Roe v Wade is on deck

[Elixir]

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

In virtually all cases yes.

And yet those exact same organisms, you would not consider to be persons, if they were enclosed by wombs instead of by ICU incubators, because then they would qualify for the "fetus" label, correct? What is it about the geometrical positioning of a womb that forestalls a different organism's personhood? And you accuse Emily of irrationality. What is your rationale for thinking personhood depends on an organism's environment rather than on its brain? Because from out here you look like you've fallen prey to a map-vs-territory fallacy.

There have been cases of families hauling dead (as in legally declared dead due to lack of brain function) people around to doctors trying to find one who could help them. Thus life processes in a human form are not sufficient to make a person.

When the parasitic relationship has been broken, the baby is living by means other than by getting food and oxygen directly from the mother's metabolism... at that point I'd give it every benefit of the doubt, and provisionally call it a person.
I do NOT pick this time because I have some definition of personhood, or that I think something profoundly changes at the moment a cord is cut and a breath is taken (though it might), but because it is an identifiable moment in time that must come to pass, for a "person" to gain the attendant rights of a person.

 

[Jarhyn]

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?

It's capable of suffering quite early on - fetuses experience and react to pain at around 15-ish weeks. They respond to music, to talking, etc.

For the rest... I don't know exactly. I'm not sure there's a bright line. What I do know is that a normal pregnancy is about 40 weeks, and that at 25 weeks a premie has an 80% survival rate in NICU... and a 30 week premie has a 90% survival rate without needing NICU. So pretty much, a baby born prematurely in the last trimester is very likely to survive. I have a whole lot of hesitation when it comes to terminating the life of an infant that would otherwise survive... that's where it crosses from being an abortion of a fetus to being killing a baby for me.

There are still many situations in which a termination is the most reasonable course of action, and I definitely don't want the mother to be endangered by a pregnancy. I just can't get behind having no limitations at all when it comes to a viable fetus that would survive if it were delivered prematurely at that stage.

Once again, repeating the deceptions of the pro-life crowd.

Reflexes happen at a lower level than consciousness. You can have reflexes without a functioning higher brain.

As for that 25 week preemie--the odds they end up damaged is high. And what's your support for 30 weeks not needing the NICU?

I would yet again argue this point, that reflexes happen "beneath" consciousness. Rather, in a part of oneself that is purely reactive, and not individual.

I could take or leave such parts of 'me' like I take or leave a pair of socks, were it so simple.

Rather, the part that doesn't function is the part that accepts and values the existence of other people, rather than just using them as rhetorical pawns.

The problem I see with the "pro-life" people is their use of the fetuses as a rhetorical pawns that they discard outside of their argument.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The justification for killing a fish or a cow is that they're food which we have evolved to eat.

So are other humans.

For Papua New Guineans perhaps, but for the vast majority not so much.

Are you seeking to imply that the people of Papua New Guinea evolved separately to the rest of humanity?

Or are you just averse to explicitly admitting that your statement has been shown to be mistaken?

Clearly there must be other justifications for eating meat than our evolutionary history, which is demonstrably irrelevant.

That eating certain kinds of meat is frowned upon (whether that is human meat, or horse meat, or any other species meat) is completely unrelated to our evolved capacity to digest and even thrive upon a diet of that kind of meat.

Humans can eat the meat of any mammal (including humans), most fish, many reptiles, and most avians. This tells us exactly zip about whether eating any of these is justified.

I have no doubt that I could, if justified, survive by eating human, or rat, or snake; I equally have no doubt that I would need some pretty extreme justification for doing so, well beyond my mere evolved capacity to do so.

Since we are nitpicking evolution: we are clearly not evolved to eat human. Specifically, we are vulnerable to prion disease. It seems to be a threat to a wide variety of mammals, exceedingly rare so long as the food chain is followed but if a loop exists it acts as an amplifier. No natural loops exist to any substantial degree. The cannibalism of Papua was such a loop and lead to "Kuru". We created such a loop with cows (in using dead cattle to add protein to cattle feed) and the result was mad cow disease. Eating said cows can lead to vCJD in humans--transmission is low as we typically do not eat the high risk parts.

 

[bilby]

Since we are nitpicking evolution: we are clearly not evolved to eat human.

We are not evolved to eat anything. Evolution doesn't do "to", and we are omnivores, so that's true for either meaning of "evolved to".

Disease is a risk in all circumstances, and never a certainty.

You could as well argue that we are not "evolved to" be social animals, citing epidemic viruses as "proof" of that absurd claim.

In evolutionary terms, prion disease is taking advantage of the niche that is cannibalism; The existence of that niche is a natural and inevitable consequence of being either a carnivore or an omnivore.

And it turns out that we can make cows into omnivores (and cannibals). Ain't nature wonderful?

 

[Politesse]

Since we are nitpicking evolution: we are clearly not evolved to eat human. Specifically, we are vulnerable to prion disease.

By that logic, we are most certainly not "evolved to eat" any sort of livestock, as nearly all of our serious epidemic diseases have a zoonotic origin.

 

[Emily Lake]

In my personal view, and the view of the majority of people in the US, and the majority of people on the planet, it is inappropriate to perform a late-term abortion when there's no medical need to do so.

Do you have any proof that physicians disagree with that?

When a clinic lists itself as available to perform abortions up to 35 weeks 6 days, in a state with no restrictions on abortion of any sort... do you have any reason to think that doctors at that abortion clinic - not an ER or hospital - would refuse to do the thing they advertise they will do?

 

[Emily Lake]

We are not evolved to eat anything. Evolution doesn't do "to", and we are omnivores, so that's true for either meaning of "evolved to".

You're pretty blatantly playing games with common language usage, and nitpicking it into the ground. I just don't see why you would bother to do so.

Literally nobody in this thread right now things evolution is in any way guided or has intent. None of us. So you're pedantically preaching to the choir for not using the specific words that you want, even though the meaning is perfectly clear.

We evolved to walk on two legs, rather than four. We evolved to breath air. We evolved to reproduce sexually. That's common language that doesn't imply intelligent guidance at all - and there's no good reason for you to be arguing this miniscule point on a technicality, especially not with people who already know and accept that evolution is a process.

 

[Emily Lake]

Since we are nitpicking evolution: we are clearly not evolved to eat human. Specifically, we are vulnerable to prion disease.

By that logic, we are most certainly not "evolved to eat" any sort of livestock, as nearly all of our serious epidemic diseases have a zoonotic origin.

On the other hand... IIRC the proportion of plants that are toxic for us to eat is massively higher than the proportion of animals that are toxic for us to eat. And I'm not talking about just mammals, but rather the entirety of the kingdom animalia - there are relatively few animals, birds, fish, moluscs, insects, etc. that are unsafe for us to eat. Not necessarily tasty, mind you, but largely edible.

Not pufferfish, nor some jellyfishes, and I think some butterflies though I'm not sure. Probably wouldn't recommend poison dart frogs either .

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The justification for killing a fish or a cow is that they're food which we have evolved to eat.

So are other humans.

For Papua New Guineans perhaps, but for the vast majority not so much.

Are you seeking to imply that the people of Papua New Guinea evolved separately to the rest of humanity?

Or are you just averse to explicitly admitting that your statement has been shown to be mistaken?

Clearly there must be other justifications for eating meat than our evolutionary history, which is demonstrably irrelevant.

That eating certain kinds of meat is frowned upon (whether that is human meat, or horse meat, or any other species meat) is completely unrelated to our evolved capacity to digest and even thrive upon a diet of that kind of meat.

Humans can eat the meat of any mammal (including humans), most fish, many reptiles, and most avians. This tells us exactly zip about whether eating any of these is justified.

I have no doubt that I could, if justified, survive by eating human, or rat, or snake; I equally have no doubt that I would need some pretty extreme justification for doing so, well beyond my mere evolved capacity to do so.

Since we are nitpicking evolution: we are clearly not evolved to eat human.

Yeah... but sometimes you just need to splurge.

 

[ZiprHead]

In my personal view, and the view of the majority of people in the US, and the majority of people on the planet, it is inappropriate to perform a late-term abortion when there's no medical need to do so.

Do you have any proof that physicians disagree with that?

When a clinic lists itself as available to perform abortions up to 35 weeks 6 days, in a state with no restrictions on abortion of any sort... do you have any reason to think that doctors at that abortion clinic - not an ER or hospital - would refuse to do the thing they advertise they will do?

Yes, because doctor have to adhere to ethical standards or risk license removal.

Burger King says "Have it your way." Does that mean I can get a Whopper with shrimp on it?

 

[Elixir]

In my personal view, and the view of the majority of people in the US, and the majority of people on the planet, it is inappropriate to perform a late-term abortion when there's no medical need to do so.

Do you have any proof that physicians disagree with that?

When a clinic lists itself as available to perform abortions up to 35 weeks 6 days, in a state with no restrictions on abortion of any sort... do you have any reason to think that doctors at that abortion clinic - not an ER or hospital - would refuse to do the thing they advertise they will do?

Yes, because doctor have to adhere to ethical standards or risk license removal.

Burger King says "Have it your way." Does that mean I can get a Whopper with shrimp on it?

Sure, in fact you can have one with filet-o-fetus if you want.


Seriously the “listing” (listed where?) probably means “we don’t do very late term emergency care” or something like that.

 

[ZiprHead]

In my personal view, and the view of the majority of people in the US, and the majority of people on the planet, it is inappropriate to perform a late-term abortion when there's no medical need to do so.

Do you have any proof that physicians disagree with that?

When a clinic lists itself as available to perform abortions up to 35 weeks 6 days, in a state with no restrictions on abortion of any sort... do you have any reason to think that doctors at that abortion clinic - not an ER or hospital - would refuse to do the thing they advertise they will do?

Yes, because doctor have to adhere to ethical standards or risk license removal.

Burger King says "Have it your way." Does that mean I can get a Whopper with shrimp on it?

Sure, in fact you can have one with filet-o-fetus if you want.

Mmmm, tasty.

Seriously the “listing” (listed where?) probably means “we don’t do very late term emergency care” or something like that.

Her link was to a directory, not an advertisement.

If she had actually gone to the actual website advertisement where she could have seen this:



"delivery of a stillborn". It says nothing about actually killing the fetus.

 

[Elixir]

In my personal view, and the view of the majority of people in the US, and the majority of people on the planet, it is inappropriate to perform a late-term abortion when there's no medical need to do so.

Do you have any proof that physicians disagree with that?

When a clinic lists itself as available to perform abortions up to 35 weeks 6 days, in a state with no restrictions on abortion of any sort... do you have any reason to think that doctors at that abortion clinic - not an ER or hospital - would refuse to do the thing they advertise they will do?

Yes, because doctor have to adhere to ethical standards or risk license removal.

Burger King says "Have it your way." Does that mean I can get a Whopper with shrimp on it?

Sure, in fact you can have one with filet-o-fetus if you want.

Mmmm, tasty.

Seriously the “listing” (listed where?) probably means “we don’t do very late term emergency care” or something like that.

Her link was to a directory, not an advertisement.

So the meaning wasn’t “we don’t do very late term emergency care” but rather an attempt to use the “listing” (whatever that is) to attract late term abortion clients without “advertising”?
If so, it’s still advertising, And it still contains the caveat … not after 35 wks.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Borges had a nice story about a bunch of columns gradually turning from blue to orange, but the transitions were so subtle they were nearly impossible to distinguish. I’ll have to look that up, I read it many years ago.

The reality is that the human eye can distinguish about 8 bits of color depth under good conditions. It is not a coincidence that we use display devices that can produce 8 bits of color depth. (Although the mapping isn't perfect as our eyes scale differently--0 vs 1 is a lot easier for us to determine than 254 vs 255.) We can build better, there just isn't a demand for such products. (You do see input devices with higher sensitivities--top of the line cameras are in the ballpark of 24 bit depths. This isn't actually about recording things the eye can't distinguish, but providing more latitude to deal with varying light levels.)

While you will have a hard time finding a printer that can print a graduation nobody can distinguish it is certainly possible.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My position has been very consistent from start to finish.

Here, how about you elaborate on what exactly you think I've changed my tune on, and provide supporting evidence for your claims?

No. The problem is you seem to have two positions.

You are very consistent about anything in the first two trimesters, medical reasons in the third. The problem is with "medical reasons", you seem to want the politicians involved in making that decision despite the fact that the track record is the many of the politicians insist there is no medical reason and are quite willing to sacrifice the woman in upholding that belief. You seem to want justice from a kangaroo court.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A woman who, at 38 weeks decodes she dies not want to continue to carry the pregnancy—please believe me when I say that is most pregnant women at 38 weeks gestation— does not go to her doctor or hospital or clinic and say; I’ve changed my mind. Do an abortion. Because guess what? That choice would not be given to her. She’d be treated to some serious intervention by mental health professionals and kept under close observation until the baby was delivered.

You're conflating *shouldn't* based on what you and I believe with *doesn't*. And in a handful of states, it is defined in law as completely legal at any point with no restrictions at all.

A doctor would have no standing to refuse, and no standing to require mental health intervention.

Why do you think a doctor couldn't refuse? You can't compel a doctor to treat a patient other than if they are an employee in a facility that handles emergencies, and that requirement extends only as far as dealing with the emergency. (By working in such a place a doctor has implicitly agreed to deal with whatever emergencies come through the door. You knowingly put someone in peril, you are obligated to do your best to resolve that. The pilot can refuse the flight, the pilot can't jump in the middle of the flight. And you implicitly put people in peril by hanging out the "ER" sign, you must follow through on the label.) You are not describing an emergency, the doctor is free to say "I will not do this."

 

[Elixir]

My position has been very consistent from start to finish.

Here, how about you elaborate on what exactly you think I've changed my tune on, and provide supporting evidence for your claims?

No. The problem is you seem to have two positions.

You are very consistent about anything in the first two trimesters, medical reasons in the third. The problem is with "medical reasons", you seem to want the politicians involved in making that decision despite the fact that the track record is the many of the politicians insist there is no medical reason and are quite willing to sacrifice the woman in upholding that belief. You seem to want justice from a kangaroo court.

In fairness, Emily's "position' has evolved to replace politicians with a duo of doctors. At least in some cases.

 

[Elixir]

A doctor would have no standing to refuse, and no standing to require mental health intervention.

Why do you think a doctor couldn't refuse? You can't compel a doctor to treat a patient other than if they are an employee in a facility that handles emergencies, and that requirement extends only as far as dealing with the emergency. (By working in such a place a doctor has implicitly agreed to deal with whatever emergencies come through the door. You knowingly put someone in peril, you are obligated to do your best to resolve that. The pilot can refuse the flight, the pilot can't jump in the middle of the flight. And you implicitly put people in peril by hanging out the "ER" sign, you must follow through on the label.) You are not describing an emergency, the doctor is free to say "I will not do this."

If the doc refused, and that WAS a violation of the pergnant person's civil rights as Ems has suggested before, WHY ARE THERE NO CASES OF SUCH LITIGATION? I have looked, to no avail. I'm no search ninja so maybe I missed it, but right now I don't believe it is even rare; I think it flat NEVER HAPPENS.

I sorely wish there was such a case, and that it would land in front of the Trumpsucking bastards of SCROTUS. That would put them in a real pickle. Are they going to uphold the woman's "civil right" to demand that a doctor perform an operation in possible violation of their hippocratic oath, or affirm the Doc's right to refuse to perform an abortion?

Which way do you think they might rule, @Emily Lake ?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

there is range of speeds that would be considered reasonable.

All subject to change with advances in safety technology.

Curves inherently have maximum safe speeds based on the layout. An ordinary vehicle that goes through the turn sufficiently above the maximum safe velocity will find it's center of gravity outside it's wheelbase and it will go flying. Race cars cheat at this a bit, they put an inverted wing on top that generates a downward force that for purposes of turning lowers your center of gravity. There still are limits, though.

You would never want to build a road with a minimum safe velocity because what happens with a breakdown? They do exist, though--consider the motorcycle in a cage act. There is a minimum safe speed to ride under the top of the cage, too slow and you'll fall.

 

[Elixir]

There still are limits, though.

The limits can even be extended, but they're still limits.

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