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The 8th Amendment Part 2 - Mod Warning in OP
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garbo speaks wrote: »I really hope the referendum is defeated so I sit back and watch the leftist loonies meltdown on Twitter; it will be up there with the leftist fallout after Trump was elected.
Yea. And all those people on social media who don’t know you exist- you’ll show them!
:rolleyes:0 -
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nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »Indeed, and I carefully wrote something in the post you are replying to in expectation of you bringing this up. When I wrote "I have ALL the same emotions and compulsions and biology as these people. I do not need to imagine myself in their position, I AM in their position."
Meaning I am not immune to the emotional responses one can get to images of this sort. And I am more aware of such images than most on this forum for other reasons relating to my education, training and background.
But what I also said was that despite having such emotive responses myself, I go one further and bring intellect to bear on the issue too. I can divide from emotional responses in general those that are not really warranted or are being triggered falsely and in a fashion that can mislead.
But you are right, there is little we can do about this other than inform people as best we can what is ACTUALLY going on in images like that, and try to undermine false narratives and concerns that are unwarranted. And in fact I have talked at length in some posts on this very thread about how we often work with women and miscarriages in exactly that way.... to tease out and divest them of false narratives that are causing them suffering..... and separating their concepts of babies from that of a fetus.
But we are an emotive species, and run on narrative. And therefore many people simply do not want their intuitions challenged, especially challenged well.
For example I have asked time and time again of people impressed by those little toes and fingers WHY they want to have moral and ethical concern towards that fetus. And they tell me phrases without substance. "Human Life". "Baby". "Unborn Child". Even Christopher Hitchens whom I believe to have brought his larger-than-mine-by-far intellect to bear on so many subjects, seemed to shut down his brain on the topic of abortion and espouse Anti-Choice views solely on the basis of the words "Unborn Child".
So I then ask those people if I could remove their consciousness from their brain and install it in the physical equivalent of a toaster, and they retained all their previous levels of sentience, consciousness, and capacity for happiness or suffering.... would I have to have moral and ethical concern for that toaster and it's well being. And if so why, and why would I have any ethical concern for the form left behind. The responses so far to this have been A) They run away or
They scream "irrelevant" and then run away.
And the reason is clear. Such challenges shine a light on EXACTLY what it is we value when we have moral and ethical concern. And it does so while pointing out that those things we ACTUALLY care about, rather than IMAGINE we care about..... are precisely the things the fetus in your little video there lacks. And this reality is, alas, one they are not prepared to accept.
But in deference to the single point you appear to be making here, I have said it before on this very thread I think..... I have predicted with confidence and accuracy many elections and events in the past years. I felt confident I knew which way elections were going to go and I was right every time. From Trump to Brexitt to SSM to scottish independence to what is going on in Spain and many more. I called them all. And this is the FIRST election where I find myself genuinely and completely unsure about it. I simply can not call it nor so I want to. I simply have no confidence in a result in either direction. I simply do not have that feeling I have had before of "I really feel I know where this is going".
Which is why I never engage with these posts or posters posturing their success before the fact on this thread. Some people on both sides are declaring victory already. And clearly ONE group of people is going to be left red faced, and the other completely forgetting what it is to be magnanimous and lording the victory over the former.
Two things here.
The first is that no, I do not think it next to impossible to snuff out those feelings using the arguments and descriptions I use. And I know this because, as I said earlier in this very post we do EXACTLY that when counselling women who have had miscarriages. And with often very good results. We lead them to a point where they realise a lot of the source of their suffering comes from narratives that are in themselves false or unwarranted. And in this way we can mediate SOME of that suffering. You can read up on this. Simply google scholar papers on grief counselling with respect to miscarriage, and the concepts of "Loss of a baby" versus "Loss of a pregnancy". It is well documented.
The second is that thankfully for the subject of abortion we do not even NEED "a definition of the beginning of human personhood" at all. We just need firm definitions of when this has NOT occurred. Which is both more relevant AND easier to pin down as a concept. When you can show personhood has not even NEARLY begun in a fetus being terminated, then when it is going to begin becomes much less a concern.
No modification or back pedal required, just a clarification as I have failed to convey to you correctly what I meant when I talked about "our young". And what I meant when I wrote "We are pretty much evolved to want to protect our young.". When I clarify this you will understand why no modification or back pedal is required.
Here I was specifically referring to children actually born. We are evolved to have emotional responses to that young. We are programmed by evolution to respond to certain sights and sounds related to youth. Physical form, vulnerability, and much more. And this is a hyper sensitive programming to the point we actually respond in this way to the youth of OTHER species too. I myself am rendered silly by baby wolves and lions.
Then along comes human science and technology and allows us to look INTO The womb during development. Something evolution simply never prepped us for. And we see in such a fetus MUCH of what would trigger us in a fully developed actual baby. And our technology accentuates that effect through things like magnification. For example in your little video link there you get very little impression of the ACTUAL size of that fetus. It is TINY in reality. But watching that video one could very easily imagine a fully grown child, replete with little and fingers and toes, in ones hands.
Worse many people are prone to taking seriously or literally the artistic license of researchers into the fetus. For example we have a user about here who read a line in a study about playing music to the fetus. In an attempt to describe what the oral movements of the fetus LOOKED LIKE the researcher said it looks like "trying to speak". The emotional and unwarranted response of the boards user to this was to react to that as if the fetus actually WAS trying to speak. But most rational actors can tell the difference between "Looks like X" and "IS X". But not everyone.
So no there is no "one of us" narratives coming off what I wrote here. Sorry to disappoint
Rather I am pointing out how things like medical technology are allowing triggers we normally have for "one of us" to be accessed at stages where they are not warranted, and were never really evolved into us. And I think you were on the right track with your line "Or I'm just imagining the whole thing.". I think you are.
I would not say it allows me to leave them aside. Rather it inoculates me against false narratives taking hold in the first place that even need to be "left aside" at all. Also I think your phrasing it in that way has the effect, intentional or otherwise, of trying to straw man my position into one of bias. Like you think I am biased towards a pro-choice position and am then retrospectively "leaving anything aside" that conflicts with that.
Nothing could be further than the truth and in fact the only real bias I hold is the axiom of "Innocent until proven guilty" which I apply to concepts as well as people. In that if the termination of a fetus is to be indicted as an immoral act then it is up to those indicting it to make the case against it, not for me to somehow justify something that does not require justification at all. And if all I can do as my part of the pro-choice camp is to point out that such arguments are not forth coming then so be it. That is what I will do.
I also think rights.... and moral and ethical concern.... are in the business of mediating the actions of, and therefore the well being and freedoms of...... conscious and sentient creatures. As such it is generally TO (directly or indirectly) conscious and sentient creatures we are, and should be, affording those concerns.
The fetus at 0-16 weeks might have little toes and fingers and pull emotively at our evolutionary heart strings but when one realises this is NOT a conscious entity, it never has been one, and it is a distinct period of time away from ever being one..... one can still feel those heart strings but be inoculated against their influence. Emotion is not a bad thing, but emotion at the total expense of intellectual rigour is. Peoples moral and ethical concerns for such a fetus even in isolation is not warranted therefore..... but it is not in isolation we are considering it at all..... but in relation to the ACTUAL rights and concerns we afford to the very real and very sentient agent hosting it.
This is what we are talking about.
11 week ultrasound (4D)
That's a lot of quotes. I hope I'm not being unfair. And of course they are all in the context of your belief that narratives based on those feelings are questionable.I wrote "I have ALL the same emotions and compulsions and biology as these people. I do not need to imagine myself in their position, I AM in their position."
Meaning I am not immune to the emotional responses one can get to images of this sort. And I am more aware of such images than most on this forum for other reasons relating to my education, training and background.
Then along comes human science and technology and allows us to look INTO The womb during development. Something evolution simply never prepped us for. And we see in such a fetus MUCH of what would trigger us in a fully developed actual baby. And our technology accentuates that effect through things like magnification. For example in your little video link there you get very little impression of the ACTUAL size of that fetus. It is TINY in reality. But watching that video one could very easily imagine a fully grown child, replete with little and fingers and toes, in ones hands.
Me I know your reductivist biological definition of personhood allows you to leave these important feelings aside (usually).
I would not say it allows me to leave them aside.
The fetus at 0-16 weeks might have little toes and fingers and pull emotively at our evolutionary heart strings
one can still feel those heart strings
But it is great to know that we are in agreement on something as important as these feelings. While we disagree about how to deal with them being able to reach across the divide that exists and know that we have a shared immediate emotional response to something so central is uplifting. And really important.
But even that much may come as a surprise to some of your fans here sheltering under your wing.
I don't think our common response is something many on the pro choice side are accustomed to acknowledging and a lot may assume it is something that is to be explicitly denied as part of a pro life stance.
I can imagine many of them right now are rapidly recalculating as the GPS puts it.
As I say you differ with me on how to deal with this gut level feeling.
I was genuinely taken aback by your use of the phrases "unwarranted.. emotions" and "falsely triggered.. emotions". They come across as a bit 1984 ish. But reading on I think I get where this and a lot more of your views are coming from. You seem to be/have been involved with counselling of women with miscarriages. (Or at least you have a strong interest in the subject). Very valuable work.
But again I was taken aback by the way you phrased this;
On the face of it that's a bit unsettling but I'm not holding you to any particular choice of words. Feel free to rephrase.I do not think it next to impossible to snuff out those feelings using the arguments and descriptions I use. And I know this because, as I said earlier in this very post we do EXACTLY that when counselling women who have had miscarriages.
I'm guessing some of your followers here especially the younger ones will be surprised to hear about peoples feelings and the stories they tell about them not being inviolable and sacrosanct but instead being described as falsely triggered and unwarranted.
Such is the age we now live in.
It doesn't surprise me that many women with miscarriages "simply do not want their intuitions challenged, especially challenged well."
I would guess that over time that task has become increasingly diificult.
You're saying that in this area not every argument that starts from a woman's feelings is valid.
But I think that's a bit of a shocker for a lot of your fans.
And again I can imagine some of them will be recalculating...
But enough about your followers and the big tent of the pro choice movement.
I hardly need to say that I completely disagree with your characterisation of when personhood begins or, to be more accurate, when nonpersonhood ends. And I don't want to go down the toaster route - Short answer; I'll wait until I see the toaster. Longer answer: Searle and the integralility of consciousness and the body, also when I see a picture of a starving child in africa my response is based on her body* and especially her vulnerability* which brings us back to the unborn child. If you want to respond, well and good but I'm not going down that route.
* * For God's sake don't quote that out of context!
What I would say, and what I would like to hear back from you about is where your definition of non-personhood leaves you in our current situation.
The Catholic Church with two thousand years of thinking about this has settled on the simple option of treating the embryo as a person from conception.
If you want to start defining life and non life (personhood and non-personhood) you really are dancing around the third rail. It's a huge philosophical gamble and you need to be totally committed to your tightly defined answer. None of which I'm sure I need to tell you. This definition is a matter of life and death. You're all in.
So even in your own terms (and once again I completely disagree with them) how does the proposed legislation look?
On mental health grounds (the grounds on which over 90% of english abortions take place) a woman here would be able to have an abortion up to the point of viability (~24 weeks).
Politically certainty is rare but not in this case. A Dail majority is 79. The Irish times has 67 in favour of abortion on demand/request up to 12 weeks plus 13 SF currently recorded as undeclared plus however many more of the other 22 undeclared TDs. Plus every party leader is in favour. Plus it would be getting voted on in the context of a successful referendum. Can you see any way that 12 weeks and the rest of the schedule would not be adopted in the case of a yes vote?
The published schedule would be approved.
The most used grounds for abortion in england concern the mental health of the mother.
The only difference in the proposed mental health grounds for abortion here from 12 weeks to viability and the english grounds up to 12 weeks, is that our proposed law talks about
"risk...of serious harm to the (physical or mental) health of the woman"
and the english one talks about
"greater risk than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman"
And on that distinction rests all claims that there would not be abortion on demand/request up to ~24 weeks.
All your hard won subtlety about the possibility of consciousness and the end of non-personhood is being thrown out the window. You say your concern (or your beginning of concern) that there is a person to care for starts at 16 weeks. To support repeal and the legislation that will follow it as night the day, you have to be ready to accept the killing of the unborn up to viability/~24 weeks. Simpliciter.
Surely this wild proposal to introduce what would amount to one of the most liberal abortion regimes in europe is as offensive to someone who has invested so much time and thought in this as it is to the many who simply feel "it goes too far".
You've laboured mightily to decide for yourself what constitutes a person. You have committed yourself to believing it is in fact a person in the womb in some of these cases. Surely the danger to them is now too great?.
Maybe the next referendum we have on the subject will be different but right now it's these off the wall proposals you're being asked to vote yes or no to.
This post is way too long but a chance to discuss a thing like this with someone like yourself doesn't come along too often.
I'm really looking forward to hearing back from you but I won't be around again until Monday or Tuesday. It's my favourite time of the year and I've more eleveated things to be thinking about. Happy Easter.0 -
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bertieinexile wrote: »The Catholic church with two thousand years of thinking about this has settled on the simple option of treating the embryo as a person from conception.
If you want to start defining life and non life (personhood and non-personhood) you really are dancing around the third rail.
I did read your post. Is it ok if I reply?
It would appear that you are taking the Catholic churchs thinking as a truism. Despite the non scientific content of all of its teachings.
I put it to you that you are the one doing the dancing with words. When a sperm meets an egg and is implanted it is by no means a person, or deserved of personhood.
The beginnings of life are not synonymous with personhood.
You could do with stepping down the overlordly tone in your posts you worship 0 -
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