Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbscc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!cbosgd!cbscc!pmd
From: pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: Society Needs a Definition of "Human"
Message-ID: <2030@cbscc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Mar-84 23:45:17 EST
Article-I.D.: cbscc.2030
Posted: Sat Mar 17 23:45:17 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Mar-84 08:39:25 EST
References: <697@houxz.UUCP>, <1103@cwruecmp.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories , Columbus
Lines: 83

I would like to respond to Dave Decot's definition of a human being
with regard to the abortion issue.

>     If the object originates from a conception between two gametes,
>     at least one of which is of \homo spaiens/, inside a woman or
>     otherwise, then while it has any capacity to observe its environment
>     and maintain recorded information internally, the object is human.
> 
>     If the object loses permanently either of these capacities,
>     it is no longer human.
> 
>     An object is not human until it acquires these capabilities.
> 
> This definition incorporates my view that human life is pointless if it
> has no individual record of experience, and worth very much if it does.

First, assuming there are no problems with this definition, how do we apply
it?  It seems that such application must be made on a per individual basis
(individual Zygote, that is).  How do we measure consciousness in the
individual?  Especially the point at which it becomes conscious?  I think
that the line you are drawing here between human an non-yet-human is an
invisible one.  What observable qualities will the fetus exhibit once it
crosses the line into consciousness?  In some cases humans do not exhibit
behaviour that would convince us that they were human, according to your
criteria.  Is a sleeping person conscious?  We could say that while a person
is sleeping he is not capable of observing his envionment or maintaining
recorded information about it.  He will have that capability at some future
point in time, but then so will the fetus.  But that is getting into the
problems with your definition.  More on that later.

Even if the point at which the fetus becomes conscious could be accurately
determined we would have to require abortion clinics to make this measurement
for each individual fetus before aborting it.  We cannot make a general rule
that all fetuses become consious at, say, seven weeks gestation because there
is a lot of error involved in determining the age of the fetus before aborting
it.  Also some individuals may cross the threshold sooner than others.  If
that happens we might find ourselves killing human beings that fit your
definition.

The heart of the fetus begins beating at five to six weeks--before many
women are even sure they are pregnant.  Brain activity has been measured
as early as eight weeks.  How many abortions do you think are done before
eight weeks?  A woman can legally get an abortion any time before birth.
If we are going to accept Dave's definition, what are we then going to
do about the slaughter.  (Yes, I think I must use that word here.)
> 
> Permanent cessation of electrical brain activity is the legal definition
> of death, and is a reasonable one to apply to the question of when a human
> being starts.  There is no "being" if there is nobody to experience the
> feeling of "being".

I do not think the definition of life that is applied to its cessation
can be applied to its begining.  We can apply the criteria to a fully
grown human body because it has the organs that perform the functions on
which the criteria are based.  It has a heart, a brain and respiratory system
so we would expect them to be performing their functions.  If they don't
we pronounce the human "dead".  That pronouncement is confirmed by the
body's rapid decay afterword.  A human zygote has none of the above organs
(yet) but it is still alive.  It does not decay.  And we have yet to explain
how those cells divide and become diversified--some becoming skin, others
bone, blood, the different organs, etc.--when each cell has identical
genetic material.  Something is going on there.  Somehow it "knows" what
physical (at least) form it's going to take and how to get there.  It's
quite different from our dead bodies.  The zygote cannot be "blamed"
for not having brain function when it does not yet have a brain.
The very fact that you have to use the word "permanent" above disqualifies
use of that criteria on the fetus.

Now I'm getting into the problems I have with the definition itself.  I think
that it confuses the condition of being a human with the stage of developement
of that human.  I disagree with Dave's assertion that "there is no 'being'
if there is nobody to experience the feeling of 'being'".  There is
definitely a "being" there from the moment of conception.  Whether or not
if feels its "being" in the same way we do, or even "feels" it at all
is irrelevant to what it *is*.  It is definitely a being and it is alive
and human.  It is not an adult human being, but still a human being.  If
not human, what then?

Conception, by its very defintion, is the point at which something new
comes into existence.  Something which has not existed previously.  That
is when the life of a unique individual human being begins.

Paul Dubuc