A common philosophical misconception (no pun intended). Just as there is no point along the continuum of humanity, there can be no point at which the sperm and egg have fused, only a smaller compressed continuum. Once you understand this, you realize that development of human features is what makes life meaningful, features like neurons to feel pain, human form, etc. These are (in my opinion) developed in the 8-10 week timeframe. Of course by specifying them, I am specifying a "point" in the continuum and violating my philosophy. But I believe that morality is derived from empathy and empathy comes from human form and function. I have very little empathy for a cell.
Most abortions are performed between 6 to 12 weeks, well past the "cell" stage. Of course liberals still claim at 5 months that the baby is just tissue or a lump of cells.
There certainly is a point where sperm and egg each contribute 23 chromosomes to make the human compliment of 46. It occurs at conception. If you don't want to call that fusing choose another word but that's what it means.
Sure there is. There is a point at which, when a sperm enters an egg, the outside of the egg changes to permit the entry of no other sperm. While you can argue that that process does not happen in zero time, there is a line in time at which the process becomes a foregone conclusion, just as at the end of life, every cell in a body does not die at once but at which their collective death is all a foregone conclusion. Essentially, there is a tipping point between one state and the other. That tipping point is a line and exists, even if we can't discern it with scientific instruments.
Once you understand this, you realize that development of human features is what makes life meaningful, features like neurons to feel pain, human form, etc.
Actually, it's not that difficult to prove that this thesis isn't true, at least to the extent that it doesn't explain a lot of mainstream views about life, death, and so on. In fact, if you look at how we define death and rate the severity of crimes and tragedies, you'll notice that the future actually matters much more than the present does. Would we pull the plug on brain-dead people if they could recover from their injuries? Given a choice between saving two people inside of a burning car, would most people save the infant boy or an elderly man? Is shooting a person slowly dying from painful wounds to put them out of their misery the same a killing a similarly wounded person who can be saved and fully recover to put them out of their misery?
In the case of a brain dead person, that they will lack features in the future (a working brain) matters more than if they currently have those features. In the case of saving an elderly person over a child, the elderly man likely has more of the features that make us distinctly human than the infant, yet many would consider the infant more deserving of rescue. In the case of a mercy killing vs. a murder, you are killing a person with the same capabilities -- all that differs is their future prospects.
What makes life "meaningful", to the extent that it should be protected, is the promise of more life in the future. If you want a futher example, there was a good example in the original Star Trek series. Aliens turn two crewmembers into little foam polyhedrons. They crush one of the polyhedrons blocks of foam and restore the other to life. Did they commit murder by crushing the polyhedron blocks of foam?
Your philosophy can't properly address that scene, at least not in the way the authors could expect the majority of the audience to respond to it. The foam polyhedrons had no human features, no neurons with which to feel pain, no human form, and so on. They were innert foam blocks. Yet for that scene to work as intended by the writers, the audience needs to empathize with those foam blocks as people. The audience had to feel like crushing a block was mudering the person who had been turned into that block. What made the act of crushing the block murder, rather than the act of turning them into blocks in the first place?
The fact that they could be people again in the future, restored by the same technology that turned them into foam blocks. If they had been turned into foam blocks and could not be restored, then the act of turning them into blocks would have been murder. But because they could be people in the future, crushing the innert foam blocks that looked nothing like people was readily interpreted by the audience as an act of murder, even though the foam blocks looked nothing like a person, could sense nothing, could not think, and could feel no pain. What distinguished life from death, murder from imprisonment, had nothing to do with body form, neurons, or pain and everything to do with future prospects.
Science fiction, yes. But science fiction and fantasy is full of situations like this and if your claims that having, at any particular time, particular human features is what makes life meantinful, then it makes no sense to feel empathy without human form and function, then these sorts of scenes wouldn't work. Fiction, yes, but it needs to be plausible and in tune with conventional morality for it to work for an audience and for the audience to find it plausible and care about what happens.
These are (in my opinion) developed in the 8-10 week timeframe. Of course by specifying them, I am specifying a "point" in the continuum and violating my philosophy.
Nothing develops within that timeframe that is significantly different from what develops in another mammal during a similar timeframe yet doesn't make it a person. The form and function of a monkey fetus is essentially identical to the form and fuction of a human fetus during that timeframe. What's the difference, looking only at their present features?
But I believe that morality is derived from empathy and empathy comes from human form and function. I have very little empathy for a cell.
So the value of a person's life depends on whether other people feel empathy for them or not? And what happens to the ugly, deformed, or unpleasant in your brave new world of morality if nobody feels much empathy for them? Sounds like a recipe for euthanasia, too, to me.
That is a silly and specious argument. There is certainly a point in time before which sperm and egg have fused. There is certainly a point in time after which they have unquestionably fused. That there is no single femtosecond at which fusion takes place is beside the point.
Abortion doesn't kill zygotes, anyway. It kills unborn kids long after they look human, have brainwaves, and beating hearts.
The author wrote:
"Saletan is an ardent supporter of abortion rights, but he positions himself in something of a centrist position--at least his position looks somewhat centrist with Katha Pollitt as background. He is concerned that when Pollitt dismisses any claim to life on the part of the fetus, she confuses the fetus with the zygote, "alienating people who see the difference and might support us if they realize we care about it." This is an interesting move, and a move I believe to be destined to fail.
Why? Because Saletan's effort to suggest that the fetus might have some claim to life while the zygote evidently does not, is based in no clear or compelling scientific definition of life."
I disagree with the logic that he used here. The author claims that Saleten's aurgument won't work becuase it "is based on no clear or compelling scientific definition of life". However, this is a red- herring. Saletan's aurgument is moral, perceptual and political, not scientific. Scientific consistency is not the crux of the matter. It is a question of moral belief and/or faith. I am not saying that Salaten is correct, only that his aurgument could "work" in a political sense whether it was scientifically consistent or not.
The moral argument is at the crux of this debate for all who can be persuaded. The activists on both sides are hardened in their positions, but evidence shows that most Americans don't like abortion (They think it is 'bad') but they don't want it to be illegal. They also think that using the power of the state to force a women to have a baby she does not want is 'bad'. Thus the debate turns into a problem in situational ethics for most people.
Prediction: 1.Roe will be overturned 2. A few states will take extreme positions. 3. most states will maintain legal abortion with several restrictions (i.e. parental notification, no partial birth, no third trimester, exceptions for rape and incest etc.)