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You cum into a paper towel again and throw it away - is that murder?
Generally brain waves start showing up around mid-to-late second trimester so I think one could reasonably argue somewhere in there.
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A human is born, lives a life, ingests the wrong chemical and becomes brain-dead. Now you have a human that is alive, but the person who was that human is permanently gone. To avoid murder, are we obliged to keep the body alive as long as possible by all available means? I don’t expect you would think so. I expect you’d agree terminating the life of the human body is the preferable and not a great ethical quandary. I…
While there's legal consensus based on practicality, that doesn't mean people agree with it. Until a properly formal and objective ethical answer can be found, this disagreement will remain.
Unless they are on X.
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A human is born, lives a life, ingests the wrong chemical and becomes brain-dead. Now you have a human that is alive, but the person who was that human is permanently gone. To avoid murder, are we obliged to keep the body alive as long as possible by all available means? I don’t expect you would think so. I expect you’d agree terminating the life of the human body is the preferable and not a great ethical quandary. I…
Except it is. In fact, the difference between alive and personhood and the point of transition are, fundamentally, the same issue: if the point of transition is considered the embryo, then the distinction doesn't really exist. While there's legal consensus based on practicality, that doesn't mean people agree with it. Until a properly formal and objective ethical answer can be found, this disagreement will remain.
One could argue that a human body with a mostly-functional brain that will never again be conscious is human but not a person. And, simultaneously argue that a few million human stem cells, none of which are neurons yet, is a personified human. But, that would be a clearly inconsistent stance.
And, I’d argue that consensus literally means that a significant population agrees.
Formally and objectively it could be argued that even shortly post-birth, barely-conscious infants lack the required characteristics of an individual person. But, obviously it would require an unacceptable degree of callousness to terminate an infant. Certainly not a practice we agree should be encoded into law in this modern era.
In general, I find the pro-choice consensus to be reasonably conservative regarding the rights of an embryo vs. the rights of a fully-realized mid-life person. Strongly weighted towards the mother before 24 weeks and strongly weighted towards the embryo afterwards. But, if it comes down to the life of the fully-realized person vs. the life of the potential person, the choice goes to the mother. Or, if the potential is clearly a life of suffering and early death, the ethical choice is to reduce suffering via difficult actions.
Generally, I find that the pro-life arguments are largely based on a lack of consideration. I.e. “Life begins at the instant of insemination.” with literally zero further consideration. Or, on knowingly false propaganda: “Evil baby-killers are celebrating killing babies minutes before birth.”
To my knowledge, neither of those stances were in the mainstream before American politicians accepted that the Civil Rights Movement was not going away.
Before that, The Church saw its role in the abortion issue as charitably offering grief counseling to women who had experienced that difficult choice. After the political situation changed, the role of The Church changed to the demonization of unfortunate women for the purpose of manufacturing single-issue voters for the benefit of specific politicians.
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Except it is. In fact, the difference between alive and personhood and the point of transition are, fundamentally, the same issue: if the point of transition is considered the embryo, then the distinction doesn't really exist. While there's legal consensus based on practicality, that doesn't mean people agree with it. Until a properly formal and objective ethical answer can be found, this disagreement will remain.
I must disagree. One could argue that a human body with a mostly-functional brain that will never again be conscious is human but not a person. And, simultaneously argue that a few million human stem cells, none of which are neurons yet, is a personified human. But, that would be a clearly inconsistent stance. And, I’d argue that consensus literally means that a significant population agrees. Formally and objectively…
Holding the "a permanently comatose human is not a person" and a "a fetus could be a person" aren't incompatible. The first statement presumes a definitive state to body where as the second statement holds a potential.
A significant portion of the population might agree, but it isn't all. If it isn't all, there's disagreement. It bears reminding, witch hunting was consensus at some point. I think this serves as a sufficient counterproof for majority consensus as a source of objective truth.
I'd like to press on this unnaceptable callousness: if it's objectively proven that newborns lack sufficient potential for personhood, why would there be an issue with post-birth abortion? It's not like the "conservative" approach here is victimless, the guardians of the newborn will have to bear a responsabily they have no duty to, infringing on their right to live. And infringing on this right is as unacceptable as it can get. Of course, this is presume an extreme pro-choice position is true, which I personally find unlikely.
In the end, I find that the majority of pro-choicers (not saying this includes you) aren't much better than religious pro-lifers. Most of the time, there isn't a deeper consideration beyond "my body, my rules" or "the law says humans with at least X age are people". Sometimes, it's even "evil misogynists want to enslave woman into baby factories." At least, the religious pro-lifers are transparent about being about their creed. These pro-choicers stiffle discussion under the pretense of legal consensus, which makes discussion harder.
But, because question of abortion, as you have stated before, is directly related to when personhood emerges, it's also related to the origin of personhood and, going further, human rights themselves. As such, I think there's less consensus on this topic, most just haven't given the proper consideration - we can kind of see it already: not every pro-lifer is against abortion in cases of rape/possibility of mother's death, and some pro-choicers are very strict: a fetus only becomes a person after being born.
"Last May, EFF reported that a sheriff’s office in Texas searched data from more than 83,000 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to track down a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion." These people really have nothing better to do?
They literally think they are doing the work of some divine creator. They have plenty of time to ruin the lives of other people because they think it saves their own.
People who believe that sort of thing are, IMO, extremely evil, and worshiping an evil deity.
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It's fascinating that you are attempting to portray a comment as authoritarian that is arguing people should not enforce their false beliefs on others and should not restrict their bodily autonomy. It's literally an argument against being authoritarian .
What I understood their point to be is that the only reason they are "false beliefs" is your own biases. If they aren't actual "false beliefs", then the restrictions on bodily autonomy are as justified as when dealing with killings, and your argument degenerates into pro-authoritarism .
In a democracy like ours, stopping the Queen and others from enacting restrictive and harmful policy based on impossibilities only requires convincing arguments. People are still perfectly free to believe in Creationism, but convincing arguments have removed it from curricula.
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I must disagree. One could argue that a human body with a mostly-functional brain that will never again be conscious is human but not a person. And, simultaneously argue that a few million human stem cells, none of which are neurons yet, is a personified human. But, that would be a clearly inconsistent stance. And, I’d argue that consensus literally means that a significant population agrees. Formally and objectively…
I also must disagree. Holding the "a permanently comatose human is not a person" and a "a fetus could be a person" aren't incompatible. The first statement presumes a definitive state to body where as the second statement holds a potential. A significant portion of the population might agree, but it isn't all. If it isn't all, there's disagreement. It bears reminding, witch hunting was consensus at some point. I thin…
Hey! Thanks for the fun, good-faith argument! Such a rarity these days that most folks seem unaware are that arguments even can be collaborative.
If rights can be capriciously and arbitrarily curtailed by armed agents of the state while effete judges yeet sternly-worded letters into the void, then those "rights" are worth about as much as the USA's signature on an international treaty. Which is to say, nothing.
I don't know if you've ever read any Bill/Declaration of Rights, but they all have "this right shall not be violated unless the law allows it" provisions. Many of them even have "oh, and requiring state licensing to exercise such right is not violating it" provisions (see e.g. "This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises" in Article 10 of ECHR).
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I don't know if you've ever read any Bill/Declaration of Rights, but they all have "this right shall not be violated unless the law allows it" provisions. Many of them even have "oh, and requiring state licensing to exercise such right is not violating it" provisions (see e.g. "This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises" in Article 10 of ECHR).
Nonsense. No such provision appears anywhere in the US Bill of Rights.