Women have a responsibility to more than themselves

you already know the logic, you just choose to ignore it.

A fetus INSIDE the female is injuring her, if the female has not given consent to those injuries she may use what ever means possible to stop those injuries occurring, the female cannot retreat from the injuries, she cannot ask the fetus to stop injuring her and she cannot use non-deadly force to stop the injuries . .here ONLY option is to use deadly force.

A child IS NOT INSIDE the female, it is not injuring her without her consent, the female has other options should she no longer want to care for that child or if that child is attempting to injure her without consent, she can withdraw, she can request the child to stop, she can use non-deadly force .. there is no requirement for her to use deadly force.

 

I never said dependent. I said living inside a human....one that has a fully functional brain and has already been established as a person. Brain activity BY A HUMAN is a good gauge for personhood. We use it at the end of life....lets use it at the beginning of life.

 

I believe koko the gorilla (learned sign language and conversed with humans) suggests that our simian relatives should be considered persons. Most conservative religious groups would strenuously object to that view because that would be equivalent to admitting other animals might have a soul. I would agree that gorillas, for example, should be protected at birth if we determine that their brains are capable of meaningful thought. I would NOT restrict gorilla abortions on the basis of potential use of the brain because the mind inside the womb has not even started developing any kind of personhood based on that potential. Does a gorilla ever reach the same level of personhood as a human? I do not know, but that would be a good discussion for a different thread.

We know that a single-celled organism cannot possible begin "personhood" because it has no way to observe, no mechanism to think, and no place to store memories. As the zygote/embryo/fetus develops, it gains those structures. When the brain is capable of performing those tasks (in the last few weeks of pregnancy) it has the potential to begin constructing its own personhood (or to be inhabited by the self-aware mind or spirit or soul if you believe self-awareness starts before conception and continues beyond our physical death). We still have no evidence that it begins at that point, but we know it cannot begin before the third trimester any more than your PC can begin doing calculations before you plug the CPU into the motherboard. Even if actual "personhood" begins sometime after birth, there is no reason we cannot give the newborn the "benefit of the doubt" and consider it a person at birth.

 

I didn't say you did . I said ""This is the abortion forum. If you want to whine and cry about how unfair life is for poor little men there's another forum for that... """[/QUOTE]

Actually, that's exactly what those words mean. Otherwise what would be your reference point for unfairness in this context? What is the nature of unfair? Why is it unfair in this case?





[/QUOTE] My position on child support has nothing to do with abortion.......oh, you aren't going into that crap about , "If you want TRUE equality men should be able to abort , too" ...sorry, that was boring the first eight times around.. [/QUOTE]

Honestly, I have no idea what you are talking about concerning your last statement - it's not coherent. The ONLY consistent position that you can hold is that men have the choice to not pay, since you believe that consent to sex doesn't mean consent to the consequences of sex. Q.E.D. This is the consequence of your position. You are subscribing to a principle (whether you know it or not) called the Doctrine of Double Effect. Ironically it is a pillar of the Catholic Church's ethical platform. Lol. Unfortunately, it hasn't weathered intellectual scrutiny well.

Nonsense. You said the discussion shouldn't even look at issues of person vs person, since the fetus wasn't a person - then literally 2 minutes later you said "IF the fetus is deemed a person the woman would have even more right to kill it. With it's rights as a person comes restrictions". Nothing more needs to be said.





[/QUOTE] I don't believe the fetus is a person until birth. But if it was deemed a person I believe it can have all the abortions it wants. I am Pro-Choice for the fetus.[/QUOTE]

So pro-choice means that its okay to kill women, as long as there is no restriction of the act of aborting itself. Who knew?

1) Assumed responsibility and familial obligation. This is an immanent critique and you still haven't engaged it. 2) Positive Rights vs Negative Rights -perhaps you have a right TO life, TO liberty, and TO property - not just the right to keep your life, to keep your liberty, and a right to keep your property - but a right to claim that these must be given to you (like health care and education and police protection and food stamps, etc) the legal concepts behind your argument is merely a hegemonic manifestation of Lockean feudal tendencies -a libertarian fantasy that is intellectually bankrupt. The same mantra over and over without any attempt to deconstruct what's really the ideology behind it. Where do your negative rights come from? God? Locke/Jefferson? Social Contract? Do tell.

So then dependent people have no effective right to life - since it would depend on another's aid? Wow. You're showing your ableist privilege now.

An appreciation for the methodologies of logic. See reductio ad absurdum.

Nonsense. I merely problematized your weak analogy. There differences are substantial. Your claim was a fallacy of logic. This response doesn't salvage it.

Nope. The issue was one of prima facie distinctions in your problematic analogy I claim no natural authority to ground a claim about obligation - only to show distinctions.

So no punishment for DUI deaths? No medical liability or insurance waivers? No prosecution of drunken sexual assault cases? - bet you just loved the recent Stanford student case then. "It was the alcohol, I didn't know what I was doing!"

Define responsibility. While your at it, look up assumed responsibility.

Well there's no accounting for taste. By the way, what are your thoughts of the work of Peter Singer and Mary Anne Warren? - I'm sure your familiar with two of the most cited and well known pro-choice theorists alive.

Do tell. Why does that matter? What's the ethical significance?

 

Right. But it would still seem to be the case that animals such as pigs and cows are vastly more intellectually developed than newborns. And as you have said potentiality arguments run into problems (otherwise a 10 week old fetus could be protected on a potentiality claim). But if potentiality is removed from the equation, why would newborns be protected on the basis of their intellectual development but not pigs and cows which have greater intellectual development at that point. This seems to introduce the issue of speciesism.

 

Okay. But why limit it to humans - isn't this arbitrary? If a cow has a greater intellectual ability than a newborn, and a newborn is said to be a moral person by virtue of her intellect (not potentiality), then wouldn't it not be arbitrary to restrict these protections to a certain species (just as it would be to restrict it to a certain race or gender)?

 

I would need to see the scientific research on cows. Someone would have to be willing to make the case for cows in a court of law. Part of the distinction would be the current capacity of the brain which for a cow would be far lower than for a human.

- - - Updated - - -

If someone wants to give personhood status to a species other than human this would be the first time that has ever been done. They would need to make a pretty overwhelming case.

 

Although many animals display an ability to learn and perform tricks, I am now aware of any (besides koko) who have demonstrated anything close to personhood, and even if we did (for example) decide that gorillas are persons too, there is no justification to extend personhood to the gorilla fetus which is still just an empty vessel until the end of the pregnancy (assuming they follow the same development sequence as humans).

When do you claim personhood begins in the human organism?

 

My position on child support has nothing to do with abortion.......oh, you aren't going into that crap about , "If you want TRUE equality men should be able to abort , too" ...sorry, that was boring the first eight times around.. [/QUOTE]

Honestly, I have no idea what you are talking about concerning your last statement - it's not coherent. The ONLY consistent position that you can hold is that men have the choice to not pay, since you believe that consent to sex doesn't mean consent to the consequences of sex. Q.E.D. This is the consequence of your position. You are subscribing to a principle (whether you know it or not) called the Doctrine of Double Effect. Ironically it is a pillar of the Catholic Church's ethical platform. Lol. Unfortunately, it hasn't weathered intellectual scrutiny well.[/QUOTE]



My position is "I do NOT care about men's responsibilities to there children and how it compares to abortion.""

Clear enough? It's been debated here several times, I'm done with it.

-


Meaning that what women do to their children A F T E R they are born has nothing to do with abortion. ...and it doesn't.

Sorry if that confused you since it is about abortion. """This is the abortion forum. I haven't changed my mind. IF a fetus is deemed a person it is still at the fetal stage.





[/QUOTE] I don't believe the fetus is a person until birth. But if it was deemed a person I believe it can have all the abortions it wants. I am Pro-Choice for the fetus.[/QUOTE]

Oh, you didn't get the sarcasm....see, a fetus can't really have an abortion, did you really think it could?

What it can't do, without the consent of the woman it's in, is to use her body to sustain it's life. It has the same rights and restrictions as any other person.

This means that the fetus, IF it's deemed a person, can't have more rights or super rights over the woman it's in.

Do you believe people can force others to give them say, their heart, to sustain their life?

Women have no obligation to do so either.

I never said that. Your inability to know the difference between biological dependency and social dependency , well, I can't fix that...I tried but it didn't work.

Gee, how I care.

No, not nonsense , just something you again can't address.

What does Mr. Nature say about miscarriages ??? That would be very interesting...

Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy . Consent to one act is not consent to any other act.

You may need better analogies. If you get a DUI because of an accident are you refused medical care because you chose to drive drunk?

Responsibility(in relation to abortion): Having an abortion when you don't want or can't afford a kid.

Nope, I haven't read everyone's opinion on abortion...as I'm sure you haven't either.

 

When a woman is pregnant, she has two choices of what to do about it - gestate or abort. If you want to take one of the two choices away, leaving only one option, you are anti-choice.

 

Well whether or not the law recognizes it as such is irrelevant. The history of law has a poor track record on this account. See 3/5 person. The issue is whether cows meet the criteria of personhood - and it is not at all controversial to say that a normal adult cow is more intellectually developed than a newborn, and in some cases, mentally disabled children. Yet the later are afforded legal protections while the former are not. Law is merely a reflection of ideological values.

 

When a woman has a child, she has two choices of how to discipline, abusively or non-abusively. If you want to take one of the two choices away, leaving only one option, you are anti-choice.

 

I have no seen the significant scientific evidence I requested from you on this point.

 

Actually, through all of that, not one comment actually addresses or grasps anything I said - not one, the straw-man arguments, red herrings, unsupported assertions, omitted evidences, question begging statements, and misunderstandings - and notice too that one sentence responses by definition can't be arguments - logically what you said can't be justified, since a sound or cogent argument requires conclusions backed with evidence and support - one sentence assertions are like picture-books without pictures, meaningless. So you have an opinion. Who cares? If you don't give reasons, then this is just noise. Without reasoned argument, opinions are like a sneeze or a cow mooing. So perhaps a more substantial response? Maybe start with a simple question that is foundational to your view of abortion: rights. Where do rights come from?

 

Are you serious? Okay here you go: Broom DM (2010), “Cognitive ability and awareness in domestic animals and decisions about obligations to animals. ” Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 126, 1-11.

 

Correction (typo)... I am NOT aware of any (animals besides koko) who have demonstrated anything close to personhood.

 

Nowhere in that paper do they CONCLUDE that animals EVER have the same cognitive abilities or capacity as every newborn baby. I await further evidence

 

I hope you were looking in a mirror when you typed that.......

It's the longest "I have no rebuttal/response/answer to what you posted" that I have ever seen .... Congratulations!

 

Not as it relates to abortion and that is the forum you're in....

Whether you approve or not in this forum Pro-Choice refers to women having the right to choose abortion or gestation.

 

But that would mean personhood in young children would be very late - the level of awareness, communicative ability, intentionality, self-awareness is far greater than that even of a 1 year old. But certainly it wouldn't be permissible to euthanize a 1 year old right? So it would appear killing pigs for food would be equally disconcerting under the personhood argument.

see Broom DM (2010), “Cognitive ability and awareness in domestic animals and decisions about obligations to animals. ” Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 126, 1-11.

 

Nope. You don't have the authority to dictate what does and does not count as relevant. Sorry, you are not keeper of the flame.

 

Nice taunt. Doesn't change anything. You post one-liners, I made the mistake of thinking you were serious about the discussion. But since, its not legitimate discourse you want, there must be some psychological need (otherwise why post so much) - perhaps you enjoy taunting. Okay, whatever floats your boat. When you want to go for legitimate discourse let me know, my posts will be waiting for you to actually engage, not this playground stuff.

 

I don't want to hijack the thread but I've always wondered why those who say they believe in a god are so cavalier about destroying the animals they say they believe their god created.

And yes, I'm vegetarian/vegan and atheist.

But I once had a bible thumping neighbor who said the same thing - that vegetarians are atheists and vice versa. At the moment she was saying that, she was holding a greasy fried chicken let in her hand and her face was shiny from the grease. Gotta say, I was repulsed. Didn't help that she was also grossly overweight.

Anyway -

Abortion: no one person and no government has the right to control the reproduction of another human being.
The End.

 

Quote Originally Posted by RandomObserver View Post
Correction (typo)... I am NOT aware of any (animals besides koko) who have demonstrated anything close to personhood.

But but but -

Koko learned to communicate as a person does.

If an individual of the same species has not been taught sign language, does that mean that individual or species is somehow less than Koko?

Again - I must say, this has nothing at all to do with a human being's total and sovereign onwership of their own body and bodily functions.

 

That is interesting in a discussion of animal rights or whether animals might have souls, but so far we do not have evidence that pigs or cows or even gorillas have the capacity for personhood. Even if we do find evidence of that, we know it cannot happen until the last few weeks of gestation because the brain will not be ready for that function. You still have a hard limit based on a biological limitation of the brain that cannot be resolved until the end of the pregnancy (whether we are talking about gorillas or humans).

Nobody is saying the newborn has to take an IQ test at birth to prove that it is a person. The fetus crosses a biological threshold in the last month or so of pregnancy when it first has the capacity for meaningful thought. Even if it cannot prove that to us until a year after birth, we give it the benefit of the doubt by declaring it a person at birth.
(1) What is your objection to this threshold for personhood?
(2) What do you propose as the threshold for beginning personhood?