Sklansky on Abortion

[vulturesrow]

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Thanks, the summary was necessary, don't know why I was so verbose about it.

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No. I can make a complete argument against this without ever mentioning God. Granted it may get a bit philosophical, but its not religious per se.

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Please do.

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First of all, we have to agree on some premises. Most pro-choice folks I know will agree that human life is something to be protected. Some hard line pro-choicers try to make their stand here, saying this isnt the case. We can debate from that standpoint if you wish, but most people generally agree more or less with my premise. Assuming that we agree on this, everything hinges around the question of personhood. The biological question isnt really debatable, just look at some embryology textbooks and see what their definition of the beginning of life is. So where does personhood begin? Basically, asserting that personhood begins sometime after conception is asserting a dualistic concept of human existence, in other words that your physical being and your "personhood" (or soul or whatever word you want to use) are two distinct entities. But this is a philosophically indefensible position. Human beings are an integrated unit, and thus no grounds exist for claimg that personhood doesnt begin when life biologically begins, which is clearly at conception. We can go into more detail on whatever points you wish, but this is just a sketch of the argument I am trying to make here.

And sorry for the delay in response to your post. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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What makes it a person?

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It belongs to the human species.

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Are you going to make this difficult?

What do you mean "belongs to the human species"? How can we measure that? Check the DNA? Every human skin cell has human DNA.

A dead person is a human, right? Just a dead human. I'm asking what constitutes PERSONHOOD --- a living human being with the right to life.

[hmkpoker]

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Thanks, the summary was necessary, don't know why I was so verbose about it.

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No. I can make a complete argument against this without ever mentioning God. Granted it may get a bit philosophical, but its not religious per se.

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Please do.

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First of all, we have to agree on some premises. Most pro-choice folks I know will agree that human life is something to be protected. Some hard line pro-choicers try to make their stand here, saying this isnt the case. We can debate from that standpoint if you wish, but most people generally agree more or less with my premise. Assuming that we agree on this, everything hinges around the question of personhood. The biological question isnt really debatable, just look at some embryology textbooks and see what their definition of the beginning of life is. So where does personhood begin? Basically, asserting that personhood begins sometime after conception is asserting a dualistic concept of human existence, in other words that your physical being and your "personhood" (or soul or whatever word you want to use) are two distinct entities. But this is a philosophically indefensible position. Human beings are an integrated unit, and thus no grounds exist for claimg that personhood doesnt begin when life biologically begins, which is clearly at conception. We can go into more detail on whatever points you wish, but this is just a sketch of the argument I am trying to make here.

And sorry for the delay in response to your post. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I think I get an idea of what you're saying, although I think that the premise needs a little development. (i.e. I don't entirely agree with the premise, so yes, I'm being difficult [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

I feel that personhood is variable, to some degree. Most people would agree that personhood occurs at the moment of conception. However, it seems wrong that an 8-celled zygote that has all the complexities of an amoeba is somehow equal in worth to a fully grown man with a good job, a family and noble aspirations. I make a similar argument about Terri Schiavo or other "vegetables." One could make an argument along similar lines of a completely burnt-out drug addict with a brain disorder and no hope for a happy life, but the argument carries less strength as this person displays more "personhood" than the zygote or the vegetable. However, if one were to choose between saving a drug addicted criminal with no family and poor mental and physical health, and a good doctor who gives to charity, one choice seems far better than the other.

Because of this variability of personhood, I feel that some persons are more deserving of protection than others. In some cases, I don't believe the personhood of the zygote is worth the effort of raising it, and complicating life for the mother or others affected.

Again, it varies from situation to situation, but I don't think that a young fetus has the same personhood as a grown person, or, accordingly, the same rights.

[vulturesrow]

Just because personhood isnt fully developed doesnt mean it isnt worthy of certain fundamental protections, i.e., not being eliminated for the convenience of another person. Even your strung out no-life loser is entitled to not be murdered indiscriminately.

Awesome post, by the way. I love it when people provide a number of details with which to proceed in the discussion.

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First of all, we have to agree on some premises. Most pro-choice folks I know will agree that human life is something to be protected. Some hard line pro-choicers try to make their stand here, saying this isnt the case. We can debate from that standpoint if you wish, but most people generally agree more or less with my premise.

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I agree, but for clarification, I'd say "human personhood" is intrinsically valuable, and should be protected (at least almost all of the time).

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Assuming that we agree on this, everything hinges around the question of personhood.

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Agreed. Specifically: "What criteria denotes personhood, or when does personhood begin (and end)?".

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The biological question isnt really debatable, just look at some embryology textbooks and see what their definition of the beginning of life is.

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From a biological standpoint, life does not have a beginning -- it's a continuum. Every living cell was formed from another living cell. Living cells produce more living cells, and later they die. The study of when life began, then, is a question regarding abiogenesis.

(Note: It is very probable that there are Biology textbooks that make the claim that "life begins at conception". This is a reflection of the religious/idealistic beliefs of the author(s) and not scientific.)

Here is a good read on this: http://www.devbio.com/article.php?id=162

Science can't tell us the answer to when "personhood" begins. That's a moral/social question. But, I think there is a rational answer if we really think about it.

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So where does personhood begin? Basically, asserting that personhood begins sometime after conception is asserting a dualistic concept of human existence, in other words that your physical being and your "personhood" (or soul or whatever word you want to use) are two distinct entities.

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If I cut off my finger, am I still a person? More or less the same person? Does my finger make me, me? What about my leg? Or my internal organs? What physical part of my body makes me, me? What is it that defines my personhood? Am I less of a person if I become a quadriplegic? I don't think so. So, at least these physical parts of my body are not "me" -- they are not what defines my personhood. But, I posit there is ONE physical part that DOES define my personhood: my brain. If I lose my brain, I'm no longer "me". So, this isn't dualistic, per se. I'm not saying there is a "me" that exists outside of my physical being. But, I am saying that a certain part of my physical being is what defines me. (Actually, it's the activity in the brain that creates my personhood... if my brain is not functioning, I'm no longer "me" either.)

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But this is a philosophically indefensible position. Human beings are an integrated unit, and thus no grounds exist for claimg that personhood doesnt begin when life biologically begins, which is clearly at conception.

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Again, life doesn't biologically begin with conception. Unless you are assuming some other criteria for "life". Like a unique set of DNA or something.

I'll go ahead and head off the DNA argument while I'm at it. Some will argue that a unique set of DNA constitutes personhood. So, when the egg & sperm fuse, a unique set of DNA forms, thus creating a new person.

One question: what about cloning?

(Aside: I wonder if this is at the heart of why a lot of religious people think cloning is bad?)

Anyway, I just read an article in Time, where they explained how Korean biologists cloned the first dog. They took a cell from the ear of an adult male. They removed the nucleus of an egg cell, and implanted the male ear cell into the egg. They "zapped it" with electricity to fuse the cell to the egg, and then implanted 10 or so into a female dog. 61 days later, out comes a healthy dog, genetically identical to the male that the ear cell was taken from.

So, when did the "doghood" of that new dog begin? Never was there new DNA. Never did 2 haploids join to create a diploid. To me, it's when the dog formed whatever it is that we claim indicates "doghood". I maintain it's the brain (activity). That is what gives the dog his personality, his desires, his memories, his emotions. To me, that is what "doghood" is.

Science fiction time: If we could implant a human brain into a dog body, what it be a dog or a human? I say human. Same for when we replace someone's heart with an artificial heart -- they are still a human person. If we replace their limbs with artificial ones, they are still a human person. If we replace their eyes, ears, nose, torso, every internal organ, and everything but their brain with artificial parts, I'd say they are still a human person. But, if we replace a human's brain with a computer -- all other body parts & internal organs remain -- then that is no longer a human person. It's a computer controlling a human body. We would not bestow human rights on that thing -- we could turn off the computer without feeling we committed homicide.

I look forward to hearing your replies.

[vulturesrow]

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Awesome post, by the way. I love it when people provide a number of details with which to proceed in the discussion.

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Thank you.

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I agree, but for clarification, I'd say "human personhood" is intrinsically valuable, and should be protected (at least almost all of the time).

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Agreed, I stated the premise a bit too loosely.

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From a biological standpoint, life does not have a beginning -- it's a continuum. Every living cell was formed from another living cell. Living cells produce more living cells, and later they die. The study of when life began, then, is a question regarding abiogenesis.

(Note: It is very probable that there are Biology textbooks that make the claim that "life begins at conception". This is a reflection of the religious/idealistic beliefs of the author(s) and not scientific.)

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Im referring specifically to the case of when human life begins and embryology texts clearly state that human life begins at conception. The operative definition of human life
here is a genetically complete, self directed, and distinct organism within the mother.

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If I cut off my finger, am I still a person? More or less the same person? Does my finger make me, me? What about my leg? Or my internal organs? What physical part of my body makes me, me? What is it that defines my personhood? Am I less of a person if I become a quadriplegic? I don't think so. So, at least these physical parts of my body are not "me" -- they are not what defines my personhood. But, I posit there is ONE physical part that DOES define my personhood: my brain. If I lose my brain, I'm no longer "me". So, this isn't dualistic, per se. I'm not saying there is a "me" that exists outside of my physical being. But, I am saying that a certain part of my physical being is what defines me. (Actually, it's the activity in the brain that creates my personhood... if my brain is not functioning, I'm no longer "me" either.)


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You are basically defining personhood through functionality. So if someone hits me in the head with a bat and causes me severe brain damage, am I no longer a person? Most rational people would scoff at that notion. I might be an impaired person, but I am person nonetheless. (BTW, full sentinence isnt achieved until well after birth. There are some obvious rather distasteful implications for your argument based on that fact alone).

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One question: what about cloning?


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I am going to defer on this question because in truth it is a whole other can of worms, although I recognize your reason for bringing it up. If you feel it I need to address it I will, but I am tkaing too long on this post as it is. Hopefully I have provided enough response to keep the conversation going.

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From a biological standpoint, life does not have a beginning -- it's a continuum. Every living cell was formed from another living cell. Living cells produce more living cells, and later they die. The study of when life began, then, is a question regarding abiogenesis.

(Note: It is very probable that there are Biology textbooks that make the claim that "life begins at conception". This is a reflection of the religious/idealistic beliefs of the author(s) and not scientific.)

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Im referring specifically to the case of when human life begins and embryology texts clearly state that human life begins at conception. The operative definition of human life
here is a genetically complete, self directed, and distinct organism within the mother.

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Sounds like a tumor is a human life. It's human (meaning it has human DNA), and it is living (like every cell in my body is). It is distinct. Self-directed: every cell has the full copy of DNA, and is therefore "self-directed". As I said before, if a Biology text-book claims that "human life begins at conception", it is not based on science, but is the ideological belief of the author(s).

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If I cut off my finger, am I still a person? More or less the same person? Does my finger make me, me? What about my leg? Or my internal organs? What physical part of my body makes me, me? What is it that defines my personhood? Am I less of a person if I become a quadriplegic? I don't think so. So, at least these physical parts of my body are not "me" -- they are not what defines my personhood. But, I posit there is ONE physical part that DOES define my personhood: my brain. If I lose my brain, I'm no longer "me". So, this isn't dualistic, per se. I'm not saying there is a "me" that exists outside of my physical being. But, I am saying that a certain part of my physical being is what defines me. (Actually, it's the activity in the brain that creates my personhood... if my brain is not functioning, I'm no longer "me" either.)


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You are basically defining personhood through functionality. So if someone hits me in the head with a bat and causes me severe brain damage, am I no longer a person? Most rational people would scoff at that notion. I might be an impaired person, but I am person nonetheless. (BTW, full sentinence isnt achieved until well after birth. There are some obvious rather distasteful implications for your argument based on that fact alone).

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If you are severely brain damaged, you are a different person -- but still a person. I have an uncle that was shot in the head and has 1/4 of his brain missing. He's not the same person now as he was before he was shot. But, he's still a person.

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One question: what about cloning?


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I am going to defer on this question because in truth it is a whole other can of worms, although I recognize your reason for bringing it up. If you feel it I need to address it I will, but I am tkaing too long on this post as it is. Hopefully I have provided enough response to keep the conversation going.

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I could have used "twinning" instead of cloning to make the same point. The point is that nothing "magical" happens at conception to create a person. Also of interest, is that conception is not a single point in time, either. It takes up to 24 hours for it to happen.

So, what criteria defines personhood?

Here are the definitions I'm using:

hu·man
n.
A member of the genus [censored] and especially of the species H. sapiens.

adj.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of humans

life | a·live
n. / adj.
The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.

per·son
n.
1. A living human.
2. The composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality; the self.
3. A human or organization with legal rights and duties.

So, to summarize:

Anything with human DNA is "human" (by the 2nd definition). Any living cell is "alive". A zygote, therefore, is a living human cell.

Since most arguments end up being over semantics, I'd like to clarify that I am asking about the 3rd definition of "person". Specifically, when *should* a human life be granted legal rights. Further, the 2nd definition of "person" is what is being debated -- "when does an individual person - a "self" begin".

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Im referring specifically to the case of when human life begins and embryology texts clearly state that human life begins at conception.

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Not all embryology texts state this. Here is the summary from Developmental Biology textbook chapter titled "When Does Human Life Begin?":

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When Does Human Life Begin?

This is a note that may generate some discussion and debate. It was occasioned by a bulletin board set up by a political action group at our college. The board claimed that while philosophy and religion may have different opinions concerning when life begins, science has no such problems. Students were told that biologists were unanimous in agreeing that life starts at fertilization, and that there was no dispute in the scientific literature. Besides being a parody of science (i.e., that scientific facts are the objective truth and that all scientists agree about what these facts mean), it is wrong. I have read a wide range of scientific positions on when life begins, and these positions depend on what aspect of life one privileges in such discussions. Here is my classification scheme concerning when human life begins. You may have others.

<ul type="square">[*] The metabolic view: There is no one point when life begins. The sperm cell and egg cell are as alive as any other organism.
[*] The genetic view: A new individual is created at fertilization. This is when the genes from the two parents combine to form an individual with unique properties.
[*] The embryological view: In humans, identical twinning can occur as late as day 12 pc. Such twinning produces two individuals with different lives. Even conjoined ("Siamese") twins can have different personalities. Thus, a single individuality is not fixed earlier than day 12. (In religious terms, the two individuals have different souls). Some medical texts consider the stages before this time as "pre-embryonic." This view is expressed by scientists such as Renfree (1982) and Grobstein (1988) and has been endorsed theologically by Ford (1988), Shannon and Wolter (1990), and McCormick (1991), among others. (Such a view would allow contraception, "morning-after" pills, and contragestational agents, but not abortion after two weeks.)
[*] The neurological view: Our society has defined death as the loss of the cerebral EEG (electroencephalogram) pattern. Conversely, some scientists have thought that the acquisition of the human EEG (at about 27 weeks) should be defined as when a human life begins. This view has been put forth most concretely by Morowitz and Trefil (1992). (This view and the ones following would allow mid-trimester abortions).
[*] The ecological/technological view: This view sees human life as beginning when it can exist separately from its maternal biological environment. The natural limit of viability occurs when the lungs mature, but technological advances can now enable a premature infant to survive at about 25 weeks gestation. (This is the view currently operating in many states. Once a fetus can be potentially independent, it cannot be aborted.)
[*] The immunological view: This view sees human life as beginning when the organism recognizes the distinction between self and non-self. In humans, this occurs around the time of birth.
[*] The integrated physiological view: This view sees human life as beginning when an individual has become independent of the mother and has its own functioning circulatory system, alimentary system, and respiratory system. This is the traditional birthday when the baby is born into the world and the umbilical cord is cut.[/list]
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From this, I am arguing that the "neurological view" is the most rational explanation of when personhood begins.

[vulturesrow]

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Sounds like a tumor is a human life. It's human (meaning it has human DNA), and it is living (like every cell in my body is). It is distinct. Self-directed: every cell has the full copy of DNA, and is therefore "self-directed".

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It almost seems as if you are deliberately misinterpreting the defintion I provided. A tumor is a malfunctioning human cell. It isnt a human life or organism, that is it isnt going to turn into another independent person.

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As I said before, if a Biology text-book claims that "human life begins at conception", it is not based on science, but is the ideological belief of the author(s).


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Just because you said it doesnt make it so. Here are some quotes for you:

"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]


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"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]


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"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]


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"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."
[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]


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"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]


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"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]


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"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]


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"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]


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"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams &amp; Wilkins 1995, p. 3]


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"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]


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"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]


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"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]


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"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology &amp; Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]


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"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]


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"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]


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If you are severely brain damaged, you are a different person -- but still a person. I have an uncle that was shot in the head and has 1/4 of his brain missing. He's not the same person now as he was before he was shot. But, he's still a person.


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Almost. He is the same person, he is just a more limited version of that person. But you are essentially in agreement with me here, which goes against your theory.

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I could have used "twinning" instead of cloning to make the same point. The point is that nothing "magical" happens at conception to create a person. Also of interest, is that conception is not a single point in time, either. It takes up to 24 hours for it to happen.


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Twinning, cloning, it doesnt matter. As soon as the process is completed, you have created another human being as soon as the embryo comes into being. The mechanism is not so important as is what is created.

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So, what criteria defines personhood?

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This is completely subjective if you believe, as you seem to, that personhood is dependendent on some sort of functional characteristics. I contend that these functions are a result of personhood, not vice versa. Thus personhood begins with the only clear dividing line we have in human development, the moment of conception.