The Glade 4.0

I'm only interested in logical consistency. It's obvious to me that a zygote should not be considered a person, while a newborn child should be; therefore at some point between conception and birth, it should be considered a person. Picking that time is not a scientific excersize. It's very subjective. But my approach is not subjective at all. I personally believe we can easily err on the side of considering an implanted blastocyst a person, but I also do not believe it's a woman's responsibility to incubate a child she does not want.

Abortion != inducing early labor. Early labor does not kill a developing fetus, at any stage. What kills them is their own inability to live outside the womb. Removing the fetus therefore lets nature (and our own medical acumen) decide the fate of the child. The distinction, though, fails to matter before a certain stage of development. So maybe it's okay to ahead and abort that 7 week old embryo if you don't want it, because it has zero chance of surviving birth. I'm also entirely okay with saying "No, you still have to induce labor, even at this stage." Just because a doctor tells you he cannot save your life, that doesn't mean he should be able to shoot you in the head. My 21 week limit has nothing to do with arbitrary definitions, and everything to do with legal consistency. I'm not overly hung up on the definition of when someone is sentient/sapient. It doesn't really matter. The right to life therefore depends on the ability to live (with or without assistance) outside the womb. Once it has that ability, it deserves the full protection of personhood under law.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I don't see that it's either arbitrary or "against logic." In fact, the fact that it's not a life but will become one left undisturbed is unique and is directly to the contrary of it being "arbitrary".

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

A) it has nothing to do with it being "inconvenient for women".
B) it has nothing to do with "soothing my mind"
C) It's a lot more logical if you don't view it from within your own pre-existing criteria. There's nothing inherently wrong with a new category; there's nothing sancrosanct or inviolable about the existing ones. What you're uncomfortable with is the idea that it cannot be easily broken down into the "property/life" dichotomy that fits neatly into your personal philosophy, so you're just complaining about how it's supposedly illogical. That's a rhetorical trick to try to put other people on the defensive in order to avoid the discomfort of having to discuss issues without the framework of your own basic assumptions.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Actually, a fertilized egg meets every criteria of property. It has established market value and can be bought and sold (quite legally). The ability to transfer ownership and hold legal title defines exactly what property is.

Everything that can be sold must first be owned, and all that is owned is property.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

It also meets some of the criteria of a human being.

I have seen no reason presented to fit everything into one of those two categories.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

...

Has the concept of self-possession and ownership been so eroded ... oh, nm.

_________________

I can only speak for myself, but I'm discussing this within the philisophical framework Talya has put in place.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar, why would you assume the man has 50% ownership over the developing fetus? I think you could easily argue that the sperm was freely given to the woman, and thus it is now her property.

Say I'm over at your house hanging out with you. If I ask for permission to go drop a deuce in your toilet and you say it's okay, can I come back the next day and demand my poop back? If I don't flush, do you need to ask for my permission to flush it and "destroy my property?"

I'm not trying to be crass and compare a baby/fetus to a piece of poop or anything, it was just the simplest example I came up with. Please don't take offense.

The sperm is his property because it's an ingredient as opposed to waste product. It's more akin to you coming over with a bunch of tomatoes when our intention is to make sauce together. This is especially true given that the law mandates that I pay for the jarring process.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Poo can be used for fertilizer. Sure, the majority of it goes to "waste," but so does the majority of semen.

Anyway, I don't see how you can claim that your own poo is not your property. It's directly manufactured within an individual's body. That's like the very definition of "fruits of one's own labor."

If you came to my house and jerked off into a waste receptical, you would have surrendered your rights to your semen because you discarded it. Are you really calling women waste recepticals?

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Let's be consistent. If he came to your house and ejaculated into your mouth, he also would have surrendered his rights to his semen.

(Which isn't to say he's necessarily right...or wrong. Hmm. Tough subject.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Okay, your argument was logical. I read it and read Rynar's and realized on that logical train of thought alone, I was agreeing with you (despite the analogy.) But your position also felt wrong to me, and I wasn't sure why. So, after pondering the question in the shower for the last 10 minutes, I think I know why it feels wrong, and how I can answer your question here.

We have chosen, as a society, to assign the father partial responsibility for the pregnancy. You can make all sorts of arguments for or against this, and many on both sides will be good points, but this is what we have chosen, as a society.

By refusing to cut the legal ties between father and baby; by making the father half-responsible for the child, even if he didn't want the child (and personally, I think we are correct in enforcing that responsibility), we have set a precedent. If we are going to acknowledge responsibility, it is only consistent that we continue to recognize partial "ownership." (Although I'm still not comfortable with the property argument. I prefer "acknowledging the rights of the father over the child.")

However, even with that said, it's the mother's womb. She is under no obligation or responsibility to incubate that child.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It has the potential to become a person, it's not guarenteed to.

"Every sperm is sacred..."

Again, potentiality is a really bad qualifier and opens you up to all sorts of problematic applications of your logic. Like I asked TheRiov, would you have no rational problem with me shooting the person you love most?

_________________

Uh huh. All I'm stating is that DE is incorrect. There is no guarentee that a fetus will become a person.

And because you've introduced potentiality into the discussion, there's also no guarantee that a person will remain a person. Consequently, any action which ends there life has no moral or rational negative impact, because you cannot known if they were or were not a person at the end of their life. And since you can't know if I murdered them or terminated a non-person ...

Well, that's why I asked you two that question.

If you think the phase-state of being is indeterminate in a quantum sense, then what rational basis do you have for objecting to me to shooting your most cherished love one in the forehead tomorrow?

_________________

This is just about the most bizarre set of conclusions that you've tried to label as 'logic' I've ever seen you make Khross.

(not to mention a vaguely threatening)

If I understand this twisted loop of thought process that you're trying to push:
You're claiming that because current actuality is not a guarantee of future actuality, then actuality is the same as potentiality?







Unrealized life is not a loss of life.

WTF?

There's many ways to forward a pro-life opinion without heading down the rabbit hole.

False dilemma, as my responses have nothing to do with my position or arguing against their position in this thread. I'm challenging their logic, not their conclusions at this point; and, point blank, their logic is spurious for precisely the reason mentioned: potentiality and conditional qualifiers.

_________________

I'm not really sure why you're looping my comments in with The Riov's. They are not related.

My point is that you shouldn't, from a legal perspective, make decisions based on what might be or could be. They need to be made based on what is right now. So, the fact that a fetus can potentially grow into a child is irrelevant. The fact that someone may eventually become a vegetable is irrelevant. What their state is now is what's important.

You also know better than to challenge logic by using an appeal to emotion as a strawman.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

What constitutes now? You're still making your determination based on potentiality and a quantum view of human phase-states. How can you prove someone was sapient, sentient, and cognizant of the situation at the time of death if I murder them?

_________________

Go for it. I think you'll find that a court of law accepts that a person who dressed themselves that morning usually can be assumed to be sentient, sapient and cognizant of the situation.

No such assumption is given to a tissue sample. Nor should it.

It's not a reductio ad ridiculum, because I'm not really concerned with your conclusion or the validity thereof. The validity of your conclusion is a separate issue from my criticism of your argument, TheRiov. I want to know what rational basis you have for changing the conditional basis of rights using your phase-state argument. If a zygote is a not a person, but has potential to be a person; then where does that change occur and why? How do you measure that change? How do you mark the zygote going from not-person to person state? Likewise, what prevents any future loss of person-state from stripping you of the rights (constructs and privileges) afforded to the state of personhood?

_________________