Comments on: Sanctity of Human Life Day

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 23:29:13 +0000

Jayme,

No one here has advocated killing a baby or a foetus against the will of the mother.

By: Jayme

Jayme — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:54:55 +0000

You people make me sick! I’m about 9-1/2 weeks pregnant and i believe my BABY to be completely HUMAN. It doesnt matter what it looks like or if and how it responds to pain, just like when its born it will be completely DEFENSLESS and still need my protection and care!

By: sisyphus

sisyphus — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 02:44:07 +0000

#38 CI: Hey – politically correct, schmolitically correct! To the truth-seeker, no thought is off-limits; all concepts are worthy of consideration. As long as we refuse to think the unthinkable, unthinkables will continue to blindside our evolution.

True, a newborn isn’t a ‘person’ in the sense that you use the word. Perhaps ‘human being’ might be a better term; ‘individual’ might be worse. But, as a term that indicates a basic social status that includes a bundle of fundamental rights, ‘personhood’ seems to work pretty well, though I have no definite idea at what stage ‘personhood’ should be granted.

#37 GD: Some shocking things can be posted, even on a nice blog like CV – but that’s good. A statement that apalls us may apall us all the more because we know that it’s rational. We just have to dig deeper for an effective reply.

By: Count Iblis

Count Iblis — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:12:34 +0000

Sysiphus, actually we must also question whether babies are persons. It’s certainly not politically correct to do so, though. I think that somewhere between one and two years after birth does the child become sufficiently developed to be considered a person. Our earliest memories are usually from that period. With some effort we can imagine being a two year old, but not being a baby.

By: Godfrey Daniel

Godfrey Daniel — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 20:59:41 +0000

As I read through these comments I thought to myself, is there anything sadder or more foolish than the pure, sterile, and soulless intellect.

This, was a standout:

“Human life is one of the least valuable obserables on planet Earth – and one of the most miserable. Our goals should be to have less of it of higher quality”

Yeah. A real tragedy eugenics never caught on.

By: sisyphus

sisyphus — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 06:43:44 +0000

#’s 30, 32, 35 Indrax: Looks like there’s ‘what’ personhood question and a ‘when’ personhood question. If science had a definition of personhood to work with, it could determine when personhood begins. But where will this definition come from?

You indicate in your close to #35 your awareness of the significance of addressing the question of personhood; we’re in agreement 100% here. Addressing the question of personhood maintains the concept of personhood – in however nebulous a state. But once personhood is defined the concept can be appropriated by those who may not have humanity’s better interests at heart.

But as you indicate, in the absence of a notion of personhood morality is meaningless.

IMO the question of personhood should ever be posed, but never quite answered.

By: indrax

indrax — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 00:29:41 +0000

But there doesn’t have to be a lack of definiteness to the question, the only problem is that science has not seriously tried to find such an answer. Whether or not it’s a ‘winning strategy’ is irrelevant. Learning about the origins of life isn’t about proving the creationists wrong, and learning about personhood is a matter of gaining scientific knowledge.

If we abandon the question of personhood, we are philosophically open to pure uninhibited amorality.

By: sisyphus

sisyphus — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 03:39:13 +0000

#’s 31,33 Quibbler &: Premature babies reach viability at 6-7 months. Is one fetus at 6 months a person because it’s expelled prematurely from its mother’s womb while another fetus, destined to be carried to full term, at 6 months is still 3 months from personhood?

Perhaps there’s no definite cut-off point, but the grey zone can be pushed back at least to 6 months.

By: Quibbler

Quibbler — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 23:07:49 +0000

yep, but the fact that there is a lack of definiteness means that it’s a losing strategy as far as formulating a pro-abortion argument goes. Anti-abortionists will simply disagree with pro-abotionists about where to draw the personhood line, and neither side is going to convince the other.

By: indrax

indrax — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 21:52:03 +0000

Baldness is fuzzy (oh irony!) but ‘being able to breathe’ is greatly less fuzzy. I think that ‘being a person’ is more like ‘being able to breahte’ than ‘being bald’ in terms of it’s fuzzyness. The range of states where someone can ‘almost breathe’ is small compared to ‘breathing’ and ‘not breathing’, likewise the period of ‘almost a person’ is brief, if it exists at all.

The only thing we can say is that someone is definitely a person once he/she is born.

But that saying is meaningless.
Regardless of the potential fuzzyness, it is useless to talk about personhood without having some meaningful way to descripe the scale. The concept of ‘baldness’ is only useful because we know it is a function of the number of hairs a person has. Until that is defined we are open to claims of God-given- spectral-headfuzz on some who apear bald and lack of that headfuzz on say, animals that appear hairy.

If it’s fuzzy we need a reason why certain organisms score .001 person and others .999. What produces that score? Otherwise saying that a newborn is a person is just as meaningless as saying that a zygote has a soul.