[illinoissmith]

"Yes it is. 100 hundred years everyone realized that an unborn child was a unborn child."

100 yeas ago, people died from pneumonia, and children worked long hours in factories. Having been standard 100 years ago is no argument whatsoever in favor of something being good or right.

"Everyone knows that the second/third trimester distinction drawn by the USSC is a purely arbitrary construct."

I never claimed that it wasn't. (For the record "everyone knows" is not evidence. It is demagoguery.) I'd be much more interested in knowing at what point awareness starts to happen, and at what point brainwaves begin, than what standards SCOTUS makes up from thin air.

"A human zygote is a human zygote precisely because it contains a complete and self-contained human genetic code."

A skin cell kept alive on a dish in a lab likewise contains "complete and self-contained human genetic code". Does that make it a human zygote?

But this is an interesting start; you are pinpointing the qualities you believe distinguish between things that do have rights, and things that do not.

It would help me understand your case better if you were to:

(1) Pinpoint the qualities that *accurately* distinguish those entities which you claim have rights from those entities which you claim do not. The quality "complete and self-contained human genetic code" is not specific enough, as it is had by many things that you do not (presumably) believe have human rights (lab skin cell, above). Further conditional qualities would help clarify things. State of normal growth, maybe?

(2) Explain what it is about those qualities that confer rights. Why is genetic code important?

My guess is that you either (a) think souls come along with genetic codes, or (b) believe that setting some standard other than genetic code could lead to a slippery slope in which conscious people with minds and brains are murdered.

I think the former is difficult to defend (If a scientist could tweak DNA from a human blood cell in two or three places, did he cause that DNA to become attached to a soul? Do identical twins share a soul?).

I think that the latter makes some degree of sense, but that if slippery slope aversion is the ground, other systems could do similar work.

"There is no natural, objective dividing line that tells us that at 11:53:21 April 25, 2006 individual X is not yet human but at 11:53:22 April 25, 2006 they are now magically human."

Straw man. Of course, we are dealing with growth, so there is a gradual process from single-celled organism to conscious being.

My guess is that there is some point at which the brain begins to develop some rudimentary structure and activity, and another point at which the brain begins to develop a rudimentary, intermittent awareness and capacity for awareness.

One thing that makes a good deal of sense to me is to find out where, in the faster-developing of fetuses, these points start, and then (to be on the safe side) take the date two weeks or a month before one of the above dates (I'm not sure which of the two), and set that as a hard limit.

The purpose of the two week buffer would be to help ensure not to kill a person capable of awareness. Given that the demarcation line's position is relevantly reasoned, it should not be difficult to keep that demarcation line stable on the grounds of avoiding a slippery slope.

"A distinct human being is alive from conception until natural death and all attempts to divide this timeline into human/nonhuman are purely arbitrary and completely specious."

Brain and mind development, and correlates (brainwaves, say), are not arbitrary. The capacity for internal state and consciousness in humans is what causes us to distinguish ourselves from everything else we encounter in the world. You break this down, and one can just as easily claim a dandelion has rights as yourself.

Dividing the timeline up is not specious, but a matter that follows from the interaction of (a) a need to prevent slippery slopes, (b) recognizing that it is internal life and consciousness that makes humans what they are, and (c) recognizing that the prenatal stage is a time of nervous system growth, and involves gradual change.

"Why should someone get charged with murder for killing a kid the night they take him home from a hospital when they could get away with having him killed at the same hospital the previous evening?"

You are attacking a straw man. Most people who are not of the "at conception" believers are not partial-birth abortion supporters either, but moderates who see the gradual changes, and think that one set of regulations is appropriate at one end and a different set at the other.

How about this, for just an example:

- Hefty fines and perhaps also jail time if abortion occurs after the point at which (including some 2 weeks buffer time) it is reasonably possible that the infant has begun to develop basic brain structure and rudimentary brain activity.

- Murder charges if after the point at which (including some 2 weeks buffer time) it is reasonably possible the infant has begun to develop even intermittent consciousness.

The point being recognition of the fact that the process is gradual, and developing a system that will find the beginnings of the relevant qualities, and hinge law on them, plus a buffer period to be on the side of safety.

"You reference Singer in passing - the meat of Singer's argument in favor of infanticide is that any qualitative criteria that can be established as defining "humanness" - self-awareness, capacity for language, physical autonomy and independence, etc. do not apply to newborns or the developmentally disabled any more than they do to unborn children."

Singer's system, if ever implemented, will lead to horrific things. Still, there is zero running away from the fact that qualities must be used to distinguish between different entities we come in contact with. You do it yourself; on this issue, the quality you claim is of significance in determining humanness is "complete and self-contained human genetic code". Booga booga about using qualities will not help anyone escape using qualities, it will merely make those who claim such an escape look hypocritical, in the process making Singer appear more convincing and honest.

My strategy is this. There may well be all manner of narrow specific qualities that make up humanness, and there may well be many folks who, due to various circumstances, lack one or another, or a bunch, of them. Rather than have a panel of experts quibble over which people have what and whether they should be allowed to live, I think it far safer (in terms of preserving life in borderline cases and difficult to determine cases, and of preventing selective holocausts of those experts happen to dislike at some point in time) to look at the base source of those qualities, and use that as the fundamental determinative quality.

The base source of humanness, source of all the human qualities, is a human (human in terms of DNA) mind capable of some activity (not flat line, not totally absent) or consciousness (consciousness of any sort, not self-awareness; that is very high-level, that is one of the many many narrow human qualities). If this baseline is present, I trust no panel of experts to take life, as this is the source of many many various human qualities, and the proposition that an expert has power to determine that all are defunct, let alone the idea that the expert will refrain from using that power for twisted ends, is severely doubtful, and involves costs far too dangerous to risk.

This is, for the record, similar to what I believe the hard-Pro-Life side does, but I believe the are even further on the side of caution (sticking to just DNA), further than I believe necessary to prevent the horrors Singer's system would produce, and also, they are more willing to explain their position in terms of religious mystery than in terms like these.

Do not for a moment believe that Singer's system is the result of honest exploration of the relationship between qualities and humanness. Singer has a specific agenda, given his beliefs on pleasure and his beliefs on economics and government. His political and economic beliefs cause him to see any allowance to life, if over-given out of care to prevent harm in cases where circumstances are uncertain, or if given in cases where that life exists under less than ideal (by his standard) circumstances, as a direct cost to the happiness of healthy people (healthy, as determined by a panel of experts).

This causes him to construct a system which merrily glides down every slippery slope imaginable in the quest to maximize the resources philosopher kings can send to the healthy people.

He is obsessed with having experts and central powers make life and death determinations (he is apparently ignorant of the fact that experts and central powers are not only imperfect, but also not necessarily deeply interested in the cases that come their way ("other person's problem" syndrome), and to the fact that they are prone to misuse power to their benefit; rather he sees them as near-infallible potential dispensers of Right) instead of leaving things up to the individuals involved and putting a reasonable safety buffer on the side of life, in the same way a communist is obsessed with having experts make economic decisions, rather than let the individuals involved work out their economic decisions themselves.

"Anyone who claims that the unborn are not human is lying to others and to themselves."

Anyone who claims that a zygote of 1 day, lacking completely in consciousness, brain activity, and a mind, is identical in terms of human rights to both an unborn infant of 8 months gestation and to a child of 12 years of age helps further, via the patent absurdity of this position, the widespread adoption of Singer's philosophy, because, though it will lead to many more evils in practice, it does at least attempt to address issue 2 at the top of this post: what it is about the claimed relevant qualities that confer human rights.

If the horrific implications of politician- and academic-selected "experts" appointed to determine who should live and who should die, under the guise of centrally state-planned pleasure maximization, etc., ever comes to pass, those opponents of Singer et al. who are too cocksure to bother making reasoned and complete arguments, will not be fully free of blame.

"The truth is obvious to anyone not engaged in special pleading."

Despite the fact that this is an ad hominem, I'm going to clarify that I have never used the pill, never plan to use it, never had an abortion, never plan to, etc. If you can explain to me in a reasonable way why abortion and the pill are really murder, fine, ban them both, it will affect my life not one iota.

My "special pleading", if you wish to call it that, is for ethics to make sense and be reasonable, as I believe that accepting nonsense or hand waving in beliefs on ethics paves the way for evil.

[wideawake]

Having been standard 100 years ago is no argument whatsoever in favor of something being good or right.

We are discussing a matter of history - facts which were generally known and understood formerly which have been obfuscated today.

I'd be much more interested in knowing at what point awareness starts to happen

In other words, you believe that it's permissible to kill severely developmentally disabled children at any time.

Does that make it a human zygote?

Obviously not, since it will never of its own mature into an adult.

Pinpoint the qualities that *accurately* distinguish those entities which you claim have rights from those entities which you claim do not.

A human being in any stage of development from zygote to adult.

Straw man.

Not in the slightest. You are arguing that at some point between zygote and adult the elusively subjective attribute called "humanity" presents itself. before it does, it's OK to kill and after it does it's not.

Unless you're proposing that there is some intermediate half-human stage during which it's half-OK to kill someone, then you have to find a hard dividing line or admit there isn't any.

The capacity for internal state and consciousness in humans is what causes us to distinguish ourselves from everything else we encounter in the world.

So a subjective internal state (consciousness) defines humanity in an objective way to external observers.

This is an argument for infanticide, since infants aren't conscious in any way discernible from that of beasts.

An adult in a coma that is expected to be permanent can also exhibit brainwave activity, every bit as much as an infant can.

two week buffer

In other words, someone who will inevitably mature enough for your liking in a few days is murderable at that given moment.

If someone could temporarily induce their parents into a coma deep enough to efface brainwave activity for a few days, could they kill them then?

Still, there is zero running away from the fact that qualities must be used to distinguish between different entities we come in contact with.

The offspring of human parents with a human genetic code that is in the process of developing into a human adult is unambiguous and unsubjective.

All else is subjective Singer territory.

Anyone who claims that a zygote of 1 day, lacking completely in consciousness, brain activity, and a mind, is identical in terms of human rights to both an unborn infant of 8 months gestation and to a child of 12 years of age helps further, via the patent absurdity of this position, the widespread adoption of Singer's philosophy

Ridiculous. The Lord High Strawman of all straw men.

The fact that a zygote of 1 day is a human being is an objective reality. Singer's system of murder for conveneience is bolstered by your philosophy of fine gradations, buffer zones, subjective criteria, etc.

And don't pretend for a second that you have proposed any objective criteria with your brain wave argument.

(1) Different experts and different doctors will come to different conclusions while observing the same brain wave patterns.

(2) Singerites will make the argument that people whose brains are sufficiently damaged never to fully achieve conscious self-awareness can still exhibit noticeable brainwave activity.

(3) Brainwaves do not and never will "equal" self-awareness - Singerites argue, just as you are arguing, for a buffer zone. For the Singerites that buffer zone is early infancy.

My "special pleading", if you wish to call it that, is for ethics to make sense and be reasonable

The only rational thing to do is acknowledge that there are as many qualitative definitions of human as there are humans and that the only answer is a quantitative one based on biological reality.

A human zygote will develop into a biologically human adult or die naturally in the process.

At no point in that process is there any natural caesura - that process is undeniably multilayered and continuous.

Therefore the only objective standard is to defend all human life in all stages from conception to natural death.

Anything else is playing God and putting one person's whim above another person's life.