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Previously you said "I think what we should care about isn’t human life, but human consciousness." Now you're saying something different about past memories, an

Previously you said "I think what we should care about isn’t human life, but human consciousness." Now you're saying something different about past memories, and I think even that an unconscious preemie shouldn't be killed, as long as it's not harming/damaging anyone. So I think you've changed your position. Regarding your new position: if someone's body was being used and damaged, would it be ok to kill the unconscious preemie to prevent that? >Edit: having read some of your other comments, I have a question for you. Why should we care about a zygote and not a sperm and an egg. Why is the act of fertilization the line between simple reproductive cells and a beautiful human life. Both have the potential to make a person, both are genetically human, both likely cannot experience things in a human-like way. A zygote is a unique human organism. It has the full DNA of a human. It will grow into an adult human unless it dies for some reason. A sperm and an egg are not human organisms. Individually they don't have the full DNA of a human. A sperm won't grow into an adult human. An egg won't grow into an adult human.

BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
Sorry I see why it’s confusing; I had assumed by it being able to survive outside the womb that it was relatively far along in development. By unconscious I don’t mean asleep, I mean the lights aren’t on and they aren’t experiencing from a perspective. There’d no longer be a moral issue if you magically knew this about the preemie, but we can make a reasonable best guess as to when such a thing becomes possible based on all current knowledge of the brain, and this is where I’d want abortion methods to switch to nonlethal. I don’t see a big difference between killing a fetus that’s incapable of consciousness and preventing the reproductive cells from uniting; they’re the same from the nonexistent perspective of the fetus. The memories thing is different. Fundamentally, you’re not causing immediate suffering if you kill someone and they never know. The problem is that you can know they likely want to continue to live and you're violating their agency. The key difference with the fetus is that it has no and never has had the ability to want. > Regarding your new position: if someone's body was being used and damaged, would it be ok to kill the unconscious preemie to prevent that? I hope I’ve made clear why it’s not a new position. I presume we’re talking about a fetus fairly far along in development, such that we can have doubts about its possession of consciousness. In this case it’s a matter of triage, you do the least harm you can with the tools you have. Abortion methods should be nonlethal when possible out of an abundance of caution. Beyond that, mostly defer to what the mother wants and what risks she’s willing to take.
- Thorrez 1y ago
  Fetal/child development is a continuum. The only 2 instances of big change are fertilization and birth, but birth is more a change of environment, not a change of the child. The way that wants are experienced changes over time. The way a newborn experiences a want is different from the way a 5-year-old experiences a want. We can infer what an embryo wants by what actions the embryo is taking. The embryo is working to grow into an adult. If we want to go by when brainwaves are detected, that's 5 weeks fetal age, 7 weeks gestational age. There are only 5 places in the world that allow abortion for some age but ban a 7-week-gestational-age abortion: * Turkmenistan (although for economic or social reasons, it allows up to 22 weeks) * The US states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina * The Mexican state of Aguascalientes In all 5 places, it's allowed later than 7 weeks in the case of rape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_by_country
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    >Fetal/child development is a continuum. The only 2 instances of big change are fertilization and birth, but birth is more a change of environment, not a change of the child. I think the fact that these states constitute big changes is exactly why people intuitively latch on to them as points at which to assign moral value to a developing human. What I’m arguing is that the logic for this falls apart on closer examination, and that the only real reason I see to argue the conception idea comes from religious authority. Yet you haven’t used religion in your arguments so far, so why is it the point for you? > The way that wants are experienced changes over time. The way a newborn experiences a want is different from the way a 5-year-old experiences a want. We can infer what an embryo wants by what actions the embryo is taking. The embryo is working to grow into an adult. I absolutely understand this reasoning and I have a certain appreciation for it. The problem is, if you assign single-celled organisms the capacity to want from a perspective, yet you use the capacity to want as your bar for moral consideration, then you are more or less saying any organism of any scale should receive equal moral weight, yet seemingly arbitrarily deciding to restrict this to those with human dna. I don’t think that definition of want is useful; I think the capacity to want needs to be thought of as requiring conscious experience to make much sense here, which is also the thing I’m trying to assign value to. > If we want to go by when brainwaves are detected, that's 5 weeks fetal age, 7 weeks gestational age. You’re on the right track. I’m not trying to convince you of a specific cutoff, but of the logic I think should lead those developing a cutoff. I’d want experts in fetal development and brain development and so on to be the ones who decide so that risk of harm is minimized. I imagine there are studies on this; I’ve seen indications the result would be anywhere between 7-24 weeks, but I don’t know precisely when.

BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago

Sorry I see why it’s confusing; I had assumed by it being able to survive outside the womb that it was relatively far along in development. By unconscious I don’t mean asleep, I mean the lights aren’t on and they aren’t experiencing from a perspective. There’d no longer be a moral issue if you magically knew this about the preemie, but we can make a reasonable best guess as to when such a thing becomes possible based on all current knowledge of the brain, and this is where I’d want abortion methods to switch to nonlethal. I don’t see a big difference between killing a fetus that’s incapable of consciousness and preventing the reproductive cells from uniting; they’re the same from the nonexistent perspective of the fetus. The memories thing is different. Fundamentally, you’re not causing immediate suffering if you kill someone and they never know. The problem is that you can know they likely want to continue to live and you're violating their agency. The key difference with the fetus is that it has no and never has had the ability to want. > Regarding your new position: if someone's body was being used and damaged, would it be ok to kill the unconscious preemie to prevent that? I hope I’ve made clear why it’s not a new position. I presume we’re talking about a fetus fairly far along in development, such that we can have doubts about its possession of consciousness. In this case it’s a matter of triage, you do the least harm you can with the tools you have. Abortion methods should be nonlethal when possible out of an abundance of caution. Beyond that, mostly defer to what the mother wants and what risks she’s willing to take.

Thorrez 1y ago
Fetal/child development is a continuum. The only 2 instances of big change are fertilization and birth, but birth is more a change of environment, not a change of the child. The way that wants are experienced changes over time. The way a newborn experiences a want is different from the way a 5-year-old experiences a want. We can infer what an embryo wants by what actions the embryo is taking. The embryo is working to grow into an adult. If we want to go by when brainwaves are detected, that's 5 weeks fetal age, 7 weeks gestational age. There are only 5 places in the world that allow abortion for some age but ban a 7-week-gestational-age abortion: * Turkmenistan (although for economic or social reasons, it allows up to 22 weeks) * The US states of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina * The Mexican state of Aguascalientes In all 5 places, it's allowed later than 7 weeks in the case of rape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law_by_country
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
  >Fetal/child development is a continuum. The only 2 instances of big change are fertilization and birth, but birth is more a change of environment, not a change of the child. I think the fact that these states constitute big changes is exactly why people intuitively latch on to them as points at which to assign moral value to a developing human. What I’m arguing is that the logic for this falls apart on closer examination, and that the only real reason I see to argue the conception idea comes from religious authority. Yet you haven’t used religion in your arguments so far, so why is it the point for you? > The way that wants are experienced changes over time. The way a newborn experiences a want is different from the way a 5-year-old experiences a want. We can infer what an embryo wants by what actions the embryo is taking. The embryo is working to grow into an adult. I absolutely understand this reasoning and I have a certain appreciation for it. The problem is, if you assign single-celled organisms the capacity to want from a perspective, yet you use the capacity to want as your bar for moral consideration, then you are more or less saying any organism of any scale should receive equal moral weight, yet seemingly arbitrarily deciding to restrict this to those with human dna. I don’t think that definition of want is useful; I think the capacity to want needs to be thought of as requiring conscious experience to make much sense here, which is also the thing I’m trying to assign value to. > If we want to go by when brainwaves are detected, that's 5 weeks fetal age, 7 weeks gestational age. You’re on the right track. I’m not trying to convince you of a specific cutoff, but of the logic I think should lead those developing a cutoff. I’d want experts in fetal development and brain development and so on to be the ones who decide so that risk of harm is minimized. I imagine there are studies on this; I’ve seen indications the result would be anywhere between 7-24 weeks, but I don’t know precisely when.