Comments on: More on fetal personhood

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:14:00 +0000

Thanks Roscoe. I’ve got Thomson’s paper and I will read it.

By: Roscoe

Roscoe — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:35:00 +0000

Dan,Great post. It isn’t until you can truly put yourself in the other side’s position that you can truly understand and objectively analyze their arguments. I agree that denying embryos their personhood and their rights will eventually collapse, just as all other civil rights issues in the past and present.Along those lines, and to sympathize with the “other side” as they say, Judith Jarvis Thomson provides a really good philosophical paper about the moral permissibility of abortion, even in cases where the fetus is a person with rights and all that other stuff. This is the paper that has the violinist thought experiment and all that. While seemingly unscientific, Wikipedia has a truly wonderful and well-structured page written about this essay. I urge you to read the actual essay, but for starters and warm-ups, this page is great. Happy reading and feel free to come talk to me if you want about this stuff.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion#cite_note-27

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Chloe,The issue of when a new human life begins is a matter of well established scientific fact, and not a matter of opinion or relgious belief. Perhaps you mean to say “the issue of when personhood begins” or “the issue of what moral respect, if any, is owed to human embryos”. But even if that is what you mean, I reject your assertion that we will never agree. I have seen many people become convinced. I am one of them, and I am married to another.Here is a thought experiment for you:What if you really could see the embryo as a person? What if it was *obvious*? Just try to visualize that and then imagine how that would change the way you live your life. Would it still necessarily be true that “Taking away the option of abortion leaves women powerless and desperate” or could you imagine that there are other ways to deal with an unplanned pregnancy that respect the dignity of both mother and child? What does sexual morality look like (for both men and women) in such a world?If you can’t visualize this, if you can’t let go of the notion that “taking away the option of abortion leaves women powerless and desperate”, then how can you expect to objectively evaluate the personhood of human embryos? You are allowing your deeply entrenched notions about the “necessity of abortion” to interfere with your ability to think objectively about questions of personhood.Ultimately, I believe that justifications for abortion that are based on denying the personhood of embryos are bound to collapse. It seems that only very few who take a “pro-choice” position have the guts to face up to this– see for example Camille Paglia:http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.htmlHere, Paglia describes abortion as “the extermination of the powerless by the powerful”. Once you realize that this is true, you have to ask yourself whether abortion is really consistent with feminism. I submit that it is not.