aloyisious wrote: » Re personhood being related to the concept of the soul: I doubt if that would enter the thoughts of the average thinker about personhood, more likely that the thoughts (nowadays) would more probably be about personhood of the unborn/fetus being a legal construct for the physical entity.
recedite wrote: » I think penal is a different and unrelated word to penance. Penal and penalties are a secular concept of punishment.Penance and penitential acts are some kind of religious punishment/guilt trip. It is noteworthy that historically the religious assigned a lesser penance to killing the unborn, compared to the born, which implies a lesser right to life of the unborn.
recedite wrote: » Yes, that is another significant change. In the past people agonised over the ETA of the soul, and where it would reside after its arrival. Head or heart, or somewhere else. Nowadays all that stuff seems foolish to us. Yet we struggle to find a replacement "big moment" for the start of personhood. Some think conception is it, some think birth, but neither are really defining moments. IMO eventually we will just accept that the spark of life is present continuously down through the generations, and a new personhood is something that develops very gradually and incrementally with the developing embryo/foetus/infant.
Peregrinus wrote: » I take your point, but I think you're being a bit anachronistic here, reading attitudes to "rights" into historic stances on abortion. "Rights" are a modern concept, and pre-modern attitudes to crime/punishment, whether religious or secular, weren't based on any concept of "rights". In particular condemnation of abortion wasn't based on any understanding that the unborn entity had a "right" to life. Christian thinking about this was rooted in a holistic attitude which held that the value of something lay not just in what that thing was, but in what it could be, or could become; in its potential. (They got this from the Greeks.) Thus condemnation of abortion was based not on the view that the unborn entity was a little person; but on the view that it could and should become a person, and acting to prevent it becoming a person was wrong. (This was also the basis for condemning contraception; it acted to prevent a potentially fruitful, creative act from being actually fruitful and creative. And it was the basis for condemning infanticide, which was accepted and practised in the Roman world.)
aloyisious wrote: » Maybe I'm picking up this parenthesized part of your's above on crime and sentence wrongly (Though it apears to me that argument claims an infant also does not have the same quality of personhood that other born persons enjoy, if it's mother can be convicted of infanticide rather than murder for intentionally causing it's death) it does seem to conflict with this other parenthesized part of yours (So... someone might (intentionally) kill a person and be charged with an offence other than murder, because there are offences that better fit the act and circumstances) whereby you recognize act and circumstances apply.
aloyisious wrote: » The same considerations apparent in your 2nd above and elsewhere in your full post were probably also in the minds of those who wrote and set the act into law, and also any DPP who used it instead of murder when deciding on an appropriate charge; let the punishment fit the crime etc....
aloyisious wrote: » BTW, I missed the part where some-one argued that an INFANT had less personhood than another person, causing you to include the infanticide act and an offence triable under it.
aloyisious wrote: » Re your thoughts on equality of personhood, it seems it's a centuries old debate with differing opinions (as usual with humans). This wikipedia link might be enlightening as it includes the ecclesiastical courts. The whole is titled Beginning of human personhood and it's respective (Christian) Para is titled Fetal personhood in law.....
Absolam wrote: » That's ok, that wasn't what caused me to include it in my point; I included it because it illustrates the fact that one may intentionally kill a person without the crime being murder
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » I think I would agree and disagree with the above in different measures. I think personhood IS a useful measure to use when discussing the morality of abortion. But what you are discussing above is relative levels of personhood. And I wholly agree that that is a dark road to go down, and forces one to start questioning why, for example, the entire cast of the special olympics should have equal rights to anyone else and so on and so forth. However with abortion, the vast near totality of abortions by choice happen in or before week 12, and certainly by week 16. At THESE stages of fetal development we are not talking about levels of personhood, but the complete abscence of it, and any of the currently known pre-requisites of consciousness or sentience AT ALL.
aloyisious wrote: » Re the above, I've been aware, career-wise, of that fact for well nigh on 50 years now, through a state career. I'd have to research on whether personhood, in the context you've mentioned it in this thread, has any relevance or has ever been a factor on sentencing in court here in Ireland.
Absolam wrote: » Well, you did ask.... Anyways, I very much doubt personhood has ever had any relevance or has ever been a factor in Court sentencing here, at least with regard to the intentional killing of a human being, so it will be interesting to see what you come up with.
aloyisious wrote: » Good idea, we can do research on it, separately, and one of us post his for a start, say 2 weeks time and the O/P would see it and post his later the same day. What say you?
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Therefore the fetus at 12 weeks to me is the moral equivalent of a rock or a table leg. Somewhat later in the developmental process however it becomes the moral equivalent to me of any human being be they "whole", mentally incapacitated, in a coma, asleep, or any other form the faculty of sentience and consciousness takes. And so I am not limited by the "trap" of wondering if "currently or permanently limited" instances of human consciousness should be afforded the same rights as any other.
Absolam wrote: » I'd say I don't think personhood has ever had any relevance or has ever been a factor in Court sentencing here, at least with regard to the intentional killing of a human being. But if you produce information to the contrary, I'll happily review it.
aloyisious wrote: » That's what I expected,
Absolam wrote: » Well, of course, you hardly expected I'd research your speculation for you, even though you asked.
recedite wrote: » IMO the "sliding scale" method of affording human rights seems preferable. Or at least having various "bands". But the only way to avoid going down the dark road of classifying some sentient people as lesser persons is to set the bands quite low. Hence a very early stage foetus would fall into the lowest band, as would a virtually brain dead adult, or somebody permanently in a coma (assuming here it was medically possible to know the coma was permanent).
aloyisious wrote: » Even though I know I'm probably wasting my time replying to you in hope of a fact-based response, perhaps you might review my posts and then copy and paste here exactly word for word where I asked you to research any speculation at all for me. I doubt that you will find - given that it never existed at all at any time - that particular ask by me anywhere and expect that you will come up with some alteration of fact to cover your claim.
recedite wrote: » That can't be ethically right, even if you could identify the exact moment. Its the equivalent of ancient Greeks trying to identify the exact moment the soul enters the body.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » Why "cant" it be ethically right? You assereted it can not but I am not seeing WHY it can not. If an entity, whatever it be, lacks any and ALL elements of the faculty of consciousness and sentience....... then on what basis should be we affording it rights or moral/ethical concern?
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » I readily admit we do not have the current capability to identify "the exact moment" when this stuff comes online however. Thankfully we do not need to. For the purposes of the abortion debate we only need identify stages when we can say with as much certainty as humanly possible that it has NOT come on line.
aloyisious wrote: » Human sentience and consciousness is surely an indicator or point at which human rights could become applicable. It's how one makes a personal decision on when to say a human entity is due an initial application of the rights mentioned, or even for that argument when the rights can be withdrawn.
aloyisious wrote: » For example, turning off the life support machine keeping a born human entity's body alive while it's brain is dead is an acceptance in itself that that deed (due to the entity no longer having consciousness or sentience) would not be depriving it of human rights, or it would not be permissible in law.
aloyisious wrote: » Following on from that, if it is accepted as a fact that a born human entity without sentience or consciousness has no human rights, then the same must surely apply to any human entity in a similar (non-sentient lacking consciousness) state, even if the differences are that the human entity is unborn and in a woman's womb and not on a bed attached to a life support machine.
aloyisious wrote: » Human rights are generally applicable to the sentient conscious human entity. Just saying human rights must apply to a fetus as it is a human entity because one feels it is right is not an actuality. Human rights are (IMO) for sentient and conscious human entities alone. A point to note is that the rights increase in number in law as the entity's capabilities increase with age.
aloyisious wrote: » I disagree with that argument, believing that any such application must be made later in the formation stages of the human entity, when sentience and consciousness become a fact of life, as it were.
Absolam wrote: » Surely doesn't seem like an actual reason though; it sounds like an assumption, the kind of assumption used for depriving others of rights based on gender, race, or sexual orientation, which were all surely the right thing to do at the time. Why would one be sure sentience and consciousness have anything to do with when humans can be allowed to have human rights? Or even the notion that there ought to be points when humans can or can't have human rights.... I'm not sure allowing someone to die is quite the same as killing someone, or that it actually deprives them of their rights. Allowing someone to finish dying is what happens when doctors decide to discontinue somatic support; it's only done when there is no possibility of their recovering and living without that somatic support (in stark contrast to a foetus who absent intervention will eventually breathe, eat, think, procreate, all of their own volition), which is why the decision is made by professionals, and how it's permissible in law. I don't think anyone has ever presented a legal argument that the law does not prevent turning life support off on someone because they no longer have rights due to not being conscious or sentient. The alternative follow on then, is if in fact a non sentient or conscious human is not deprived of rights at all when an empowered professional determines it is in that humans best interests to allow nature to take it's course, shouldn't the same be said of a human in a similar state; nature should be allowed to take it's course and the human be born, conscious and sentient, live it's life etc, until it is not in the (medically, keeping it simple) best interests of that human. Well, human entities are generally sentient and conscious, so let's not confuse correlation with causation. Obviously the significant right to the conversation, the right to life, actually does generally apply (obviously) to a non sentient non conscious human entity currently. That someone might want to deprive them of that right on the basis that they are not yet conscious or sentient immediately begs the question why those criteria ought to be applied to their right; if it's your opinion that they should be (since they manifestly are not) for sentient and conscious human entities alone, the why to that assertion immediately looms large. What would the basis for your belief that sentience and consciousness are criteria for applying human rights to a human be? And does it follow that when a human at other points in their life possesses neither sentience or consciousness we should treat them as having no rights?
aloyisious wrote: » So the questions remain. Do you believe that fetus are sentient and conscious entities at all times? Do you believe that, whether or not they are such, they should have human rights? What is the basis for your assumption that fetus have any right to human rights from the start of their pre-sentient non-conscious existence? Are you even arguing that they do have such a right at any point at all?
aloyisious wrote: » As for your (in stark contrast to a foetus who absent intervention will eventually breathe, eat, think, procreate, all of their own volition) what is the intervention you think could affect the fetus future that you outlined above? Are you thinking of a specific human intervention there?
Absolam wrote: » Those don't seem to be questions that remain at all, they seem entirely new? Nor do they appear to address any of what you have just quoted (which does include questions that I put to you). Well, if you step it through, what interventions do you believe there are which would prevent a foetus from eventually breathing, eating, thinking, and procreating, of their own volition? And given the context of the statement, what corresponding interventions do you believe there are which would cause a person on somatic support to eventually breathe, eat, think, and procreate, of their own volition? My own feeling is that in the first case we have abortion, but in the second, nothing. Which demonstrates the lack of correllation between purposefully terminating the nascent life of a person in the womb and allowing the life of a person on somatic support to end.
aloyisious wrote: » Your careful attempt to avoid answering the specifics in my first four questions by use of a "question" is rather obvious and non sequitur-ish. Those four questions remain unanswered by you.
aloyisious wrote: » Re your reply on intervention in the case of a fetus in a woman's womb you meant, abortion, thank's. I had wondered if you might include nature or mischance along with the last, and notice their absence in your observations.
aloyisious wrote: » Re your question on intervention, given the context in which I used the brain-dead and the fetus in the womb; that of sentience and consciousness being absent from both, I'm a bit surprised at you bringing up (no pun intended) the chances of the brain-dead getting an intervention (seeing as I had not mentioned that entity in my last) and your answering the question yourself: so I see that question as non sequitur-ish as well.
aloyisious wrote: » Human sentience and consciousness is surely an indicator or point at which human rights could become applicable.
I myself therefore operate under the moral axiom that when an entity lacks ANY AND ALL faculty of sentience and consciousness then it is a moral non-entity to me. If at any stage it has that faculty in any measure, or we strongly suspect it does, then it should be afforded the equal rights that typifies it's species.
Post by Absolam Originally Posted by aloyisious Even though I know I'm probably wasting my time replying to you in hope of a fact-based response, perhaps you might review my posts and then copy and paste here exactly word for word where I asked you to research any speculation at all for me. I doubt that you will find - given that it never existed at all at any time - that particular ask by me anywhere and expect that you will come up with some alteration of fact to cover your claim. Since you asked; Originally Posted by aloyisious Good idea, we can do research on it, separately, and one of us post his for a start, say 2 weeks time and the O/P would see it and post his later the same day. What say you? But if you don't mind, I don't intend going any further down a rabbit hole of who said what and when; it's all on the thread already. Which is not to say I'm not, as I am always, happy to discuss anything relevant to the topics at hand that I've actually posted.
Originally Posted by aloyisious Even though I know I'm probably wasting my time replying to you in hope of a fact-based response, perhaps you might review my posts and then copy and paste here exactly word for word where I asked you to research any speculation at all for me. I doubt that you will find - given that it never existed at all at any time - that particular ask by me anywhere and expect that you will come up with some alteration of fact to cover your claim.
Originally Posted by aloyisious Good idea, we can do research on it, separately, and one of us post his for a start, say 2 weeks time and the O/P would see it and post his later the same day. What say you?
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » ...I have absolutely no moral or ethical objection to allowing people to choose abortion, for pretty much ANY reason they wish to choose it, in periods like the first 12 or 16 weeks of gestation...
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » If there is some other mediation point, I certainly am not seeing it being argued coherently, if at all.
