Ethical and legal dilemma #1:
A child is ill but can be saved with the transplant of one of the mother's kidneys. Most women would probably gladly do so... but is she ethically bound to do so?
And, perhaps more importantly (since it is where the rubber meets the road) should the mother be legally bound to do so? Should she be forced to give up a kidney for the child?
I think that you can see where the answer to this can be in turn applied to the question of abortion... and, indeed, the question is generous, as it talks about saving a real living, breathing, thinking child, rather than a potential child (all the way down to a single cell).

Ethical and legal dilemma #2:
You are a firefighter in a fertility clinic building. You have the choice to save one screaming, crying toddler from the on-site daycare center or a freezer with 20 fertilized eggs (i.e. zygotes) some of which are destined to be implanted and brought to term at some point in the future. Which do you save?

It is perhaps an affirmation of how entrenched my views are on this subject that my answers to both dilemmas came quickly and did not trouble my conscience even slightly. Whilst I acknowledge I may be wrong, I have yet to see any evidence to convince me this is so and I don't anticipate such evidence to appear any time soon. I dare say this is true of many people on both sides of the debate.

In case anyone was wondering, for dilemma No.1 I'd say the mother is ethically bound to do so, but must never be legally bound. For dilemma No.2 it would be the toddler every time.

lol. I'm with you, Octavious. On all counts (including recognition that both sides are entrenched).

I do find that pro-lifers have trouble with #2 in particular... the immediacy of a crying baby tends to overwhelm any theoretical calculation of the potential lives being spared... (which is a hopeful sign, perhaps... but disappointingly it doesn't seem to cause any cognitive dissonance in its apparent contradiction with their view that a zygote is a human being just as valuable as you and I).

I don't see why there is a deal with abortion?

This is America, the land of the free. You have your morals, and i have mine, so don't force your morals on me, and we're all happy.

And I also agree with octavius

I believe that abortion should be safe and legal. At the same time I am worried that the Mormons are trying to breed themselves into world domination.

lol@Zeno.
As a Mormon, I can assure you that that is not quite true, but it is close :)

"This is America, the land of the free. You have your morals, and i have mine, so don't force your morals on me, and we're all happy."

Tell that to an unborn child, and you have a big deal with abortion. What you think is a human being is a lot different than another person's "apparent" feelings.
If one believes there is an unborn child, who could blame them for taking a stand for an innocent?
Likewise, if one believes there is no child, who can blame them for taking a stand for the mother?

Thus, conflict...

@ dexter --

Well, I'm pro-life (with the fairly universal rape/incest exception), and also against IVF (not stem-cell research, that's a different matter entirely). As the pope said "The desire for a child does not justify the manufacture of one". So I would go for the toddler.

@ Kingdroid --

Your logic is reminiscent of Sicarius. Without morals, there would be anarchy. Would it be fair if some jerk shot you in the face for no reason and was not punished?

Life begins at conception. The unborn child is entitled to the rights of all citizens. LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Like I told KD, should murder be legal?

Though it has been a few posts back, I, while driving my car, got a good chance to think about the "human chauvinism" or "people are/are not superior to animals" or whatever you want to call it argument. I would frame my view (which is that human life is fundamentally superior to animal life) in the form of a hypothetical situation. Here goes:

You are taking your daily walk and while doing so you pass through the rail yard. While passing by, you notice two unmanned trains (we have better technology at this rail yard) pass each other heading in opposite directions at around 50 mph each. You also notice something quite horrible. On the path of the train heading east, a dog has wandered onto the track and appears to be stuck on it. On the path of the train heading west, a toddler has also wandered onto the track and has fallen down and does not appear to be easily able to get up. You see no other people around, so it is likely that, unless you do something, both the dog and the toddler are going to be hit by the trains.

Now, about 100 feet from you, in opposite directions, are computerized relays that will switch each train to a different track on which the train will not hit the dog/child. While this may not have been the best design, there is not a lot you can do about it right now. Since it appears that each train will hit the dog/child in about 10 seconds or so, you only have enough time to reach one relay (because, believe it or not, you are not Usain Bolt). Which relay are you going to make a run for?

Now, in this particular scenario, I am going to guess that everyone is going to go for the relay for the train headed west. What I would ask, though, is lets say a bunch of dogs, or a bunch of chimps, or an entire herd of whatever is on the path of the train headed east. Would you still hit the button for the train headed west (toward the toddler) or would you instead go for the train headed toward the animals. Is there actually any quantity of animal life that would cause you to change your mind? If so, what exactly is it? This, to me, is a simple question (though obviously a bit contrived) that demonstrates that, at our core, we really do believe that human life is superior to animal life (unless you do name some animals that you would be willing to save instead of the toddler).

To start off, science wouldn't say whether or not abortion is right or wrong, being that this is a moral issue and science makes no value judgements. Of course, science does offer facts that must be taken into account, but a scientific definition is not a fact, it's a demarcation point. It's used for communication and convenience and holds significance only insofar as it provides a common term so that scientists know they are referring to the same things.

Scientific fact, on the other hand, is more like, the placenta is formed from the same zygote as a baby, contains an identical set of human DNA. Now social value judgement comes in to say that placentas do not have rights. So nola, yes, I agree that just as you would consider individual bacterium to be distinct organisms, I would say the blastula is also a distinct organism. That doesn't answer whether or not human blastula's warrant rights while neither bacterium nor other mammalian blastula do.

To pose another ethical hypothetical, if abortion were to be made completely illegal, I imagine that some particularly desperate women would choose to perform their own amateur abortions anyway. My question is, how do you punish these women? Do you charge them of murder and sentence them to a penitentiary?

Dexter_Morgan - I always prefer to keep things civil (and thus I will work hard to avoid any sort of ad hominem arguments) because there is no reason for incivility. As to your specific post:

First, on the issue of mentally unstable people, I think that as a society, we should prevent them from killing themselves. Often, the problem is some sort of disorder, and with the right treatment, it can be fixed. As a result, the person no longer wishes to kill him/herself and can function normally in society. If we had let him/her commit suicide, however, then this would obviously not be possible. This, however, is somewhat of a peripheral issue to this debate.

Second, if someone actually needed my kidney (as in specifically my kidney, not generally any available kidney), I would be willing to donate it to them. Now, I will admit if they were in need of a kidney because they had more or less voluntarily destroyed their own (through negligence via heavy drinking or something similar), I might have a few more reservations, but if it was through no fault of their own, I would not really mind.

Third, as far as pregnancy resulting from willful sexual intercourse goes, it is not really a "punishment" so much as the natural consequence of specific actions. Yes, women (and only women) bear children and men don't, but that is just how things are. From a sexual/reproductive point of view, men and women are fundamentally different; I think we all know that. I know that this might not seem "fair" but that is not really relevant. Though I don't support the position, there are a number of men who have argued that they wanted the woman they got pregnant to have an abortion but she did not, and now they are pissed that they have to pay child support (which, in my opinion, is their obligation whether they like it or not).

More to the point, though, is that in my opinion, the right to life (which I specifically mean here to be the right to not be killed by the willful actions of someone else) supercedes all other rights. Thus, the right of the child to live supercedes the right of his/her mother to do what she wants with her own body. Sometimes the rights of different people overlap, but the right to life must be paramount over all others. I would agree that legally, in some societies ("some" since a number do in fact ban abortion), a fetus has less rights than his/her mother. This, however, is a purely legal construct that is subject to change. What societies that allow abortion have done is to more or less state that human life, before it is born, is worth significantly less than human life that has been born. I purposely use the word signficant to denote that it is not just a little less (because in that case abortion would only be legal if the mother was in imminent danger of death if an abortion was not performed) but signficanly less because the convenience of the mother is more important than the life of the child. Now a lot of this comes down to the personhood as distinct from human life argument (because a fetus is clearly human life as I defined it earlier). However, to me is it not only wrong but quite dangerous to argue that personhood and human life are somehow distinct and that this distinction is definable. The reason for this is that, if we agree that there is a definable distinction, then there is nothing to prevent us from defining human life in other states as being "not a person." For instance, is someone in a vegetative state "not a person"? Is someone who is, while not in a vegetative state, severly mentally handicapped "not a person"? Essentially, if personhood can be arbitrarily defined as distinct from human life in any one manner, there is nothing to prevent it from also being defined as distinct in other manners.

Finally, on this specific topic, I do not see how it is reasonable to allow someone to be killed, without their consent, because they might end up having a "bad" or "unwanted" life. Unlike a lot of other things (most other things in fact) killing is quite unreversable and permanent.


As to your poll questions, in the first example the mother is clearly morally/ethically obligated to save the life of her child. As to legally, I do not think we should be legally compelled to do something harmful to ourselves which will prevent someone else from dying from natural causes (which is what is happening in your example I presume). This is quite distinct from the abortion issue because, if nature takes it course, the child will be born alive. It is only by the willful act of the mother that an abortion can occur, but it is the natural result of disease that a child with kidney failure will die.

In your second example, I must first state that I believe IVF to be immoral (we should not play God and create human life in a test tube), so the scenario itself should not really exist. However, within the context of the scenario, I would probably grab the toddler mostly because he is a bit more proximate and noticeable. Again, though, the scenario itself is complicated by the fact that immoral actions have taken place and created a bad situation.

@ Kingdroid --

Your logic is reminiscent of Sicarius. Without morals, there would be anarchy. Would it be fair if some jerk shot you in the face for no reason and was not punished?

--

That really is a horrible reference. You can not argue that I am not alive, can you?

No, i am clearly alive, and nobody can argue that.

While you can argue that a fetus is a living human or not, therefore, your decision upon the subject, when there is no clear majority or minority, should not be forced upon the other half.

Also, until the baby has developed a heart or internal organs of it's own, it is actually a part of the mother.

And therefore can not be considered a human.

nola, to answer your ethical conundrum, I must admit, that yes, there is a certain point where I would save the animals, and it depends on how many and what animals they were. Of course I believe that humans are 'worth' more than animals, but I don't believe that humans are 'special' such that one human life is worth an infinite number of animal lives. I couldn't tell you exactly how many chimps or dolphins it would take because the human brain just isn't very good at utilitarian arithmetic, nor would I have time to do so in such a situation, but I'm sure such a point exists. I wouldn't expect you to tell me how many toddlers you'd weigh against the life of your mother. It's probably better to stick to realistic hypothetical ethical conundrums. God knows enough of those exist already to make my brain hurt. =)

God gave us the ability to understand reproduction and test tubes, and told us to be fruitful and multiply. Seems like he wanted us to create IVF to me. He could have told Moses if it were really that bad.

Chrispminis - A placenta is more equivalent to my appendix than it is to a person. Clearly, a placenta does not have any rights because it is not a human organism, it is a functional part of one that serves its purpose and then dies. The article I posted a while back addresses this issue (and a host of other ones) quite clearly, but essentially, the output is that a human organism (though this definition applies to other organisms as well) is defined as the cell or set of living cells that, given the proper growing conditions, will eventually mature into an adult. Parts are not organisms, but when we are conceived, we are a single cell that will eventually be able to grow into an adult. Again, I have oversimplified this for the sake of brevity, but the article I first posted addresses this issue in quite a bit of detail (at least as I recall).

As far as the criminal penalty for abortion if it were illegal, there would obviously be one (though probably more for the person performing the abortion), but as to what that is I really prefer to not go there because it is not that relevant to the debate.

"However, within the context of the scenario, I would probably grab the toddler mostly because he is a bit more proximate and noticeable."

Well that doesn't really answer the conundrum does it. You've just weaseled out of it. What if the two were equally distant from you and the zygote freezer has a big neon sign over it such that the two are equally noticeable.

"Again, though, the scenario itself is complicated by the fact that immoral actions have taken place and created a bad situation."

Yes, and isn't that sentence analogous to the dilemma faced by so many young women. You suddenly have a situation, and however it came about, it has to be dealt with.

"a human organism (though this definition applies to other organisms as well) is defined as the cell or set of living cells that, given the proper growing conditions, will eventually mature into an adult."

I hope the article you posted doesn't actually use "eventually mature into an adult" in its definitions... Where does that leave the poor babies condemned to die before they reach adulthood? But I suppose whether or not it is "eventually mature" into an adult or just a live baby doesn't change the point of your argument so I don't want to pigeon-hole.

I'd love to leave a refutation regarding the "potential" for life, but if you'll excuse me, I just realized I've got a lab exam tomorrow. However, I'm sure this thread will be here tomorrow and the day after, and I hope I can find time to post one. Not out of any hope of convincing anyone, but I do find the discussion stimulating. =)

When does a baby actually care if it lives or dies?

Personally, I find the "potentiallity" argument to be daft and ridiculous. If the baby doesn't care, why should it matter?

That's my one cent.

@ EVERYONE who has made the claim that human life begins at conception:

Let’s meet some humans:
1. Gestational choriocarcinoma
Here we have a fertilised egg. However, it does not develop into an embryo or foetus, but rather develops into an undifferentiated invasive and metastatic cancer (in the uterus and brain, pictured in the links below). Nothing else is produced, and ultimately this tumour will kill the mother if left untreated. Under your system, because this has been conceived, this tumour is a human, and the chemotherapist is a murderer.
http://museum.med.monash.edu.au/pics/S3U3.jpg
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/path/web_docs/p200/GYN200/GYN0408.jpeg
2. Hydatidiform mole (aka molar pregnancy)
Again, a zygote that never develops into a foetus; instead, as pictured, it develops an undifferentiated mass of foetal tissue, often causing potentially fatal eclampsia. It also can become cancerous, since it sometimes develops into choriocarcinoma. However, since it was conceived, the surgeon who removes it is a murderer
http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Notes/images/week2/hydatidiformmolelabel.jpg
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/path/web_docs/p200/GYN200/GYN0405.jpeg
3. Scleroderma
Last one, this is an autoimmune disease. The patient suffers from fibrosis (excessive scar tissue) in various parts of their bodies, including skin, heart, lungs and muscles. Analysis of the blood of patients with this tissue tissue shows that it has foetal monocytes with human DNA distinct from that of the patient’s. We can know that it is foetal from the fact that it can have Y-chromosomes, which rule out a connection to the patient’s own mother. The immune response to this distribution of cells causes the terrible and incurable disease.
Supposing it were possible to remove these cells, would it be murder to do so. They are human cells, and living, and post-conception, too.
The fingers of this patient are almost totally unable to move due to the scarring:
http://www.ecureme.com/atlas/data/dis_images/Scleroderma550_ab.jpg
This is actually the heart of a scleroderma patient. The white scar tissue has almost totally replaced the cardiac muscle.
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~excs597k/carpenter/images/restrict.jpg

And this list is by no means exhaustive. Nor is it considering grossly ill-formed foetuses that are potentially dangerous and certainly unable to develop, but nevertheless have been conceived.

Our governments should not decide who lives and who dies, that should be our individual choice - assisted suicide(dignity in death), abortion(a woman's rigth to choose), planned parenthood (the right to contraception) are all important parts of our natural population control - the human population is currently growing at an unsustainbable rate and unless you want a population crash (like the market crash) we will need some controls.

There is no way to decide for others whether they should live, our Governments should provide us with the neccesary skills to make informed decisions for ourselves.

Sigh.. I said I wouldn't participate in this but...

@nola2172: "Finally, chimps (and any other animal) are not people."

I would argue that a chimpanzee is more of a person than an unborn fetus. They have complex emotions and social interactions, and as a higher primate they are very closely related to humans. They are at least as intelligent as a small child, and are capable of understanding our language and communicating with us (they lack the vocal chords to actually speak, but they can learn sign language). If I had to choose between saving the life of a chimp, and saving the life of an early-stage fetus a week or so old, I'd be saving the chimp.

@Ghostmaker: "Let's meet some humans..."

Ghostmaker +1. This, as far as I am concerned, demonstrates clearly that not every fetus should automatically be considered a complete and distinct human life from the outset, and blasts nola2172's argument out of the water.

Nola, I notice you have not yet responded to Ghostmaker's point. I would be interested to see you do so.

Since I have been asked to respond to TGM, I will do so, but briefly. Please read this:
http://www.westchesterinstitute.net/images/wi_whitepaper_life_print.pdf

Though it does not cover every possibility that TGM talks about (his points are all similar anyway), it addresses the topic much more thoroughly than I wish to do here. I will briefly add, though, that his point is quite peripheral to the main discussion of normal, healthy babies that are aborted largely for the sake of convenience. Instead it focuses on rare situations in which the pregnancy can not be carried to term anyway (thus the fetus, or in some cases, something else, is going to die) but to do so poses an extreme risk to the life of the mother. This type of situation has already been addressed by others in this thread.

orthaic - You propose that the government should not decide who lives and who dies. Then why should individuals make the choice for others (i.e. not themselves) as to who lives and dies (which is what happens in abortion when the person dying is not the person making the decision)? Also, the "population bomb" theory has been floated and been shown to be false enough times by now to have been totally discredited, so I will not even bother with that here.

Jamiet99uk - I know you wrote what you wrote, but I don't really believe you. What you said is that if a pregnant woman needed your assistance or would have a miscarriage and a chimp also needed your assistance or would somehow die, you would save the chimp. I would hope that this is not true.

@nola2172: "I will briefly add, though, that his point is quite peripheral to the main discussion"

No. His point is crucial to the debate, because it disproves one of the central 'pro-life' points that has been made by the pro-life side of this debate, and which you appear to subscribe to, which is, essentially: "From the very moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, there exists a new, distinct human being which has a right to life". Ghostmaker has proved that this is not the case.

"Jamiet99uk - I know you wrote what you wrote, but I don't really believe you. What you said is that if a pregnant woman needed your assistance or would have a miscarriage and a chimp also needed your assistance or would somehow die, you would save the chimp. I would hope that this is not true."

In this circumstance it would depend on whether there was a significant risk to the life of the mother - ie, if she was also likely to be in danger if I did not help her. This would depend on why she was about to have a miscarriage.

If not, and she was likely to miscarry but otherwise remain healthy, I would probably save the chimp, all other things being equal.

I should add that in the heat of the moment, given the emotiveness of the situation, it is possible I would help the woman, but I would view this as the wrong response - my logic suggests I should save the chimp.

Let's see... there's quite a few factors that could influence the choice I'd make... whether I know the mother.... attractiveness of chimp etc...

But seriously, no. It would be the mother every time. I am a human chauvinist and proud of it :). I would without hesitation sacrifice the life of almost every chimp on the planet to save one human if such a situation presented itself. (I say almost every chimp as keeping the species alive will probably bring more benefit to humanity than saving one one person).

Jamiet99uk - I think you have explained your own position on the value of human life quite clearly now, but as far as what TGM wrote, I thought I explained my response (and yes, it is peripheral to the debate, but that is not really the point) quite clearly, though I will elucidate a bit more here. Essentially, if a pregnancy is non-viable and threatens the life of the mother, then to terminate that particular pregancy, while still sad, is necessary so that both the mother and child don't die (since the child is already going to die anyway). This does not invalidate my previous comments about the right to life because this right, in a non-viable pregnancy, can not be exercised anyway. In cases where it is not really a pregnancy (i.e. it is some sort of growth), then there is no child anyway so there are no moral issues present. Please read through the article I presented (I think TGM's particular issue is addressed on page 9) for more information on this topic.

Are all the pro-life people here pacifists, too? And opposed to the war? And opposed to the death-penalty, too? Just curious.