From: eeb1@ellis.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley)
Subject: Re: Life at conception...
Reply-To: eeb1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 23:56:03 GMT

In article <1992Aug9.194933.2088@brandonu.ca> mcbeanb@brandonu.ca writes:
>In article <1992Aug9.030413.7285@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>eeb1@ellis.uchicago.edu (e elizabeth bartley) writes:
>> In article <1992Aug8.131443.2079@brandonu.ca> mcbeanb@brandonu.ca writes:
>>>In article <23302@oasys.dt.navy.mil>,
>>>bense@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Ron Bense) writes:
 
>>>> (Note: there are stages in my definition, and this is not a black and
>>>> white subject, but to save bandwidth, I've not gone on for 100s of lines
>>>> describing the variations and differences. Suffice it to say that I
>>>> believe a z/e/f before 6 months is not deserving of *any* rights or
>>>> respect, except if it is intended to be brought to term.)

>>>How can you pick such a definite cut-off point?

>> I don't know for sure about Ron, but my cut-off point is almost
>> exactly the same time: 23-24 weeks.  This is because that's when
>> myelination in the brain starts, and I don't see how there could be
>> enough of a brain for there to be "anybody home" before myelination of
>> the brain.  My position isn't *quite* the same as Ron's, because in
>> theory I think potential people have some rights....  But the rights
>> of a purely potential person are so trivial that it amounts to almost
>> the same thing before myelination.

>It almost sounds as though you treat the brain like a Christian would
>the soul.

Well, I am a Christian, but I don't think that has much to do with
this discussion; since God won't tell me when the soul enters the
body, I've figured out my position from information unrelated to
religion....

>Why should you pick a point like that?  This means you

Practically, I can't figure out a good way to implement a sliding
scale system.  It doesn't matter much anyway.  Granted, *in theory* I
believe that potential people have rights, and the stronger they get
to personhood and the more likely they are to reach it the more
important those rights are.  However, *in practice* I think the right
of a woman to control her own body outranks the right of any purely
potential (no matter how strong the potential) person to live.

>have little/no objection to aborting a 22 week old fetus, even though
>its brain may have already begun myelination, or it is simply
>very very close to starting that process.  It's kind of like
>saying it's wrong to kill a US citizen, but it's ok to kill an immigrant
>who is a week away from gaining citizenship.  Sure, no one has these
>values (not anyone I know anyway), but do you see my point?

Yes, but I certainly don't agree with it.

I think the value of an actuality is enormously stronger than the
value of a potential....  And I think that any value a human has over
any other animal is purely the value of personhood.  I see no way 
personhood can be reached without a myelinated brain, so the start of
myelination triggers the difference between a pure potential and a
(possible) actuality: prior to myelination, you're dealing with a
human that may one day become a person.  After myelination, you're
dealing with a human that may be a person.  To me, there's a profound
difference, regardless of how close you are to the start of
myelination.  (I admit to some arbitrariness, but that's in the other
direction: a brain that's just started myelination can't really 
support a person, either ... but we don't know exactly how much
myelination it would take, and at 23-24 weeks I'm very much inclined
to give the fetus the benefit of the doubt.)

--
Pro-Choice                  Anti-Roe                - E. Elizabeth Bartley
          Abortions should be safe, legal, rare, and early.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion