South Dakota is introducing a bill that will ban abortion

[GePap]

It conveys the fact that the fetus is not yet independent of the woman.

Siamese twins are a byproduct of a problem in the womb-but the question here is still one of separating the independence of the woman from the independence of the fetus and when we can declare the fetus or fetuses (including joint fetuses) to be persons deserving of some sort of equal rights.

Besides, the fact is the body of the woman is more than willing to treat the baby as a parasite-IIRC most miscarriages or natural abortions occur when the systems designed to avoid the internal defenses of the woman from attacking the fetus fail.

[Elok]

Yes, but how is a siamese twin not a "parasite" off his brother while the fetus is a parasite off the mother? If the criterion is being a useless unnecessary drain of resources, they both fit the bill.

As to your last paragraph, you're describing something much like the normal function of the immune system, which attacks all "foreign" cells, even if they happen to be organ transplants keeping the body alive. Not significant IMO.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Elok
Yes, but how is a siamese twin not a "parasite" off his brother while the fetus is a parasite off the mother? If the criterion is being a useless unnecessary drain of resources, they both fit the bill.

NO, because each siamese twin needs the other-they are symbiots if anything. Now, if you tell me one twin can die and the other live and walk around attached to a corpse, fine-but their relation is nowhere like that of a mother and child, which is mean to end, as opposed to that of siamese twins. So the "comparison" ytou are trying to make is not very good, and misses the general point.

As to your last paragraph, you're describing something much like the normal function of the immune system, which attacks all "foreign" cells, even if they happen to be organ transplants keeping the body alive. Not significant IMO.

Well, it is significant in that the woman's body would normally see the fetus as a foreign object- I don;t see the immune system of one siamese twin going after the other-robalby due to being genetically identical (while a child is not genetically identical to the mother).

So one, it shows yet another clear distinction between the case I am making and the attempt to compare this to siamese twins.

Any attempt to define being a person (beyond the taxonomical and zoological definition of a human being as a member of the species Homo Sapiens) based on some brain activity will invaribly run into the cases of the braindead and those in vegetative states. Thi is a simple testwhich point would be the earliest we woul consider a fetus a person capable of rights? This gives you a marker with a reason.

[Ben Kenobi]

Inherently, a bunch of cells has no special right to live.

We are all just a bunch of cells, by that same logic.

But if you make the case that its potential future state gives it rights,

No, the state at conception gives the unborn child the right to life. This state allows the child to grow and develop as she grow older.

Would you say masturbation is killing unborn children? Every sperm is sacred?

No, because by itself, the sperm will not develop into a child, as the zygote will.

[Ben Kenobi]

What test of sentience does he use?

Good question! He thieves from Bentham.

"The question is not, can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

However:

"Now it must be admitted that these arguments apply to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus. A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many non-human animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel pain (sentience), and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week, a month, or even a year old. If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee".

[Peter Singer, "Taking life: abortion", in Practical Ethics (London: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 118.]

So he argues that what is necessary is not a 'capacity' to feel pain, but that the unborn child does not suffer ENOUGH to be considered a person!

The lack of a brain.

Does the brain spring into being spontaneously?

Are you claiming that a zygote has a brain? Which cell in the single-celled organism comprises the brain?

No, I claim a continuum of development, such that moral distinctions anywhere along the continuum are meaningless.

As I've repeatedly stated, brain function is a necessary condition for determining sentience, not a sufficient condition for determining sentience. Otherwise everything with a brain would be "sentient."

Why the distinction between necessary and sufficient? What other conditions must be met for sufficient conditions of sentience?

Then why isn't a bird a person? After all, it has the intrinsic capacity to grow and develop.

As a bird would, not a person.

Do we stop being persons at middle-age, when we stop growing/developing?

Growth takes many forms, rather than just physical growth.

Then what else, besides sentience, sets humans apart from, say, birds?

Could they ever attain sentience? No. Their lack is not temporary, but permanent.

Sure. It's not as though they all need to be replaced at the same time.

But you are severing the head from the body. How are you going to keep the brain alive?

You didn't answer my question. How much of your body can be replaced by machinery or transplants or whatever before you cease to be "you"?

I did. Everything but what connects your brain to your body, and your body to your brain.

For pity's sake, man. If you're going to operate on the assumption that medical science is static, then there's no reason why we can't use GePap's definition of "personhood."

Why do you need to communicate with others in order to be a person? That's the assumption you seem to be making. You don't. Even if you could not communicate, you would still be a person.

It's a friggin thought experiment. Presumably the hypothetical disease being cured spreads rapidly, takes several months to eradicate, and cannot be cured once it reaches the brain, so that the only safe way to cure the disease is to separate the infected body from the uninfected brain.one fell swoop.

Rather implausible. The problem with these thought experiments, is when extrapolating these esoteric conclusions, they will not apply to real-world situations.

In this example no one is saying that the unborn child lacks this capacity to develop, regardless of the answer that I give to the thought experiment. The only thing we clarify is the definition of personhood as something in the substance, not in the parts of people, in their essence.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
"The question is not, can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

Does he suggest any means by which we can measure "suffering"?

Does the brain spring into being spontaneously?

No. I've already said that it does not.

Why the distinction between necessary and sufficient?

Because in this case, necessary conditions are insufficient, and sufficient conditions are unnecessary. Nobody has proposed a set of conditions that are both necessary and sufficient, hence the distinction must be made.

What other conditions must be met for sufficient conditions of sentience?

DinoDoc already asked this, and I answered him.

As a bird would, not a person.

You defined personhood as "intrinsic capacity to grow and develop." Using this definition, a bird (or a dog or a cat etc.) would be a person.

Growth takes many forms, rather than just physical growth.

Example?

Could they ever attain sentience? No. Their lack is not temporary, but permanent.

Why should sentience matter, if personhood is simply the capacity to grow an develop? If you're now saying that personhood is the "capacity to grow and develop sentience," then this would mean that somebody who is sentient is a non-person (since they no longer have the capacity to grow and develop that which they already possess).

I did. Everything but what connects your brain to your body, and your body to your brain.

But what's your body? Like I said, we've already established that you could lose your limbs and your heart, and yet still be a "person." So, what other organs define "personhood" -- are we non-persons if we lose our kidneys? Or our lungs? Or our spleen?

The fact of the matter is that you can't name a single organ, besides the brain, whose loss would result in the loss of our personhood. It should also be noted that the organs you've proposed (such as the heart) are only relevant in that they help keep the brain alive.

Why do you need to communicate with others in order to be a person?

When did I ever say that we did?

In this example no one is saying that the unborn child lacks this capacity to develop, regardless of the answer that I give to the thought experiment. The only thing we clarify is the definition of personhood as something in the substance, not in the parts of people, in their essence.

In this example we demonstrate that you are using an invalid definition of "personhood" -- you have this vague notion that somebody's personhood is linked to this ill-defined thing that you call a "body," but when faced with a dilemma that forces you to separately consider the brain and the body all you're able to do is either dismiss the dilemma when it becomes apparent that you cannot satisfactorily answer it (as you are doing now by claiming "implausibility" several pages after the fact) or else try to wiggle out of the dilemma by using terms that you cannot even define (such as "body" or "person"). You are attempting to separate personhood from brain function so justify your assigning personhood to a brainless entity, but this leads you to a contradiction when answering the dilemma, so now you're trying to hose me.

[Elok]

Well GePap, as a test, you define "personality" in terms of biological self-sufficiency of the mother, no? Sorry if this has already been asked, but does that mean that in the future, when we can invent functioning artificial wombs, a dozen-cell zygote will be a person, and illegal to abort? Do women have to race against the clock to whack their kids?

[Boris Godunov]

So if, by the magic of technology, BK's brain was separated from his body and his consciousness was being kept alive through artificial means (brain in a jar and all that) he believes he would cease to be a person. Heh, that's an interesting admission.

I had always thought that, for Christians, the soul is what mattered for determining personhood, not the physical body. The physical body is merely a shell, isn't it? We don't keep it once we die and our souls go on to a new afterlife.

[Elok]

Not for the Orthodox (like me), it ain't. Death is considered unnatural because it separates body and soul, and arises as a consequence of sin; we believe in the bodily resurrection, and that point is VERY emphatically hammered in during retreats. The body-as-cage idea is just a holdout from Gnosticism. The soul "matters" for personhood in much the same way that a teapot isn't a teapot without a spout, but still needs a handle and a body to hold the tea. A Christian person is a complete whole to us. I don't know about other denominations.

[Boris Godunov]

So, in response to loinburger's thought exercise, were your brain put in a jar so to speak, would you cease to be "you" because you'd lost the rest of your body? Is your consciousness enough to make you Elok?

[Elok]

Well, if my brain were in a jar, and I were still functioning, I would technically "have a body," it's just that I would be something akin to a quadruple amputee. If body and soul are together, I am alive and me. With that said, it's a pretty sick thing to do to somebody, and I'm not sure that the church wouldn't advise just letting a guy go if you had to do that to save his life for some reason. We distinguish between "kill" and "let die," between acknowledging the inevitability of death and directly causing it.

A consciousness existing outside human flesh altogether is nebulous territory, but if I had to hazard a guess, I wouldn't call it human if it's just patterns of energy on a silicon chip, even if those patterns are based on human thought.

[Boris Godunov]

That sounds like you're saying that without a brain, there's no conciousness... n'est-ce pas? If one could have only a brain and still be a person, but can't be a person without that brain, wouldn't that be the logical conclusion?

[Elok]

I never said that consciousness doesn't reside within the brain. So far as we know, it does, or at least its function in relation to the human being depends on the brain remaining to some degree intact. I'm not arguing otherwise. I do think that the brain produces consciousness or the ability to communicate consciousness, rather than being consciousness itself; if you built an adult-size brain out of atoms, molecule by molecule, and brought it to life, it would still need considerable time to organize into an aware being, assuming it *had* awareness as a consequence of being brought to life by artificial means, and didn't just continue firing chemicals in a random, closed system.

There's no distinction, to my mind, between that long, arduous organization and, say, the body's development of lungs in utero. As it's all one consequence of the initial vitality coalescing into meaningful form, it doesn't matter what stage it's in.

Also, your example (or loin's, or whoever's), is something of an extreme amputee, so to speak. If cutting off my leg doesn't make me a non-human, then neither should cutting off other organs. The brain is the necessary requisite because, yes, it is the center of the innate self. There's no such thing as a prosthetic brain. Beyond that, it also controls the rest of the body, which is important in its own right.

But the "potential" does matter because it's a normal consequence of existing conditions, not just a possibility. Think of it this way: when you move to another state, you're expected to get certain documentations changed, but you're given a certain amount of time to change them. The government doesn't kick your door in the morning after you move and arrest you for fraud because their records have you living in a different state. They don't accuse you of a tax-evasion scheme or anything. They just assume that within a reasonable period of time you will file the appropriate paperwork and said paperwork will be processed. Until then you are effectively a resident of that state, even without the "requirement," because it is understood that said requirement will be met shortly.

The same rules should apply here IMO. The zygote/embryo has no brain, but it's working to get one. We think of butterflies as "insects with big pretty wings," but you can't stomp on fifty caterpillars and say you've never hurt a butterfly, and an acorn that's just started to germinate is still an oak tree even though it hasn't even poked out of the ground yet. You're arguing that I should poison the seedling quickly, before it sprouts, and if I call it a tree before then I might as well call an acorn one as well.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Funny how these debates always end up with these "consciousness/sentience" debates. Personally, speaking, I think it's a dead end. The South Dakota court clearly agrees, if terminations in the case of Ectopic preganancy. It's a straight balancing of mother's needs against foetal needs, and Junior loses whether he/she's considered conscious or not.

[Elok]

Yeah, but there's still the question of non-ectopic, non-life-threatening pregnancies. With cases that might kill the mother, it's a matter of killing unwanted cells or killing another person to save your own life, and either way it's acceptable. When it's killing unwanted cells or killing another person who reminds you of unpleasant events, is an economic burden, or may be handicapped, things get sticky and pseudo-eugenic to some of us.