Abortion and the time a fetus is considered to be a soul.

[Pseudo-Onkelos]

Suzzy Cyanide

Pseudo-Onkelos

Suzzy Cyanide

So...with that said separation of church and state, and abortion should in fact be legal.

I don't care about separation of church and state because I'm not affiliated with a religion. That's not what this is about anyway.

Oh don't be butt hurt. It was a joke. I just forgot to put the little lol face. lol

[Suzzy Cyanide]

Pseudo-Onkelos

Suzzy Cyanide

So...with that said separation of church and state, and abortion should in fact be legal.

I don't care about separation of church and state because I'm not affiliated with a religion. That's not what this is about anyway.

Oh don't be butt hurt. It was a joke. I just forgot to put the little lol face. lol

[Pseudo-Onkelos]

Suzzy Cyanide

So...with that said separation of church and state, and abortion should in fact be legal.

I don't care about separation of church and state because I'm not affiliated with a religion. That's not what this is about anyway.

[Suzzy Cyanide]

Pseudo-Onkelos

I can't say I ever thought I'd find myself making a thread about abortion. I think this could present a different perspective. My view of the soul is not considered "orthodox" by Jewish, Christian, or Islamic standards, although I believe all three are wrong in what they think of the soul since they've been influenced by Persian dualism or Platonism.

It seems that for some, mostly Christians, someone becomes a soul upon conception, the time when the sperm comes into contact with the egg. (If I am incorrect on this, please correct me.) My understanding of a soul is that humans do not have souls, but that they are souls. Contrary to the belief of a soul being an ethereal, immortal, and disembodied part of a human, the Torah clearly says otherwise.

"Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (Gen. 2:7)

Notice it says that when God breathed into the man's nostrils the breath of life, the man became a living soul. In order to be a living person, one needs to have the breath of life. This can only be possible if someone is breathing. So I thought to myself on if or when a fetus is capable of breathing, just as you and I are breathing this moment. If a fetus is capable of breathing, and if there is a time when it begins to breathe, I think that's when it is a soul.

Thoughts?

So...with that said separation of church and state, and abortion should in fact be legal.

[Ossoofoo]

Ban

Ossoofoo

Ban, Id love to keep this conversation going, but it seems we have really taken this thread off topic. Is it alright if I PM you or any other sort of private or public communication you think would be most appropriate)?

I dont mind if youd like to use PM, but as Pseudo says, topic drift happens. Id guess hed be the one to refer to, since he started the thread. In any case, not a lot of other discussion seems to be happening, and were still on the general topic of abortion.

If Pseudo doesnt mind then thats fine with me. smile

Edit)need some time to collect my thoughts in a clear manne, hope thats cool

[Ban]

Ossoofoo

Ban, Id love to keep this conversation going, but it seems we have really taken this thread off topic. Is it alright if I PM you or any other sort of private or public communication you think would be most appropriate)?

I don't mind if you'd like to use PM, but as Pseudo says, topic drift happens. I'd guess he'd be the one to refer to, since he started the thread. In any case, not a lot of other discussion seems to be happening, and we're still on the general topic of abortion.

[Pseudo-Onkelos]

Ossoofoo

Ban, Id love to keep this conversation going, but it seems we have really taken this thread off topic. Is it alright if I PM you or any other sort of private or public communication you think would be most appropriate)?

That's what happens in threads. Feel free to continue.

[Ossoofoo]

Ban, Id love to keep this conversation going, but it seems we have really taken this thread off topic. Is it alright if I PM you or any other sort of private or public communication you think would be most appropriate)?

[Ban]

Ossoofoo

I understand your point, and will look into it, but I will end with this:

96 percent of the abortions today are done for the convienience of the mother financially or socially) and not for her health.

I'm not sure there's a strict differentiation between the two, unless you restrict health simply to issues of health to whether or not the mother will die. Statistics of that nature tend to indicate some sort of bias on the part of the person putting the numbers together. Is it a health issue or a social or a financial issue if a woman's stated reason is that she didn't want to go through the pain of a pregnancy just to give up the child at the end because she couldn't afford to raise it? If we had a medical process that could make procreation entirely painless, grow the child in an artificial womb or something, would that change her decision, just as much as if she had money to raise it? Isn't the question of whether or not to voluntarily suffer so another can live a health decision?

Ossoofoo

In most cases, we kill a human being for convienience for reasons that do not match policies for killing a human being outside of the womb. Our justifications do not stand up unless we assume the higher idea of personhood.

I would disagree, but whatever.

Ossoofoo

Introducing a higher idea of personhood divides humans into two groups that are allowed and can be killed. this idea has been and will be used to justify the death of more than a fetus if it is taken to a logical extreme.

A parade of horribles seems unconvincing in this circumstance, since the logic I have argued still creates a clean separation between children and fetuses. Slippery slope arguments tend to be sort of informal fallacies in any case.

For example, I could reframe and say that you are forcing people to endure physical and emotional suffering for the sake of these fetuses, because you think fetuses have some sort of right to life. The woman must therefore involuntarily and continually supply nutrients, blood, oxygen and so forth to the child, and the government will stop her if she tries to end that state of affairs. Isn't that a short step to the government forcing people to donate, organs, bone marrow to keep people alive? If I have leukemia, and need your bone marrow, why can't I force you to give it to me?

I don't find that a convincing argument, because the circumstances of the fetus are unique. But, I'd be interested in your answer, given that your apparent position that the individual circumstances of the fetus are not convincing, and that it has the same rights as everyone else. So, why don't people outside the womb have the implied rights of the fetus?

Ossoofoo

The thing that will save the most human lives and keep the line from being drawn elsewhere would be to not allow the killing of humans unless justified by policies already in place for humans outside the womb. Aborting due to self defense would be justified and save the lives of those women whose health is truly in jeopardy.

I'm not sure that makes sense. If you draw the line at birth, how can the line be moved, or at least moved anymore than any other line?

[Ossoofoo]

I understand your point, and will look into it, but I will end with this:

96 percent of the abortions today are done for the convienience of the mother financially or socially) and not for her health.

In most cases, we kill a human being for convienience for reasons that do not match policies for killing a human being outside of the womb. Our justifications do not stand up unless we assume the higher idea of personhood.

Introducing a higher idea of personhood divides humans into two groups that are allowed and can be killed. this idea has been and will be used to justify the death of more than a fetus if it is taken to a logical extreme.

The thing that will save the most human lives and keep the line from being drawn elsewhere would be to not allow the killing of humans unless justified by policies already in place for humans outside the womb. Aborting due to self defense would be justified and save the lives of those women whose health is truly in jeopardy.

[Ban]

Ossoofoo

As an atheist naturalist perhaps?) you should see that personhood is a higher idea that has no scientific standing. It is a state we make up based on criteria we create because of moral ideas and ethics of our day. It is not founded in scientific truths, as human-hood is.

I thought you said biology implied there was no such thing as a non-person human?

Ossoofoo

If we are at a grizzly crime scene, and have no way to know if the victim is animal or human, how do we find that out? The first thing that comes to mind is testing their genetic code to determine if their DNA is human or animal. Each human has a unique genetic code upon conception that makes them automatically a unique being of the human species.

Except genetic twins. Which presents sort of problem for the "at conception" argument, because twinning does not occur until later in the gestational process. Moreover, there's a series of things like vanishing twins or chimerism that complicate matters greatly if you argue that humanity/personhood starts at conception, never mind the issues of hormonal birth control, certain forms of female infertility, ectopic pregnancy, et cetera.

Ossoofoo

If we want to throw away the thoughts of higher ideas such as God, soul, and person hood, for totally scientific evidence, then there is no physical proof of the higher ideal called personhood other than criteria we randomly pick that fits said higher ideals.

I never really said anything about scientific evidence. I think personhood is a useful concept, at least legally.

Ossoofoo

If we are all humans, all animals, then this should be easy. We treat each other as humans rather than give way to made up ideas such as God. This then goes back to the argument for post-birth abortions and euthanasia, if we are all proven human then why should the reasons we kill a child in the womb be any different than outside? Why should I believe in the fairy tale called personhood that pro choice people stand by?

Why do we kill other humans? Various policy reasons, legal reasons, moral reasons, religious reasons, pragmatic reasons, et cetera.

Let me say this. Whether or not something is human is not justification in and of itself to kill it. Even if I had a bulletproof argument why a fetus is not a person and thus doesn't have either consitutional or moral reason to be afforded a right to life, it doesn't follow that we should allow it to be killed. We still might ban the practice of abortion for reasons unrelated to the rights of the fetus. There are specific policy reasons why we allow abortions, as mentioned, that are largely tied up in the rights and health of the woman.

Those reasons apply whether or not "personhood" exists or not, and there are different considerations at birth.

[Ossoofoo]

You assume God has anything to do with this argument. Many atheists can be pro life.

As an atheist naturalist perhaps?) you should see that personhood is a higher idea that has no scientific standing. It is a state we make up based on criteria we create because of moral ideas and ethics of our day. It is not founded in scientific truths, as human-hood is.

If we are at a grizzly crime scene, and have no way to know if the victim is animal or human, how do we find that out? The first thing that comes to mind is testing their genetic code to determine if their DNA is human or animal. Each human has a unique genetic code upon conception that makes them automatically a unique being of the human species.

If we want to throw away the thoughts of higher ideas such as God, soul, and person hood, for totally scientific evidence, then there is no physical proof of the higher ideal called personhood other than criteria we randomly pick that fits said higher ideals.

If we are all humans, all animals, then this should be easy. We treat each other as humans rather than give way to made up ideas such as God. This then goes back to the argument for post-birth abortions and euthanasia, if we are all proven human then why should the reasons we kill a child in the womb be any different than outside? Why should I believe in the fairy tale called personhood that pro choice people stand by?

[Ban]

Ossoofoo

The problem I have with the view that abortion is a cumulative case is that it's sort of an ad hoc argument that only is able to justify the death of the fetus. If you are trying to carry a bucket of water up a hill, but it has a hole in it, adding more buckets with holes in them will not make it so you have more water at the top.

Not sure that's a great analogy for an ad hoc argument, and ad hoc arguments are not necessarily incorrect. In any case, I think it is reasonable to say that the idea of personhood and the rights such a status might entail is an ad hoc concept in the first place. We haven't always treated every race or nationality or religious group with the same as we would treat others of our own category. We still don't, on the whole.

I don't see the issue with a specialized argument for a specialized problem.

Ossoofoo

In this case, none of the criteria stand up on their own in any other case, and we only add one more criterion (the size-location-level of development-etc point) which is (in my opinion) extremely weak, since we're just making a new point that is only for a fetus. We could do that with anything to justify an act.

You're still trying to ask if they stand on their own. A single nail does not make a house. Why is personhood any different? Why do you think it is reducible to a single factor?

Put another way, what do you think makes something human? Are you going to argue a soul to me, when I've already admitted that I am irreligious?

Ossoofoo

Such as, if you were to have a class of students. One student might be a red headed, exchange student, short girl. The teacher gives her an F, because he feels that she does not deserve a grade because of the criteria listed. When asking the teacher why he failed the student, he gives us the criteria. He says that she is short, but there are other short people in the class whose grades are not affected. If the teacher goes down the list and we find that there are students who aren't affected by being an exchange student only, being short, and being a ginger, or a female, then we must come to the conclusion that he is an a**-hole whose argument does not stand based on what he listed. He could give an ad hoc argument and say "well, it only counts for red-headed, exchange students who are short and girls" but that doesn't seem like an entirely good argument, does it?

If that those were factors reasonably related to academic achievement, no, it wouldn't. Do you think that your status as a person is not reasonably related to your sentience, your ability to think and act on your own accord, et cetera? They do not in some way contribute to an overall sense of your own existence? I'm not saying, for these purposes, that the removal of any one would tip you over the scale, just as, say, a man might lose an arm and still be the same man, but nonetheless these sort of things diminish us. They make us less than we were. Is it so inconceivable that the removal of enough factors might be enough to remove ourselves?

Ossoofoo

If we find what is inside the mother to be a human, we must treat them as we do any human no matter their criteria. All HUMANS have rights, that is why it is called human rights, not person rights.

Ideally, yes. Practically, rights are an invention of idealism, and they only exist so far as we secure them for ourselves, or various political bodies decide to protect them.

Ossoofoo

It is fiction created by culture that there are humans that are not persons, or persons that are not humans. Have you ever met one? It's a ridiculous idea that goes against biology, against logic, and against human rights.

I would say it is a fiction that there are people at all. Humans are just animals that tell the story of people to themselves. If we want to talk about it on an existential level, of cultural fictions and the like, I would say we can tell whatever story we want about the extend of human rights and personhood, since neither of those are really addressed by any hard science or unassailable logical argument.

But, I think that would be a digression.

[Ossoofoo]

Ban

I suppose that's a way to put it. I think that reductionist arguments are a problematic approach to take in this sort of issue.

Sorry the other post was for Pseudo-Onkelos, but thanks for answering to it, since it gives me some information on your point of view. biggrin

The problem I have with the view that abortion is a cumulative case is that it's sort of an ad hoc argument that only is able to justify the death of the fetus. If you are trying to carry a bucket of water up a hill, but it has a hole in it, adding more buckets with holes in them will not make it so you have more water at the top.
In this case, none of the criteria stand up on their own in any other case, and we only add one more criterion (the size-location-level of development-etc point) which is (in my opinion) extremely weak, since we're just making a new point that is only for a fetus. We could do that with anything to justify an act.

Such as, if you were to have a class of students. One student might be a red headed, exchange student, short girl. The teacher gives her an F, because he feels that she does not deserve a grade because of the criteria listed. When asking the teacher why he failed the student, he gives us the criteria. He says that she is short, but there are other short people in the class whose grades are not affected. If the teacher goes down the list and we find that there are students who aren't affected by being an exchange student only, being short, and being a ginger, or a female, then we must come to the conclusion that he is an a**-hole whose argument does not stand based on what he listed. He could give an ad hoc argument and say "well, it only counts for red-headed, exchange students who are short and girls" but that doesn't seem like an entirely good argument, does it?

If we find what is inside the mother to be a human, we must treat them as we do any human no matter their criteria. All HUMANS have rights, that is why it is called human rights, not person rights. It is fiction created by culture that there are humans that are not persons, or persons that are not humans. Have you ever met one? It's a ridiculous idea that goes against biology, against logic, and against human rights.

[Ban]

Not sure if any of this was directed at me, but some interesting questions.

Ossoofoo

Do you believe that infants should be given medical care if they do not have breath in them upon birth?

Well, again, if you want to consider birth, or viability, or what have you to be the line, which pro-choice people will generally agree to one or the other, then reviving an infant that doesn't breath after the umbilical is cut seems to basically satisfy the factors you have listed. Until then, it's less of an issue since the umbilical supplies them with oxygenated blood. I think the situation you would probably be describing would be when the umbilical is wrapped around the neck and needs to be severed for full delivery, and then either cut away and unwrapped before the child can properly breath. At this point, the child would be out of the womb, no longer directly dependent on the mother for oxygenated, nutrient rich blood, et cetera.

Interestingly, the English common law held that a child had to be born alive (that is, had taken it's first breath) in order for laws of murder to apply to it being killed. This has been overruled in a number of jurisdictions with the advance of medical technology and so forth.

Ossoofoo

Do you believe a human who has never had breath in them, but fully conscious and living off a machine to be a person?

I don't see why not, based on the same logic as above. I might question the sort of situation that would lead to this, but whatever. It sounds like you're questioning some sort of philosophical or religious notion about the soul coming into the body at first breath, which I believe was what Platonists and the Stoics argued, and I guess what Pseudo is also arguing. I don't think anybody had a notion of a heart-lung machine back then, though.

Ossoofoo

Do you feel there is any value in being human, or that God finds value in the human race rather than value only found in souls?

Well, I'm an irreligious atheist, so I might not be the right person to ask the latter question. I find value in being human, but then I am, at least under commonly accepted definitions, a human, and so I might be a little biased.

Ossoofoo

Would you, for simplicitys sake, say that your point is that all factors that lead to abortion should be seen cumulatively rather than separately?

I suppose that's a way to put it. I think that reductionist arguments are a problematic approach to take in this sort of issue.