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thranx on 08 August 2013
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Mr Khan said:
killerzX said:
Mr Khan said:
 

Because there is a difference between "life" and "human life." Fetuses and persons in Persistent Vegatative States are both "alive" in the sense of animals, plants, or bacteria, but are they equally "alive" to others?

Sentience is what separates human life from other life, and we certainly have no qualms about disposing of other life when it is the more useful thing to do: annihilating whole bacterial species, slaughtering animals for food, mowing down trees for development. These things should all be done responsibly, but they are not, in themselves, morally abhorrent. So it is with euthanasia for the brain dead or abortion: these lack the key factor, sentience, that makes us special, which, as with destroying other types of life, should not be taken lightly or done casually, but ultimately it'll just make everything worse for everyone if we demand that all such life be protected (like radical environmentalists who would protect all species, endangered or not)


so when does it become human? 1 day. 3 months. 6 months. when it borm, three years after it born. 5 months 12 days 3 hours and 32 seconds? when. when would you set this arbitrary cut off of when its no longer a clump of cells and instead a human.

as far as i know no human has given birth to anything other than a human. never a dolphin, a dog, and bear, nope.

humans get pregnant with humans and give birth to humans.

It's not meant to be an easy question to answer, although the safest line seems to be birth, it is clear that fetuses should not get the same consideration as fully living humans, much the same as persons in a Persistant Vegatative State. This is, of course, assuming a rationalistic/non-theistic morality, whereby what separates us from the animals is our ability to think, which is the rational approach towards the sanctity of human life.

There is no easy answer to your question, but we do what we can, especially when presented with the fact that unwanted babies generally breed problems across the board (for the baby itself, for the parents, and for society at large).

Ideally, we should just stop unwanted pregnancies through greater availability of contraceptives and more comprehensive sex education.


So if there is a group of people that also generally breed problems across the board(for themselves, for their families, for their neighbors, for society in general) should we take steps to limit their ability to reproduce? Wouldn't it be better to stop people with any condition that can be passed on geneticaly from having babies, so those fuure babies dont go on to be a drain on society and live unhappy unhealthy lives? where should the line be drawn? People with mental or physical disibilities? People of a certain race or country of origin? People who come from obese families? The problem with the argument of its better for humanity, is that there is no good place to draw the line. Perhaps only people who have good jobs, and health care should be allowed to have kids.