Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Nov 1, 2012.

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Do I support the proposition? (see post #2)

Poll closed Nov 11, 2013.
  1. Anti-abortion: Yes

    22.2%
  2. Anti-abortion: No

    5.6%
  3. Pro-choice: Yes

    44.4%
  4. Pro-choice: No

    16.7%
  5. Other (Please explain below)

    11.1%
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  1. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Because they expect it to become a person.
     
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  3. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    How can something that isn't yet a person, become a person?

    Can a robot become a person?
     
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  5. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    By being born. You were once not a person; how did you become a person?

    Not currently, no.
     
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  7. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I was once not a person??

    How do you know that?
    And on the grounds of what do you expect me to just take your word for it?

    I can not remember any time when I was not a person.
    If I am, then I am a person.

    "You were once not a person" is a nonsense sentence.
     
  8. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Correct. It is unlikely that you are immortal. Thus, going back far enough (say to 1776) there was a time when you were not a person.

    I bet you don't remember the Revolutionary War, either. But it still happened.
     
  9. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    Irrelevant, doesn't apply.


    When my mother was, say, four weeks pregnant with me in her womb, I, per your reasoning, was not a person, even though I existed; I was only expected to become a person (presumably, once I would be born).

    Explain how the act of being born renders personhood to the unborn.


    It appears you are talking about personhood in a very specific legal sense (in a manner similar as a company can be a "legal person"), but not in the ontological sense.
     
  10. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't claim that, However, eight weeks before that you were CERTAINLY not a person - even if you don't remember it.
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Really?

    By growing.

    Are these apples?

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    Now, as I see it, those aren't yet apples.

    Nor are they trees.

    But one day, they might become a tree with apples. Honeycrisp, if I recall correctly.

    The umbilical cord?

    I once discussed abortion policies with someone who apparently could not tell the difference between a fetus in the womb, physically attached to its mother and dependent on her for survival, and a twenty-two year-old college graduate moving back home while looking for a job.

    One can delve into ontological details like born but not yet severed from the mother, but at the point the organism exists outside the mother's body and the physical connection between the two is cut, there is no question that the baby is a person.

    The underlying questions then become at what point, before that, we assign or acknowledge "personhood", and what rights that "person" has compared to the mother it exists inside.
     
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    15,058
    Again, it appears you are talking about personhood in a very specific legal sense (in a manner similar as a company can be a "legal person"), but not in the ontological sense.
     
  13. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Note on ontology

    Given that LACP is a legal, and not ontological, matter, that's sort of the point.

    Ontology does have a context here, but rather than the ontological shaping the legal, LACP is a case of the legal asserting the ontological.
     
  14. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    15,058
    And so do you.

    As if a legal standard, which is a matter of consensus or compromise, should be taken as a foundation for ontology.
    That is just backwards.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    (Insert Title Here)

    I would agree.

    The ontological resolution of fetal status under law, however, has tremendous effects on women. And women, ontologically speaking, are definitively and unquestionably people.

    Those effects of the LACP ontological resolution asserted under force of law form the main question of this thread.
     
  16. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    From what into what?
    And how does crossing a certain threshold of "growing" sudden render one with "personhood?



    Given that apples are a mature aspect of a plant for the purposes of reproduction, you might as well be deeming newborn babies non-entities on account of their absence of sex glands.

    The real question is "are these apple plants" to which the obvious answer is "yes"
     
  17. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    The question should be why in those cases that you are so concerned about - namely, in cases of severe pregnancy complications, rape, incest, miscarriage - neither you nor your opponents are willing to work with the model of triage.

    In the model of triage, granting personhood to the unborn, from conception to birth, does not lead to absurd consequences in those cases that you are so concerned about - namely, in cases of severe pregnancy complications, rape, incest, miscarriage.
     
  18. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    43,184
    This is a nonsense question.
    When you can speak of an I, obviously there is a person involved.
    The question is whether or not a fertilized egg can called a person. I think not.
     
  19. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    My question was part of the replies to billvon's

    Apparently, he thinks I was once not a person: meaning that I was, I existed, but was not a person.
    Hence I asked him how is that even possible.
     
  20. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    No, that's not what I said. What I did say:

    At some point you did not exist. You were not a person, or a fetus, or anything. You were nothing. That changed.
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Something About Square One

    Well, the abortion debate has long centered on viability.

    For me, it's a dry-foot policy: Growing from fertilized ovum into a functional human being capable of existing without the umbilical attachment.

    To the one, I'm not puzzled by the idea that you would disagree with my standard. To the other, I do find it a bit difficult to accept that you're absolutely unfamiliar with the proposition.

    That's ... not quite right.

    That's one way of looking at it. I'm quite certain it wouldn't be difficult to find a botanist who disagrees insofar as a germinated primary root does not a plant make. Certes, the germinated seed, if it continues to survive, will grow into a plant, but it is not yet a plant.

    I would also note that, while I'm not surprised, I do find it curious that, when granting LACP for argumentative purposes, the response is an attempt to affirm the general concept of LACP.
     
  22. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,058
    You said - "You were once not a person."

    Now you say that "I was nothing."

    I was, and I was nothing?

    How does that work??


    You still need to explain how birth renders personhood to a being.

    According to you, five minutes before you were born, you were not a person; and then once you were born, you became a person. Can you explain the reasoning behind this? What has changed in those five minutes, that almost magically turned you from a non-person to a person?

    On the whole, you are simply talking about a specific legal understanding of personhood, but not an ontological one.
    The legal understanding of personhood is arbitrary, it changes over time - slaves, for example, were usually not considered legal persons. In some slavery systems, a person could become a slave, lose their legal personhood rights, and then buy themselves out, becoming a legal person again.

    So legal personhood is a very relative phenomenon.
    What is more relevant is ontological personhood - this one should not be relative.
     
  23. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    21,635
    You were not a person. You were nothing. There was a point at which you began, before which you did not exist. If you don't understand that, there's nothing I can do to help you.

    I am afraid you will have to explain it, since you are the only one who is claiming that.
     
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