Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (79058)	11/12/2003 4:23:51 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Maybe someday we'll be able to solve it, but not today. But you don't need to be religious, or at least not in the way we use the term today, to believe that the fetus is a human being when conceived. All you have to believe is that people have souls of some sort, and that the ensoulment occurs at conception. I mentioned to Karen earlier that I don't know whether the fetus is a full human at conception, but that not knowing, I believe that assuming it is is the more appopriate course, since the cost of being wrong, though still considerable, is less than the alternative. (Did that make sense? If you assume the fetus human and don't abort it, and are wrong, the cost you have caused is potentially an unwanted child and 18 years of raising ot mostly devolving on the mother, though there are ofsetting benefits in almost every case. But if you assume the fetus is not a human, and it is, then by guessing wrong you are condoning murder. So for me, now knowing means that I assume the position that will cause the lesser evil.) But there's another issue we haven't addressed. If you assume that the fetus is not entitled to protection as a human being, then at some point you have to say that the fetus switches over from non-protected to protected state. That may be when they are actually born, it may be when the cord is cut, but for most people it's something before that--Ithink most people would say that that aborting a healthy baby two days before it is due to be delivered naturally, when there is no issue of the mother's or baby's health but the mother just changes her mind and decides after all that she doesn't want the baby, is wrong. If you agree with that position, then you have to decide at what point abortion turns from a right to a wrong. And for myself, I can't find any logical or reasonable way or non-arbitrary way to pick that point. Can you?