From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Embryos as Property?
Keywords: Property rights, abortion, compensation for involuntary loss...?
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 21 Dec 92 17:35:33 GMT

I've added misc.test because of chronic netserver problems, and I've added
the lines I am now typing because I don't know how "Follow-up to" commands
work.  [Watch Humphrey flame me for my cluelessness.  He probably thinks
I should be able to reboot my netserver all by myself.]

In <1992Dec17.190218.11941@wdl.loral.com> bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt) writes:

>You have some serious cross-posting habits, Mr. Steeves, but I'll
>play.

>goid@zooid.guild.org (Will Steeves) writes:
># bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt) writes...
># JHW> Here.  Play with this:
># 
># JHW> Frozen embryos.  While in transit through another sovereign nation,
># JHW> they are taken into custody by agents of that foreign nation, wherein
># JHW> they expire as a result of mistreatment.  Since embryos are persons,
># JHW> and therefore *not* property under U.S. law, the foreign nation is
># JHW> `responsible' for the death of those `persons' rather than the
># JHW> destruction of property
>#      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
># 
># Ah, so you *would* consider embryos as property, then?

>Really, Mr. Steeves, brush up on your reading comprehension.  I did
>not imply that.  Allow me to clear things up for you though... in my
>view, zygotes/embryos/fetuses/etcetera present a difficult problem in
>that we pathetic humans have a bad tendency to classify everything
>that isn't a person as property, either private or (get this, it's a
>gas) public -- meaning something that isn't a person is either owned
>by someone, some group or by everybody.

Funny you should talk this way, Woodyatt.  When I took Loomis to
task for calling a group of women "chicks," you chimed in with the
solemn pronouncement that his words are evidence of "institutional
sexism".  I then asked indirectly whether you regarded Mr. Loomis
to be an institution.  According to the above paragraph, it would
appear (correct me if I am wrong) that you do not.  So, now I have
some questions for you.

1. Was Mr. Loomis guilty of sexism (however mild) in his word usage?

2. If not, would you say he is a victim of institutional brainwashing
as to what are the acceptable ways of referring to women?  (BTW later
on he said "chick" = "hot babe", another term which I consider to be
evidence of sexism on the part of the person using it.)

3. Or is it the case that Mr. Loomis is so Politically Correct that
he can use any word about women that he pleases without any taint
of sexism clinging to him?

Your continuation also suggests that you do not view Mr. Loomis as 
an institution:

>  Some humans have a terribly
>bad habit of depersonalizing other humans (live *born* humans) so that
>they may be considered property, but by and by we're arriving at a
>stage in our development where most of us don't think of living,
>breathing, born, human persons as potentially someone's property.

Fetuses are living, and they breathe amniotic fluid.  They swallow it, too.
And pro-choicers in talk.abortion do classify them as human.  Not 
persons, of course: that is a trait of pro-lifers, of which I am an
atypical example because I consider personhood as coinciding with the
onset of sentience. 

BTW did my "Neuroscientist(s) versus the World-Enigma" pair of posts ever
make it to your boards?  There I talk lots about embryonic/fetal
development, at least in Part 2.  It was cross-posted to sci.bio as well
as talk.philosophy.misc.  There I argue that there is a *prima facie* case
for considering any fetus (= developing human past the eighth week beyond
fertilization) to be sentient.

>Myself, I think that inventing a third class of objects just for
>zygotes/embryos/fetuses/etcetera that is neither `property' nor
>`persons' is the most difficult, but perhaps the most prudent course
>of action.

With this, at least, I am in tentative agreement.  What with the 14th 
amendment, and the unwillingness of the Supreme Court to classify any
unborn (even those more advanced in development than many born children)
as persons, I think such a third category is badly needed.

>In the absence of precedent set by the courts, I think what we
>currently have is a situation where frozen embryos are currently
>considered to be property, and that's certainly better than
>considering them persons.

Here, on the other hand, I disagree.

># This wasn't meant to be taken as a flame ; I'm just curious as to why
># you would want to admit this, while many other "Pro choice" people
># have stayed clear of using terminology such as this, perhaps out of
># fear of being flamed by "pro-lifers" who might accuse them of
># believing potential children as merely someone's property.

>I have little trouble with this concept.

May I quote you when the debate over the woman's right to dispose of
her aborted little one's body parts comes under heavy discussion?

>  I can deal with the idea
>that anything that isn't a person can be property.  I can deal with
>flames from pro-`life'rs too.  Fact, it's one of my hobbies.

So I've noticed.  Note that I am no longer ignoring you.  Did my follow-up
to your *pout* post ever make it to your boards?  [Steve Matheson suggested
I turn in my netserver to Sears for a refund.  It's been mute, deaf-mute, 
and deaf by turns.]

>It's coming to grips with the idea that *nothing* is private property
>that takes work, but that's another thread entirely.

"Private property is theft"--Communist Manifesto

Another question (I'm full of them today), this one directed at
unregenerate Marxists and Babeufians: From whom did the mother steal
the z/e/f inside her?  [Yet another argument for that third category! :-)]

>Yeah, I see where you're going -- so I'll just yank on the chain
>labelled `joint ownership?' and pull you back into the real world.  I
>remind you that ownership is not the same as custody, and in the case
>of an embryo in a woman's womb (should we agree for the sake of argument
>to consider it `property') any claim a man might make to joint
>ownership is inherently suspicious.

Well, he can't very well take custody of it yet, can he now?

># I realise that this is a Devil's Advocate argument, but I should say
># right from the start that I consider it absolutely invidious to
># consider unborn persons as property,

>Heh.  I consider it an egregious fallacy to consider `unborn persons'
>to be anything other than an oxymoron.

Not even when they are overdue,eh?  There's a pretty kettle of fish for
you: it's an egregious fallacy, by Woodyatt Logic, to consider as an
unborn person a "fetus"
which was conceived at the same time as a two-week-old full-term baby,
and which might even be a "bruiser" [popular Lamaze class term] outweighing
said full-term baby 2-to-1.

Woodyatt Logic is not to be confused with Aristotelian logic, mathematical
logic, symbolic logic, or *any* halfway reasonable form of logic.

>-- 
>+---------------------------+  ``I guess the government that robs its
>| J H Woodyatt              |  own people earns the future it is
>| bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com |  preparing for itself.''
>+---------------------------+                             -- Mark Twain

Too bad the disciples of Marx, including Lenin and Mao Zedong (old 
spelling: Tse-Tung), did not heed these words of Mark Twain.

I read this, or something close to it, on one of the newsgroups back
in July:

"Workers of the world, forgive me: you had more to lose than I thought."
			-Karl Marx, 1989, from the Great Beyond

>P.S.  Please, Mr. Steeves, set your right margin <= 75 characters.

I second that motion.  And the words that networker put in the mouth
of Marx's ghost.

Peter Nyikos

Xref: sparky misc.legal:21714 misc.legal.computing:2395 talk.politics.misc:65293