Cows fulfill all 7 of the characteristics you mentioned above. I still eat burgers.

I see so respect is due to the 21/24/28 week foetus routinely delivered in the delivery suite and cared for in the neo-natal unit, while that aborted in the abortion clinic is accorded the status of a cow by analogy.
Nothing much more to say really, is there?

Yes fulhamish. Allow me to explain why. Sex selection is not a problem that exists in isolation. It's not as though, women are equal everywhere, except that women keep aborting female babies. The reason sex selection exists is because of what we call institutionalized or structural sexism. The idea is that society is fundamentally biased towards men, such that men are considered more important, more valuable or otherwise "better" than women. One such reason is that societies tend to view women as little more than baby incubating machines. Giving women a greater degree of autonomy is part of a process by which you fight this sexism, thus resulting in lower rates of abortions for the purposes of sex selection.

I also don't know much about this issue. I haven't read a great deal about it. That said there is a tendency among western writers to exaggerate and sensationalize practices in other parts of the world for the sake of making them appear exotic, while allowing westerners to feel enlightened and liberal. And there is a tendency among anti-abortion activists to just completely make stuff up. So these two tendencies coupled leads me to take whatever you may say about female babies being rampantly aborted by women that want sons, with a rather large grain of salt.

"8 year olds are sentient, sapient and self aware, and considerably more fragile than Tardigrades. That is why I think we should not irradiate them."

Aha! But now you're just going down the road you were complaining about awhile ago. Start to place higher value on mental properties like self-awareness, and you'll very quickly conclude that humans are the most special life form we know of.

Why are those the right traits? Why not, say, utility to the life cycle, in which case we would have to place the life of a kelp above that of an 8 year old.

"I see so respect is due to the 21/24/28 week foetus routinely delivered in the delivery suite and cared for in the neo-natal unit, while that aborted in the abortion clinic is accorded the status of a cow by analogy." See, you're doing it again. 21 week old fetuses are rarely delivered, not routinely. And again, you're taking the most extreme example ever recorded and saying that it's a common every day occurrence. Nonsense.

Secondly I did not say that a fetus is accorded the same respect as a cow. All I said was using measures like, "response to auditory stimuli" and "a sense of touch" as a basis for not performing abortions was a specious argument.

@semck - fair enough. Personally I do believe that sapient and sentient and self aware life is more worth preserving than other forms of life. However, this is a different thing than saying human life is more worth preserving and saving. As soon as you say human life is more worth preserving and saving you can extend that all the way down to a fertilized egg, which is, as I pointed out before, a human life form, but not sapient, sentient or self aware, ie. not a person in any meaningful sense of the term.

Anyway, I have a dinner invitation so I have to go. So you know. Don't start posting all these counter arguments and then saying "See you have no response!" Because, I probably do have a response. I'm just not here.

'Second -- why so horrified at killing 8 year olds, then? I assume you wouldn't have the same problem killing these, if we could. Are 8 year olds more special or valuable than Tardigrades? '

I believe i was the one who said 'human life isn't special' - let me try to explain the position, because i fear it is being misread. I don't think it is right to cause suffering, and suffering caused to humans is comparable to suffering caused to cattle.

Currently we do have a system where we treat our own species with special rights which are not extended to other animals. This allows practices which cause great suffering so you can eat a hamburger. (i'm not in principle against eating meat, i'm in principle against farming practices which needlessly cause great suffering to animals just to feed our ever growing demand)

An 8 year old can, likely, have some expectations about their future. Thus they can fear that they are going to be killed - this kind of suffering should not be inflicted.

It is possible to claim that a non-human animal will suffer less, but that does not mean we should be able to treat them, eh, like animals...

OK, thanks @Mafialligator. It seems to me then that we do agree that humans are the most special animals (at least by the standards you are relevantly prepared to use in determining morality); we just disagree whether potential humans qualify.

I'm curious -- and I don't think this is a knock-out argument, I'm just curious which solution you will take -- why would you be against killing a _sleeping_ human, say who wasn't in REM, and in a painless way that wouldn't wake him up, like replacing oxygen with nitrogen? He is only potentially aware, after all.

@orathaic "I don't think it is right to cause suffering, and suffering caused to humans is comparable to suffering caused to cattle."

Oh I see. Your statement was about whether we were special in our environment -- you didn't put it as a statement about suffering.

Well, I don't at all agree that human and cow suffering are comparable, especially if it is placed in terms of these sweeping statements about the specialness of humans as a whole, but I actually am against both, so disappointingly, there's not much to disagree with there. (Well, except, as I say, that I would always side with humans over animals if one had to suffer).

So as for cows: I actually also would like to see better conditions for beef cows.

Umm I think killing a sleeping human would still be wrong, because he has, in the past had sapience and when he wakes up again he would have it, (except not because you killed him, jerk). A temporary suspension of sapience, sentience and self awareness, (ie, a state of dreamless sleep) is a temporary state and is a very different state of affairs from never yet having achieved sapience, sentience and self awareness in the first place. I think this a complicated point, so if I need to explain it better I can, but I hope you see what I mean.

Mafialligator, I guess I kind of understand, but would actually kind of appreciate if you explained more.
I mean, not yet having grown into sapience is also a temporary state, if you don't kill the infant while it's an infant.

holy shit, this discussion still going? and the same ppl too?

OK. Again, we're not talking about killing an infant. We're talking about aborting a fetus, there's a difference there.

The distinction I'm getting at is that someone who was sapient, sentient and self aware and then went to sleep and temporarily suspended those faculties, to resume them upon waking up, if you kill them, you've interrupted the life of someone who had developed an identity, personality, thoughts, likes and dislikes, and relationships, both to the world around them and to other people, what we may call in short "personhood" and if you kill them, awake or asleep you've interrupted that. Now it may have been on a brief hiatus while the person was asleep, but those processes resume from where they left off as soon as the person wakes up again.

If you abort a fetus which would have none of those things, you're not disrupting anything but basic biological processes, like cellular metabolism and division. But the point is, all those things that really define the experiences of a sapient, sentient and self aware being don't exist yet, and have never existed. The potential to have "personhood" is not the same thing as being temporarily unable to act out "personhood" because you're asleep.
The distinction is this. Let's say you're a student and you're working on a large paper. You save the document, having written half of it, and then the next day you come back to it, but the file has accidentally been deleted and you have to start again. Now, while you were away and the document was saved on your computer, the document was not a living work. It was simply something you'd written that was waiting for it to be modified, it would become a living work again once you sat down and attempted to come to grips with the issues you're discussing in it, but until you did that, all it's livingness was completely suspended.

Alternately, let's pretend now that you've just opened up a fresh document to start writing your paper, you sit down, and then close the document and decide to go eat a sandwhich instead. You'll start later.

Now, if we extend your argument to my document metaphor, these two things are exactly the same. Deleting a half completed essay, and closing a blank document. I suppose the distinction is that in the case of killing a sleeping man, you've ended something that already existed.
In the former case you're just removing potential for something which doesn't exist yet, to exist in the future.

Errr that should say "in the latter case". I'm way too tired. My insomnia is finally catching up to me.

To be sure an infant doesn't really develop "personhood" by this definition until *maybe* a few months old so that standard really fails as a framework for determining the rightness or the wrongness of abortion in the first two trimesters.

@ Mafia if you believe that the whole matter boils down to the right to choose then why are you concerned with sentience one way or the other?

In fact I believe your premise to be flawed and that the foetus does indeed assume the status of a sentient being at some point between 8-12 weeks (if we define it as being the ability to feel, perceive or be conscious). But, ultimately this is all irrelevant for you anyway, as you hold to the tenet that the ''choice'' of the individual mother trumps every other consideration.

We also routenely use brain activity, or the lack of it, to determine when life has finished. I wonder if that would be a good metric to apply at the start too?

Mafialligator, Thank you for a thoughtful response. However, I confess myself still to be somewhat confused. In the case of a sleeping adult, you haven't actually taken away the past. He still lived all that other stuff, had an identity, and so on. All you've taken away is his future. I'm not sure I grasp why it is key that that future would be lived with an already-actualized past. In both the case of a fetus and of an adult, what is being taken away is a future sentience.

I appreciated the Word document, but I don't really accept it, for just this reason. The past is lost too with the document, but not so with the adult.

Unless it is _future_ memories of past things that are the core of morality for you. But that really seems surprising, so if so, I'd like to hear more on that. In other words, I only see your present argument working if your concept of morality is based on the key importance that _already_ instantiated memories should be enjoyed a not-yet instantiated future person (but future memories not yet instantiated, which will be enjoyed by a yet-more-future instantiated person, do not matter).

Also, P. Politics makes a great point.

Previously Mafia made the point that our revulsion to the details of abortion is akin to that of our viewing open abdominal surgery. My initial reaction was that I feel no revulsion at the latter, but much at the former because on the one hand we are saving life and on the other extinguishing it.
Indeed I like to watch documentaries portraying the skill and knowledge the surgeon brings to the task. On a personal level a good friend unfortunately had to undergo a mastectomy and I know that she appreciated a documentary on the subject which throw light onto the whole procedure. Furthermore, my Mother has had two hip replacements and the viewing of a program on that topic provoked no revulsion, but rather an admiration for all involved from material engineer, to nurse, to surgeon, to physiotherapist. Who was it who said we have nothing to fear but fear itself?
Now here is the rub I suggest that a documentary series on the abortion procedure warts and all would be worthwhile. Surely there is nothing to be feared by throwing a clarifying light on to the various live birth and suction procedures involved, or would this be classified as being as an appeal to emotion?

I have to agree with Mafia- there is a clear distinction between abortion of a fetus and killing a person in his sleep. Killing a person interrupt a journey, if you want to put it that way, already in progress whereas abortion prevents this journey from ever taking place. As the fetus is not aware of the procedure or of any of the experiences it will miss I do not find this morally wrong. The only person truly affected by the decision to abort is the woman involved- it is her choice whether to put another person on this world or not. I do have issues with asking a woman to have a child if she's not fully supportive of the idea of becoming a mother. Perhaps someone could explain to me why it is so desirable to put another person on this world (it's not like the earth is underpopulated, after all) if the primary caretaker does not find herself to be capable of providing for everything the child may need. Personally I find it not only wrong to ask such a huge commitment of a woman but also I find it unfair to the child who may not be properly taken care of and will suffer as a consequence.

'To be sure an infant doesn't really develop "personhood" by this definition until *maybe* a few months old so that standard really fails as a framework for determining the rightness or the wrongness of abortion in the first two trimesters. '

I don't think this fails, it just goes to show how considerate we are being of human life by not killing new borns even though we don't consider them to be actual people yet... (i'd like to make this sound more tongue in cheek, but i realise how cruel and insensitive making it a joke would be. I'm not entirely serious, but i think the point is valid)

'We also routenely use brain activity, or the lack of it, to determine when life has finished. I wonder if that would be a good metric to apply at the start too?'

I think this can be useful, partly because, as i think i've said, I beleive you can derive a prohibition on killing from a general prohibition on causing suffering - thus it makes sense that a brain dead person can't suffer pain. How and Ever, as i think i've stated I think cows have brain activity, and that my pet dog likely has more sentience and ability to suffer than a 8-12 week old foetus.

There is more to consider, in the case of pets we actually take the owners views into consideration, and again this can be supported on the principle of minimising suffering because to kill someone's pet would cause the owner to suffer. (equally to kill a human in their sleep would still cause their loved ones to suffer)

Parental bonding with their new born can happen before birth, but many fathers have said they loved their child from the moment it grabbed their finger with their tiny hand. So again killing new-borns can be seen as more wrong because the parents will be caused more suffering (even if the new-born doesn't yet have any concept of suffering, or the possible fear of loss of life which sentience implies... )

'Also, P. Politics makes a great point.'

If you read P. Politics point as - 'therefore we SHOULD allow the killing of babies' I entirely disagree (as stated above)

If you read it as, therefore 'personhood is thus useless, as a measure of whether we should kill' - I entirely disagree. I think it is a very important measure, even if it is not the only thing which is important to consider, and even if taken on it's own you can reach some unpalatable conclusions. I don't think you can entirely dismiss a quality as unimportant because in one set of circumstances it seems to conclude the wrong answer, at least in your opinion.

'Surely there is nothing to be feared by throwing a clarifying light'

unless you are talking about a debate which both sides have been accused of (And like been guilty of) lying and using emotional blackmail for decades if not more. There is fear that these tactics will continue, or that in any case accusations will be made against the creator questioning the legitimacy of their information.

Not that i think this downside should prevent the idea, it could well be made part of a sex ed class, though unfortunately i think it would be even harder to get a balanced merely informative documentary to be required reading for any school.

'I have to agree with Mafia- there is a clear distinction between abortion of a fetus and killing a person in his sleep. Killing a person interrupt a journey,'

This seems awfully convoluted. No I don't see anything wrong with killing a person in their sleep if it causes no suffering.

However, allowing sentient creatures know they may be killed in their sleep, against their wishes, would cause fear and suffering. (not even mentioning the suffering associated with and friends or family they may be leaving behind)

I hope this informs you of my views on euthanasia, or at least you can derive them from this basic moral principle - to which i's become so attached.

'but also I find it unfair to the child who may not be properly taken care of and will suffer as a consequence.' +1

The fact is there is more than one factor that goes into formulating a stance on abortion. It's not simply that fetuses haven't developed "personhood" yet, therefore we can "kill" them with impunity.
It's also not just that a sleeping person can't feel it so therefore killing anything or anyone who isn't sentient, sapient and self aware is totally OK, or not OK.
The fact is, even as we're debating sentience, sapience and self awareness, we still have to address the fact that the fetus in question is growing inside someone's body. Someone who does have the right to choose what happens to it. My point is, because the fetuses in question are not people in any meaningful sense of the word, moral prohibitions on killing people are not a concern, and thus the right to choose becomes the overriding moral principle at issue. I believe this addresses fulhamish's most recent challenge to my position.

@orathaic,
"This seems awfully convoluted. No I don't see anything wrong with killing a person in their sleep if it causes no suffering.

However, allowing sentient creatures know they may be killed in their sleep, against their wishes, would cause fear and suffering. (not even mentioning the suffering associated with and friends or family they may be leaving behind)"

Interesting. So while you would be against legalizing such killing (thus causing anxiety), you would not actually be against doing it illegally yourself, or somebody else doing it illegally, so long as there was reason to believe the happiness thus created would outweigh the unhappiness?

Well there is always the person in a comatose state completely dependent on the support of machinery and nursing staff. Scissors through the top of the spinal cord anyone?