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From: tdn@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Thomas Newton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: The Status of the Fetus and Its Rights
Message-ID: <429@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 20:39:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-s.429
Posted: Wed Aug 14 20:39:07 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 23:32:14 EDT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 174

> The fact that a person's age is determined by his/her date of BIRTH, not
> the date of conception,

The date of birth is more easy to find out than the date of conception, and
until comparatively recently we didn't know much about fetal development.

> the fact that the person is only an autonomous living being once it is BORN,
                ^^^^^^^^^^
That says it all.  The person in the womb is dependent upon another person for
support.  But it doesn't make the one dependent upon support any less human.

> As I mentioned before, it is a legitimate concern to ask about arbitrary
> criteria like ">= x years old" for determining humanness.  It is not
> legitimate to try to stretch that concern to things for which the definition
> does not apply.

And I suppose the people who want to see the most restrictive definition get
to decide on the validity of everyone else's definition?  When the U.S. got
rid of slavery, it wasn't because everyone suddenly said "blacks are human";
even today, you could probably find KKK members who would assert that blacks
are not human and that skin color is not an arbitrary criterion.  So who gets
to decide what is arbitrary and what is not?

> It is up to those who would stretch the definition to provide hard proof
> that it should be stretched, and to precisely what point it should be
> stretched.

> there is no consensus as to what the terms mean

Given these two statements, why shouldn't we go by "It is up to those who
would restrict the definition to provide hard proof that it should be
restricted, and to precisely what point it should be restricted."?  After
all, there have been lots of atrocities committed on "subhumans" who were
later found to be human after all.  I haven't heard of any atrocities that
resulted from going the other way:  assume human until proven otherwise.

> If true, and it is a living parasitic organism, are you thus denying the
> rights of human being to remove such parasitic organisms from their bodies
> on these grounds?

Go ahead and kill all the tapeworms, bacteria, and viruses that you want.  But
don't kill other human beings.

> Let's look at ALL the factors leading to the conclusion that a woman has
> the right to remove a fetus from her body.
>
> 1. her rights to her own body:  I think all except Mr. Rosenblatt, who
> seems to think that rights stem from your ability to convince people that
> you have them, would agree to a human being's rights to his/her body.
> The question thus becomes "Are there factors that outweigh this?  Are there
> other 'rights' that are being ignored?"
>
> 2. its parasitic nature: already discussed.  No one is demanding that a
> woman MUST remove the fetus, but given wht it does to her body, surely
> her wishes take precedence over anything usurping nourishment from her
> and causing changes to her body against her will, if indeed the fetus can
> be thought of as doing these things "wilfully".  If a woman has the
> right to remove things from her body as a general case, what are the
> grounds for granting an exception to a fetus?

As to the first part of #2, clearly everyone does not agree with you.  Note
that fetuses are younger than newborn infants, and we don't hold infants to
be responsible for their actions.  We DO hold parents/guardians to be both
(a) reponsible for their children's actions, and (b) responsible for taking
good care of their children (this precludes things such as killing them).
Also note that it is logically impossible for fetuses to cause their own
conception, since they don't exist before that point.

The grounds for granting an exception to a fetus is that it is human, it is
alive, and it is not responsible for its presence in the womb.

> 3. inability to survive in the open world as an autonomous living being:
> if a woman has the right to remove things from inside her body,

Not everyone thinks that this applies to fetuses.

> and if we cannot find a valid reason why fetuses should be an exception to
> this rule,

But we can.

> then clearly a woman should be able to do so.  The fact that fetuses so
> removed cannot survive,

Most cannot survive given current medical technology, but this does NOT
prove that fetuses are necessarily dependent upon other persons' bodies.
Remember the people who said that heavier-than-air flight was impossible?

> and in fact, would undergo a pretty pathetic end to their existence if
> just extracted and left on their own, indicates that the humane thing to
> do is simply to terminate their existence prior to having them endure a
> grueling and protracted end.

The humane thing to do is to let them live, i.e. don't abort them.

> If they could, then perhaps they "should".  But the fact that they can't
> tells me that they weren't fully alive in the first place, that they
> required the environment of a LIVING HUMAN BEING'S BODY for sustenance.

Where's your hard proof that this is necessary?  Don't bother even trying to
construct a 'proof' for late-term fetuses, as we already have counterexamples.

> (This is very different from saying "well, WE need air and food for
> sustenance".)

Why?  What's so special about depending upon plants and animals?  The whole
ecosystem is just one huge web of dependencies.

> Given this, and given a person's rights to their health and their bodies,
> I see no human rights being violated.

But not everyone would agree with your premises, or with the premise that a
person has UNLIMITED rights to control of their body.  If someone has absolute
rights to control their body, what right do you have to prevent them from
strangling someone else?  After all, they were just exercising their right to
close their fingers, and if they happened to be around someone else's throat
at the time, too bad...

>> Some seven month old fetuses can survive outside of their mother's bodies.
>> Admittedly, they require incubators, but even normally born infants require
>> a degree of care not necessary for older members of our species.  Are seven
>> month fetuses human, then?  If not, why not? [private mail - name withheld]

> Yes, there is surely a point at which a fetus is close enough to being a
> living human being that it *could*, with medical assistance, be sustained
> through the end of the fetal period to the point where it could be
> disconnected from supporting equipment, and thus be a living human being.

Did everyone catch that?  Now you not only need to be independent from other
human beings, but from MACHINES as well for Rich to consider you to be a
living human being.

Tell me, Rich, is an adult who uses a dialysis machine not a 'living human
being'?  If doctors connect a patient to a heart-lung machine during a major
operation, is the patient not a 'living human being' during the operation, and
thus subject to being killed by any random who wants to kill him/her?  If not,
then how do you justify calling seven-month and older fetuses not human, even
by your definitions?  Or could it be that treating fetuses consistently would
force you to the conclusion that younger fetuses might be human also?

> (The nature of distinguishing between different degrees of supporting
> equipment is important, but not relevant, because we are talking about
> supporting equipment that eventually is removed to allow an autonomous
> living person to continue [or start] living.

Under your definition, a dialysis patient is not human, because the support
equipment never goes away.

> Support by machines that perform all necessary life functions, without which
> the person would cease to live, where there is no hope of ever acheiving
> autonomy in life [again?], this is not life by any reasonable definition.
> To claim that it is would mean that an airconditioning system is alive by
> this definition.)

Dependence upon a person or a machine isn't the right measure.  A closer
approximation would be "does this person have any non-brain-dead life left?"
Fetuses, healthy children or adults, and people on dialysis machines do.  A
person in a coma who is expected to snap out of it also does.  A person who
is brain-dead doesn't.

> . . . My question: what does this have to do with a woman who WANTS to
> remove the fetus from her body, rather than a woman who doesn't?  The
> limits to abortion do not reach into the time of pregnancy at which
> doctors have even attempted to save a fetus from such a circumstance as
> I describe, certainly before the point at which a fetus can be saved and
> expect to live a life as a human being.

But if a late-term fetus is as much a human being as a newborn infant (and
I don't think anyone can rationally dispute that), doesn't it suggest that
earlier-term fetuses might also be human?  And if so, doesn't that throw a
major monkey wrench into your arguments for allowing abortion?

                                        -- Thomas Newton
                                           Thomas.Newton@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA