Quote:
Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth
Take a close look at the criteria you're listing here. None of it really differentiates a fetus from other humans in all of their various (illegal to kill) forms and stages, other than the 'dependent on the connection to the mother' one. Of course, you still have to explain why the fetus not being independent makes it ok to kill.
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Take a good look at my post and you will see that I do. I also added "generally lacking in capacity to suffer for the decisions made by its mother". A person who has been born generally does have the capacity to suffer, emotionally, physically, socially. That is as long as they are of health. When people who have been in an accident are severly brain damaged to the point where people may call them vegetables, they are often taken off life support. The idea is that when it's just a body with no consciousness in it to feel neither pain, joy - perhaps even no perception of its environment - then it's okay to "kill".
In the present when the decision to abort is made, the fetus generally has more in common with that braindead person on life support than it does a grown, healthy human with regular human rights. I think the distinction between having the ability to feel, think, reflect and perceive - or not - is an important one and it's also one widely used in other situations. As a moral idea, it is widely accepted. F.ex a vegetarian may think it is better to kill a plant than it is a pig because the plant suffers less from getting killed.
Should we protect the "interests" of the fetus (it has no interests) or the interests of the mother (she does)? Of the two, the one who can feel, reflect, perceive and so on is the mother and so it is her interests/rights we should look after.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth
As an aside, I think that the tendency to use terms like "lump of cells" points to an attempt at emotional detachment from the pro-choice angle. It's not a rational argument, just an attempt to dehumanize the thing we'd like to kill.
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How is it not rational? It's pretty much calling it what it is without getting tangled up in future possibilities and human emotions. How is it more rational to portray it as a person with thoughts, feelings, perceptions, life experiences, etc. when it isn't?