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From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights (Pt. 2 of 4)
Message-ID: <5924@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbscc.5924
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 04:19:31 EDT
References: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA> <1546@pyuxd.UUCP> <998@brl-tgr.ARPA> <1597@pyuxd.UUCP> <1095@brl-tgr.ARPA> <214@3comvax.UUCP> <5923@cbscc.UUCP>
Reply-To: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (unix-Paul Dubuc,x7836,1L244,59472)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories <SCCS>, Columbus
Lines: 188

>Brave New World, Revisited
>
>Anti-abortionists -- as I recall, including you, Matt -- 
>usually now talk about, ``Well, what if your parents had
>decided to abort *you* -- how would you feel then!''  And
>usually now the case studies are trotted forward, where
>so-and-so's parents toyed with abortion but didn't, and
>here he is, and boy, isn't he glad!  This *ss-backwards-
>looking argument puts the cart before the horse, and is
>not a sensible guide to action.  Naturally, humans *once
>they exist* psychologically want to be assured of their
>present existence!  I'll try to illustrate with a parable.  

The point, as I see it is whether anyone has the right to
decide whether any other persons future life will be worth
living and destroy that person if they thing not.  This has
nothing to do with how that person would have felt if she
had been allowed to live.

[I have deleted the parable because I think it misses the
point I have made here.]

>The conclusion, I think, is inescapable -- that human beings,
>before their existence becomes ``real'' not potential in some
>important sense, do *not* have the right to ``dictate'' that
>they actually be made to exist.  *Of course*, those that cross
>this threshold, wherever it is, must be nurtured and cherished!  

What give us the right to dictate whether they shall exist?

>Defining Humanity -- Or, Murder Most Foul!
>
>...
>So, the crux of the debate comes down to precisely *where* the
>existence of human beings becomes ``real'' in whatever sense
>is deemed to be ``important.''  And what sense of ``humanity,''
>pray tell, is important to the ``pro-lifers''?  Why, the
>non-sentient *egg* is deemed so ``human'' that an adult human
>is to be forced -- by the *State* -- to stand down before it!  

To respect her right to live you mean?

>It is here where the case is so clear-cut -- and ultimately
>so ridiculous -- that the anti-abortionists usually slowly
>give way, all the while fighting rear-guard actions with
>mouthings about ``slippery slopes.''  Yes, it *may* be all
>right, some will reluctantly agree, for a woman to use an
>I.U.D.  (But only in cases of rape or incest...  :-))  

Someone else stressed the IUD question in a subsequent article.
What is wrong with not using it?  Is it the only form of birth
control for any women?  It surely isn't the safest (especially
if it fails) or the most effective.  I don't see how the IUD
backs pro-lifer's into any corner.

>Anti-abortionists charge that allowing abortion on demand will
>lead inevitably to legalized killing of babies, children, the
>feeble-minded, and old people (next -- *us*).  These are the
>``slippery slopes.''  I say this could *only* happen if we as
>a society loose sight of what it really means to be *human*.  

More to the point:  The logic involved in defining who is a
rightful human being and who is not does not prevent the killing
of other classes of humans that we tend to want to protect.
Whether or not these other classed hold onto their protected
status in the future then depends on things that ought not to
be the basis for defining rightful human life.  Things such
as whether someone else wants that person; econmomic factors;
and asthetic judgements.

>On the contrary, I charge the so-called ``pro-life'' movement with
>inciting just such dehumanizing influences, with its single-minded
>insistence that the fetus has ``human rights'' -- during stages
>of development where the fetus manifests no more correspondence
>to characteristics we would consider ``human'' than certain
>organizations of chemicals -- which transcend the human rights of
>a living, breathing, thinking, feeling, human being -- the woman!  

Again you are wheighing any conceiveable right the woman has against
all the rights of the fetus.  We can examine your "characteristics"
of a rightful human being next:

>The Nervous System and The Brain
>
>Fortunately, I think that society as a whole is smarter than the
>``pro-life'' philosophy.  For example, I think this is reflected
>in the growing acceptance of ``brain death'' rather than ``heart
>stop'' as an accurate indicator of when the ``person we knew'' has
>gone.  *What* defines the ``human.''  This is the philosophical
>issue of all time, and we won't solve it today, but it seems clear
>that some essential part of what being *human* means, that which
>sets us apart from the animals, requires that the nervous system
>and the many-convoluted apparatus of the *brain* be present to
>support it.  In particular, centuries of medical experience with
>accidents, disease, and surgery on brain and body have revealed
>that when a brain's *cerebral cortex* has been heavily damaged,
>all traces of a human personality go away and *never* come back.  

I think it is a misuse of the "brain dead" criterion to apply it as
a standard of "what defines 'human'".  Incidently,  the "Harvard Criteria"
are used here, which include more vital functions than just brain activity.

The proper use of these critera have always been to define a reasonable
point of when we are only prolonging natural death rather than giving
that person a chance at continued life.  This has been deemed necessary
with the advent of our ability to *artificially* continue many vital functions
indefinitely when human bodies cannot.  These criteria help us to know
when to discontinue artificial life support and let the person die
her natural death.

I don't see how we can apply these same criterion to the other end of
the continuum of that individual's life.  There you are trying to decide
whether you can *actively* kill a human being that when left alone will
continue her normal human life.  The Harvard Criteria are used to determine
when there is not "potential" left in a person's life.  This is not
what you are doing with the fetus.

>...
>Evolutionists sometimes say that ``the embryo recapitulates
>evolution'' in its development.  The observed fact is that the
>embryos of many mammalian species closely resemble each other
>during development.  Only towards the end of fetal development
>do changes occur that strongly fix the identity of a creature
>within its species, and the cerebral cortex is the *last* part
>of the brain to develop (``the last to evolve''; I won't argue
>the matter here).  As the seat of all ``human'' emotional and
>intellectual abilities, if the cerebral cortex does not exist,
>or exists only in highly rudimentary form, human emotional,
>intellectual, even tactile experiences are *impossible*.  

It has been argued even in evolutionist circles that these fetal
resemblances are a projection of preconceived ideas upon their
observation of the fetuses.  Anyway, your case seems to rest untimately
on the actual *functioning* of the brain rather than it's mere existence.
See below:

>Anti-abortionists, with the aid of their horror film *Silent Scream*,
>argue that the fetus feels *pain*, that it is, in fact, *tortured*,
>by even a relatively early (late first trimester, say) abortion.  The
>line of thought goes this way:  a (rudimentary) nervous system exists
>in the fetus by a certain stage -- ergo, when the fetus is aborted,
>it ``feels'' the procedure.  This argument ignores the near certainty
>that even if ``the switchboard is lit up,'' there's no one ``manning
>the console.''  There is *no brain* early in fetal development, no
>destination to ``experience the pain'' from all those hypothetical
>pain signals.  Without the human *experience* of pain, pain signals
>themselves are mere electricity, no more meaningful than the myriad
>of other messages traveling up and down the ``nervous'' system all
>the time.  (Anyone who's been under general anesthesia knows that!)  

So would you argue that the fetus should at least be put under general
anesthesia before being killed?  We, at least, require that animals be
treated with that respect.  Also, how does your argument here gaurd
against logically legitimizing methods of killing any human being that
do so very quickly or without feeling?  (Maybe getting them while the
"man" at the console is asleep, so to speak).

You argue that the fetus is only a bunch of chemicals.  Well, someone
might argue that so is the brain.  The fact that it produces a certain
consiousness may make no difference, especially if we can kill the
person while the "man" at the console is off gaurd.  If the fact that
the person in question will be conscious at other time makes any difference,
why didn't the same fact make a difference for you and I when we were
at the fetal stage?

>That is what ``pro-lifers'' are doing, really.  They are projecting
>a ``little man'' into the fertilized egg -- rather than into sperm,
>but otherwise it's a similar idea.  There is no evidence whatsoever
>for ``little men'' within eggs -- and plenty of evidence that being
>``human'' requires a *brain*!  Yet, we are to give this non-sentient
>cell human rights, just for the ``benefit of the doubt,'' and it is
>to be *murder* when a woman attempts to use her body as she chooses!  
>I suggest, Matt, that it's *much* more likely that *cattle* will be
>discovered worthy of ``human rights'' than a being lacking a brain.  
>(And why don't *women* ever deserve the ``benefit of the doubt''?)

You ignore the *inherent* potential that the zygote has that the sperm
and egg do not.  This has been gone over before.

It's OK for women to use there bodies as they choose.  (I suppose many
men see a lot of benefit in that where sex is concerned.  Need I say :-)?).
But there are limits to how we use our bodies.  Those limits are generally
defined by injury or death to someone else.

			(Continued)
-- 

Paul Dubuc 	cbscc!pmd


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