Posted on 03/09/2003 4:26:55 PM PST by MadIvan
Foetuses may develop consciousness long before the legal age limit for abortions, one of Britain's leading brain scientists has said.
Baroness Greenfield, a professor of neurology at Oxford University and the director of the Royal Institution, said there was evidence to suggest the conscious mind could develop before 24 weeks, the upper age where terminations are permitted.
Although she fell short of calling for changes in the abortion laws, she urged doctors and society to be cautious when assuming unborn babies lacked consciousness. "Is the foetus conscious? The answer is yes, but up to a point," she said.
"Given that we can't prove consciousness or not, we should be very cautious about being too gung ho and assuming something is not conscious. We should err on the side of caution."
Last year, a Daily Telegraph straw poll found many neurologists were concerned that foetuses could feel pain in the womb before 24 weeks after conception.
Many believed foetuses should be given anaesthetics during a late abortion, after 20 weeks. Some also believe pain relief should be given for keyhole surgery in the womb.
Abortions are allowed up to 24 weeks in Britain, but are rarely given so late. Around 90 per cent of the 175,000 planned terminations that take place each year in England and Wales are in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Around 1.5 per cent - or 2,600 - take place after the 20th week.
Terminations after 24 weeks are only allowed in exceptional circumstances if, for instance, the mother's life is threatened.
Lady Greenfield is sceptical of philosophers and doctors who argue that consciousness is "switched on" at some point during the brain's development.
She believes instead that there is a sliding scale of consciousness and that it develops gradually as neurons, or brain cells, make more and more connections with each other.
She told the British Fertility Society in London last week that she had serious concerns about foetal consciousness.
"The Home Office has legislation that applies to a mammal and they have now extended it to the octopus, a mollusc, because it can learn," she said. "If a mollusc can be attributed with being sentient, and now has Home Office protection, then my own view is that we should be very cautious after making assumptions."
In 2001 a Medical Research Council expert group said unborn babies might feel pain as early as 20 weeks and almost certainly by 24. They called for more sensitive treatment of very premature babies, who often had to undergo painful procedures like heel pricks and injections.
I also think your point about generating defective children is important. I'm personally baffled by the idea that it is OK to slice, dice, and mutilate an embryo if its going to be killed but not if it is going to be left to grow. The idea that letting something live is a problem seems somewhat perverse to me.
I also agree that people of good character can disagree on this issue (talking to a pro-choice person who did volunteer work with AIDS babies while counter-protesting a pro-abortion rally illustrated that) but that doesn't mean that I think all arguments have merit or are right. I do think that there are plausible pro-choice arguments to be made but most of the "pro-choice" camp has pushed themselves well into "pro-abortion" territory.
That said, if you want to keep discussing this, feel free to send me private messages or to keep this going here. I don't argue abortion as much as I used to. I takes a long time to change minds and few people have the time or patience for the process. Abortion is a nasty issue to discuss (and a fascinating issue to understand) because it touches on so many aspects of people's worldviews that it tends to cut deep. This is only complicated by the fact that so many women have had them and so many men have contributed to them that they have a real personal stake in admitting that they might be wrong (when "wrong" means "you killed your child").
From what I've read, various historical Catholic and Muslim "ensoulment" theories put the line at between 40 and 120 days. Bear in mind that 40 days is well within the first trimester but well before traditional "quickening", which might not happen until the second trimester.
In short, given that the ancient criteria of quickening was anything but consistent or scientific how do you define it? And why do you think it indicates the entry of a soul into the child?
When he conceives the idea.
Helps explain how God knew us before we were formed, even.
Regards, Marvin.
It's all about truth, not popularity.
There are insurmountabe problems with the argument that consciousness can be reduced to a strictly material phenomenon. For example, if thought represents the self, and if each thought is a discrete group of molecules in the brain, then there must be as many selves as discrete thoughts. If the self is a thought-scanning mechanism in the brain, then there must be as many selves as acts of scanning, et cetera, ad infinitum.
The second problem with this theory regards epistemology. If the mind is simply a biological machine, then the possibility exists that it is malfunctioning. Yet, under this theory, there would exist no fixed ground from which to determine whether one's mind is malfunctioning. Logically, all thought must be doubted, including materialist theory. Moreover, we know with certainty some First Principles that are impossible to doubt, such as the Law of Non-Contradiction and the idea that the whole is greater than its parts. Therefore, it is logically impossible to doubt all thought, in contradiction to necessary materialist epistemology.
Ensoulment necessarily occurs at individuation which is characterized by nutrition and growth.
See Aristotle/Aquinas on:
Not necessarily. Certainly God must at least tolerate miscarriages, since He sustains everything in existence.
But God also sustains human free will in its existence, and the choice to commit evil acts is one of the possible choices of the human will. So, at least with humans, we know that one "natural" creature (one aspect of the natural order) has the ability to affect the natural order for evil, although God does not directly intend these evils. These evil acts are directly willed by the natural agent, the human being. For example, human beings can create the evil of environmental pollution.
Therefore, it is logically possible that other beings have been allowed by God to affect the natural order for evil. It is possible that demons were allowed to bring disorder into the natural world after their rebellion. Another theory regarding "the thorns on the rose" is that Adam's sin, his rebellion against God, caused a tear in the fabric of the cosmos, bringing about natural disorders, like miscarriage.
Finally, we can know that God allows the existence of evil so that greater good may come from it, since we know with certainty that God is all good and that God does not directly will evil.
See post #268, and add Substance and Accident to the list. The reading may seem arcane at first, but it's actually a fairly straightforward, rigorous application of common sense.
Hank a person lacking consciousness can not make purposeful movement (such as avoiding a needle or experience learning as in knowing the voice of a father).
Perhaps you favor "taking care of " the people in comas that are truely unconscious
What you were saying is not to be concerned with the idea that the unborn may suffer
For a man that believes he lives a sinless life you take murder too lightly
For a man that believes he lives a sinless life you take murder too lightly
Listen to what I say, with your mind, not your feelings. Instead of trying to guess what I intend, take what I say a face value.
You place too much emphasis on feeling in all issues. They almost do not matter at all. Abortion is wrong, it is wrong if the unborn feel nothing, it is wrong if they feel nothing but pain. Nobody's feelings, yours, mine, the pro-abortionist's, the anti-abortionist's, or the fetus' matter at all. Feelings do not determine what is right or wrong.
That is the whole point. If you go on trying to convince people abortion is wrong because there is some suffering, your going to end up in a debate about whose suffering is more important, and that debate is unwinnable, because nobody's suffereing matters at all.
Certainly, you do not think suffering is bad!
Hank
While I no longer practice an active faith of any kind, I am greatly bothered by those who I perceive to be pursuing what I call a "technological messiah." By this term, I mean any technical advance that people believe will make life suddenly wonderful. For instance, an inexhaustable, inexpensive energy source would seemingly solve so many problems and make life much better in many ways. I'd welcome that advance, but I think its power to make us truly happy is vastly overrated. I fear that some people will believe that they can make human life much better by having only "genetically improved" babies. While I would welcome a cure for many birth defects, I don't believe that eugenics in a lab coat today will produce any more good than it did when practiced by racists in the 20's and 30's.
A second level of discomfort is that some parents might see "genetically improved" children as a way to compensate for negligence in raising children. Regardless of how "genetically perfect" a kid might be, bad parenting is still a way to make monsters.
Again, thanks for some interesting thoughts.
WFTR
Bill
Thank you. This is beautifully clear. Hopefully some clarity on the subject of abortion will lead someday soon to fewer tiny children suffering torture, mutilation and execution.
Thanks, Lizabeth. Now do you want to hear my polemical one that Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. said would get me pilloried rather than praised?
I personally think it is much earlier than any of these Docror’s know about yet. Even in the old movie “Silent Scream” you can see the child move away what was hurting it. IIRC that was a 12 week abortion they filmed?
**God grant us the wisdom of Ireland and Poland, and not allow abortion at all. **
Amen!
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