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I took the time to read all posts before writing, as to avoid any uncomfortable missteps :D .
First off, thank you very much, Mara, for your kind words. They made me smile and blush in equal measure. Now I just have to make sure I don't mess it up!
| Autobon wrote: |
Yes, they pretty much all do. My argument however, was that DNA is the only way to logically draw a line as to whether something is human or not. Once we have established that the baby is human, then we must give it the same human rights endowed to others. Arguing personhood from a basis of development is illogical and impossible. You have demonstrated this when you mentioned "12 to 24 weeks." You clearly have a problem with drawing a line since there is no logical point at which to do so, therefore you give a very broad gap in weeks, as if saying "that should hopefully cover my margin of error."
But when dealing with a human life, this highly fickle boundary simply will not do. If you are not 100% sure as to whether or not you will terminate a life, you need always err on the side of caution. This concept applies to every activity we humans engage in. |
I think we can all be certain that the thing growing in a human woman is indeed human, so I don't think that we should be granting human rights solely on that, but rather on when it is alive (or 'actively human') or not. After all, dead bodies contain human DNA, yet we do not afford them the same rights. We grant them rights of decency, but not human rights. I'm also pretty sure that, of the entirety of the DNA strand, only five percent of it is actually useful. Everything else is just leftovers. With that in mind, I put less stock in DNA making the man than thought, expression, and the ability to do so.
Though if you want me to be very exact when talking about the period of 12 to 24 weeks, I can. However, I believe it was best to write it in this way, because it saved me from delivering a long winded explanation. Here's the long-winded explanation (the compact version): At 12 weeks the brain and heart are at a point where they're capable of functioning. However, not all babies grow at the same rate, so that it can be anywhere between 12 to 24 weeks. After 24 weeks, it's almost a certainty that a foetus has these two components, and UK law (and US law, I believe, but I'm not as familiar with that) recognises that this is what gives it life, and thus to do so is wilful murder, though if it can be proven that the unborn baby has these, when an abortion is taking place in this 12 week period, then abortion will not be performed.
Without those components, I have no problem with an abortion being performed, because it is up to the mother, and because at that point it's a comparison between what we know, now, as compared to what might be. I believe that if we were to enact laws on what might be, no matter the level of certainty, and that can be a very dangerous precedent to have in the legal system.
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If we were to truly define personhood by thoughts, heartbeats, and such, we would get into some very ridiculous complications. There are countless situations in which a vital body part my stop functioning for a period of time. Do the humans in such dilemmas cease to be persons for that amount of time? Why do we try to revive those in cardiac arrest? If we define life by a heartbeat, then clearly they do not possess human rights any longer. Their heart stopped working. |
Why would that complicate things? Anyway, I now realise we're not on the same level. I'm trying to determine what makes a human alive (see below for my full explanation: *), you're trying to determine what makes it human. These are not the same thing. I use the word 'personhood' to denote a lifeful human being. If I'm reading you correctly, then you feel personhood is simply the amalgamation of cells and genetic structure that makes us meatbags of water, human; human/human being, etc.
Do the humans in such dilemmas cease to be persons for that amount of time? Why do we try to revive those in cardiac arrest? If we define life by a heartbeat, then clearly they do not possess human rights any longer. Their heart stopped working.
No, they cease to be alive. Those in cardiac arrest can still have a functioning brain, unless it's untreated, in which case clinical death is a certainty, and they then become brain dead. Our capacity to live, to be a person, lives in the brain, the mind, not the heart. The heart gives life to the ability to be a person (ie, the mind), and if that goes, then the brain follows shortly after. Someone can still have a beating heart, yet if they're brain dead, then that's generally when someone is considered to have died, and when the doctors ask us relatives for permission to turn off the life support. I should point out, I'm not a medical professional (as far as I'm aware, the only one here who is is Cerrinea, and I ask her to expand on this, or correct this, should it need it).
* Science tells us that, before 12 weeks, it is just a lump of cells that, while it is on its way to becoming human, is not fully formed into a full-human, and not alive and sentient by legal definition (that stating that they start at the same time). After that, it is to be legally (and perhaps scientifically-I'd have to ask Taral if that is the accepted consensus of the scientific community. I can only state that the scientific community here deemed it so, and thus the law reflected it) thought of as fully human, and alive, and thus to be given human rights, but not before. Though I think the politics over there might be different. Again, I'm not familiar with US law (or Canadian law).
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And thoughts? What about when your sleeping. You are not a rational and thinking being during deep sleep. Are you less human when sleeping? And what about babies that are born, or those that are mentally handicap? Are they less human because their thoughts might not make it to the same level of logic as yours?
Clearly we cannot define human rights by our thoughts, or what parts of our body work or do not work. It is a fickle line to draw. DNA and its designating of you as human is the only stable definition we can use for personhood. |
I believe I included thoughts in a previous post, but if I didn't, then my mistake, because I'd intended to. During sleep, we may not be having rational thought, but we are thinking nonetheless. But, then again, some people are awake yet aren't capable of rational thoughts. Living next to an asylum, I'm aware of this very keenly. But I didn't say it's graded on the level of thought that makes us human, merely that we are capable of such thought. Though I do believe that testing with non-invasive medical equipment has recorded higher brain function in babies.
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This anology is incorrect. DNA is not random words written in a book, it is a novel of the most unimaginable logic. If it were an unintelligible sequence, you would not form as a human being! |
Again, only about 5% of that is actually used. Though I do disagree that it's a novel of 'unimaginable logic'. There is a lot of it, very true, but in time I'm confident that we'll be able to make sense of it all. However, I did not say that it's an unintelligible sequence, merely that that's only what makes us human, and only a part of what makes us human beings. For instance, there is a gene, the MAOA gene, which has been found in very many serial killers. It was also found in the very man who discovered this gene, and discovered this link. Yet he's not a serial killer. This is what I mean by that we're more than the sum of our parts. He had very loving parents, and a very happy, good childhood, and he believes that because he had this, and the serial killers didn't, that he didn't become one of them. It's because foetuses after a certain point have a heart, a brain, access to higher cognitive thought, that we cease to be just human, and become more.
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The number I gave was 50 million over a period of about 40 years. Let me give you a comparison though. About 2.5 million people die in America every year. About 1.3 million babies are aborted every year. That is a ridiculously large number and in every way a big deal. |
Technically it's 1.2 million. However, I did a little bit of research and some place called the guttmacher institute stated that 'Each year, two percent of women aged 15–44 have an abortion. Half have had at least one previous abortion'. That's really not a lot, comparatively. A big number, yes, but only two percent. Though a bigger number: Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. Though hose numbers looks a little suspect (I haven't had a time to do the maths on it), I'm willing to accept it as accurate since it was earlier introduced as a factual source.
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Its DNA is 100% complete before then, dictating what gender it is. You are simply arguing personhood from a development standpoint. But this is like saying that a 2 year old girl is less a person then a fully developed female. It is untrue.
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Taral answered this to my satisfaction.
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I am a Star Wars fan. That doesn't mean that I hate or love Jar Jar. That doesn't mean I hate or love Lucas, or agree or disagree 100% with him. That doesn't mean I prefer the PT over the OT, or vice versa. That doesn't mean I hate the EU, or even love all of it. These are not prerequisites. Being a man is not a prerequisite. Being a geek is not a prerequisite. The only prerequisite is that I love something about Star Wars. I am a Star Wars fan.
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It's hard to keep up with this thread...
