When does life begin? (Split from "rap(ist) victims" thread)

[Charles Kozierok]

Punished? To carry and protect a child that you WILLINGLY conceived is not punishment.

A fetus that its mother wants aborted was not conceived willingly -- pretty much by definition.

To me either a fetus is not a human in which case do what you want or it is in which case you don't do what you want. Rape as the genesis is irrelevant to me.

It's relevant to me because, as I said earlier, I see abortion as a conflict of rights, and I err more on the side of the mother's right not to have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy, when that pregnancy is imposed on her by force.

 

[Mursilis]

A fetus that its mother wants aborted was not conceived willingly -- pretty much by definition.

I'm not sure that's true in all cases. It's hardly rare that a woman might change her mind during a pregnancy.

 

[Jaskalas]

So you are saying that it is okay to kill a child inside of you so long as it was unwillingly conceived? Why would killing that child be okay?

There is some interest in protecting women from rape, and the consequences of said rape. I have no such interest in accepting murder without due cause. I consider rape due cause, as I do the mother's physical safety.

A fetus that its mother wants aborted was not conceived willingly -- pretty much by definition.

You could be speaking of accidental pregnancy... but even that notion is folly in my view. Sex is no accident, and everyone should damn well know where babies come from. Therefore, IMO, conception is a choice. It is done willingly. Rape, not so much.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

You could be speaking of accidental pregnancy... but even that notion is folly in my view. Sex is no accident, and everyone should damn well know where babies come from. Therefore, IMO, conception is a choice. It is done willingly. Rape, not so much.

I will agree that the woman most likely bears more of the responsibility in the case of an accidental pregnancy than in the case of rape.

But words have meanings, and "willingly" means that the person intended it to happen. If the goal was not to get pregnant, it happening doesn't imply willingness.

I drive several thousand miles a year. Doing so, I know there is a chance I may be killed in an automobile accident. That doesn't mean that if it happens that it is something I wanted.

 

[Mursilis]

I will agree that the woman most likely bears more of the responsibility in the case of an accidental pregnancy than in the case of rape.

But words have meanings, and "willingly" means that the person intended it to happen. If the goal was not to get pregnant, it happening doesn't imply willingness.

I drive several thousand miles a year. Doing so, I know there is a chance I may be killed in an automobile accident. That doesn't mean that if it happens that it is something I wanted.

Maybe a better phrase is "reasonable consequence of"? If you're driving sober and safely, your killing of another will likely be viewed differently under the law than if you'd been drunk at twice the legal limit, regardless of the fact that in neither instance you ever willed to injure anyone.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Maybe a better phrase is "reasonable consequence of"? If you're driving sober and safely, your killing of another will likely be viewed differently under the law than if you'd been drunk at twice the legal limit, regardless of the fact that in neither instance you ever willed to injure anyone.

That's certainly more reasonable.. but at the same time, sometimes accidents really do happen. Most forms of non-permanent birth control have a risk of failure, even when used correctly.

The attitude that treats this as a "willing" pregnancy, or even one where the woman should be forced to bear the consequences (literally), strikes me as punitive.

 

[Mursilis]

That's certainly more reasonable.. but at the same time, sometimes accidents really do happen. Most forms of non-permanent birth control have a risk of failure, even when used correctly.

The attitude that treats this as a "willing" pregnancy, or even one where the woman should be forced to bear the consequences (literally), strikes me as punitive.

So's killing the kid. Very, very punitive. Hopefully, we can all agree he/she's culpability is zero.

 

[DaveSimmons]

So's killing the kid. Very, very punitive. Hopefully, we can all agree he/she's culpability is zero.

But what is a "kid" -- is every egg sacred because it's a potential baby too? A clump of cells with no heart or brain?

According to a quick Google search the brain, heart and spinal cord don't begin to form until the third week after conception.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112

I don't see a non-religious basis for calling a brainless, spineless, heartless cell-clump a person.

 

[Retro Rob]

The attitude that treats this as a "willing" pregnancy, or even one where the woman should be forced to bear the consequences (literally), strikes me as punitive.

Hope I am not misreading you, but how can a woman be "forced" to bear the consquences of an action of which she was reasonably aware of said consequence?

EDIT: If you're talking about rape victims, disregard. My bad if you were.

 

[Codewiz]

Here is my view. If a fetus is a living human being, then we should allow women to freely remove the human from their uterus and let it live on its own. If it can survive at 10 weeks, so be it (yeah I know it is impossible).

Until a fetus can live outside of a woman, I believe a woman should have ever right to eliminate the cells that are living parasitically off her.

This is coming from someone who is in the process of an adoption. I believe adoption should be a much more viable option but people feel that they need biological children so we don't have nearly enough adoptive parents. Maybe if we had more people willing to adopt, I would be more open to restricting what a woman can or can't do with her own damn body.

 

[werepossum]

Why do you find that so hard to believe? I do, and I'm not even pro-life.

The fact that life begins at conception for a fetus doesn't mean it has the same legal or even ethical status as a baby.

Exactly. Life begins at conception; at that point it's a unique human creature. However, it still has to survive to implant and begin to divide before it even has a chance at survival, no matter how healthy and reverent of life its mother may be. It's a gradual progression from fertilized egg to breathing human being, and both morality and laws should reflect that.

I think the proper question would be at what point does the baby's rights rank equal to the mother's. That's still a very difficult question because medicine is a very inexact science; a doctor who tells a woman "If you don't abort you are going to die" cannot possibly know that, but is speaking of probability.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Hope I am not misreading you, but how can a woman be "forced" to bear the consquences of an action of which she was reasonably aware of said consequence?

Well, she's going to have to deal with consequences either way -- abortion doesn't come without its own costs.

I'm mostly objecting to the characterization of an unwanted pregnancy as "willing" simply because it didn't result from forcible rape.

There are contraceptive methods that are 99% effective. It's hard to argue that a woman using such is being irresponsible, but even that high number still means 10,000 pregnancies per year out of a million women. I can't really believe that those pregnancies were "willing" given the steps taken to prevent them, and I don't think the woman's right to control over her body should be dismissed because the pregnancy occurred as a result of an accident.

 

[werepossum]

"Clearly"? I don't think so.

Your definitions make little sense to me. What does being able to survive on its own have to do with whether it is alive or not?

Are you saying that the day it can survive outside the womb the fetus suddenly is "alive" but the day before it was not?

The ability to survive outside the womb is also a function of medical technology. A hundred years ago, a fetus born at 26 weeks was most likely doomed; now, the fetus has a 90%+ chance of survival. Your definitions would imply that a 26-week-old fetus is "alive" in 2013 but "not alive" in 1913.

You do a good job of showing the holes in his logic, but he does have one good point. I'm a born human, walking and talking and gainfully employed. If I need a liver to survive and you are the only donor matched to me, I do not gain entitlement to half of your liver. A baby not yet viable outside the womb is in the same situation, dependent on only one individual for life. This is quantitatively different from a baby born or even viable outside the womb, which can theoretically be cared for by any competent adult. Therefore the unborn baby's rights are directly in conflict with its unwilling mother's rights and must be compared accordingly. In this way, his argument is not unlike your argument that this is essentially a conflict between a woman's right to decide what to do with her body, and the fetus's right to develop and live. Up until a baby is born or at least viable and can survive induced labor or Cesarean, it's not only an argument of the baby's right to life but also a conflict with the mother's right to not be forced to nurture another person with her body.

 

[Fern]

Slut shaming is alive and well in the US.
-snip-

Odd, I've been thinking the opposite.

Slut celebritism seems to be in full swing. E.g., Paris Hilton et al.

Fern

 

[Fern]

Slut shaming is alive and well in the US. I find it holds true across a wide range of topics. For instance, abortion. The idea of exemptions for rape and incest simply baffles me. If you think abortion is murder, why would the conditions of conception matter? People usually respond that it 'wasn't their fault', which implies that women who had consensual sex are in fact to be punished for their sluttiness.

I find this holds over for rape as well. If a girl gets too drunk or acts too slutty somehow, she deserves in some way the punishment of rape.

The "it 'wasn't their fault'" that I usually hear refers to the unborn baby, not the mother.

I personally don't see how the concept of 'fault' has anything to do with the issue of abortion.

Incest? That's an emotionally repulsive topic for many so you're going to get emotional responses, not rational ones. Additionally, our society is conditioned to think that children of incest are going to grow up to be horribly deformed blood thirsty cannibals waiting in the bushes for your car to break down or you to become lost. Then they jump out and murder/eat you. They'll probably live in a run-down dumpy cabin in the woods of West Virgina or somewhere similar. So, yeah, not surprised there aren't hordes opposed to abortions in the case of incest, no matter how they feel about the issue otherwise.

Fern

 

[Retro Rob]

Well, she's going to have to deal with consequences either way -- abortion doesn't come without its own costs.

True.

I'm mostly objecting to the characterization of an unwanted pregnancy as "willing" simply because it didn't result from forcible rape.

I think what some mean by "willingly" is that she willingly accepts the consequences when she has intercourse. It's like signing a contract, so to speak... you're accepting the terms of it even with the outcome being unpredictable.

So when I hear somone say "I don't want anything growing inside my body", then to me that's being very unreasonable, especially if one keeps having sex. I would personally rather people accept the possible "side-effects" that comes with sex than to ignore them and plan ahead to abort the unborn.

That's almost like saying "I don't want lung cancer" but you continue to smoke.

There are contraceptive methods that are 99% effective. It's hard to argue that a woman using such is being irresponsible, but even that high number still means 10,000 pregnancies per year out of a million women. I can't really believe that those pregnancies were "willing" given the steps taken to prevent them, and I don't think the woman's right to control over her body should be dismissed because the pregnancy occurred as a result of an accident.

You have a point and I think that it's not our place to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. A husband does have that right though. He absolutely can have a say in what she does/doesn't do with her unborn.

In fact, I think those involved in the situation (boyfreind, etc) can decide if she keeps the child because that is, afterall, his as well. I don't want my lady just aborting my unborn children at her will.

 

[fskimospy]

Oh and almost on cue:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...ne-life-starting-conception-article-1.1296467

Now I know this will be struck down almost immediately by the courts, but still. These jokers want to use the power of law to declare exactly what I said earlier, that a tray of embryos is legally a tray of 100 tiny tiny people. They are in effect arguing that one should save the tray and leave the baby to burn, at least legally.

Maybe they haven't thought through what their law actually means, or maybe they are just psychopaths.

 

[Paratus]

Oh and almost on cue:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/pol...ne-life-starting-conception-article-1.1296467

Now I know this will be struck down almost immediately by the courts, but still. These jokers want to use the power of law to declare exactly what I said earlier, that a tray of embryos is legally a tray of 100 tiny tiny people. They are in effect arguing that one should save the tray and leave the baby to burn, at least legally.

Maybe they haven't thought through what their law actually means, or maybe they are just psychopaths.

Oh the unintended consequences of this are huge.

This legally turns basically all parents in N. Dakota into killers of children.

http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/su96/Feature/Feature-The_Facts_of_Life.html

During the period of embryonic development that begins with fertilization and ends with successful implantation of the blastocyst--known as "preimplantation development"--up to 50 percent of human conceptions fail to survive, says Lynn Wiley, professor of obstetrics and gynecology. One reason for this high failure rate is the inability of an embryo to implant. "Only certain cells within the embryo can implant and form a placenta. Without these cells, or if these cells are not healthy, implantation will fail," she says.

So in states without this law if the embryo fails to implant you just didn't get pregnant that month. In N. Dakota you have a dead child!

I've said it before if you believe an embryo is a child then it is immoral to put it through a process where it has a fifty percent chance of death just because "you" want a child. It is therefore immoral and tantamount to reckless endangerment to try and have kids.

I can't go to an orphanage to adopt a child and play Russian roulette with a half loaded revolver with them. Why should I be allowed to do this with my own children?

 

[Jaskalas]

But what is a "kid" -- is every egg sacred because it's a potential baby too? A clump of cells with no heart or brain?

According to a quick Google search the brain, heart and spinal cord don't begin to form until the third week after conception.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/prenatal-care/PR00112

I don't see a non-religious basis for calling a brainless, spineless, heartless cell-clump a person.

Now that's where this gets interesting and leads us back to the topic title. If you're going to ask when life begins... who knows. I submit the following as a reasonable suggestion.

Week 8 & 9 – Gestational Age (Fetal Age 6-7 weeks)

By this point in the pregnancy, everything that is present in an adult human is present in the developing embryo. The embryo has reached the end of the embryonic stage and now enters the fetal stage. A strong fetal heartbeat should be detectable by ultrasound, with a heartbeat of 140-170 bpm by the 9th week.

 

[randomrogue]

"Clearly"? I don't think so.

Your definitions make little sense to me. What does being able to survive on its own have to do with whether it is alive or not?

Are you saying that the day it can survive outside the womb the fetus suddenly is "alive" but the day before it was not?

The ability to survive outside the womb is also a function of medical technology. A hundred years ago, a fetus born at 26 weeks was most likely doomed; now, the fetus has a 90%+ chance of survival. Your definitions would imply that a 26-week-old fetus is "alive" in 2013 but "not alive" in 1913.

I'll admit that my logic isn't fool proof. For example Terry Shiavo was "alive" since she had a heart beat but she had no brain function, was a vegetable, and could not survive on her own. Was she dead? Of course not. However that is not life as we know it and I supported her being pulled off life support long before they finally did.

If you go by life starting at conception you get into the whole 100 embryos potentially having more value than a baby. I find that absurd.

Heartbeat? That's a month in. Should we call that life? Like I illustrated above with a living person I think not.

Stimuli? They showed that Terry Shiavo could respond to some stimuli. A fetus might respond to external stimuli at about the 5 week mark but they can't really tell. They just go by the development of the brain. It might respond to pain by 30 weeks but once again they're just going by brain development. Mothers give birth to children that never respond to anything so I'm not sure if any of this is really relevant but I'm trying to find something solid that can be used to judge "life". Since I can't I think the baby being able to survive on it's own is a really good marker. I'm not suggesting that we kill people who fall into a coma but if there is no potential for recovery and you can't survive on your own then you are not living "life". All you're doing by keeping them "alive" is satisfying your own emotional needs.

Medical advances will of course factor into all of this. I wasn't suggesting that a fetus was alive. It's not alive until the mother gives birth. I don't even plan on giving my children names until after birth. My grandmother told me a terrible story about how her first child was still born and how she wished she hadn't given it a name.

 

[Mursilis]

You do a good job of showing the holes in his logic, but he does have one good point. I'm a born human, walking and talking and gainfully employed. If I need a liver to survive and you are the only donor matched to me, I do not gain entitlement to half of your liver. A baby not yet viable outside the womb is in the same situation, dependent on only one individual for life. This is quantitatively different from a baby born or even viable outside the womb, which can theoretically be cared for by any competent adult. Therefore the unborn baby's rights are directly in conflict with its unwilling mother's rights and must be compared accordingly. In this way, his argument is not unlike your argument that this is essentially a conflict between a woman's right to decide what to do with her body, and the fetus's right to develop and live. Up until a baby is born or at least viable and can survive induced labor or Cesarean, it's not only an argument of the baby's right to life but also a conflict with the mother's right to not be forced to nurture another person with her body.

I question the analogy. Because I played no role (in 99.9% of cases) in a random person suffering liver failure, it's obvious that this random person has no ethical claim on any part of my liver. I have no ethical obligation to that person.
If I get pregnant and a fetus becomes biologically dependent on me, my action (outside of rape) played a role in that fetus's existence and biological dependence. I'd say the ethical duties are different. Additionally, when you donate an organ, it's not like you're getting it back after nine months or whatever, so the contribution requested by the random person with liver failure is different from that requested by a fetus. There are some exceptions, but most women can survive childbearing without permanent injury. You can't say the same about donating a vital organ.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

You do a good job of showing the holes in his logic, but he does have one good point. I'm a born human, walking and talking and gainfully employed. If I need a liver to survive and you are the only donor matched to me, I do not gain entitlement to half of your liver. A baby not yet viable outside the womb is in the same situation, dependent on only one individual for life. This is quantitatively different from a baby born or even viable outside the womb, which can theoretically be cared for by any competent adult. Therefore the unborn baby's rights are directly in conflict with its unwilling mother's rights and must be compared accordingly. In this way, his argument is not unlike your argument that this is essentially a conflict between a woman's right to decide what to do with her body, and the fetus's right to develop and live. Up until a baby is born or at least viable and can survive induced labor or Cesarean, it's not only an argument of the baby's right to life but also a conflict with the mother's right to not be forced to nurture another person with her body.

I actually agree with this. It's much of the basis for my personal views on the issue.

I just don't agree with portraying the fetus as not being alive. I have never seen a convincing argument for that. Defining life as anything other than beginning at conception paints one into either of two uncomfortable corners: having to either also think a term fetus is not "alive" until it is born, or believing that the fetus somehow magically "becomes alive" at a specific point in a long, gradual development process.

I question the analogy. Because I played no role (in 99.9% of cases) in a random person suffering liver failure, it's obvious that this random person has no ethical claim on any part of my liver. I have no ethical obligation to that person.

This is actually a pretty good counter-argument, one of the better ones I've seen to an analogy I've used myself.

The thing is though -- we don't force people to undergo medical procedures even when they do have such an ethical obligation. If my wife and I are both carriers of some rare medical disorder we didn't know about and as a result our child develops that disorder, the law does not require us to undergo any sort of procedure to help the child. (Most parents would do so without hesitation, but it's not mandatory.)

 

[werepossum]

I question the analogy. Because I played no role (in 99.9% of cases) in a random person suffering liver failure, it's obvious that this random person has no ethical claim on any part of my liver. I have no ethical obligation to that person.
If I get pregnant and a fetus becomes biologically dependent on me, my action (outside of rape) played a role in that fetus's existence and biological dependence. I'd say the ethical duties are different. Additionally, when you donate an organ, it's not like you're getting it back after nine months or whatever, so the contribution requested by the random person with liver failure is different from that requested by a fetus. There are some exceptions, but most women can survive childbearing without permanent injury. You can't say the same about donating a vital organ.

It's certainly not a perfect analogy. Charles answered it better than can I, but the basic question is the same: To what degree does the innocent unborn baby's rights supersede the mother's rights? Perhaps it's our entitlement society, but most of us do not believe the mother should lose all rights for inadvertently becoming pregnant.

 

[lotus503]

I think Life begins when a fetus has matured to the point of being viable outside the womb with only the mothers care and feeding.