From: dking@raul.nas.nasa.gov (Dan King)
Subject: Re: Pro-Choice Criteria for Personhood
Organization: Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility NASA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 92 16:38:02 GMT
Reply-To: dking@raul.nas.nasa.gov (Dan King)


In article <YAMAUCHI.92Oct11154251@sartre.ces.cwru.edu> yamauchi@ces.cwru.edu (Brian Yamauchi) writes:
 
>I'm curious about the criteria that other people who are pro-choice
>would use to determine whether an organism is a person.  I'm
>pro-choice, but it seems to me that abortion rights activists are
>often unclear about this in their public statements.

>The use of birth as a defining point for personhood may convenient,
>but I rarely hear pro-choicers give a coherent explanation for why the
>fetus itself is different one minute after both than one minute
>before.  Certainly it's relationship with it's mother has changed, but
>that shouldn't affect whether or not is it a person.
 
I am pro-choice and I'll try to share with you my opinion on this
subject.  I see the abortion debate as a case of conflicting rights.
On one hand we have the right of the woman to control her body.  On
the other hand we have the fetus's right to life.  Both rights are
compelling, but we need to decide who's right is more compelling
in the case of a conflict.  We can take steps to reduce the occurrence
of this conflict, but conflicts will still arise.  I have come to 
the conclusion that for the good of society, we must consider the 
woman's right as more compelling.  (I can go into the reasons why
I believe this if you want.)  Anyway, for the woman to exercise
this right, she must be able to remove the fetus in a safe and
timely manner.  As long as she can get a doctor to perform an 
abortion, she should retain this right.  However, her right to
have the fetus removed from her body does not include the right 
to kill the fetus.  In the overwhelming number of abortions, the 
fetus would die anyway, so killing it is not an issue.  However,
if the fetus is viable, and it is not going to un-duly endanger
the woman, and the faculty are there to remove the fetus alive,
then it should be done.  
 
So then the question is, should the saving of viable fetus's
be legislated?  I don't believe it should be.  Nobody has 
demonstrated a problem with women insisting that late term
fetus's that could be saved, be killed.  I disagree with laws
that try to resolve a non-problem.  The other problem is
how would you word such legislation.  We need to ensure that
women that need abortions to preserve their health have the
ability to get such abortions.  At times the only way to 
perform a safe abortion is to kill the fetus.  If we try to
write  legislation that will allow these cases, we have 
seen what fetus fanatics have done with such legislation in
the past.  They will attempt to save every fetus regardless
of the danger to the woman.  So I see legislating abortion
procedures in the late term as trying to address a 
non-problem and possibly creating many other problems.  
Sounds like a no-win legislation.  

>Still, uncomfortable as it may be to everyone, there's no reason in
>principle why one couldn't extend the defining point to a time after
>birth -- perhaps the first time the infant speaks, or forms meaningful
>sentences, or demonstrates elementary spatial reasoning (e.g. some of
>the early Piaget tests).  I remember reading a paper that argued that
>the "infantile amnesia" experienced by all people results from the
>lack of an ability to encode memories into long-term storage, and
>perhaps one could also argue that self-awareness is limited before
>this capability develops.  It's easy to dismiss "infanticide" charges
>as the ravings of fanatic pro-lifers, but I think it's worthwhile to
>consider the implications of whatever criteria one uses to determine
>personhood...
 
Once the child is born, it's right to life is no longer 
conflicting with the woman's right to her body.  Now anyone
that feels compelled to care for this infant has the ability.  
Since the child's right to life is not competing with anyone
elses more compelling right, there is no reason to override
the infants right to life.  If you believe the infants care
 is very important, but the parents do not, you can make the
necessary sacrifices to care for the infant.  It no longer 
requires enslaving another  person to care for something
you value.
 
>Brian Yamauchi			Case Western Reserve University

Dan King
Newsgroups: talk.abortion