We have similar perspectives on the issue (I think) and I do appreciate your input. I try to approach the forum as a way for each person to get relevant facts and concepts into the discussion so we can all benefit as we refine our positions. That urge to protect and defend the cute little embryo is a powerful force, and it might explain why so many people are "pro-life" without really weighing the costs and benefits. When we choose based on our feelings, it is far too easy to save the panda and let the turkey buzzard become extinct because, let's face it, it is not as cute as the panda. It is unfortunate that so many people base their opinions on appearances and bumper-stickers. I wonder how many witches were burned at the stake because of appearances? (OK they didn't have bumper stickers back then but maybe they used banners and pennants) The simplistic answers make some people feel better about violating the rights of other people. What constitutes person-hood? Here is one view: http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/what_is_a_person/what_is_a_person.php There are many similar views (basically a person is "any entity that has the moral right of self-determination") but when you read the discussions they all have a common thread. An entity with the moral right of self-determination has to be able to think. That requires a functional mind. If we set the bar low enough to include the unborn fetus prior to the activation of the mind, we are confusing instinct and natural function with "self-determination." If we say the fetus is innocent, and did not intentionally invade the host, we are confirming that the fetus has no capacity for self-determination. If we back up from the moment of actual person-hood and grant the fetus/embryo/zygote/sperm the right to life, they are all equally qualified as potential children. The farther back you go, the more help it needs to realize that potential.
Thank you for a wonderful discussion. I enjoy discussion so I'm sure I can be very confusing about what my specific positions are. I can be all over due to my curiousity of what others think and how to wrap my mind around ideas. And discussions often times seem to bounce back and forth between the political, the scientific, and the philosophical. Thanks for that link. I've read up on the concepts of personhood. I am going to pick my fave as gradient theory of personhood. It's fairly similar to what I've been arguing basically. I'd say the earliest time "personhood" could be established as a legal matter would have to be when brain structure develops that enables consciousness or when medical doctors can keep a preemie alive, viability. I've expressed before that medical ethics have mostly been deciding what abortion options are available. As medical advancements continue, it will be more and more unethical to choose abortion prior to viability. I don't think of an embryo as cute, btw. Kinda slimy and tissuey maybe....
I think you're expressing the concept of personhood where I would express the concept of citizenship. Birth doesn't indicate anything about person. Everything is born. Neither does intellect. That would mean a baby is not a person, yet a dog is, along with a corporation. If you want to say a dog can't be a person because humans can only be a person, fine. A dog should not be moral consideration as equal to a baby. That is quite a problem, is it not? Think of the implications. Can a dog be a citizen?
I've never argued that there is personhood in anything with potential. I've argued that if there are rights in the actual, there are rights in the potential. If personhood comes in degrees of development, then potential can matter. A fetus can never be less than an animal in moral consideration. A mother can have higher moral consideration than a fetus. Nothing with greater actual intellect will have higher moral consideration than something with greater potential intellect.
Consider personhood in degrees of development in evolutionary terms. Self-determination, pain, self-awareness none of them are unique in themselves in describing what a person is. All living beings have degrees in the number of qualities they possess. It is in the varying degrees that something posseses all possible qualities that is of moral consideration (notice I used the word possible rather than potential here). Actual live adult human beings can be the only natural persons...until there is a discovery of alien life that has qualities we can't imagine, of course. A legal person like a corporation or machine or artificial intelligence lack qualities like pain, perhaps they would have emotional pain but until there is physical pain, their interest and moral consideration would be less than a natural person who has all the qualities evolution has developed.
I think the term personhood begins to be a little archaic if this model develops much further...if alien life has qualities more advanced. It would be similar to believing the sun revolves around the earth, would it not?
We already have reason to believe a gorilla might qualify for person-hood... but that is not because of its DNA, or its beating heart, or the fact that it has a nose (or any of the other reasons most pro-life advocates claim for considering the fetus a person). That is because of its mind. I assume an alien species that could build a ship that reaches the earth would qualify for person-hood as well (also refuting the "it's a person because it has human DNA" arguments). Without knowing the reproductive process of this alien species, we do not know if there is a period of time when the physical life-form is being developed in a womb, or an egg, or a lake where it emerges when it is complete. It is likely (if they have an organic physical form at all) that there is a period of time when there is no functional mind. This brings to mind two questions: (1) Would we accept their strategy if this advanced species told us we were being ridiculous because we allowed a woman to terminate a single unborn life? (2) Would we accept their strategy if this advanced species told us we were being ridiculous because we did not terminate every potentially defective unborn and have the woman try again?
I'm simply suggesting Personhood is a human invention. Every description of what a "person" might be is some reflection of our human selves. Describing the concept of "personhood" and attributing it to other species is as presumptuous as saying the sun revolves around the earth. Although, I suppose the "moral world" does revolve around humans since its their conscious that invented it. You're stuck within the politics of abortion and how to keep the constitution from being used and manipulated. It keeps political strategy paramount. I am not. It's so glaringly obvious that the 14th amendment was written in a way that "person born" should never be interpreted as the "philosophical meaning that would include any non-human entity", yet it was argued that a corporation is an entity that has self-determination. The 14th amendment then goes on to say "except indians" and "only 21 year old men". So, corporations are persons but not indians and women. Political hacks, bad lawyers, ignorant politicians, judges legislating their political persuasions. Now everyone is scrambling to try to define "person" so women have rights. Isn't it glaringly obvious that women in fact do? "Selfish", as you have often tried to attribute human behavior, isn't an unreasonable conclusion. Humans are indeed self-interested. It just leaves out all the other attributes of humans. Humans are inherently moral and empathetic. It has been observed and fairly well documented. I'm not advocating DNA. I simply said it could be argued. I never said it was my conclusion. I'm further suggesting there is a model that doesn't involve a reflection of our human self as a method to assign moral rights. I've described, in posts 377-380, bits of a model of how to consider interests (all living beings have an interest in our planet) and moral rights (all living beings have a moral right) in the way living beings interact with one another without it being human-centric. It's more evolution-centric. That is actually how the universe works, right? NOT human-centric. This model has its origins in things I've read, like gradient theory of personhood as described by Charles Manning Child, also Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer, Bertha Alvarez Manninen, and others.
It is fair to say person-hood is a human invention. We might accept Koko the gorilla as a provisional person because she was able to learn and properly use more sign language than most of us have ever learned in our lives, but (as you suggested) we are applying rules that we have developed as persons. I have never considered a corporation to be a person. I did not get the impression that you were using DNA as the litmus test, but others in the forum do make that claim. I wonder if the property we describe as person-hood might be some intermediate stage between the entities we might describe as animal (motivated primarily by instinct and primal needs) and the entity we might describe as God (motivated primarily by love). I am more familiar with Peter Singer and Richard Dawkins (less so with the others, so I will have to do some reading). I agree with much of what Singer says about the fetus, but I disagree with some of his remarks about newborns. I am more inclined to give the typical newborn the benefit of the doubt because the cerebral cortex is mechanically able to capture and operate on information at that point.
I would say Koko is a member of the Gorilla gorilla species deserving of a greater moral status (a greater moral status than, say, clams. Clams can barely feel pain, no conscious etc) due to the qualities it possess to be verifiably known to effect a living organism in these (intelligence, self-awareness, foresight, reflection, emotion, etc, etc) specific ways. Therefore, we should also consider that the Gorilla gorilla species has an interest in their own well being, habitat, the conditions of the planet etc etc. It's not just our planet, after all. If harming a head of lettuce is no more consequential than harming a fetus, a chemicals manufacturer who negligently dumps chemicals that specifically harms only fetuses, but not the mother who has developed a more robust immune system, can not be held responsible. The response would be the mother is protected because she has a right to her body. Singer says the fetus has no value, therefore its inconsequential. Singer’s logic does not work. It simply states the obvious, a baby isn’t born yet. It assigns no moral status. It's almost a shame women's rights are tied to abortion (a very controversial issue). Women's rights should not be surrounded by controversy. Now women who want to assert their rights are just sex craved abortionists.
I don't think a single one word response, "irrellevant", was serious discourse. One possible response you could have offered me about "suing" would have been that men would have a moral duty to contribute to the expense of removing the unwanted growth. I might have agreed with you. After all, men would have that duty if the pregnancy wasn't terminated. Right?
Indeed, most of us do not have enough respect for the other species on the planet. If a company created an environmental factor that harmed the fetus, I would agree they should be held responsible... but not to the fetus. If the woman was planning an abortion anyway, no harm was done. Otherwise, if the pollutant killed the fetus, the company owes restitution to the mother because they have robbed her of a child. Otherwise (the fetus survived with some damage), the company owes restitution to the child for that injury. I agree with Singer that the fetus has no moral or ethical standing itself, but the company would still have to contend with the mother's claim or the actual child's claim. That is consistent with the UVVA laws currently in effect in many regions (although some might try to phrase it as protection of the fetus' "right to life"). It is a shame that the battle to stop abortion results in so much interference with women's rights. If the embryo had to migrate from the female to the male at 9 weeks to survive, you can bet there would be only fringe support for the pro-life agenda.
Okay, so here's what makes me run this back by you over and over to try to grasp this. I understand the logic. It isn't a question of law. I get the law. I get how it's applied. I've read Canadian law, British law, US law. I am able to get the gist of it and why it all works out. I'm just not sure how on the one hand you express that it is unjust that the unborn are harmed, but on the other hand you feel the fetus has no moral or ethical standing. My quandary has more to do with what we've been talking about with Koko. If Koko kept having miscarriages year after year, it would be a tragedy. Not due to the question if she wanted a baby or didn't want a baby. Not because my selfish desire that Koko have a baby so I can feel happy for her. It isn't about Koko's sadness at her loss. I'm unsure animals have feelings toward their young in anyway that could resemble a human parent. It would be more about the development of a life form at that point. It has more about potential. It has more to do with degree of development. It becomes more tragic the later in gestation the miscarriage happens. How can there be no moral standing? I'm certain there would be a team of veterinary physicians ensuring Koko's miscarriage issue is resolved. If one considers the moral rights of all living beings, why is there not moral considerations for the potential? That in no way would create an inability to consider the morality of terminating Koko's pregnancy, especially earlier in term.
The injury done to the fetus happens before it has objective moral or ethical standing. It is valuable (for its potential) to the pregnant woman and her family (if she wants to have a baby). It has no potential if she wants an abortion (it also has no potential if it happens to be one of the 40% who will spontaneously miscarry/abort). It is a matter of timing. Consider a company that is negligent about radioactive safety and exposes its workers to a known risk that affects the man's testes, or the woman's ovaries, so they will always produce miscarriages or severely damaged babies. We would not say the rights of the sperm or the egg have been violated by this company (just like we would not say the rights of the fetus have been violated). We would say (a) the company owes restitution to the man or woman because of the potential they have destroyed, and/or (b) the company owes restitution to the child who was born with birth defects as a result of negligence that may have happened years before the incident that resulted in this defect. It is possible to get justice without the pretense that the fetus (or sperm or egg), itself, has moral or ethical standing. When it comes to Koko... what if Koko communicated to them that she does not want any more babies? Would we treat her like a slave and force her to have more children because we need more gorillas for the zoo?
I think Koko should do what she wants, especially if she doesn't want the baby. Because there are no laws against Koko, and since her species hasn't developed ways to terminate pregnancy earlier in term, she can use her strong gorilla hands to crush her fetus as she is giving birth to keep her conscience clear that she isn't harming a living being. I think there is a confusion about what is "potential". Sperm and eggs have no potentiality, only possibility. An acorn has the possiblity to become an oak tree but it has no potential to become a tree until it is planted and a sprout appears. The further the tree develops the greater the potentiality. I've also indicated I understand the law and that it can provide justice. I said that in my last post. The law might provide justice but it doesn't assign a moral status. I've been trying to explore the moral status of a fetus from the very beginning. I think society has an interest in the unborn for a variety of reasons. The odd thing is that no one disputes society has an interest in the unborn. Yet I am still simply getting statements that "women have rights" or "abortion is murder". You've indicated your own concepts and thoughts of when a fetus might gain moral status (personhood). It has something to do with consciousness and activation of the mind. If your thoughts on the moral status of a fetus is applied as an identification of personhood, anyone could keep a born person in a perpetual non-personhood status. Simply by continuing, after birth, the mental state of a fetus in the womb. And it would not be immoral to do so.
That is an interesting idea (keeping the newborn in an unaware state). We sometimes induce a coma to allow people time to heal. If we induced a coma (or just maintained low oxygen and natural sedatives in the blood of a newborn) the newborn might linger in the doorway. However, it is no longer inside a host, so whoever is going to take responsibility for this newborn should decide if there is some reason to delay this newborn from starting person-hood. There might be good reason to do so (e.g. when a burn victim is placed in an induced coma). This brings up a related idea. Fertility researchers have experimented with freezing the zygote/embryo/blastocyst already. What if we could suspend the fetus at week 28 and preserve it in a cryogenic tank... to revive it sometime later to complete gestation? Would that be immoral? What if that was the only way to keep it from dying before we could find a cure for whatever disease it might have?
If it is simply a woman's right to do as she wishes with her fetus, she could, in theory, give the rights of her body parts to a researcher to research as they please. It would be done in such a way by using the concept that a fetus is nothing more than a clump of removed cells similar to a tumor. The fetus would never be "born", it would be surgically removed. It would be kept in a fetal mental state to prevent personhood status, etc. And as Mr Singer's ideas indicate, it would be moral to do so, since a fetus has no greater moral status as lettuce. And as you indicate, so long as it is an unwanted. It would be an interesting discussion to consider the morality of pausing potentiality and the many reason why one might wish to do so, but since it doesn't seem to damage the integrity of the z/e/b so there is no conflict in my mind to pause the development of a fetus using cryo. I think there would be a moral question if a dozen 28 week fetuses were developed so as to choose a particular fetus and destroy the rest. I think society has been on the side of fertility treatments so as to not restrict a woman her ability to find ways to reproduce, while also balancing the concerns for the fetus. Statistics and political approval seem to indicate most people, in the US anyway, feel "women's rights" to reproduce are greater than "abortion is murder" fetus rights.
True... Even those who object to abortion on religious grounds find it hard to make a case against fertility treatments (the "choose life" slogan gets in the way of those who also think it is blasphemy to interfere with God's plans to kill some embryos). If the woman donates donates her fetus to an adoption agency, or to research, she gives up her right to control what happens to that newborn. If we had a way to remove the fetus, but keep it alive (suspending cerebral activity so it cannot begin to think) this is approximately what happens in the most severe cases of Zika (except that in those cases the newborn will never be able to think). Would we allow research on a Zika baby? Probably not... so I doubt if we would allow research on a "suspended" baby unless it involved something that might actually help the baby (e.g. a new surgical technique that might correct some birth defect). I think, after removing the fetus from the host, we would find it more natural to treat it as a "birth" because (a) the fetus is no longer biologically dependent on another person, and (b) we already have a precedent for giving the premature infant the benefit of the doubt regarding person-hood. When a premature infant is born prior to the onset of global neuronal integration (4-6 weeks before the due date) it cannot think immediately after birth (not in any meaningful way), but we give it the benefit of the doubt and consider it a person. I suppose there are exceptions (cases that involve severe defects incompatible with life) but artificially pausing the development of the brain does not seem like a legitimate exception.
I personally don't understand how 1200 pages of religious text could ever provide insight in to any of the complex questions of morality in an age of such complex technological advancements. I am Atheist. Religious text has zero influence on my thinking. I was raised Atheist and have never had religious influence. I had read much more science before I ever decided to pick up a bible and read it. I only read a bible because it was listed as a must read on the most influencial texts in history. I've since read a lot about it and have a fairly sound view of how it fits within a framework as an evolution of human thinking about morality and law and myths that help hold societies together. As a text that contributes to modern thought, I think is highly questionable. Removed tissue is property. It is usually the property of the hospital or medical facility that removed the tissue. A person tends to give up the rights to claim the removed tissue as theirs when they sign consent forms when entering the medical facility. States govern medical facilities on what medical tissues they can research on and how to dispose of them. Personally, I would likely support any research on any Zika baby (as well as any miscarriage or any fetus that was legally aborted for that matter). Florida doesn't allow research on a fetus. It's illegal. Lawmakers may reconsider, hopefully so. The greater benefit to prevent the effects of the Zika virus most definitely outweighs the protection of a dead or non-viable fetus. If Zika occured in a state that doesn't so strictly limit fetus research, there might not be such a controversy over it in the news. Yes, I think you're right. I didn't think that thru before I responded. Removing at 28 weeks would mean it's viable so under current restrictions, it would likely be required to continue to birth. Perhaps at 20 weeks it could be suspended with no requirements. Although, I'm sure it would stir controversy. I don't have any issues with it. Keep in mind that Personhood is a philosophical concept similar to the question of what it is to be human. It is the notion of what qualities are human. A human baby is a person not because it is currently self-aware but because it is a member of a species that is self-aware. Earlier I mentioned a corporation is a "legal person" because it has human qualities like self-awareness and self-determination (buy and sell, held liable, etc), collectively but it still has those qualities. You mentioned transcibing consicousness of one person on to a computer system so there is an artificial existence of a human. That artificial entity could be considered an entity that has self-determination and self-awareness, therefore it could be assigned as having qualities that are human so we should not deny it personhood status. (example: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2015/02/02/expand-definition-human-being/#.WEXz-OArKVN) The discussion has an origin and impact on international human rights law...including rights like abortion. The disussion if a "fetus", within the context of the US constitution, is probably a bit different, I think.
This link is one small bit of info about consciousness. It mildly touches on how each species has differing consciousness. It touches mildly on fetal development. It also touches on how consciousness is materialistic and develops more like a dimmer switch works rather than activation like the flip of a switch. Enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ZTNmkIiBc
The link leads to a video on YouTube from a 2012-11-27 lecture by Baroness Susan Greenfield on The Neuroscience of Consciousness. Most of the lecture addresses the observable activity of the brain and how that might correlate to our understanding of consciousness. She does mention the question of foetal consciousness in the segment from about 21:25 through 23:38 so I made a transcript of what she has to say on this subject. At this point, the Baroness Susan Greenfield say: If the fetus is not conscious is there a point when it becomes conscious? Is a fetus conscious? So I ask is a dog conscious or a rat conscious, or is a fetus conscious? Now let's assume as many have for many years, the null hypothesis. That's to say we assume the negative. Let's assume it is not conscious. So if that's the case, if the fetus is not conscious, when does it become conscious? Is it as it scooches down the birth canal? Well that'd be tough if your born by cesarean section. It means you'll never be conscious, huh? Or, is it exactly at full term? So that raises a rather strange scenario of parents, say, who have a premature baby. They're sitting at home saying "Our baby's conscious today. We might as well go to the hospital and see it. It wasn't conscious yesterday." Does that seem likely? No... It doesn't. So, as far as the brain is concerned, the oxygen (whether it comes through its own nose or through mum) is not going to be the deciding factor. So when... would a fetus become conscious? When it's born? When it's a month old? Two months old? I'm sure many of you have babies... so I know one person at least has a new baby... and you don't suddenly say well the baby's become conscious all of a sudden. So if you reject the null hypothesis that it's not the manner or timing of birth that is the deciding factor, then surely we have to reject the null hypothesis and entertain the possibility the fetus is conscious. Now I don't want to get into the ethical issues here. We can if you like but I'm not here as an ethicist. It's more the issue of this being a very similar question to whether animals are conscious. The same riddle. Is it... When do the lights go on? When do they go on... when do they go off? How do we get around that? Because we need to get around that before we even start looking at the brain if we are trying to understand what we are studying. I do agree that consciousness very likely develops as a gradient, but I dispute her analysis of the status of the fetus. (1) I observe that she oversimplifies the null hypothesis when she assumes that becoming conscious at birth must mean the magic is performed by passage through the birth canal. It is obvious that this is her premise based on her assumption that "if your born by cesarean section. It means you'll never be conscious" (false conclusion). (2) I observe that she oversimplifies the null hypothesis when she assumes that the way parents think about their premature newborn somehow represents the true, objective, nature of the newborn. The assumes that since no parent says "Our baby's conscious today. We might as well go to the hospital and see it. It wasn't conscious yesterday." this must mean there is no moment of consciousness that happens sometime after a premature baby is born. That is not scientific reasoning on her part. (3) I observe that she oversimplifies the role of oxygen when she makes the unsupported statement "So, as far as the brain is concerned, the oxygen (whether it comes through its own nose or through mum) is not going to be the deciding factor." Could she really be unaware that the newborn gets a higher oxygen level through its own lungs than it gets through the umbilical cord? (4) I observe that she totally ignores the fact that the umbilical cord delivers sedative chemicals to the fetus (which obviously stops when the umbilical cord is removed from the newborn). Finally, she never addressed the fact that the zygote and embryo do not have many of the structures that are critical in her analysis of consciousness. Clearly there must be a transition between a living human organism with no active consciousness and a living human organism with active consciousness. Since she has offered no better alternative, the obvious moment for that transition is actual birth.
First, I will say that I sincerely appreciate our conversations. It's not always easy to find people to discuss things in much depth because the general climate of conversation tends to be so emotionally charged and divisive that conversations tend to devolve into personal attacks and anger. So, I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and ideas expressed. With regards to the Baroness, she is one of the worlds top brain researchers, she is nothing even remotely close to a hack or an axe grinder. You must consider that her words you cite have much much more to do with her dismissing philosophy as a method to determine what it means for a living being to have consciousness, rather than an effort put forth to debate the specific points of the philosophers. You are disputing her statements as mere simplifications because you are siding with the philosophers rather than the scientists. To gain truth and knowledge requires the observable, which is strictly material in the case of a fetus. Most scientists do indeed dismiss philosophers. I tend to, as well. If the physiology of the developing fetus brain is more complex than some living beings with a moral status, why would we not therefore grant the fetus a moral status? The philosophers can't have it both ways.
The drastic changes in sedative content and oxygen level are scientific observations, and those facts do not depend on the type of birth (vaginal or surgical). There is probably a point (sometime in the last 4-6 weeks of gestation) when the biological mechanisms are in place in the cerebrum to start forming the neuronal assemblies, but the environment of the womb is not conducive to neural activity. Without evidence that the fetal brain is responding (creating new neural assemblies in response to external stimuli), it would be unscientific to assume that the fetus is able to do so prior to birth. After she started discussing the active mind, I found myself agreeing with much that she had to say. I can agree that consciousness and sense of self builds upon past experience (as in a gradient). For example, she mentions the neural assemblies that respond to the image of mother's face. The newborn does not immediately recognize its mother's face, but when that image is repeated and is regularly associated with comfort, it creates a stronger neural assembly compared to the many random sights that pass before the eyes of the newborn. Every gradient has to start somewhere, and it seems likely that the gradient for human consciousness begins when (a) the cerebrum has the neurons and the mechanisms in place for them to communicate, AND (b) the cerebrum has the environment (i.e. oxygen and clear of sedatives) to operate. Both factors are true at the moment of birth (even for most premature births). I am not sure what example you have in mind (for physiology). My prime example of a living thing (other than a human) with the potential for moral status would be Koko the gorilla. I suspect Koko has similar physiology to a human child (her IQ has been measured between 70 and 85, which is higher than some humans I have met). It is possible that Koko, a week after birth, had a less complex brain than a typical human fetus in the week before birth, but a more functional brain than any fetus because Koko's mind had been activated. Is this the sort of comparison you were talking about? Some policies have to be guided by philosophy, but when science is available I would base policy on science. Public (as in government) policy should not be based on mythology.
