From: sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity
Subject: Re: Observations
Date: 29 Sep 92 23:29:04 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO  80523

Sorry for the lateness of this reply....

In article <x=7nmyj.gordons@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
|> <Sep19.235331.40287@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> ><1992Sep17.214822.708@nocusuhs.nnmc.navy.mil>, perez@mgr.hjf.org (Charles Perez) writes:
|> >|> In article <Sep14.172042.44575@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.lance.colostate.edu (Steven Arnold) writes:
|> >|> >In article <kzwnk!r.gordons@netcom.com>, gordons@netcom.com (Gordon Storga) writes:
|> ...
|> >|> >	Just what OTHER living human beings aren't quite good enough for you? 
|> >|> >Cripples?  Those in a coma?  Newborns?  The mentally handicapped?
|> >|> 
|> >|> Sperm? Ova? Don't murder gametes! Protect unconceived children now!
|> >
|> >	Sperm and ova are not living member of the human species.
|> 
|> Could you please tell us of what species they are living members?  Or are
|> you claiming they aren't alive?

	They are living organisms and they are produced by human DNA.  That does
not make them members of the species homo sapiens any more than one of my skin
cells, also alive and produced by human DNA would be a member of said species.
	A member of the human species, if not killed and if given basic
nutrition, will develop into an adult human being.  Nothing else will.  Not a
sperm.  Not an egg.

|> ...
|> >|> I'm not Stoga, but for me to consider a human to be a person, that human
|> 
|> Please.  That's "StoRga".

	Storga.  Sorry.

|> >|> would have to be conscious. See Julian Jayne's _The_Origin_of_Consciousness
|> >|> _in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind_. This precludes feti and, for
|> >|> that matter, infants who have not yet learned to speak.
|> >|> 
|> >|> Now, let the flames begin. :-)
|> >
|> >	Applause!  Applause!  Bravo!
|> >	YOU, Charles Perez, are the first semi-consistent
|> >pro-legal-abortionist with whom I have ever directly written.  You
|> >are not only for abortion, but also for infanticide, as indeed you
|> >logically must be.
|> >	No doubt you would also favor legal allowances for killing
|> >those in a coma (again, mere consistency demands it).  And, no
|> >doubt, the severely mentally handicapped wouldn't qualify for the
|> >right to life either, especially those who can't speak.  Heck,
|> >even those who are asleep and not dreaming are unquestionably not
|> >conscious, not thinking, not aware!  So consistency demands that
|> >they be excluded too.
|> >	But I don't see why you set personhood at one level of
|> >awareness and not another.  Why can't we go out and define a
|> >super-race, a class of men and woman with I.Q.'s above, say, 150,
|> >who would have a right to life -- and everybody else would be
|> >killed off to preserve racial purity.
|> 
|> It's been tried.  Remember a certain global disturbance in or around the
|> year 1941??

	Indeed it has been tried, and it is being tried right here in the good
ol' US of A.
	I don't why any "level of awareness" which you establish as the "defining
point" of personhood should be accepted as valid while the level which I set
would be rejected.  Why, fundamentally, do you have the right to establish the
appropriate level whereas I do not?

|> >|> Why should we accept *your* criteria? You are drawing your own lines,
|> >|> just like everybody else.
|> >
|> >	I do not have a criteria as such.  I do not know when
|> >personhood begins.  I know that some human beings are certainly
|> >persons.  I know that all human beings are either always persons
|> >or become persons at some point.  I do not know what that point
|> >is, and all I ask of you is that you admit that you do not know
|> >either.
|> >	Since some human beings are certainly persons and since we
|> >do not know when or if the transformation takes place, any attempt
|> >to exclude some living human beings from personhood is arbitrary
|> >and unwarranted.
|> 
|> And I've seen pro-lifers claim that married person are truer and better
|> than unmarried people and should be accorded better treatment wrt jobs and
|> housing.  It seems that both sides have certain age limits that they allow
|> more or less protection.

	I disagree with those pro-lifers.  I should point out, however, that
refusing to hire someone for any reason does not violate his or her right to
life, liberty or property.  I would condemn discrimination as immoral, but I
would not use coercive force against those who do it.
	As for your last sentence, I have already replied to this.  I do not
believe that we can justifiably set any age limits for the fundamental rights to
life, liberty or property; but I do maintain that to best protect those rights
for the benefit of the child, parents can and must hold those rights in trust for
the child until he or she is able to use them without hurting himself and others.
 A parent cannot kill their child, but they can corporally punish; they cannot
enslave their child, but they can insist that the child learn necessary skills
and generally develop into an adult who can cope in today's society.

Steve
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism