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"180" Movie

I thought the question may have been on the lines of

Have you considered it may have been your mother deciding to abort you?
 
Neally said:
Will the fetus never gain brain function? That is where your parallel fails.

Let's say a person is in a coma, but it is expected that they will come out of it with pretty much normal brain functioning. Okay to end their life?
How is that different from a fetus that has no detectable brain function, but is expected to develop one in a few weeks?

Let's say a person is in a coma, but it is unknown if they will come out of it with pretty much normal brain functioning. Okay to end their life?
How is that different from a fetus that has no detectable brain function, but is expected to develop one in a few weeks?
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But a person in a coma has brain function, so the comparison is invalid. A deeply comatose person who is never expected to recover still has far more brain activity than a 15-week fetus. But if you invented a way to restore someone who was brain dead, then a better comparison could be made.

The difference between a person and a lump of living human flesh is the mind. The mind exists as the function of the brain. So if the brain is not functioning, there is no "person".

If the brain has totally ceased to function, the individual who once existed no longer exists. If the brain has yet to begin functioning, the person has never existed.

So restoring the brain activity of a brain-dead person is bringing back someone who once existed. But allowing a fetus to develop to a point where brain activity begins is allowing somebody new to come into existence.

Restoring a brain-dead person to life could be regarded as saving an existing person, while allowing a fetus with undeveloped brain to fully develop could be regarded as creating a new person.

Creating a new person is not the same thing as saving an existing person.
 
saraban said:
I thought the question may have been on the lines of

Have you considered it may have been your mother deciding to abort you?
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My response to that would have been:

You are assuming I am as presumptuous as you are, regarding the importance of your existence ..

Not:
OMG, Jesus save me now !
 
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saraban said:
I thought the question may have been on the lines of

Have you considered it may have been your mother deciding to abort you?
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She did consider it.

My father didn't want another child.

If she had done it, I'd never have known it. How can I be horrified now over a "what-if" that I wouldn't even have been here to get horrified over?
 
slingblade said:
Pretty sure there's at least one in there...at least.
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Well then do identify it so that we can discuss.

Brian-M said:
But a person in a coma has brain function, so the comparison is invalid.
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Of course there are differences. The embryo will have a functioning brain at some point. One of the arguments that Comfort uses is that it is ethically challenging to try to figure out where to draw the line, and therefore we should err on the side of caution--If there is a chance someone is alive in the building should we still implode it...
 
Drachasor said:
If that's the case, then a baby doesn't really have any right to live either, right?
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If a baby means a newborn, then yes, that's implied by what I said.

However, I didn't mean to give that implication. I simply don't know at what point in the pregnancy (or after birth) we should begin to give the fetus/child moral consideration. My view is that it's a sliding scale, that there is a continuous process of development and thus a continuous change in the way that we should view this being as a moral creature. But I don't know enough about that development to tell you what level of consideration should be given at what point in time.

Or are you saying that if a fetus can survive with equipment outside the womb, and the woman doesn't want to have a baby, then doctors should remove the fetus and put it on life support if necessary?
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I don't think it's that easy, no. For one thing, the cost of that equipment and hospital time is a valid consideration, given that the money spent there could go to save other lives.
 
slingblade said:
And I'm not here to tell you what to think.

I was very clear: I spoke about what I think.
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I'm aware that you were expressing your opinion. I am saying that I disagree with it. I'm not suggesting that I am going to do anything about that, except to tell you why I disagree.

What's wrong with that?

My reproduction is none of your business.

That of other women is none of mine.

Not once in there did I tell anyone else how he or she should feel, or what he or she should think about the issue.
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Okay, I disagree. It's quite clear to me that you've pointed out one important aspect of the issue: the rights of a woman to control her own reproduction. But if you are interested in making moral decisions (I'm not saying "right or wrong", only "decisions regarding morality), then you have completely failed to take into account one possible complicating factor: the rights of the fetus.

Does it have rights? Should it? In what way do those impact upon the rights of the woman to control her reproduction? You haven't taken that into account.

Which is all that I'm saying: a balanced view of the issue needs to take those considerations into account. If you come out of that analysis and find "those issues were inconsequential" I will likely agree with you, but to suggest that they don't exist, well, I can't see any defense for doing so.

Not only that, but it will only serve to polarise the issue between those who do consider those issues consequential and those who do not. If we can't have a dialogue about whether or not they are consequential, because one side doesn't even admit that they exist, then the issue becomes more and more polarised. That would be fine if the issues, in actual fact, did not exist, but they do.




What's the point of this impossible hypothetical? What bearing can it possibly have on reality?
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Only to point out that if a woman's right reproduction to control her reproduction is more important than any other issues, it is so because of the facts of development, and not because those facts don't need to be considered at all.

Yes, if pregnancy were different, then our responses to it would likely be different.
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Which means that we do need to take into consideration how development actually works in humans and can't simply say "a woman's reproduction is her own concern".


Address it. Be my guest. I never told you how to feel or what to think on this issue. I said only two things, and they brook no argument:

You've no business in my reproductive rights.
I've no business in anyone else's.
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I didn't suggest that you told me how to think or what to feel. I only suggested that society does have "business" in it's member's reproductive rights. But it's business is contingent upon the facts of development.
 
slingblade said:
Not for you to chew on, no. I saw what you did with, "So according to you killing a preschooler is ok if the parents are for it since they don't comprehend death?"
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To be fair that was in response to Travis saying that he was okay with killing newborns. I think it's a fair question, though I also think that Travis can make a compelling case that there are factors other than comprehending death that are more important in determining how we should place moral consideration.
 
Drachasor said:
So according to you killing a preschooler is ok if the parents are for it since they don't comprehend death?
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I looked at your link about preschoolers. I don't think it supports this line of argument at all. Clearly children have a concept of death. That it differs from our adult understanding doesn't suggest that they don't have some understanding of it, nor that their understanding is not better than that of infants.

But if that understanding of death is deeper than that of infants, then it's a valid point to say that young children differ from infants in that way. Whether or not that's a meaningful moral distinction is another question, one to pose to Travis as I see the issue somewhat different from him.

Edit: Your point seems to be summed up on this quote:
There is univeral agreement that preschool children lack understanding of each of these sub-components of death. They say that dead people can come back to life, they think that dead people talk and dream, they say not all people die, and they offer distal causes as the causes of death - accidents, poison, guns.
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None of that shows that they don't have a concept of death (actually I think it shows the opposite), simply that their understanding of death is no better than a Christian's. :P
 
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The problem, Robo, is that I do not have the answers people are seeking on the issue.

Anyone is free to conclude I am not thinking about it, or am refusing to think about it, or don't know how to think about it. I can't help those conclusions. I do know they aren't true, however.

But the simple fact is that I cannot tell you when a fetus becomes a baby. I do not know. I do not know if we should or shouldn't be considering it a baby from conception. I do not know if it becomes a baby after certain gestational milestones. I don't know if birth makes it a baby. I do not know.

I do know that women have been aborting pregnancies since pregnancy was invented. And I know that a certain unspecified number of them have been so desperate to do it, that they endangered their own lives, and their reproductive futures, in securing an abortion any way they could get one.

I would rather extend the freedom I had to others, than deny it to them. I would rather that abortion be safe for women, and affordable. I would rather not force any woman to adhere to the particular set of moral values I own today. I'd rather not make a woman carry and give birth to a child she doesn't want, or cannot have, because it isn't my body or my baby or my life. I'd rather not force her to get rid of her pregnancy, by the same token. It isn't my life.

I'd also rather that no one got an abortion. I'd rather women didn't get pregnant until they were ready to get pregnant, wanted to be pregnant, wanted to have a child. And I'd rather it would rain banana-nut muffins from the sky for my breakfast every morning.

So all I can literally tell you is that my deciding to have or not have an abortion is none of anyone else's concern but my own. And whether any other woman has or doesn't have an abortion is none of my concern. Given how I do feel about it, that's the best answer in a sea of poor choices that I can manage.
 
Thanks for that post slingblade. I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with a great deal of it, and at least I think I understand where you're coming from.

If I were more concerned with debating the minutia of the topic, I'd probably try to address those parts that I disagree with, but, considering that there was only one single sentence that bothered me, and our conclusions are mostly the same, (even the not knowing part), well, I'm happy to say thanks for a well written post. :)
 
Neally said:
Well then do identify it so that we can discuss.

Of course there are differences. The embryo will have a functioning brain at some point. One of the arguments that Comfort uses is that it is ethically challenging to try to figure out where to draw the line, and therefore we should err on the side of caution--If there is a chance someone is alive in the building should we still implode it...
Click to expand...

And every sperm and ova could, one day, be a fetus, and that fetus will one day have a functioning brain. Big deal! We throw away millions of sperm and hundreds of ova in our lives. Should people be forced into artificial fertilization clinics to give each and everyone of those potential humans a chance at life? There are even methods of creating artificial twins that probably would work with humans. Therefore every fertilized zygote potentially can become two humans, two functioning brains! Shouldn't we twin everyone by your logic- why suppress that potential?

Having said that, I'm perfectly okay if you would never have an abortion. But I think there are many equally ethical ways of looking at this question, and so it must ultimately be the choice of the woman with the uterus.
 
Roboramma said:
Thanks for that post slingblade. I don't agree with all of it, but I agree with a great deal of it, and at least I think I understand where you're coming from.

If I were more concerned with debating the minutia of the topic, I'd probably try to address those parts that I disagree with, but, considering that there was only one single sentence that bothered me, and our conclusions are mostly the same, (even the not knowing part), well, I'm happy to say thanks for a well written post. :)
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I knew it. I should have said blueberry. ;)
 
Ryokan said:
There's one person who had never heard of Hitler, and another who thought he was a communist. I'm not sure how hard it is to string people like that along and get them to agree with fallacies.
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I'm sure those who actually made it into the "film" were carefully selected. I wonder what happened to the interviews that weren't included?
 
Ryokan said:
That abortion is like the holocaust, like Nazis mass murdering Jews?
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So fetuses that are aborted are supposed to be the equivalent to Jews during the Holocaust?

...really?

Once again, that's like saying "Apples are good for you and taste good and are red. Stop signs are red and they do good too, so you should eat both."

I'm sorry, I still don't see the correlation that supposed to make me do an "180".
 
JFrankA said:
So fetuses that are aborted are supposed to be the equivalent to Jews during the Holocaust?

...really?

Once again, that's like saying "Apples are good for you and taste good and are red. Stop signs are red and they do good too, so you should eat both."

I'm sorry, I still don't see the correlation that supposed to make me do an "180".
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And that is why you are a nazi murdering baby!!
 
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