From: jsue@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Jeffrey L. Sue)
Subject: Re: Abortion and humanity
Originator: jsue@mars.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Organization: The Dow Chemical Company
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 02:50:39 GMT

In article <BxD5FD.DtL@news.cso.uiuc.edu> parker@ehsn21.cen.uiuc.edu () writes:
>jsue@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Jeffrey L. Sue) writes:
>
>>In article <BxB8ov.3p7@news.cso.uiuc.edu> parker@ehsn17.cen.uiuc.edu () writes:
>>> Murder is not the
>>>killing of a human being, it is the killing of a *sentient* being.  How do 
>>>we
>>>distinguish when an "existence" has ... a right to exist?  When that 
>>>"existence"
>>>is sentient.  The unborn do not have the complex experiences that develop
>>>sentience...until they are born.
>>>
>
>>Again... WHAT?!!!
>
>>Sentience implies a sense of "awareness".  The newborn baby has about
>>an equal sense of this as he/she did just prior to the event of being
>>born.
>
>Yeah, not very much.  However, birth is the point where the learning process
>really starts.  In the womb, nothing needs to be remembered to survive; you
>deal with things as they come.  Suddenly you are thrust into a bright, cold,
>noisy world.  *SMACK* you learn to breath right off the bat.  Something you
>never forget (unless you OD on something).  Later you learn that when 
>something
>doesn't feel right, crying can make it get better.  (animals can do this stuff
>too, of course)  Then you start to notice patterns in the sounds around you.
>You pickout simple sylables that people around you are saying and start to
>practice them.  As time goes by you assemble the language you hear spoken into
>a language you use yourself.  This happens pretty young. (I'm not sure just 
>how
>early, but I know two-year-olds can certainly speak rather well.)  It will
>*never* happen in the womb.  It can't even *start* in the womb.  The 
>environment
>is too "comfortable" to learn.  *That* is why I make a distinction at birth.

Exactly where did you get all this information?  I have read articles in
the past, and seen news clips, of proof that babies  *do* learn while in
the womb.  After birth babies show definite signs of responding to music
and human voices that they heard while still in the womb.
You suggest that learning is only a means to survive... how do you suppose
the newborn baby KNOWS that it's time to start surviving by learning?

>
>>If you believe that the unborn fetus has no awareness (and thus
>>sentience), then you just plain don't know what you're talking about.
>>Hell, I've played with an "unborn" child before.  They do respond
>>to outside stimuli.
>
>>Besides, you *keep* forgetting:  this is about valuing our own humankind.
>>NOT about reproduction.
>
>And I've played with animals (especially cats).  They respond to outside
>stimuli; dogs might be even better.  We do not consider them to be sentient
>because of that.
>
>It saddens me to think of kittens being "put to sleep", but I know that 
>sometimes, for whatever reason(s), it is necessary.
>
>I "value" all life...but I'm not a vegitarian.  I especially value "human 
>life"
>--at least I'm not a cannibal--but I value sentient life even more.  There are
>times where sentient individuals have to make decisions about the life of 
>things that are not sentient.

Ah.  I think you use the word "sentient" as a means to get what you want.

However, the dictionary is a bit vague on what exactly sentience is.  In
one definition it says "consciousness", in an other "Feeling as distinguished
from perception or thought".  For "sencient" it says:  "Experiencing feeling
or sensation", "having sense perception; conscious".  Now, these can
be taken two ways:

1.	Being sentient is perceiving that your feelings are seperate from
	your thoughts; having consciousness.

2.	Experiencing feeling or sensations.

In #1, a newborn baby does not have this quality anymore than an
unborn fetus.  Nor does it seem to respond in anyway that can follow
this definition until much later in life.  In essence, a baby out of
the womb experiences (pain, hunger, etc.), but does not give any evidence of
seperating that experience from anything other thoughts.  Nor does it
give evidence that it is conscious of itself as a being.  In this case
we would have to allow "abortions" even after the baby is born.

In the second case, even your cat would be a sentient being because it
can experience sensations.

You are saying that a newborn baby has this sentience, while an unborn
fetus doess not?  Where/when do you think it arrived at this
consciousness, when all it mostly knows about are sensations - much like
the cat in your example.

By the same token, if #1 definition of sentience is the means by which
we measure whether a life is valuable, then how do we value someone
who has lost his/her mind to Alzheimers?  Certainly they are no longer
aware (or even capabable of coherent thought), and thus no longer
sentient.  And by that measure, can that person's life then be tossed
away?

It is this "vagueness" in our definitions that leaves our society open to
many abuses.  This is what I feel we allow with our current definition
of what life is valuable, and what life is not.



-- 
-----
Jeff Sue   
 - All opinions are mine -       (and you can't have any, nya nya nya)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.abortion.inequity