Utilitarian Justification for Abortion

[matty]

I don't know.

Most of the people I know who are pro-life will tell you plainly that it stems ultimately from religious beliefs.

The reason there can be no resolution in the abortion debate is that the two sides have vastly different underlying fundamental assumptions, and there is no real way to reconcile the two.

What a perfect way to put it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

so this does not look like a person to you ?

WHAT doesn't look like a person?

 

[Cecilie1200]

For God's sake, how many times do we have to hear this same old tired retread of "If you just define all the parameters of the arguments and the terms involved in the argument OUR way, then it's impossible to logically disagree with us"? Yeah, well, if I'm willing to concede at the outset of the argument that the moon is made of green cheese, then I suppose I WOULD have difficulty arguing that mice would want to board the space shuttle. What the hell is the point?

You don't get to start the debate from the point of "The argument is about personhood, therefore defend your contention that a fetus is a person" without doing all the preliminary groundwork of proving that the debate is about some nebulous concept you call "personhood" in the first place. Quit trying to jump to step three without working your way through step one and two. Convince me first that there's such a thing as "personhood", somehow separate and divisible from simply being human and alive, and THEN perhaps we can argue about what the definition of "personhood" actually is, and only AFTER that can we discuss whether or not a fetus meets that definition and whether or not that makes it okay to kill him.

Abortion supporters would have a lot more luck convincing people that they're just trying to be sensible and logical if they would make even a vague attempt at understanding what their opponents truly think and believe. This thread just once again demonstrates that the voices in their heads are too loud for them to hear anyone else over.

 

[Makedde]

The law defines personhood, so obviously, it does exist. Problem is, we all have different ideas about when personhood begins. Some say it is at birth (like myself) others say it is when the fetus becomes viable (define viable) and others believe it's a person from conception.

We know that personhood exists, we just need to decide when the fetus becomes a person, and that is something that we can never agree on.

 

[Agnapostate]

Southpaw has never been able to defend his contention that a fetus is a person and nonhuman animals are not although nonhuman animals have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and capacity to feel pain than a human fetus does, and thus a greater capacity to suffer than a human fetus does.

The only thing he can fall back on is that humans have an immortal soul and animals do not, (and I haven't believed that for some time, which is why I'm no longer opposed to abortion), which is a strictly religious argument inapplicable to the law.

 

[eots]

The law defines personhood, so obviously, it does exist. Problem is, we all have different ideas about when personhood begins. Some say it is at birth (like myself) others say it is when the fetus becomes viable (define viable) and others believe it's a person from conception.

We know that personhood exists, we just need to decide when the fetus becomes a person, and that is something that we can never agree on.

so then we need to convince the majority that a fetus is a person and enforce that belief on the rest don't we

 

[Agnapostate]

so then we need to convince the majority that a fetus is a person and enforce that belief on the rest don't we

Get to work.

 

[Shogun]

i dont think that focusing on if a fetus is a "person" is necessary when the individuality of the fetal genetics is FACT enough.

 

[Agnapostate]

i dont think that focusing on if a fetus is a "person" is necessary when the individuality of the fetal genetics is FACT enough.

It is not. You assume that all human beings are automatically persons, and that personhood is limited to human beings. I contend this definition, so while you may be correct that a fetus is a form of human life, you are incorrect in claiming that it is a person unless you believe that nonhuman animals are also persons since they have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and a greater capacity to feel pain than a fetus does.

In what way does judging personhood by those traits not suffice?

 

[eots]

It is not. You assume that all human beings are automatically persons, and that personhood is limited to human beings. I contend this definition, so while you may be correct that a fetus is a form of human life, you are incorrect in claiming that it is a person unless you believe that nonhuman animals are also persons since they have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and a greater capacity to feel pain than a fetus does.

In what way does judging personhood by those traits not suffice?

a fetus 22 weeks is a viable person capable of life out of the womb
The Cellar Image of the Day

 

[Cecilie1200]

The law defines personhood, so obviously, it does exist. Problem is, we all have different ideas about when personhood begins. Some say it is at birth (like myself) others say it is when the fetus becomes viable (define viable) and others believe it's a person from conception.

We know that personhood exists, we just need to decide when the fetus becomes a person, and that is something that we can never agree on.

The law defines personhood? Really? And now you're going to cite us this law, right? Just as a hint, I wouldn't suggest you come back with some agenda-driven leftist judge's legislation from the bench as an answer, either. I'm talking about REAL laws, not propaganda illegally usurping the power of the legislature.

And who is this "we" that knows this apocryphal thing called "personhood" exists?

 

[Agnapostate]

a fetus 22 weeks is a viable person capable of life out of the womb
The Cellar Image of the Day

22 weeks is not a viable fetus; the birth of a 22 week old fetus was an anomaly in that instance. Attempting to induce birth in a mother carrying a 22 week old fetus would itself act as an abortion in many instances because the fetus would not be prepared to survive in the outside environment yet. I might support the inducement of labor in some instances, but if I believe it would be more likely to cause the fetus extreme physical pain and suffering, I would say that painless death would be preferable.

Moreover, you are confused about the definition of personhood. An ethical definition of personhood that has survived in one form or another since the Enlightenment is one that stresses some degree of sentience and self-awareness, the former being basic awareness and the latter being best defined as awareness of that awareness. Hence, we ought to choose to define personhood by these traits since it is beings with these traits that have a greater capacity to suffer than other beings.

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

If you have objections to or contentions with this definition of personhood, then by all means, state them.

Thus, because an infant is not a self-aware being, an infant itself is not a person, and an infant's life is not equivalent to that of a person.

Before you pick up the misconception that I think it's acceptable to kill healthy infants, as so many has, an infant has extrinsic moral value in that, contrary to a fetus, it can be adopted by others, as well as the fact that an infant's parents presumably have a desire for it to live, as opposed to their deliberate attempts to kill a fetus. Hence, depriving them of that interest or desire would be a denial of their preferences, and would cause them to suffer.

The law defines personhood? Really? And now you're going to cite us this law, right? Just as a hint, I wouldn't suggest you come back with some agenda-driven leftist judge's legislation from the bench as an answer, either. I'm talking about REAL laws, not propaganda illegally usurping the power of the legislature.

And who is this "we" that knows this apocryphal thing called "personhood" exists?

The law most certainly does not define the ethical dimensions of personhood; though Dred Scott may have been a nonperson according to the law, he was most certainly a person in the ethical sense. I believe that I have laid out an ethically consistent definition of personhood in defining fundamental traits of personhood as basic sentience, (basic awareness and the capacity to feel pain), and in addition to that, self-awareness, (the capacity to view oneself as a distinct entity existing over time), as well as the capacity to form rational moral preferences about one's own future that stems from self-awareness.

Something along those lines has characterized ethical definitions of personhood since the Enlightenment.

Western Philosophers have expounded on every dimension — from the purely analytical to the metaphysical — in discourses on personhood. Conceptually, a person is defined by the characteristics of reasoning, consciousness, and persistent personal identity. The English philosopher John Locke defined a person as "a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places; which it does only by that consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to it" [4].

According to Boethius:

Person is an individual substance of rational nature. As individual it is material, since matter supplies the principle of individuation. The soul is not person, only the composite is. Man alone is among the material beings person, he alone having a rational nature. He is the highest of the material beings, endowed with particular dignity and rights.[citation needed] John Locke emphasized the idea of a living being that is conscious of itself as persisting over time (and hence able to have conscious preferences about its own future).

In a Lockean approach, some criteria a person might be required to have in order to be a person are one or more of the following:

Consciousness,
The ability to steer one's attention and action purposively,
Self-awareness, self-bonded to objectivities (existing independently of the subject's perception of it),
Self as longitudinal thematic identity, one's biographic identity.
Neo-Kantian philosophers over the last two decades have emphasized that conscious awareness requires both:
The sensorial capacity to access an environment (and one's own body) in a way that offers the basic qualitative content for subjective experience.
The intellectual capacity to conceptually interpret sensorial content as representing some thing to oneself.
Both of these capacities are required for a subject of experience, action, thought, or self-reflection to exist, at least in the physically embodied, world-accessing manner of humans (and presumably other intelligent animals). As Kant wrote:

Without sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

I use this definition because of an ethical imperative to reduce suffering. If you have objections to this definition, let them be known.

 

[Makedde]

so then we need to convince the majority that a fetus is a person and enforce that belief on the rest don't we

No, same as those who believe differently should not force their opinions on others. You cannot force someone to change their minds, they will change their minds themselves.

 

[Southpaw]

Southpaw has never been able to defend his contention that a fetus is a person and nonhuman animals are not although nonhuman animals have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and capacity to feel pain than a human fetus does, and thus a greater capacity to suffer than a human fetus does.

The only thing he can fall back on is that humans have an immortal soul and animals do not, (and I haven't believed that for some time, which is why I'm no longer opposed to abortion), which is a strictly religious argument inapplicable to the law.

You are lying. I've never referred, hinted, or mentioned any type of religious arguments in my anti-abortion diatribe. That's just poor form, Julian, and I expected better of you.

 

[Shogun]

It is not. You assume that all human beings are automatically persons, and that personhood is limited to human beings. I contend this definition, so while you may be correct that a fetus is a form of human life, you are incorrect in claiming that it is a person unless you believe that nonhuman animals are also persons since they have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and a greater capacity to feel pain than a fetus does.

In what way does judging personhood by those traits not suffice?

no, I assume that people having this conversation understand sexual reproduction enough to recognize a genetic individual regardless of your opinion of what constitutes a "person". Which is why I states as much in the post that you are responding to. You see, I'm not interested in hearing about how you don't think a fetus 5 seconds from delivery qualifies as a "person" when it is still a distinct genetic individual.

also, your "animals are persons too" argument fails on it's face since animals are not human beings at any stage of their development and we kill them anyway regardless of our laws against murdering humans. It's a strawman that has nothing to do with abortions for humans outside of avoiding the arbitrary nature of your "definition of person" argument.

 

[Agnapostate]

You are lying. I've never referred, hinted, or mentioned any type of religious arguments in my anti-abortion diatribe. That's just poor form, Julian, and I expected better of you.

I don't see you promoting anything better.

no, I assume that people having this conversation understand sexual reproduction enough to recognize a genetic individual regardless of your opinion of what constitutes a "person". Which is why I states as much in the post that you are responding to. You see, I'm not interested in hearing about how you don't think a fetus 5 seconds from delivery qualifies as a "person" when it is still a distinct genetic individual.

also, your "animals are persons too" argument fails on it's face since animals are not human beings at any stage of their development and we kill them anyway regardless of our laws against murdering humans. It's a strawman that has nothing to do with abortions for humans outside of avoiding the arbitrary nature of your "definition of person" argument.

This is one of the most muddled arguments I've ever encountered. You conflate legal definitions of personhood with ethical definitions, as well as with genetic structure, which produces an end result of garbled nonsense. The definition of fetuses as higher moral beings than nonhuman animals is precisely what I am objecting to, so stating that such a definition exists does absolutely nothing for you.

Please clarify your position.

 

[Shogun]

This is one of the most muddled arguments I've ever encountered. You conflate legal definitions of personhood with ethical definitions, as well as with genetic structure, which produces an end result of garbled nonsense. The definition of fetuses as higher moral beings than nonhuman animals is precisely what I am objecting to, so stating that such a definition exists does absolutely nothing for you.

Please clarify your position.


are you going to suggest that something is muddled after trying to rationalize non-specific term abortion by calling animal feti "persons"?


Yes or no: is a zygote a distinct genetic individual at the point of fertilization?

just answer that question so that I'll know that you are familiar enough with sexual reproduction to have this conversation.

 

[Agnapostate]

are you going to suggest that something is muddled after trying to rationalize non-specific term abortion by calling animal feti "persons"?

Yes or no: is a zygote a distinct genetic individual at the point of fertilization?

just answer that question so that I'll know that you are familiar enough with sexual reproduction to have this conversation.

A zygote is a distinct genetic individual at the point of its fertilization.

A zygote is not a person at the point of its fertilization, has not even a semblance of sentience, and is not a being of any moral worth.

 

[eots]

Southpaw has never been able to defend his contention that a fetus is a person and nonhuman animals are not although nonhuman animals have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and capacity to feel pain than a human fetus does, and thus a greater capacity to suffer than a human fetus does.

The only thing he can fall back on is that humans have an immortal soul and animals do not, (and I haven't believed that for some time, which is why I'm no longer opposed to abortion), which is a strictly religious argument inapplicable to the law.

Law

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In general, a rule of being or of conduct, established by an authority able to enforce its will; a controlling regulation; the mode or order according to which an agent or a power acts.

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In morals: The will of God as the rule for the disposition and conduct of all responsible beings toward him and toward each other; a rule of living, conformable to righteousness; the rule of action as obligatory on the conscience or moral nature.

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The Jewish or Mosaic code, and that part of Scripture where it is written, in distinction from the gospel; hence, also, the Old Testament.

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An organic rule, as a constitution or charter, establishing and defining the conditions of the existence of a state or other organized community.

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Any edict, decree, order, ordinance, statute, resolution, judicial, decision, usage, etc., or recognized, and enforced, by the controlling authority.

Definition of Law

 

[Agnapostate]

The American legal system, for the slow-witted among us.