This is Gonna Take A While

I want to respond to all the comments you guys left on the last post, but it's going to be rather time consuming. I'll take it in installments, starting with Stephen's comments. Please wait to comment further until I have responded to all the comments. That way, I hope to avoid some insane, unworkable cascade of undressed points.

First you start off by confusing moral agency with human life

Actually, I don't. To be fair, you may have thought that by "moral agent" I meant to imply that a fetus could act with moral consequences. That would be stupid. You're right that I used that term incorrectly, but I have to say, it didn't occur to me that anyone would think that's what I meant. What I meant is that there is moral relationship that exists between a fetus and the rest of us, or that a fetus has moral value. I mean this in the same way that mentally disabled people are not moral agents, but they have moral value; we have a moral relationship with them. A six month old baby is the same; it is not a moral agent, but it has moral value, we have a moral relationship.

More importantly, I recognize that moral relationships or value are a matter of philosophical and/or religious point of view. Really though, I believe that a fetus is a human life, and that it has moral value, but it isn't my intention to convince you of that. However, you don't know, anymore than I do, at what point a human begins to possess moral value. I only hope to convince you that it is arrogant to draw that line based on opinion. It's possible I'm wrong, and if one day that is proved, I'll have no regrets. It's possible that you're wrong, and if you are, then you and our government have endorsed murder on an epic scale.

Inalienable rights are not opinion based. They are assumed for all humans.

There was a time in recorded history when slavery was not even considered a moral dilemma; in which it sucked to be a slave, but no one questioned whether it was right or wrong. Now we look back upon that history with shame and disgust.


Second, the projection of yourself onto a zygote or fetus is irrelevant.

I did not project myself onto a zygote or a fetus. It was an illustration of how one glosses over the argument by exclusively considering a woman's right to choose. It completely glosses over even the possibility of the fetus (or zygote) having any right to life. It presupposes that a zygote or fetus is equivalent to a woman's appendix, or ovaries. A fetus or zygote would be better described as a parasite. A parasite is not part of one's body. A fetus has its own DNA. It is not its mother's body part; it it's own body which is dependent on hers. I conferred a voice upon the fetus, not out of some cartoonish delusion that a fetus experiences it's loss, but as a simple means of making this point.

Third, the desire to overlook developmental stages doesn't change the fact that they occur. If potentiality is equivalent to actuality, then your argument becomes pointless.

Developmental stages occur, it's true. I don't desire to over look this fact; I looked at it, and found that it does not answer the question of when life or moral value is present. No one can deny there is a lot of difference between a clump of cells not even visible to the naked eye, and a 12 week gestation fetus. Again, that would be stupid. This is the second reference overall that you've made to developmental stages. I assume that you have come to a conclusion regarding fetal life/ moral value based on criteria drawn from the stages of development. I would be interested in knowing what criteria you used, and when you think a fetus should be considered to be a life or to have moral value.

As to the question of potentiality, and actuality, I'm guessing you mean that a zygote or fetus is a potential, not actual person. What I know is that it is a physical being with its own DNA. The potentiality or actuality of its personhood is a matter of one's philosophical or religious point of view. It is a matter of opinion. I have decided to assume actual personhood because I can't know for sure. Neither does the government know, and therefore should err on the side of the superior right to life over the right to privacy on which Roe v Wade is based.

Or perhaps you are referring to the potential right of a fetus to live vs the actual right of a woman to choose. That presupposes that a fetus' or zygote's rights are only potential. If a fetus or zygote has personhood, then its right to life is actual and cancels any right to choose to kill it.