Inflamatory post inflames.

[policraticus]

So, I came upon this article.

Here is a newspaper article about it for those of you who don't want to bother reading a whole journal article. And by "those of you," I mean, "everyone."

I have a couple questions that will hopefully stir a little debate and flog a horse already deader than Eohippus1. I say, "Why not?" The conclusion seems to

Comments

[policraticus]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html

Probably my HTML fail.

[sophia_sadek]

There is an extraneous slash at the end of the URL in the original link.

[paedraggaidin]

1. This is actually fairly logically consistent, but good luck getting any pro-choicer to see that. A fetus is, after all, an unviable tissue mass/parasite until it's out in the world breathing air. (Never have heard a believable defense to late-term abortion precisely because unborn babies are. due to modern medicine, able to survive outside the womb at increasingly younger ages). There is a credible scientific argument for unviability in the first trimester, of course.

2. Funny...I really disliked what I read of Swift in school.

[dwer]

no, 24 weeks is pretty much the bleeding edge and has been for quite some time. Until we can replicate wombs 100%, 24 weeks is going to be the general limit, and even then, most kids don't survive without significant medical issues.

[notmrgarrison]

A fetus is, after all, an unviable tissue mass/parasite until it's out in the world breathing air.

You have to do far more work when it's out to keep it alive.

[fizzyland]

Inflammatory? Not really. Personhood as in "Born, living human" is a standard underpinning to our civil and legal systems. It takes more than logic games to form an argument counter to that.

It's great the authors are sincere. Sincere people are wonderful, it doesn't mean they should be making decisions for the rest of us.

[anfalicious]

Because keeping your job depends on X amount of published articles per year. This one was bound to be picked up because it's bound to generate media heat.

[policraticus]

It is debatable weather, "born, living human," is sufficient to be considered a "person," at least if we are using these folks and Peter Singer as a guide.

I thought we were supposed to be listening to experts who have studied these difficult and complicated issues objectively, rationally and using the best scientific consensus.

[kylinrouge]

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

Uh, interesting. I would define person as a human being who can survive outside a parasitic environment. You can also say that a person is a citizen (and has rights... but let's ignore that), and you're not a citizen until you are born. My definition also makes late-term fetuses also potential persons (potential because you don't know yet), but most states have laws against late-term abortions anyway. Not to say that I support carrying a child to term if you've obviously had one for a long ass time, but I understand where the laws against late-term comes from.

You 'logically follows' guys are missing the point of an argument: You have to accept the premise. This definition is their premise, and if you don't accept it then it doesn't matter what logically follows.

[kylinrouge]

I see a lot of 'debating' on t_p where one person starts by stating a premise and then deriving their arguments from that, not checking to see if the other has actually accepted the premise or not. Then the other person does the same, and henceforth nothing gets accomplished.

[meus_ovatio]

You can't just deny a premise! You have to have your own counter-argument! (Or so say the unwashed masses.)

[sandwichwarrior]

Funny hearing that from you.

[essentialsaltes]

Reminiscent of PKD's "The Pre-Persons"

That said, the line between non-person and person is somewhat arbitrary (though informed by science, philosophy, religion, usw.) The authors may be sincere, but I don't see their viewpoint becoming common enough to make any actual changes in law within the next, oh... century.