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Grex > Agora41 > #86: The President's Narrow Morality OR Mr. Bush says, "Stop cloning around!" | |
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| 25 new of 104 responses total. |
keesan
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response 50 of 104:
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Apr 15 16:21 UTC 2002 |
As I said, new rules will have to be worked out at that point.
It is already problematic whether parents have to pay to keep infants alive
on expensive machinery when there is no chance of long-term survival.
Perhaps at some point parents will have to apply for permission to produce
children and prove that they can support them first.
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morwen
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response 51 of 104:
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Apr 15 16:21 UTC 2002 |
I think the point is to preserve the "possibility" of life.
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keesan
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response 52 of 104:
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Apr 15 16:23 UTC 2002 |
In that case sterilization would be illegal.
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russ
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response 53 of 104:
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Apr 16 00:55 UTC 2002 |
Re #35: There are tons of dividing lines. Birth is a huge one; the
events of delivery entail an enormous shift in the function of the
circulatory system, to name just one change. This happens in minutes.
But I don't think that circulation is a salient difference.
The demand for "sharp dividing lines" devalues differences which develop
via processes instead of events, and doesn't bother to ask which changes
are the most important. Going backward the number of cells goes down,
so you can see process resolve into events such as cell divisions. At
the very beginning you can see a number of reasonably discrete events,
taking minutes or seconds each: various power-of-two cell divisions,
fertilization, ejaculation, erection. Does life begin at erection
because you can assign it to a time on the clock? I think that's a joke,
not a serious basis for public policy.
I think I've been consistent in arguing that the one salient property is
brain function. When the brain wakes up for the first time, that's when
the stream of consciousness begins; apparently that's about 30 weeks.
(That's a fact which backs up my position, and I know I have mentioned
it before.) If you wanted to attach an EEG machine in utero you could
watch for the event, and that could be your sharp dividing line. I think
it's far more reasonable to assign a "guard band" of, say, 2 weeks around
it (unless there are issues of malformation which would render invalid
any estimate based on the assumption normal development).
Let's see, I rebutted "sharp dividing line" and "no facts". I never made
the distinction between "human vs. non-human" (all elements of the process
are human at all times, even the gametes). I believe I'd already defined
what I viewed as a human being vs. a human organism that is not a human
being, and done so more than once in this conference. I've always tried
to refer to commonly accepted definitions or phenomena that we experience
ourselves. I think your claim that I can't define what I mean is flat
wrong. I defined it again before you made the claim.
I get the distinct feeling that you're trying to evade the conclusion I
derive from my premises because you don't like it, not because you have
gone through them and found something wrong. I'm not even arguing that
everyone who starts from different premises and arrives at another
conclusion is *wrong*, just that there is enough inconsistency between
their premises and logic and what is commonly accepted for other purposes
that it should not be used to make public policy. That's my big complaint
with the Bush/Ashcroft/Hyde position on stem cells, abortion and cloning:
it treats the situation as sui generis when it's quite similar to other
medical and social issues we handle every day using very different logic,
and no emotional hand-wringing or inflamed rhetoric at all.
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bru
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response 54 of 104:
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Apr 16 02:41 UTC 2002 |
Sparrows die?
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happyboy
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response 55 of 104:
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Apr 16 02:44 UTC 2002 |
take a shower, stinkwad.
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russ
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response 56 of 104:
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Apr 16 04:03 UTC 2002 |
Re #38: I'd say that the knowledge of brain development (particularly
EEGs) is new since 1972 and probably not available to the Supreme Court
when it decided Roe v. Wade. That's grounds for re-drawing lines.
Re #40: There is, but there is a much smaller difference between a
blastocyst dying on a tampon and a blastocyst dying in a Petri dish.
AAMOF, the difference is so small I have trouble finding words to
describe it. There is *no* difference in suffering; cells do not suffer.
Re #42: The problem with the "argument from potential" is that it
reduces to "life begins at erection", or even before. Every element
of the process has some potential unless and until it fails (e.g.
develops into an anencephalic instead of normally). If it's wrong to
frustrate that potential, is it wrong not to create every possible
baby? Should women be pregnant as often as they possibly can? I
don't think so...
Re #49: Not "a month or two", John. The bare minimum for survival
is still something like 24 weeks, and what survives is always damaged
(seriously) by the lack of proper environment for that missing time.
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mvpel
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response 57 of 104:
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Apr 16 04:05 UTC 2002 |
Re: 53 - here's an image of an unborn human at 24 weeks, six weeks before your
"stream of consciousness" line:
http://www.w-cpc.org/pictures/month6.jpg
And here's at 20 weeks:
http://www.w-cpc.org/pictures/20week.jpg
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rcurl
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response 58 of 104:
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Apr 16 04:31 UTC 2002 |
Your's? If not, why are you pointing them out?
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mvpel
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response 59 of 104:
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Apr 16 05:22 UTC 2002 |
Russ, I gather that brain waves have been detected by EEG at 40 days after
fertilization.
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rcurl
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response 60 of 104:
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Apr 16 14:26 UTC 2002 |
"Brain waves", per-se, only mean the nervous system is starting to be
'wired'. But more to the point, the effort to note the early stages
of neuronal activity, or blood circulation, etc, is used by anti-abortionist
to try to move the "onset" of "human-ness" as early as possible, even
though they also insist it occurs at conception! These detections of various
bodily functions don't, however, affect the decision of the time past
which an abortion is unlawful for a healthy fetus and mother. This has
been set to a time bsed on when an average fetus can survive birth. It's
a legal thing, like a "drinking age", even though maturation and maturity
are both continuous processes.
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jep
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response 61 of 104:
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Apr 16 14:30 UTC 2002 |
re #53: Russ, if detection of brain activity is the test of new life, I
could live with that. As detection techniques improve, the cut-off for
when it's not a life may get closer to conception. The definition of
brain activity then has to be discussed.
Meanwhile, whatever *I* can live with, there's still no general
consensus on it. There are still other reasonable definitions for the
beginning of life. Conception is one, cell growth is one, development
of some arbitrarily chosen organ such as the heart at some arbitrary
point, 3, 4 or 6 months after conception, and yes, birth. There are
reasons to choose any of them, and no compelling reason for society to
pick one instead of another.
re #60: The definition of the beginning of life is an emotional and
legal issue, not a logical, physical one. It always will be.
Once again, I'll state my point. I'm not so much disagreeing with
anyone here, as saying the issue is *not* *clear*. Your answer is not
obviously right for everyone, even if seems to you like it should be.
That someone disagrees with you does not make them obstinate or stupid.
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gull
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response 62 of 104:
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Apr 16 14:45 UTC 2002 |
Re #9:
> I agree with the president on this one. "no human life should be
> exploited or extinguished for the benefit of another."
Should we disband the Army, then? ;)
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happyboy
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response 63 of 104:
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Apr 16 14:57 UTC 2002 |
i didn't realize that DUB-YUH was against the death penalty.
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brighn
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response 64 of 104:
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Apr 16 15:12 UTC 2002 |
#61> "no compelling reason for society to pick one". I disagree. There's no
INHERENT compelling reason. This society (America) is a democracy, and in the
absence of inherently or Constitutionally compelling reasons, compromise
becomes a compelling reason. And the best compromise is six months... it's
a clear "edge" (the second trimester), there's medical basis (that's about
when the fetus has a reasonable chance of survival, if placed in an incubator
after a premature birth), and it's between the two extremes (conception and
birth). The next-best compromise is three months (many pregnant women don't
find out until well into their first month -- if they don't sense something
at conception, their next big clue is their missed period -- and most
preganant women are aware of their state by three months; it's another "edge"
-- the first trimester; there's medical basis [the fetus won't survive at all
in an incubator]). Given that, the most legalistic compromise is to have two
limits: First-trimester abortions are legal in all cases, regardless of age
or mental state of the mother; second-trimester abortions are legal only in
cases of rape, incest, or medical emergency; third-trimester abortions are
legal only in cases of medical emergency. Then the only issue is coming up
with a reliable litmus test for trimesters.
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rcurl
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response 65 of 104:
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Apr 16 16:05 UTC 2002 |
Re #61: it is pointless to talk about the "beginning of life". Life
began on earth a couple/few gigaana ago and has been continuous since.
The question should be posed as the legal rules concerning the killing
of a fetus.
We are also not talking about "compelling reasons" for choosing a
*particular* time, but for choosing a compromise, such as we have now.
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keesan
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response 66 of 104:
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Apr 16 20:27 UTC 2002 |
Chickens have brainwaves and people kill them all the time. A 6-month fetus
has a brain which is rather low on the IQ-scale, possibly comparable to a
chicken.
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happyboy
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response 67 of 104:
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Apr 16 20:28 UTC 2002 |
mmmm....kentucky fried foetus!
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brighn
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response 68 of 104:
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Apr 16 21:54 UTC 2002 |
#66> Actually, fetus IQs have the same range as IQs of anyone of any other
age. IQs are intended to represent the ratio of "intellectual age" to
"physical age," at least for children (in theory, a 10 year old with an IQ
of 120 is roughly as intelligent as the average 12 year old). A six-month-old
fetus with an IQ of 100 is average.
Then again, the average chicken has an IQ of 100, so I suppose your statement
is technically correct, but not as you meant it. ;}
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mdw
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response 69 of 104:
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Apr 17 00:26 UTC 2002 |
There plenty of single-cell organisms that have electrical activity and
show signs of organized activity. We think of "thinking" as at least of
only including multicellular creatures with differentiated and dedicated
neural tissue, or even more often, think of it as being exclusive to
homo sapiens alone, but there's no biological reason to believe either
is true.
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mvpel
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response 70 of 104:
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Apr 17 00:27 UTC 2002 |
Wow, Sindi is comparing human life to chickens. Amazing.
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klg
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response 71 of 104:
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Apr 17 00:29 UTC 2002 |
re: "The bare minimum for survival is still something like 24 weeks, and what
survives is always damaged (seriously) by the lack of proper environment for
that missing time." and "This has been set to a time bsed on when an average
fetus can survive birth."
So the morality of abortion is not based on an intrinsic aspect of the fetus
but upon the current state of neonatal support technology?
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jazz
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response 72 of 104:
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Apr 17 00:32 UTC 2002 |
There's a fundamental problem here. Before you can determine when a
fetus becomes "human", you have to define "human". Good luck. Most of the
hallmarks we've used in the past, from learning to language, have been
discovered in higher primates or other animals.
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keesan
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response 73 of 104:
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Apr 17 00:35 UTC 2002 |
I am comparing the intelligence of a fetus with that of chickens. If a 10
year old with an IQ of 80 were as clever as the average 8 year old, would a
6-month fetus have an IQ of 5? An adult chimpanzee is about as intelligent
as a human 4 year old - IQ40 or less? I doubt that a human fetus is anywhere
near that. Brainwaves do not make something human. If you are not going to
kill anything with as much neural activity and consciousness as a human fetus,
that would include a lot of the other animal speciess which humans routinely
murder.
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jazz
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response 74 of 104:
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Apr 17 00:40 UTC 2002 |
The way Binet intended it, IQ's supposed to be a percentage
representation of functional age over actual age.
A normal fetus would therefore have an IQ of 90-110, the same range
as is found in normal adults.
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