South Dakota is introducing a bill that will ban abortion

[Ben Kenobi]

What is this "test of sentience"? I don't recall ever stating that there was any such definitive test.

No, you don't. And that's the problem, because if one bases personhood on sentience, then the inevitable question arises on how best to gage sentience.

Again, thinking is a necessary condition for sentience, therefore an entity that does not think cannot be sentient. Seeing as how there is no set of sufficient conditions for determining sentience, we must use the necessary conditions as sufficient conditions until additional conditions can be qualified. You have implied that there is some sort of test that provides necessary and sufficient conditions for determining sentience, but you'll need to substantiate this implication.

Actually, I imply the opposite, that there is NO such test that can accurately gage sentience to the precision demanded.

The ability to become a rights-bearing entity does not make one a rights-being entity.

Not quite getting my point. I argue that the child already qualifies as a person, in possessing this intrinsic capacity from conception. She will not become a person, but already is a person.

It's like a doctor who is not currently practicing. The doctor remains a doctor because of his qualifications. In this sense, the unborn child already possesses the qualifications, but is not currently practicing.

The same criteria employed in determining whether a patient is brain-dead, i.e., no electrical activity and/or no blood flow. Lack of a brain in, e.g., the zygote or embryo, would constitute non-functionality.

The criteria for brain death revolves around the IRREVERSEABLE cessation, rather than temporary cessation of brain activity. Therefore, the expected outcome ought also apply to the unborn child, rather than the temporary lack of brain function.

Do you propose that there is a means of determining whether a thinking entity as a "self concept?" What tests accomplish this feat?

Not my job. This is your case. You need to come up with a test for 'self-concept.' I sincerely doubt one can be done that allows us to consider all born people to be persons.

This is a strawman. An infant being denied the right to vote does not in and of itself justify the infant being denied the right to life.

I agree. That's why I'm saying that just because only 18 year olds can vote, does not mean that those who are younger are any less of a person. Personhood is not restricted to the franchise.

This is an absurd conclusion merely because you are treating rights as an all-or-nothing affair, which they clearly are not (unless you propose to give infants the right to vote and serve in the military).

That's not at all what I am saying. I am saying that one can be a person, yet personhood does not necessarily demand the right to vote, or to military service. I am not arguing one for all, but rather, limiting the rights one must have as a person. One of these rights is the right to life.

If a person is a "rights-bearing entity," is the only satisfactory operationalization of the term "person," then an entity with more rights will be "more of a person" than an entity with fewer rights. However, if entity A is "less of a person" than entity B, then this does not presuppose that entity A has no rights.

One who votes simply has a greater current capacity than one who cannot. There is no intrinsic difference between the adult and the child with respect to personhood. The only differences are in the current expression of personhood, in the greater adult capacities than child capacities.

You don't assign infants the right to vote despite the fact that they may eventually reach the age of 18, so why do you assign embryos the right to life based on the fact that they may eventually become sentient?

Because personhood is different from the right to vote. The franchise demands current capacities, whereas the right to life does not. Nor should the right demand a current capacity, because that would imply that anyone who drops below the standard temporarily, would be rightfully killed.

This "fully persons" term is bogus. If a person is a "rights-bearing entity," then nobody (except perhaps some sort of god-emperor) is a "full person," because nobody has, e.g., the right to kill indiscriminately.

Thank you. Then let's drop that earlier point of yours that because someone can vote makes him more fully a person.

For example, imagine that you've undergone a radical surgical procedure to cure you of some terrible illness, whereby your brain has been separated from the rest of your body. Your brain is kept alive, is fed stimuli, and has a limited ability to interact with its environment (e.g., through a speech machine). Your body is also kept alive, and is hooked up to a simple machine that stimulates its muscles so as to prevent them from atrophying.

Interesting. A new point! I don't get these very often.

Which entity, the brain-ben or the body-ben, is "you"? And why? If the answer is "neither," then were did you go?

Why would there be two seperate people? Even if my body is seperated from the brain, would they not be one person?

You have hit on an important question, as to how much of my body can I lose and still be me? Suppose I have my arm cut off. I am still me, even without my arm. And so on, all the way down to what I need to live.

One cannot do without a heart, or a circulatory system of some sort. Thus, the brain cannot survive without the body, nor can the body survive without the brain.

In seperating the two, you have killed me, in that the two exist apart from each other, in that what is usually essential for the brain to live, a circulatory system is not longer present, and the body no longer has the brain to give the body instructions.

I hope you find this explanation sufficient. Though you may be able to keep my brain alive, the brain is no more me, than the lump of flesh that is my body can be me without the brain.

This is different in the case of a coma, where the person may recover. If you were able to join the two together, without ill effects, then the case would be like open heart surgery. I would be clinically 'dead' until my heart has been placed back inside. It would be no more right to keep the heart from the patient, then it would be to keep the body from the brain.

Where would I go? I would return to the inert state. Just as the combination of sperm and egg when fused spark life, so would I revive when the body and brain were brought back together.

Now, let's put the ball back in your court. How would you answer this question? Would it be right to cage a brain in a jar because you would still be keeping the person alive?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Good question.

Far as I can tell, they would not be considered abortions, since the intent is not to kill the child, but to save the life of the mother.

The S. Dakota case includes an exemption for the life, but not for the 'health' of the mother which has been used in the past to justify any and all abortions.

Interesting.

This quote (referring to ectopic pregnancy) suggests to me that, even if the authorities would consider the foetus to be "alive", they consider its rights to life to be subordinate to its mother's. In other words, it's a lower form of life, and that justifies its deliberate destruction where the life of the mother to be threatened.

Which, of course, makes all those "when does life start?" arguments pretty pointless in this case, but then I've felt that all along.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Elok
On reflection, I think I do owe you an apology for my recent rudeness. I'm just irritated, since we seem to be speaking two different language.

I apologize as well. I'm sometimes too quick to revert to "go for the throat" mode.

The kid stops "responding" after a while, but that doesn't imply memory as such; the child's primitive nervous systems could have been overwhelmed somehow, it could be a natural reflex that eventually exhausted itself-to call that "memory" in an intellectual sense, that the child is saying to itself, "oh, that stupid noise again! Maybe if I ignore it it'll go away!" is jumping to conclusions.

Perhaps you're right, but it seems to be that a seizure capable of effectively shutting down the fetus's nervous system for 24 hours would most likely result in death or at least permanent damage.

I thought your dilemma to Ben had something to do with clones and souls, hence the thing about the origin of the soul. Were you referring to a different quandary?

I was wondering when "you" ceases to be "you" if we were to keep cutting off body parts.

While I was being a jerk, I did accidentally have a point, so to speak, in that there doesn't seem to be any way to accurately test "fetal cognition" until we learn to interpret brain waves and hook a kid up to an EEG in utero.

Actually, fetuses have been hooked up to EEG's in utero. This comes as a result of our now being able to perform surgery on the unborn.

link
Several types of observations speak for the functional maturity of the cerebral cortex in the fetus and neonate. First are reports of fetal and enonatal EEG patterns, including cortical components of visual and auditory evolked potentials, that have been recorded in preterm babies of less than 30 weeks gestation. Well defined periods of sleep and wakefulness are present in utero from 28 weeks gestation onward.

Beyond that, I'm not trying to say anything about the origin of human rights, only that positing reasoning ability as a requirement for humanity is a very dangerous argument.

"Reasoning ability" is only an issue when attempting to estabilish the sentience or non-sentience of an entire species, not when attempting to establish the sentience or non-sentience of an individual organism -- reasoning ability cannot constitute a sufficient condition for establishing the sentience of an individual organism, because it is not (currently) possible to determine the reasoning ability of an individual organism.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
No, you don't. And that's the problem, because if one bases personhood on sentience, then the inevitable question arises on how best to gage sentience.

But this is a question that does not need to be answered immediately -- we already have a necessary condition for sentience and a way to test that condition, so we already have a (preliminary) means of guaging sentience. We may eventually find a set of sufficient conditions for guaging the sentience of an individual organism, but that in no way nullifies the necessary condition that we already know of.

Actually, I imply the opposite, that there is NO such test that can accurately gage sentience to the precision demanded.

How much precision is needed? By using a necessary and insufficient condition to measure sentience we may inadvertently assign sentience to organism that do not possess sentience, but the opposite problem (that of misclassifying certain persons as non-persons) is not present.

The criteria for brain death revolves around the IRREVERSEABLE cessation, rather than temporary cessation of brain activity. Therefore, the expected outcome ought also apply to the unborn child, rather than the temporary lack of brain function.

It makes no sense to say that the embryo's brain may begin to function at a later date, because it has no brain. You can't reverse the cessation of an organ that does not exist, because the non-existent organ's functionality can't have ceased in the first place.

Not my job. This is your case. You need to come up with a test for 'self-concept.' I sincerely doubt one can be done that allows us to consider all born people to be persons.

I've already provided a set of necessary conditions for establishing 'self-concept.' If you argue that there is a better test, then please describe it. Otherwise, what exactly is wrong with the test that I've already proposed?

One who votes simply has a greater current capacity than one who cannot. There is no intrinsic difference between the adult and the child with respect to personhood. The only differences are in the current expression of personhood, in the greater adult capacities than child capacities.

Can you define "person" as you are using it? I've been using it to mean a "rights-bearing entity," but from this and other parts of your post it appears that you are using it in the more restricted sense of an "entity bearing the intrinsic right to life," in which case it is circular for you to argue that personhood is intrinsic.

Why would there be two seperate people?

Heck if I know. I just didn't want to be accused of posing a false dilemma ("Are you brain-ben or body-ben?"), so I included all of the possibilities that I could think of (i.e., "neither is Ben" and "both are Ben").

Even if my body is seperated from the brain, would they not be one person?

If my arm is separated from the rest of my body, then they (my armless body and my severed arm) are not one person. Ditto if my body is separated from my brain.

One cannot do without a heart, or a circulatory system of some sort. Thus, the brain cannot survive without the body, nor can the body survive without the brain.

In seperating the two, you have killed me, in that the two exist apart from each other, in that what is usually essential for the brain to live, a circulatory system is not longer present, and the body no longer has the brain to give the body instructions.

Do you mean that somebody with an artificial heart is "dead" because they have been separated from their real heart? If not, then what's wrong with replacing more than just the heart with a machine, as in the dilemma that I posed?

I would be clinically 'dead' until my heart has been placed back inside.

I was under the impression that a patient was not clinically dead until either the cessation of brain function or until the cessation of total body function (depending on the definition being used).

Where would I go? I would return to the inert state. Just as the combination of sperm and egg when fused spark life, so would I revive when the body and brain were brought back together.

Do you mean that you have ceased to be a person by virtue of the fact that your brain and body have been temporarily separated?

If you are inert because your body does not have a brain, then why isn't the embryo inert?

If you are inert, then who or what is in charge of your still-functional brain? That is to way, who or what is thinking, feeling, dreaming, etc.?

Now, let's put the ball back in your court. How would you answer this question?

The brain-loinburger is "me," because it's still functional -- it's still thinking and feeling and dreaming all of my loinburger thoughts, loinburger feelings, and loinburger dreams. The body-loinburger is just a meat suit (albeit one that I have grown rather attached to).

Would it be right to cage a brain in a jar because you would still be keeping the person alive?

In the dilemma that I posed, yes -- it is a necessary medical procedure to which I have presumably given consent. In general, no -- it would be no more right to arbitrarily separated somebody's brain from their body than it would be right to subject them to any other bizarre (or mundane) medical procedure (f'rinstance, IIRC it's a crime to snatch somebody off of the street, anesthetize them, and remove their appendix).

[Elok]

Some selected objections:

But can we interpret the brain waves, and thus define that the child in utero is in fact "thinking" in a meaningful way, not just firing neurons in some pattern? I gathered that a fetus might be hooked up to an EEG.

I just threw out the first possibilities that came to mind re: the dutch experiment. What exactly are they implying the fetus is doing? It's twitching, it's twitching less frequently, then it stops twitching altogether. Is it ostensibly a conscious response, or what?

If we're talking in terms of reasoning ability "as applied to the entire species," what species is a fetus if not human? If the distinction for the human race is reasoning ability, but as you say we cannot accurately test the reasoning capacity of individuals, how does the definition matter more than "human=human?"

Finally, in regards to the question you're throwing at Ben, if it's got your DNA it is, or should be, legally "you." You can choose to donate organs, but the body parts of others should not be used against their wishes no matter what IMO. Does that answer your question?

I'm glad we're back on speaking terms as opposed to sniping.

[History Guy]

Ben, you're absolutely spot-on, old chap.

[Kuciwalker]

But can we interpret the brain waves, and thus define that the child in utero is in fact "thinking" in a meaningful way, not just firing neurons in some pattern? I gathered that a fetus might be hooked up to an EEG.

We can't. The only test for sentience of an individual is if the individual comes up with the concept of sentience, without outside contamination.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Elok
But can we interpret the brain waves, and thus define that the child in utero is in fact "thinking" in a meaningful way, not just firing neurons in some pattern? I gathered that a fetus might be hooked up to an EEG.

I don't think that we're able to capture meaning with an EEG, just function. We can only effectively capture meaning with communication, but since we're not able to communicate with a fetus, we're just left with the measure of functionality.

What exactly are they implying the fetus is doing?

They're implying that the fetus has a "memory." This may or may not imply a "conscious response." (F'rinstance, Pavlov's dog exhibits a memory, but its conditioned response would probably not be considered "conscious.")

If we're talking in terms of reasoning ability "as applied to the entire species," what species is a fetus if not human? If the distinction for the human race is reasoning ability, but as you say we cannot accurately test the reasoning capacity of individuals, how does the definition matter more than "human=human?"

Reasoning ability "as applied to the entire species" is only relevant when attempting to satisfy the sufficient condition for sentience. However, brain function is still a necessary condition. So, f'rinstance, a cockroach has a functional brain, so it satisfies a necessary condition for sentience, but cockroaches as a species have never demonstrated anything approximating "sentience," and so an individual cockroach fails a sufficient condition for sentience. A human embryo and a brain-dead human both fail a necessary condition for sentience, so they cannot possibly be sentient. A human fetus satisfies a necessary condition and a sufficient condition, so (until more accurate conditions can be agreed upon) it is effectively "sentient."

Finally, in regards to the question you're throwing at Ben, if it's got your DNA it is, or should be, legally "you." You can choose to donate organs, but the body parts of others should not be used against their wishes no matter what IMO. Does that answer your question?

Do you mean that the brain-elok and body-elok are both part of "elok," despite being physically separated? At what point do shed cells/tissues/organs cease to be "you"?

[Elok]

I don't see how they can imply that the fetus has a memory without doing anything to describe what it's doing. Pavlov's dogs, to use your example, are reflexively responding to a cue that feeding is imminent by increasing salivation. The child is kicking at a sound to do...what? Why is it kicking? If they can't decide what it's doing, and I don't think they can, how do they know why it's doing it?

If sentience arises as a consequence of neural activity, isn't your test just another way of defining "potential" humans? "We don't know that it is or isn't self-aware, but it has what it needs to become self-aware," as opposed to "we don't know that it is a person, but it has what it needs to become a person," sound like much the same thing to me.

When the cells croak, so far as I'm concerned they're just lumps of carbon. I suppose humanity lies in the spark of life within human cells.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Elok
Pavlov's dogs, to use your example, are reflexively responding to a cue that feeding is imminent by increasing salivation.

I don't follow you. Are you saying that Pavlov's dogs aren't exhibiting the use of their memory? I don't see how that can be -- they can't possibly link the sound of the bell to the salivation reflex without being able to remember (consciously or subconsciously) the bell/food relationship.

If sentience arises as a consequence of neural activity, isn't your test just another way of defining "potential" humans?

The "potential persons" problem only arises when somebody claims that an admitted non-person should be treated as thought they were a person.

[Elok]

Yes, Pavlov's dogs are an example of unconscious memory, but the thing is, we have some clue what's going on there. We don't know what the fetus is "thinking," or why it's kicking at all. It's not like kicking is a sure sign of wanting to hear annoying noises more clearly or anything. It reacts differently to the same stimulus over time, but that's not necessarily indicative of anything in particular IMO.

My problem with your test-presence or absence of brain-is that it defines not sentience per se, but the possibility of sentience, depending on what you like to think. It's not much more of a definite answer than an arbitrary declaration of "human" to me.

Except that declaring one's *humanity* based on certain criteria, such as a unique DNA pattern of 46 chromosomes in a non-cancerous cell or cells, is verifiable and definite, and to my eye equally valid. Either it is or it isn't, which is IMO how questions of human rights ought to be answered. Any "compromise" on such issues ought to be repellent, since such a compromise means that no matter how you look at it, somebody's rights are definitely being trampled a little bit, which according to some people is beside the point as long as everybody is getting along just swell.

No, that last part wasn't directed at you, I just had a Gotta Rant moment...

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Kucinich
We can't. The only test for sentience of an individual is if the individual comes up with the concept of sentience, without outside contamination.

The concept of sentience is fairly complex. I think you are dooming half of the world's population to non-sentience here.

[GePap]

Here is a MUCH simpler test-at what point does a fetus become viable-ie, at which point could it live seperate from the mother?

If you can argue the fetus may live regardless of the mother, that is better than trying to make some vague and completely unproveable consideration of what kind of brainwave counts as thought.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Elok
It reacts differently to the same stimulus over time, but that's not necessarily indicative of anything in particular IMO.

This is not the only study conducted that indicates that a fetus is capable of forming memories. See, for example, the March and April 2004 issues of Developmental Psychobiology, where it was established that chimpanzee and rat fetuses are capable of retaining memories.

My problem with your test-presence or absence of brain-is that it defines not sentience per se, but the possibility of sentience, depending on what you like to think. It's not much more of a definite answer than an arbitrary declaration of "human" to me.

I've said from the beginning that the presence of a brain is a necessary but insufficient condition for establishing the sentience of an organism. Besides, your argument here isn't in opposition to the "persons as sentient entities" test, it's merely pointing out the insufficiency of our current tests for establishing sentience.

Except that declaring one's *humanity* based on certain criteria, such as a unique DNA pattern of 46 chromosomes in a non-cancerous cell or cells, is verifiable and definite, and to my eye equally valid. Either it is or it isn't, which is IMO how questions of human rights ought to be answered.

The problem is that, in practice, the "humanity" of an organism is not so easy to establish through DNA testing. For example, why do you classify cancer cells as "non-persons" despite their having human DNA? Why does the law consider a brain-dead human to be a "non-person" if this person still has all 46 chromosomes? What about the problem of the "bifurcated Elok" that arises in the dilemma that I posed to Ben? What about the fact that some established persons have more than 46 chromosomes or fewer than 46 chromosomes? I don't see an advantage to simply using a DNA test in establishing personhood -- it merely leads to contradictions (or to bifurcated persons), and actually fails to classify some persons (e.g., those with 45 or 47 chromosomes) that the sentience test would successfully classify as such.

Originally posted by GePap
Here is a MUCH simpler test-at what point does a fetus become viable-ie, at which point could it live seperate from the mother?

This test would essentially be assigning rights to the unborn based entirely our level of technology, i.e., it doesn't make sense that a 6-month-old fetus would be a "non-person" in 2004 but would suddenly become a "person" in 2015 when it's able to be kept alive in an artificial incubator thingimajigger. If we change the test to say "at what point could it live separately from the mother without machine assistance," then we might as well just unplug everybody who's in the intensive care ward at the hospital while we're at it.

[Ben Kenobi]

This quote (referring to ectopic pregnancy) suggests to me that, even if the authorities would consider the foetus to be "alive", they consider its rights to life to be subordinate to its mother's. In other words, it's a lower form of life, and that justifies its deliberate destruction where the life of the mother to be threatened.

Laz:

Not really. First of all, in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, you have two choices. The child is not old enough to survive without the mother. You have the stark choice of saving the life of the mother, or letting both die.

Therefore, it would make sense to save the life of the mother by seperating the child from the mother. It has nothing to do with the child being less of a person, but everything to do with the fact that we cannot save both.