From: sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: In Suzanne's Defense
Date: 12 Oct 92 02:02:55 GMT
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

In article <1992Oct9.050056.17895@netcom.com>, bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig) writes:
|> Steve Arnold writes:
|> >Brian Kendig writes:
|> >|> A pig has a heartbeat and its own blood, too, but we eat pigs for
|> >|> food.  Aside from DNA, what's the difference between you and a pig?
|> >|> Do you think that while a fetus still resembles a pig more than it
|> >|> resembles a human (biologically, not in "looks"), maybe we should give
|> >|> it the same moral consideration we'd give a pig -- which means that we
|> >|> shouldn't let it get in the way of a woman's freedoms and rights?
|> >
|> >	Brian, first I just want to see if you're consistent.  Most
|> >pigs are more aware, smarter, etc etc than most newborns.  Do you
|> >think that pigs have more "rights" than newborns?  Or do you think,
|> >perhaps, that neither newborns nor pigs have rights?
|> 
|> The difference between the average pig and a newborn human is that the
|> newborn human's brain includes parts that a pig's brain does not --
|> parts that allow what we consider "thought" to take place, not just
|> motor control and rudimentary learning/recollection.  No pig I've ever
|> known has ever demonstrated anything more than animal intelligence,
|> but the brain of an infant is biologically very similar to my own, and
|> I can't rule out the possibility that some thought _is_ going on in there.

	No, you can't.  And you can't rule out the possibility that a pre-born
child is somehow aware, either.  Non-brain does not necessarily imply non-thought.

|> A pig is "smarter" than a human infant in the sense that it knows how
|> to interact with the world around it, but its brain just doesn't
|> include the pieces that will allow it to hope and dream.  A human
|> infant's does.  That's the distinction I've been making.

	I deny your distinction.  I maintain that a newborn infant is
absolutely less aware when fully conscious than a fully conscious adult pig, and
I maintain that this fact is evident to observation, given that pigs can learn
complicated behaviors and tricks, etc, while a newborn infant can only cry and
suck and shit (pardon, please).  If you have evidence to the contrary, let's see
it.  Otherwise don't try to pretend that newborn infants are somehow
intellectually superior to pigs.  They aren't.
	But even though they aren't, they're still persons, and pigs aren't. 
Like all human beings from conception until death, newborns have the genetic
capacity for intelligence, unlike pigs.  I maintain that a being with that
genetic capacity should be considered a person, that we should not pick and
choose arbitrary "awareness levels," some of which will confer personhood and
others of which will not.

|> Therefore, since a pig is incapable of expressing the qualities that I
|> believe would earn it the title of 'person', I refuse to bestow upon
|> it the same rights that I enjoy.  Since it hasn't been adequately
|> demonstrated to me that an infant human 's brain _isn't_ capable of
|> these qualities (primarily things such as hopes and dreams -- it has
|> the same "mental hardware" as I do), then I have to believe that it
|> deserves the same rights as I do.

	First, it isn't "proven" that pigs aren't capable of intelligence; this
is merely a reasonable induction, not absolute proof.  But there's just as much
"proof" that newborns AREN'T intelligent as there is proof that pigs AREN't
intelligent.
	Your argument essentially maintains that certain "hardware" is a
prerequisite for personhood.  You have not said WHY "hardware" should be
considered important apart from awareness itself.  In other words, you seem to be
saying that a being which was aware but lacked "hardware" would not be on your list
of persons.  I say that this is manifestly ridiculous.  Hardware proves nothing. 
Awareness proves personhood; non-manifested-awareness does not disprove
personhood.  A person, in my opinion, should be regarded as a being which has
the genetic capacity of becoming aware at a level approximate to the human level
(or greater).

Steve

gore Clinton in '92