Saturday, February 12, 2011

Think About It

Posted by Kal at 10:54 AM

16 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Hahahaha, good point!

February 12, 2011 at 11:19 AM
Unknown said...

That is really something to think about.

February 12, 2011 at 12:38 PM
Contemplating Cadie said...

Dude, Why do you bait me so? I *do* celebrate my conception every year... with fireworks and everything. I did the math and turns out I was conceived on the 4th of July. Let freedom ring!


Some cultures do count those 40 weeks in the womb toward how old a person is... I find that I do the same thing with my kids. I want credit for every nano second that I've parented those two punks.

I think people just have things so backward when it comes to what they are prude about. No one wants to talk about when they *did it* to their kids... so the day the kid popped out is the default celebration day.

February 12, 2011 at 1:01 PM
Kal said...

I have always believed that you are not really a person until you leave the womb and can survive out on your own...fill your lungs with air. Otherwise I would have been born in October and I just simply cannot abide that.

February 12, 2011 at 1:11 PM
Paladin said...

The 500,000 preemies born every year (in the US alone), many of whom can't breath, nurse, or otherwise survive on their own like a baby carried full term might disagree.

A touchy issue, to be sure. Drawing the line at viability outside the womb seems like a descent benchmark to many. It was mine for a while. That line keeps moving, though. The age at which a fetus can survive outside the womb gets earlier and earlier. We can move the date back, of course, to the new point where we consider abortion "OK". But then we're left with the rather dissatisfying discovery that we've been comfortable ending lives that we now consider "people" by the new benchmark.

I draw my line at conception. At no other point is there such a clearly marked difference between the mother, the father, and the baby. A fertilized egg is genetically distinct and different from either parent. Its no longer part of the mother's body or the fathers.

It can't live on its own outside the womb, true.

However, if we make that the test for who is a "person", then a great many preemies, old people, handicapped people, and sick people are going to be greatly dissapointed.

February 12, 2011 at 1:40 PM
Contemplating Cadie said...

As usual Paladin is much more eloquent than I am.

Ckal, In the last post I read of yours you were talking about being a great Civil War buff... I was wondering if you ever considered this... In the United States, judges and courts didn't recognize African slaves as fully human until sometime in the 1860s. A slave counted only as three-fifths of a man.

Outrageous, and yet is this not what we have decided about the unborn? Are we not trying to legislate when exactly a baby is a baby and when that baby has rights?

It just sounds CRAZY to me.

Love ya Kal, thanks for being you, and always being honest about what you believe and letting others be honest about what they believe.

February 12, 2011 at 2:13 PM
Kal said...

This issue has the ability to make us all crazy trying to find what is 'right'. I thought a lot about not posting that cartoon because I knew it would start an arguement. I am a guy so I shouldn't have ANY opinion about this issue. I have nothing to come back to the arguement that preemies are born younger and younger.

February 12, 2011 at 2:20 PM
Unknown said...

Haha, fun joke. A bit like why showing you love someone on a special day like Valentines? Why not do it when you feel like it, would be worth more.

Yummy, I wanna eat ALL of it now.
Nahno ∗ McLein ™

February 12, 2011 at 2:24 PM
M. D. Jackson said...

If we are a person at conception then I was conceived American, but I was born Canadian.

I feel much more cosmopolitan now.

February 12, 2011 at 3:16 PM
Contemplating Cadie said...

Haha! M.D.!

February 12, 2011 at 3:33 PM
Kelly Sedinger said...

Like it or not, the issue of what is a "person" is a deeply thorny one. (At the end, was Terri Schiavo a "person"? I would say no.) The idea that there MUST be some line that demarcates a non-person from a person is a pernicious one and may well be false, but that a specific point cannot be satisfactorily established does not logically imply that the line should be set at the zero point -- i.e., at conception. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to establish the point at which an oak sapling becomes an actual oak tree, but that does not imply that there is no difference between an acorn and an oak tree.

And it's like that pretty much across the board, wherever a continuum can be said to exist. On the spectrum, where is the line between "red" and "orange"? We can arbitrarily establish such a point, if we wish, but that's all it is: an arbitrary distinction that may not be agreed upon. This does not, however, mean that we should just say, "OK, there's no difference between red and orange."

Taking an alternative tack, consider the twinning process. In cases of identical twins, what happens is that at some point very early on -- but not right at conception -- the egg splits into two. There's no way to predict if this is going to happen, so in what sense can there be said to be two "persons" in that womb at conception? Or, if one "person" doesn't exist until the moment of the split, then how do we know which one existed from conception? Or do we take a third option and say that neither was a person until the moment of twinning?

My suspicion is that a day will come when technology will be able to sustain a human zygote from conception all the way through to birth, but that's not the same thing as clearly establishing that they are "persons". In practice, the notion of personhood tends to follow exactly the way you describe: a person is capable of self-determination. (And it's worth noting that "person" need not be synonymous with "human being". Terri Schiavo at the end was clearly a human being, but that doesn't mean that she was a person.)

And Cal, don't for one second endorse the notion that you don't get to have an opinion because you're a "guy". I'm a guy, and I've been through the whole gamut of these issues: a baby born brain-damaged so severely that he nearly died on his birth night and who only lived fifteen months; a miscarriage at ten weeks (I saw what that looked like, and there's no way I'm considering that a full-fledged "person"); a miscarriage at twenty-one weeks, delivered in a Catholic hospital, at which point the doctors made zero efforts to prolong her life.

Ultimately I am pro-choice because in the end, the decisions for those incapable of making such decisions for themselves must lie with someone, whether it's a preemie who is certain to die or an elderly, cancer-ridden patient who has just lapsed into their final coma. In the case of a fetus, I think that responsibility must lie with the mother.

February 12, 2011 at 5:09 PM
Kal said...

That is one of the most heartfelt arguements on this subject that I have ever heard. You really know of the worst of the pains that can accompanying the attempt for a couple to have a baby. I have been through no where neer as much trajedy as you have so I would rather hear your opinion over mine everyday. I suspect that if any of those who claim they know what's right, had to go through your experiences, they would be less certain about their 'facts'.

February 12, 2011 at 5:21 PM
Rawknrobyn.blogspot.com said...

I agree with you, Kal, and with the cartoon lady. Only thing is, if being able to survive on one's own in the real world makes one a person, I've been involved with too many non-persons. I guess that's where I went wrong.
xoRobyn

February 12, 2011 at 10:51 PM
Kal said...

You can only learn from others and do better in the future. You do seem to know how to spot the axe murderers.

February 13, 2011 at 5:27 AM
Paladin said...

Jaquandor - I respect the hell out of your comments, both on this topic and others that I've read. You've obviously put a great deal of thought into your position, both because of your own experiences and because you are a thoughtful person.

We disagree on this issue, as we do many, but I'm always satisfied that you bring a level of consideration and reasoning to the subject matter at hand. That's always a good thing. There are many who take positions on both sides of the abortion debate that haven't thought much farther than the characters in the cartoon. Discussing things with them is like discussing same sex marriage with someone whose entire argument can be summed up by "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve".

Blech :)

I agree that the decision of when someone is truly a person may not be satisfactorily decided on the basis of biology alone. Part of the issue will (and is) likely a societal one. In part, it goes to what type of society we want to have. As you stated, we do have an obligation to those that can't speak (or decide) for themselves.

For instance, the narrative from pro choice (as I understand it) is that tightening restrictions on abortions leads to Women being forced to seek life saving abortions in back alleys via coat hanger. It doesn't have to. Medically necessary abortions (both due to health concerns for the mother and for the fetus) are pretty strongly supported by all except the most ardent pro life folks.

Swinging too far the the other end of the spectrum and allowing, and even encouraging, abortion on demand as we do now casts too wide a net, in my opinion. Look at what such a policy brings about:

http://tiny.cc/yzitk

Only 6.1% of abortions in the US part of the survey were reported as "medically necessary". Contrast that number with the recent tally of abortions in New York. It is reported that 41% of pregnancies in New York were aborted in 2009.

That's 87,273 abortions. Just in New York in one year. There have been years where that figure is even higher. I don't know about you, but when I see that ghastly number is makes me wonder what the fuck we're thinking.

February 13, 2011 at 5:52 AM
Budd said...

Technically, you are parasitic until you are about 5 or 6, even then you are still mostly reliant on someone else to be able to survive. But at 6 you have a fighting chance.

While some folks could pretty much nail a conception date, other peoples parents were like rabbits, so they might have to celebrate a conception week.

February 14, 2011 at 6:46 AM

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