What’s Wrong with the World

Males are born in larger numbers than females in the human population, yet by age 26 they manage to be around in fewer numbers.

So, clearly, killing them is no problem.

Like wise, various countries have lower infant survival rates than ours-- thus, people in that country can be killed without qualm.

(For those who don't know me: massive, massive sarcasm. It's sad, but yes, I do have to point out that was sarcasm dreaming of rising to the level of satire.)

To be fair: "distinct DNA" shouldn't be a defining point-- identical twins come to mind.

Being a new organism should, even if that organism must remain where it is until it's developmentally able to survive. The point about distinct DNA is a delicate way of pointing out that it's rather unlikely for a "woman's body" to be male.

To Luse's point about NR being a big tent, I know Jonah Goldberg is a friend of Ron Bailey, the guy quoted by Verbruggen. I think a lot of these DC conservatives have friends who are not conservative and don't want to be disinvited to their parties. They just live in a different cultural milieu than flyover country conservatives. Disagreeing about fiscal policy is just not as explosive as abortion, Darwinism, or gay marriage.

The "distinct DNA" argument is one that I find most pro-lifers do not use as carefully as they should. Distinct DNA is evidence that a new and unique human organism exists; it is not the reductive cause of that organism's distinct existence. Even if it were the case that the child had identical DNA to the mother, it would still be a unique human being. The more important point, of which the DNA is supporting evidence, is that a new, unique, and whole human organism exists, who will develop according to his own intrinsic capacity as a human being. We tend to slip into too much genetic reductionism these days.

I would only add that his (VerBruggen's) numbers are low. One-hundred percent of human embryos die eventually. That doesn't mean it's alright to kill them.

Are we to see this as a large-scale massacre of human beings, develop drugs to prevent it from happening, and require all women who have unprotected sex to take them? Certainly, we would be willing to take measures like this if post-birth infants were dying in comparable numbers.

Frank gives a thorough response at his blog, but before you read his answer, I'd like to hear your own.

I'll answer each of the three questions and then respond to the claim. First, no, "we" are not "to see this as a large-scale massacre of human beings," because "massacre" denotes deliberate killing. Second, I suppose some people can try to develop such drugs if they wish. Third, no, "we" should not require use of such drugs; I don't see why the law should require people to take drugs. Finally, no, I wouldn't "be willing to take measures like this" for newborns, if it meant (for example) requiring by law that pregnant women make use of certain approved facilities and staff--whether or not the aim were to reduce a high infant mortality rate. (Maybe "we" would be willing, if "we" means "most people" or something like that.)

It's a non sequitur to take something like "The unborn deserve the protection of the law against their killing" and infer something like "So people should do everything they can to prevent the natural death of all unborn." I think that the elderly deserve the same protection but I don't think that means requiring everyone over 60 to use Life Alert, have regular colonoscopies, or anything like that.

By the way, Francis Beckwith is awesome. I remember picking up Politically Correct Death and reading it through. Great stuff. I really ought to read Defending Life.

My response, before reading FB's: First, the commentator is right that any definition of personhood that relies on DNA seems extremely dubious on its face, all the more so if "personhood" means here a legal and moral category, as well as an ontological one. Was there no good definition of "person" before the discovery of DNA?

Strict right-to-lifers have two rebuttals to the "wastage" argument. Neither rebuttal refers to the problem of evil, which I think is irrelevant because 100 percent of embryos die eventually.

(1) We should be treating miscarriages like infant deaths - funerals, tiny caskets, etc. We should be taking extreme measures to prevent these deaths. I haven't seen anyone make that argument.

(2) Our attitudes and norms towards miscarriage do not affect the metaphysics of the case, and it's metaphysics, not sentiment or public policy, on which the moral argument against abortion argument is based. I think this would be a valid, consistent response, though I don't happen to believe in Thomist metaphysics.

After reading FB's response: Agreed. I don't believe that an embryo should be considered a person, but FB's position is consistent. "Wastage" is not a valid argument against it.

The only people interested in this particular aspect of the controversy, though, are philosophers and a handful of others (including me). Arguments on this aspect will not sway the public one way or the other.

For decades I've been hearing about this 60-80% number of spontaneous abortions in women, but never once have I ever seen any methodology that confirms it.

After all, who is following pregnant women around to see if their discharges contain embryos? What sample is this number drawn from? When? Where? How?

It may be a true figure, but it is mythical at this point since no one ever presents evidence that it's true.

Remember how all your friends used to claim that humans only use 10% of their brains? And so many other myths?

There are many misadventures with embryos and their dna, no doubt, but let's see some proof of big numbers, please.

Having followed the controversy all day yesterday, I can only say Frank's response is stellar. For those of you who have brought up twins, some of the links Bill provides above address twinning and cloning very well in this context. Although VerBruggen was referring to miscarriages that occur before a woman knows she's pregnant (about which Mark Butterworth makes a good point above), his posts elicited a progression of testimonies (in the comments sections) to the sorrow over known miscarriages; it was encouraging to see how much people love their unborn children.

As to folks like VerBruggen writing for NRO -- they do have common cause in fiscal conservatism and a few other areas. I have noted a trend, however, of those who are not also "socially" conservative to move more and more to the Left and eventually leave any conservative credentials behind. David Frum and Kathleen Parker come immediately to mind. Sad. And I don't think for a moment that folk like Jonah keep company with those who are socially liberal so they can go to their parties. How silly. One should be able to make common cause where it's possible, challenge where disagreements lie, and maintain friendships without being accused of merely being hangers-on of the "liberal elite." Jonah, Kathryn Lopez (who is a profound and tireless pro-life voice), and the others who are genuine social conservatives don't need that kind of affirmation; they have the affirmation of conviction.

The problem with the principle thesis ("the frequent death of early stage embryonic (or blastocystic) persons is a tragedy that requires redress, including redress by compulsory means") is that there is no evidence that such redress is possible. Even assuming, arguendo, that it were possible to administer treatments that increased the likelihood of an embryo surviving some of the various hazards that face its early existence, those treatments would often likely not constitute ordinary care.

There are enormous problems in attempting to measure the efficacy of such treatments: because such miscarriages often go undetected and are difficult (often impossible) to diagnose even when detected, there is essentially no way to gauge the benefits of any proposed course of treatment.

Furthermore, say a therapy exists that encourages implantation. That does nothing to change the simple fact that a certain number of embryos suffer from genetic defects that make it impossible for them to develop past the early embryo stage. There is no way to control gamete health so as to prevent such defects (not outside of a Gattaca-like dystopia), and there is no way to treat their symptoms.

VerBruggen gives every indication of suffering from a basic defect of utilitarian thinking that prevents him from distinguishing between the moral significance of the event of death and that of the act of murder. Because most people today are conditioned to think in vaguely utilitarian terms (or vaguely to think in utilitarian terms), his argument sounds compelling. But all he has done is point out something everyone already knows: people die, and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it.

But all he has done is point out something everyone already knows: people die, and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it.

Exactly, Titus. That's why I brought up the 'problem of evil.' VerBruggen's remarks seem to veil what Shannen Coffin called a "malignant" implication: that if we really cared about the unborn, if we really believed they were human beings, we'd be making all these heroic (and coercive) efforts to prevent miscarriages. And, accompanying that, the further implication that since most conceived human beings (according to VanBruggen's figures) die in the womb, that since the wastage is so enormous, these children cannot possibly be the objects of God's concern that we think they are. I could be wrong about the latter, but I think it's lurking in the background. If we're going to say this about the unborn, we might as well say it of the quarter million who perished in the tsunami.

I know a woman who's had two miscarriages in the past couple of years, at around the 3 or 4 month mark, in the prevention of which medical science was helpless. She thinks she has two babies waiting for her in heaven, and would think no differently if they had miscarried after only a month.

(or vaguely to think in utilitarian terms)

When they bother to think instead of simply emote, that is. Do these people not recognize the difference between natural causes and human interference? Is that a really, really hard distinction to grasp?

Without reading FB, it is obvious to me that the DNA standard fails to deal with clones at all. Given that failure, one can work backwards and see that it states the distinction based on a sign of individual personhood, but not the only sign, nor the root reality. What's wrong with simply stating that all offspring of human beings are protected? No offspring fails to be human, and all with different DNA are offspring. Mere gametes are not offspring. A fertilized egg is offspring, isn't it? Nobody thinks (Please Note: I am limiting my comment to people who think. Trolls beware!) that a fertilized cell belongs to the body of the mother as her tissue. It isn't. Yet it has everything it needs besides food and environment to develop into a completed mature organism. This implies integral unity, i.e. an individual organism, not a part of an organism.

There are many misadventures with embryos and their dna, no doubt, but let's see some proof of big numbers, please.

Mark Butterworth, I too am skeptical of "common knowledge" that seems to get repeated as fact in multiple sources, especially when no one ever seems to refer back to the original research. This includes things like "We should drink 8 glasses of water a day!" or "The gene for red hair is going to become extinct!"

These are the best sources I could quickly find for statistics about miscarriage:

The New York Times reported that a study found that 31% of pregnancies end in miscarriage:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/07/27/us/study-finds-31-rate-of-miscarriage.html

The book "Coming to Term" describes the same study as the most precise information on the rate of miscarriage ever collected.

The National Institutes of Health report(s) that "It is estimated that up to half of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among those women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is about 15-20%."

I don't have access to their sources, but they do appear to be citing scholarly research on the web page that lists the statistic.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002458/

I think it is reasonable to conclude that a large number of pregnancies do end in some kind of spontaneous abortion, which is probably enough to evaluate the logic of the argument presented by Verbruggen or Bailey. I have not found any credible evidence that more than 60% of pregnancies end spontaneously, however.

For my own part, VerBruggen's protest sounds like a variation on the so-called 'problem of evil,' in which its profligacy constitutes an argument against either God's benevolence or his existence.

That is because it is a variation. I don't think there are any malignant implications against pro-lifers, so it doesn't make the point he tries to make, but there certainly can be a case made against an omnipotent benevolent deity that permits large numbers of innocent* persons to die in the womb from natural causes.

*Innocent in this context has been discussed in previous threads and I have no interest in rehashing it.

Since we are back on this subject, I want to ask the conservative audience if the following statement encapsulates most of the relevant factors in the abortion debate: A meaningful human life is found in a distinct, living human organism that is in a developmental arc towards a more mature stage. Yes or no?

I predict many will object to the word "meaningful", but when we are talking about moral worth and value as a rational animal that is a necessary qualification.

Yet it has everything it needs besides food and environment to develop into a completed mature organism. This implies integral unity, i.e. an individual organism, not a part of an organism.

The embryo's every physical need, including oxygenation of its blood, is wholly dependent upon the woman. When you talk about "extraordinary measures" in life support not being morally binding upon others, this is what you are talking about.

The embryo's every physical need, including oxygenation of its blood, is wholly dependent upon the woman. When you talk about "extraordinary measures" in life support not being morally binding upon others, this is what you are talking about.

Step2 that's a load of BS. Nature provides the embryo and the mother's body do everything naturally necessary to sustain the offpsring's life, while it takes in nutrition and grows toward its mature self. If the mother conceives, it is morally binding on her not to interfere with the natural progression. This is no more "life support" than you heart provides life support to your brain.

I haven't read the article, but it sounds to me like a standard pro-abortion gambit. What this gambit amounts to is essentially an allegedly "deep" argument of the, "C'mon, give me a break" level of actual argumentative depth. "C'mon, give me a break. You're not going to tell me you really believe that *all those embryos* that medical science thinks die all the time naturally are *really people*, do you?"

The additional draconian nonsense about forcing women to take this or that is just another step in the gambit. "If you really believed that, you'd have to advocate totalitarian measures, which would make you a kook and a monster, so we don't have to listen to you."

The whole thing is meant to be a reductio, but it's a reductio that fizzles pretty self-evidently. That doesn't stop the pro-aborts from bringing it up, ad nauseum. I've seen it many a time.

And of course, the statement about how many embryos do fail to implant naturally is highly conjectural. The bottom line is that we simply don't know, because except where IVF has been attempted, such failures are undetectable. Some undoubtedly do, but at this point I'm inclined to be suspicious that numbers are sometimes inflated for precisely these weird propogandistic reasons.

This implies integral unity, i.e. an individual organism, not a part of an organism.

This is no more "life support" than you heart provides life support to your brain.

No, you can't have it both ways Tony. You can't reference integral unity as an individual organism and distinct person, and then compare it to part of a single organism working in conjunction with another part.

Without reading FB, it is obvious to me that the DNA standard fails to deal with clones at all.

What's interesting is that the Mississippi amendment does mention them, I presume in an effort to protect those doomed to be destroyed in stem cell research.

...but there certainly can be a case made against an omnipotent benevolent deity that permits large numbers of innocent* persons to die in the womb from natural causes.

Not really, unless you first believe several other things:

1. That an injustice is being done to those innocents, which you would hold only if you believed (2) that God exists and that (3) He is just, that (4) He created them - each one, individually - which (5) confers upon those innocents a moral claim upon their creator's love, care and protection (His justice), but which they cannot have because (6) this God is not benevolent but indifferent at best, a destroyer at worst, thus leaving us with a God who creates but cares nothing for the things he creates, his essence untouched by that attribute of justice, which becomes thereby a mere human convention whose usefulness will vary from moment to moment.

It's possible to believe in a God like that, but it's possible to believe in almost anything.

Btw, Wesley Smith's rather interesting point is that some court could strike down any attempt to apply this amendment to abortion while upholding its existence and permitting applications to IVF and destruction of IVF embryos. That would be at least one promising thing that could be done. The idea being that the abortion decisions don't address embryos separated from their mothers' bodies at all and are based entirely on the "woman's freedom to control her own body" and all that stuff, which doesn't at all give one a right to create unimplanted embryos or to experiment on them or destroy them. At a minimum, such research could be banned in Mississippi, which would be worth doing.

No, you can't have it both ways Tony. You can't reference integral unity as an individual organism and distinct person, and then compare it to part of a single organism working in conjunction with another part.

How about showing an argument, instead of a claim?

Demonstrably the embryo has a different DNA. This DNA comes (partly) from another human being. It is the entire DNA sequence needed for a normal (whole) human being. Is there some way it is NOT rightly considered an integral unity? But aside from knowing about DNA, it is absolutely clear that the embryo is numerically the same THING that will be, eventually, a viable fetus (around 5 to 6 monhts), at 9 months a baby ready to birth, and later an actual birthed infant. No intermediary event occurs in which the embryo becomes a different entity.

"Life support" as used in medical jargon is an intervention by man, a medical procedure that is in addition to whatever the body itself does to support life. "Life support" signifies something _in addition to_ what nature provides. The mother's body naturally, and without any special intervention, supports the embryo. The mother's body does not repel the embryo as an invader, it establishes a *natural* process of supply and sustenance. Since this occurs naturally by reason of the internal ordering principles of both the embryo and the mother, to call it _in addition to_ what nature provides is clearly silly.

I posted some information I found about studies of miscarriage statistics. Did that get caught in the spam filter? I included a few links.

Phil, please note that the reference is to _unknown_ (by the woman) miscarriages--implantation failures. By definition, it's impossible to gather direct statistics on that. All conclusions about natural implantation failures under ordinary circumstances of conception (e.g., not assisted reproduction) are indirect and inferential--e.g., from rates of ovulation and/or from implantation failures in IVF or GIF.

Yes, if there are three links or more, it gets caught in the spam filter. The author of the post will deal with approving it later.

Lydia, I don't mind if you approve or disapprove comments on my posts.

Phil's comment now appears above, in its proper time slot.

The additional draconian nonsense about forcing women to take this or that is just another step in the gambit. "If you really believed that, you'd have to advocate totalitarian measures, which would make you a kook and a monster, so we don't have to listen to you."

Considering the sort of outrages that the NRO frequently cheers in the name of national security, I can't imagine how they could possibly make a moral argument against that (not that I'm in favor of forcing women to take medical interventions to prevent spontaneous abortions). Their positions viz a viz rendition, torture, indefinite detention, war, etc. for such theoretical threats, when juxtaposed with this are roughly analogous to someone who enthusiastically endorses ritual child rape and sacrifice stridently denouncing whipping a disobedient child with a leather belt.

Lydia,
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "the reference is to unknown" miscarriages. The comment I was responding to made reference to a probably-inflated estimate of spontaneous abortions, and the original post contained a block quote that referred to human embryos that are naturally destroyed by the woman's body.

I don't think anyone's making the claim that we can know, precisely, the exact rate at which fertilized embryos die/spontaneously abort/whatever phrase you choose. But a lot of numbers are being thrown around without evidence.

Obviously, evidence cannot be provided for something if you define the number as unknowable. But I don't think that's the way everyone in this discussion is defining it.

Phil, in the history of this discussion, generally the large numbers arise from estimates about implantation failure, prior to any event that would have permitted the woman to know that she was pregnant. There is, in fact, no other possible way to get anything remotely like that large number, because if one counts as pregnancies only those that are previously known to a woman--for example, by her testing positively on a pregnancy test--the statements are obviously absurd. The large percentages are thus hugely dependent on estimates about implantation failure.

Except in cases of assisted reproduction, in which the woman knows that an attempt has been made to implant an embryo (externally conceived) in her body, these are all events that, yes, are by definition unknown to the woman at the time. Prior to implantation, there is no way for a woman to know that an egg has been successfully fertilized, because there is no contact between the woman's body and that of the embryo to signal the woman that fertilization has happened.

Hence, estimates about natural implantation failure are usually based on things like the rate of implantation failure in IVF and GIFT where it is known that an embryo was present. But the applicability of those numbers to women conceiving naturally can be questioned. The only other way to make a guess (and it would be quite a guess) would be to check a group of sexually active, unprotected female research subjects for ovulation by other tests (e.g., hormonal blood tests and ultrasound) and then to try to estimate (though how, it is difficult to say) how many fertilizations might have taken place within the group that ovulated.

There is no direct way to test for a woman's suffering implantation failure. Implantation failures are not ordinary miscarriages, yet they are contributing hugely to the estimated percentages of so-called "spontaneous abortion." These are merely statistical estimates applied to sexually active women as a whole.

These are merely statistical estimates applied to sexually active women as a whole.

To make it more complicated-- the "failure to implant" thing is made more common with hormonal birth control, from the studies of ovulation and implantation (I seem to remember that grew out of figuring out if The Pill actually did stop ovulation or just prevented implantation) and, depending on who's talking, I don't count as "sexually active" because I'm married and we're both monogamous. My first OBGYN with Boodle (Baby #2) listed me as not sexually active.... 0.o

the "failure to implant" thing is made more common with hormonal birth control

But that's a guess, too. I've read the studies with that, and it's sort of the same thing. Very indirect reasoning that has to take into account other functions of the birth control (without getting too graphic) in preventing sperm-egg contact. An additional problem is getting reliable breakthrough ovulation statistics on women on hormonal birth control.

I don't count as "sexually active" because I'm married and we're both monogamous. My first OBGYN with Boodle (Baby #2) listed me as not sexually active.... 0.o

Foxfier, that's really funny! Did the OB think that the baby came by, maybe, a stork?

How about showing an argument, instead of a claim?

The answer is because it was an obvious contradiction. In one statement you said the fetus is not part of another organism, and then in order to attack my claim about life support you compared pregnancy to parts of an organism working together. I'm still trying to figure out why you can't see the contradiction. I think the trouble starts from considering the woman's body as an environment, almost like a background pattern instead of her body. That is admittedly a problem for both sides in the debate, but you shouldn't expect me to be any less assertive about the rights of the woman than you would expect Lydia to be when discussing the embryo.

Life support is also used in the contexts of spaceflight and aviation, and while it isn't normally used to describe natural systems or therapies there is also nothing that restricts its application only to artificial systems.

The mother's body does not repel the embryo as an invader, it establishes a *natural* process of supply and sustenance.

I wouldn't say that morning sickness implies an attempt to repel the embryo, but there certainly is an abnormal reaction involved. In order to prove that the embryo isn't an invader in any significant sense, while at the same time maintaining a strict two person viewpoint of pregnancy, you will need to show that a person has a right to extended access of your bloodstream for their own use. For this purpose let's say that it would be enough to cause nausea, perhaps temporary diabetes, and other disturbances to your health and psychology but not enough to maim or kill.

Bill,
Okay, which one of those "several other things" do you not believe in?

Foxfier, that's really funny! Did the OB think that the baby came by, maybe, a stork?

The double-think is amusing, no?

The really funny thing, to me at least-- I've an odd sense of humor-- is that he classified me that way because what they were really asking for the "sexually active" question was "is she at risk for STDs? Is there a risk for 'intimate violence'? Is it a reasonable presumption that her live-in mate, married or otherwise, is the father of the child?"

I wouldn't say that morning sickness implies an attempt to repel the embryo, but there certainly is an abnormal reaction involved.

"Abnormal" just means different, sort of like how eating pure, healthy food you're not accustomed to will usually cause an internal change.

By the by, morning sickness does not happen in all women, and most women can avoid it by changing a habit--usually by eating something before they get up; I found that I could induce "morning sickness" in myself by not eating enough while I was pregnant. (Found this out by keeping to my normal habit of having a cup or two of coffee for breakfast. Did Not Work. Eat a cookie, a handful of wheat thins, a slice of cheese, some leftovers... no sickness. Not everyone is so lucky.) My sister could induce it by getting up too early. Conclusion: morning sickness is often your body smacking you over the head and going "Hey! Dummy! Change your actions, you're pregnant!"

You may as well claim that exercise causes an 'abnormal reaction' that means something, seeing as how it's standard for people to be physically ill after a military PRT.

Morning sickness is actually, my impression is, a sign that the woman's body is likely _not_ biologically rejecting the newly conceived child. I haven't seen controlled studies on this, but anecdotal evidence indicates that women without morning sickness are more likely to miscarry. This is probably because morning sickness is an indication of high levels of the hormones necessary to sustain the pregnancy. Myself, I blame Eve.

you will need to show that a person has a right to extended access of your bloodstream for their own use.

No problem. If a completely innocent human being comes into existence in circumstances such that it is a normal and natural part of my and his biology for that person to have (and require) nine months' access to my bloodstream, then if we _must_ use the language of "rights," it seems like this is a paradigm case in which said innocent person has such a "right."

Okay, which one of those "several other things" do you not believe in?

Ever the coy one, aren't we? You first.

In order to prove that the embryo isn't an invader in any significant sense, while at the same time maintaining a strict two person viewpoint of pregnancy, you will need to show that a person has a right to extended access of your bloodstream for their own use.

Peh. Step2, you are talking blather. Nobody has to spend an ounce of effort to "prove" that the baby isn't an "invader". The baby only got there because the mother and the father brought him into being there. That's not invasion. Unless your existence constitutes and invasion of planet Earth. Wait, maybe that's true, you really are an invader of my Earth...

When you talk about "extraordinary measures" in life support not being morally binding upon others, this is what you are talking about.

You are basing the whole issue on an incredibly silly equivocation of "life support". Clearly the embryo relies on the mother for support of its life. But then, the baby does too, since no newborn infant has the capacity to move food out of the pantry into its mouth, and can't eat the PB&J there anyway. The transparency of the false problem comes through with "extraordinary measures", though, because both the mother's body providing sustenance to the emryo, and to the newborn in breastmilk, and the mother providing kid-food to the toddler, is wholly in the ordinary course. The first two are provided naturally by nature without conscious consent (which proves it is *natural* in a superlative sense), the latter one requires the mother's will but remains ordinary for all that. Stop wasting our time pretending that placental development and nutrition transfer is "extraordinary" in any relevant sense.

Given failure twice in Colorado and now in Mississippi with this strange and totalitarian concept, perhaps you all need to rethink this. It seems all the fancy arguing in the world isn't going to convince even those who give lip service to being against abortion to throw away their rights (recall the vote in Colorado Springs). Personhood is and always will be a bridge too far for a free people. Congratulations to the people of Mississippi for their common sense.

Oh, and go Ohio!

this strange and totalitarian concept

OK, I just got lambasted on another thread for calling something totalitarian, so I have a stake in this: Al, what do you mean by "totalitarian" in this comment?

And secondly, why do you think that this amendment is totalitarian?

I was not in the least bit sure that the amendment was well crafted, nor that it was situated in such a way as to accomplish anything positive in MS. "functional equivalent thereof" being particularly vague language. So it's no big deal for me to see it fail. I just don't see why defining a person is totalitarian. Is it because of an anticipated EFFECT - that of putting an end to abortions and IVF? I suppose that's your reasoning. But wouldn't a 1865 Southern gentleman have the same complaint about calling blacks "persons": that the EFFECT of this is that he won't get his crops harvested and he won't be able to put on the annual ball, and only totalitarians want to take away his rights to do these things, and therefore calling blacks "persons" is totalitarian!

Ever the coy one, aren't we? You first.

I thought you made a compelling case, but then you denied the conclusion. When I'm not feeling cynical, I'm sympathetic towards the possibilian viewpoint.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/25/110425fa_fact_bilger?currentPage=all

The baby only got there because the mother and the father brought him into being there.

In order for that to be relevant, they must have deliberately brought him into being there. If it was an accident, that makes him an unwanted visitor.

That's not invasion.

It isn't a welcome sign either.

The transparency of the false problem comes through with "extraordinary measures", though, because both the mother's body providing sustenance to the emryo, and to the newborn in breastmilk, and the mother providing kid-food to the toddler, is wholly in the ordinary course.

It isn't a false problem because basic life support measures have always included nutrition while extraordinary measures have always included ventilation. As far as the principle at stake goes, it doesn't matter whether or not this is natural, it only matters whether a person has a nine month right to your bloodstream (with the attending effects mentioned above) to sustain their own life. Lydia, to her credit, is willing to give an answer, although I notice she also added an appeal to natural circumstances.

although I notice she also added an appeal to natural circumstances.

Some Authority has decreed that this isn't permitted in ethical arguments? It's got "illicit argument" written on it?

But to make you happy, Step2, I'll tell you: I bite the bullet on the violinist case, too, though I think it is a silly example and also that it makes illicit use of an implied principle of double effect where none actually applies. I prefer, "Now, you have to cut off the violinist's head to separate him from the woman..." That makes it clear what's going on.

Some Authority has decreed that this isn't permitted in ethical arguments? It's got "illicit argument" written on it?

I think it isn't decisive upon the question. In the context of the original post, I'm not sure what you would describe as ethical about millions of miscarriages under natural circumstances.

I'm not sure what you would describe as ethical about millions of miscarriages under natural circumstances.

That's like asking what I would describe as ethical about someone's dying of a stroke. Ethical? Wrong category. "Ethical" refers to human actions, not to true tragedies.

Step2, do you think it's unethical that human lives have a natural end? By what do you justify that?

If it was an accident, that makes him an unwanted visitor.

He may be unwanted, but it wasn't no accident. People have sexual intercourse on purpose. I think they like it.

If it was an accident, that makes him an unwanted visitor.

Visitors have an option. If someone throws a kid over your fence, you don't get to kill him-- you don't even get a free pass on tossing him back over the fence.

"OK, I just got lambasted on another thread for calling something totalitarian, so I have a stake in this: Al, what do you mean by "totalitarian" in this comment? "

Do a few thought experiments and explain how you would enforce laws that make common forms of contraception illegal, fertility treatments illegal, and would make a miscarriage a cause for an inquest without intolerable intrusions into folks' private lives.

This may be of interest to some,

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1544503

He may be unwanted, but it wasn't no accident.

I think it is a legitimate and appropriate use of the word. That doesn't mean they believed there was no risk at all, it only means they took caution to minimize it, or they mistakenly thought the risk was lower than it actually was, or in a few unusual cases they might not have known about the risk at all. In other contexts, any of those situations would be described as an accident. In a more mundane situation, you wouldn't stop driving just because you know there is a low chance that you could be involved in an accident.

People have sexual intercourse on purpose. I think they like it.

Except in cases of rape, that is definitely true. I also consider that one of the primary points of contention, since pro-lifers believe that all sexual intercourse must include the purpose to reproduce (yet the intent can differ via NFP), while pro-choicers believe in a clear and complete distinction between them.

Visitors have an option. If someone throws a kid over your fence, you don't get to kill him-- you don't even get a free pass on tossing him back over the fence.

First, I think that is a very misguided description. If we are going to go in that direction, a more accurate description is to say that the kid was thrown through a window into your house. So let's say crashing through the window caused a heavy amount of bleeding that you are conveniently able to replace with your own blood and he also requires intermittent assistance with his breathing. That is where the analogy breaks down, because everyone would simply call an ambulance and that would relieve them of any responsibility but would also keep the kid alive. So if society does ever get sufficiently advanced in medical technology to create artificial wombs, along with the ability to safely transport embryos, I think the pro-life argument will have much greater force. However, since the woman still has the legal right to refuse to raise the child, it would likely require a massive increase in social spending to care for all of these hi-tech orphans.

Second, the issue of trespassing has some negatives from a conservative standpoint, specifically in the castle doctrine laws. The ability to use deadly force with legal immunity increases significantly if someone is inside your house as opposed to a public space, and some states have a "shoot first, ask questions later" legal doctrine that requires only a modest expectation of harm to self or property. So when you move from being inside the space of your house to being inside your own body, it seems like the justification for deadly force should be reduced further, including when the expected harm isn't intentional or necessarily severe. I know you will say that pregnancy isn't "really" harmful, it's healthy, but that is open to different viewpoints. If you were made sick from military training exercises and you hadn't signed up for the military, that may still be healthy in some sense but it removes any legal or moral obligation to continue with it.

I think it is a legitimate and appropriate use of the word....In a more mundane situation, you wouldn't stop driving just because you know there is a low chance that you could be involved in an accident.

Don't you mean that I wouldn't stop driving just because there is a low chance that I might kill someone, or myself? That's probably true, but killing someone is not a natural end of driving. Nor is it something I would ever do on purpose. But the possibility (however remote) of a child resulting from intercourse is a natural end of that activity. He would not be here except for something that I did on purpose. Thus a human being is not an accident in the relevant sense. What you mean here by 'accident' is a species of wishful thinking: I was hoping that wouldn't happen. He's a "visitor" only in the sense that he didn't ask to be here, and "unwelcome" only in the event that I don't want him around. That would mean there's something wrong with me, not with my visitor. Hospitality ain't what it used to be.

Do a few thought experiments and explain how you would enforce laws that make common forms of contraception illegal, fertility treatments illegal, and would make a miscarriage a cause for an inquest without intolerable intrusions into folks' private lives.

Ah, so I was right: you call defining human person to be "totalitarian" because it can be used to do totalitarian things, if you manipulate other laws in really extreme ways. Does it occur to you that maybe manipulating other laws in extreme ways might be totalitarian? Is there something specifically inappropriate about defining human person?

Suppose, for the moment, that abortion had never been legalized, and the ONLY major reason this law were being proposed was to provide another tool to go after human trafficking and like problems. Would you even then consider defining the human person to be totalitarian?

Ah, so I was right: you call defining human person to be "totalitarian" because it can be used to do totalitarian things, if you manipulate other laws in really extreme ways.

Tony, are you saying that the examples Al cited as the result of the personhood law are not actually directly related to the personhood law, but would instead be the result of other, wholly separate laws? Are you saying that he's conflating two different issues in an illogical fashion?

That sounds like a very interesting argument to make.