myke@gitpyr.UUCP (Myke Reynolds) (11/10/85)
Matthew Rosenblatt writes: >I would use Kevin Smith's statement as a springboard to ask Myke Reynolds to >define what is meant by "moral consequence." Isn't that a relative term, >depending for its meaning upon the moral system subscribed to by the speaker? My moral system goes like this, anything I do that hurts someone else without justified cause is immoral. In the case of the fetus, there is no one to hurt. There is no absolute morality, as you say, but then you turn around and say your moral system should be enforced on everyone else who has just as valid a moral system of their own, the religious mind shows through.. >On purely practical grounds, I believe murder should be outlawed >because I don't want people to kill me or those I love. Jesse Jackson's >argument was based on, "I could have been killed if abortion had been >legal." But Rev. Jackson was not killed, and neither was I. We escaped. >Does that mean we should abandon those who are still in the womb, or who >will be in the future, who won't escape? Should a refugee who successfully >escapes from Bolshevik China (or fascist Guatemala, if you want) lose all >concern for those still at risk of death if someone with power decides >it's harmful to let them live? Would that be moral? A) Whats the point of the first sentence? You and the ones you love are not fetuses, you are thinking feeling entities. B) I might well have been aborted too, (remember I was a teenage pregnancy?). What difference would it have made to you, me or him if we had been aborted? We would never have existed. If Jesse's parents hadn't had sex there wouldn't be any Jesse either, whats the difference? (On a side note: I'm from Atlanta, and I've seen Jesse Jackson in and out of jail, and I've seen his religiously fanatic speechs/sermons on the Fulton County court house steps..) C) My mother lived in Guatemala for 8 years and I still have many friends who live there quite happily and unmolested. You've got your geography mixed up. D) Refugees aren't mindless non-entities either. You can do better then this paper thin logic, Matt... Paul M. Dubuc writes: >How do you know that a brain without a body is still an entity when >a body without a brain is not? . . . >The development of a mind requires more than just a functioning brain, >I think. I said nothing about development, do you really believe that if you brain was somehow removed from your body at this instant, and artificially kept alive, or the pattern of you mind mapped onto some other medium, that you would no longer exist? >Would you consider it fully human, since you seem to be saying that none of the >other parts matters where the consideration of rightful human life is >concerned? Do you think loosing your arm makes you not fully human? >Matt's emphasis is on the potential already inherent in the fetus. There >is no getting around that potential by comparing it to a "vegetable human" >(presumably and adult with a "dead" brain) because the latter obviously does >not have the same potential as the former. Why should potential be ignored >only in the case of fetal humans? Why should potential be ignored in the case of human sperm and eggs? sigh.... >Where do you draw the line beyond which a human being becomes an "entity"? >It's a life-or-death distinction, so please be precise (I mean, give those >humans who are subject to this dividing line as much consideration as you >would want if someone was trying to apply the same distinction to you). Are you brain dead? Didn't we beat this to death enough 2 months ago? I think the line should be put at some place beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no entity. This is well before birth, and well after conception. If I could figure that out, I'd solve all the worlds problems for an encore. -- Myke Reynolds Office of Telecommunications and Networking Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!myke "Drawing from my fine command of the english language, I said nothing."