Maybe. Or maybe experience tells me how to interpret its function (I mean, for arguments sake, what stops it from being a chair if I choose to sit on it?)
The point though is that I don't require a concrete definition of chair in order to distinguish a table.
human? its getting there. actually, imho 16 is a really good cut off point... but I have no idea about the biology of pregnancy... lol
person who deserves a "right to life" more than the mother deserves the right to decide what happens to her body? I'm unconvinced [let me throw it out there, even if the pictures were identical at 16 and 20 weeks, that wouldn't be too convincing to me. Wax figures look like people, but have no rights]
I think personal rights are superb and I defend peoples rights to them, but there is a hierarchy and IMO, not potentially murdering someone supersedes another's stress and discomfort. Should the issue be exactly that, murder or personal rights.
Except we can say with 100% certainty that a person made of wax isn't a person nor ever will be.
Looks like a human, requires what humans need, oxygen and nutrients. It has a heart-beat, its brain has electrical signals. If left to develop, it likely will be a person. Sure, it can't tell you "hey, @sshole, I'm alive", but not every person on the planet can either. Though personally, the proof is ass-backwards, since we know that fetusi (that the right plural?) do develop into people, the burden of proof to prove that a fetus isn't a person should be on the 'right to choose' side, considering death is a permanent state.
Not sure where you're going with this. That fetus was an actual photo and it's known as fact that a fetus will develop into a person, can't say the same of a wax man. Of note, that 20 week fetus is a mere two weeks from being recognized as a person and not a "lump of cells", though physically and biologically, there isn't a huge difference between a 20 week fetus and a 22 week fetus. Less in a 21.
the degree to which something looks like a person is not something I would use when determining whether or not it should have rights that supersede those of the mother
whatever the shortest amount of time it is reasonable for a women to know they are pregnant and make the decision about whether they want to have the child is.
like I said, I see the "what is the time they become a person with rights" argument as being eternally damned to circular argument.
But that falls into another circular argument, as there have been woman who have gone to term and claimed "I didn't know." ****ing retards, but it is what it is.
idk, if you are so out of touch with your own biology that you can be pregnant for 9 months with no knowledge...
even if there are rare circumstances where women don't stop having a period, or any of those things, or are too fat to see the growth, whatever, that is some, what, less than 1% of women?
and even then, its not like they are going to have a 6 month abortion, it is more that they don't get the choice in the first place. Considering the wealth of mental and physical disabilities out there that also prevent people from doing certain things, I see this as acceptable
I propose then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from here? Something like this, I take it:
Every person has a right to life, so the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body, everyone would grant that. But surely, a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed, an abortion may not be performed.
It sounds plausible, but now let me ask you to imagine this:
You wake up in the morning and find yourself back-to-back in bed with an unconscious violinist—a famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records, and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. Therefore, they have kidnapped you, and last night, the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own.
The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you—we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist now is plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months—by then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you."
Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years, or longer still?
What if the director of the hospital says, "Tough luck, I agree, but now you've got to stay in bed with the violinist plugged into you for the rest of your life, because remember this: All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons; granted, you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body, so you cannot ever be unplugged from him."
I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.
Fair enough, if you want to argue that based on features a fetus is a human being, feel free.
I simply think an argument that ultimately focused on critical differences between fetuses and humans to argue that the former does not categorize as the latter wouldn't require an absolute definition of what it means to be human.
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Oh definitely, in a class of 100, 95 people would think it's just all the other sheep that it applies to, and the other 5 would probably not be the worst students either.
Though I guess I hope or believe that if you know about it and if you try to be honest to yourself you may be able to better yourself in those regards. Especially since Dunning Kruger is about skill rather than inherent capabilities, you do have the possibility to shed your own ignorance (though you can not really ever be sure that you did).
Though, for example, I can sometimes see where I fall victim to that behaviour (I'm sure I can't see even more often, and the times I see it is just my brain saying "Look, Bardock, you are better than all these idiots, you can see when you do something wrong, yeahhhh"). I guess what I want to say is that it's always better to know anyways...
KMC Community Forums
May 9th, 2011 11:13 PM
