Legal Death, Legal Life, Personhood and Abortion

I just found this thread so I know I am joining late. I had replied to a similar argument by RAZD (well essentially the same one) in an earlier thread, and some of my concerns remain, however...Rat, your initial reply was terribly unfounded. Not only was it over emotional (apparently your guilt actually still requires you to blame society) it was filled with strawmen.RAZD wrote a very interesting essay on this topic and it was constructed quite well. For some reason you are acting as if every sentence argued for abortion, when most of it was simply setting up arguments for how we view life and death, and then how we could apply those to abortion. It doesn't even argue that YOU have to take the biological approach with your own child's life, just understand what would logically acceptable given a biological based approach. I mean a consistent biological approach. This is a fiction. In reality we cannot know 100%, and sometimes not even 50% whether at any time a fetus is actually healthy. Some problems are not even seen until the last stages of development and/or birth.You have stated that unlike a person on life support, a fetus stands a good chance of coming out of (growing out of) its current condition. I request you go and find some statistics to support that claim. This was already attempted elsewhere in an EvC thread and failed.In reality the "chance" is actually quite terrible. The "chance" improves as time goes on, but to say "a fetus" stands a good chance of survival is incorrect. It depends on what stage.Indeed that was exactly what RAZD was getting at.On top of this unknown... the health of the baby... there is also the unknown of what will happen to the mother at some point in the future. We cannot know that a mother will not suffer at some later point, and waiting around to allow an abortion only when it is known, could be too late.It is in this reality that decisions are made: We cannot say for certain that a fetus is genuinely healthy or will stay healthy, and neither can we say for certain that the mother will stay healthy and be able to survive the delivery.The best we can do is craft rules taking into consideration baseline norms regarding concepts of life and nonlife (as separate from death), or better yet of person and nonperson. The one thing to keep in mind is that the woman is always a person. Now that you agreed with RAZD's basic premise of how to go about this, perhaps you ought to explain where things aren't clear but perhaps can be defined. That is what RAZD did, and quite well.BTW--- Porn and premarital sex do not cause unwanted pregnancy. I enjoy both quite a bit and for some time now with absolutely no hazards. In contrast, there are many married couples, even those that use contraceptives, which end up with unwanted pregnancies. If you want to feel guilt for doing something stupid, or having had some bad luck, fine. Just don't use it to club other people, as if you received some insight on how other people should live to avoid your errors.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Nice essay, though it suffers the same problem as the first time you brought it up and that is using the definition of death.Rat was correct that there is an acute difference between a person in a coma or dying, and a fetus which is growing. They are moving in opposite directions and it is very arguable that if it was known that a person in a coma was getting better as time progressed, it is unlikely that they would be allowed to pull the plug.I realize you are trying to set out conditions that we can identify, but you still need to separate your argument of "nonperson", from that of "dead". You can probably do that by stating more clearly at the time that you are taking criteria from death that would be shared by a nonperson, in part if not in total. Thus the lack of functions would not have to be irreversible to be a nonperson, thought it would be to be dead.Clearly this is something that Rat has jumped on, even if he seems to have missed exactly what you were doing and indeed ranted at you for no real reason besides personal guilt. I predict it is something that is going to continue plaguing your essay, even from those not as personally involved with countering your conclusion.I mean I agree for the most part, yet I still see that kind of hanging out there. It is pretty much the largest thread sticking out.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

While I get that by the end of your essay, you have addressed the nature of coma versus gestational being, and I do like including the fact that we have concepts that improving is not necessarily enough, my greater point is that you have not made that clear enough especially at the beginning.When discussing the definition of death, it still appears that you are using those definitions in order to describe the state of the gestational being, rather than simply using the def of death to get at what characteristics we find important to define a living person.Maybe you still need a slight rewrite in that section to make sure a reader understands clearly what you are looking for and that you are not saying the fetus fits those defs, rather than it is simply lacking the qualities that were seen as relevant for personhood when defining death.Hope that makes sense. Heheheh... not really. Honestly think about this. I get that biologically they are simply functioning and so essentially going in the same direction. But as far as personhood goes, a gestational being is moving toward personhood (gaining characteristics), while those which are dying are moving away from personhood (losing characteristics).The fact is the gestational being may stop and so never become a person, and a dying being may stop and recover and so remain a person... but the general state is in opposing direction. Yeah, this is a delusion available to rich nations and peoples. The fact is that the more we remove ourselves from nature and natural orders the more we live in a fantasy world of what is right and good and healthy. The more we base it on what we want and like to believe (teleology) rather than what simply is and we have to live with (experiential). I cannot. Hand jobs, blow jobs, and anal sex never got anyone pregnant... ever. Thus sex as the source of blame is right out of the picture. If one just must have vaginal sex then there are many contraceptives which provide excellent protection, or one can choose to have sex with people that are not going to get (or get you) pregnant.Unfortunately if one is tied to one person of an opposite sex then eventually vaginal sex will be desirable and it is possible that a contraceptive method will fail (even if it is very small). I tend to feel that if one has taken precautions then it is not one's fault for having caused the pregnancy, it is really really bad luck.It's kind of like blaming the parent for allowing their kids to play in the backyard and then a random lightning strike hits them. Are the parents to blame?Saying the fact that parents chose to have sex, imparts some necessity on continuing the life of the gestational being is simply to use a guilt technique. Sex is shameful and a guilty act and so having chosen to do it imparts some extra responsibility on its results. Like a criminal is responsible for all bad things which come out of his crime.It is simply human to desire sex and have sex. If one does so in a careless fashion then perhaps there is some reason for guilt, but if one has taken all reasonable precautions then I see no reason for feeling guilty at all.And in any case guilt does not add up to making the gestational life any more a person or something to be kept. If anything that seems to be a worse reason to continue the pregnancy.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Hopefully glad that the doctors were around to take care of them during their hours of need and for their advice, even if worse case scenarios ended up not coming true. Are you honestly saying these people don't trust doctors anymore? Good luck on that kid living very long if that is there new stance.On the flipside I have known plenty of people who have trusted doctors that things would be okay and ended up with dead or malformed children.I wonder what they should think of doctors?Also, I have known people who have left things up to God when they had bad news from doctors and ended up with dead or malformed children.Can you imagine what these people feel about God now?This message has been edited by holmes, 02-01-2005 06:05 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

You are looking like a troll to me, but I'll give it one more shot. Do you know what a strawman is? I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. He was clearly trying to come to a consistent legal position about life based on morality and indeed accepting different moral systems. If he was disinterested in morality or life it is unlikely he would have wasted time creating an essay on the subject and suggesting the plausible lines for marking nonperson from person. How does my statement that the status of a gestational being cannot be known 100% prove what you are saying and that the essay was a waste of time? I was discussing two totally separate things. In the first case I was discussing our ability to know the health status of a gestational being. In the second case I was talking about the statistical probability that a gestational being will actually survive through birth.We can determine what percentage chance a being has at any particular stage of making it to the end. A percentage does not tell one whether it will actually make it or not, but rather the odds facing it to reach the end (or conversely the odds of its success).From conception the odds high that the gestational being will not survive, as it survives through each new stage of growth the odds against it diminish. One cannot say "a fetus" will likely survive, unless you discuss what you mean by "fetus" and "likely". Okay, what's the best we can do when crafting legislation, when we cannot be sure of the health of the child nor the risk a mother will face during the length of the pregnancy? My apologies, I thought you were indicating you agreed with that statement. If not, nevermind. No. Though it appears you are not learning from your experiences or mistakes. In fact you are making wholly new ones. Yes. Given that you are not stating proper facts or drawing proper conclusions from facts I would say that I know better than you. RAZD did no such thing (at least not on EvC), nor did he advocate such a position. If you have an issue with his essay you ought to try and discuss where it is mistaken, rather than beating on him because he reached a conclusion that you do not like.As far as I am concerned, I am unaware what innocent babies have to do with abortion. A gestational being, from zygote to fetus, is not a baby. I am 100% positive that porn and premarital sex do not cause unwanted pregnancies, nor abortions.There is absolutely no way that porn itself can put semen in a fertile woman's uterus. Neither will watching porn cause one person's sperm to end up in a fertile woman's uterus. There simply is no mechanism for either scenario. Thus porn is wholly without blame in this matter.Having decided to have sex, hand jobs, blow jobs, and anal sex (this is not to mention various fetishes) absolutely cannot cause pregnancy. Vaginal sex using toys will also not cause pregnancy. This is guaranteed unless sperm is first put on the toy. For example lesbians may have as much vaginal sex as they want and never get pregnant.Heterosexual couples may also have full vaginal sex without repercussion, if one or both partners are sterile (either naturally or through medical procedure).Only if vaginal intercourse is demanded by a heterosexual couple, both of whom are fertile, will there be any beginning of a risk of pregnancy. So up till this point, all sex including premarital sex is safe.At this point (hetero fertile vaginal sex) couples may use contraceptives to reduce the risk of pregnancy. It may be brought to extremely low levels of probability using such methods. If you want to argue that any chance means there is culpability for those that choose to engage in that specific sexual act, then we can accept this for purposes of argument.However, there would be no difference in risk between a married or unmarried person engaging in that specific sex act... unless you have some credible reason to think otherwise?Indeed married persons may have more chances of getting pregnant (getting someone pregnant) since they have a commited sexual partner and so may have sex more often, or during critical fertile periods.All of this discredits your claim. If you watched porn and in a moment of excitement felt like you had to have unprotected vaginal sex with fertile partners, with no protection, then you only have yourself to blame for any pregnancies.If you used proper birth control, I would argue you have no real blame since it was an accident, though I would point out if you wanted to be sure, you could have stuck to oral or anal sex or etc etc.You can have as much premarital sex as you want, it is how you have sex which is important. And of course you can watch unlimited amounts of porn. Unless you are feebleminded porn cannot force you to engage in actual sex acts with a fertile partner in ways that risk pregnancy.As ever, I find the biggest moralists are the ones who screwed up and are looking to live a better life vicariously by regulating mine. Get your hands off my body, I know what I am doing with it.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-01-2005 14:21 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I do not argue from an apriori position of what I want to see happen (or not happen), and I suggest that you should be careful not to as well. It does not lead to good debate, or even an understanding of your opponents arguments.Yes, the end result is that some abortions would be considered perfectly legal (and perhaps moral). This could in some form open the door for some other abortion techniques. That does not undercut the arguments he has made nor suggests it will allow the door to swing as wide as as you appear to fear.Just because you don't like a conclusion does not mean you have to come out swinging at every single sentence. It is possible to reach an erroneous conclusion despite have mostly correct arguments. Find what are the actual faults in the logic and approach those specific issues.It is also possible that a logical conclusion does not fit your personal emotional position. I do not see why you cannot respect a well made essay for what it is and at the same time say "I don't like what it suggests". While I have already suggested to him ways that he can correct that portion of his essay to avoid people making the mistake your are making, the fact is that you are making a mistake. This is one of the strawmen you have created (though I at least see why you have made this mistake as opposed to others).He is not trying to base an abortion law on that law, he was using that law to try an find what criteria we use for defining an entity. Much more went into his essay's reasoning than just that law. Well, people have been misdiagnosed as dead, or actually identified as dead and then came back. But this criticism is valid and one I have approached RAZD with, including his earlier thread on this issue.But in fact he has already amended this problem, though it is admittedly hard to see exactly what he is doing based on the wording. Towards the end of the essay it should have become a bit more apparent.He was not suggesting that gestational beings are like dead bodies, that is they fit the definitions of dead beings, you and I are both right that that would be very very wrong. The point is that he was taking from the common legal definition of death what criteria are important for us in assigning death vs life, that is what vital functions are considered important factors for "life". It does not matter whether they are going to come "online" at some point or not, just what is it we look to as important vital functions. What a brilliant retort, that really proved your point didn't it? Masturbation and blow jobs and anal sex cause pregnancy as well as watching porn... not to mention that not being married increases one's risk of pregnancy from a partner... heck, even gay sex and sex between infertile partners causes pregnancy because as you have so cogently argued:"Sex doesn't cause pregenancies, I think I'm out of this one guys."Yeah, I know when I have been beaten by a true logician. I have watched tons of porn and engaged in many premarital acts of sex, so has my partner... we are what is commonly called "swingers". Yet on top of never having caught any STD, we have also never had a pregnancy occur.It appears quite clear we know something you do not: sex doesn't inherently cause anything, it is how you have sex which determines your risks.Get used to it.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Interesting and agreed, including all the statements regarding rights which followed. I think this is a very important statement, which will unfortunately be missed by most.It has many more implications than for abortion itself. For all those who are against abortion because they are pro-life, the truth of the above statement ought to mandate that they also be for socialized medicine. How many "dead babies" come from our incredibly backward capitalist health care system.If one really cares for babies, and so society must protect them, why are we not caring for them enough to keep the quality of life and health for the mother as high as possible? That is a determinant factor in the survival of the "baby".If abortion is truly something similar to murder, then I argue nonsocialized medicine is tantamount to criminal negligence and child abuse.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-02-2005 05:24 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Whoops. You are 100% correct. I should have said we have not faced any situation of pregnancy where we might have to utilize abortion as a form of birth control.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

That is fine. What you must do then is concentrate on the arguments he makes which are problematic in their logic or fact, and not just because you don't like the conclusion. I mean you can say "I don't like the conclusion" but that does not dispute his essay, or its merits.I will add that your post #61 is a start in the right direction.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

No, again this is an example of a strawman. That was not my position at all. Not even close.I was talking about creating a good debate or argument against a position you disagree with. You should not keep dwelling on the conclusion of an opposing person's argument while making your counterarguments because not every plank in your opponent's argument must be dismissed in order to defeat the conclusion, and trying to bash some planks puts your own argument in a bad light.This gets even worse when you create strawman to make it look as if you are attacking a plank of his argument, when in fact you are not. You can disagree. It is fine to point out the holes. The problem is that some of the holes are manufactured by you and not part of his argument. That is what we are pointing out. I haven't told you how to live your life, I only explained how to improve your counter arguments, as well as pointing out that you should stop trying to tell others how to live their lives.If you go back and look you were the one that brought up moral arguments against porn and premarital sex. I merely countered them.I did note that it appears your moralizing comes from the same position I find most moralizer's positions come from. Again, I did not drag the pertinent facts out of you in some sort of therapy session, you provided them, I merely noted them as a consistent background.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I can't speak for Sweden but I am aware of what it's like in Denmark. Usually people criticize those countries (after finding out how well off the people in those countries are) by stating that they have such high tax rates. The fact is they have good salaries to match and so the tax ends up not really being a burden.It is only in a theoretical sense that one has "lost what one is making", with the benefit of having lots of benefits one "never has to pay for".Indeed I always find it funny that people in the US think their system saves them money, when they are forced into paying high out of pocket prices for health services, and end up needing insurance policies anyway which is... socialized medicine, except most of the money gets diverted away from actual medicine!In the end people in the US would spend more in healthcare rather than those paying taxes in the socialist systems.I tells ya, it was sweet! I do like capitalism and free markets in general (basic production and services), but for major routine and essential services it just makes sense (not to mention dollars and sense) to have socialized programs.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

From #78 Huh? Perhaps more than two exclamatory sentences would make your argument stronger. His statement (in context of his essay) made logical sense.If you are saying you are attempting to refute the logic of that section you quoted, that's fine, but you have thuse far done a poor job of it. I do not seen a rebuttal which accurately attacks that argument within its proper context.It was not simply using that fact of law alone to make his case. You will note that he makes the statement that it is in conjunction with "personhood". Okay, what did I say you should be doing with your life?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

That was your first concise and forward moving post against his article. However I think you are not being completely accurate.In reality people have a host of beliefs including A and B toward abortion.It seemed to me RAZD was looking more for a practical legal solution based on common concepts (or consistent evaluations) of what it is to be a person. It did not so much have to do with moral okay (which would say people including you have to agree that it is okay morally), but in a legal/practical okay.You can have problems with this position, but I thought I should note that his argument was not that you had to find A morally acceptable at all.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Perhaps you don't understand what the meaning of concise is, especially when combined with forward moving.If you note from my early post to RAZD, I explained where it seemed you were having a problem (with his essay) and that it was a valid avenue of attack, even if not completely accurate to what he was specifically saying.You have done nothing to change that assessment, and indeed have supported my assessment. What you did do was trim off all of the unnecessary parts of your original post to make it more concise and devoid of language which does nothing to advance debate.Thus if anything, I was congratulating you on a successful rewrite, then explaining how and where it did not exactly address RAZD's position.If anything that last post of your shows why you should continue to contribute: you seem to be learning how to make your debate more productive. What we have been continually trying to tell you is that he was not making the comparison you think he was making, or at the very least not for the same reason you think he was doing so.Everytime we make this point, you then tell us what our end goal is and so why it is wrong... and that's when it converts to a moral argument. We can and should stick to the comparison until we have that resolved.To repeat, he was not making a direct comparison between a gestational being and a dead body to say the criteria of a dead body is fulfilled for a gestational being.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-05-2005 08:17 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Instead of being insulting, why not just try to be reasonable? You managed it through one post. A strawman is when you argue against a position that was not actually your opponent's position. It could be because you misunderstand what he is saying or intentionally misinterpreting what he is saying.If you have a problem with that paragraph then it is perfectly okay to debate it. Problems will arise if it doesn't mean exactly what you think it does, or you pretend to mean it says something else, in order to debate it.Now hold on a second, because I have not addressed what you have done at this point, just explained what a strawman is and how it can cause a problem. This is an admittedly interesting issue and I have now backed you up on this several times, though it is not completely accurate to the point RAZD was making, so not wholly a criticism of his position.You are viewing it as a being in a process and so only if it is known that the process will not (or is not likely to) result in personhood then it is not in the same category as a being which is wholly outside of personhood.RAZD is not arguing based upon the fact that it is in a process, but what an entity is in and of itself. Within the process it does not have characteristics in and of itself such that we would commonly call that (or any other entity) a person.Given that it is not (at that point) a person, based upon its lack of characteristics, an analogous (even if not completely the same) situation to a family with a person on life support arises.Can you make arguments against this analogous situation? Yes. You will need to work to improve your arguments, and I will state up front I don't think you will be able (ultimately) in succeeding to beat his argument. But you could, so go ahead and try. Yet... It seems you are holding a conflicting position on what chances a person on life support has, and indeed that is analogous to a gestational being.While we know what the gestational process is supposed to do, we are not able to predict what the actual future is for any particular pregnancy. And that's about just as good as for a person in a coma, though a pregnancy will normally end in about 9 months and a coma can last for years.So what you are doing is comparing the processes which an entity is undergoing, and I would argue it really doesn't help. But in any case it does not shoot down (so you will have to do this as well) comparisons between the nature of the entities in and of themselves.For much of the gestational period the being is worse off than the coma patient. It is not that it's capabilities have been injured but simply does not have certain capabilities at all. In each case it is the termination of a life, even RAZD has made this point in the OP. No matter if it is mechanical or biological machinery being disconnected (and make no mistake both are actions), the result is the same. Only since the gestational being may be worse off, no capabilities for individual life instead of possible marginal capabilities, it is guaranteed not to live for much longer. I don't see what this matters for the purpose of this discussion. You will need to make this argument much clearer.If it is simply to find a difference between the situations to show that they are not entirely analogous, RAZD can completely agree with no harm to his argument. Analogies do not have to be airtight in similarity, only the pertinent portions for discussion. Well technically there is nothing natural about sticking a dying person into a lung machine, nor preemies into incubators. Neither is any of the science that we use to help pregnant mothers lower the high infant mortality and maternal mortality rate. I don't see where "nature" necessarily makes things right and nonnatural makes things wrong.But in any case that is not actually pertinent to RAZD's argument. He was discussing if you remove the gestational being from the external support system, whether it is organic or not, it will naturally expire (that is no one has to do anything else to ensure its death).Unless you are going to argue that the umbilical cord the placenta and the woman attached to the child are all part of the gestational being, then removal of any of those is analogous to removing lifesupport machinery from a comatose patient. You are correct to say that if you can successfully defeat that portion of his argument, then the conclusion will be refuted. However that does not mean that everything in his argument was incorrect.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)