Legal Death, Legal Life, Personhood and Abortion

Well then you should understand perfectly why that law won't work the way you are trying to use it.The law describes life that can no longer exist no matter what you do.A fetus can exist if you leave it alone.Entirely morally different, and CANNOT be compared. You still haven't read my comments on how I feel about that.
The problem doesn't lie in abortion, but in our determination of what actually constitutes a unhealthy baby. Yes, but how do you know, or what if your not sure if you left something out or not, that is what I'm saying.You know how many people I know that they were told that their baby was going to be "no good" or "unhealthy", and they decided to leave it in God's hands, and their baby turned out perfectly normal. I even know people that just decided to not leave it in God's hands, and just let the baby be born, and it came out perfectly normal.Can you imagine how these people feel about doctors now?

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)

Funny, it's not really turning out that way is it?
I am proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything I said is completely backable, and has nothing to do with my "emotions".I do not have guilt, as I have been forgiven. I do however miss that child, even if it would have "screwd" up my life to have it.Yes, society is somewhat to blame for making it so easy to do it. That is fact. do I blame soceity, no it's my fault.So then, stop calling it strawmen, and prove me wrong. You and RAZD say I am filled with strawmen, yet don't go on to prove it. So I will have to assume that you are talking out of your glute. What was interesting is his lack of concern for social morals, and life in general.It was long and boring. Thank you. That statement alone just proves what I am saying, and proves that the whole essay was a big waste of time. A healthy fetus?
Even if the fetus isn't healthy, do we know to what extent the damages are? My own son is a testimony to just how stupid that point of view is. I do not need to go look up some stupid statistic, as I have stated before statistics lie, and are not 100% accurate. Way to contradict yourself:
"In reality we cannot know 100%"So what is it? That's the real issue here. That's just BS. And should be top priority in any health related decsion. I did not say "clearly without a doubt removing something without a brain or lungs is not a problem"
RAZD did. Never count your chickens before they hatch.
Are you saying that I should ignore all my life experiences, and not learn from my mistakes?
Are you saying that you know better than me?
I am not "clubing" people, its the other way around, RAZD and you are clubing innocent babies, that you are not even sure if they are healthy or not. You sure about that one? Would you like to use your stupid statistics to prove that one?You are inconsistant.

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 agree with you, it's a realistic view of life.

Don't you see, once something of this nature becomes perfectly legal, that opens the door for other forms of abortion to be legal, even though it already is.It needs it's own set of laws, and I do not like the comparison the way he puts it. There's no need to base a law to abort defective fetus's on that law. In the death act, we are 100% certain that the condition of the patient will not get any better, no matter what. This is not the case with a fetus, and it needs to be handled case by case. I do have a problem with that, and as I stated before, I do not have an answer to it. Sex doesn't cause pregenancies,
I think I'm out of this one guys. Maybe I do know something you don't, lol.

I’m coming into this late, but thought I’d throw my 2 cents in anyway.Riverrat -- Your opinion on abortion is quite clearly against it, fair enough. I do respect the fact that your opinion comes from personal experience and not simply because you were told to think that way.That said, your own personal feelings and experience is not a yardstick for measuring what is right and wrong for everyone else. You disagree with abortion, that’s fine, you have that right. You also have the right to never do it again if you choose not to. But you are telling others that you are right and they are wrong and they MUST change their views. Because it is wrong for you, then nobody should have the right to make their own decision.Fact of life, there are a lot of people in the world that think differently to you. That this issue is such a great controversy means there are a lot of people on both sides of it. But people who don’t agree with it are not forced to do it, they have the right to choose no. It is not justifiable for them take the right to choose yes away from those that do agree simply because they think it’s wrong.Out in the real world there are a lot of people who want the right of choice, and therefore it should be addressed with fairness and reason. What RAZD is doing is providing a viewpoint on how guidelines may be set to determine where to ‘draw the line’ where a fetus may be considered a living person. It is up to reasonable, educated legislators to examine the issue in such a manner, taking both factual information and moral concerns into account, and make an informed decision on where that line is.RAZD -- Not a bad piece of work. Nicely written.

thanks, it has been (and continues to be) honed by the constructive criticism I have received here and elsewhere. welcome back.

For starters, I am fundamentally against abortion. That being said, I am also fundamentally against making abortion illegal in the sense that most in the pro-life movement would like it.What RAZD has done here with his excellent essay has, I believe, provided a door to a solution to one of the most black and white problems in the political and moral arena today. While there really is little middle ground on the abortion issue there does seem to be some solutions that would cater both to a wide variety of moralities while preserving personal freedom. Let me clarify.The Pro-Life movement would now have a stable base from which to get reasonable restrictions on partial birth abortions. The Pro-Choice movement would have secured the undeniable right to choose an early term abortion as well as the morning after pill and other contraceptives. Both would have their rationale grounded in objectivity rather than the tug-o-war moral mud wrestling that is going on currently.By defining "personness" in some kind of objective way it empowers those on both sides of the issue to take a more or less permanent piece out of the proverbial pie of social influence. Even if they both still envy not having the whole pie it is making a compromise out of a situation where seemingly none could exist before.My opinion is that the type of thinking displayed by RAZD is extremely enlightened and we need more of it in this world.As for riverrat, I can completely feel where you are coming from on a moral level. My personal moral belief is that abortion is a sin on the exact same level as murder, lying, stealing, etc. The only difference I think is that as both a Christian and an American I cannot support legislating my morality. I feel it would weaken both the principles Christ taught and the freedom that comes with being an American. The only thing the pro-life movement has accompilshed so far is painting a picture of Christians as theocratic zealots trying to destroy the fabric of America.My mother, raised Southern Baptist, was assaulted by protesters while walking to her Grandmother's house which happened to be across the street from a planned parenthood clinic. Here she was, a firm believer that abortion is wrong and a sister in Christ, being called a slut, whore, murderer, among other colorful names just because she dared to walk near a reproductive health clinic. Where in the madness of this movement is the love of Christ being displayed?If the goal is trying to save children's lives then why not tread a path that actually may reduce the number of abortions rather than one that damages both the cause and the image of Christ. Preventing 100% of abortions is a pipe-dream that will never come to pass. Even if it is made against the law all it will serve to do is push abortion underground and cause more suffering to women and children in dispair. We need to be supporting reproductive services so that, God forbid, an abortion must occur that it is done safely and accompanied by the professional council of a doctor who can explain the dangers and other caveats.The work of Christ is done by trying hard to be like Him and always in His council. It is not done by vulgarity, violence, harrassment, and fanaticism.

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By the way, for a fun second-term drinking game, chug a beer every time you hear the phrase, "...contentious but futile protest vote by democrats." By the time Jeb Bush is elected president you will be so wasted you wont even notice the war in Syria.
-- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Good point. I will look into doing that. It did feel a little awkward there, and this should help clear it up. I think of those (young and old) who are on life support as being in limbo, with the direction they are "going" very uncertain -- it is the uncertainty that leads to the question of removing life support (with certainty there would be no question).The continued development of the "gestational being" depends on a number of environmental factors, including the health and behavior of the {biological life support system} woman: crack and other drugs almost ensure a subnormal result, but there is also starvation and pollution, things beyond the control of the {BLSS} woman. While a healthy and prosperous {BLSS} woman can be compared to a well run hospital, a lot of {BLSS} women are more like 3rd world hospitals with uncertain electricity and inadequate supplies. They may very well succeed in saving lives, but it would not be my choice for treatment. And the unhealth uncertain {BLSS} women are, imho, more likely to have an inadvertent, unchosen, unplanned, pregnancy and be in this position of choice. But that is just where I differ with riVeRrat -- I see no prerequisite for continuing a pregnancy caused by the mutual enjoyment of sex, I am just saying that the decision to continue or to end such a state should be agreed on by both parties before hand: it is the only honest thing to do on this matter.I will go further and say that any male that has not reached a mutual agreement on this with his sex partner has forfeited any rights to being included in any later decision process (it's too late to debate), and that any female that has not told her partner that she does not intend to have any abortion for any reason has forfeited any claim to support from that partner. People need to be responsible for their decisions, even those not explicitly stated but clearly a result of their actions. Think of having to sign a release form before hand (I used to have one, btw, it also stated that both people were of sufficient age ...).This is obviously something that people getting married should discuss and agree on beforehand, or you are in for a donnybrook disagreement.But people don't need to be married to be responsible for their actions.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

The law describes the absence of life that can be described as human from a body still consisting of living cells, a body that could be kept "alive" through extraordinary medical measures involving intensive life support systems (but which would be pointless). But (1) -- I am not comparing a fetus to a legally dead body. I am comparing the level of development of a zygote, a blastocyst and an embryo to a legally dead body and asking what about them is the same: the lack of brain function and the absence of independently working lungs and circulation. As such, while they may be living cells they are not {a living human}.Notice that message #45 refers to a Human Development Chart and reaches this conclusion from the information given: And the logical conclusion of this is that a delineation of the difference between living cells and human life at 12 weeks would be 3 times more accurate than the standard of a fertilized egg cell. This makes the zygote just as bad an arbitrary standard as the {10 year old child} standard is (and was supposed to be).And (2) -- you are not leaving it alone you are leaving it in an {intensive care life support system}, and one where the {intensive care life support system} may be faulty or the supplies and equipment may not be adequate. Unfortunately for you, as noted several times in these posts, those two specific points are not being compared. The level of life to qualify as human is compared to the earlier stages of development and the fetus is compared to {currently living humans} on life support systems. This is another example of a misrepresentation of the argument in the essay used to argue against it, otherwise known as a strawman. This essay is about a logical basis for making decisions, not based on feelings. And the issue of determining what constitutes an unhealthy baby is very much a part of the issue indeed. The solution also needs to address the diversity of beliefs of people on this issue, and to let them live by their beliefs. You can do a number of tests, such as taste the remaining batter or watch to see if they "rise" properly, and if they fail the tests then you know they are not right. AND then, if what you really want is a good batch of cookies, it is better to cut the process short and start over with good batter. (1) This is pure anecdotal evidence and an appeal to emotionalism rather than a factual basis for making a decision, and(2) It ignores the counter arguments of people that had been told their babies would be healthy but aren't and they are lumbered with a heavy maintenance child -- can you imagine how they feel about their doctor (or anyone else who told them to continue, especially in the face of any evidence otherwise).Some people could argue that all people should be cyrogenically frozen just before death so that they could be revived and treated by {vastly superior future medicine} at some {fantasy} future date ... an argument as valid as claiming that a zygote is a human life.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

who is this guy, I'd like to meet him ... (oops BLUSH) love that show, the best most honest 'news' show in america ...Your comments are ON. thanks.

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)