To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (10563 ) 12/7/2010 11:01:06 AM From: Greg or e Read Replies (1) | Respond to Perhaps you could explain to me why you find her position to be illogical at this point. Was she only addressing the argument from viability? "A number of seemingly independent arguments regarding when life begins are in fact variations on this argument from ability. Thus, the proposal that human life begins when the fetus becomes “viable,” or capable of surviving outside of the womb, is a subset of the ability argument that gives conclusive weight to the suite of abilities required for survival independent of the mother. Similarly, the common argument that embryos are human when they are in the womb of the mother (where they can develop into babies), while embryos generated in the laboratory are not, is also a variation on the ability argument that equates developmental ability with human life and worth.basic human rights are not meted out according to performance. Unless we are willing to assign “personhood” proportionate to ability (young children, for example, might be only 20 percent human, while people with myopia 95 percent), the limited abilities of prenatal humans are irrelevant to their status as human beings."
