garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson) (01/16/85)
> = Andrew > > = Gary > > > deleted for brevity's sake. > > You are misquoting most of the people who are against abortion. > > Most people are against abortion because it is the destruction > > of the life of a human being, not because it is the destruction > > of the life of a conscious, pain detecting organism. > I am not misquoting, because I am not quoting at all. Don't quibble. You are misrepresenting the anti-abortionists when you say that they are against abortion because it is the destruction of a conscious being. > My trouble with people who claim that only people have rights because > they (the claimants) are people is that that argument can easily > be applied to smaller groups FOR EXACTLY THE SAME REASON. I do not claim that only people have rights; I do not claim that people have rights because they are people. I claim that all people have the right to live (unless they forfeit it through sufficiently heinous action) because they are people. This says nothing about whether plants, animals, or little green creatures have rights, or what other rights people have. > Thus: > only Americans have rights because I am an American, and so on. Actually, there are rights which only Americans have. In fact, it is quite appropriate for different groups of people to have different sets of rights. I have the right to vote in local elections because I am old enough and a citizen and a resident and I registered. But we are talking about the right to live, which I say should be accorded to all human beings, and you say that that right should be accorded to a subset of all human beings, based on the additional criterion of rationality. > Since absurd conclusions cannot validly follow from correct premises, > and since I cannot find any flaws in the reasoning, I must conclude > that there is something wrong with the premise that uses species > as the sole factor to determine whether an entity has rights. It appears to me that you had to change the premise in order to reach your absurd conclusion. > > Aren't there > > things which should be illegal because they are wrong, regardless > > of their popularity? > > Perhaps. But not everyone holds to the same moral standard. > Thus there is substantial disagreement about whether certain > actions are moral. Are you really saying that things YOU think > are immoral should be legally prohibited just because you think so? No. I am saying that some things (for example, murder) should be illegal no matter how many people think otherwise. Since popular opinion does have an effect on what laws are passed (and even more on what laws are enforced), it may never occur that everything which should be legal is, and vice versa, but I think we should try to make the laws what they should be, not necessarily what some people may or may not want. > Gary goes on to give the following summary of his position: (I think I'll excerpt myself). > > 1. To kill a human being, who has not harmed or threatened to > > harm another human being, is immoral and should be illegal. > > 2. The fact that such killing is immoral and ought to be illegal > > is based on the humanity of the victim... > > 3. Abortion is the killing of a human being who (generally) has > > not harmed or threatened to harm another human being. > I am in general agreement with point (1), except that I believe > that in some circumstances a person can give up his rights, at > which point it is no longer immoral to kill him. Thus, for example, > I think that assassinating Hitler would have been a supremely moral act. Hitler obviously harmed many people, so the above is not really a disagreement with the statement I made. > Where we part company is on point (2). What distinguishes humans from > other animals is that they live by their minds, not by their teeth > or claws. I define "humanity" as "ability to think". I believe > that there is a great deal of difference between the ability to > think and the ability to feel pain. It is exactly this difference > that leads me to the conclusion that eating animal flesh is OK > but murder is not. What you mean (I think) is that the right to live is based on being able to think, rather than on being human. That doesn't change the commonly accepted definition of the term human. If you met other rational beings, such as the hypothetical little green creatures, I don't think you would call them human, although you might agree that they had rights. > Obviously, I dispute point (3), based on my definition of humanity. > > And I think my definition makes more sense than Gary's. For example, > if little green creatures two feet high came over to me and started > speaking English at me, I would accord them all the respect I give to > any other rational creature. What's more, I think Gary would too. Depends on what they said. I'm not sure I would respect them if they ordered me into a food processor. :-) > > I think it > > can be taken as a given that each species prefers its own kind > > of life to other kinds, and I see nothing wrong with that. > He may see nothing wrong with it, but I say it's racism, pure and simple. > What gives people rights is their rationality, not their species. The problem I have with basing rights on rationality is the question of measurability. How do you determine if a creature is rational? How rational? Would it have to get a certain score on some sort of test of problem solving ability to qualify? I'm not being (entirely) rhetorical in this; we are discussing the criterion on which the right to live is based, and I want to know how to determine who is sufficiently rational to be granted this right. Unless, of course, you presume all humans are rational, in which case there isn't much difference between your definition and the one I use. > Since all the evidence I have seen indicates that a first- (and > probably even a second-) trimester fetus does not have enough > brain tissue to be able to sustain conscious thought, I conclude > that there is nothing wrong with early abortions, for exactly > the same reason that there is nothing wrong with killing animals > for food. How much brain tissue is required to sustain conscious thought? How long must such thought be sustained? The problem of measurability, again. And do you mean that you would support a law forbidding third trimester abortions? (Definitely not a rhetorical question). Gary Samuelson ittvax!bunker!garys