February 21, 2007: Youngest surviving premature baby

[tw]

Originally Posted by SeanAhern

I also don't want to conflate too many issues. A discussion about abortion can go in many directions, but diving into the politics of war can sometimes muddy the waters. ...

But you have to watch out for the "viability" argument. Given the photograph that we're having this discussion under, it's clear that we're getting better and better at being able to care for children at earlier and earlier stages of gestation.

And now we must discuss stem cells. At what point is life somehow 'magical'. It's not – which is why the argument against stem cells is 100% emotional. Life of all types has value - finite value. Emotional types don't like that. But value is reality.

We put up borders in a hope to maximize the value of life – to make decisions easier. That does not mean all humans should live. Some defective fetuses are more humanly terminated before a cognizant life form exists. Is that lump in a guy's hand a human - or just a lump of cells? I see a lump of cells that could become a human life - but is not a cognizant life form.

We treasure things that can grow to be something great - that have the potential for great value. And that is the difference between a realist and the emotional types. I see a picture that is only a picture of reality. The minute I have emotions about that picture - I become my own worst enemy. I value life far more than those who 'feel'. Therefore I have no problem when some fetuses have value and other do not.

Who is to decide? Well either no one or someone. Everything we do is a statistical estimate. But again, where do emotions appear. Never if one has greater respect for life. We train people logically to make better decisions. Making no decisions can be a most inhuman thing we might do.

Where does emotion enter? After brutally demanding irrefutable facts and after drawing conclusions from those facts; only then do we compare those conclusions with an emotion. If the emotion says something is wrong, we throw out everything and do a hard, unemotional, and logical analysis again to find a possible mistake. That is where emotion belongs in decision making. I 'feel' there is something wrong. Therefore we analyze it again to either find the logical error, or to discover we have emotional biases adverse to society and mankind.

Those who were racists discovered they were racists - classic decision based only in emotion - when doing hard logical analysis (or confronted by significant examples). Eventually discovering their emotions were wrong. Since they were not thinking logically, then they were racists.

Emotion is a circuit breaker - a warning or safety device that something may be wrong. When emotion is part of a decision process, then we become our own worst enemies. Why are we wasting hundreds of thousands in Iraq? That too came from decisions based only in emotion – total denial of facts. Decisions based in emotion make one his own worst enemy.

He did not say, “I feel, therefore I am”.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by SeanAhern

Okay, I'm going to betray some of my political leanings here (and probably bring this forum into a quagmire), but I just have to ask...

After seeing this kind of evidence that people can survive after being in the womb for so short a time (and hearing anecdotal evidence of at least two more stories), how can people ever bring themselves to allow abortions on children in utero at that same (and later) stage of development?

Not my business, or yours, what a woman chooses to do with her body.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

...
... But we don't want to get into the business of removing fetuses and trying to incubate each and every one of them.

If that's a solution that a woman agrees to, and the anti-choice contingent (and only the anti-choice contingent) wants to privately pay for, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Just don't increase my healthcare costs or taxes to do it. The anti-choice contingent would also be privately responsible for the cost of raising the results.

[SeanAhern]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Not my business, or yours, what a woman chooses to do with her body.

Unfortunately, I have the beginnings of a migraine this evening, so I can't get into a longer discussion responding to tw, as I'd like. But I will point out that he's staying on the right track.

The issue has never really been about what a woman chooses to do with her own body. It's deciding whether she has the right to choose what to do with someone else's body. The issue is the "personhood" of the life within her. It's not her body we're discussing, really. It has to do with defining when society deems the life within her to have reached a state where it is deserving of the legal protections of people.

In lieu of having being able to have a longer discussion, I'm going to have to point to one of the more rational thinkers of the last few decades, Carl Sagan, who struck a middle ground in this debate. Much of his logic is sound, and provides a good basis to argue from: http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's not her body we're discussing, really.

The hell it isn't. As long as it's attached, it's as much a part of her as her head, hand or appendix. A turd is not part of her body, a fetus is. :p

[SeanAhern]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

The hell it isn't. As long as it's attached, it's as much a part of her as her head, hand or appendix. A turd is not part of her body, a fetus is. :p

And yet, each can survive when separated from the other. The same can be said for no other thing. Which is why I still stand by my statement that the question of the "personhood of the fetus" is the primary question.

[xoxoxoBruce]

If you cut off her hand and gave it the necessary nutrients, it to would survive.

[Kitsune]

What if we provided a turd with necessary nutrients?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Nope, the turd's already dead. :p

[milkfish]

How unpleasant. How about we talk about the world's oldest surviving premature baby (40 weeks minus 1 second) instead?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Do you mean fetus or baby?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Doesn't look real. Amazing.

Being a Dr. Who fan, I was thinking more along the line of this:

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by SeanAhern

And yet, each can survive when separated from the other. The same can be said for no other thing. Which is why I still stand by my statement that the question of the "personhood of the fetus" is the primary question.

I wonder how long it will be before a group of people try to tell me what I can do with my sperm.

[Aliantha]

Arguing about whether it's the personhood that's the issue or the woman with the little clump of cells inside her is an argument much akin to the chicken or the egg discussion.

In this case, I vote for first in first served. Therefor, the womans rights come before the clump of cells because if the woman weren't there already, there'd be no clump of cells.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Ha Ha Ha, I read that post then looked down at the cookie at the bottom of the page, which read;

The anti-abortion protesters were told by a federal judge that they can't physically block the entrances to clinics. Now they're going to take their case all the way to the supreme court. Kinda ironic, isn't it, when you think about it, they're demanding the right to do whatever they want with their own bodies. --Dennis Miller