UK Abortion Law

[standards]

AJL308 said:

Yes, I suppose it would. Given though that it seems to be generally medically accepted that there can be no consciousness without a brain then I think it unlikely that the date of 12 weeks is ever going to get much earlier.

There was a case IIRC in NI where a foetus was about to be born with effectively no brain and the law there allowed terminations only of mother's life was in danger..

With you that brain needed for consciousness. Am thinking the physical brain might not be developed enough to sustain consciousness (whatever that is!) and so later terminations couldn't fall foul of that important consciousness criteria.

[HM-2]

standards said:

HM-2 said:

Not to go all Peter Singer, but doesn't that mean someone in a PVS (IE no higher brain activity) is no longer "life", or at least life deserving of rights?

I believe that what some in that 'camp' do think.
Personhood needs (typically) consciousness, capacity to communicate and the ability to carry out a plan. Other criteria have been suggested but can't remember what they are!
Only persons have rights is the argument-not human beings incapable of the above.

I was somewhat playing devil's advocate here, but my underlying point is and always has been that moral or ethical arguments are always both arbitrary and catastrophically flawed. Casting back to the comments I made on "when life begins", it's sort of a case of "I'll know it when I see it", even if it isn't easily definable. This isn't a judgement statement of any kind, simply an observation; what entitles one combination of pseudo-random chance, molecular biology and chemical reactions to "personhood" but denies another?

[AJL308]

standards said:

HM-2 said:

Not to go all Peter Singer, but doesn't that mean someone in a PVS (IE no higher brain activity) is no longer "life", or at least life deserving of rights?

I believe that what some in that 'camp' do think.
Personhood needs (typically) consciousness, capacity to communicate and the ability to carry out a plan. Other criteria have been suggested but can't remember what they are!
Only persons have rights is the argument-not human beings incapable of the above.

I haven't heard of this chap or his beliefs. Surely the point about PVS, though, is that in some cases it isn't "permanent". Is it permanent in most cases only because current science hasn't got a treatment for it? Anyway, it's not relevant to the abortion debate as a foetus at the point before it has a brain has never been conscious. It has never been a person at all in any sense.

[AJL308]

standards said:

AJL308 said:

Yes, I suppose it would. Given though that it seems to be generally medically accepted that there can be no consciousness without a brain then I think it unlikely that the date of 12 weeks is ever going to get much earlier.

There was a case IIRC in NI where a foetus was about to be born with effectively no brain and the law there allowed terminations only of mother's life was in danger..

With you that brain needed for consciousness. Am thinking the physical brain might not be developed enough to sustain consciousness (whatever that is!) and so later terminations couldn't fall foul of that important consciousness criteria.

I agree here. For removing all doubt though, the point at which a brain develops - or perhaps starts to develop, or has developed to a certain point - seems to be a sensible but-off point.

[AJL308]

HM-2 said:

I was somewhat playing devil's advocate here, but my underlying point is and always has been that moral or ethical arguments are always both arbitrary and catastrophically flawed. Casting back to the comments I made on "when life begins", it's sort of a case of "I'll know it when I see it", even if it isn't easily definable. This isn't a judgement statement of any kind, simply an observation; what entitles one combination of pseudo-random chance, molecular biology and chemical reactions to "personhood" but denies another?

Consciousness, or at least the possibility of it.

[HM-2]

AJL308 said:

HM-2 said:

I was somewhat playing devil's advocate here, but my underlying point is and always has been that moral or ethical arguments are always both arbitrary and catastrophically flawed. Casting back to the comments I made on "when life begins", it's sort of a case of "I'll know it when I see it", even if it isn't easily definable. This isn't a judgement statement of any kind, simply an observation; what entitles one combination of pseudo-random chance, molecular biology and chemical reactions to "personhood" but denies another?

Consciousness, or at least the possibility of it.

Are we including grey parrots, elephants, most great apes, elephants, dolphins, killer whales and magpies in this definition? All of them are conscious and demonstrate self-awareness.

[Esceptico]

Derek Smith said:

Morals are personal. There are no absolutes. If it offends your morals but you are prepared to go against them, then it is likely that you will struggle to justify it to yourself.

It seems that abortions are legal in certain circumstances. The staff are obliged to follow the rules, i.e. act ethically. Beyond that, it is down to individuals. Convincing others of one's own morals is a fraught pasttime.

Morals are not personal if they affect third parties. When the abolitionists were trying to get slavery made illegal, do you think they should have stopped because slave owners told them that according to their morals there was nothing wrong with owning humans?

I think this is a key point that those in favour of abortions can’t or won’t empathise with: if you see a person existing from conception then abortion is state sanctioned murder. Many will feel compelled to fight against that.

[HM-2]

Esceptico said:

Morals are not personal if they affect third parties. When the abolitionists were trying to get slavery made illegal, do you think they should have stopped because slave owners told them that according to their morals there was nothing wrong with owning humans?

This would hold more water as a rebuttal if it weren't for the fact that slaves and their masters weren't biologically identical. A human is a human irrespective of their ethnicity; an embryo and a fully formed human are not.

The decision to grant rights to particular ethnicities and not others is not analogous to the decision whether or not to grant rights to a cluster of cells which may possibly become a person in the future.

[Esceptico]

AJL308 said:

It makes no difference as to what they might become. If there is no brain and it has never been conscious it is not a person. It has no awareness of anything nor has it ever. To equate it with murder - which lots of Americans and other religious loons often do - is ridiculous.

The fact that an embryo or foetus isn’t conscious only means it won’t notice that it has been killed.

The whole point of abortion is to kill the foetus before it becomes conscious. There isn’t that much “if” about it. It will become conscious if left to develop (of course that isn’t guaranteed as still births or death during birth of other ways of dying apply to any living creature).

It is interesting from a psychological perspective how many posters, including you, dismiss foetuses as just a bunch of cells. Presumably you wouldn’t condone the killing of a new born baby, toddler or adult. Ironically people tend to get most upset by the death of children. If a 95 year old dies, most people will think “they had a long life” and won’t be as sad as if a 5 year old dies “because they had their whole life ahead of them”. Yet killing someone in the womb seems okay even thought it deprives them of the most life.

Possibly people are okay with killing embryos and foetuses because they don’t have any connections yet. When a person dies they normally leave in hole: they are not just a person they are a husband, sister, friend, uncle, son, etc. People that are left behind are emotionally and perhaps financially impacted. Apart from the parents there is no one to mourn the unborn and if those parents don’t want the child then an abortion just removes a problem.

[Esceptico]

HM-2 said:

This would hold more water as a rebuttal if it weren't for the fact that slaves and their masters weren't biologically identical. A human is a human irrespective of their ethnicity; an embryo and a fully formed human are not.

The decision to grant rights to particular ethnicities and not others is not analogous to the decision whether or not to grant rights to a cluster of cells which may possibly become a person in the future.

You are arbitrarily deciding what counts as human, not me, based on stages of development that are conveniently chosen to provide a justification for abortion. It seems to me wholly irrelevant whether the foetus has consciousness, feels pain, could survive outside the womb independently. Those are just excuses. The point of abortion is to kill the foetus before it reaches those development stages.

[Derek Smith]

Esceptico said:

Derek Smith said:

Morals are personal. There are no absolutes. If it offends your morals but you are prepared to go against them, then it is likely that you will struggle to justify it to yourself.

It seems that abortions are legal in certain circumstances. The staff are obliged to follow the rules, i.e. act ethically. Beyond that, it is down to individuals. Convincing others of one's own morals is a fraught pasttime.

Morals are not personal if they affect third parties. When the abolitionists were trying to get slavery made illegal, do you think they should have stopped because slave owners told them that according to their morals there was nothing wrong with owning humans?

I think this is a key point that those in favour of abortions can’t or won’t empathise with: if you see a person existing from conception then abortion is state sanctioned murder. Many will feel compelled to fight against that.

I'm not sure what slavery has to do with the argument.

There's illegal, which means it is against the law.

Ethics, in the vernacular, is, mainly, conduct that goes with a role or post. For instance, journalism has a code of behaviour which most adhere to; things such as two independent sources. Behaviour that goes outside this code is not necessarily illegal. Many journalist believe that certain illegal behaviour, if in the pursuit of truth to report, is fully justified.

Morals are those aspects of behaviour, in the main, that a person believes are right. If a person follows their own moral code of behaviour, it might contravene laws and ethics.

If, for instance, a police officer knows full well that a person has committed a heinous crime, such as child abduction because the suspect has said that if he is picked out in an identity parade, he’ll plead, he might fell morally bound to go outside the code of practice for running a parade and ‘help’ a witness to identify the offender. The officer might feel that morally, it is essential to stop the person being released as he will offend again. In other words, it is all about personal behaviour.

In the rather weird case you quote, some of the slave traders might well justify their actions in the same way that politicians justified theirs when they failed to assist the starving, believing, as many did, that poor people brought it on themselves, and it was best to encourage them to work harder. Indeed, it appears that such a belief is still extant in many.

If you believe that abortion is wrong, that is a moral standpoint as they are not illegal if completed according to process. If you believe that abortion is wrong, but have one yourself, or assist with one, then that is immoral behaviour, but still can still be legal. Most people won't blame you, but you might well blame yourself later.

It’s simple enough. Morals are personal. Moral behaviour cannot be imposed. It has to be performed under the person’s own volition.

I have moral beliefs that cannot be justified logically. I have no need to. They are mine; personal ones.

[HM-2]

Esceptico said:

You are arbitrarily deciding what counts as human

A foetus does not fit the vast majority of definitions for "human". The onus is on you to provide a working definition that it does fit in order for this assertion to be valid.

[Esceptico]

HM-2 said:

A foetus does not fit the vast majority of definitions for "human". The onus is on you to provide a working definition that it does fit in order for this assertion to be valid.

It should be clear from my previous comments that in my view a human exists from the point where the sperm and egg fuse and the cell starts to divide.

[BobsPigeon]

HM-2 said:

Esceptico said:

You are arbitrarily deciding what counts as human

A foetus does not fit the vast majority of definitions for "human". The onus is on you to provide a working definition that it does fit in order for this assertion to be valid.

I don't think that's entirely fair. There's a continuum from the moment of inception to the point a which we all should agree full human traits, at about 23 yrs old... I joke, but certainly pre toddlers have no ability to create lasting memory, no self awareness and certainly no self control... It is all about potential surely, and allowance to achieve potential.

I'm not claiming to be able to pin the take on this donkey, and to be fair to Esceptico neither is he, he's just taken a logical position and said its aswell to be at day 1 than day 150 or day 300.

Infantacide was practiced widely in the UK and wasn't treated as murder until modern history... Our moral view changes over time, long periods of time but they're not stagnant absolutes. We don't know who will be on the right side of this argument, but you can't just assume the status quo will last.

[HM-2]

Esceptico said:

HM-2 said:

A foetus does not fit the vast majority of definitions for "human". The onus is on you to provide a working definition that it does fit in order for this assertion to be valid.

It should be clear from my previous comments that in my view a human exists from the point where the sperm and egg fuse and the cell starts to divide.

You must concede, then, that your definition is equally as arbitrary as any other? You do at least affirm it is your view that this is the case rather than asserting or inferring this determination is unequivocal.

[standards]

HM-2 said:

Are we including grey parrots, elephants, most great apes, elephants, dolphins, killer whales and magpies in this definition? All of them are conscious and demonstrate self-awareness.

Ethicists like Peter Singer argue that great apes, although not capable of making complex decisions as humans (voting for example), should be treated as non human persons. If you limit personhood to human species the term coined was speciesism-analogous to limiting rights to a certain ethnic group or gender. And we know what we all think about that. Well most.

Of interest here IMHO as the moral status of a human foetus links to these kind of issues.

Non human inorganic persons a la Bladerunner anyone?

[Esceptico]

HM-2 said:

You must concede, then, that your definition is equally as arbitrary as any other? You do at least affirm it is your view that this is the case rather than asserting or inferring this determination is unequivocal.

How can the beginning be as equally arbitrary as other points that depend upon human made definitions? Your and others refusal to see that is because for various reasons you want to exclude embryos and foetuses from the definition of human. The normal approach in science is to use the simplest explanation or make the fewest assumptions. Introducing concepts such as ability to feel pain or consciousness muddy the water.

If you want to take another point other than the beginning I think it is beholden on you to provide pretty comprehensive and persuasive evidence for doing so. Or are you saying all definitions are equally valid as all are arbitrary?

As you seem to know about these things, of the 7 plus billion people on the planet, roughly what percentage aren’t the result of the fusion of egg and sperm?

Edited by Esceptico on Tuesday 22 June 23:16

[Esceptico]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

Because maybe it isn't true. It's debateable both ways. If life is created at conception, is a sperm dead? If it's alive, what type of life is it, if not human?

If a couple undergoing IVF have half a dozen fertilised eggs frozen, use the first one and it works, by telling the clinic has she no longer needs the others, has she had 5 abortions? Has she had any? Has she had no abortions but aborted 5 babies?

Your line in the sand, that you fail to understand how anyone else can dispute, sure throws up some tricky questions?

It isn’t a question or life it is when a human life starts.

Logically if humans start from the fusion of egg and sperm then creating fertilised eggs for IVF is creating extra humans.

As per another post I made, no one mourns for fertilised eggs as they have no connections to other people. They are not sons, brothers, friends etc so no one misses them. They also don’t look like more mature humans so people don’t get so queasy about killing them. That allows us as a society to use fertilised eggs in that way (and for medical research).

Ethically that seems suspect to me. If one truly believed that the ends don’t justify the means then it wouldn’t be acceptable. It hardly seems fair that to satisfy a wish for children, a number of other humans have to die for it. Certainly if you told someone that they could only have IVF if they could bring in a few relatives to be killed there wouldn’t be many takers.

One philosophical thought question in this area relates to donors. There is a shortage of organ donors. A lot of people die on the waiting list. Wouldn’t it make sense then to kill one healthy person to save the life of maybe four or five other people?

[Murph7355]

Esceptico said:

...
One philosophical thought question in this area relates to donors. There is a shortage of organ donors. A lot of people die on the waiting list. Wouldn’t it make sense then to kill one healthy person to save the life of maybe four or five other people?

Depends who the 5 or 6 people involved are

[Esceptico]

Murph7355 said:

Esceptico said:

...
One philosophical thought question in this area relates to donors. There is a shortage of organ donors. A lot of people die on the waiting list. Wouldn’t it make sense then to kill one healthy person to save the life of maybe four or five other people?

Depends who the 5 or 6 people involved are

Or the person going to be sacrificed!