Re: And you thought "Christians" hated Harry Potter before

Aaron Denney wrote:
After birth, the question comes down to what moral rights a child should
have. Does being of the human species trump being dumber than a
full-grown chimp, which can be euthanized by its owner? Maybe. Not
ridiculous to think so. Also not ridiculous to think that the chimp
might deserve more protection. Or that both deserve protection, or
neither.

Before birth, that question remains, but there's also the inherent
bodily autonomy of the pregnant woman. One generally is not obliged
to provide life support for another, particularly when it is at some
risk to oneself. Organ donors, for instance, can back out at any point
up until the organ is cut out of their body and put into the recipient.

Past viability, one might be able to argue that c-section or induced
delivery are enough to tip the balance, but these too have their risks.

The progression from small collection of cells to fully realized human
being is, as always, a continuum. Laws tend to favor bright lines:
*this* is legal, *that* is not.

Personally, I think a safe, conservative, bright line is actually birth.
It's far before many historical cultures.

But we should make sure that we choose a "bright line" that doesn't
violate the actual rights of real people.

One that avoids this risk is syngamy - the point where the genetic
material from the sperm and egg cells combine to form a cell with a
diploid genetic complement. This, clearly, is the point in time when a
human individual's life begins.

Of course, that can be argued against. Is it really the beginning of
the life of the human person, as opposed to that person's body, when
there is not even a single fully formed neuron?

The first cells that develop into neurons differentiate at about 27
days from fertilization. Banning abortion before then is definitely
imposing a particular philosophical view of human life, which is not
appropriate in a pluralistic society.

At 7 weeks of pregnancy, at least _some_ pathways in the brain are
already working, and fetuses at that stage have been photographed
sucking their thumbs. Coincidentally, this is also the time at which
the embryo changes from looking grotesque to looking recognizably like
a human infant.

If, at some point in pregnancy, we recognize that a fetus is
definitely analogous to a human baby, what then?

It could be that we prohibit infanticide as if it was murder only
because parents have strong emotional attachments to their infant
children, and these strong penalties help protect parents from being
blackmailed by kidnappers. If that were the case, if babies didn't
"really" become human beings until some time after birth, but the
blanket prohibition on infanticide were a useful legal fiction, then
having abortion legal at all stages of pregnancy would not be a
problem.

If not, then it's hard to see that birth is a morally significant
juncture *from the viewpoint of the status of the fetus/infant alone*.

When it comes to the rights of the mother, she could have chosen not
to engage in sex, or to abort earlier in pregnancy. Unless we're
dealing with an unplanned medical crisis occurring during pregnancy -
in which case we have an emergency situation, like dealing with a
hijacked airliner heading towards an office building filled with
people - it is very unclear that it is fair to allow a woman to shift
the costs of her own sexual choices on to an innocent baby, when for
that baby the cost would be his or her very life.

Of course, the preference for "bright lines" also explains why full-
grown chimps aren't even being considered. Chimpanzees clearly
_never_, at any stage in their lives, develop into something that can
navigate a polling place; if they are not potential citizens, they
cannot be actual persons.

Obviously, human adults can remember their childhoods, if not their
infancies. The "bright line" that makes sense to me would be the point
at which the very first glimmerings of human mind or human
consciousness emerge.

John Savard

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: And you thought "Christians" hated Harry Potter before
    ... Also not ridiculous to think that the chimp ... human individual's life begins. ... If, at some point in pregnancy, we recognize that a fetus is ... for that baby the cost would be his or her very life. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: OT: Tim: The Boy Who Wasnt Meant to Be
    ... The first month of a pregnancy ends at the fourth week. ... The pregnant woman underwent the abortion. ... Baby" by the German media had more severe disabilities than most ... Tim spent much of the first year of his life in a children's clinic. ...
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  • Re: Obama and abortion
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  • Re: sca - lito
    ... abortions goes too far in allowing life to be deprived without due process. ... It seems it would take a legislature to codify for the purposes of law ... right to termintae a pregnancy exceeds any legislative power because it ... gives an individual the power to deprive someone else of life without due ...
    (rec.music.gdead)
  • Re: Pregnant senior not allowed to graduate with class
    ... but she knows no other life. ... >> Hating to get too far into an abortion discussion, ... >> Rape results in pregnancy, no one should have to deal with that. ... >> overhearing my parents discuss my aunt and uncle and how when aunt ...
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