Right to Life Ethical Considerations

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Is there any consensus as to when life begins?

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As schraf put it, the question should be when the fetus becomes "human", which in my opinion means when it becomes a sentient and/or conscious being (the ideas I have on this are very close to Peter Singer's).Certainly during the first three months of gestation, the fetus doesn't have a functioning brain, and so clearly isn't "human" in this sense and so has no rights whatsoever.By the time the child is five years old, it seems clear to me that it has developed consciousness to a degree that should guarantee it certain rights.Where between these two times is the "cut-off" is open up to debate. I feel that consciousness needs a certain amount of experience in order to develop, and so I am of the opinion that abortion should be allowed up to birth. After that, things get a little uncertain, and I would advocate that we use birth as this cut-off so that we can be sure that we aren't terminating the life of a human being.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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I personally think the most ethical position to take since we cannot know when consciousness begins would be to pin it at the moment we can detect higher order brain activity which I believe is somewhere in the 2nd trimester.

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That is certainly a consideration, and, if we agree that consciousness (whatever that is) is the correct criterion to use, then it is possible that a fetus become a conscious entity during the second trimester.However, I strongly disagree that that is the case. I may be wrong, but I feel pretty confident that a fetus in the second trimester probably has not yet achieved consciousness.-

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What if a woman changes her mind in labor and wants to abort? What is the difference between a fetus halfway down the birth canal and a newborn baby except a couple of hours of elapsed time?

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Extend that a bit to the day before. What is the difference between an in utero fetus 1 day before it is born and a newborn in terms of its humanity?

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iano uses this same argument to push back the "humanity" of the fetus right up to conception. However, the fact that you are allowing abortion during the first trimester gives the answer to your dilemma. We agree about the period during which there is not any consciousness, and set the boundary during that period. In my opinion, we do not set the boundary during a period during which there is doubt whether or not the criteria are met.You seem to think that the first trimester is safe, but you begin to have doubts about the time after that. I believe any time before birth is safe, but after that I begin to have doubts. So we both agree that at least the first trimester poses no problems whatsoever. What about the second trimester, the third trimester, the first year of life after birth? How do we reach agreement on this? The same way we as a society agree on anything: we discuss this rationally in open debate, and then decide democratically what we as a society believe is right, remembering that the debate is always still open, and that we may decide that we should change earlier decisions.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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I don't think science is going to provide the framework for an ethical solution to this particular controversy.

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Nor do I. Science cannot determine what is or is not ethical, nor can science even determine the criteria for ethics.However, if I have a set of criteria to help me determine whether a certain action under a certain set of conditions is right or wrong, science may be able to inform me whether or not those criteria are met.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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The Catholics church doesn't, and an increasing number of evangelicals don't.

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Well, as much as I oppose them, at least I will give the Catholics a certain begrudging respect for the consistency of their beleifs.Here in the other hand, the political conservatives seem rather accomodating to allow exceptions for "rape or incest" -- as if the manner of conception has any bearing on whether the fetus is an "innocent life". Just more more evidence in my opinion of how a significant fraction of the Right in the U.S. are merely using a disengenuous and cynical appeal to emotion to push their narrow social agenda of control over individuals' personal lives.But this is getting to be off-topic.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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Since when is it a right to be able to have sex without the possibility of getting pregnant?

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Since it became possible.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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A fetus of enough age can dream, explore its environment, express some basic emotion, etc.

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So can most animals. Yet, I can't quite fathom that a mosquito has anything like we would call a consciousness. One must be careful about anthropomorphizing behavior,-

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I would, like I said above, draw it at whatever age we can detect higher order brain function.

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Is there a definition of detectable higher order brain function? Or am I, a partial vegetarian, going to have to give up eating fish?-

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The problem is exactly as you say though, once we outline the gray area how do we draw the line.

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Yes, and of course we also have to agree on what constitutes a gray area. So far, even the consideration of consciousness as a criterion isn't universal.
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Since we do consider infanticide murder....

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This was an pretty arbitrary designation by the early Christian missionaries of Europe. Most societies did't consider infanticide as murder, and even in Christian Europe the hierarchy had a hard time suppressing the practice.Designating infanticide as murder was just as arbitrary as the later designation of abortion as murder. It may be that if we could establish a reasonable criterion for when abortion is allowed, we may find that we should limit it to the first trimester as you feel; on the other hand, it is possible that once a reasonable criterion is decided upon, and after studying the issue closely, we will find that infanticide up to a certain age should be allowed. That is one of the problems with searching for a rational basis for ethics; one may end up realizing that for consistency one should be advocating positions that one would not have thought possible.One is then left with a dilemma: form the basis of one's ethics purely on one's gut feelings, risking a fairly arbitrary (and non-universal) set of ethics; or coming up with a rational basis that more or less agrees with one's basic feelings and that others might agree with, but from which one can draw unexpected conclusion.Edited by Chiroptera, : changed the tense of a verb

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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We can extract DNA from a pimple on someon'e ass and it will appear as human DNA.

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Was that pimple the result of rape or incest?

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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The large majority of abortions in the US are the result and continuation of imature and or selfish choices by individuals.

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I'm still trying to figure out why denying oneself sex is supposed to be a mark of maturity or selflessness.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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It's simple straight foreward reasoning has not been disputed yet.... A lot of things which detract from the facts are bandied about.

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And your arguments are no more fact based than anyone else's on this thread. But one cannot have a discussion on ethics that is completely based on facts. That is because any ethical discussion is going to rely on values, which are subjective and not completely determined by facts.Your reasoning has been disputed, and quite effectively. What has been disputed are your premises, spoken and unspoken, which have to do with your subjective value judgements.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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The original decision to have sex knowing that life will be terminated for convenience.

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This afternoon, I may have fish for lunch, knowing that my decision has resulted in life having been terminated.Difference?Added by edit:I just choose to have spaghetti instead. I wonder if I will get a commendation for "choosing life"?Edited by Chiroptera, : No reason given.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

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Is that over?

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Yes. You pretty much ended it with:

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

After several pages of arguments about contraception and responsibility, I fear that some may lose sight of the fundamental issue:A woman is pregnant, and she does not want to be pregnant. That is all the justification a woman needs to have an abortion. No other factor is really all that relevant to the decision; the woman does not want to be pregnant, and that is sufficient justification to terminate the pregnancy.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline

I agree, although it is a pity holmes was still "cloaked" when CanadianSteve and Tal made their recent cameo appearances.

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"These monkeys are at once the ugliest and the most beautiful creatures on the planet./ And the monkeys don't want to be monkeys; they want to be something else./ But they're not."
-- Ernie Cline