brianp@shark.UUCP (Brian Peterson) (12/09/84)
> -Liz Allen > We need to > strenthen the family unit and hold up the ideal that life should be > created out of love and commitment to the nurturing of that life. (Here is my rewording:) A life should be created only when the creators have the love and commitment to nurture it. (Here are some of my thoughts on the definition of "life":) I make the distinction between biological life and the kind of stuff one would put in a diary. (sentience?) Biological life includes frogs, trees, viruses (barely), plankton, planarian, beef cattle, felons, worms, eaters of canned tuna fish, grass, grass, and nasty little bacteria. Biological life is just those entities which do biological processes: take substances from the environment to build and power themselves, reproduce themselves, and react to stimuli in order to keep on existing. The other kind of life is what we are living. This "we" includes all sentient creatures or whatever. It includes most adult homo-sapiens. (the few exceptions are those who don't have hardly anything at all whatsoever upstairs -- like someone permanently comatose, etc). Likewise, little kiddies live their lives. Babies don't do as much, but there still is a bit more than just biological processes in their existences. They observe the world, and learn about their bodies, etc. The actions of the fetus in "Liz's" video fall under the category of biological life more than sentient life. Some things are more sentient than others. This is fairly obvious (I hope). Now, there is not a big fat line dividing sentient from non-sentient. I percieve a continuous scale here. Somewhere, there is a point/range below which are only plants and "dumb beasts", and above which are "somebodies". (Not neccesarily only homo-sapiens. Some consider their pets "part of the family") This point is hard to define, cuz we anthropomorphize like crazy. (We can only interpret the world from our own point of view.) (Now here is my rewording of Liz's statement again:) A life should be created only when the creators have the love and commitment to nurture it. (And here are the things I want to say about the quote above:) If you DON'T have what it takes to support a life (either type) then one of two things must happen: either you must come up with the proper resources or not have the life. For the case where there is just a biological life but not a sentience, there is no problem. A life that already exists can be ended with little or no qualms. (Food animals, parasites, etc) We do not place a high value on mere biological life. (Now if you can come up with the proper resources, no problem.) The case where there is a sentient life is different, because we value sentient life. Thus, we don't permit murder. The proper resources for raising a sentient life are different from those for raising a biological life. They are love, commitment, peace, an enriching and educational environment, etc. You can NOT force someone to love, or to be committed. This is in the nature of love. Where does abortion fit into the picture??? It all depends on how sentient a fetus is. If it is non-sentient, there is no problem with abortion. It is merely the killing of a biological life (something we do always), but not of a sentience. If a fetus is fully sentient, it is of course wrong to kill it. It is also wrong to leave the fetus with people who cannot provide the love and nurturing it needs. If a fetus is slightly sentient, the answer is harder. If it is right in the middle, the answer is the hardest, of course, since the situation is not close to either of the extremes for which there is an answer. We must then compare whether there is enough of that love, etc (consider all sources) with how much we value sentience, and how much we would prefer to give a sentient life PROPER care, love, etc. BTW, I believe that some who have abortions have more respect for (sentient) life. They have decided not to raise the sentient being in an environment where there is not enough love and commitment. They sacrifice the biological life to >prevent< a bad sentient life. (Not all who abort are this way. Those who use it as their only form of birth control might only consider their own convenience.) So who out there are on the side of increasing the weight of homo-sapiens flesh, and who want to make the world safe for sentience????? Brian Peterson {ucbvax, ihnp4, } !tektronix!shark!brianp ^ ^