Does a pregnant woman carry a human being/person or just 'life'/meat?

[Dubious]

I forgot to add:

...you made no case for why what a pregnant woman carries is not a person, you just said 'it's not'. And when confronted with a hard fact (from 12 weeks on the baby is complete just underdeveloped) you stomp your feet and storm off.

No, I never "just said it's not". What I wrote is there for anyone to read who still gives a shit on this fucked-up subject. That's the reason I despise people like you and your infamous sidekick, you'll lie whenever it suits you but ever ready to take the high road on moral principle.

For the nth fucking time - and I'm quite certain most people would agree with the distinction - but probably not on this forum - that a fetus though human is not yet a person.

It's the fate of a human fetus to become a person as an independent entity even when supported from the OUTSIDE as it initially must be. A person is YOU and anyone stupid enough who communicates with you such as me. A person at its earliest is one whose diapers get changed at 3:00 am. Person and fetus are NOT synonymous no matter how you'd like to conflate the two. You're the one who never provided a reason why this equation is valid. These words describe two different stages of being one in process of becoming and its resultant in which the latter has been finalized.

You can disagree if you like; this merely repeats in more detail what I wrote in prior posts but to affirm that all I said was "it's not" is another lie the kind IC has practiced for so long.

Welcome to his club!

[FlashDangerpants]

I think this -- 'Remove the concept of soul from the conversation and you still have a person for most of the pregnancy. From week 12 on, the biological machinery that you have, that I have, exists and functions in lil fetus person. He's complete, just underdeveloped.' -- is what has you flummoxed.

I've no real intention of joining in this discussion in the main because it's poisoned with mutual incomprehension that brings out the worst in all parties. But as a small point of order, that shouldn't be flummoxing anyone.

What you got there is a partial definition based on a list of components (has human dna + has nervous system, is person). This is much like defining the Mona Lisa as some paint on some wood, and therefore my garden fence should be in the Louvre. The one thing that I would expect everyone on both sides of this thing to agree on is that personhood is not reducible to an inventory of the icky tubes, squishy substances, and rank juices from which we are formed.

If you do actually leave souls out of it, from 12 weeks that fetus has the beginnings of teeth, nipples and fingers, but is many stages short of being what most of us would consider a person. You need to have a functional element at the very least for your definition to actually be persuasive. Persons feel pain (available at 27 weeks gestation apparently), have a sense of self (some time after birth) and all these other aspects that are simply not present at 12 weeks.

But if your conception of persons is loaded with a belief in immortal souls attached to that corporeal mess of tubes and goo, then you might not feel the need to define personhood the way that people who don't believe in such things would. This conception of a person has an extra item in the shopping cart that happens to be the only ingredient required. God/Crom or whatever could simply attach a human soul to a garden pea and that would just inarguably become a human with the body of a pea. So a shopping list of bits is sufficient to define person, if and only if "soul" or similar is one of the bits in the list.

That leaves you all with no possible way to persuade the other side they are mistaken*. Somebody pretty much has to prove that there is, or is not, an afterlife before anyone could possibly prove whether a zygote is a person or just some hands and feet waiting to happen.

Also under those circumstance, none of you can come up with arguments that legitimately flummox each other. Every argument in this field automatically must be flawed. All that's happening beyond that is that people can't put their finger on exactly what the problem is just at this minute.

* Persuading those who already agree with you is a very poor substitute, it is however the fate of every single argument about religion, which is why all that stuff should be safely tucked away in the religion sub forum.

[henry quirk]

You say: a fetus though human is not yet a person and the fetus is not a person cuz...

A person at its earliest is one whose diapers get changed at 3:00 am.

That's your arbitrary cut off point, and it's just opinion. Functionally, there's no difference between the newborn gettin' his diapers changed and 13 week old fetus person. Every bit of biological machinery present in the newborn is present in the 13 week old. The only difference is one of development not completeness.

You coulda (but haven't) made an argument that the developmental difference is what separates 'fetus' and 'person', but to do that you would have had to move your cut off point way back from the gettin' diapers changed stage to somewhere 'round week 24.

#

You're the one who never provided a reason why this equation is valid.

Well, clearly, that ain't so. Several times I've said that from 12 weeks on all the biological machinery that comprises you and me is present in lil fetus person. Lil fetus person is as complete as you and me, just underdeveloped so -- as I reckon things -- he ought be considered a person. You don't have to agree with me, but you can't say I haven't 'balanced the equation'.

#

"These words describe two different stages of being one in process of becoming and its resultant in which the latter has been finalized."

You seem to be sayin' 'a fetus ain't a person cuz the dictionary sez it's not'.

[Dubious]

You say: a fetus though human is not yet a person and the fetus is not a person cuz...

A person at its earliest is one whose diapers get changed at 3:00 am.

That's your arbitrary cut off point, and it's just opinion.

Yeah, that's my arbitrary cut off point but it's not just my opinion because diapers can and do get changed at three o'clock in the morning!

Goodbye.

[henry quirk]

"Yeah, that's my arbitrary cut off point but it's not just my opinion because diapers can and do get changed at three o'clock in the morning!"

And Jane in her sixth month sez what she's carryin'' is her child, a person.

That's mebbe her cutoff point.

And Julie, she's in her 13th week, sez -- as she rubs her tummy -- that she loves lil Stan or Juniper more than she thought possible.

That's mebbe her cutoff point.

And Bertha, who doesn't want what's in her womb, would gladly see it euthanized after birth (though she hopes to take care of it well before that).

Bertha, she has no cutoff point.

#

"Goodbye."

adios

[henry quirk]

"What you got there is a partial definition based on a list of components (has human dna + has nervous system, is person). This is much like defining the Mona Lisa as some paint on some wood, and therefore my garden fence should be in the Louvre. The one thing that I would expect everyone on both sides of this thing to agree on is that personhood is not reducible to an inventory of the icky tubes, squishy substances, and rank juices from which we are formed."

Okay. try this on: I offered this definition to Age way the hell up-thread. It moves us away from 'laundry list'.

A person is an individual who has a natural potential for the capacities of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action.

Ain't a person alive who can deny that from 12 weeks on (and well before, I reckon) what a pregnant woman carries will develop into a being capable of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action. The potential is there, in the clump of human cells. It's normal and natural for that clump of human cells to develop fully into -- not dog, not cat, not cow -- a being capable of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action.

Mebbe you got an alternate defintion to offer, sumthin' other than 'it's a person when you can change its diapers', a defintion that takes into account the comatose, the disabled, the medically fragile, the deranged, and on and on.

#

"That leaves you all with no possible way to persuade the other side they are imistaken"

As I say up-thread: I had and have no intention to persuade anyone of anything. I asked a question (didn't move the goalposts not once), stated a position (in different ways), and waited for refutation (I'm still waiting).

As I say up-thread: if there's no consensus of defintion (what is a person?), or in the line between person & meat, or as to when meat becomes person, we ought err on safety's side and assume what a woman carries is a person, at least for the majority of the pregnancy (say, from week 12 on).

[henry quirk]

"I agree or better said "To each his own"."

Well, we agree on that, at least.

#

" If you want to get sentimental about a fetus its your right."

I thought I was rather dispassionate about the subject.

#

"But for me it's the mother who decides its fate first and foremost."

Yes, I know.

#

"It all amounts to nothing!"

Unless one of us is right: then it amounts to everything.

Keep in mind: Our positions -- me & Mannie -- are not synonymous. We haven't been arguing for or against exactly the same things.

Anyway: you're out, so 'nuff said.

No hard feelings, yeah?

[Dubious]

No hard feelings, yeah?

No hard feelings! They harden the arteries prematurely!

[Dubious]

I am surprised that you do not recognise the quote: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls", I think that most adults in the Western world are familiar with it.

I've read your post a couple of times. It was informative, well-expressed and the subject is interesting. You say you're surprised that I do not recognize the quote or where it came from. It surprises me even more that you think I wouldn't know! I haven't read all the poems of John Donne but nevertheless a good selection of them including Sir Philip Sydney, Edmund Spenser and George Herbert. Among the "Metaphysical Poets I actually prefer George Herbert over John Donne though considerably less famous. Admittedly this was many years ago but some things you just don't forget! My interest in poetry has long diminished but still even now retain a soft spot for Milton.

What I didn't know is what you meant by <Abortion ? "Ask not for whom the bell tolls", Dubious.

Sorry, but I'm not bright enough to catch on to something with so little clue. How to make a connection here is a quandary. Be that as it may you current post made it clear. It's possible to get deeply into this subject very quickly but for the time being I'd prefer not to. Whereas I can appreciate much of the poetry of John Donne I don't usually adhere to his thoughts or sentiments. Verbal arts and insights can be appreciated and wondered at without necessarily accepting its conclusions. I never succumb to anything in that respect except possibly music.

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND is actually a good subject for an OP that can be discussed being only partly true imo, not that I would want to at this time.

You certainly put some effort into this and it came out well-written and clear for which I thank you.

[Walker]

If any of these particular men had to experience unwanted pregnancy in their own body, they might be more enlightened. Nature happens, despite our best efforts -- and there are countless ways that nature is redirected constantly by humans. It's necessary! Demanding that women's bodies be breeding tubes whether they like it or not because nature sprouted there is senseless.

Myopia on the particular swings and misses the big picture.
The big picture is, how to end unwanted pregnancies?

The answer is not abortion.
This is because more abortions result in more unwanted pregnancies, which leads to more abortions, which results in more unwanted pregnancies, and so on.

Break the chain.
What do you think is the cause of unwanted pregnancies?

When pro-abortion activists speak of a threat to the mother’s life, don’t they also mean a threat to the mother’s perceived quality of life?

[Age]

"What you got there is a partial definition based on a list of components (has human dna + has nervous system, is person). This is much like defining the Mona Lisa as some paint on some wood, and therefore my garden fence should be in the Louvre. The one thing that I would expect everyone on both sides of this thing to agree on is that personhood is not reducible to an inventory of the icky tubes, squishy substances, and rank juices from which we are formed."

Okay. try this on: I offered this definition to Age way the hell up-thread. It moves us away from 'laundry list'.

A person is an individual who has a natural potential for the capacities of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action.

Ain't a person alive who can deny that from 12 weeks on (and well before, I reckon) what a pregnant woman carries will develop into a being capable of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action. The potential is there, in the clump of human cells. It's normal and natural for that clump of human cells to develop fully into -- not dog, not cat, not cow -- a being capable of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action.

Mebbe you got an alternate defintion to offer, sumthin' other than 'it's a person when you can change its diapers', a defintion that takes into account the comatose, the disabled, the medically fragile, the deranged, and on and on.

#

"That leaves you all with no possible way to persuade the other side they are imistaken"

As I say up-thread: I had and have no intention to persuade anyone of anything. I asked a question (didn't move the goalposts not once), stated a position (in different ways), and waited for refutation (I'm still waiting).

As I say up-thread: if there's no consensus of defintion (what is a person?), or in the line between person & meat, or as to when meat becomes person, we ought err on safety's side and assume what a woman carries is a person, at least for the majority of the pregnancy (say, from week 12 on).

IF a 'person' is an individual who has a natural potential for the capacities of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action, and a single sperm also has the 'natural potential' for what you propose here, then when do we distinguish the actual moment of when a "person" begins?

Is that moment of 'potential' begin when the sperm is in the testes, in while the sperm is the duct behind the testes, while the sperm is being ejaculated, or when one of the 40 million to one billion potential individual sperms are swimming through the cervix, or when those individuals are in the uterus, or when an individual has eventually found its way to the fallopian tube and is about to fertilize an egg, or when it has fertilized an egg?

Or, do you propose 'an individual, who has the natural potential for the capacities of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition and intentional action' happens at a later stage of development?

If yes, then when exactly, and, what makes you pick this date?

If you removed the 'potential' word, then that might help in understanding the day you decide.

Having the potential for subjective awareness, et cetera (or the potential for any thing), is completely different from having those capabilities/characteristics (or any thing).

[Belinda]

Walker wrote:

When pro-abortion activists speak of a threat to the mother’s life, don’t they also mean a threat to the mother’s perceived quality of life?

Not only the mother's but also the new baby's siblings who might already be starving.

[FlashDangerpants]

"What you got there is a partial definition based on a list of components (has human dna + has nervous system, is person). This is much like defining the Mona Lisa as some paint on some wood, and therefore my garden fence should be in the Louvre. The one thing that I would expect everyone on both sides of this thing to agree on is that personhood is not reducible to an inventory of the icky tubes, squishy substances, and rank juices from which we are formed."

Okay. try this on: I offered this definition to Age way the hell up-thread. It moves us away from 'laundry list'.

A person is an individual who has a natural potential for the capacities of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action.

I would say sure, up to a point. A present tense person is a current individual with properties of that sort. A future tense person would be something without, but with the potential to become that sort of individual. And a past tense person is, well, dead, which is a state one arrives at by losing those capabilities....

Except of course as you are about to note, some people lose most of those long before they die. And a majority of fertilised human embryos never acquire them, they get wrapped up in a sanitary napkin as an unexplained and unexamined late period.

Some considerations for present tense persons apply to both past and future tense version. It is frowned upon to eat any of them at all.
Other considerations only apply to specific tenses of person. It is ok to speak ill of the alive, but it is not ok to bury them.

Ain't a person alive who can deny that from 12 weeks on (and well before, I reckon) what a pregnant woman carries will develop into a being capable of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action. The potential is there, in the clump of human cells. It's normal and natural for that clump of human cells to develop fully into -- not dog, not cat, not cow -- a being capable of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action.

On a wider scale, how usual is it to assess things according to their future potential rather than what it currently is?

That's typically a context within which we can view a thing, any thing at all, if we choose to. So one day there was a sandwich shop some place called McDonald's, at one point that must have one single greasy little cafe, which would on that day have been the true way to view that shop. Today it's a whole industry, and somebody looking at that first greasy cafe with the right frame of mind may well have forseen this potential, but most of the people sitting in there eating sandwiches saw it only as what it actually was on that day. I am about to go out and buy some lunch, I will not think of the little shop that sells it to me as a giant megacorp that fundamentally alters the agriculture business across continents because, in spite of this extant future possibility, it is actually just a shop that sells quite nice sandwiches.

That's the usual way to view anything in this world. You are asking for an extraordinary change of view there, but also hoping that it is the currently normal view. Once that fertilised egg has become aperson, iit will then have ambitions and make determinations. But I don't really think of it as having those capacities today just becuse I know it can have them in the future.

Mebbe you got an alternate defintion to offer, sumthin' other than 'it's a person when you can change its diapers', a defintion that takes into account the comatose, the disabled, the medically fragile, the deranged, and on and on.

I don't. That's an excercise in oversimplification. Personally I wouldn't expect there to be a truly clear definition of anything as complex as persons.

"That leaves you all with no possible way to persuade the other side they are imistaken"

As I say up-thread: I had and have no intention to persuade anyone of anything. I asked a question (didn't move the goalposts not once), stated a position (in different ways), and waited for refutation (I'm still waiting).

Well then, agreed. There is no winnable debate here, there shouldn't be.

As I say up-thread: if there's no consensus of defintion (what is a person?), or in the line between person & meat, or as to when meat becomes person, we ought err on safety's side and assume what a woman carries is a person, at least for the majority of the pregnancy (say, from week 12 on).

If we are truly valuing this human thing for having intent, making decisions and taking actions, then we must leave them to make difficult choices somewhere along the line or there is no point. I think this is one that you simply can't make for somebody else.

[henry quirk]

"IF a 'person' is an individual who has a natural potential for the capacities of subjective awareness, intrinsic intentionality and cognition, and intentional action, and a single sperm also has the 'natural potential' for what you propose here, then when do we distinguish the actual moment of when a "person" begins?"


As I reckon things: the sperm, locked away in Joe's testicles, has potential but that potential can never be realized hangin' out in the scrotum lounge, drinkng beer and watchin' cable porn. Same applies to Jane's egg (loads of potential that never gets realized if the egg nests on the ovary couch, eatin' chocolate and watchin' soaps).

The potential of sperm and egg only gets realized when both get up and out, meet up, dance, get all entangled, combine.

So: I'd place the beginning of 'person' no earlier than right after conception. Before, you just got two lonely bits of potential; after, you got a brand-new thing that left alone will become, mebbe, a participant in on-line philo-forums.

Now, havin' said that, I do understand this cluster of new human cells might be hard for many to accept as 'person'. Hell, I have a hard time wrappin' my head 'round the idea.

*With apologies to all you atheists, I'm gonna dip into my deism here: I believe in the soul, in ensoulment. Unlike Mannie, I don't think the soul gets installed at conception but probably closer to week 12. My thinkin' is: you can't install complicated software on simple or nonexistant hardware. About the earliest I figure the soul (the animating spark, the non-deterministic algorithm, the will) can take hold is 12 weeks (mebbe a bit before). From my deistic stand, the foundation for potential comes at conception, but the potential itself (the personhood) comes with the installation (or mebbe the generation) of the soul.

Retreating from deism into the land of materials (where you atheists are more comfortable): at 12 weeks, as I say, all the bio-machinery comprising you and me is present in lil fetus person. He's complete but underdeveloped, so -- from a purely materialist stand -- all his potential is in place and so his 'personhood' is secure.

And, as a natural rights guy, I have to say if lil 12 week old fetus person 'is' a person, then he owns himself and Ma doesn't have to right to rub him out just cuz he's inconvenient.









*yeah, I know, you all think this is bullshit 'cept for Mannie who's shakin' his head sayin' 'so close but so far'...*shrug*...I yam what I yam

[Walker]

Walker wrote:

When pro-abortion activists speak of a threat to the mother’s life, don’t they also mean a threat to the mother’s perceived quality of life?

Not only the mother's but also the new baby's siblings who might already be starving.

The evidence does not support your narrative, which makes the narrative delusional. The evidence is, these days poor folks are characteristically overweight, so a woman who does not abort is not likely to have starving children due to poverty.

The cause of starving children might not be poverty, which would support your narrative. Neither is the cause of starving children, birth.

The cause of starving children in many cases is the mother's expensive, chemical addictions. What is the cause of that?