Roe v Wade is on deck

[Bomb#20]

No, you evidently don't disagree with that opinion when it's a 38-week fetus.

Yes, yes I do.
The word viable in this context means to me “is not yet, but has a good chance to become”.

Well, that's not what "viable" means, but you have every right to speak Humpty-Dumpty if you feel like it.

If you want to take a cold rational view, a 38 week fetus can’t replace the mother who bled out, but the mother who bled out could have, in principle, replaced the fetus.

That's not a cold rational view; that's just vanilla tribalism. A 38 week fetus is every bit as capable of replacing the mother as a mother is of replacing the fetus.. All the 38 week fetus needs to do is be born (or should we say, be from his mother's womb untimely ripped), grow up, graduate from medical school, and save some other mother's life. If you don't see that as "replacing" the mother but you do see getting pregnant again as "replacing" the fetus, all that means is you see fetuses as interchangeable parts and don't see mothers as interchangeable parts, because to you mothers are ingroup and fetuses are outgroup.

That’s not why I would favor keeping the government out of the exam room; it’s more about people suffering and dying for care delayed or denied.

Glad to hear it.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone here claim memories of “being” a fetus?

Nope. What's your point? Do you remember being a one-year-old? Assuming you don't, do you think your amnesia is pertinent to whether it should be legal to kill one-year-olds?

 

[Elixir]

very little of this debate centres on the question of whether those being killed are, or are not, people.

IKR?
That’s why I have asked the question - which I answered upon request.
It is obviously a matter of opinion, so it is impossible IMO to argue the abortion law thing in good faith without admitting to an opinion. If I get a response objecting to the “bad faith” characterization of a discussant who refuses to render such opinion, it will IMO be further indication of bad faith.
Still waiting.

 

[Elixir]

that's not what "viable" means

Do tell - what does viable mean in this context?
BTW, do you believe a fetus is a person?

 

[Bomb#20]

The question of personhood is a red herring.

When Elixir raised the question, maybe so. When I argued against him, not so much.

So the answer to the question "Is a fetus a person?" or even "is an infant a person?" is another question: "Why do you think that personhood is relevant?"

It's relevant because Elixir wrote "I think Emily is unpracticed at maintaining logical consistency or the application of reason to thorny problems, but is rather habituated to issuing conditioned responses when challenged for that. I recognize it in her because I recognize it in myself. Unfortunately she seems to lack such recognition, and so draws a curtain on questions that challenge those limits, without even attempting to answer or even think about them. Prime example: her irrational advocacies for laws that hurt people and benefit nobody, but comport with religious edicts.". If it's rational to regard a late-term fetus as a person then the law she's advocating benefits somebody, so Elixir hasn't produced an example to back up his accusation that Emily is irrational -- all he's got is an example of the two of them putting different levels of subjective importance on different considerations.

 

[Bomb#20]

very little of this debate centres on the question of whether those being killed are, or are not, people.

IKR?
That’s why I have asked the question - which I answered upon request.
It is obviously a matter of opinion, so it is impossible IMO to argue the abortion law thing in good faith without admitting to an opinion. If I get a response objecting to the “bad faith” characterization of a discussant who refuses to render such opinion, it will IMO be further indication of bad faith.
Still waiting.

And you were doing so well.

Also not interested in answering the other questions I answered?

Dude! What makes you think you're entitled to machine-gun me with posts and get instant replies to them all? I'm still plowing through a backlog of your posts from last week. Some of us work for a living.

Sorry, it was part of a post you did reply to. My bad.

I take it your apology is withdrawn. So...

Dude! What makes you think you're entitled to machine-gun me with posts and get instant replies to them all? I'm still plowing through a backlog of your posts from last week. Some of us work for a living.

If it helps you grow a patience (yes, I know, it won't), bear in mind that I asked you your opinion of whether a fetus was a person because it bore on the apparent internal inconsistency of your responses to other posts. But as far as I can see, my opinion isn't relevant. If you think I contradicted myself, show your work. If you think my opinion is so much more important than facts that you can't wait for me to catch up with your machine-gun, feel free to explain why my opinions are so important to you and maybe I'll be motivated to answer your posts out-of-order.

 

[Elixir]

I take it your apology is withdrawn. So...

Not at all. It was for the first time. Now it's the fourth time, and IMO it's a foundational question regarding what the legal ramifications of any abortion should be. Some believe in "ensouled" blastocysts that "should" be entitled to full "personhood", which IMO is ridiculous on the face of it. Some have very rigid feelings about "empersoning" fetuses at certain numbers of weeks. I abstain from any claim to knowing how to ascertain that a specific individual attains "personhood", and I don't think anyone else knows either. Certainly not legislators.

Do you believe a fetus is a person? If not or not always, please reveal when you believe personhood is attained, and what rights that should confer.*

If you think my opinion is so much more important than facts

I think it puts the facts you present, in a light that helps clarify your message. Opinions matter; things that are expressed as fact, are chosen from an infinite number of possible expressions of facts because of their conformance to our opinions and most often, confirmations thereof.

I detect a familiar whiff of reticence. Hmm. If you think it's "too personal", I gotta ask myself why.

* only question in post.

 

[Toni]

HOW MANY WOMEN SHOULD DIE BEFORE THEY EXCEED THE VALUE OF ONE FETUS?

No fetuses exceed the value of the mother’s life.

Your turn: how many viable near-term fetuses should die before they exceed the value of a healthy mother’s convenience?

You think women have abortions because it is..,,convenient?

I’m just going to put this out here that I know more than one woman who had an abortion because the father of the fetus found it convenient FOR HIM. To the extent that when each of these women later conceived another pregnancy and refused to have an abortion, the man divorced her and then refused to pay court ordered child support. Note: These pregnancies occurred within a marriage and there was never any suggestion from anyone that the husband was not the father.

Of course, a vasectomy was inconvenient for the man, as was using a condom. Or paying child support. Or taking the child for regular visitation or in any way parenting the
child.

I know a number of women who have told me about having an abortion, not including the women who had miscarriages ( aka natural abortions), sometimes on multiple occasions or still births or who lost a child in infancy or toddlerhood or as a teenager. women who raised children with birth defects alone because the father could not face raising a child who was not ‘perfect.’ I fall into one of those categories.

For that matter, there was a time when I was terribly afraid I might be pregnant, to the extent that the day after the only semi/consensual sex that led to that fear, I was arranging transportation to another state where I could have an abortion legally. My only other choice, in my mind, was suicide. Fortunately I was not pregnant and never had to borrow money to board that bus or buy wire cutters that would let me get through the fencing on the roof of my building. Not only was I fortunate not to have been pregnant t but I was also fortunate to have a friend who had some extra cash she offered to me if I needed it. Do you know how rare that is? So yes, if I had had an abortion, it would have been ‘convenient’ compared with having an unplanned pregnancy by someone I did not want near me ever again, adding to the significant unrelated trauma my family was dealing with at the time, or losing my academic scholarship without which I could not attend college. Is that what you mean by convenience??? The only thing that was ‘convenient t’was that my period arrived early by 2 weeks. I am still so grateful.

What I have learned is that people make all kinds of decisions I think I would never make —but I’m not in their shoes. Those decisions were not mine to make. Or to judge, barring criminal acts. And that is what we have a legal system for.

 

[Elixir]

If it's rational to regard a late-term fetus as a person then the law she's advocating benefits somebody

Yes, B20 read upthread. I have already pointed out that granting such alleged rationality, and even granting that a 26+ week fetus's is of equal value to the mother, a "rational analysis" would still require that those late term optional abortions are more common than mothers dying while waiting for 'approvals".
In order to make a judgment regarding the morality of the laws and net benefits to society, and make a truly rational decision we would have to assign some values to some things. That is if we want to say that laws benefit more than they harm.
I cited statistitics that would support that such abortions are far more rare than deaths due to care delayed or denied. Rationally that would tell me that getting rid of the restrictions altogether and making it a civil matter at worst, to be settled after lives are saved or lost, would be more just and more humane.

You can take potshots all day long but I think it's worthless if you can't define the ground you stand on.

 

[WAB]

If I may risk asking an ignorant question, what is the point of asking about personhood when that question has not been answered scientifically to any degree of certainty? Perhaps it comes down to a question of valuation, which is of course subjective. Some people value cats and dogs as persons, some don't. At some point in this thread a quote was cited that said, essentially, "A happy cat is worth more than an unhappy child" - A quote I found reprehensible quite honestly.

Do we know when a fetus becomes sentient, becomes conscious, when it starts to think, to dream, and, most importantly, when is it capable of suffering?

 

[bilby]

The question of personhood is a red herring.

When Elixir raised the question, maybe so. When I argued against him, not so much.

 

[Bomb#20]

The problem right now is that the federal government never actually passed a law pertaining to abortion.
...
While we're at it... Congress (okay, the 2029 congress, probably not the current one) needs to pass an actual law protecting marriage as well, because gay marriage in the US is based on a similar terminological interpretation, albeit a bit inverted if I recall. I'm not a lawyer, so I might not have the details right, but at no point did anyway say "It's legal for gay people to get married" - there's no actual legal protection in place. Rather, SCOTUS rules that it's not the place of the government to define what marriage means, and therefore that it's not the role of any government - state or federal - to deny marriage to anyone on the basis of their sexuality. Given Dobbs, I'm inclined to think that's as potentially fragile as abortion, and I'd really like congress to make laws regarding both topics.

Good news! Same-sex marriage was enacted into federal law in 2022.

Respect for Marriage Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Bomb#20]

The question of personhood is a red herring.

When Elixir raised the question, maybe so. When I argued against him, not so much.

Not sure why you think that's laughable, but keep in mind that the posts were posted to the Dem Post Mortem thread; they were moved here later, after the moderators got fed up. I was arguing against Elixir because it was relevant to the Dem Post Mortem. The well-displayed tendency of left-wing Dems like Elixir to trump up groundless accusations against moderate Dems like Emily over ideological purity issues was, IMHO, a contributor to so many Dems staying home on election day. American elections are won and lost on turnout.

 

[ZiprHead]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. Follow-up question: do you consider a preemie a person?

In virtually all cases yes. But I do not hold to the underlying assumption that person/not person is ever a clear line.

Do you consider a fetus a person?

The problem with what you said isn't that it's true but not worth saying; the problem with it is it isn't true!!!

Source citation please

No religion in the world holds that abortion should be unrestricted

Did I imply that some religion held that? No, you inferred it.
And so what. This isn’t about religion and my observation that political advocacy for restricting abortion has religious underpinnings is totally accurate, if irrelevant.

Quibbler. They're made case-by-case based on survival prospects, and 26-week preemies have an 80% survival rate.

That doesn’t mean every 26 wk preemie has an 80% chance. I don’t trust politicians to make timely calls on individual cases, and it’s individual people who die waiting.

Do you consider a fetus a person?
If not or not always, when would you confer personhood upon it?

This is always the root of these “quibbles” and about the third time I have asked.

I think the definition of the word person needs to be defined at this point

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

per·son
/ˈpərs(ə)n/
noun
noun: person; plural noun: people; plural noun: persons; noun: first person; noun: second person; noun: third person

1. 1.
   a human being regarded as an individual.
   "the porter was the last person to see her"
   used in legal or formal contexts to refer to an unspecified individual.
   "the entrance fee is $10.00 per person"
   an individual characterized by a preference or liking for a specified thing.
   "she's not a cat person"
   a character in a play or story.
   "his previous roles in the person of a fallible cop"
   an individual's body.
   "I have publicity photographs on my person at all times"

 

[Elixir]

I think the definition of the word person needs to be defined at this point

Yup. Note that I answer question after question and get no answers from these folk.
Definitions are all good and well, but doesn't tell us when Emily or B20 regards a fetus as a person.
It's a big secret; they can demand answers from others, but God forbid they be asked to spend two seconds directly answering a question. Honesty would have required that they make clear their unwillingness to answer the foundational question of the debate, instead of fumbling with it until finally pretending it's not worth their while to bother to respond.

The well-displayed tendency of left-wing Dems like Elixir to trump up groundless accusations against moderate Dems like Emily

... which I did NOT do...
Emily has advocated for a set of laws that has already proven not only to harm more than benefit, but also preserved legislators' say over women's reproductive rights. FACT.
Calling her a protected class of "moderate Dem" doesn't change that fact, and nor does lumping me in with your outgroup, (to borrow one of your favs).
The grounds were made clear, never refuted and the core question regarding the relevance of "personhood" sleazed out of, creationist-style.
Very disappointing.

 

[Jarhyn]

Okay, thanks for clarifying. Follow-up question: do you consider a preemie a person?

In virtually all cases yes. But I do not hold to the underlying assumption that person/not person is ever a clear line.

Do you consider a fetus a person?

The problem with what you said isn't that it's true but not worth saying; the problem with it is it isn't true!!!

Source citation please

No religion in the world holds that abortion should be unrestricted

Did I imply that some religion held that? No, you inferred it.
And so what. This isn’t about religion and my observation that political advocacy for restricting abortion has religious underpinnings is totally accurate, if irrelevant.

Quibbler. They're made case-by-case based on survival prospects, and 26-week preemies have an 80% survival rate.

That doesn’t mean every 26 wk preemie has an 80% chance. I don’t trust politicians to make timely calls on individual cases, and it’s individual people who die waiting.

Do you consider a fetus a person?
If not or not always, when would you confer personhood upon it?

This is always the root of these “quibbles” and about the third time I have asked.

I think the definition of the word person needs to be defined at this point

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

per·son
/ˈpərs(ə)n/
noun
noun: person; plural noun: people; plural noun: persons; noun: first person; noun: second person; noun: third person

1. 1.
   a human being regarded as an individual.
   "the porter was the last person to see her"
   used in legal or formal contexts to refer to an unspecified individual.
   "the entrance fee is $10.00 per person"
   an individual characterized by a preference or liking for a specified thing.
   "she's not a cat person"
   a character in a play or story.
   "his previous roles in the person of a fallible cop"
   an individual's body.
   "I have publicity photographs on my person at all times"

Personally, I reject this definition entirely, instead defining it as something both capable and willing to acknowledge and enforce the well-known moral rules of its peers 'consistently enough' not merely against its peers, but also against itself.

This requires acknowledging moral rules, society, peers, and many years of life outside a womb to even start to grasp.

The anthropocentrism of your definition is honestly a little offensive.

 

[bilby]

I think the definition of the word person needs to be defined at this point

I don't.

Being (or not being) a person says nothing about whether it's OK to kill something/someone.

 

[Elixir]

The anthropocentrism of your definition is honestly a little offensive.

Hmm. Person is an anthropocentric term, so isn’t it to be expected that it would have anthropocentric definitions?

Being (or not being) a person says nothing about whether it's OK to kill something/someone.

That’s actually a rational view IMO, but there is something sacred about people to a lot of people.

 

[Jarhyn]

The anthropocentrism of your definition is honestly a little offensive.

Hmm. Person is an anthropocentric term, so isn’t it to be expected that it would have anthropocentric definitions?

No, here person is being used as a moral/ethical term. It is used as a term surrounding some manner of intrinsically important quality.

By relying on anthropocentric definitions you'll just end up with a circular definition.

 

[bilby]

Being (or not being) a person says nothing about whether it's OK to kill something/someone.

That’s actually a rational view IMO, but there is something sacred about people to a lot of people.

Not really. Few people are upset by the deaths of enemy soldiers in wartime, and not many more are upset by the deaths of "enemy" civillians. Many people support the death penalty for various crimes.

Who is really unhappy about the deaths of Hitler, Bin Laden, or Stalin? All were monstrous; But all were undeniably people.

Most people seem to be very selective indeed about which (if any) other people are sacred.

 

[WAB]

The anthropocentrism of your definition is honestly a little offensive.

Hmm. Person is an anthropocentric term, so isn’t it to be expected that it would have anthropocentric definitions?

No, here person is being used as a moral/ethical term. It is used as a term surrounding some manner of intrinsically important quality.

By relying on anthropocentric definitions you'll just end up with a circular definition.

Everyone ignored or didn't see my previous post, or thought it useless. Let me try again:

When a fetus becomes a person seems to have no certain scientific answer, as far as I can see. That brings it to the point of valuation. When is a fetus VALUED as a person? I would ask the mother first. When does she value her fetus as a person? From there, it's up to her. If she values the baby as a person at conception, then I go along with her. If she doesn't value the fetus as a person at conception, or any point along the way, then I still go along with her.

There was a quote, of some Pete Singer or someone, who said that a happy cat (was it?) Is more valuable than an unhappy child, or some such. Such a view is morally reprehensible. Anyway...