Fetal Humanity

[Valkenar]

This thread is a spin-off of another thread here:
http://forums.uechi-ryu.com/viewtopic.php?t=20860
The abortion stuff starts around page 3 or 4ish.

The question we were discussing is more or less at what point a fetus has moral standing.

Here's the last substantive post on the subject

1) Who can't give up a kid for adoption?
2) Why does it matter whether the fetus can survive on its own or not? Some kids can live on their own at 13-14 or a lot younger throughout the world... but we have to take care of them till they're 18 or emancipated just the same. Why would the lease on a uterus depend on this issue?
3) WRT plastic surgery, because that's not what insurance or taxes is for. You want to have a right to plastic surgery? Then by all means, invest in insurance that covers it, and you can wager that with costs in the many thousands, and utilization sure to shoot up, that such insurance would cost you many many tens of thousands extra over a lifetime. Go buy that; don't you ever ask me to pay for your vanity.
4) You've recognized that people form powerful attachments to fetuses, which was my point. There may be an occasional person who is a bit happy when they miscarry because they didn't want the child, but there is something else worth pointing out about those people: they horrify or at least disturb many of the people around them. Generally, this is recognized as mixed news at best even when we're sympathetic to the situation.
5) Did you just say that a fetus doesn't have moral standing. Huh? It's not entirely up to you. We're agreed that the meaning of a fetus changes over time to the point hat at birth, we all recognize it's a full human life (even then I'd grieve a 5 year old more than a newborn, due to all the shared memories, hopes and plans that had accrued since birth, also the personality that had developed). Some at least SAY it's a full life from conception (few if any act like it). But of course there is moral standing there. From full backwards, you know there is no clear dividing line, and so you can't say they've reached a point of zero moral standing.

It's worth pointing out that weeks 3-8 involve the formation of organs, and from then on things just grow. That's all that babies do once they're born, too... grow and refine structures that already exist. If you wanted we could use the development of neural function. But there needs to be something that pushes the timing of abortion as far back as possible and more importantly limits the total amount as much as possible.

Point 1 is an important question, but I'll omit it for now in the interest of focusing on the issue.

"2) Why does it matter whether the fetus can survive on its own or not?"

It is admittedly a somewhat arbitrary distinction. The principle is essentially that if it has no appreciable cognition, and can't survive on its own then it is simply a part of the mother's body. There isn't much to distinguish it (in moral or anthropocentric terms) from another organ. How does this differ from an infant or child, who is also dependent on the parents? The most important difference is simply that all but the most severely retarded of infants and children have clearly evident cognitive processes. They demonstrate, for example, a will to live.

Now if you can tell me at what point there exists a will to live, and one that is not simply stimulus-response as you would find even in a paramecium, then I would certainly be open to changing my view as to whenabout the fetus becomes a person worthy of the same respect accorded a real person.

Also when I say that a fetus has no moral standing I don't quite literally mean no significance whatsoever. Even a squirrel's life, in my opinion, means something, just not so much that it really matters if one dies. Similarly an early or mid stage fetus (and again I can't define it very precisely) is too bad to have to kill, but not so unfortunate that anybody's life should be significantly disrupted (against their will) in order to preserve it.

"4) You've recognized that people form powerful attachments to fetuses ["

They do, but as I also said, people for powerful attachments to all sorts of things that have no real moral standing. People will cry over a piece of heirloom jewelry. That doesn't mean that jewelry has some kind of moral standing, it just means it has emotional value to that person. In this way, a fetus has emotional value to some people aware of its existence, but no evil is done if those people decide that overall they don't want it. I think this also answers the point you made in 5.

"If you wanted we could use the development of neural function."

Indeed my view of it is very cogno-centric. What's required isn't simply the presence of any neural function at all, since almost all multi-cellular animals have some degree of neural function. But in my view, the human mind is what essentially confers high moral worth to an otherwise unremarkable mammalian form. At some point we're going to need to address the question "Why is human life important?" Hell, maybe we should've started with that.

P.S. Before anyone accuses me of wanting to purge the retarded or any of that nonsense, let me point out that I absolutely do not accept any such course of action.

[mhosea]

I hope you understand now the meaning of my post in the other thread. It was not vitriolic at all, but if there was something about it that you didn't like, maybe you should take it to heart, because in my view I was merely parroting your own view in a slightly different context. Of course in doing so, I assumed you knew more about developmental biology than you seem to, so possibly your error simply reflects that you don't realize how much like a newborn a fetus really is.

The principle is essentially that if it has no appreciable cognition, and can't survive on its own then it is simply a part of the mother's body. There isn't much to distinguish it (in moral or anthropocentric terms) from another organ. How does this differ from an infant or child, who is also dependent on the parents? The most important difference is simply that all but the most severely retarded of infants and children have clearly evident cognitive processes. They demonstrate, for example, a will to live.

This is simply not true. For the most part, a fetus demonstrates the exact same cognition as a newborn. Furthermore, the litmus test is bogus because a newborn does not demonstrate a will to live. A newborn eats, sleeps, cries, excretes, moves its arms and legs, yawns, etc., etc., but they do not demonstrate a will to live. They demonstrate crying to tell you about discomfort of one kind or another. A 1 year-old basset hound can tell you that he is thirsty by sticking his nose in his empty water bowl, looking at you, then sticking his nose in his empty water bowl, then looking at you, etc., until you get the message. A newborn just cries, and it's the same cry for everything. Apart from bowel movements, there is very little that a newborn does that a fetus normally does not, if you count breathing amniotic fluid as breathing and drinking it as eating. It is tough to cry (at least with sound) when you're breathing a liquid, I'll give you that much.

You should research the emergence of behaviors in utero as well as the development of the neurological system. Apparently, you'll be astonished.

Now if you can tell me at what point there exists a will to live, and one that is not simply stimulus-response as you would find even in a paramecium, then I would certainly be open to changing my view as to whenabout the fetus becomes a person worthy of the same respect accorded a real person.

Well, setting aside that it is an irrational litmus test with no consensus behind it, how about the way a fetus is observed to react violently if accidentally stuck during an amniocentesis? As far as I know, paramecium do not do anything like that. You'll probably have find your own sources before you believe them. I can't vouch for any as authoritative, but I just went and grabbed this one. It seems fairly typical of the ones I've found and doesn't seem on the surface of it to originate from any pro-life nutcases.

http://www.birthpsychology.com/lifebefo ... sense.html

[Glenn]

There isn't much to distinguish it (in moral or anthropocentric terms) from another organ.

Mike has already commented on several of Justin's points, I'll just add that a fetus is never one of its mother's organ. Technically they do not share any organs or tissue between them, including blood with the fetus' circulatory system being completely separate from the mother's circulatory system. Substances pass from the mother's blood through the uterin wall into the placenta and the fetus' blood, and vice versa, but their blood does not mix. Technically mother and fetus are always separate organisms, albeit obviously the fetus is dependent on the mother.

[mhosea]

Not to post and run, but we set the date for my (long overdue, I'm told) shodan test for two weeks from today. I need to ramp up my cardio conditioning (after suffering repeated setbacks this winter). Not that I'm worried about the outcome, but I don't relish the thought of sucking wind during Seisan Bunkai or wondering whether I can afford to push myself any harder in sparring, so I think extra sleep and more working out will be better training than arguing about abortion in the wee hours of the morning. See you in a couple of weeks.

[IJ]

First thing we need to do here is stop drawing distinctions where none exist. There is no sharp line where a fetus does anything totally different from just before. There are a bunch of milestones but many of them are morally meaningless. The ones I can think of are:

1) fertilization. This is huge for many people, and very little for me. We know that many fertilized eggs die without much else happening, and these early abortions do not traumatize us as most are not even recognized. Could we recognize them, I doubt even the pro-life set could really generate much grief for a fertilized egg with a lethal chromosomal abnormality that divided twice and died. There's just not that much happening here, although it is the creation of a genetically distinct link in the human chain. Case in point: if someone accidentally removed a quarter ball of cells before implanting them in a uterus, that hardly speaks of murder and the child that developed would be no different. But that other quarter would grow up to be a distinct person too if co-implanted and both survived, and there's no reason they wouldn't.

2) hollowing out the ball of cells and turning into a double tube are huge events evolutionarily, but no humans care.

3) organ creation between 3-8 weeks is a major but gradual process; after this it's just growth.

4) the development of detectable brain activity, then reflexes, then semi-purposeful motion could mean something if we choose. Certainly a fetus can suffer or think or fight to live as much as many other humans, including newborns, brain damaged people, demented elderly, etc.

5) ability to survive outside the womb is a big event, but its a moving target and depends on where you live, your health, your luck, and how much society wants to spend to save a 650 gram kid. And I cannot figure out why this makes any difference. You can't just say, well, it's ok for outside, so deliver or abort, it's your choice. We don't do that because it's bad all around. How about ability to survive without beyond usual care? Still without meaning and we guess wrong about fetal age often.

6) Actual birth is a big one, and at that point you can give the kid away if you don't want it. But this isn't the bright line people make it out to be. Parents can refuse live prolonging care for the super sick. But not a Down's kid. Well, not anymore. The Romans left em on hills to die and we Americans just used to let em starve if the parents weren't down for raising one. There are still lines to draw.

My point is it's very hard to draw a line for abortions. We don't, usually. We just make stuff up. The best example is the exception for rape or incest. What the heck difference does that make? None to the baby. America in general makes this exception and makes it clear that there is a balance of factors. If it were all about the "murder" we wouldn't permit that. We make these decisions either in a fundamentalist/deontological way and say, no abortions ever, or we tend to admit that different issues carry different weight over time and make up some arbitrary rules for some kind of structure. In this the trimester system is like the age of consent laws.

It would be strictly logical to permit abortion up until the reasonable chance that the fetus could feel pain, but no one would go for that, since we let people hack off foreskins and cause pain and potential complications for a kid that can't consent and often gets no anesthesia. So that's out the window too.

In response to the idea that it doesn't matter that we form attachments to physical objects so that makes no difference in aborting a kid, well, we don't own other humans. So while we have to accept that someone can destroy a piece of art they own even if it pains us, we don't have to accept that a person is killing a human life we be permitted. They don't even need to be alive; we attach meaning to corpses and desecrating one is illegal even though they're dead; that's just how it is.

[Bill Glasheen]

I promised to stay as moderator in this discussion. Thus I won't volunteer much. I will however comment here and there - if only to stimulate discussion.

I tidied up your last post, Ian (spelling errors, etc.). Not your usual near-perfect self. Sleep much?

My point is it's very hard to draw a line for abortions. We don't, usually. We just make stuff up. The best example is the exception for rape or incest. What the heck difference does that make? None to the baby.

I don't entirely agree about the difference it makes to the baby, Ian. Trust me on this one. I know a lovely person who is the product of rape. You can't tell me it makes no difference to her.

And as for the mother, well... I think you'll have a hard time convincing many of that one, Ian. Many moral, psychological, Darwinian, and philosophical discussions can be spun off this one.

- Bill

[Valkenar]

Lots of stuff to get to. This could get long.

I hope you understand now the meaning of my post in the other thread.

I got it now. Sorry I didn't immediately see it for the sarcasm it was. I didn't think you meant it entirely literally, but I did take it wrong at first.

I assumed you knew more about developmental biology than you seem to

Entirely possible! I'm not an expert, what I know is based on a few PBS specials and a fair bit of internet browsing.

For the most part, a fetus demonstrates the exact same cognition as a newborn.

Well when you say newborn do you mean say, a baby a few weeks old, or a fresh-from-the-womb newborn? A delivery is a physically traumatic experience (for both). I'd show a markedly reduced degree of cognitive development after being hit by a truck too. But even so, what sort of fetus are you talking about? I'm not saying that inside vs. outside is the whole thing. I'm saying that somewhere along the line neural development qualifies it as human enough to count as human.

A newborn just cries, and it's the same cry for everything. Apart from bowel movements, there is very little that a newborn does that a fetus normally does not

Again the question is what fetus and what newborn?

Not to post and run, but we set the date for my (long overdue, I'm told) shodan test for two weeks from today

Good luck, and don't forget to breathe. And I'll probably not be a very vigorous debater either, since work is busier than usual, and having just bought a house, I'm pretty busy preparing to move and such.

From Glen:

Technically mother and fetus are always separate organisms, albeit obviously the fetus is dependent on the mother.

Well, they are separate organisms, sure. But they are physically connected. Besides, I wasn't saying a fetus is biologically indistinguishable from an organ, just morally. But I can understand how what I said was unclear.

From Ian:

There is no sharp line where a fetus does anything totally different from just before.

That's true, and it does make it harder to discuss concretely.

4) the development of detectable brain activity, then reflexes, then semi-purposeful motion could mean something if we choose. Certainly a fetus can suffer or think or fight to live as much as many other humans, including newborns, brain damaged people, demented elderly, etc.

This for me is the main criterion for whether a fetus matters in a moral sense, at all. After this abortion might still be okay, but before this it's just some human-like cells. And I agree, there isn't a very clear and obvious dividing line. Some brain activity doesn't equate with the level of brain activity that I would personally consider significant.

It would be strictly logical to permit abortion up until the reasonable chance that the fetus could feel pain, but no one would go for that, since we let people hack off foreskins and cause pain and potential complications for a kid that can't consent and often gets no anesthesia.

Well actually, pain isn't really necessary or sufficient to my way of thinking. All mammals can feel pain, and that makes it immoral to cause them unnecessary suffering, but as far as I'm concerned, eating meat is fine. Similarly, what makes a fetus or a human life important isn't the ability to feel pain, it's the ability to have high level cognition or learning. After all, as you surely know, there are people who don't have pain sensations. I would still consider those real people.

I promised to stay as moderator in this discussion. Thus I won't volunteer much. I will however comment here and there - if only to stimulate discussion.

If you want to, that's fine, but I don't see any harm in you participating as normal. There's been no real acrimony thus far, just one small misunderstanding in the other thread.

[IJ]

Bill: posting on borrowed cramped laptop in hurry between rounds of scrabble on cuba libre from Mexico. Also, I do not mean that rape means nothing to survivors of rape nor the children that may result. What I mean is that the innocent kid in the womb is no different from the innocent kid in another womb whose conception was consensual. Most people say that they think abortion is wrong because it ends a human life, then frequently they go ahead and permit it for rape. Well, the wrongness of the abortion is not diminished by the circumstance of the conception. This is just an example of different weight for different moral issues and the exceptions we are happy to make in this messy area. More later.... plane home to catch.

[IJ]

"This [meaningful brain activity] for me is the main criterion for whether a fetus matters in a moral sense, at all."

The problem with this idea (that the ability to think like a human is necessary for moral significance) is the many many exceptions you're either obligated to make or the weird conclusions you're forced to draw. For example:

There are plenty of people born with very limited cognition who will never improve. Will these people be murderable after birth?

There are plenty of people who lose their cognition after a life of thinking, from stroke, dementia, cardiac arrest, drowning, you name it. Are these people murderable?

What about temporary, or even long term reversible loss of cognition? If someone is in a state from which meaningful recovery may take 6 or more months and cannot think better than the fetuses who don't matter to you "in a moral sense, at all," can we kill them?

It's clear that cognition is NOT the determinant here; we believe that humans who can't think still have moral significance. Many people believe that of people who are permanently, devastatingly impaired, and many believe of people who are, in fact, completely brain dead. We continue to believe in the moral value of completely, heart and brain, all cells gone, totally dead people, in that as I pointed out before, we have made desecration of bodies illegal.

People make their decisions either in an absolute sense (no abortion!) or basically as a decision about what makes them sqeamish after thinking about the different issues at stake. We factor in the distinct human life (from conception, or implantation, even if this is only a chance at a human developing) and the sanctity of humanity; the capacity of the fetus to suffer; our sympathy for women who have been assaulted, or even those who just made a mistake or whose contraception failed, and the impact on their education, earnings, quality of life, and chances at success; the quality of life for the baby to be, and the quality future babies may enjoy if mom can get an education or a life partner first, if applicable; the notion that unwanted babies commit more than their fair share of crime and absorb a lot of funding and contribute to depressed inner cities and poor rural areas; the risk that granting personhood to a fetus creates a list of obligations and possible legal complications for mothers who seek abortion or refuse any aspect of prenantal care or even fail to live healthfully while pregnant; the specter of back alley abortions should access diminish, and a bunch of personal factors.

But it's nutty to say that human life is morally irrelevant at any point, and especially that a human fetus' experience of pain is irrelevant because we cause pain to adult humans and torture / kill / eat animals.