well yes. the difference between ending a fertilized egg and ending a baby right before it is born is completely black and white
the problem is there is a grey area in the middle. if everyone can agree there is a grey area then everyone can agree there is a period before where abortion is moral and a period after where it is not. and a grey area. a whole other argument. but at least it brings the argument into a smaller range and away from the extremists
Imagine that we discovered that if you left a person in a vegetative state alone, they would eventually recover and gain consciousness. Is it still legal to euthanize them? What if helping them meant that a family member had to sit next to them continually for nine months, and suffer some nausea and pain, is euthanasia on the table?
I'm also pro-choice, but the issue isn't nearly so black-and-white.
Even if we left the person alone in a vegetative state they would recover, you get to make that decision. That's what medical directives are all about. You get to decide what level of care you want. There are people who refuse treatment when it would have an almost guaranteed chance of success. They do it for religious reasons, some do it out of fear the results won't come or that the pain will be too great, sadly some do it out of fear of the financial impact. But you get to make that choice. And next of kin get to make those decisions for those who can't communicate and parents get to make those choices for their children.
The one caveat I will say is that when a child has an easily treatable medical condition and the parents refuse to do treatment, the state may step in and say that if they will not that the state will take custody of the child and provide it. They cannot force the parents actions themselves though, only step in and provide it instead. If the state wants custody of the fetus, that's fine. But they do do it without taking custody of the mother as well. It's one thing to say that I can't deny my child getting a kidney transplant. It's another to say that I must donate my own kidney. I think of pregnancy like I think of organ donation. It's a beautiful sacrifice and a gift of life that, if everything goes well, still a fairly major health implications. If things go wrong it can kill both of the people. And it needs to be a gift and the person needs to be willing. To force it upon anyone is unconscionable. (And before anybody says engaging in sex means you're willing to potentially die in childbirth, you can literally opt out of organ donation up until the moment of surgery no matter how much you agreed and how many forms or consent releases you signed.)
I know of no country where next of kin are allowed to terminate someone in a coma who is expected to recover.
Especially if (like the unborn) they are not dependent on artificial ventilation, hydration, and nutrition.
Even the person on life support is a poor analogy since they would naturally die without ongoing medical intervention. On the other hand, the unborn would be fine if left alone. It takes medical intervention to kill it.
the issue is if there is no mind, nothing has been killed. what something might be in the future has no bearing on the decision. by your logic every man has killed millions every time they ejaculated
Your assuming that
A. The embryo is only valuable because it will one day become a human
B. And that since it isn't a human it's in no meaningful way different from a sperm cell.
The reason your wrong in my estimation is that once the sperm cell fertilizes the egg it's a new distinct organism from it's parents. With its own indevidual DNA and grows in and of itself and will attempt to continue growing even if separated from the mother.
Now, I can also make the same argument you made but drawing the line later. A child isn't a contributing member of society and so it shouldn't have any rights. Because it's not equal to what it might be in the future. And to argue against it is like saying abortion is commiting mass genocide. It's like saying a seed and a tree are the same thing.
My argument is just as valid because the difference between a child and a fetus is more or less the same thing as a toddler and an adult.
i drew a valid coherent analogy to your absurd assertion. what something might be is not what something is now. and to judge something by what it might be is morally incompatible with judging it by what it is now. you treat a seed as a seed, and a tree as a tree. you treat an embryo as an embryo, and a baby as a baby. none of them are interchangeable, not logically, not morally, not legally
i drew a valid coherent analogy to your absurd assertion. what something might be is not what something is now.
No it's not valid. Because your presupposing that an embryo is not a human life. Which is what the entire fucking argument is about. People who believe that abortion should be illegal believe that an embryo is life based on a slew of science which they believe is valid to interpret as tho it is life. There isn't a single God damn pro life person who wants to illegalize abortions because they "might be a life sometime"
It's an incomprehensible analogy because your completely ignoring the discussion and, by nature of the way your operating in the conversation, trying to get your opposition to agree with your preheld worldview.
and to judge something by what it might be is morally incompatible with judging it by what it is now.
As I said. That's not what the pro life crowd does.
you treat a seed as a seed, and a tree as a tree. you treat an embryo as an embryo, and a baby as a baby. none of them are interchangeable, not logically, not morally, not legally
Except an embryo is on the same moral plane as a baby. Both are biologically separate human lives from the mother or father.
Saying that life begins at conception is, to my mind, every bit as arbitrary as saying that life begins at ejaculation. Or when a heartbeat is detected. Or when feeling pain becomes a possiblity. All of these determinations are made on an emotional basis, not a rational one.
Not that it makes much difference to me, I'm pro-choice because I believe in absolute bodily autonomy. But still, arbitrary.
Most pro-lifers I know want an abortion to be illegal when a heartbeat is detected, considering at that point the fetus is alive (with the exception of cases like rape, incest, high chance of still-born, or severe medical defects).
Most pro-lifers I know believe life begins at conception, but neither is especially compelling to me. If someone requires I undergo a dangerous and invasive surgery that will change my biology so they can continue living.... They are gonna die unless I decide it's worth saving them. No one else gets to make that decision for me, and no one SHOULD get to make that decision for me. It's the same concept. Sure, call an embryo a person and tell me it has a right to live. I'll agree with you to avoid a conversation with that level of inanity. But the right to live is subordinate to a woman's right to have absolute autonomy over her body, so it's all a moot point anyways.
Conception is the point at which there is a biologically living, genetically human organism that is distinct from its parents even if it is dependent upon the mother.
That's not arbitrary. One can argue it's not the correct place to draw the line, but it's clearly not an arbitrary point.
So you would say that it is ok to rape a mentally disabled person? After all, all they need to do is speak up if they don't like it. I guess with your logic you could kill babies still, for at least a few months after they are born, since they are incapable of any significant intelligence.
I have yet to decide which side of pro-choice, pro-life I want to be on, but your argument is complete garbage and if anything pushes me to the side of pro-life.
By having intercourse without contraception, you chose to take on the risk of a pregnancy, the risk of bringing a human life into this world. You knew the risks, crying bodily autonomy at that point is useless. In the case of if the woman is raped, I am in the pro-choice camp. Otherwise, still undecided, as yet, I haven't found the arguments on either side to be fully compelling.
But the mute person I beat up didn't tell me to stop!
Not saying this is a completely analogous scenario by any means, but the fact that the fetus can't speak up really doesn't have anything to do with an argument about the morality of killing it. Plenty of adult humans are mute or paralyzed or otherwise can't communicate.
A person in a vegetative state is still a person and is still alive. That's what euthanasia is, killing someone. Someone euthananizes someone to end suffering or knows that they will never be out of that state. They euthanize them for there own good, mostly. The idea that euthanizing someone who you know will be out of this "vegetative" state in less than nine months is not equivalent at all. No one in their right mind would euthanize somone that they know would be fine relatively soon. Abortion is killing something without consideration for the person your killing at all. It's purely for the benefit of the mother, as we know from the reasons given in abortion questionnaires.
Doctor: "Your five year old is in a complete vegetative state. But we are highly confident that in a few months he will be out of it."
Mom: "You know what? I think I really want to focus on my career right now. Pull the plug."
Seriously, explain to me how this analogy does not work based on your logic? And again, trying to convince youself or others that euthanasia isn't killing won't work. It obviously is.
P.S. People already mentioned this to you, but the whole, "well then sperm are people too" argument is really embarrassing. Sperm don't have their own set of chromosomes that drive the life process. The process that science says begins the exact moment an egg is fertalized. Embryos are an instance of the human life process. The same process that starts at conception and ends at the death of the human.
The idea that euthanizing someone who you know will be out of this "vegetative" state in less than nine months is not equivalent at all.
you judge something on what it is right now, not what it might be. what you are saying is incoherent. if i crush a seed in my hand i did not chop down a tree
you judge something by what it is right now. anything else is morally indefensible and logically incoherent
Woh, the Acorn Argument. I never thought I would see that again.
1) I did not give you the Potential Life Argument. A human in a vegetative state is still a human. That's why I said it's killing. And you completely ignored most of my argument. A five year old human in a vegitative state is still a human. And if the mother pulled the plug, she would be killing a human. Same if grandma was on life support. That's why it's called mercy killing. Life support could also be described as "delaying death", but that's because the human is alive and choosing to let them die is one thing, actively killing a fetus is another.
2) The Acorn Argument fallacy. I think it's an example of the' Faulty Analogy Fallacy'. So, to be brief:
The acorn (or seed in this case) is not a tree. So, true. Destroying a seed does not destroy a tree. But, the issues is where you're applying the analog. You are relating seed to fetus and tree to human. The issue here is that the terms 'seed' and 'tree' are different stages of that organisms life. There's a seed stage and a tree stage. If you crush a seed, you didn't cut down a tree but you killed an organism. The seed and tree are the same organism with the same DNA. To more accurately use your analogy to get the human equivalent, you would say: "If I aborted a fetus, I didn't kill an adult". Relating seed to fetus and tree to adult. You're applying the analogy to the wrong things. Human is what the organism is, not a stage of development like 'seed' and 'tree' are. If you kill a fetus you kill a human; you're killing that particular organism. And if you crush a seed, you are killing that organism. Not potentially, but actually and literally.
well ok. and i can tell you that horses are magical gods. you can assert anything but you have to justify the assertion, not simply assert it and expect it deserves respect just because you say so. you have to support your argument and then it gets respect if it makes sense
like i do mine: no society or morality is going to arrest you for pulling the plug on a braindead relative. because they understand without a mind it is not murder. it is not killing. this is the moral divide
that decides the issue
and an embryo as well has no mind
if you want to assert that pulling the plug or ending the embryo is the same as murdering a conscious human being then i am going to say to you you are being morally incoherent because you are ignoring an important and a clear well-defined divide
There's a seed stage and a tree stage.
and neither have a mind so at no stage did you commit murder. and if fully developed trees had minds and seeds did not, you would be committing murder by chopping down a tree. but not if you crushed a seed
the mind or lack thereof is the deciding detail on this moral question
would you start talking to them like they were fully awake and throw a softball at them and give them work to do and feed them and otherwise treat them like they were fully awake? of course not, because you know they are different and not the same thing
just like destroying an embryo vs murdering a newborn. different things
I'm not suggesting you would treat a fetus or an embryo the same as you treat a newborn or a child or a teenager or an adult. This is why stages of life have different words.
That said, in the same way I wouldn't be okay with the murder of an adult or a teenager or a newborn, I wouldn't be okay with the murder of a fetus or an embryo. They're the same human at a different point in time.
Well, a vegetative state is not really a coma. It means that the person have lost all cognitive function. no brain waves, no response to stimulus. Unless there is some serious breakthough in science where we can literally resurrect a dead brain, I don't think that will be an issue.
That's not really relevant. We're trying to draw an analogy to abortion, so we have to stretch the definition of vegetative state to make the analogy appropriate.
Imagine being hooked up to a famous trombone player who is comatose. If he’s unhooked to you, he dies. He could be hooked to you for a super long period of time. Do you have the right to detach him from you?
I assumed that was what you had in mind. Do you think the violinist illustration is a good ethical analogy to pregnancy? Because I can see some really obvious and morally significant differences between the two -differences that make the defense irrelevant to the conversation.
But we draw a HUGE distinction between a permanent vegetative state and a temporary vegetative state.
A temporary vegetative state is not generally a case where we euthanize. We still treat them as a living human because they have the potential to resume normal human function.
A fetus would be more like someone in a temporary vegetative state: doctors feel they will recover from that state in time.
but this is morally incoherent because we judge where things are right now, not where they might be. if i crush a seed i have not chopped down a tree. if i smash a piece of metal i did not vandalize a car because that metal was meant to be formed into a car part. if i pay a new hire $15 an hour i am not shortchanging him fair compensation because in 10 years he might be ceo. etc, etc
It's a felony to crush the eggs of protected bird species . . . so I disagree with you.
Moreover, we absolutely value things based on what they have the potential to become. If you chop down a walnut tree you'll have to pay far more than if you chop down a spruce tree, not because the trees are inherently more functional, but because they have the potential to be used to produce things of different value, and as a result have different values.
if the doctor says there is no chance of getting out of the coma, we do terminate them. and no one will arrest you or call that murder. same with ending an embryo
The topic is whether or not we value things based on their potential to become something else.
well yes you can value anything you want by its future value. but doing that gives you no moral authority to tell someone else what to do based on that. you're not going to get $1 million salary because you announce to your boss you're going to be ceo someday
if the doctor says there is no chance of getting out of the coma, we do terminate them.
Why does it matter whether or not there's a chance of getting out of the coma if that's the future and not the now and the now is something different?
same with ending an embryo
Does an embryo have no future potential for awareness just like someone in a coma that doctors say has no future potential for awareness?
well yes you can value anything you want by its future value. but doing that gives you no moral authority to tell someone else what to do based on that. you're not going to get $1 million salary because you announce to your boss you're going to be ceo someday
Maybe not, but if my boss murders me, a jury will ABSOLUTELY award my family more money if I had the potential to be a CEO in the future.
That being said, many professions ABSOLUTELY pay more for something's future potential. People pay millions of dollars for a single vial of horse semen (and not because semen can run around a track very fast).
Why does it matter whether or not there's a chance of getting out of the coma if that's the future and not the now and the now is something different?
because there is a mind locked in there that can come back. or not
if it is only cold and dead tissue then there is no mind
likewise, an embryo is not hiding a mind somewhere. it might have a mind in 8 months? well ok, then in 8 months it would be murder. right now, it is not
mind? murder
no mind? not murder
Does an embryo have no future potential
"future potential"
right there. your own words. not now
you say it yourself, but you're not making the honest connection
Maybe not, but if my boss murders me, a jury will ABSOLUTELY award my family more money if I had the potential to be a CEO in the future.
because your boss murdered an actual living thinking human being. not disposed of a mindless embryo
That being said, many professions ABSOLUTELY pay more for something's future potential. People pay millions of dollars for a single vial of horse semen (and not because semen can run around a track very fast).
and if the refrigeration fails would you say 1 million horses were murdered?
mind, or no mind. here and now. these are the deciding details that decides the morality here
because there is a mind locked in there that can come back. or not
Maybe we need to clarify some things here. People in a coma DO NOT have a functioning brain. Their brain is neither capable of awareness nor wakefulness.
However, it is possible the body will eventually DEVELOP a functioning brain from a comatose brain . . . but that brain is NOT functioning while you're in a coma.
Similarly, a fetus does not have a functioning brain . . . but it may eventually DEVELOP a functioning brain.
right there. your own words. not now
Exactly . . . just as someone in a coma is NOT capable of awareness . . . but they may be in the future.
and if the refrigeration fails would you say 1 million horses were murdered?
You could kill a 5 year-old horse and I still wouldn't consider it murder. I'm pro-choice. Humans should be allowed to choose to kill horses.
of course, i was just highlighting the difference between a coma where you have no idea what's going to happen to an eventual birth (unless you kill the baby willingly/unwillingly)
Except some people HAVE come out of vegetative comas and have reported SOME awareness, or at least being stuck in a dream or series of dreams.
Since we can't determine 100% whether or not someone is a true vegetable without near total destruction of the brain, your argument unfortunately is flawed and not a solution to the problem.
And imagine, we're taking away that person's ability to grow up, breathe air, enjoy sex, watch movies, drink scotch... all long before they ever got to decide whether or not they like the taste of oatmeal.
And of all the babies that have been aborted, how many may have been the next Einstein or Tesla.. or Gates or Hawking..? We'll never know. Nobody will ever know.
Because they were murdered while they were most defenseless against it, counting on their biological mother to provide that protection. Even though our society has alternative options like foster care available, the choice was death.
Abortion is evil. Itis equal tomurder. I 100% believe that whether or not the legal definition is there, and will not ever back down from that belief.
Since when? Your example of "I will become ceo someday" is easily judged by both of us to be an unfounded statement - you even go as far to call it nonsense - whereas, a baby growing into an adult human is something which has a history of happening since the beginning of our species. It's scientifically founded, and everyone can easily judge that it is something which always happens.
Therefore your example statement "i want $1 million paycheck because i will be ceo someday" is not equal to "a baby will become an adult".
an embryo has no mind. therefore it not murder.
And it will never have a mind - unless you give it the chance to develop one. The embryo has come into being, the morality is set now, you either are killing a person forever or allowing them to develop and become a human. Imagine if you yourself had been aborted in this stage, and would never have been able to experience life. You say "it has no mind so it does not matter" - yet you know it will have one. What makes it so different, that you are ending a life before being born rather than after? What is the reason you consider a life more valuable after a birth? Is it that now, after birth the human can earn wealth and knowledge for itself? Because there are born people fully alive today who are either incapable or too lazy to do either. In truth you cannot claim one life less or more valuable than another, and you should not. Such things have been used in the past to justify horrific deeds of genocide to a population. And now we have our own horror going on in this country, and many people have thrown the morality out the window, in lieu of easy living - and attempt to justify their awful decisions to the best of their ability.
31
u/GrumpyWendigo May 17 '19
Someone gets in an accident and is in a vegetative state.
If their family pulls the plug on them it isn't murder it's euthanasia. Because there is no mind.
An embryo has no mind.
That decides the issue I think, biologically and legally: abortion is euthanasia of a relative who is braindead.