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From: tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <436@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 29-Aug-85 18:45:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-s.436
Posted: Thu Aug 29 18:45:42 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Sep-85 09:30:43 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 947

>>>And still, despite our newfound knowledge, we have a person's age beginning
>>>at birth.  Ever see the books "The First Twelve Months of Life" or "The
>>>Second Twelve Months of Life"?  Can you take a guess as to when the first
>>>12 start?  That's but one example of how we determine when a human life
>>>begins. [ROSEN]

>> Old habits are hard to change.  And it is still true that we can measure the
>> date of birth more easily than the date of conception. [ROSEN]
                                                          ^^^^^^^
Why are you attributing those two statements of mine to yourself?

> You need to offer a good reason to break this "old habit".  I see none,
> especially when the fetus is not an autonomous entity.

I have been offering reasons.  However, the reason you see none is that
your mind is closed.  Whenever you lose some point of debate, you start
saying that your opponent's debating tactics are bad and make personal
attacks on him/her.

>>>>>the fact that the person is only an autonomous living being once it
>>>>>is BORN,

>>>Newton, it's amazing how you can attempt to twist someone else's words to
>>>try to make a point, and fail miserably.  It is a person, an autonomous
>>>living being ONLY once it is born.  Did *I* make references to a "person"
>>>in the womb?

>> Yes, if inadvertently.  Your statement implied "person before and after
>> birth, autonomous living being after birth".

> You read that implication into my statement because of YOUR assumptions.
> Which says something.

Who's making assumptions?  It is a simple enough matter to reword that sentence
to make it express the same 'ideas' as the rest of your post.  Why didn't you?

>> Perhaps you ought to use language more precisely in the future.

> Perhaps.  Perhaps you should read other people's writing without imposing and
> projecting your own wishes onto it.  Perhaps.

There's no reason to get defensive about bad wording of a sentence.

>>>No, people had known that for some time (despite bogus non-science that
>>>still perpetuates to this day).  In fact, it was precisely because they
>>>wanted to get rid of the hypocrisy, because they knew there was no moral
>>>way to support it.

>> But many of the people who believed in the restrictive definition were not
>> convinced.

> Old habits are hard to change.  Even when there is good reason for it.  This
> happens a lot when such people have a stake in believing such things about
> other people.  What stake is there among pro-choicers, especially given your
> inability to offer a reason to change OUR old habit of denoting human life
> beginning at birth.

I assume you intended to end that last sentence with a question mark, rather
than a period.

With slavery, the stake was 'as soon as we recognize blacks as human, a lot
more people are going to be against slavery and slavery may become illegal'.
With abortion, the stake is 'as soon as we recognize fetuses as human, a lot
more people are going to be against abortion-on-demand and abortion-on-demand
may become illegal'.

By the way, not all pro-choicers denote life as beginning at birth.  I think
that you will find if you open your eyes that there is more than one group on
each side of the abortion issue.

>> There were probably a fair number of slaveholders who actually
>> believed the stuff they were spouting.  But this did not make slavery right;
>> it was wrong even though there were people who did not know it was wrong and
>> who believed that they had a right to hold slaves.

> But it was wrong not just because we now say it is wrong.  And abortion is
> not wrong just because you say it is today.

Conversely, it is not right just because you say it is today.  The fact that
there are basic human rights issues where doing the right thing is much more
important than getting everyone to agree that it is the right thing does not
tell us what the 'right thing' is.  I did not say that it did.

>>>There is no such hypocrisy here in our debate.  At least none coming from
>>>me.

>> But if abortion is wrong, does everyone need to believe that it is wrong in
>> order for it to be wrong?

> What is your basis for calling it wrong?  If you quote religion, personal
> preference, non-scientific drivel, if you twist and manipulate, I'd say your
> basis is vacuous.

I'm not quoting religion or non-scientific drivel.  As to personal preference,
the whole idea of human rights is non-scientific.  Both sides in the abortion
debate use arguments based on rights; if you say that rights are meaningless,
you shouldn't care which side 'wins'.  As for twisting and manipulating, you
seem to do an awful lot of that, and not just to my arguments.

>>  That is to say, there may be some people who need
>> to be stopped from performing actions that *they believe* would not harm
>> other people but which *actually* would harm other people.

> What other people would be harmed?  Back to the burden of proof being on you.
> In another article, you said "I don't accept your assumption that the fetus
> is not a human being".  The burden of proof still rests with you, though you
> choose to use your assumptions to prove your conclusions in arguments here.

Unborn children *are* being killed, in great numbers.  The evidence shows that
seven-month-old fetuses are human, and yet you refuse to acknowledge that fact,
choosing instead to say that they're 'close' and trying to drop the subject.
Why should your pronouncements be considered 'truth'?  Back to the burden of
proof being on you.

>>>Because it's a stupid thing to go by.  The demarcation point of life is at
>>>birth.  It is you who wants to stretch it.

>> On the contrary, the demarcation point of life is at conception.  You have
>> the same DNA that you had when you were a fetus.  It determined the color of
>> your hair and skin, your sex, and various other things.  It organized your
>> growth from a single cell to an infant to a child to the person you are
>> today.

> As someone else pointed out, at conception the zygote still has the potential
> to split into two different entities.  To say that that is where life begins
> sounds very foolish in light of that---by the same reasoning, the minute a
> woman produces an egg, and a man produces a sperm, later "destined" to meet,
> that could also be termed the demarcation point by your logic.  That is quite
> silly to me.  Given the erroneousness of claiming that a zygote represents
> a viable life form, we must use the criteria of real life, that include
> physical autonomy.

Grasping at straws.  You are saying "if you are wrong, I must be right".  The
impression that I got from that article was that we both might be wrong.  But
I am willing to admit that I might be wrong and listen to the evidence for and
against the position presented in that article, whereas your reaction to that
article was to claim "I'm right!  I'm RIGHT!  I'M RIGHT!".  What was that you
were saying about non-scientific drivel?

>>>>After all, there have been lots of atrocities committed on "subhumans" who
>>>>were later found to be human after all.  I haven't heard of any atrocities
>>>>that resulted from going the other way:  assume human until proven
>>>>otherwise.

>>>By this logic, we should never remove the heads from department store
>>>mannequins.  After all, they might be human.

>> Come on now, you expect us to believe this?  Even a most rudimentary
>> examination will show you that mannequins are not living organisms and
>> do not belong to our species.  Fetuses are living organisms and do belong
>> to our species.

> Come on now, you expect us to believe this?  Even a most rudimentary
> examination will show you that fetuses are not living organisms. (They
> may belong to our species, but then so do corpses of once living people.
> Speciation is simply a way of categorizing life forms, in living form or
> not.)

It seems to me that we've had this argument before.  Fetuses are biologically
living organisms.  This is a fact.  There are assumptions behind the various
other definitions of living (especially behind your version) which may not be
valid; if you use other definitions, you must also justify their assumptions.

    Aside:  I admit I was wrong about the single definition of living,
    but by the way you kept saying "The fetus is NOT alive.  It ISN'T!",
    you didn't seem to be too aware of multiple definitions yourself.
    The point I raised earlier about needing to justify using any other
    definition than the biological one still remains.

>>>The fact is they weren't "later" found to be human, they were already known
>>>to be human; it was foul bigots who in their personal insecurity blame other
>>>people for their problems who label some people "subhuman".

>> I'm not labeling fetuses as "subhuman"; you are.  Be careful, or you'll end
>> up insulting yourself.

> I am?  You read a lot into my writing.  What possibly could have prompted
> you to leave out the section in which YOU invoked the word "subhuman"?  What
> indeed!!

I don't read a lot into your writing.  It is very clear when you refuse to
admit that seven-month-old fetuses are human.  What else could you mean by
calling someone 'close' but 'not human'?

I did not call anyone subhuman.  Are you aware that one of the purposes of
quotation marks (not the only purpose) is to indicate disbelief?

>>>>Go ahead and kill all the tapeworms, bacteria, and viruses that you want.
>>>>But don't kill other human beings.

>>>I'm not proposing that we do.  I'm proposing that similar organisms in the
>>>body (like fetuses) be dealt with in the same way if the person wants to.

>> Tapeworms, bacteria, etc. don't belong to the species Homo sapiens.  Fetuses
>> do, and this difference is a major one as far as rights are concerned.

> Tapeworms and bacteria aren't similar themselves, and since fetuses aren't
> living in that they are not physically autonomous, I fail to see the point of
> this line of argument.

Tapeworms and bacteria are similar in the sense that both can be found in
the human body.  The "physical autonomy" argument is bogus; you lost that
one when you admitted that dialysis patients are human.

>>>Unless you can prove that these are human beings

>> The fact that they are living, that they belong to our species, and that it
>> has already been proven that seven-month-old fetuses can live outside of
>> their mothers (suggesting that we'll get proofs for younger ages as our
>> technology advances) SHOULD suggest something to you.  Also note that every
>> adult who is living today was once a fetus with the same DNA, and that no
>> adult who lives today was once a cancer, tumor, etc. -- the "fetus=cancer"
>> argument is BOGUS.

> The fact that you cannot show them to be living, because you know they are,
> at the point at which abortion is considered, not capable of physical
> autonomy, SHOULD suggest something to you.  But you choose to keep ignoring
> that point.  "Suggesting that we'll get proofs for younger ages"????  I'm
> not sure what relevance "everyone was once a fetus" has to any argument here.

Not capable of living outside the mother's body with the help of machines?
Maybe not with today's machines, but that says nothing about the *fetus*, only
about our level of technology.  Where's your proof that it's *inherently*
impossible for a fetus to live outside of its mother's body?  The equivalent
of your argument a few hundred years ago would have been that 'infants are not
human because they depend on breast feeding and thus are not autonomous'.

If you read the rest of the sentence that included (roughly) "everyone was
once a fetus", you would have seen that it was aimed at the "fetus=cancer"
argument which appeared before and (knowing this net) will probably appear
again.

>>>Unless you can show how they can exist in a physically autonomous separate
>>>state from the bodies they inhabit.

>> This has been shown for seven-month-old and older fetuses.

> Which is beyond the point at which abortion is considered.

Are you *that* sure that it won't be shown for younger fetuses?  The trend
has been to show that fetuses at younger and younger ages can live outside
the womb; I doubt that medical progress will stop at the trimester border
as you so obviously hope.

>> The difference between seven-month-old fetuses and six-month-old fetuses is
>> one of degree, not one of kind.  In fact, if you keep looking back you will
>> discover that the 'difference of kind' occurs when you cross the boundary of
>> conception.

> But since conception is NOT a viable point of demarcation, since few if any
> of the qualities of independent LIFE are present, we must look to other
> criterai, which you seem to be unwilling to do.

It is clear that birth is NOT a viable point of demarcation.  And it is you
who seem to be unwilling to look at other criteria, as evidenced by the way
you reacted to the post suggesting that the demarcation point was just after
the point where twins can appear.

>>>>As to the first part of #2, clearly everyone does not agree with you.

>>>You mean some people are DEMANDING that women remove the fetuses within
>>>them?  Care to substantiate that?  Or are you referring to "parasitic
>>>nature"?  Who doesn't agree with that, and why?

>> What were you saying about twisting words?  I was referring to:
>>      >>> ...given wht it does to her body, surely her wishes take precedence
>>      >>> over anything usurping nourishment from her and causing changes to
>>      >>> her body against her will,

> Which was the middle of the paragraph, not "the first part of #2".  I don't
> need any further substantiation of your tactics of argument to form an
> opinion.  As you said earlier, though, some people feel that other people
> are "subhuman", and choose not to acknowledge their rights.  Perhaps what
> you have cited is an example of this.

It was the "first part" as opposed to the "last part".  I probably should have
been more precise, but notice that I did quote the words which I was referring
to when confusion arose.

It is abundantly clear that you don't need substantiation of *anything* to
form an opinion on *anything*.  In fact, you seem to regard substantiation
of other people's points as a threat, rather than as an opportunity to learn.

>>>>and we don't hold infants to be responsible for their actions.

>>> Meaning we never punish children for wrongdoing in an effort to educate
>>> them and set them straight.  (Some punish just for the hell of it, out of
>>> some pleasure of power over the kids.)  This is clearly not true.

>>> Notice that I said infants.  What do infants do that deserves punishment?

> I don't know if you're a parent or not, but infants in most households I'm
> familiar with don't get to run rampant.  If they do what they're told not
> to do, they are punished, as part of a means to teach them right from wrong
> and such.  Of course, as I said above, some parents just smack kids around
> because they feel like it, because they think it's their right, but that's
> probably not germane to THIS particular discussion.

I'm not a parent, but I once was a child and I have a younger sister.
Generally, if you don't want an infant to drink turpentine, you keep the
turpentine out of reach of the infant.  As children get older, the amount
of responsibility they have *to their family* for their actions increases,
but the *adults* in the family are held responsible to the outside world
for the actions of their children.  When a child goes to school, the school
assumes some of the responsibilities of the parents while the kid is there.

>>>>Also note that it is logically impossible for fetuses to cause their own
>>>>conception, since they don't exist before that point.

>>>To which I say:  So?  What relevance does this have to the argument?  All
>>>the adults you refer to were once fetuses, and THEY didn't cause their own
>>>conception, thus (by your logic) THEY shouldn't be held responsible either.

>> More word-twisting.  You were not responsible for your OWN conception, but
>> that says nothing about any conceptions that you cause.

> But I wasn't responsible for having been born in the first place, so how can
> you hold me responsible for ANYTHING that follows?  It wasn't my fault,
> I didn't choose to be born.  That's what you're putting forth as an argument.

How can I hold you reponsible for ANYTHING that follows?  Very simply.  Once
you are an adult, you have CONTROL over your own actions and presumably enough
INTELLIGENCE that you know (or should know) what you are doing.  Before you
were conceived, you didn't even EXIST, so you couldn't have possibly prevented
your own conception.  All during the period when you were a fetus, you had
even less responsibility for your actions than an infant -- did your mother
ever punish you for kicking her while you were a fetus?  But now that you do
have control over your actions and are presumably competent to make choices,
it's appropriate to hold you responsible for the consequences of those choices.

>>>>The grounds for granting an exception to a fetus is that it is human, it
>>>>is alive, and it is not reponsible for its presence in the womb.

>>>If it's human, why must it occupy another person's body?  What if someone
>>>kidnapped you, hollowed out your skull, and chose to live in your head.
                                               ^^^^^
>> The fetus doesn't choose to be conceived; two people conceive it.

> But by your logic above they couldn't be responsible, because they never
> chose to be born in the first place.

That's not my logic; it's your twisting of my logic.  Is it your position
that infants are as responsible for their actions as adults are for theirs?
If an infant plays with the trigger on a loaded gun and it goes off and kills
someone, does that make the infant equivalent to a Mafia hitman?  Or does it
imply that someone was very stupid to leave a loaded gun lying around?

>>>Could you have him evicted?  How?  He's not "responsible" for that act,
>>>obviously he is not of sound mind.  What kind of bogus argument is that?

>> What am I have supposed to have done that resulted in placing him there?  In
>> the case of fetuses, the mother and father placed the kid(s) in the mother's
>> body.  It would be a little bogus for me to place a lunatic inside my head
>> and then claim a right to have him evicted at the cost of his life.  That's
>> why I don't place lunatics in my head or even invite them to come live
>> there.

> You are responsible for having a head, and taking care of it, making sure it
> is safe from intrusion by lunatics who want to live in it.  If not, you MUST
> suffer the consequences.  Is that what you're saying?  Or are we really back
> to that old religious line "You had sex, you are obliged to 'take
> responsibility' and have a baby"?  It sure sounds like it, but I can't be
> sure.

Both of those 'summaries' are bogus.  Reread my statement carefully.

>>>Clearly it does not qualify as a physically autonomous being at all, because
>>>it cannot live outside the environment it occupies.

>> Clearly this is a bogus statement, because seven-month-old and older fetuses
>> can live and have been shown capable of living outside of the womb.  There
>> is good reason to believe that younger fetuses can live outside of the womb
>> given an appropriate environment -- the trend has been towards showing that
>> younger and younger fetuses can live outside the womb.

> Fine, then put your money where your mouth is.  Allow a woman the right to
> remove the fetus that she doesn't want in her body, and bring it to term
> in the "appropriate environment".  And do with it what you will when it
> leaves that environment, and becomes an autonomous real life form, a human
> being.

It already IS a human being; asserting "It's NOT!  It's NOT!  It's NOT!"
does not make it otherwise.  When the appropriate environment is in place
*and* is no more risky for the fetus than the womb, I will support letting
the parents choose between supporting the fetus in the womb and supporting
it in this environment.

>>>A better example:  people who have lost their jobs and have no money are
>>>evicted from their apartment for not paying their rent.  Are they exempt
>>>from eviction because they are not "responsible" for their predicament?

>> I suspect (a) that the landlord didn't put them in there, and (b) they were
>> competent to handle their own affairs, unlike fetuses, infants, and
>> children.

> Why do you suspect that?  Perhaps they grew up unable to learn a viable trade
> and earn a viable living for whatever reason. And now they've lost the last
> job they could hope for in these crunching times.  But more importantly,
> what difference does it make if someone chose to "put" a fetus (or its
> ingredients) "there"?  Why is that an important point in your argument?

Roughly 99% of all abortions are performed to terminate pregnancies that the
parents could have CHOSEN to avoid.  Some of the remaining abortions are done
to save the life of the mother, and most pro-lifers do believe in allowing
abortions to save the life of the mother.  Rape/incest cases comprise a very
small fraction of all abortions; they are the hardest because *neither* the
mother or the child could have acted to avoid the pregnancy.  There are many
pro-choice arguments which have some validity in rape/incest cases but not in
others, although their proponents intend them to apply to the general case.

>>>Then remove them from the woman's body and see if they survive.  I think
>>>this would be far more inhumane than abortion by any standards.

>> That's not what I said.  Not everyone believes that your standard that "the
>> fetus must be able to survive in today's world with today's technology
>> outside of the mother's body" (is this close enough?) applies to fetuses.

> Believe what you like, but there's a real world out there.  Part of
> the prerequisite for life is physical autonomy.

Yes, there is a real world out there, although you evidently don't want to
live in it.  I don't accept this 'autonomy' argument with respect to dialysis
patients and the like; why should I apply a different standard to fetuses?

> Otherwise, it is analogous
> to a "virus", which is not considered life because it does not exist as life
> in an autonomous way.

More wishful thinking on your part.  Go to school.  Go directly to school.
Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200.  When you have learned enough biology
to distinguish cells and multi-celled organisms from viruses, come back and
try using more reasonable arguments.

Does anyone wonder now why I included a sentence debunking the fetus=cancer
myth?  (I didn't think *anyone* would say that fetus=virus!)

>> That's funny.  Not a single pro-lifer disagreed that the fetus is alive.
>> But I distinctly remember Sophie telling you that you shouldn't resort to
>> lies to 'prove' your point.

> It's not surprising that pro-lifers continue in their assumptions.  I haven't
> heard negative comments from Sophie since the original article in this series
> that clarified my position.  Perhaps she understands now that I am not
> telling lies.  Perhaps you choose to think otherwise because ...

It's not surprising that pro-lifers have not adopted YOUR assumptions, since
they are extremely bogus.  "Thou shalt believe because it is the word of Rich
Rosen" sounds an awful lot like religion to me.

>> Sorry.  The fact that we don't have extremely advanced technology today does
>> not mean that fetuses aren't human.  Given that I would protect their lives,
>> and you would not, it is up to you to prove that they are not human.

> And I proved that they were not living by showing that they cannot live
> as physically autonomous entities.

You didn't prove anything.  If you give a second-grade student a test, and
s/he flunks that test, you *cannot* conclude that all second-grade students
will flunk that test on the basis of that one trial.

> A point which you skirt at every
> convenient opportunity, by saying "what about 7-monthers" (not applicable
> as far as abortion goes in any case) or some other dismissables.

*You* are the one skirting the issue.  On the issue of seven-month fetuses
being human, you have clearly lost.  Yet you refuse to admit that you are
wrong.  You claim that they are 'close' but 'not human' (when there is no
ground for calling them anything but human) and try to change the subject
at every opportunity.  These tactics are known as bad sportsmanship.

As I have mentioned before, the case of seven-month-old fetuses is relevant
to the case of younger fetuses; the difference between seven-monthers and
six-monthers is one of degree, not of kind.  So the fact that seven-month-
fetuses are human does have bearing on the abortion issue because of what it
implies about younger fetuses.

>>>>The humane thing to do is to let them live, i.e. don't abort them.

>>>The humane thing is to let tapeworms live, too.  After all, don't they have
>>>rights, too?

>> Not very many rights in my eyes.  Whatever species the tapeworm belongs to,
>> it doesn't have anywhere near the rights of Homo sapiens, or the rights of
>> chimpanzees for that matter.

> So let's concentrate on the rights of living human beings.

That's what I was doing until you started talking about the rights of
tapeworms.

>>>Late-term fetuses, as you call them, are beyond the scope of legal abortion
>>>in any case.  Yes, they can be saved.  And in the cases where the mother has
>>>carried the fetus to term with the intent of giving birth, every attempt is
>>>often made to do so.  But this has little to do with the arguments about
>>>legal abortion.

>> It has a lot to do with the arguments about legal abortion; the fact that
>> late-term-fetuses can survive outside of their mother's bodies shows just
>> how bogus it is to say that birth is the starting point of life.

> Not at all, it merely says that only at THAT point are we able to simulat
> the NECESSARY womblike environment to allow the fetus to develop to
> term and become autonomous.

What a load!!!  If the machines can simulate the womblike environment, then
the fetus isn't dependent on the inside of another person's body, now, is it?
And if dependence on machines makes a person "not human" then kidney dialysis
patients are "not human".  But you have admitted that they are human, and thus
logically dependence on machines does NOT make a person "not human".

>> And it raises obvious question:  "if these fetuses are human, what makes
>> these others not human, if anything?"  I don't see anything sufficient to
>> call them "subhuman".

> Your choice of word.  They may qualify as potential homo sapiens once they
> are born, but since they are not physically autonomous (a necessary
> prerequisite) and thus not alive, well ...

You were saying "subhuman" in so many words.  Why not be honest about it?
They already *are* Homo sapiens; there is nothing "potential" about it (you
can't squirm out of this one since Homo sapiens is the species name).  The
"physical autonomy" you keep raving about is clearly *not* a prerequisite
since we don't require it of dialysis patients.  The "thus not alive" part
is false under the biological definition of life, and is also false under
your definition as long as you apply the same standards to fetuses that you
apply to dialysis patients.

>>>If you are seeking "hard proof", why not do what I suggested above:
>>>remove a fetus from a woman's body during the early part of pregnancy, nd
>>>do whatever you like to sustain it, and take responsibility for any
>>>grotesque deformities that occur, causing a barely functioning human at
>>>"term" (whenever and ifever "term" is, and if indeed it would be human at
>>>all).

>> I would not do this to a seven-month-old fetus, even though I know that such
>> fetuses can survive outside the womb, because the risk to the child outside
>> the womb is currently greater than the risk to the child inside the womb.  I
>> suspect that any doctor with a proper sense of ethics would refuse to do
>> such an experiment if you approached him/her with it.

> Damn right!  Partially because they know that EVEN for a 7-month fetus (as
> you admit), and certainly for one that hasn't been around as long, it is
> less than unlikely that the fetus would not survive into lifehood, and if
> it did it was likely to be terribly deformed.  Obviously you are making a
> point for which you know that hard proof is unavailable, then scoffing it
> off by saying "it's unethical" to get it, thus you win.

Ethical doctors would also not recommend elective cosmetic surgery in which
the patient has a 25% chance of dying.  Does this mean that such surgery is
impossible, especially if it had been used in non-elective cases?  Of course
not!!  But if the trend in such surgery (performed non-electively) was towards
making it safer and more widely applicable, it would not be bogus to note this
trend and suspect that someday the surgery might be performed electively.

>>>Why?  What's so special about depending upon plants and animals?  The whole
>>>ecosystem is just one huge web of dependencies.

>>>I'm not occupying an animal's insides for sustenance.  Furthermore, if I
>>>was out there seeking my own food from animals, do I have a "right" to do
>>>this?  Is the animal powerless from stopping me from using it for food?

>> We raise lots of animals each year to be slaughtered.  And in large part,
>> they are powerless from stopping people from using them for food.

> Do they lack "rights" to fight back?  Amazing that we choose cows and sheep
> to raise, not animals that WOULD fight back.  Wonder why?  Anyway, what is
> the point you're making?

You're confusing 'rights' and 'abilities' here:  whether or not the animal
has the RIGHT to fight back is independent of its ABILITY to fight back.
You're the one who started off down this tangent.  What is your point?

>>>Is a woman "powerless" to choose to have a fetus removed from her body?
>>>Same rules apply.

>> Hardly.  I'm sorry if this offends you, but I believe that humans have more
>> rights than dogs, cats, tapeworms, and plants.  I treat other human beings
>> quite differently from the way that I treat insects, and I don't see
>> anything wrong with it.

> Sorry if this offends you, but when it comes down to it, you are treating
> human beings differently only because you are a human being, and you do so
> in self interest.  All those organisms, from an objective sense, have as
> many rights as you do.  It is only because we value our own species that we
> agree that certain rights of life be granted to human beings, to allow
> freedom from interference and harm from others exercising their "freedom"
> beyond the boundaries of non-interference.  Those rights start with becoming
> a human being, a physically autonomous life form, and not before.

So you think that every animal has as many rights as you have.  Why not
plants?  If you believe that plants and animals have as many rights as you
do and that non-interference is everything (actually, it's non-attainable,
since you can't avoid affecting others), why aren't you sitting in a corner
slowly starving to death?

Could it be possibly that animals and plants don't have as many rights as
you have?  If so, this little foray has gained you nothing.  Or do you think
that there are no rights at all?  In this case, you don't have any reason
to protest *any* outcome to the abortion debate, since all stands have the
same validity, i.e. none.

And as I have mentioned before, everyone does not accept your bogus
definition of "human being".

>>>>But not everyone would agree with your premises, or with the premise that a
>>>>person has UNLIMITED rights to control of their body.  If someone has
>>>>absolute rights to control their body, what right do you have to prevent
>>>>them from strangling someone else?  After all, they were just exercising
>>>>their right to close their fingers, and if they happened to be around
>>>>someone else's throat at the time, too bad...

>>>Ever hear "your right to swing your fist ends before it hits my face"?  You
>>>have the right to your OWN body, not to others.  Something anti-abortionists
>>>could learn a little about when trying to impose their will on others.

>> Your right to control your body ends where the other human being you placed
>> inside it begins.

> Again with the assumed conclusion style of argument?  Start again, please,
> and this time give a reasoned argument.

The argument
        Human(FETUS)     + Non_Interference    => Abortion is wrong
has no more assumptions than the argument
        not Human(FETUS) + Non_Interference    => Abortion is right

You are asking us to accept "not Human(FETUS)" for reasons that basically
boil down to "I want not Human(FETUS) to hold" (what other reason could you
have for applying a different standard to dialysis patients than fetuses?).
Why might you want us to believe "not Human(FETUS)"?  Why, so that we will
conclude "Abortion is right".

I find it very interesting that you evade any argument that might cause you
to conclude HUMAN(X) for any X for which FETUS(X) also holds.  This says a
lot about who is doing "assumed conclusion"-style arguments.

>>>>Did everyone catch that?  Now you not only need to be independent from
>>>>other human beings, but from MACHINES as well for Rich to consider you to
>>>>be a living human being.

>>>Indeed.  If you are connected to full life support because your body does
>>>not pump blood or perform bodily functions, the law says you are dead.  And
>>>in fact you are.  To claim that you are alive (in this case) is to claim
>>>that a sewage or irrigation system or an airconditioning system is alive.
>>>There is a big difference between a living person temporarily using machines
>>>to recuperate and get back to a fully functional state and a person (or
>>>fetus that cannot function without machines and has no hope of ever
>>>functioning without full life support of machines.

>> I didn't say FULL life support.  Note that a dialysis patient is as fully
>> dependent upon the machines as a late-term fetus, if not more so.  If the
>> dialysis patient is deprived of the use of the machines for even a fairly
>> short period, the poisons in his/her blood will kill him/her.

> It's amazing how you have to keep going back to "late-term fetuses outside
> the womb", when that has no relevance to the abortion argument.  The degree
> of dialysis support necessary varies from patient to patient.

Why do I keep going back to that argument?  Because you continue to evade it.
A simple "I was wrong; logic does lead to the conclusion that seven-month-old
fetuses are human" will do; instead you continue to illogically maintain that
seven-month-old fetuses are "not human".

>> I notice that you have avoided saying outright whether or not a dialysis
>> patient is human, and have claimed that a late-term fetus is not a human
>> being even though it can live outside it's mother's body.

> The dialysis equipment is an external connection to the person's body, it is
> not that person's entire environment.  And I said this.  And I said that such
> a patient was human.  So what are you trying to do in this argument now???

What do you mean by 'entire environment'?  The Shuttle astronauts depend upon
machines for their oxygen, water, etc. and they are human.  'But they do not
live there all the time', you might reply.  So what if they did?  It wouldn't
make them any less human.

For your information, fetal support equipment does not contain anything like
a computer to replace the fetus's brain.

What I am trying to get you to do in this argument is to make the entirely
logical concession that seven-month-old fetuses are human.  Not 'close',
but 'human', just like the rest of us.

>>>>Tell me, Rich, is an adult who uses a dialysis machine not a 'living human
>>>>being'?  If doctors connect a patient to a heart-lung machine during a
>>>>major operation, is the patient not a 'living human being' during the
>>>>operation, and thus subject to being killed by any random who wants to kill
>>>>him/her?  If not,then how do you justify calling seven-month and older
>>>>fetuses not human, even by your definitions?

>>>1) I answered most of these questions in the previous paragraph.  2) I did
>>>not call any fetuses human above.(A blatant and foul misquoting by Newton).
>>>What I did say was:
>>>>>Yes, there is surely a point at which a fetus is close enough to being a
>>>>>living human being that it *could*, with medical assistance, be sustained
>>>>>through the end of the fetal period TO THE POINT WHERE IT COULD BE
>>>>>DISCONNECTED from supporting equipment, and THUS be a living human being.

>> 1) You are evading the question:  Is a dialysis patient human?

> I already answered that in the affirmative.  Your attempt to make it seem
> like I haven't to promote your position is typically abominable.

A source of confusion here is that I read and answered your last post on a
paragraph by paragraph basis, and you answered the question indirectly in
response to a later paragraph.

>> If your answer is YES, explain why you continue to say that late-term
>> fetuses are not human, in light of the standards that you set for other
>> human beings.

> I answered that above.  And in my last article.  And I refuse to do so again
> only to see you misquote or leave it out to your own ends.

All I see are 'points' that could as easily be used to call adults undergoing
medical treatment "not human".  Taking these away in the name of consistency,
all that's left is a double standard.

>> 2) In my response to the paragraph, I did not 'accuse' you of calling any
>> fetuses human.  True, you earlier referred to fetuses as persons, but that
>> seems to be a case where you were being inconsistent.

> This is a lie on top of a further lie.  Do you care to document this?  I
> thought not.  You ceased long ago to argue reasonably.  I don't see why I
> should continue.

Did I say intentionally inconsistent?  Maybe T.C. Wheeler was right when he
claimed that you have never admitted to any mistakes!!  I think I understand
the flames about you on various nets a lot better now.

>>  I said that you were claiming that late-term-fetuses were "not human".  How
>> else is one supposed to interpret
>>     >>> close enough to being a living human being
>>  Again, if you say that dialysis patients are not human, you will have one
>> hell of a fight on your hands.  If you say that they are human, how can you
>> possibly justify calling late-term fetuses 'close enough' (which implies
>> that they are not quite human) rather than acknowledging their humanity?

> For a change, the implication you got out of this statement is correct.  It
> is close enough to lifehood so that they can be weaned off of extreme
> supportive equipment and begin to live as autonomous beings.  "Acknowledging
> their humanity"?  Give me a break.  Your words don't fit in my mouth.

Why do you continue to say 'close enough'?  Are not adult humans sometimes to
be found using extreme supportive equipment?  All I can see is that you don't
want to concede the point and have started acting in a much more emotional and
illogical way than you do when an argument is still up in the air.

>>>>Or could it be that treating fetuses consistently would
>>>>force you to the conclusion that younger fetuses might be human also?

>>>Or sperm cells?  Or ova?  Or individual body organs?  Note again that I
>>>did not say that fetuses, older or not, are necessarily human.  That occurs
>>>at birth.  After all, what is birth is not the fully grown fetus saying
>>>"I'm ready, let me out", metaphorically speaking.

>> If dialysis patients are human (and you haven't claimed that they aren't, or
>> answered my question), HOW can you claim that late-term-fetuses are anything
>> BUT human, even going by the 'criteria' that you have put into your posts?

> Because dialysis is one body function among many that requires external
> support, and because in most cases dialysis treatment is an intermittent
> affair.

But it is as critical as any other body function -- if it doesn't work and
you don't do something about it, you die.  Is a crippled dialysis patient
less human than one who can walk because the former uses two machines and
the latter uses only one?  If someone required continuous treatment, would
that make them not human?

>>>>Under your definition, a dialysis patient is not human, because the support
>>>>equipment never goes away.

> Where the support equipment is all encompassing, and where it is permanent,
> and where there is no hope of removing the equipment, the law says the person
> is dead.

The law says the person is dead when brain death has occurred.  In some cases,
where people have been in a coma, and the coma is expected to last until death,
and they are on supportive equipment, courts have allowed hospitals/families
to remove the supporting equipment in hopes that the patient will die.  Note
*will die* rather than *because the patient already is dead*.  Net.abortion is
not the place to discuss this issue in any great detail.

In the case of fetuses, the support equipment is not 'permanent' with 'no
hope of removing the equipment' (aren't you being redundant?).  This is true
whether the support equipment is natural (the womb) or mechanical (machines
in hospitals).

>>>Even if one were connected to it permanently (most kidney patients need it
>>>at intervals), enough of one's other body functions are taken care of by
>>>the person's own body that he is of course still human.  Even an artificial
>>>heart serves such a purpose.  In fact it becomes a part of the person's
>>>body.  Does the mother become a part of the fetus' body?  Vice versa?

>> Now you finally get around to answering the first question with a few
>> qualifications.  Now answer the second one:  How can you maintain that
>> late-term-fetuses are not human if you acknowledge that dialysis patients
>> are human?

> I already have.

Then you don't have a reason sufficient to justify calling late-term-fetuses
"not human"; your criteria would allow calling some adult humans "not human",
and criteria that lead to contradictions are generally not very useful.

>>  The 'take away the machine and see if it dies' criterion is
>> now definitely OUT.  What's left?  Dependence on the care of other human
>> beings?  But infants and other hospital patients also exhibit this trait.

> Yes, it's definitely out.  Perhaps because you know it would prove my point,
> ethics aside.

It's definitely out because it would allow one to conclude that dialysis
patients are not human, and even you admit that they are human.  It would
'prove' your point in the sense that FALSE implies anything; but the rules
of logic do not allow using FALSE as one of the assumptions of a proof.

>>>>Dependence upon a person or a machine isn't the right measure.  A closer
>>>>approximation would be "does this person have any non-brain-dead life
>>>>left? Fetuses, healthy children or adults, and people on dialysis machines
>>>>do.  A person in a coma who is expected to snap out of it also does.  A
>>>>person is brain-dead doesn't.

>>>But since a fetus is not a person in that it has not functioned
>>>autonomously, this does not apply to them.  This is not an assertion of the
>>>type that you persistently make ("a fetus IS a person, it IS, it IS, it
>>>IS").  Physical autonomy is one of the fundamental pieces of the definition
>>>of "living" in the context we are using it.

>> This does not apply to them because you don't want it to apply to them?

> It does not apply because they are not autonomous.  Not because "I don't want
> them to be human", the converse of your position.

So you're insisting that the assumptions behind your definition of life must
be valid because you have decided to use your definition of life.  A rather
circular argument, don't you think?

>> Bogus!  Why is physical autonomy so important?

> Ah, I see, you just don't like that particular criterion.  All the others ARE
> important, but physical autonomy, NAAAH!  Thank you for summing up your
> position.

Accepting absolute physical autonomy as one of the basic requirements for
being human means saying that dialysis patients are not human, which is very
much at odds with reality.  This is a good reason for not accepting absolute
physical autonomy as part of the definition of 'human' or 'living', regardless
of what one thinks of the other parts of your definition of these words.

>>  If an infant goes straight from the delivery room to the operating table,
>> would you claim that the child is not human until the operation is complete?

> Aren't human beings found on operating tables?  What IS your point?

Suppose the infant is on a heart-lung machine during the operation, and thus
not 'physically autonomous'.  Your criteria would lead one to believe that
said infant was not a living human being until after the operation was over,
which is much at odds with reality.

Yes, human beings are found on operating tables.  But from the 'physical
autonomy' criterion, we'd never know it.

>> And notice that I referred to the fetus as a person.

> No, I hadn't.  It must have totally slipped by me.  You must have done it in
> the most subtle way imaginable.  (Is a sarcasm indicator really necessary?)

>>  Your bogus assertions
>> that "The fetus is not alive.  It ISN'T!  It ISN'T!" to the contrary.

> Assertions because I provide evidence to prove my point?  Bogus because
> you don't like them?  Thank you again.  Your position is clear.

Assertions because faulty evidence proves nothing.  Bogus because the
fetus is biologically alive, and at least one of the assumptions that
you use in your definition of 'living' leads to contradictions.

>>>>But if a late-term fetus is as much a human being as a newborn infant (and
>>>>I don't think anyone can rationally dispute that), doesn't it suggest that
>>>>earlier-term fetuses might also be human?

>>>Newton, shut it.  Nowhere above did I even imply that the fetus, even in
>>>late term, qualifies as a physically autonomous human being, yet you insist
>>>that I did so as to screw around with my argument.  A late term fetus is not
>>>"just as much a human being as a newborn infant", it merely has much more of
>>>a chance of surviving a disruptive removal from the womb (say, due to an
>>>accident) and will eventually be weaned off of medical equipment to become
>>>human.  Please desist from such twisting in the future.

>> It is you who are doing the twisting.  Did you even read the last half of my
>> message?  In it, I did not say that you claimed that fetuses are human.

> Above you said that I said "if a late term fetus is as much a human being as
> a newborn infant", which I simply did not say.  In fact, which is showed
> logical proof AGAINST.  Earlier in this article you also claimed I had stated
> that fetuses are persons.  I think it is very clear who is twisting what.

Again you are wrong.  I did not say that you said that; I was indirectly
quoting myself, as the number of ">" marks in front of the paragraph shows.

>> I *did* ask for you to explain how you could possibly arrive at the
>> conclusion 'dialysis patients are human; late-term fetuses are not' if
>> indeed that was your position.  You didn't answer my questions directly.

> I did, but then we've heard this before.

As I mentioned above, I read and answered your last post paragraph by
paragraph, which accounts for this confusion.

>> but since you did
>> answer some of them in response to later parts of my post, I have been able
>> to deduce that 'dialysis patients are human; late-term fetuses are not' is
>> indeed your position.

> So why did you spend 50% of the article claiming that I didn't answer the
> question.  (I answeredit directly, despite what you claim.)

Because I had read and answered 50% (or whatever) of the article before I
got down to the end where you answered the question I had posed earlier.
Sorry about that.  I probably should have read through the whole article
when answering every paragraph.

>>  But you have not provided any rational justification
>> of this position.  "Newton, shut it" is not a rational justification.

> What follows was.  "Newton, shut it" was just the words of a human being sick
> and tired of having his words twisted, his position manipulated, etc.

What's very interesting is that you start complaining about people twisting
your words and manipulating your position at about the same time you start to
lose some point of an argument in a big way.  I'm under no delusions of being
singled out for this treatment.

> This is the last in a series, simply because I refuse to have my position
> mangled and changed into something it isn't by Thomas Newton for the purpose
> of proving his lies.  I will summarize my position in a later article,
> a much shorter article that doesn't concentrate on venting anger and
> defending myself against Newton's twisting, and hope to hear responses to
> *that*.

Can't resist letting go with a final personal attack, can you?  But you
can't hurt me by them, because I don't value your opinions that highly.

                                        -- Thomas Newton
                                           Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA