The julian sanchez thread was great. Got any more like that? I am
getting a great education. What I learned is that even after
working through the tape worm analogy and many others, regarding
whether outlawing abortion is giving the fetus extra rights, the
task would still seem to be to determine at what stage personhood
is achieved. The discussion seemed to come full circle from
thinking the personhood element was obsolete, to discussing extra
rights and lotteries and tort law and creating situations of
dependence and so on, to once again realizing the need to define
personhood. What was generally agreed upon was the difficulty in
coming up with a good analogy. I liked the tort-law ideas:
treating unwanted pregnancies / abortions like torts. After all,
the parties involved DID create the situation of need/dependence.
But can non-persons sustain damages? Again, the personhood issue
becomes an element.
But I think the tapeworm/tort angles deserve more discussion.
Let's again see if we can take personhood out of the abortion
equation in a civil-suit context. Can there be damages if no real
person is harmed? Say I and a partner start a puppy farm. We buy
and breed and feed AKC Dobermans to sell. Soon I have a big
healthy happy lot, very dependent on us. We have created a
situation of dependence, similar to pregnancy. Suddenly we simply
stop supplying their needs (stop feeding, housing, etc). Of
course they start to starve, suffer and die. Are we liable for
damages? Of course in this world we are guilty of the crime of
animal cruelty, but what is the Libertarian view - especially
regarding theoretical civil damages?
-Mark
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Mark,
> I don't think we're going to find any peer-reviewed source that
> says zygotes equal human beings.
Actually you will -- but it also mixes it up with personhood --
i.e.
conflates science and philosophy.
-----
One of the ethical issues (mis)informed by "genomic metaphysics"
is
the question of when a human being becomes a person equipped with
basic human rights. Most of us would agree that a newborn baby
has
basic human rights, whereas a sperm does not. So when does
personhood
originate? For most of those opposed to abortion, embryo
research, and
the like, the obvious answer is that personhood originates when
an egg
is fertilized by a sperm. This conclusion is initially
compelling,
because it is at fertilization that the zygote with a diploid
genome
arises from the fusion of two gametes with separate and distinct
genomes. The new diploid genome coincides with the emergence of a
new
individual organism and contains the genetic program that will
direct
the development of that organism.
-----
"Is the Genome the Secular Equivalent of the Soul?" -- by Alex
Mauron,
Science Magazine, 02/02/2001
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5505/831
I have not previously cited this article because it is a
philosophical/political article of the type that initially
promised
NOT to cite (on the philosophical/political question, it
militates
against, not for, the notion of zygote as "person," so once some
pro-choicers get past the hurdle of acknowledging that zygotes
are
human beings, they may find it useful), rather than a straight
scientific piece. It is, however, authored by a molecular
biologist,
and it does appear in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
> But now enter a whole new view proposed by Paul Ireland and
Mary
> Dolan. (Mary, Paul may have thought of it first. But I did not
> understand Paul's reference to a Tape Worm until I read your
> recent post. Paul, you thought of this a long time ago, right?)
> Considering this new perspective, we may not have to do any of
> the above. All we need do is go ahead and recognize that
fetuses
> have the same rights as mature humans. We simply do not give
them
> EXTRA rights. Since mature humans do not have the right to feed
> off of others against their will (according to Constitutional,
> NAP and self-ownership principles), neither do fetuses. Under
> this view, the only decisions left are issues regarding whether
> "killing" the fetus prior to evacuating is a rights violation,
> and issues regarding whether not feeding your infant is a
rights
> violation (child neglect). HA! No problem!
Actually, there are a number of problems with the "tapeworm
hypothesis" (which is a lot older than Paul Ireland's use of it
here).
See Julian Sanchez's piece on the problem with analogies used in
the
arguments at:
http://www.juliansanchez.com/notes/archives/2005/03/in_search_of_
fe.php
As for myself, as promised, I'm not going to argue the subject of
abortion at that level. I entered the discussion with one, and
only
one, goal, which was achieving recognition of fact and reality
with
respect to the biological identity of the organisms being
discussed.
Beyond achieving that, I prefer to learn rather than teach.
Tom knapp
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