Journal cagle_.25's Journal: Continuation of Embryonic Rights discussion 16
On Oct. 30, an enjoyable discussion of human rights as applied to embryos was attached to this thread:
Unfortunately, the discussion was archived right as I posted the last comment. JavaRob, if you're out there and want to continue (or have the last word), the floor is yours!
onward (Score:2)
Out of curiosity -- do you support rolling back the current laws in some states that effectively make abortions impossible, because there is no such support structure for the mothers? Would you allow abortions until we solved the problems of women who have no real way out of abusive relationships, etc.? Th
What does it mean to be a "person"? (Score:2)
What is the basis for being a person?
Resolved: a "person" is a living human organism, where "living" and "human being" are understood in their biological sense.
"organism" is taken to be synonymous with "lifeform", which is defined in the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] as:
In biology, a lifeform has traditionally been considered to be a member of a population whose members can exhibit all the following phenomena at least once during their existence:
Arguments Pro (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I'm not a debater, and I generally deprecate the debating habit of trying to score "points." The "debate-like" format is really just an attempt to be organized.
1) First, the identification of "person" with "living human organism" appears to be natural; that is, the burden of proof intuitively rests with any attempt to show that some subset of living human organisms are *not* in fact people.
2) The common qualities posited as alternate definitions of "person", such as the ability to reason or t
Do human rights extend equally to all persons? (Score:2)
Is it legitimate to claim that human rights are possessed by all persons? Or, must we reconsider the question of human rights every time we reconsider the boundaries of personhood?
Resolved: Some rights, such as voting or the right to representation, or the right to bear arms, are the rights of citizens and not all people. These rights should be automatically extended only if the definition of "citizen" is extended. But also, there are some rights which extend analytica
Re:Do human rights extend equally to all persons? (Score:2)
I would rephrase your subject question as "should we (humans) extend human rights equally to all persons?" -- and an answer must be predicated on an agreed definition of "person".
Or, must we reconsider the question of human rights every time we reconsider the boundaries of personhood?
Certainly. The concept of human rights, a
Re:Do human rights extend equally to all persons? (Score:2)
I've spent several days chewing on this, and I want to strenuously disagree. Human rights are recognized, not granted. While the position that (
Re:Do human rights extend equally to all persons? (Score:2)
Points of clarification (Score:2)
Suppose (H) is true: that human rights are simply a human invention. The inventions of which humans? Suppose we identify a group of humans who have the moral right to invent human rights. Whence comes their right to do so? Who invented that right? Am I morally obligated to accept their inventions? On what grounds?
Again, you're making the circular assumption that rights are inherent, that they must be given to be claimed. Certainly there's no group of humans with "the moral right to invent human
Re:Points of clarification (Score:2)
(a) X is legit because it is inherent,
(b) X is legit because it is legitimated by the proper granting organization G, or
(c) we fight about it.
(a) corresponds to (R); (b) corresponds to (H); and (c) corresponds to might makes right. The thrust of my argument is that (b) simply pushes the problem up one level:
Re:Points of clarification (Score:2)
I agree. I'm sorry; I think I've caused more confusion than necessary here.
My argument concerns the
misc responses (Score:2)
Re:misc responses (Score:2)
This is a better way of wording it than what I said. My point is still that the gut reaction we feel (see argument) is based on an incomplete definition of "human". Hence it's not valid to assume this reaction must also apply to something not included in that incomplete definition, and these cases mus
Re:misc responses (Score:2)
First (Score:2)
But I don't think this provides an accurate model of the problem at hand, so while I've dipped a bit into that s
Re:First (Score:2)
So one interesting question might be "how long does it take to die?" In the case of a (poorly treated) diabetic who loses limbs and then ultimately succumbs, the beginning of the dying pr
Re:First (Score:2)
OTOH, I'm fairly sure I disagree with the statement "life is a process", if taken to mean that a living organism is a process. That seems like a typecasting error with significant implications. Beyond the trivial point that an organism is an object and a process is a sequence of actions, the statement also obscures the point that at any moment in time, it might be legitimate to freeze the clock and ask "what is