02-05-2003 03:21									#121
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quote: It takes two to tango. We consider the father responsible for his child for child support even if the father did not want the child. Clearly, if we are to have an equitable standard of the mother as the sole responsibility for her child, then we would have to get rid of child support.

It may shift around, since we have to account for the mother having to pass a rather unpleasant operation, but I sure think we have to come out from a more egalitarian basis.

	02-05-2003 03:41									#122
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I am Troll

I am Pro-Life.

I love my Lord for Creation.

This is a fact and also my personal opinion/stance that we should not have abortion, but rather choose life.

Peace

Grandpa Troll

	02-05-2003 03:45									#123
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel quote: It takes two to tango. We consider the father responsible for his child for child support even if the father did not want the child. Clearly, if we are to have an equitable standard of the mother as the sole responsibility for her child, then we would have to get rid of child support. It may shift around, since we have to account for the mother having to pass a rather unpleasant operation, but I sure think we have to come out from a more egalitarian basis.

There is more to it than this. If parental obligations are not incurred by conceiving (which must be the case if abortion on demand is justified) then there isn't any way of making the guy responsible to the child. That's why mandatory child support should be abolished if abortion is legal.

He might have some responsibility towards the woman, but this is difficult to quantify since people are generally responsible for taking their own risks.

	02-05-2003 03:56									#124
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obiwan:

quote: How so? Everything the unborn child needs to develop this brain structure is present at the point of conception.

And I explained why this is irrelevent. What may or may not happen to an organism some time in the future isn't relevant to whether or not it has a sufficiently complex brain and nervous system.

Further, you are wrong. A zygote needs plenty of external things for it to develop to the stage of sentience, namely the various nutrients it might recieve from its mother. Just as a sperm or ovum would need various things from its host to develop sentience.

quote: Yes.

In the second trimester, the fetus gains the abilities to think and feel; the fetus becomes sentient.

quote: True. Without a definition of personhood, you would be right, but if you look at my posts I have defined what personhood should be, as an entity with human DNA possessing the intrisic capacity to grow and develop.

You've never justified this belief in personhood.
1. Why is human DNA relevant to personhood? Why not chimp or dolphin DNA? Why not klingon DNA?
2. Why is the capacity to grow and develop relevant to personhood? Further, is it then ok to kill a person without their consent that stops growing and developing (say, he's terminal)?

Tia:

quote: But if they are brain dead the you pose the quandry that they already exsist. I would assume that you speak of a person who for what ever reason has gone brain dead. The if that's the case.....they are already here should they not have rights? Unless I misunderstood your statement.

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying. What do you mean by "existence" and being "already here"? If someone's brain-dead, I don't consider him to be sentient, thus he doesn't deserve the rights of a "person."

	02-05-2003 03:59									#125
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Agathon:

quote: He might have some responsibility towards the woman, but this is difficult to quantify since people are generally responsible for taking their own risks.

Again, it is pretty difficult for the mother to get pregnant all by herself.

Therefore, both should share responsibility, the mother and the father.

	02-05-2003 04:16									#126
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quote: Originally posted by obiwan18 Agathon: Again, it is pretty difficult for the mother to get pregnant all by herself. Therefore, both should share responsibility, the mother and the father.

But if abortion is justifiable then parental responsibilities do not accrue to the woman (because she can abort the fetus). It's the position of pro-lifers that responsibilities accrue at conception, but it doesn't seem sustainable for pro-choicers.

And if it isn't then pro-choicers need some new account of how parental responsibilities accrue. The problem is that they seem to be voluntary for women, but not for men. That is an inconsistency on the face of it.

	02-05-2003 04:17									#127
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quote: Further, you are wrong. A zygote needs plenty of external things for it to develop to the stage of sentience, namely the various nutrients it might recieve from its mother. Just as a sperm or ovum would need various things from its host to develop sentience.

True. What I should have said, and I say this elsewhere in the thread, that all the instructions (genetic, etc.) required to grow a brain are present at conception. As for the requirement for food this is no different from an infant.

Feed a sperm and ovum, and they will not grow into an infant. Feed a zygote, and she will grow into an infant. Therefore, there must be something fundamentally different between the zygote, and gamete cells.

quote: In the second trimester, the fetus gains the abilities to think and feel; the fetus becomes sentient.

Fetal pain:

"Try sticking an 8 week old human fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away.

A more technical description would add that changes in heart rate and fetal movement also suggest that intrauterine manipulations are painful to the fetus."

Volman & Pearson, "What the Fetus Feels," British Med. Journal, Jan. 26, 1980, pp. 233-234.

8 weeks is not the second trimester.

As for thoughts, how would you know whether the unborn child can think or not?

quote: 1. Why is human DNA relevant to personhood? Why not chimp or dolphin DNA? Why not klingon DNA?

We have yet to see Klingon DNA, so I will discount that exception. Are you making a case to extend legal personhood to dolphins and chimps?

The question is not really, why should human DNA be the criteria, but should all human beings be persons?

Human DNA is special, in that it contains the instructions needed for the development of a human child

quote: 2. Why is the capacity to grow and develop relevant to personhood? Further, is it then ok to kill a person without their consent that stops growing and developing (say, he's terminal)?

You have a narrow definition of growth. I'm not talking about just physical development, but also mental development.

Someone who is terminally ill, anyone who is still alive, will still have the capacity to grow and develop.

Perhaps a better definition would be the intrinsic capacity to function as a person, one aspect being growth and development.

	02-05-2003 04:23									#128
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i define a person as one who can breathe air (oxygen, nitrogen, etc found in earth's lower atmospher)

if you don't breathe, but you're still walking you must be undead, and blade's about to cap your ass with a silver bullet

	02-05-2003 04:39									#129
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quote: i define a person as one who can breathe air (oxygen, nitrogen, etc found in earth's lower atmospher)

What about someone on a respirator?

	02-05-2003 04:41									#130
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quote: True. What I should have said, and I say this elsewhere in the thread, that all the instructions (genetic, etc.) required to grow a brain are present at conception.

You haven't explained why this is relevant.

quote: Feed a sperm and ovum, and they will not grow into an infant. Feed a zygote, and she will grow into an infant. Therefore, there must be something fundamentally different between the zygote, and gamete cells

You have a specialized definition of food. If you generalize food to include an ovum, the same holds true for a sperm.

quote: Fetal pain

I've heard other estimates (mostly in the second trimester) as to when the fetus starts to feel pain. IIRC, the relevant areas of the brain that allows a fetus to feel pain aren't developed until the second semester.

quote: "Try sticking an 8 week old human fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away.

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

quote: A more technical description would add that changes in heart rate and fetal movement also suggest that intrauterine manipulations are painful to the fetus."

Why? Surely, heart rate and fetal movement are caused by factors other than pain.

quote: As for thoughts, how would you know whether the unborn child can think or not?

Brain signals, responses to stimuli, etc.

quote: We have yet to see Klingon DNA, so I will discount that exception.

Let's say there are intelligent lifeforms besides humans. Why not their DNA as well?

quote: Are you making a case to extend legal personhood to dolphins and chimps?

No. I'm just asking you a question. Why shouldn't we legally protect those with chimp DNA?

quote: The question is not really, why should human DNA be the criteria, but should all human beings be persons?

No, that's not the question. This is getting into meaningless semantics. I would define a being to be a person.

quote: Human DNA is special, in that it contains the instructions needed for the development of a human child

That's nice, but again, why is this criteria for personhood?

quote: You have a narrow definition of growth. I'm not talking about just physical development, but also mental development.

1. You didn't answer the first question in what you quoted.
2. What about terminal people with Alzheimers?

quote: Perhaps a better definition would be the intrinsic capacity to function as a person, one aspect being growth and development.

I think these are wishy-washy concepts. Define them. What's growth and what's development? What's intrinsic? And justify this qualification of personhood.

	02-05-2003 05:37									#131
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quote: If you generalize food to include an ovum, the same holds true for a sperm.

So the sperm swallows the ovum?
Mighty hard my friend, look at the comparative sizes!

Anyhow, just go back to the previous description of fertilisation, where the sperm and egg fuse to form a zygote. Both the sperm and the egg cease to be.

This is different from the nutrients provided to an unborn child, in that the child consumes the nutrients.

quote: IIRC, the relevant areas of the brain that allows a fetus to feel pain aren't developed until the second semester.

No. The study that I cited examines the reactions of an unborn child to outside stimuli. If the child recoils, we can expect that they feel pain to some extent.

Besides, one of the functions of the brain is to regulate pain impulses. Without these higher brain functions, the unborn child may feel more pain then we would.

quote: Why? Surely, heart rate and fetal movement are caused by factors other than pain.

It's the same reaction an infant will have to pain.

quote: Brain signals, responses to stimuli, etc.

Well, then 8 weeks seems to be a credible standard.

quote: Why shouldn't we legally protect those with chimp DNA?

What does this have to do with protecting an unborn child? If I say yes, or no, it will not matter to the overall position. If we should protect animals, then we should also protect unborn children.

quote: Why not their DNA as well?

Sure, we should protect Klingons when we see them, as well as all humans.

quote: You haven't explained why this is relevant.

Yes it is relevant to my definition of personhood.
I've said that before.

quote: What's growth and what's development?

The capacity to increase in complexity seems a good way to define growth and development, in that mental growth is also an increase in complexity.

quote: What's intrinsic?

A quality harboured within the substance of the entity. DNA bears the intrinsic capacity of a human being to grow and develop.

quote: And justify this qualification of personhood.

It includes everyone we consider to be persons, unlike other standards of personhood, sentience, etc.

As for Alzheimer's patients, which I expected, BTW, they still retain some of their memories.

quote: I would define a being to be a person.

So why seperate the unborn child from all other humans?

	02-05-2003 07:07									#132
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i did some searching on premature babies and here is snippits of an interesting article i found here

http://www.indystar.com/special/preemies/preemie08.html

quote: So sobering are the disability-risk data for babies born about four months premature -- at 23 to 25 weeks of gestation -- that survival alone should not be the marker of quality care, said Lemons, who with Depp is crafting national guidelines for the care of such preemies... Twenty years ago, there was no decision to make for babies born as early as 23 weeks. Nearly all those babies died. Dr. William Silverman, a retired professor of pediatrics at Columbia University, said that in the 1940s there was an accepted rule: Babies born around 2.2 pounds or less were put into a corner of the delivery room to die. "That infant was then recorded as a stillbirth," said Silverman, who was involved in early efforts to ventilate premature infants. "Nobody asked the parents." In 1973, about 90 percent of babies born at 28 weeks and 2.2 pounds died. Today, more than 90 percent live... We're keeping infants alive now that never survived in the several million years of human existence," Silverman said... Babies weighing from 1.1 pounds to 1.3 pounds, for example, had a 71 percent mortality rate. Of the survivors, 62 percent had chronic lung disease, 35 percent severe bleeding in the brain. Fifteen percent suffered a serious condition of the bowel... They talked of the treatment train. "(The baby will) get an infection, and then you treat the infection," Catlin said. "And then their intestines die, and then you operate on their intestines. And then you have to close the hole in their hearts. And then they have eye damage, and then you have to laser on their eyes. And you know, it just goes on and on and on.

so at 12 weeks, even with all of our technology there is no way that the fetus can survive without the mother, so is it a person in the first trimester? not by any definition of a person we can come up with that includeds both people who went full term and were born and those at 12 week, besides dna, and the very basic organic structures, but if by saying "it feels pain, it's a person" then yesterday they proved that trout feel pain so they must be a person as well, if you say it has dna, and feels pains, so does an arm you just chopped off of somebody but the arm isn't a person...and so on and so forth

even if they are people though, then can society kill them? why not...if bombing children in iraq (by accident of course) is ok, more to the point, it is approved by religious texts like the bible, then why wouldn't abortion be ok as well? especially in the first trimester?

	02-05-2003 07:42									#133
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obiwan,

"What do you mean by mind? If you mean the ability to make choices for oneself, then we would have to lump in children as well."

We have gone through this before, mind is the same as sentience. More precisely, sentience is the essential and sufficient condition for a "mind."

quote: Originally posted by Azazel quote: . The patient has a mind that he or she cannot access. complete nonsense, as the patient IS the mind.

I understand from where you came, but no, that's not the complete picture. The logical conclusion of your position is a patient in a coma is no longer there. Which of course doesn't make sense.

Furthermore, I found your position somewhat contradictory:

quote: Originally posted by Azazel That mind is now basically non-existant. The patient may recover/reactivate it someday, however.

If the patient is the mind, how is it possible that it recovers itself?

	02-05-2003 07:49									#134
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quote: Originally posted by obiwan18 Fetal pain: "Try sticking an 8 week old human fetus in the palm of his hand. He opens his mouth and pulls his hand away. A more technical description would add that changes in heart rate and fetal movement also suggest that intrauterine manipulations are painful to the fetus." Volman & Pearson, "What the Fetus Feels," British Med. Journal, Jan. 26, 1980, pp. 233-234. 8 weeks is not the second trimester. As for thoughts, how would you know whether the unborn child can think or not?

If you stick a pin in a mouse, it will feel the pain. If you kick a dog, it will wimper and run away. Does it mean that both mice and dogs are sentient?

	07-05-2003 05:05									#135
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From your own citation, Korn.


In 1973, about 90 percent of babies born at 28 weeks and 2.2 pounds died.

Today, more than 90 percent live...

quote: so at 12 weeks, even with all of our technology there is no way that the fetus can survive without the mother, so is it a person in the first trimester?

Now, the question I must ask here is what does viability measure? Viability is a measure of our technology, not of the unborn child, or the infant. The child does not survive because of what the child does, but of what we can do. Your citation brings this fact to light.

not by any definition of a person we can come up with that includeds both people who went full term and were born and those at 12 week, besides dna, and the very basic organic structures,

So how are these exceptions different from my current definition of personhood?

quote: but if by saying "it feels pain, it's a person" then yesterday they proved that trout feel pain so they must be a person as well, if you say it has dna, and feels pains, so does an arm you just chopped off of somebody but the arm isn't a person...and so on and so forth.

No. That's not what my definition is saying. Just having the DNA is not enough, it is the intrinsic capacity to grow and develop inherent within the zygote. Something possessed by all persons, born or unborn.

UR:

quote: Does it mean that both mice and dogs are sentient?

If one defines sentient as the ability to feel pain, then yes.

quote: sentience is the essential and sufficient condition for a "mind."

When does a being aquire the essential and sufficient condition for a mind? Could the zygote own this sufficient condition for a mind, that will develop, given time?

	07-05-2003 09:10									#136
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quote: So the sperm swallows the ovum? Mighty hard my friend, look at the comparative sizes! Anyhow, just go back to the previous description of fertilisation, where the sperm and egg fuse to form a zygote. Both the sperm and the egg cease to be. This is different from the nutrients provided to an unborn child, in that the child consumes the nutrients.

Cease to be? Could you define that? I don't know what that means, exactly. Sounds like an another irrelevent semantics argument to me...

quote: No. The study that I cited examines the reactions of an unborn child to outside stimuli. If the child recoils, we can expect that they feel pain to some extent.

Why? I've recoiled from unusal sensations, excluding pain.

quote: Besides, one of the functions of the brain is to regulate pain impulses. Without these higher brain functions, the unborn child may feel more pain then we would.

You'd need to establish that this fetus feels pain in the first place.

quote: It's the same reaction an infant will have to pain.

Let me get this straight. Because an infant has certain very general responses to certain specific stimuli, any similar general responses by an 8-week old fetus is caused by these specific stimuli? I see a small break in your logic...

quote: Well, then 8 weeks seems to be a credible standard.

Why? 8 weeks is a pretty crappy standard as far as brain development goes.

quote: What does this have to do with protecting an unborn child? If I say yes, or no, it will not matter to the overall position. If we should protect animals, then we should also protect unborn children.

I'm not saying that we should protect animals, I'm asking you why we shouldn't protect animals. It matters for the argument I'm making.

quote: Yes it is relevant to my definition of personhood. I've said that before.

But you haven't explained why it's part of your definition of personhood.

quote: The capacity to increase in complexity seems a good way to define growth and development, in that mental growth is also an increase in complexity.

1. Once again, you haven't explained why the capacity to "increase in complexity" is relevent to the definition of personhood.
2. You haven't answered my question. What, exactly, is "complexity"?

quote: A quality harboured within the substance of the entity. DNA bears the intrinsic capacity of a human being to grow and develop.

What's the "substance of the entity?" More phrases that don't mean anything... A human, born or unborn, won't grow without food.

quote: It includes everyone we consider to be persons, unlike other standards of personhood, sentience, etc.

1. It's not what "we" consider to be persons, it's what you consider to be persons.
2. So you're saying that you've created a definition of personhood specifically designed to fit your idea of who should be persons? Circular reasoning, anyone?

quote: As for Alzheimer's patients, which I expected, BTW, they still retain some of their memories.

But they lose a lot of them. Hence they decrease in mental complexity, so they're not persons according to your criteria...

quote: So why seperate the unborn child from all other humans?

What are you trying to say here? Since what you just wrote doesn't seem to have any relation to what you quoted.

I would define a "being" to be something with sentience (doesn't have to be human). And since I think legal personhood should be tied to sentience, a "being" is equivalent to a person.