what we are half heartedly discussing is a concept of personhood, when is still ok to kill this human being and why then.

And to bury the lead because I have to leave, any answer you give will be arbitrary and variable unless you are willing to allow infanticide. Because they all are.

OK. Thanks.

Then I will say that being a person involves sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, and appetite and rationality. A woman is capable of all of these. A cyst, of none.

Further, a blastocyst can only achieve personhood by inflicting its demands on a woman.

SO for example, opposing the morning after pill is immoral because it denies the dignity of the woman involved. The cyst has no moral standing.

...personhood... — Rank Amateur

Indeed. Cysts are not persons.

If you want lots of words to back this obvious observation, then read Martha Nussbaum.

I and biology believe we are all fully human, fully unique and fully alive human beings after the process of conception is complete — Rank Amateur

Self-serving, disingenuous twaddle. But if you like, we can move on to persons, and leave this crap behind.

I and biology believe we are all fully human, fully unique and fully alive human beings after the process of conception is complete
— Rank Amateur

Self-serving, disingenuous twaddle. But if you like, we can move on to persons, and leave this crap behind. — Banno

And pure fact


and fact. And I con

↪Rank Amateur OK. Thanks.

Then I will say that being a person involves sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, and appetite and rationality. A woman is capable of all of these. A cyst, of none. — Banno

And neither does a 3 month old - you ok with infanticide? I said if willing infanticide there is one logical personhood argument- and you danced around it, but close enough- it involves self awareness and the ability to value ones life.

Further, a blastocyst can only achieve personhood by inflicting its demands on a woman. — Banno

Dr. Thomsons argument that I posted earlier is this point. The counter argument is implied consent to use of the mother's body, I outlined the argument earlier- scroll up

We are done. — Rank Amateur

Pity, and you had so much to respond to. If not wasting it in discourse with me, I assume you will put it to good use.

in a moment a big steak and hopefully a bigger red wine. Dinner with friends- enjoy your night

And neither does a 3 month old... — Rank Amateur

A three-month old does not show more sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality than a cyst?

Try again.

And we are back at the beginning again- have to run and this Twitter fight is a waste of time

The pro life argument back is there is implied consent to the use of her body when having sex. — Rank Amateur

That's an extraordinary suggestion. "the use of her body", as if a woman must be passive during sex. How boring! How misogynistic.

And as a whole - that in having sex the woman (but not the man?) is consenting to carrying any resulting conception to full term. Sex is for procreation only - where does that idea come from? I think the invisible friends have been whispering in your ear again.

The conservative religious pattern is emerging nicely as we proceed.

And pure fact — Rank Amateur

Bullshit. My blood cells are human. They do not amount to a human being. A blastocyst is human. It is not a human being. Your posited support from biology relies on equivocating between human and human being.

Actually, I can't see were you have presented anything that remains viable.

Should we abort the discussion?

That's an extraordinary suggestion. "the use of her body", as if a woman must be passive during sex. How boring! How misogynistic. — Banno

Baby’s use of her body. If you would actually take a second to read and understand what we are talking about this would go faster

nice pun. Too late it died awhile back.

Baby’s use of her body. — Rank Amateur

And as a whole - that in having sex the woman (but not the man?) is consenting to carrying any resulting conception to full term. Sex is for procreation only - where does that idea come from? I think the invisible friends have been whispering in your ear again. — Banno

If you would actually take a second to read and understand what we are talking about this would go faster. :razz:

if you leave a blood cell alone it becomes a blood cell, if you leave a fetus alone it becomes well us.

if you leave a fetus alone it becomes... — Rank Amateur

dead.

You keep missing that point. There is a woman involved in every pregnancy. The woman is a person. The cyst, not at all. The embryo, hardly. The foetus, not much. The baby, yep.

But your conservative mindset insists on drawing an exact line somewhere in this process, and your invisible friends say to draw it at conception.

I don't think that killing is obviously wrong.
— Andrew4Handel

Well if we all make ourselves Godless self-appointed gods about the matter then I think that will be problematic for wider society. — AJJ

Well God apparently didn't think killing is wrong since he kills the most people in the Bible.

Including flooding the whole earth.
Killing all the First born of Egypt.
Ordering people to be stoned to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath
Sending bears down to kill children for insulting Elijah
To name but a few.

I gave an argument for my position on killing and it was nothing to do with playing God. Even the Bible that I quoted has a more nuanced view than you apparently do on the matter.

God is the ultimate murderer who has created us all and sentenced us to death.

Perhaps in this media, we can keep the question more true to the biological aspects and philosophical aspects of the subject. — EpicTyrant

Good luck, even if I believe this forum is a bit better for debating complex questions, I think there are many here who don't even know how to keep a dialectic in any Socratic form whatsoever.

Why is this considered moral by human standards and not frowned upon? What is the difference between ending a premature state of life other than a fully developed one. Is it the lack of perceptive of reality and consciousness of the premature state of lifeform that makes it more bearable to perform an abortion for the carrier? Because the only thing that separates the premature life form from a fully developed one, is the passing of time. — EpicTyrant

In some situations, I think this is closely linked to how you would answer the question about euthanasia. In terms of painful deceases why would existence through that pain be better than ending it before it's even conscious of its own existence? It would be the same as euthanasia.

But I think this is about morality when someone is canceling pregnancy out of, for example, the decision to not being ready to have children in their life.

If we were to go by pure logic in this, it would become a bit horrific for some, but the logic points consciousness being developed so late and the ability to understand it's own existence that a super late abortion would be like removing an organ. It's a living thing, but it isn't anything yet. If you define it all by the concept of time, why not go backward? If time is everything, wouldn't the ejaculation of male sperm be like killing millions? And the menstruation killing the egg that should have become a new being?

I think this subject has so much emotion and religious/spiritual confusion around it to ever be put into a definitive answer. But if we are to carefully break down it all, an infant doesn't know its own existence really. A newborn baby doesn't have the cognitive function to understand anything other than mimicking and registering events. Right before its birth, it gets pulled out of a sleeping state which is the final stage of its existence before birth. So we could argue that it is its own person as soon as it starts working its cognitive journey to a higher cognitive state. But that would mean that you could abort a child right before its birth before it wakes up out of its sleep state. This is a horrible idea to many but its really not illogical. The baby isn't aware of its existence, it's not aware of anything. If a newborn baby sometime after its birth isn't conscious of its surrounding or existence why would an unborn baby have any notion of anything, especially since the only cognitive processes is sleep without anything processed through that sleep in term of dreams etc.

The conclusion to this is essentially that based on measuring an unborns cognitive ability and consciousness it will not even notice its own end. The trauma of losing a child at that time in pregnancy should not inform of the morality of the ending of its existence. All of this is about what is considered justified within the idea of the unborn child's existence. Through this idea, I cannot deny that it seems that the idea of a late abortion has emotional attachments to it that don't have any foundation in logic to the child's pain or existence when stopped existing. The event is measured by the pre-existing morality of the parents and society around them, the emotional trauma of the event of ending a pregnancy and spiritual/religious fantasies about existence. Measuring by the actual existence, a newborn child that's out of the sleep state should not be terminated, i.e after birth or after the awakening from that sleep. Before that sleep, there is no pain to the end of existence.

This would mean that up until awakening from that sleep, abortion should be "ok". This is the logic when looking at the actual biological process of pregnancy.

So the measurement of what is morally correct comes into contact with how we define a person. If we use euthanasia to terminate someone who is braindead and that is considered ok, why is it not ok to terminate a pregnancy for a child who has not even awaken from a sleep that has no cognitive foundation? Because that child has an entire life ahead of them taken away? What about sperms? With each ejaculation, there is one sperm that would have been a child with an entire life ahead of them. So how come we draw the line at some point?

I would say that the line is drawn because of our emotional opinion about a child. If it looks like a child we cannot abort. I think this is a problematic way of looking at this. The reasons to abort can be many things and I assume everyone is on board with abortion being a right for free people to be able to decide the course of their life.

But the morality of judging the importance of existence based on the physical form of something is just as irrational as judging the rights a statue that resembles a human has to exist. The value of existence should be measured by the cognitive completion of that being, otherwise, it's just an organ, organic matter, a statue of organic matter that we imbue with the importance of existence out of our emotional reaction to the form, not to the logic of its existence.

I would argue that existence isn't valuable as its own being until it starts coming out of the sleep stage right before birth. But in order to make room for any errors in judgment over the cognitive capabilities, I think the third trimester is the last stage to do it. In the question of doing it at all, I would argue that there's no point in dwelling about a fetus existence more than sperm ejaculation or passive organs consisted of living tissue. To think about the existence of a fetus in terms of the possible existence of a human later on, would be like dwelling on the consequences of all male ejaculations and sperm dying. There's no logic to this emotional attachment to a fetus because it's a form without consciousness. It has just as much future as the sperm ejaculated during sex. If it's about when a sperm and egg combine, there's so many impregnated eggs getting ejected as menstruation without many couples even noticing it as being an impregnated egg.

The problem people have with abortion has nothing to do with the logic of biology and is almost entirely about religious, spiritual and emotional irrational concepts about the topic bypassing any rational ideas because it's such a powerful topic. Birth and death is such huge questions when thinking about our existence that it's easy to understand why, but seriously, if you view biology in any scientific way, the answer is less powerful than our emotional reaction to it.

The worst part, however, is how society sets the parameters around this topic based on emotion rather than reason. We force people with more rational and mature concepts of this to act according to the ideas of emotional uneducated and in my opinion unintelligent voices of the public debates. In essence, a woman who still has the baby inside of them should not be considered a murderer or morally bad if they terminate their own pregnancy. Essentially it's still their own body they are manipulating, it's not detached yet and isn't conscious of its own existence. People force women to act in a certain way because of emotional responses to the subject rather than logical ideas about it. In my opinion, this is despicable to the freedom of individuals. It's a legacy from religious bullshit that's always been so emotional at its core that it manages to survive beyond the obvious religious existentialism and through that become an emotionally loaded taboo rather than biologically reasonable.

I take the view that destroying innocent human life because we find it convenient to do so is wrong. If that lacks nuance then so be it.

for those on this thread - a little more complete argument -

ARGUMENT FOR THE FUTURE VALUE
Mostly stolen with some adaption from Dr. Don Marquis

P1. One definition of murder is the loss of one’s future of value

Any discussion on abortion needs to start with some theoretical account of the wrongness of killing. I would imagine most on here would have no issue with the assertion it is morally impermissible to, without justification, kill adult human beings like us. But why is it wrong to kill people like us? While we may want to suggest it is the loss others would experience due to our absence. But if that was all it was, it would allow the killing of hermits, or those who lead otherwise independent or friendless lives. A better answer would be the primary wrong done by the killing is the harm it does to the victim. The loss of one’s life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. However is it simply the change in a biological state that make killing wrong? That seems insufficient. The effect of the loss of my biological life is the loss to me of all those activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments which would otherwise have constituted my future personal life. These activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments are either valuable for their own sake or are means to something else that is valuable for its own sake. Some parts of my future are not valued by me now, but will come to be valued by me as I grow older and as my values and capacities change. When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which
would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future. Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing me wrong. This being the case, it would seem that what makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his other future.

P2. From a very early point in a pregnancy there is a unique human organism.

After the process of conception is completed there exists a new zygote cell. This cell has a unique genetic makeup. This zygote is an embryonic stem cell with the ability to generate every organ in the body. For the next 2 weeks or so, or until it is at the 16 cell stage it has the ability to split and twin. After this time, there exists a unique human organism, and this organism can only develop into a human.

P3. All adult humans undergo the same process of development

Currently, there is no other way to become an adult human being, than to start as a human ovam, and a human sperm, to undergo the process of conception and fertilization and the various stages of embryonic development leading to a birth of some type.

P4. Each human being on the planet can directly trace their past as a biological creature on earth from now back to their unique human organism as defined in P2

P5. All things that are part of a unique past time line as defined in P4, where at one time a future on the same time line.

P6. If P5, all human organisms as defined in P2 are on a unique time line that encompasses their unique human future much like ours

P7 One’s awareness or desire for one’s future of value does not impact the moral permissiveness of taking it as in P1.

One is in possession of one’s biological future whether or not one is aware of it or not. One is possession of ones one’s future of value even if one ( in most cases) does not desire it. As an example there can be a seriously depressed person, who do to the nature of their illness wishes to kill themselves and have no desire for their future. I would argue that it is not morally permissible to allow them to kill themselves because their judgement that their future is without value is handicapped by their illness. The concept of “ideal desire” would apply, and our judgement on the moral permissibly of them killing themselves should be based on what their ideal desire would be if their handicap was not there, and we would assume absent their depression they, like us would desire their future. In the second instance assume there was a person is a catatonic state, but with the real prospect of regaining conciseness, we could not say, that since this person is unaware of their future at that time, they are not in possession of it, the concept of ideal judgement would apply, and we should assume that if they were conscience they would be aware of their future and we should not let the handicap of the catatonic state deny them of their right to it. I argue that the same concept of “ideal desire” applies in the case of the fetus, and their handicap of the state of their development is not philosophically different then the prior 2 examples and we should assume that absent this handicap they would be aware, and desire their future of value as we do.

Conclusion

If P1 and one definition of murder is the loss of ones future of value and if P6 Shortly after the process of conception is complete, and very early in human development there is a unique human organism with a unique human future, and if P7 their awareness or desire for this future is not a condition of their possession of this future, taking of this human future of value is murder, and immoral.

Exceptions:

This argument holds for most cases, but not for all. If it can be shown that that there is not a future of value, say thorough embryonic DNA testing that there are sever issues this argument would allow such abortions. Since the argument hinges on there being a unique human organism and there can be a sound biological argument that one does not exist until after twinning this argument would not omit the morning after pill. Finally this argument would not omit infanticide as commonly practiced today with severely premature and physically challenged children facing lives without value as we outlined in P1.

last caveat - this argument makes no attempt at the next level argument that even if the fetus has a right not to be killed because of it life of future value, that does not necessarily give it the right to the use of the woman's body, that is a different argument that is pointless to have until this one is done. when this one is done - i am happy to do that one.

One is in possession of one’s biological future whether or not one is aware of it or not. — Rank Amateur

Really?! And what exactly do you understand this "possession" to entail, or mean? What is it that is possessed?

After the process of conception is completed there exists a new zygote cell. — Rank Amateur

What is it that bestows a special status on this "zygote" that at the same time deprives sperm or egg of that same status?

One is possession of one's future of value — Rank Amateur

What does this mean??? What is a future value? Think it through: hint, look at the word "is." The notion of "future value" comes from finance, and of it at least one thing is true: never ever not ever do you "possess" a future value. What you have is a present assessment - maybe. Further, the FV of, for example, of a stream of payments is estimated within an extremely narrow set of probabilities over a an extremely narrow set of possibilities - which considerations have precisely nothing - zero - to do with estimating the so-called FOV of a life.

From the Marquis paper:
The analysis assumes that killing me (or you, reader) is prima facie seriously wrong. The point
of the analysis is to establish which natural property ultimately explains the wrongness of the killing,given that it is wrong. I'm sorry to ask, but do you understand what is going on in this kind of ann argument? Preaching to the choir is one name.

It's time to construct and own your own arguments. These from Don Marquis aren't worthy.

In passing, another issue:

When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future. Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing me wrong. This being the case, it would seem that what makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his other future. — Rank Amateur

From Epicurus: "Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?"

Implicit in Marquis's argument is that when the victim's death is, then the victim is too. I, myself, would argue that nothing hurts a dead person. In fact it is one of the appeals of death to the old - and sometimes not so old - that when death is, they are no longer. Someone with Marquis's background knows this quote perfectly well. If his argument was intended to be substantive, he would have had to deal with it.

Really?! And what exactly do you understand this "possession" to entail, or mean? What is it that is possessed? — tim wood

it was explained with the concept or ideal desire, and it is possessed exactly the same way you possess yours. If your future is not yours, who's is it ?

What is it that bestows a special status on this "zygote" that at the same time deprives sperm or egg of that same status? — tim wood

it has a new and unique genetic make up, and it is a embryonic stem cell, able to generate every organ in the body - again it was explained

What does this mean??? What is a future value? Think it through: hint, look at the word "is." The notion of "future value" comes from finance, and of it at least one thing is true: never ever not ever do you "possess" a future value. What you have is a present assessment - maybe. Further, the FV of, for example, of a stream of payments is estimated within an extremely narrow set of probabilities over a an extremely narrow set of possibilities - which considerations have precisely nothing - zero - to do with estimating the so-called FOV of a life. — tim wood

yet again it was fully explained and defined in P1 - it has nothing at all to do with your financial point, that is pure dribble - if you have an issue with the definition happy to address

From the Marquis paper:
The analysis assumes that killing me (or you, reader) is prima facie seriously wrong. The point
of the analysis is to establish which natural property ultimately explains the wrongness of the killing,given that it is wrong. I'm sorry to ask, but do you understand what is going on in this kind of ann argument? Preaching to the choir is one name.

It's time to construct and own your own arguments. These from Don Marquis aren't worthy. — tim wood

thanks for the opinion and the suggestion -

Implicit in Marquis's argument is that when the victim's death is, then the victim is too. I, myself, would argue that nothing hurts a dead person. In fact it is one of the appeals of death to the old - and sometimes not so old - that when death is, they are no longer. Someone with Marquis's background knows this quote perfectly well. If his argument was intended to be substantive, he would have had to deal with it. — tim wood

since you liked it once before, we are in violent agreement here, the point yet once again was made inside the argument - that the mere change of biological state involved in murder is not nearly sufficient harm - from there he goes on to posit that the real loss is your future and all that entails.

Since nearly every point you asked was covered in the argument, i am once again left with the supposition that you skim the argument, and with a pre determined position rattle of what ever prattle comes to the top of your head. You are just throwing darts.

You have not made a single valid point that shows any of the premises are false, or the conclusion does not follow. I though you asked that we try and do philosophy. Surgeon heal thyself.

I take the view that destroying innocent human life because we find it convenient to do so is wrong. If that lacks nuance then so be it. — AJJ

Well this doesn't apply to abortion.

I've already answered this. A blastocyst is not a person. It's a cyst.

The future of value approach strikes me as an ad hoc response to the choice argument. It's shallow.

For comparison, look at Nussbaum's capabilities approach. Originating in her thinking on global development, it has taken on a role in moral arguments across the board.

And it gives a far more nuanced account of what it is to be a human being, to be a person.

I and biology believe we are all fully human, — Rank Amateur

I don't think the idea "fully human being" is meaningful. Humans are very different and have different capacities and go through many different stages of development.

I take the view that destroying innocent human life because we find it convenient to do so is wrong. If that lacks nuance then so be it.
— AJJ

Well this doesn't apply to abortion. — Andrew4Handel

It is a life, it is human, it is innocent. It is most often destroyed simply because it is unwanted.

People have abortions because they are raped, because they are unfit to raise a child, have mental health problems, cannot afford to, or are in an abusive relationships and more.
There is not just one reason.

Children suffer because irresponsible parents creating them and childhood abuse neglect and famine etc. It is much more humane to have an abortion than bring a child into poverty, dysfunction and other gross harms.

The word destroyed is emotive in this context. A lot of conceptions and pregnancies fail with the child not making it alive out of the womb and in the past many children died soon after birth. Nature is destructive.

I think most people are against abortion for religious reasons yet religious scriptures do not tend to mention the subject and complain verses that do not support the sentiment.

Human dignity inheres in sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

It is in recognition of this dignity that a person had moral standing.

A cluster of cells, not having any of the characteristics of human dignity, has no moral standing.

As that cluster of cells develops, it grows in its ability to express sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality. It grows in its entitlement to be treated with dignity.

The woman involved in a pregnancy is fully entitled to be treated with dignity.

Pregnancies that threaten the dignity of the pregnant woman may be terminated up until such time as the dignity of the developing human becomes significant. That is, when the developing human shows significant sentience, emotion, affection, physical health, appetite and rationality.

Thereafter pregnancies may be terminated if on balance the continuation of the pregnancy will result in a reduction human dignity.

Generally, this will be around the end of the second trimester of the pregnancy.

People also have abortions simply because they do not want the child, and so an innocent human life is destroyed because it suits someone else’s plans.