Sklansky on Abortion

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I did try to avoid saying potential person = actual person, because thats not really what I think. I was more driving at the idea that potential person = valuable enough to preserve.

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I believe luckyme & I both think that you and others with your views would have a much more firm argument if you would stick with this. A potential person has value. I agree. Then we can discuss how much value, and what rights it has. Once we can agree that a zygote is not a person with the same "right to life" as a person, then we can discuss what rights, if any, a zygote has. And probably, rather, what protection we want to give them because of their value.

I agree that embryos are valuable. We shouldn't treat them the same way we treat tumors. One of my views is that I think the quality of life of people is more important than the quantity of people. A million starving kids is not better than 1/2 million well-fed kids (for example). To that extent, I think we would be remiss to want every embryo to become a person. In fact, I could forsee the day where technology allows almost 100% embryo retention (currently, I believe it's much much less than that -- I've heard 50%). Then, if society deemed it proper that every embryo become a person, then all mothers would have to use this technology (which could possibly consist of extra-utero gestation) to ensure the embryo becomes a person.

I think this would be very bad, actually. If anything, I'd lean more toward not having any embryos become people unless that embryo will be able to have a good environment in which to be raised. Obviously this would be very hard to enforce, so I think a good alternative is to have readily accessible and affordable abortion methods available to parents that don't think they are ready to raise a child.

[imported_luckyme]

Joey, thanks for expanding on those areas. very helpful. I'll only deal with portions here. Essentially your claim is that entities should be valued not because of what they presently are but because of what they may become in the future. The chicken, acorn and dead people references are attempts to illustrate that such a principle leads to ludicrous results if it is applied in full in similar areas. The argument becomes one of those that can pop up because we really,really want result X and we conjure up something that seems to acheive result X.
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But I did try to avoid saying potential person = actual person, because thats not really what I think. I was more driving at the idea that potential person = valuable enough to preserve.

[/ QUOTE ] But you can't get there if your only rationale is along the lines of 'it deserves to be treated as an Y, because one day it's likely to be one.'
When we apply 'future value' to present situations/entities in an attempt to arrive at present value, we need to discount in other factors and not just blanket equate them. Even in your 'I really need a chicken' scenario, if I offer you an egg or a chicken, you'll grab the chicken.
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A potential person has value. I agree. Then we can discuss how much value, and what rights it has.

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I'd expand on that to clarify that the value it has derives from it's potential to become a person. It's an unsubstantiated leap to now pronounce 'ergo, it has the rights/value of a person' because even you don't think it is one. [ QUOTE ]
My point was that a thing has at least some measure the kind of human value we assign to actualized humans if it is a potential human

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, yes, yes, THAT is the discussion needed... what should that 'some measure' be. It's this equating claim you made that raised the rational hackles -
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Then my definition of what has personal/human value and thus deserves perservation would be along the lines of;
"Something that is human because it has "a" or something that will develop "a" and is in the process of doing so."

[/ QUOTE ] Your clarification "some measure" seems to go contrary to the " deserves preservation" since preservation is the Full measure that we save for actual persons. ??

thanks again for the comments, luckyme

[ThaSaltCracka]

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Your thoughts?

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I agree completely.

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[Joey Legend]

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Then my definition of what has personal/human value and thus deserves perservation would be along the lines of;
"Something that is human because it has "a" or something that will develop "a" and is in the process of doing so."

[/ QUOTE ] Your clarification "some measure" seems to go contrary to the " deserves preservation" since preservation is the Full measure that we save for actual persons. ??

thanks again for the comments, luckyme

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Hi Lucky, thanks for the thoughts. Just to clarify this last point in particular, I'd say that in the case of when rights of a potential-likely person and an actual person clash then one's actual personhood should edge out the potential personhood by a margin if indeed the infringed rights are in the same catagory. In the case of abortion, I think the classic example of abortion when the mothers life is endangered. In a life vs life decision the actual person edges out. On the other hand, if the infringed rights are in wildly diffrent catagories, say life vs convenience or life vs privacy I don't think an actual persons advantage in having attained their personhood in seeking privacy/conveniance ect outways the rights of the fetus to life. We have shown a willingness as a society to give up some privacy for making our lives possible (for example, we detain violent criminals) and even our animal cruality laws seem to provided lowers animals protection from death in some cases when it goes against our conveniances (or atleast provides punishment for doing so, for instance one could be punished for tying up a sack full of puppies and throwing them in a lake)

[Joey Legend]

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I believe luckyme & I both think that you and others with your views would have a much more firm argument if you would stick with this. A potential person has value. I agree. Then we can discuss how much value, and what rights it has. Once we can agree that a zygote is not a person with the same "right to life" as a person,


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Well, I'd get close to agreeing with what you typed there, I think it might be proper to substitute "fetus" for "zygote", but that might just be a case of lack of understanding of the specific medical terms on my part. Also, I'd probably not take such a hard line, and say "similar" rather than the same

But I assume you actully meant that a zygote was not a person without the same right to life as a person? :-)

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I agree that embryos are valuable. We shouldn't treat them the same way we treat tumors. One of my views is that I think the quality of life of people is more important than the quantity of people. A million starving kids is not better than 1/2 million well-fed kids (for example).


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True, but there the moral thing to do is to try to make it possible for those kids to be fed. I don't think, for example, if there is enough food to feed 1/2 a million kids, but a scarce enough amount that 1 millions kids would be hungery that we can say "kill half the kids." To me the fundemental sanctity of innocent human life comes into play here and trumps the utility principal of creating the best result for society. I do believe in utility, I just believe in equity beside it. We are not the architects of society, and I don't think we as individuals can ever have enough of an understanding of another persons life as that person has (or will have in the future!) and should not think we're right in making decisions about it. The life of a half-starving kid is just as valuable to that half-starving kid as any other life, probably moreso. I don't feel able to, or atleast right in, looking at the idea from any larger a picture than that. We might have come down to just a fundemental disagrement between us on one of these levels.

Just to point out I'm not a hard ass, I do think there are those cases where the sanctity of innocent human life (a very stong principal in western moral thinking, both religious and secular) can be violated. For instance if the innocent human would die soon no matter what, has no future, and wishes to die, or in the case that the death of an innocent might go on to save the lives of many other innocents. I think it is rare abortions fall into these catagories however.
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To that extent, I think we would be remiss to want every embryo to become a person. In fact, I could forsee the day where technology allows almost 100% embryo retention (currently, I believe it's much much less than that -- I've heard 50%). Then, if society deemed it proper that every embryo become a person, then all mothers would have to use this technology (which could possibly consist of extra-utero gestation) to ensure the embryo becomes a person.

I think this would be very bad, actually. If anything, I'd lean more toward not having any embryos become people unless that embryo will be able to have a good environment in which to be raised. Obviously this would be very hard to enforce, so I think a good alternative is to have readily accessible and affordable abortion methods available to parents that don't think they are ready to raise a child.


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Yikes, what a possibility! I don't know, perhaps this kind of meddling is immoral by itself. I suppose on the other hand, we don't have the forsight to see what other technological improvements we would have made by the time this is possible that would make this development easier to bare. I suppose if nothing else I can accept that my stance on this issue could need to be altered somehow if I were to arrive in a future like this.

As far as your last point I would just say that it seems to be as difficult to provide abortions only to those unable to care for a child (and not just those who don't "feel like it") as it would be to ensure that every pregnancy that is carried out has a good enviroment awaiting it. Perhaps we shouldn't be in the business of doing either.

And, I'm not sure if its approprite to say here, but, its not as though fetuses just spring into being by themselves. It's not as though they are thrust upon a couple randomly. Now, I'm not specifically just trying to say that the sex act is undertaken irresponsably, I don't want to be a total wet towel... But some birth control is relativelty effective, and frankly, from high school to now, I've often been amazed how cavalier my peers have been with using it. That's really a bit of a tangent...

... It dosn't seem likely that either of us will convince the other, but its interesting to see another viewpoint anyway, isn't it?

[Joey Legend]

Side note: I'm a bit sad David Sklansky hasn't has anything to say about any of this, as it was his ideas that sparked the rather long discussion.

[imported_luckyme]

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Side note: I'm a bit sad David Sklansky hasn't has anything to say about any of this, as it was his ideas that sparked the rather long discussion.

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Am I the only one who took DS's orginal post to be on the level of the Sokal spoof of postmodernism? Some of it cracked me up when I read it. He seemed to be taking the type of comments we read on forums and work them into what appeared to be an argument for something.
Try reading it again, but as if it were a spoof.

I thought he left good clues with stuff like the lead in, all the "everybody knows", the yelling "WELL OF COURSE IT IS", the word equivocations, etc. hmmmm.. maybe I just got fixated on the spoofiness of the leadin and should have read it more seriously. You tell me.

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Yikes, what a possibility! I don't know, perhaps this kind of meddling is immoral by itself.

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Holy Schnikes. You think using technology to reduce miscarriage rates is immoral? I'm not sure what to say about that... other than, I really think your religious world-view has warped your rationality. Please don't take offense... if that's at all possible. I just can't fathom how you can on the one hand value the life of a zygote so much, but on the other, think using technology to ensure it's survival is immoral.

It's good that you agree that an embryo is a potential person, and not a person. You think a potential person has a "right to life", and I don't. We could discuss this further, but I'm glad we at least got that far.

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Side note: I'm a bit sad David Sklansky hasn't has anything to say about any of this, as it was his ideas that sparked the rather long discussion.

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Am I the only one who took DS's orginal post to be on the level of the Sokal spoof of postmodernism?

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I wish you were right. I just re-read all of his posts in that thread, though, and I think DS was being serious. I agree it seemed like sarcasm at first, because it was uncharacteristically absurd.

[Joey Legend]

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Yikes, what a possibility! I don't know, perhaps this kind of meddling is immoral by itself.

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Holy Schnikes. You think using technology to reduce miscarriage rates is immoral? I'm not sure what to say about that... other than, I really think your religious world-view has warped your rationality. Please don't take offense... if that's at all possible. I just can't fathom how you can on the one hand value the life of a zygote so much, but on the other, think using technology to ensure it's survival is immoral.

It's good that you agree that an embryo is a potential person, and not a person. You think a potential person has a "right to life", and I don't. We could discuss this further, but I'm glad we at least got that far.

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Hey Kip, If you were talking about reducing the miscarridge rate to zero, I simply misunderstood. I, of corse, think that would be a good thing... I for some reason thought we were talking about the 100s of eggs a woman produces being brought into personhood rather than zygotes.

I would say, that, however, I'm not a religous person in particular. I was born into a pretty liberal church, and in time left even that and considered myself a secular humanist for a very long time. These days, at the very most, I am an agnostic... and I don't really like considering religion in earthly matters if I can avoid it. I'll worry about the next life when I get there.

Sorry this isn't a well polished post, I just got back from the pub. :-)