The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

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Charmeleon

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Or: We need to provide basic healthcare to people with organ failure, that includes organ harvesting from comatose patients. So we set a bar, if you are comatose for 12 weeks we start with a kidney.

January

What the actual f*** has what you're saying got to do with abortion?

Charmeleon

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What about a baby about to become sentient and conscious within a few weeks?

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Charmeleon

January wrote: »

What the actual f*** has what you're saying got to do with abortion?

It’s about the moral relativism involved in the utilitarian argument for abortion. So you don’t want to think about it, more thoughtful people do.

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Charmeleon

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So the prospect of gaining sentience is the guiding principle. Interesting.

January

Charmeleon wrote: »

What about a baby about to become sentient and conscious within a few weeks?

The fact remains that people who have abortions after week 20, when the baby is about to become sentient, are having them for tragic reasons, either the baby has a severe abnormality or the pregnant person's health has been compromised.

If there's a chance that the baby can be born (i.e. they are viable) alive then every chance will be taken to make sure that happens. Termination of pregnancy. Not termination of fetus.

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January

Charmeleon wrote: »

It’s about the moral relativism involved in the utilitarian argument for abortion. So you don’t want to think about it, more thoughtful people do.

It's a completely separate debate to be had, it holds no relevance to the abortion debate whatsoever.

Charmeleon

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How do you know a person in a coma won’t have heart failure? Might as well kill them now. No guarantees in this life.

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Charmeleon

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I was replying to the poster who said sentience is the only thing that holds value. Dead bodies don’t have sentience but we are appalled at mass graves, desecration and defilement of a body etc. So clearly we value human life and human bodies far beyond the artificial excuses for making a fetus worth nothing.

pilly

Charmeleon wrote: »

So the prospect of gaining sentience is the guiding principle. Interesting.

No, I think you're confused Charmelon, a person in a coma already has sentience.

pilly

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Chapter 1, page 1 of the Iona playbook.

I should have known to check the join date before I even bothered replying. There'll be plenty more of these shills by May.

Charmeleon

pilly wrote: »

No, I think you're confused Charmelon, a person in a coma already has sentience.

Had. A person in a coma is not sentient, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a coma. There may be brain activity but they do not sense and do not respond, hold no fear of harm or suffering. Similarly a fetus may have plenty of brain activity before it becomes sentient.

nozzferrahhtoo

Charmeleon wrote: »

So you are ok with keeping comatose people alive and harvesting their organs, then disposing of them?

It is a completely off topic question (not that I have a problem with that myself) and my answer to it is LONG. Very long. And people already complain about the length of my posts. So I will give a relatively short answer, but with a lot of trepidation that answering is not the right thing to do. But I do not like to ignore or dodge questions as many other users do.

The answer is yes AND no.

The yes comes from the fact I think I would very much like to live in a society populated by a species that are ok with organ donation being an opt OUT rather than opt IN structure. There is no intellectually rational reason to treat the empty shell of an otherwise dead person with any real moral and ethical concern. It is essentially a pile of organs and nothing more.

The no comes from realizing we do NOT live in that society. The empty shell of our loved ones has meaning to us. And the moral and ethical concern we show for dead bodies is not actually solely moral and ethical concern for the dead (though even when dead we do tend to respect the rights retrospectively which is different from a fetus who has never yet attained them, but Consonata already pointed that out above). No, it is for the living. And until that dynamic is changed, and I feel it should be changed, I could not put my name to the system you describe.... even though in principle I have nothing at all against it...... nor can I see any reason why I should.

Charmeleon wrote: »

The thing you don’t seem to get is that the very proposition that human life has to pass your test of worthiness is morally highly suspect from the get-go. What gives you or anyone else the right to set the bar?

The simple answer there is I am not setting the bar, I am discussing the bar. And that is what morality and ethics means to me. It is not a thing, it is a conversation. Morality and Ethics are basically the result that comes from our discourse as a species. And my arguments, inputs, ideas and positions are just MY input into that discourse. I am not setting the bar, I am discussing it with my fellow humans so that WE ALL set that bar together. That is what discourse and democracy mean to me. And I hold human discourse over pretty much everything else in our world.

And when you say "the lines can’t be re-drawn when social circumstances and norms change" I think that is how it SHOULD be even though the way you write it suggests you think it a bad thing and somehow consistency is better. I can not see why you would want that or think that.

Morality and Ethics, outside the realms of religion that is, should not be something set in stone for all time. It should evolve with us and along side us. As we as a species evolve, get new knowledge, new technologies, and new insights our morality and ethics should evolve in response.

If for example my "side" goes on to "win" this election, I would not want the "no" side to go away and shut up. I would want them to keep talking, keep finding arguments and evidence and reasoning, and keep trying to change the new social norms BACK to what they want.

Because whether I win or lose in any election I do not think the conversation stops. It should ALWAYS go on. And win or lose any election on abortion, I will always continue to gladly have the debate. And hope the rest of society does too.

Charmeleon wrote: »

It is worthy of moral rights by its own existence.

But is it? Is life worth moral rights just by virtue of existence? The millions of bacteria or viruses you killed last time you took medication would beg to differ. The trees dead last time you wrote on paper would suggest otherwise. The animals and plants dead in the last meal you might have eaten containing meat or vegetables too. Not to mention any fly you ever swatted and killed in irritation, or the insects killed en masse by pesticides for your last salad.

It is quite clear that right, specifically the right to life, was not afforded those billions of life forms merely by virtue of their being life forms or existence. So clearly something else is in play if and when we DO consider a life form worthy of such concerns. So it is not me "setting the bar" as you put it, so much as me merely making explicit what it is everyone is pretty much doing all the time anyway.

Charmeleon wrote: »

Had. A person in a coma is not sentient, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a coma. There may be brain activity but they do not sense and do not respond, hold no fear of harm or suffering. Similarly a fetus may have plenty of brain activity before it becomes sentient.

I think you are conflating two things that absolutely should not be conflated. They are the state of BEING conscious, and the stage of HAVING The faculty of consciousness.

They are two entirely different things and it is from the LATTER that I think we mediate moral and ethical concern. A coma patient, rather than a brain dead person, is an example of an entity with the faculty of human consciousness. It might not be active in this given moment, but they have it. And they should be treated as an entity that has it.

A fetus at 0-16 weeks however not only does NOT have it, they even lack many of the pre-requisites of having it. It is like looking for radio waves not only when there is no radio waves, but in fact the broadcasting tower has not even been built yet.

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Edward M

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You clearly havent had any experience with people in comas.

They do sense and they do respond. Vigorously at times.

And they often remember conversations that happened around them while they were comatose.

Being unconsciousness is not the same thing as not having sentience.

You would hardly say you had no sentience because you were asleep would you?

A fetus has no brain activity before 16 weeks or so.

https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/fetal-development/fetal-brain-nervous-system/

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Charmeleon

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Memory and instinctual responses to a stimulus are not the same as sentience, the functions of the ancient areas of the brain can continue when the pre-frontal cortex is shut down. There is no executive functioning or emotional drives, the basics of human sentience as distinct from simple organisms.

nozzferrahhtoo

Edward M wrote: »

https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/fetal-development/fetal-brain-nervous-system/

Since you merely pasted and link and left it hanging, it is not clear what your point is. However the user you are replying to has made the claim there is no activity in the brain at 16 weeks.

The only mention of the word "activity" in your link is " At 28 weeks, fetal brainwave activity features sleep cycles" which is well beyond 16 weeks.

Now in isolation what the user said IS an over simplification. This is true. But given the context in which he said it, I do not see anything in your hit-and-run linking here that is relevant. Could you elaborate? Assuming elaborate is the right word to use when you have not actually said anything here that is.

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Charmeleon

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You suggested that comatose patients have sentience: ‘being unconscious is not the same as thing as not having sentience’.

I’m laying out the implications of defining the value of life as a measure of sentience. I know it makes people squirm and uncomfortable when it means looking harder at arbitrary moral judgements but it can’t be simply ignored.

Seems to be the standard reply when uncomfortable with discussions around drawing a line in the sand on human worth.

nozzferrahhtoo

Yet it makes me neither squirm nor uncomfortable nor compelled to ignore anything, and the implications you suggest are either A) Not that relevant or not actually that bad anyway.

You will find me MORE than willing and capable of having the "uncomfortable" conversations on this subject if they are discussions you actually want to have.

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Zubeneschamali

Charmeleon wrote: »

What gives you or anyone else the right to set the bar?

It is a practical necessity that some bar is set in law.

Consonata

Charmeleon wrote: »

Had. A person in a coma is not sentient, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a coma. There may be brain activity but they do not sense and do not respond, hold no fear of harm or suffering. Similarly a fetus may have plenty of brain activity before it becomes sentient.