Hello, Ludo. Long time since we've chatted.
Good post. The questions may be irrelevant to some people, but they really get to the heart of what I consider to be the important issues.
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1. Is Partial birth abortion murder? I am asking this because some say that a fetus isn't human until after it is born. If the fetus/baby is born halfway, is it human or not??
2. If a baby is halfway born (partial birth), is it called a "fetaby" or a "betus"??
To me, what is important isn't whether an individual is born or not; it is whether it is a conscious, sentient being. I believe that it requires a few years of experience and interaction with the outside world to develop this consciousness; thus being "partway born" isn't sufficient to extend rights and protection to the individual. I do use birth as the cut-off, not because there is something magic about that moment, but because I don't know
when after the birth the baby becomes a human being, and so I figure birth is a "safe" point.
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3. Hypothetically, if it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that a fetus, all the way to an embryo, is a human being, would you still support a woman's right to choose?
That is an interesting question. What if it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that a third trimester fetus really does have enough of what we call consciousness and so becomes more like what we would consider human? Arguments in law and ethics make extensive use of analogies, but I can't think of another actual situation in real life that is analogous to this; a human being is completely dependent on another for its very life; this dependence entails some health and social risks for the other person; this dependence is a temporary situation.
Personally, I would probably lean toward protecting the unborn human being in this case. If it were decided through a democratic process (I'm living in a fantasy land here, I realize) that the personal autonomy of the pregnant women still over-rides that of the unborn person, then I would continue to make my own preferences known, although I wouldn't go around harassing pregnant women.
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4.If your loveable dog is pregnant with puppies, but you dont want them and cant support them with your finances, would you abort the puppies, or give away or sell them to a family that has a desire for 'em?
Not a good analogy. Not only are the health risks of pregnancy and birth less for a dog (the upright posture and big brains of humans are a source of many of the health risks of birth), but a dog does not suffer the social stigma of being pregnant or having given birth. Remember, it's not as if an unwed mother is
rewarded for "choosing life".
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5. If a Fetus is not human, would it be regarded as an animal, and if so, subject to animal rights?
I think that my reply to #1 and 2 answers this as well. However, let me add that this is the issue why I am a partial vegetarian. I have no moral qualms about eating fish because I believe that a fish's central nervous system is too "primitive' to support what we would consider a consciousness; if it could be proven to me otherwise, I would abstain from fish as well. On the other hand, I have little doubt that a chimpanzee has at least a rudimentary "human-ness", which is why I am against using chimpanzees in medical research, like I oppose the use of any involuntary human subject.
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6. If a baby is a baby after it comes out of the womans birth canal, then if a guy is making love to a woman, would he be a little less than human?
Hahahahaha.
Well, as I have stated, the location in regards to the birth canal is irrelevant. However, maybe anyone caught in the grip of such a passionate moment becomes a little less than human. Heh.
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7. If it was made legal to end the life of a 1-10 year old kid if the parent/parents make that choice, would you be for or against it?
As I said before, I don't know when a baby beomes human in the sense of acquiring human rights; I simply use birth as a cut-off because (a) I believe that before birth the infant definitely does not have a consciousness, and (b) after birth there is a period where the doubts increase, and so birth is the safest point at which to make this cut-off.
I found
Practical Ethics by Peter Singer to be very influential; he uses this type of argument to discuss a range of contemporary social issues -- in fact, it was this book that convinced me to become a vegetarian. He himself discusses this type of situation. He acknowledges that according to his development, if a one or two year old infant can be shown not to be a "person", that is, not possessing what we would consider to be consciousness or sentience, then infanticide would be an acceptable practice.
This is the sort of interesting situation that shows how complicated real life can be. You can choose to base your sense of ethics and morality on your subjective feelings of right and wrong in each situation as it comes up. The problem with this is that not only will your moral code end up being inconsistent, but if we all did this, with our differing opinions and differing "feelings" of right and wrong, we have no way of deciding what stand we should take as a society on any issue.
Or you can try to figure out what fundamental principle or principles form the basis of your ethical code, and then try to work out your stand on various issues and situations based on this -- not only will this lend consistency to your own ethics, but if other people share similar principles then it becomes possible to decide how to we as a society should act in certain circumstances. However, as this example shows, when you take that route you will come to a point where it is not easy to take a definite stand that is consistent with what you believe to be your fundamental principle.
"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."
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Ernie Cline
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