advocated by the government in a civil society.
Suicide by your standards is murder (killing a human life) yet it is not in the law as illegal. Government does not advocate taking your own life even though there is no law forbidding suicide. Similarly government does not advocate abortion by protecting the liberty of an individual, in the form of moral autonomy. Government is still able and should be able to advocate that which it views as moral and discourage that which it views as immoral.

What makes them 'capable of being their own sovereign' at that stage?
Sufficiently physiologically 'viable' and have a brain developed to approximate a born child with the presumed capacity to learn reason.

That's a false variable that you previously said was problematic due to it being a moving target that is destined to move earlier and earlier as science advances.
Problematic from the position (not mine) that says abortion is a right that government must protect under all circumstances. Problematic from the view point (not mine) that this is the only measure of affording protection for the unborn fetus. These are not my positions within the American context, but it is still problematic if it is the only measure given as protection for the unborn because of technology.

Anenome

11-17-2008, 10:49 PM

Sorry for the delayed response...busy with family issues.
- NP :)

I am learning a lot from this discussion and I am grateful for your thoughts and responses.
- I am as well, enjoying it and have learned quite a bit myself. Iron sharpens iron, etc.

Gray may be an authority, but he is not exhaustive in his treatment of 'person' and 'will/duty'. Besides he did not write the Constitution or influence the drafters thinking and philosophy behind its creation.
- Granted, however in the context of his statements I maintain my characterization of his usage of 'will' to prove whether a person is a subject of rights and duties; that is to say only persons capable of exercising will in the form of actions and decision can ever be the subject of rights and duties and therefore persons legally. I don't expect this point to be significantly challenged by other authorities, though I remain open and leave it to you to produce them. It's clear that only beings capable of 'will', as Gray puts it, can exercise rights and duties.

It's even provable biologically that life exerts a positive force ('will') to live... survival is the positive pursuit of a life. This idea of 'will' comes from the observation of nature similar to the way Gray's use of 'will' comes from an observation of nature, though I contend his was not an extensive treatment.
- What would you call this, a spiritual force? I'm not familiar with this positive force to live you speak of, especially since we're using it in the context of an unconscious being. What's been proved then? Biological processes are little more than chemical interaction, and they exercise no will at all; they act along a rigidly defined corridor of chemical interactions from which they are unable to stray - and produce what each cell needs to stay alive. But single-cells don't have any will to live. We could, perhaps, take it down to the level of single-celled paramecium who actually have the means to sense their environment and seek favorable conditions. But we differentiate that as being 'instinct' as opposed to will, in my opinion at least. No one claims that a paramecium is capable of reasoned thought ;P

Grays example of 5min. before and 5min. after only works for the 'viable.' There are obvious biologically differences between recently conceived fetus and 5min from birth fetus.
- What are these differences? It is not enough to show mere biologic differences but you must also show how those biologic differences correlate to differing ethical treatment. My position is that there's ultimately no ethical difference between a single-celled zygote and a 30 year old human-being. One is more fragile than the other, easier to dismiss, but in terms of being human, alive, and owning a physical body they are the same. If you want to claim that increased biomass construes somehow more rights, that's your burden. We should then conclude that fat men, by virtue of sheer bulk, have more rights than skinny men! Clearly this is a problematic idea.

One problem with this is that there are many born human beings, even, whom require artificial life support and are not viable outside the artificial support. Such as... humans on life support, or 'bubble-boys'. A person who needs an iron lung to survive is not viable outside the iron lung. We don't, however, consider them non-persons or fail to prosecute those whom kill them. If we're going to use a standard it's going to have to apply to all living humans, not simply the special condition of the extremely young. The only difference between a woman in an iron lung and a baby in a womb, from a rights perspective, is that an iron lung has no rights and a mother does have rights. It's that question of two human beings in the mix that complicates everything.

To dismiss nature's law in this discussion, I believe, would be a grave intellectual mistake on your behalf. I'm afraid your marriage to Gray will leave us at an impasse to discuss this aspect further. However, I would recommend you look beyond/before Gray.
- Gray was your source! ^_^ Which made quoting him to support my position all the sweeter ;P But I'm definitely not married to his ideas. Since you accepted Gray as a source I used him to support my position.

I want to briefly look at a woman's right to property, historically, not as it relates to ownership of the fetus, but as it relates to 'person,' since this has been a constant point of disagreement between us.

After the 5th, ratified in 1791, women did not have legal rights to their property. Why would the States need to pass laws that gave women legal rights to their property if the words of the 5th: "no person shall be...deprived of life, liberty, and property" truly afforded all women, under jurisdiction of the federal government, with legal rights?
- Well, again, the 5th did not apply to the States. And, women back then were asking each other this exact thing. We must not look back on the passage of the 5th and commit the error of judging those events by today's standards. As was true in Britain before in America, women were property of their husbands back then. Furthermore, America as originally conceived only allowed property owners to vote.

Culturally there wasn't much outcry on this issue when the 5th was passed, even among women. Ultimately it was the passage of the 14th that awoke the women's movement to mass action, when prominent women concluded that they too were 'persons under the law', just as Black people were. A woman then ran for president, and many even tried to vote. One wonders whether the Founder's wrote the Constitution, as it was, thinking this eventuality may arise one day also, and rooting for it, as they did with the end of slavery, which was written in.

New York’s Married Women’s Property Act (1848) established the right for women to own property. Other states of course modeled their legalization after New York's.
- Well, not exactly. It modified the property rights of married women when it came to such things as inheritance and their husbands dieing off, in which case the deceased husband's son would inherit everything and could leave his mother penniless. It wasn't full-blown property rights, unfortunately. So, it's not just 'cultural and historical understanding', but your assessment of the Act is not correct.

You also have to remember that much of the driving force behind similar laws was to encourage women to move to frontier states. State competition for members worked very well :)

Now you may say that this was because of culture and historical understanding and treatment of women. I would say the same to be true of the unborn and views on abortion, even religious views, prior to 1973.
- Only problem being that I already quoted from Gray an account going back to the 1600's in Britain of unborn being legally considered persons enough to inherit property, etc. I don't think women got even that treatment.

Again my contention is the unborn from the point of conception on are not given express rights to life, liberty, and property because they are not clearly included as a 'person' in the 5th.
- I would contend that whether they are persons or not is the true question. Just as women realized that they were persons and demanded the rights given, so too the unborn can be considered persons, if they are indeed persons, and given those same rights. However they are easy to pick on as they have no voice. Ultimately we must realize it for them, or not, and advocate it. So again, the question, as with women, are they, the unborn, persons? If so, the pro-abortionists have no argument.

We've seen in the case of Women's rights that historical practice can apply the word 'person' to those whom it should've applied to but whom were not claiming their rights (such as with women and the 14th) and that the Constitution did not need to be changed to name them specifically. In fact I'd argue that the Equal Rights Amendment largely failed to pass because it's wholly redundant to the 5th and 14th, which already guarantees them equal rights. So there we even have an example of women trying to pass a law to expressely grant them equal rights, as you claim is needed for the unborn, but it being deemed unecessary by the majority of the republic.

(post length strikes again, mercy)

Anenome

11-17-2008, 10:49 PM

Which leads me to your restriction of a person's right to liberty. That of the women. Liberty in the Declaration and Constitution has historical been interpreted broadly and was philosophically backed by the observation that each individual has the right to personal moral autonomy as it does not infringe on another sovereign individual's rights. The Constitution is meant to limit government coercion in personal moral matters and protect that individual's right to liberty. Now, there are limits to this liberty of course and I am not advocating abortion as a right under all circumstances, but abortion is an allowable personal moral decision as long as it does not infringe on another sovereign individual's ('person') rights.
- That's the heart of this issue, the idea that if the unborn are in fact persons that they are then another individual with its own liberties and rights which must also be respected by the mother. That is the sticking point. If the unborn are persons, then the decision to abort is the ultimate infringement of rights. There are two sovereigns here, two human beings - persons - with rights for all to respect. If that's true, abortion is murder and unethical.

Suicide by your standards is murder (killing a human life) yet it is not in the law as illegal.
- Suicide actually is illegal still in some jurisdictions, and was considered a felony in some also >.> And actually I consider suicide not at all unethical depending on circumstances. And again, as with M42, I do not define murder as killing. That applies no circumstances at all and is wholly incorrect.

One problem with the murder / kill distinction is that the english language has had those terms inverted in meaning over the last few hundred years. You'll still often hear some religious person claim the Bible say 'thou shall not kill' when the actual correct translation is 'you will not murder'. None of us could stop killing if we wanted to, we kill everytime we take a breath, kill micro-organisms by the million, we kill every time we wash our hands. We would at the least be co-killers of every animal we eat, also. Murder is wholly different, and an act that can only be committed against other human beings under specific circumstances including malice aforethought. That said, I don't generally consider suicide murder. Some suicides are clearly misguided and the individual involved should have sought help rather than taking their life. But some, by cirmcumstance, I would consider ethically sound.

As a teen I was friends with a girl who later committed suicide, jumping off the nearby cliffs with her best friend, their wrists tied together. She was about 13, young, pretty, healthy, had a boyfriend, etc - it was senseless. Whatever was troubling her she didn't say, beyond a general 'goodbye' to her boyfriend. Probably only things like messed-up relationship trouble or identity problems can drive such people to suicide.

But, then, let's take Curt Cobain who suffered from wracking intestinal pain, self-medicated for it and simply couldn't bear to live with the pain anymore. I don't think he did anything unethical, and I can't say I would do differently - reading his account of the pain. He soldiered on for awhile and saw many doctors trying to stop it, nothing worked. Probably today's pain therapies could've helped him by snipping the nerve causing him pain, but that technology is 20 years too late now.

Government does not advocate taking your own life even though there is no law forbidding suicide. Similarly government does not advocate abortion by protecting the liberty of an individual, in the form of moral autonomy. Government is still able and should be able to advocate that which it views as moral and discourage that which it views as immoral.
- You've seized on 'advocate' but let me refine my meaning by substituting the word 'condone'. Ultimately those attempting suicide need mental therapy and help of that nature, not jail time. Governments see to it that those who need it do indeed get it, it's not so much a criminal matter as a psychological one. So it's not surprising that governments have historically made suicide illegal yet not strongly enforced it with penalties. Rather, suicide means you're going to be put in a mental health facility.

Problematic from the position (not mine) that says abortion is a right that government must protect under all circumstances. Problematic from the view point (not mine) that this is the only measure of affording protection for the unborn fetus. These are not my positions within the American context, but it is still problematic if it is the only measure given as protection for the unborn because of technology.
- Certainly, and you've done a valiant job - really above and beyond the call, in challenging us both to be intellectually consistent.

I think that the product of our discussion would result in reasonable observers deciding to make abortion illegal after the first trimester, or the point of viability, which is essentially the current law. I do think that partial-birth abortion is particularly onerous. And the 'health of the mother' exemption after the first trimester which is currently being so loosely defined as to include situations which aren't life-threatening, such as the mental well-being of a mother (thus allowing partial birth), are definitely murder.

kerrin

11-24-2008, 07:04 PM

Iron sharpens iron
Prov. 27:17... right? Are you going to start quoting scripture at me now? I was wondering when this was going to happen. ;)

...they act along a rigidly defined corridor of chemical interactions from which they are unable to stray - and produce what each cell needs to stay alive.
That is my "positive force." I was simply using yours/Grey's words in relation to 'will' and equating that with the natural process of biological life. There is positive force in nature to "produce what each cell needs to stay alive" that, to me, seems quite plainly a 'positive force.' Or it could be a spiritual one if you prefer. ;)

That's the heart of this issue, the idea that if the unborn are in fact persons that they are then another individual with its own liberties and rights which must also be respected by the mother. That is the sticking point. If the unborn are persons, then the decision to abort is the ultimate infringement of rights. There are two sovereigns here, two human beings - persons - with rights for all to respect. If that's true, abortion is murder and unethical.
So, I'm a fan of original intent, which again may be where we differ as it seems you prefer 'plain reading.' If you look at the influential philosophies of Locke and Hobbes, especially Locke, it is very difficult to afford the term 'person' at the moment of conception. It's also difficult to avoid Locke's significant influence on the founders and thus his influence in the founding document's original intent. Originally you were relying on the legal definition of the word 'person,' but we both know definitions change over time and often fail to capture context and original intent behind a words usage and contextual meaning.

Locke saw reason as necessary for an individual (person) exercising their liberty in the state of nature. So what makes a fetus a 'person'? In Locke's view (I would argue original intent) it would be a sufficiently physiologically 'viable' human and having a brain developed to approximate a born child with the presumed capacity to learn reason.

John Locke:
"For a man, not having the Power of his own Life, cannot, by Compact, or his own Consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the Absolute, Arbitrary Power of another, to take away his Life, when he pleases. No body can give more Power then he himself has; and he who cannot take away his own Life, cannot give another power over it." (Second Treatise, section 23)

The fetus without the ability to learn reason cannot give power over its life because it does not have power over its life. At this stage the power is in the hands of nature and the reasoning mother who is able to exercise her liberty.

Suicide actually is illegal still in some jurisdictions, and was considered a felony in some also >.> And actually I consider suicide not at all unethical depending on circumstances. And again, as with M42, I do not define murder as killing. That applies no circumstances at all and is wholly incorrect.
What ethical philosophy do you appeal to when you "consider suicide not at all unethical depending on circumstances"?

Do circumstances determine ethics/morality? Who determines the circumstances under which something is moral and something is not moral? As a "pro-life" advocate I would think you would want to outlaw all "senseless killing" in the form of abortion or suicide? Is suicide not a personal moral choice an individual makes? Does government 'condone' suicide by not writing laws to prohibit it? A 'right to life' is not a right to take ones life is it? Why are you not equally pro-life when it comes to suicide?

Murder is wholly different, and an act that can only be committed against other human beings under specific circumstances including malice aforethought.
Murder is commonly defined as unlawful killing. Capital punishment is not murder, right? Do you have a different definition of 'murder'?

As a teen I was friends with a girl who later committed suicide, jumping off the nearby cliffs with her best friend, their wrists tied together. She was about 13, young, pretty, healthy, had a boyfriend, etc - it was senseless.
Senseless indeed.

But, then, let's take Curt Cobain who suffered from wracking intestinal pain, self-medicated for it and simply couldn't bear to live with the pain anymore. I don't think he did anything unethical, and I can't say I would do differently - reading his account of the pain. He soldiered on for awhile and saw many doctors trying to stop it, nothing worked.
But why mental health facility? If Curt botched his suicide should he have been put in a mental facility? Because according to you he was attempting to take his own life ethical manner. Why would you punish someone for being ethical?

I believe murder is unethical and cannot be [condoned] by the government in a civil society.
You've seized on 'advocate' but let me refine my meaning by substituting the word 'condone'.
I did seize on that word and I will again press the issue with your substitution. Condoning or allowing something by not having a law prohibiting it does not therefore make a moral statement on the behalf of the government. The absence of a prohibiting law does not make a moral statement. Or do you think that it does? Government is still able to use noncoercive means to try and influence personal moral choices. I'm having trouble making sense of your statement it still seems as illogical as an abortion rights advocate who says "outlawing abortion is forcing pregnancy."

Ultimately those attempting suicide need mental therapy and help of that nature, not jail time. Governments see to it that those who need it do indeed get it, it's not so much a criminal matter as a psychological one. So it's not surprising that governments have historically made suicide illegal yet not strongly enforced it with penalties. Rather, suicide means you're going to be put in a mental health facility.
Who decides when it is a psychological problem and when it isn't? In Curt's case, as you describe, his was not a psychological, but a reasoned ethical way to deal with his pain. What about someone dealing with intense debilitating migraines? Send them to a mental institute for trying to escape this untreatable pain (I know people who have unsuccessfully sought all kinds of medical treatment for this)? Your position seems inconsistent.

Certainly, and you've done a valiant job - really above and beyond the call, in challenging us both to be intellectually consistent.
Thanks. Very kind of you to say.

I think that the product of our discussion would result in reasonable observers deciding to make abortion illegal after the first trimester, or the point of viability, which is essentially the current law.
My hope is that more reasonable people get involved with politics, but given current "debate" this is unlikely. The division over this issue is a serious plague on American politics.

Anenome

11-24-2008, 08:29 PM

Prov. 27:17... right? Are you going to start quoting scripture at me now? I was wondering when this was going to happen.
- Lol, it may come from the Bible but it's also true, as any chef with an iron blade sharpener can attest; come on now, no fair painting me with that brush. I have not and do not intend to rely on religious arguments ;P

That is my "positive force." I was simply using yours/Grey's words in relation to 'will' and equating that with the natural process of biological life. There is positive force in nature to "produce what each cell needs to stay alive" that, to me, seems quite plainly a 'positive force.' Or it could be a spiritual one if you prefer.
- That 'positive force' then, is definitely not what is meant by 'will' which is meant to be a function of cognition and consciousness. You're just talking about the laws of chemistry. A fire is subject to the same pre-determined route of chemical reactions, of oxidation of whatever it finds, we do not consider it to posses a will thereby, much less alive. I don't think you can equate the laws of chemistry as being a positive / spiritual force akin to will.

So, I'm a fan of original intent, which again may be where we differ as it seems you prefer 'plain reading.' If you look at the influential philosophies of Locke and Hobbes, especially Locke, it is very difficult to afford the term 'person' at the moment of conception. It's also difficult to avoid Locke's significant influence on the founders and thus his influence in the founding document's original intent. Originally you were relying on the legal definition of the word 'person,' but we both know definitions change over time and often fail to capture context and original intent behind a words usage and contextual meaning.
- I don't have any problem with original intent. I've said before that we can probably agree that the Founders did not have in mind the unborn when using the term 'person'. However they also did not exclude the unborn by using it, which is what you'd attempted to show previously by demanding an amendment for them specifically. We've looked at the definition of the word 'person' both in that time, as shown by Gray, and in the modern era as shown in the 1999 law book I quoted. They do not differ significantly. Both require, at minimum, a living human-being. In fact both exclude the term 'living' because it is plainly obvious that a dead person cannot exert will, and cannot be considered a person thereof.

Locke saw reason as necessary for an individual (person) exercising their liberty in the state of nature. So what makes a fetus a 'person'? In Locke's view (I would argue original intent) it would be a sufficiently physiologically 'viable' human and having a brain developed to approximate a born child with the presumed capacity to learn reason.
- The problem with arguments along this line is that they aren't extensible. Ultimately, the claim of existing as a human being is a biological one, and we accord these rights on the basis of a biological definition: living human-being. When we go down the line of reason and consciousness we are actually playing into the Left's hand, and find a slippery slope. The Left would love nothing more than to accord personhood to other animals that can reason as a personhood test. We should find ourselves all vegetarians in no short time, as even rats can 'reason' if on a limited basis.

Apart from that we find quickly euthanasia being legalized, since brain-dead fold are no longer 'persons' by your reason test, as well as those in coma's, etc. Furthermore, on the extreme, we could find ourselves in a situation where those who don't reason in the way the State sanctions are considered non-persons and legally executed, as a way of ideological purification. I can see the Left doing that if they were allowed.To date, arguments involving reason and the like have not overcome these barriers.

Besides, as Gray showed, rights need not require action in order to be held, as rights can be passive. Only duties are definitely active. So, as Locke says, exercising liberty certainly requires reason. But this does not speak to a question of holding rights at all. There is no difficulty in according rights to the unborn in this framework, as Gray himself says. And surely you would conclude that Gray has been influenced by Locke as well.

John Locke:
"For a man, not having the Power of his own Life, cannot, by Compact, or his own Consent, enslave himself to any one, nor put himself under the Absolute, Arbitrary Power of another, to take away his Life, when he pleases. No body can give more Power then he himself has; and he who cannot take away his own Life, cannot give another power over it." (Second Treatise, section 23)
- Seems a bit obtuse of a quote to use. Isn't this about the inalienability of rights? He's saying that you cannot legally allow another man to murder you, even by ascent. That's a whole other line of philosophy about the nature of uniqueness of Man.

The fetus without the ability to learn reason cannot give power over its life because it does not have power over its life. At this stage the power is in the hands of nature and the reasoning mother who is able to exercise her liberty.
- Must we then extend abortion past the point of birth? After all, newborns cannot 'learn reason' for quite some time. Again the idea has an extensibility problem, it cannot pass the universal applicability test. You would have to greatly redefine murder to use this test, as infants would be murderable by their mothers, and potentially others, for a very long time. If, however, one counters and says that a newborn may learn reason in time, then, so may a fetus. It is no different, both being merely younger than the age of one to whom reason can reasonably be expected.

What ethical philosophy do you appeal to when you "consider suicide not at all unethical depending on circumstances"?
- Utilitarianism, naturally. The only sad suicides are misgiuded ones. Some are quite reasonable. There's a famous case of a group of Jews after the sack of Israel, ~AD 80, whom held out for days against the Romans on a certain mountaintop. Finally the Romans were very close to breaking through and their fate was obvious. The Jews all killed each other, man, woman, and child rather than face being killed by the Romans and have their woman and children raped first and then killed. This is another instance where I have little problem, assuming it was entirely voluntary on all their parts. There's the misguided case of Japanese jumping from cliffs and throwing their babies from cliffs when the US occupied, because the Japanese propaganda had made Americans out to treat captives horribly. But this, of course, was not true and the Americans who saw it considered it very sad indeed. However the Jews were familiar with the actions of Romans, and the Japanese were not familiar with American behavior.

Do circumstances determine ethics/morality? Who determines the circumstances under which something is moral and something is not moral? As a "pro-life" advocate I would think you would want to outlaw all "senseless killing" in the form of abortion or suicide? Is suicide not a personal moral choice an individual makes? Does government 'condone' suicide by not writing laws to prohibit it? A 'right to life' is not a right to take ones life is it? Why are you not equally pro-life when it comes to suicide?
- I will have to appeal to the property ethic. One owns his or her life. If giving up life becomes more important than keeping it, he should do it, and he likely will anyway. That may be a reasonable decision depending on circumstances.

There are many 'suicides' conducted for ethical reasons, that are obvious up-front as being ethical, and I will explain one and you will agree. Suppose a child runs into a street and a man, seeing a car coming, runs into the street after him and pushes the child out of the way of the on-coming car and takes the hit himself and dies. That man has committed suicide, and yet is accorded status as a hero. We then call it 'sacrifice' not 'suicide', which is interesting. You may say that he didn't know he would die! Well, let us then look at numerous examples of soldiers in WWI or WWII who put themselves in situations where they knew they would die, or perhaps were even the agent of their own death via explosives or somesuch, but did it so that their fellow warriors would live and in the service of eventual victory. These too are considered heroes. So clearly, suicide is not always wrong or unethical, even on the face of it. And the circumstances of suicide can cause it to change names.

A final example are those trapped in a burning building with no hope of escape or rescue, such as the 9-11 victims. Their choice was to die by fire in an extraordinarily painful death, or die instantly by jumping - but jumping is technically a suicide. I have absolutely no problem with that choice and am sure I would choose it myself in the same situation.

Anenome

11-24-2008, 08:30 PM

Murder is commonly defined as unlawful killing. Capital punishment is not murder, right? Do you have a different definition of 'murder'?
- Capital punishment is a lawful killing and not murder, correct. However whether an killing is a murder or not is dependant on circumstance. To be called murder there is the standard of 'malice aforethought'. There are also accidental unlawful killings that we call 'manslaughter', etc.

But why mental health facility? If Kurt botched his suicide should he have been put in a mental facility? Because according to you he was attempting to take his own life ethical manner. Why would you punish someone for being ethical?
- Because we can't know a person's inner reality directly. Despite the pain he claims, his doctors were unable to find anything wrong with him, with his tomach. Kurt claims to have seen a hundred doctors or somesuch. But what if the pain he felt was simply the withdrawal from heroine, which is not a stretch. A mental facility is the place for those dealing with a drug addiction also. Such a medical facility would be the place to determine such a thing. In any case I would not have the state sanction suicide directly. As a matter of practicality it should be deterred gently, even half-heartedly as it is now.

I did seize on that word and I will again press the issue with your substitution. Condoning or allowing something by not having a law prohibiting it does not therefore make a moral statement on the behalf of the government. The absence of a prohibiting law does not make a moral statement. Or do you think that it does? Government is still able to use noncoercive means to try and influence personal moral choices. I'm having trouble making sense of your statement it still seems as illogical as an abortion rights advocate who says "outlawing abortion is forcing pregnancy."
- I'm simply saying that if abortion is murder then it must be outlawed. From the face of it, it appears to be murder. It may be a very popular form of murder which allows large segments of the population to continue to live relatively irresponsibly, however. And yes, I think the absence of a law prohibiting something does make a moral\ethical statement about that something. When the government does not prohibit something the morals of the people regularly adapt around that.
I knew a girl from Russia who told me war was good because it brings the country together and creates jobs, etc. She later admitted she was spouting what she'd been taught in Russia and it's hard to break from that when you've seen people dragged out into the street and shot for opposing war.

Who decides when it is a psychological problem and when it isn't? In Curt's case, as you describe, his was not a psychological, but a reasoned ethical way to deal with his pain. What about someone dealing with intense debilitating migraines? Send them to a mental institute for trying to escape this untreatable pain (I know people who have unsuccessfully sought all kinds of medical treatment for this)? Your position seems inconsistent.
- I accept Kurt's claim of actual physical pain, but I'm not a doctr and never examined him, obviously. If it was simply heroine withdrawal then I would restract my sanctioning of it, though would never suggest the State sanction suicides. Reading the account of his life, including when he tried to quit and was clean for awhile after his daughter was born, I lean towards actual pain. As for who decides, I'd leave that up to doctors, they can measure pain impulses these days, do all sorts of things to make a medical determination of real vs psychological pain. Ultimately that question is immaterial. If a person is experiencing #11 pain on a scale of 1 through 10 and experiencing it regularly, as Kurt was, they don't care if it's physical or psychological. But if it's physical, in this day and age, we can snip that nerve pretty easily and hunt down the problem, etc. Then they need not commit suicide.

Ultimately, however, the person who decides on suicide is the person themself. That's also how we, as a society, deal with the question. Slap on the wrist for attempting and failing, we get you some psychological help and that's about it. If you determine your life isn't worth living, on balance, you take it, and making you do it yourself is a way of making sure you believe it to be worth it. Imagine if we made women perform their own abortions in a clinical setting, though, I think the rates would drop dramatically. Just as suicide would climb dramatically if it was clinicized and the person committing it didn't have to 'pull the trigger' so to speak >.>

Ultimately it comes down to this: I think if someone tries to commit suicide and lives they should be given mental care, no matter what the actual cause.

Last couple questions of yours I sense a certain philosophical fuzziness in my own reasoning ;P May be areas for me to look into. But, we are dealing with some of the hardest questions of the world, really.

kerrin

12-01-2008, 08:00 PM

Anenome,

I hope you had a great holiday. I return perhaps with a looser belt...physically speaking that is. ;)

That 'positive force' then, is definitely not what is meant by 'will' which is meant to be a function of cognition and consciousness. You're just talking about the laws of chemistry.
I thought we were talking about life. The laws of nature rule over life. Chemistry is a subset of the laws of nature.

A fire is subject to the same pre-determined route of chemical reactions, of oxidation of whatever it finds, we do not consider it to posses a will thereby, much less alive. I don't think you can equate the laws of chemistry as being a positive / spiritual force akin to will.
Fire is not life. This avoids my argument with semantics and unequal analogies.

...we can probably agree that the Founders did not have in mind the unborn when using the term 'person'. However they also did not exclude the unborn by using it
Not exclude entirely, but also does not include all unborn human life.

...you'd attempted to show previously by demanding an amendment for them specifically.
I was not demanding an amendment. Only saying an amendment is necessary to include all unborn fetus' in the governments protection of the right to life. I actually think current ruling, is a decent interpretation of the Constitution's original intent.

The problem with arguments along this line is that they aren't extensible.
Extensibility does not make it a problematic argument. Everything is black and white for you? No room for grey? Paradox? Life, liberty, and property becomes a paradox at some point...always will.

Ultimately, the claim of existing as a human being is a biological one, and we accord these rights on the basis of a biological definition: living human-being.
Personhood is more then that...according to original intent.

When we go down the line of reason and consciousness we are actually playing into the Left's hand, and find a slippery slope.
I don't accept slippery slope arguments. With personal liberties "the left" often understands Lockean Liberty better then "the right." Although, both "sides" in this argument seek government coercion on individual freedom.

The Left would love nothing more than to accord personhood to other animals that can reason as a personhood test.
There are some reasonable people on "the left," this is just silly. Obviously 'person' only applies to humans, you've already made that point. Reason alone is not sufficient and looking at Locke's philosophies related to 'personhood' a reasonable person would not claim animals were included in original intent.

Apart from that we find quickly euthanasia being legalized, since brain-dead fold are no longer 'persons' by your reason test, as well as those in coma's, etc.
Personally, I would like the liberty to legal allow "the plug to be pulled" if those legally representing me find me in such a state. Always extremes with you. ;) I don't think original intent allows for euthanasia, especially not government involvement in euthanasia.

Furthermore, on the extreme, we could find ourselves in a situation where those who don't reason in the way the State sanctions are considered non-persons and legally executed, as a way of ideological purification. I can see the Left doing that if they were allowed.
Our government does not have the power to execute people for ideological purification. This is a silly extreme. You remove the 'right to privacy' and you may push us closer to such an extreme, though.

Besides, as Gray showed, rights need not require action in order to be held, as rights can be passive.
Only in the case of a sovereign.

There is no difficulty in according rights to the unborn in this framework, as Gray himself says.
To some of the unborn, but not all.

Seems a bit obtuse of a quote to use. Isn't this about the inalienability of rights? He's saying that you cannot legally allow another man to murder you, even by ascent.
I don't consider it obtuse. Locke was showing that individuals cannot consent to absolute government. It is only by consent that individuals can transfer the powers of preservation to political society. The law of nature prevents absolute liberty or license and also prevents absolute majority control. Your stance that abortion is absolutely a criminal offense or murder gives government absolute power in part and removes liberty without consent.

Must we then extend abortion past the point of birth?
My point escapes you still. No we "must not" and my argument neither demands that we do nor infers that we must.

...newborns cannot 'learn reason' for quite some time.
Newborns have the capacity to learn reason. Also they are born. I claimed according to original intent (Locke's philosophies) a 'person' is one who is sufficiently physiologically 'viable' human and has a brain developed to approximate a born child with the presumed capacity to learn reason.

I will have to appeal to the property ethic. One owns his or her life. If giving up life becomes more important than keeping it, he should do it, and he likely will anyway. That may be a reasonable decision depending on circumstances.
One can never know circumstances absolutely. A reasoned decision is made by an individual with what information is available at the time of a decision.

My whole point of bringing up suicide in relation to abortion is that your arguments don't seem consistent for "pro-life." And since you like extensibility so much: your arguments are not extensible across the two—where life is at stake. Both involve a reasoned personal moral decision that does not harm another legally protected individual.

And the circumstances of suicide can cause it to change names.
It doesn't "change names" it is decidedly different. A sacrifice of life is entirely different then suicide. The reasoning for each is different and therefore the 'name' is appropriately different. It does not change anything they are simply different in reasoning. A suicide bomber makes a reasoned decision based on a belief that he is obeying his deity and will receive a reward—not insanity, but a reasoned decision—seen as heroic by his peers.

- Capital punishment is a lawful killing and not murder, correct.
But you have used the term 'murder' repeatedly in reference to all abortion—not based on law but ethics/morality.

However whether an killing is a murder or not is dependant on circumstance.
Only if everyone subscribes to your philosophical ethics. Which I reject as problematic in their absolute use, as well as your insistence that they be forced via government on everybody.

...I would not have the state sanction suicide directly. As a matter of practicality it should be deterred gently, even half-heartedly as it is now.
Our government can allow for individual moral autonomy and still make a moral statement therefore avoiding moral indifference. This is what Locke's philosophies sought to do—not produce a good society but prevent a bad one. Your insistence that abortion is murder from the face of it, is based on your moral philosophies that are not universally accepted. Forcing them on everyone would go against original intent and misunderstand liberty in the form of moral autonomy.

I'm simply saying that if abortion is murder then it must be outlawed. From the face of it, it appears to be murder.
Murder is unlawful killing...if abortion is or is not is the debate. You cannot call it murder absolutely until it is shown to be unlawful. Unless you appeal to some other law or philosophy.

From the face of it, it appears to be murder.
Your circumstances based morality would not allow for this to be applied constantly. You have acknowledged circumstances where abortion is allowable killing (e.g. mother's life is at stake) therefore not murder.

It may be a very popular form of murder which allows large segments of the population to continue to live relatively irresponsibly, however.
Murder is never popular if it is unlawful. So government should enforce responsibility? You like slippery-slope arguments...seems like appealing to responsibility for giving government power is a slippery one indeed.

I think the absence of a law prohibiting something does make a moral\ethical statement about that something.
Drunkenness no law prohibiting it...moral statement on behalf of government? Getting "high" (besides possession of certain substances) no law prohibiting it...moral statement by government?

When the government does not prohibit something the morals of the people regularly adapt around that.
Our form of government is the people they do not adapt. "We the people..." are the government.

Anenome

12-02-2008, 03:20 PM

Thanks, I had a fun holiday :) Hope you and yours are well also.

Now...

There's plenty of law governing or limiting drunkeness. You cannot even drink in public, or be drunk in public. I won't comment on whether I think that's reasonable or not, but those are facts.

And our government is definitely not solely 'We the people...". The Founders recognized the rule of Law, not solely the 'tyranny of the majority' or mob-rule as final arbiter. We are therefore a republic, not a democracy as such, though this fact is widely misunderstood and misstated. Majority rule with minority rights. This is foundational to our republic and our system of law. Our system of law recognizes principles of justice outside itself, pre-existing itself, as did the Founders, stating in the Declaration that, "we hold these truths to be self-evident". Law pre-existed our writing it down, the broad principles of Justice are universal. Murder can never be made un-murder by changing US law. Murder is murder and will always be murder whether the law defines it properly as such or not. And there are many cases of the law being wrong about what is and isn't murder in the past.

Now, you have stated that abortion is not murder because the law does not recognize the unborn as persons, and therefore killing them is not unlawful, and only unlawful killings can be murder. If this were a court of law and you were trying to prove your point from the law this would be a valid point. But your appeal to current written law is not viable when we're asking the question of whether the law is correct in the first place. I say to you that there is a law higher and more objective than our written law, that law that our written law attempts to obtain to. The law from which all law is drawn, the law of the self-evident truth. And it is that law which makes clear that such a killing as abortion is certainly murder, even if our written law does not technically allow for such a statement. It is on that basis that I call it so.

The law of the US could be re-written to say that Jews are not human beings, and so it is not illegal to kill them (if you'll forgive the hyperbole of using Jews in such an argument), and so it is not murder to kill them, and thus make it legal to kill Jews. I would still say that killing Jews is unlawful and murderous despite what the written law said. Objective law is not changed by written law. You would not trot out your same argument in that situation as you have against the unborn, for it's obvious on its face what the truth is.

So my position is simply that the obvious facts are thus:
- Unborn human beings are alive.
- Unborn human beings are persons.
- Premeditated and unjustified termination of an unborn life is murder.

Whether the written US law wants to align itself with that or not, that is where the facts lead.

Now, no matter what the law says or doesn't, if a living human being is killed by another without justification (and that justification can be said to transcend any current written law, or even contradict it), then it is murder. And if the law skirts that fact, then it is wrong, and skirts it wrongly and should be changed.

Now, we can argue about Locke all day long, but we needn't since Locke is not an arbiter of original intent and arguably less an authority than Gray was on this issue. We need only note that the Founders used the term 'person' and define that.

We have established that a person has two irreducible qualities:
1. Human being.
2. Alive.
And all 'legal persons' or 'corporate persons' are made up of those who satisfy condition 1. and 2. so we need not define that further.

You pin me with the idea that I seek government coercion on individual freedom, certainly! I ask that your right to swing your fist end where another's nose begins! That is a reasonable delineation of government enforcement. Freedom is a 'middle-concept' and both too much and too little can become harmful; neither anarchy nor totalitarianism do I support. Using the famous swinging fist analogy I could just as easily say that your right to excise cells off your body ends where another's cells begin. And the biology of the situation of abortion is just as clear, the mother cannot be the owner of cells which are of a wholly different genetic makeup than her own and which clearly belong to a separate living human being. Even if she could own another's cells she cannot lawfully kill a living human being according to the law. No human can own another human, neither then can a mother own her unborn child - at any stage of development. Nor can she decide when or if it should live or die, once it exists. This is self-evident.

The law need not reference the unborn specifically as long as it states that a living human being, or person, cannot be killed lawfully without justification - so again it comes down to whether the unborn are persons. Neither can the definition or murder be amended to exclude those who satisfy conditions 1 and 2, so arguments based on the development of reason are flawed, since the capacity for reason has nothing to do with life or being a human being, nor the definition of such. Few are arguing that abortions generally are performed with justification, and M42 and I basically covered the major exception. You and I are discussing the general case, where there is no question that the vast majority are convenience abortions without legal justification to abrogate the conclusion of murder.

Gray showed that to exercise rights and to fulfill duties requires a will, but some rights do not require being exercised and are wholly passive. He does not tie will into life. In fact it is illogical to do so. Murder is the question of ending a human life, will does not enter into it. Will is only a question of the exercise of rights and duties. Rights can be passive or active, duties are always active. For instance, one has the right to do nothing, or the right to remain silent even. But one also has the right to talk, of freedom of speech. Even those whom are unconscious retain the passive right to live, the right to life, as they sleep. Extending that right to the unborn should be a natural thing. The same right against being murdered of the unconscious or coma-ridden person is the same right the unborn should enjoy at every stage.

As for a right to privacy, it's for the States to deal with, not the Fed, not the Constitution. The Constitution clearly says that the BoR does not exclude other rights people may have, but that those rights are the jurisdiction of the people and the States. So at the minimum the Supreme Court should not be making rulings on a right to privacy which it does not even have standing to enforce. Stating that the Fed has overstepped itself in creating a Constitutional right to privacy does not prevent the states from recognizing such a right, which the Constitution itself says is the proper place for such an event. It does not make me an opponent of the right to privacy either. I quite enjoy mine ;P

You say "newborns have te capacity to learn reason." If so, then so do the unborn at every stage of development, so does even the unicellular zygote. What salient difference is there apart from time and age to grow and learn? The law does not discriminate on the basis of age when it comes to basic rights. There is no age at which murder is permitted and then not permitted. Even viability is an artificial delimiter, and not age based at all, especially since it is plain that 'viability' may eventually resolve to the point of conception itself.

I find your argument about abortion being okay because one of the human beings involved (the unborn) is not legally protected disturbing. Again, is this not what happened to Jews and Blacks and Women as well as many other groups?

Kerrin: "My whole point of bringing up suicide in relation to abortion is that your arguments don't seem consistent for "pro-life." And since you like extensibility so much are not extensible across the two—where life is at stake. Both involve a reasoned personal moral decision that does not harm another legally protected individual."

Suicide does harm a legally protected individual. But it is its own punishment, exceedingly hard to prevent, and with little or no recourse. That's what makes it difficult to deal with legally. Shall we hang the bodies of successful suicide victims again, as has been done in the past? Sentence corpses to stand before the firing squads for the capital crime of self-murder? It's been done. But it's still silly. And, should one survive a suicide attempt should we not attempt to prevent another attempt at all cost? Only a mental health facility can achieve this, no civil punishment can. Thus it's just a matter of practicality.

As for abortion it is not like suicide because there are two people involved, two lives involved. The life and body of the mother is not the same as the life and body of the baby. This is true both legally and biologically, and the legal reflects the truth of the biological.

And yes, I would rather have a government that asks people to accept the outcome of their choices rather than, for instance, the trillion-dollar bailout currently happening, as just one example. That is a rather excellent principle of individualism, that a person's effort is his reward, so then is the product of his mistakes. ~97% of abortions are unwanted pregnancies resulting from wanted sex. The choice of sex should implicitly include the acceptance of the risk of pregnancy, just as going into business implies the acceptance of the risk of bankruptcy. And no, society should not condone murder in any circumstance. And society cannot avoid abortion being called murder by redefining the unborn as nonpersons, just as the Jews were once defined as non-persons, that's not how it works.

(I've attempted to address your points and also cut down on size, so forgive me for not addressing all of your points directly.)

kerrin

12-03-2008, 07:50 PM

I have skipped some of your post not because of space, but because I may not be able to continue discussing this with you given your dismissal of Locke without a stated reason.

There's plenty of law governing or limiting drunkeness.
Yes, thanks. This did not escape me, oh learned one. ;) I should have clarified with "private drunkness." In my defense I brought up drunkness within the context of private moral decisions, which is the realm where legal abortion takes place.

And our government is definitely not solely 'We the people...". The Founders recognized the rule of Law, not solely the 'tyranny of the majority' or mob-rule as final arbiter. We are therefore a republic, not a democracy as such, though this fact is widely misunderstood and misstated.
You have changed the topic I was addressing with these statements. You were claiming government makes a moral statement with law and then the people follow. Yes, it's a representative republic. The officials of the republic represent the people. 'We the people' are the government... we give legitimate government power to protect rights. If the government every ceases to be legitimate we have the natural right to rebel against tyranny.

This is foundational to our republic and our system of law. Our system of law recognizes principles of justice outside itself, pre-existing itself, as did the Founders, stating in the Declaration that, "we hold these truths to be self-evident".
Not exactly they saw this as the reason to rebel against tyranny and form a legitimate government. Besides I thought you didn't like the Declaration with its inclusion of "the pursuit of happiness." I happen to think the documents are inextricably linked, via the preamble, in original intent and therefore John Locke's philosophies. But you seem to have a problem with this.

Yes there are natural rights and contractual rights both in the Constitution. Rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (possessions) are self-evident for an individual sovereign (person) in the state of nature.

Law pre-existed our writing it down, the broad principles of Justice are universal. Murder can never be made un-murder by changing US law.
In the 'state of nature' individuals exist with natural rights, right? Laws come through human observation of what is, what we perceive to exist.

The law of the US could be re-written to say that Jews are not human beings...
This is not true. The Constitution can only be added to not "re-written" or changed. You would first need to dissolve the US and create a new government. Therefore, the rest of your reasoning, here, falls apart.

Objective law is not changed by written law.
Prior to the formation of government the 'state of nature' is the law. Not sure I agree with "objective" I would prefer that you call it perceived or observed law. Objectivity is not objectively knowable by humans.

Unborn human beings are persons.
You have still failed to make this absolutely 'plain' or 'self-evident' given original intent and context of 'person' of the Constitution and BoR. Likewise, you have not shown this to be 'self-evident' in the 'state of nature' preceding the formation of the Constitution and BoR.

Now, we can argue about Locke all day long, but we needn't since Locke is not an arbiter of original intent and arguably less an authority than Gray was on this issue. We need only note that the Founders used the term 'person' and define that.
Okay, now you have really lost me. While I have thoroughly enjoyed this discussion, this quite possibly will be the last post I will make in response. Locke's ideas and philosophies are all throughout the founding of our country. All I can say is your college has failed you. Gray is absolutely not more of an authority. Does Gray have any thoughts or words quoted/used within the Declaration or Constitution? I think not—Locke is obviously more of an authority. The term 'person' had political philosophy behind its meaning, as did 'life, liberty, and property.' You cannot separate Locke from the founders intent without making a serious blunder in intellectual honesty.

We have established that a person has two irreducible qualities:
1. Human being.
2. Alive.
And all 'legal persons' or 'corporate persons' are made up of those who satisfy condition 1. and 2. so we need not define that further.
A definition alone is not sufficient to establish your point. What is meant by 'person' and therefore 'human being' within the context and original meaning is necessary. We have not established your "irreducible qualities" as exhaustive.

As for a right to privacy, it's for the States to deal with, not the Fed, not the Constitution.
But the 14th gave significantly more power to the fed in protection of rights to the citizen (lower case)—the citizen of the federal government. Prior to the 14th the right to slave ownership was left to the States. Congress ratified the 14th adding to the Constitution a new class of 'citizen' ('All persons born or naturalized...') giving the fed the responsibility to protect all the rights in the Constitution and the BoR to all within its jurisdiction.

I find your argument about abortion being okay because one of the human beings involved (the unborn) is not legally protected disturbing.
Why do you find this disturbing? Personal moral belief? Why don't you find it equally disturbing that people have the liberty to commit suicide? You called it "senseless" not disturbing. Seems like you, now, might be "emotional attached to your arguments"? ;)

Also, my argument is not that abortion is "okay because one of the human beings involved (the unborn) is not legally protected"—personally I don't like it I and wish that all life could live. I am not making a morality claim (i.e. abortion is "okay"). My claim is that abortion is a permissible, personal moral decision when another legally protected 'person' (given original intent of the meaning) is not involved.

firetown

12-13-2008, 07:44 AM

Have any of you seen actual pictures of what abortion looks like?

kerrin

12-13-2008, 12:32 PM

Have any of you seen actual pictures of what abortion looks like?
Yes. 3rd trimester abortion is especially hard to watch—gruesome, but then again I'm not one to enjoy watching surgery of any sort. I watched the birth of my first child close-up and it kinda weirded-me-out. On the other hand, for entertainment I can watch gruesome scenes in a movie and not be bothered.

Early term abortion pictures are hard to identify though—looks like tissue and blood.

eternaltraveler

02-09-2009, 02:30 PM

Now that I see this thread exists (maybe I saw it some time ago when I was too busy to write anything) I'll quote my post on the matter in the stem cell research thread here rather than rewriting everything.

They were assembled to become human life. If the IVF didn't take, and no live human resulted, I'd say knock yourself out. But when you create a human life, you have a responsibility to refrain from killing it.

I'd say we have the responsibility to refrain from killing people. "Human life" can mean anything from a Nobel laureate to a cancer cell (some of which have become free living (see hela cellshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa)

When do you say human life begins?

Human life began in some gradual way some hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago. Both a sperm and egg are alive and human. They are however, not people. People have brains and can think.

Just the same way as human life began in a semi nebulous way over the course of epochs (or aeons if you trace it back all the way), so too does the development of personhood in the concepsus. As we know personhood is a function of the brain, so it therefore follows that before there is even the slightest trace of a brain there is no person. After a brain starts to develop the waters muddy a bit; there is no hard and fast point where you can say before here there is no person, and after here, there is. Our society has very little problem with killing entities with little neural complexity, so surely the embryo should have at least as much neural complexity as a mouse before we start to entertain notions of it's innate rights. Neural development is a process, one that does not result in a self aware reasoning being until sometime after birth.

With present and near future technology we can come pretty close to making just about any random somatic cell develop into a person. This dubious potential doesn't mean any of these cells somehow have "rights".

In medicine we have criteria for establishing brain death. Once these criteria are met a person is no longer considered "alive" and we can harvest organs from them resulting in the death of most of the rest of the carcass left behind (aside from the organs transplanted into other people).

As a fun tidbit, about 60% of conceptions do not result birth. (Spontaneous) abortion is the rule, not the exception. [PMID]7117572 *

61.9% of conceptuses will be lost prior to 12 weeks. Most of these losses (91.7%) occur subclinically, without the knowledge of the mother.

A blastocyst has no brain or even a single nerve cell. Assigning the same level of rights to this as you do to a person and calling it a child is preposterous and has no basis outside of religion. If you want something reasonable on which to base your ethical framework I suggest simply swapping out "human life" for "person".

The practice of confusing the two has and is resulting in the death and suffering of people.

link to original http://www.individualism.com/community/showthread.php?p=2174#post2174

eternaltraveler

02-09-2009, 03:05 PM

As a fun tidbit, about 60% of conceptions do not result birth. (Spontaneous) abortion is the rule, not the exception. [PMID]7117572 *

I didn't elaborate on this in the other thread because there wasn't much in the way of religious reasoning going on there. Here there is a touch of that. I'll attempt to address that now.

As quoted in the text above that majority of conceptions do not result in birth. The majority pass out of the body without the woman ever being aware they existed. This alone makes the idea that god, or gods (assuming you believe they are of the all powerful type) somehow view, at least early term, abortions as a bad thing immediately fail the smell test. If abortion is murder, this is positively genocide.

"Ensoulment", that is the endowment of a concepsus with a human soul, consciousness, or being, until until relatively recently, was not considered to be something that happened at or near the time of conception, even in a religious context. This was true in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. I have a copy of Thomas Aquinas' Suma Theologica sitting on my desk here. He was certain that the soul was not put into the body by god until at least the 40th day after conception, his reasoning being simply that the material form wasn't developed enough to receive a human soul until after this time. Abortion before that time was therefore no worse than contraception (which was admittedly a terrible sin in Catholicism at the time). The idea of delayed ensoulment did not originate with him either, and was first brought to the Roman catholic church in the 4th century by St. Augustine, who himself borrowed it from Aristotle. It wasn't until the later half of the 19th century that this position was reversed. I'm not certain what the present Islamic take on the matter is, but they too accepted Aristotle's (and St. Thomas' reasoning).

eternaltraveler

02-09-2009, 03:57 PM

Now, I generally won't debate matters regarding definitions because whatever this or that dictionary says, words are fluid phenomena. And having a debate centered around something like "murder=killing human life" according to this or that dictionary doesn't get us anywhere ethically (or morally); it is entirely a straw man. It's essentially putting Webster's dictionary in the place of god as an absolute principle on which to base all else, which is nonsense. Dictionary definitions are no basis for a discussion on ethics or morality, what is important is making sure those engaged in debate are aware of the definitions the others are using in the context of the debate.

That being said since so much of the preceding discussion seems to center around the definition of murder, lets look at the definition from these various dictionaries.

from wikipedia
Murder as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent

from dictionary.com

the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).

from webster's

the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Commonly accepted definitions of murder define it as killing a "human being" or a "person". So the first order of business in establishing that at least an early term conceptsus is either a "human being" or a "person". Some dictionary definitions of "human being" admittedly don't bother to define "human being" as anything other than as a member of the species "homo sapiens", others use a stricter definition which requires some degree of self awareness. Science very resoundingly comes down on the side that these clumps of cells are not remotely people or human beings if we were to use the later definition, and this is the one I use. This definition, like all definitions, is debatable. If I were to accept the former definition that would simply mean to me that the definition of "murder" includes some acts that are neither morally nor ethically wrong.

"Person" is somewhat clearer, though some definitions also reference "human being".

from wikipedia

The term person in common usage means an individual human being. In the fields of law, philosophy, medicine, and others, the term also has specialized context-specific meanings.

In many jurisdictions, for example, a corporation is considered a legal person with standing to sue or be sued in court. In philosophy and medicine, person may mean only humans who are capable of certain kinds of thought, and thus exclude embryos, early fetuses, or adults with certain types of brain damage. [1][2] This could also extend to late fetuses and neonates, dependent on what level of thought is required.

kerrin

02-09-2009, 07:47 PM

eternaltraveler,

Thanks for your scientific data, sound reasoning, and "fun tidbit[s]". In the process of this discussion I sought to bring up the definition of murder, but to little avail. I agree with you that dictionary definitions get us nowhere. Word's meaning ebb and flow with the ages. For understanding a specific meaning at a specific time context is necessary.

This, in the end, is a matter of philosophy, for which science helpfully provides data points for applying Reason to.

When do you think a human being is a person?

eternaltraveler

02-10-2009, 12:38 AM

When do you think a human being is a person?
In my mind a "human being" is always a person, as I view that term to imply a thinking reasoning being. I'll address when I think a human life is a person.

Well like Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and Aristotle I would certainly want to take a conservative approach to the matter. We, like they, are not exactly dealing with zero information on which to base this decision. Indeed, we have quite a bit more information than they had. As I've stated above there is no specific point where we can point and say, here is a being with a full human consciousness. However though I disagree that there is a set point scientifically; there is a need for one legalistically (or set points for that matter, there is no reason we couldn’t have several, killing a consepsus before this point is fine, afterwards it should not be done unless there are compelling reasons, and after another point it is the murder of a human being). Rule of law needs to be maintained uniformly to have value.

In view of this I will only consider whether the presence of the neural architecture needed to maintain a human consciousness is present at all, not whether that neural architecture is being utilized (that is the presence of the hardware needed to run the software that is a human consciousness, not whether there is that software that is us actually running).

I won’t bother to go into the details of the hindbrain and brainstem as I think most of us here are aware that which makes us human is primarily a function of the forbrain, with the mid brain, pons, and medulla primarily dealing with homeostatic and regulatory functions. At 13 weeks of gestation the number of cells present in the forebrain is estimated to be roughly, well 1/13th of those present at birth, while by 22 weeks of gestation the number is about 1/3rd [Samuelsen et al]. At first glance this might make one tend to believe that a 13 week fetus has 1/13th the cognitive capability of a full term neonate (or perhaps erroneously of an adult human). However this is not remotely true. The human neuron is not as commonly believed, the fundamental processing unit of the human mind, the synapse is. And at the 13th week not only are there a small number of neurons, the synaptic density is much lower. At the 28th (that is well into the third trimester) week the synaptic density is only 1/3rd of the adult level (and 1/5th of the synaptic density at a year after birth which is actually almost twice as high as it is in adulthood (loosing many of these initial, “blank slate” synapses is an essential component to carving out the neural architecture needed for reasoning and cognition)[Johnson et al].

The development of synapses is not at all uniform in the human brain, the basic regulatory centers develop synapses well before similar structures emerge in the forebrain, and the various cortical layers develop synaptic connections at different rates as well within the neocortex itself[Johnson et al]. All of this intuitively makes perfect sense.

At 28 weeks the synaptic density is 1/3rd of the adult level, or half the full term neonatal level, and the number of neurons even present in the forebrain is about half the full term level. This gives us 1/4th the neural complexity of a full term neonate only 10 weeks before full term. One might conclude that if this fetus was destined to be a genius with an IQ of 200 this fetus would have the IQ of 50, a mentally retarded but somewhat functioning person. Nothing could be further from the truth. IQ is not an absolute scale of intelligence; it is a relative scale of intelligence. In this case relative to other humans. At this stage the neural complexity is somewhat analogous to a rhesus monkey. An intelligent animal surely, but it isn’t going to score more than barely the double digits if that. Certainly not the level I would call a person, though also not the level I would be comfortable with the idea of killing for no reason at all. Though long term care facilities are full of humans permanently like this at a cost of 200-300k a year each to the taxpayer.

But is this the whole story? No. For that lets look at the neonate.

The neonate has a brain weight of about 1/3rd of the adult, and a synaptic density of half. This makes perfect sense as our heads are barely small enough to pass through the birth canal as it is. It became evolutionarily necessary for much of the brain to develop postnatally, (either that or women needed to develop some seriously massive booty…) evolution decided it would be better for us to take a little of the marsupial approach. And it does fairly rapidly. Various radiations connecting distant regions of the brain together are not myelinated and functioning even at birth, which is fundamentally necessary to knit together the forebrain from many small islands of computational ability, into a conscious thinking being’s brain.

From the conclusion of “Fetal brain and Cognitive Development”, a review paper published in developmental review in 1999.

the fetus and neonate appears incapable of thinking, reasoning, understanding, comprehending, or experiencing or generating "true" emotion or any semblance of higher order, forebrain mediated cognitive activity. Rather, although capable of learning, the increasingly complex behaviors demonstrated by the fetus and neonate, including head turning, eye movements, startle reactions, crying, screaming, and rudimentary smiling, are probably best described as brainstem reflexes[R Joesph]

As I said, originally, the waters are muddy indeed. If the purpose is to arrive at a philosophical definition of when a conscious thinking being could be present, the answer seems to be sometime after birth, perhaps around the 6th month post natally. If the purpose is to arrive at a legalistic definition of when abortion should and shouldn’t be allowed, and if it would ever constitute murder of a person my own recommendations are far more conservative as I don’t want to risk inadvertently allowing people to be harmed. Killing a neonate I would consider murder for this purpose, though the data suggests they are not yet a person, and our entire biology is geared toward caring about them. Abortion in the 3rd trimester should not be done without a compelling medical reason in my opinion, and the mother certainly should have exercised her right to choose by this point anyway. On the other hand I see no objective reason whatever why abortion in the first trimester can’t be used as even a first choice of contraception if the woman finds that more convenient than other forms. Honestly though from my perspective the wind would be taken completely out of my sails if stem cell research were allowed to otherwise flourish, as notions that a blastocyst is the moral equivalent to those here engaged in this discussion are going to already cost us untold lives.

As an aside, pro choice folks often take the position that if a fetus can be kept alive outside of the womb, that should be the cutoff point for when an abortion could legally take place. In my opinion that is a dangerous position to take indeed. Right now fetuses as early as 21 weeks have been kept alive outside of the womb, it won’t be long before full artificial wombs are developed (I know of several promising projects in that regard. When that happens would that mean we would have an obligation to incubate even those 60% of conceptions that are never even noticed?

Grethe Badsberg Samuelsen, Karen Bonde Larsen, Nenad Bogdanovic, Henning Laursen, Niels Græm, Jørgen Falck Larsen and Bente Pakkenberg “The Changing Number of Cells in the Human Fetal Forebrain and its Subdivisions: A Stereological Analysis” Cerebral Cortex, Vol. 13, No. 2, 115-122, February 2003

Mark Henry Johnson, Yuko Munakata, Rick O. Gilmore “ Brain Development and Cognition: A Reader” Edition: 2 Published by Blackwell Publishing, 2002

R. Joseph “Fetal brain and Cognitive Development” Developmental Review, 20, 81-98, 1999