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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

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.
- Thorrez 1y ago
  Is personhood development a continuum? Or does it happen in an instant? If it's a continuum, then for a period of time you have someone who's a partial person. That doesn't make sense to me. How can someone be a partial person? That's why I think it needs to happen in an instant. And the only 2 developmental instants are fertilization and birth. I value a human's life more than any other animal's life. I think that's the same for most people. Without that, we might conclude that a dog's life is more valuable than a newborn baby's life, due to development time and abilities. > 7-24 weeks Curtis Means was born at gestational age 21 weeks 1 day and survived. If personhood might begin at 24 weeks, does that mean that Curtis might not have been a person when born?
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    > And the only 2 developmental instants are fertilization and birth. Well not really though, neither takes place in an instant. Both are complex processes that span some time composed of numerous simultaneous and sequential steps. I think some kind of partial personhood is more or less a given because biological processes don’t really happen in discrete steps. As for how that might make sense, a very crude example might be coming out of anesthesia or being extremely drunk. These are states where memory, sense of self, and consciousness can fade in and out independently; perhaps partial consciousness is a reasonable thing. Certainly many of the things we consider essential to our internal sense of personhood develop gradually, like our sense of self and, for that matter, our senses of the external world. We don’t initially, as infants, know the difference between our body and the world. Does this make infants not people? No, not legally or morally, but in some sense they lack aspects we’d associate with personhood. > Curtis Means was born at gestational age 21 weeks 1 day and survived. If personhood might begin at 24 weeks, does that mean that Curtis might not have been a person when born? My intuition is that curtis would qualify, and that 21 weeks could be too late for lethal abortion methods. At the same time, if a baby were born braindead I wouldn’t assign it personhood. Being born isn’t enough.
    - Thorrez 1y ago
      I'm wary of classifying any group as partial people. That's been used as a justification throughout history for causing harm to groups of people. >We don’t initially, as infants, know the difference between our body and the world. Does this make infants not people? No, not legally or morally, but in some sense they lack aspects we’d associate with personhood. I agree. I think this supports my view, that someone can be morally a person, even when lacking aspects we'd associate with personhood.

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.

Thorrez 1y ago
Is personhood development a continuum? Or does it happen in an instant? If it's a continuum, then for a period of time you have someone who's a partial person. That doesn't make sense to me. How can someone be a partial person? That's why I think it needs to happen in an instant. And the only 2 developmental instants are fertilization and birth. I value a human's life more than any other animal's life. I think that's the same for most people. Without that, we might conclude that a dog's life is more valuable than a newborn baby's life, due to development time and abilities. > 7-24 weeks Curtis Means was born at gestational age 21 weeks 1 day and survived. If personhood might begin at 24 weeks, does that mean that Curtis might not have been a person when born?
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
  > And the only 2 developmental instants are fertilization and birth. Well not really though, neither takes place in an instant. Both are complex processes that span some time composed of numerous simultaneous and sequential steps. I think some kind of partial personhood is more or less a given because biological processes don’t really happen in discrete steps. As for how that might make sense, a very crude example might be coming out of anesthesia or being extremely drunk. These are states where memory, sense of self, and consciousness can fade in and out independently; perhaps partial consciousness is a reasonable thing. Certainly many of the things we consider essential to our internal sense of personhood develop gradually, like our sense of self and, for that matter, our senses of the external world. We don’t initially, as infants, know the difference between our body and the world. Does this make infants not people? No, not legally or morally, but in some sense they lack aspects we’d associate with personhood. > Curtis Means was born at gestational age 21 weeks 1 day and survived. If personhood might begin at 24 weeks, does that mean that Curtis might not have been a person when born? My intuition is that curtis would qualify, and that 21 weeks could be too late for lethal abortion methods. At the same time, if a baby were born braindead I wouldn’t assign it personhood. Being born isn’t enough.
  - Thorrez 1y ago
    I'm wary of classifying any group as partial people. That's been used as a justification throughout history for causing harm to groups of people. >We don’t initially, as infants, know the difference between our body and the world. Does this make infants not people? No, not legally or morally, but in some sense they lack aspects we’d associate with personhood. I agree. I think this supports my view, that someone can be morally a person, even when lacking aspects we'd associate with personhood.