Mississippi Supreme Court: Fetus a person

[Imran Siddiqui]

DD: No... the fetus is either a person OR a nonperson. It cannot be BOTH. Therefore the status should not change based on whether the woman wants the child or not. Ramo is saying that it makes no sense for the fetus to be a person if the woman wants it, and for it to be a nonperson if the woman does not want it.

See?!

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
DD: No... the fetus is either a person OR a nonperson. It cannot be BOTH.

Ever heard of fuzzy logic? The rule of the excluded middle isn't a rule (that's classical logic).

Just nitpicking. The rest of what follows is right - human status does not change with choice.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by The Templar
Ever heard of fuzzy logic? The rule of the excluded middle isn't a rule (that's classical logic).

I think you have confused the Law of the Exclude Middle with the Law of Non-Contradiction.

Just nitpicking

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I think you have confused the Law of the Exclude Middle with the Law of Non-Contradiction.

Just nitpicking

Nope. Excluded middle says that a proposition is true or false. Non-contradiction says that two contradictory sentences cannot have the same truth value.

Imran was arguing that a fetus is a person or not. Actually a fetus is a developmental stage in the process of a zygote becoming human. I would argue that 'human' is a fuzzy predicate - i.e. one that can be more or less true of an individual.

Fuzzy logic (in some forms) would set 1 as absolute truth and 0 as absolute falsehood. In classical logic, you would have only 1 and 0. In Fuzzy logic, you can have a whole continuum of truth values inbetween 1 and 0. So we could say for x that when x is a zygote 'x is human' has a truth value of .01 - because a zygote has almost no characteristics in common with a full grown human. If x is a fetus, we might say that 'x is human' has a truth value of .25 - more characteristics in common. By the thrird trimester, 'x is human' might have a value of .8 - and then we might put heavy restrictions on abortion to reflect this. Usually this explanation is carried out with the predicate 'bald' - i.e. there is no exact metaphysical number of hairs below which on is bald.

Again, there is no contradiction because truth values are non-bivalent. Of course, the rule of indirect proof has much weaker inferential power because contradiction is harder to obtain with fuzzy predicates.

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
DD: No... the fetus is either a person OR a nonperson. It cannot be BOTH.

Why not? "Person" is a status that is composed of several legal positions; a fetus can have some of them, not necessarily all. Is that enough to make it a "person"? Depends on your definition of person. But definitions can't answer specific questions.

Eg in our civil law (and others based on roman law), the fetus (nasciturus) has personal rights conditional on birth. The nasciturus can, for example, inherit. Says nothing about other personal rights like a right to life.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by The Templar
Nope. Excluded middle says that a proposition is true or false. Non-contradiction says that two contradictory sentences cannot have the same truth value.

Non-Contradiction: A fetus can be a person, or can be a non-person, but not both at the same time.

Excluded Middle: You can believe in God or you don't. "I don't know" is not an answer.

Originally posted by The Templar
Imran was arguing that a fetus is a person or not. Actually a fetus is a developmental stage in the process of a zygote becoming human. I would argue that 'human' is a fuzzy predicate - i.e. one that can be more or less true of an individual.

However, at any given moment in time, a fetus may have sufficient characteristics of a human being to become one, or that it hasn't.

Originally posted by The Templar
Again, there is no contradiction because truth values are non-bivalent.

This can only be true if there are varying degrees of being a human being, like you can quantity something to be, lets say, 4/5 a human being.

[Ben Kenobi]

Actually a fetus is a developmental stage in the process of a zygote becoming human. I would argue that 'human' is a fuzzy predicate - i.e. one that can be more or less true of an individual.

Templar:

On what grounds, besides personal opinion do you say that one can become a human yet not start out as one?

Every other species works that way. You have fetal pigs, fetal horses, etc. The species gets determined at conception. Why should humans be so different?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by obiwan18


Templar:

On what grounds, besides personal opinion do you say that one can become a human yet not start out as one?

Every other species works that way. You have fetal pigs, fetal horses, etc. The species gets determined at conception. Why should humans be so different?

I'm pretty sure we're capable of determining the species before birth.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yavoon:

If we can determine species before birth, what species are our unborn children?

[yavoon]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Yavoon:

If we can determine species before birth, what species are our unborn children?

human captain. unless u r an alien. in which case u really should tell me these things!

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Non-Contradiction: A fetus can be a person, or can be a non-person, but not both at the same time.

Excluded Middle: You can believe in God or you don't. "I don't know" is not an answer.



However, at any given moment in time, a fetus may have sufficient characteristics of a human being to become one, or that it hasn't.



This can only be true if there are varying degrees of being a human being, like you can quantity something to be, lets say, 4/5 a human being.

Question.
Which one of you guys was not a fetus at the start of your life?
When each of you can answer that, then you just might understand that all of us are a fetus before be are born, and therefore, all of us are a human at conception and not just a thing. Thing don't grow, we do.

[St Leo]

Which one of you guys was not a fetus at the start of your life?

/me raises hand

I was an infant.

Thing don't grow, we do.

Unless the things are stalactites and stalagmites.:P

[The Templar]

Originally posted by obiwan18


Templar:

On what grounds, besides personal opinion do you say that one can become a human yet not start out as one?

This is something of a linguistic trick. For shame!

Human beings start out as chemicals - large organic molecules. So on the one hand, the question could be at what point do chemicals become human. Or, if you prefer, at what point do you emerge from chemicals? We could have a reasonable disagreement here. That is we could disagree as to whether a fetus is chemistry or humanity.

What about fuzzy logic here? Most things do not come into being all at once. A car or a TV must be assembled from parts. An oak tree must develop from an acorn or a butterfly from a caterpillar. Likewise, you don't come into being all at once. People develop. Now there is no reason to suppose that there is a point where there is an instantaneous transition from chemistry to personhood. In fact, we could say that the gestation process is a process whereby chemicals become human. The collection of chemicals becomes more human (or 'x is human' gains truth value) as the process continues. Same thin with an acorn. If you plant the acorn, it will become a tree - but a seed is not a tree. Nor is a sapling. 'Tree' applies more to a sapling than a seed.

Your question 'On what grounds, besides personal opinion do you say that one can become a human yet not start out as one?' proves too much. How can a mass of proteins become a human if they do not start out as one? The answer is via a process they may gradually form a human being.

Every other species works that way. You have fetal pigs, fetal horses, etc. The species gets determined at conception. Why should humans be so different?

This is a philosophical red herring. Two reasons:

(1) Species gets determined at conception, but that does not entail that the chemicals present at conception will become human. The chemicals aren't human until they are human. You point only makes sense if you assume that that which will become human is in fact already human. I argue that a fetus is not human, therefore it is not human even if it may become human.

(2) It may be possible to replace the DNA of a zygote with the DNA of a similar species (say chimp DNA in a human zygote). In which case you lose even the point that species is determined at conception.

[Sava]

Zygote votes for Schwarzenegger, but seminal fluid is supporting Davis!

Miscarriage joins army, says 'Life didn't start out so good, but know I'm hoping to make something of myself.'

Placenta divorces foetus- 'We were just drifting apart. We had nothing in common any more.'

gaud... can we nuke the South yet? first the assault on the Constitution in Alabama, now this...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
On what grounds, besides personal opinion do you say that one can become a human yet not start out as one?

Haven't we been through this like a zillion times before?

Sure, we start out as humans, because fertilised human eggs got human DNA - but you miss the point.

The point is not whether we started as humans, but when will a zygote/embryo/fetus become a human being.

Don't forget, all the cells in your body (okay, except sperms and red blood cells) got human DNA too.