From: wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com (R. Cage)
Subject: Re: A comment on RvW
Summary: Arnold is avoiding the issue and phrases things to mislead.  Bad boy.
Organization: Boye, Dewey, Cheetham and Howe, Atty's.
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 20:18:36 GMT

In article <Aug12.055131.60170@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> sa114984@longs.LANCE.ColoState.EDU (Steven Arnold) writes:
>	You are saying that awareness is necessary to personhood.  Prove it.

It's part of the implied definition, Steve.  When a body has lost
the ability to be aware, for instance because of brain death, we
consider the person dead even though the body still has vital signs.
It is a direct conclusion from this that a body which does not yet
have the ability to be aware cannot be a person either.  Bodies in
comas are in an uncertain state; we don't know if the capability
remains or not.  As our knowledge improves, some will be classified
as legally dead.

The first part is fact and current legal/medical practice, the
second is conjecture but based on firm historical trends.

>	According to medical science, a new member of the human species is
>created at conception and at no other time.

Again, you blur the distinction between species membership and
personhood.  The brain-dead are still species-human, but not
persons, so your argument fails (again).

Are you a one-trick pony, Steve?  Is this your only logical
underpinning for your dogma?  If it is disproven, do you have
anything left at all?

>	But why should pro-choice doctors, who I can also quote to the same
>effect, distort the truth to the apparent advantage of the pro-life
>movement?  Guess what?  I called Planned Parenthood here in Ft. Collins
>a couple months back, and when I asked them whether the fetus is a
>member of the human species from conception onward, guess what the lady
>said?  She said, "We won't deny the facts of fetal development."  She
>admits the unborn child is a human being, for it is.

No, she didn't deny its species membership.  Leaping to the
conclusion that it is therefore a person is your error.

>	Prove to me that lack of awareness proves lack of personhood.
>	In fact, tell me what test you'll use, or what non-circular argument
>you'll appeal to, to prove even that AWARENESS proves personhood.

Awareness doesn't prove personhood.  I'm pretty sure that my cat
is aware, but that doesn't mean that my cat is a person.  However,
all persons have the capacity for awareness.  A does not imply P,
but P implies A.

Since P implies A, not-A implies not-P.  Simple logic, no?  You
really should pick up a book on logic, I had this in the 8th grade
and it wasn't all that difficult.  It would help you a lot.

As for not-A implying not-P, show me *anything* which is indisputably
a person (meaning not a fetus, not brain-damaged) which is also not
capable of awareness.  One counter-example is all it takes for disproof.

>	Oh, really.  Then surely we wouldn't value the mere "living tissue" of
>a man in non-dreaming sleep.  He's not aware of much of anything, is he?
> Or someone in a coma?  Do we value THAT living tissue?  Or a newborn? 
>Or a person who is severly mentally handicapped?  Do we value all THAT tissue?

People in delta-sleep are capable of awareness.  The hardware is
all there, it's just operating in a non-aware state.  The comatose
may or may not retain the capability; when we're sure one way or
the other, you can bet legalities will follow.  Severe mental
handicaps?  How severe?  You mean, like anencephaly? ;-)

We know fetuses before 28 weeks lack the hardware, even though
it is under development.  Anencephalics never had it.

>> Its pretty simple really.
>
>	It's not nearly as simple as you think it is.

#define SARCASM

You haven't come up with a decent response to this issue
yet.  Are you as simple as I think you are?

#undef SARCASM

>	it is my opinion that we are not entitled to decide which living human
>beings have rights and which do not, for if we can make that
>determination based on no proof and nothing but circular arguments, we
>can, in the end, place the dividing mark anywhere.

Again, you're assuming that everything you're talking about
here (mostly embryos, zygotes and fetuses) are human beings.
That assumption is under dispute.

Further, the definition is NOT circular.  It is drawn from
observation of developing brains, full-grown brains and damaged
brains and what sorts of activity they support.  You, on the
other hand, have only been able to reach your conclusion by
assuming it.  You will not allow your assumptions to be discussed.
Aren't you being just a tiny bit (here it comes) hypocritical?

I'm afraid I don't brake for fanatics, and my karma ran over your dogma.

>> >>>> Human tissue is nothing particularly special.
>> >>>	No, but being a living member of the human species is.
>> >> To whom?  Why?
>> >	It may not be important to everybody, but it SHOULD be.  
>> Truth by blatant assertion, anyone?
>	You place no value on being a living human being?

You did it again.  You equated species membership with human-being-ness.
Same counter-example as always:  the brain-dead.  Next stupid assertion?

(Yes, stupid.  If you've seen an example which refutes your argument
 before, and you cannot fix your argument to include that example,
 you are stupid to continue pushing that faulty argument.)

>You don't believe that the rights of living human beings ought to be honored?

I sure do.

But zygotes and embryos aren't human beings, just living.
They fail the definition.  So do most fetuses.  Next?
-- 
Russ Cage   wreck@fmsrl7.srl.ford.com  russ%rsi.uucp@destroyer.rs.itd.umich.edu
  *  When Ford pays me for my opinions, THEN they can call them theirs. *

                           _Bad_ cop.  No donut.
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.flame