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Joseph Gauthier
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 March 2009
Posts: 1415
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 1:37am | IP Logged | 1
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I only have the information found in the linked article, but the claim seems to be that the convicted woman gave birth to a living child, which she subsequently left to die through felony neglect- the charge for which she received the majority of the time sentenced. But the article does not answer whether the claim was confirmed or not. Nor does it answer, or even ask why the woman was charged with feticide rather than with homicide if the child was born living, and indeed viable enough to die from neglect.
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14825
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 10:15am | IP Logged | 2
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QUOTE:
| But the article does not answer whether the claim was confirmed or not. |
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The forensic pathologist determined that the baby drew a breath using a test that can be unreliable.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15867
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | 3
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The moment you turn this in a game of words, all sense is lost. -------------------------------------------- On the contrary, I would argue using the correct terminology allows us to clarify meaning. In another thread you corrected my usage of thought bubble to thought balloon -- quite rightly-- though you clearly would have known what I meant. Using the correct terms helps us rather than hinders us surely?
When you say at the point of conception it is a fetus, we are talking about a single cell and a single cell is not a fetus by the very definition of the word. Furthermore, when you say a single cell is a human being, I cannot possibly agree.
And "potential" is such a cowardly word. It is absurd to talk about the "potential" of something when it CANNOT BE ANYTHING ELSE.----------------------------------------------- To think you MUST end up with a baby because an egg is fertilised is absurd, to use your own word.
We talk about potential when it is not 100% given that it will come to be. You say it cannot be anything else, as if a fertilised egg or an embryo must definitely succeed in being brought to term. Patently this is not true.
The overwhelming liklihood at the point of conception is that you do not end up with a baby -- successfully impanting into the womb is a fairly longshot. Hence potential.
Edited by Peter Martin on 02 April 2015 at 1:55pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 2:02pm | IP Logged | 4
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On the contrary, I would argue using the correct terminology allows us to clarify meaning. In another thread you corrected my usage of thought bubble to thought balloon -- quite rightly-- though you clearly would have known what I meant. Using the correct terms helps us rather than hinders us surely?•• Not when -- at least, according to the dictionary -- the terms being debated are interchangeable. +++ And "potential" is such a cowardly word. It is absurd to talk about the "potential" of something when it CANNOT BE ANYTHING ELSE. ----------------------------------------------- To think you MUST end up with a baby because an egg is fertilised is absurd, to use your own word. •• How very fortunate, then, that I did not say that.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15867
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | 5
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WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HUMAN BABIES. There is no reason to waste time on specifying this in each instance. And "potential" is such a cowardly word. It is absurd to talk about the "potential" of something when it CANNOT BE ANYTHING ELSE. ------------------------------------------------------------ -------- I really don't understand what you are saying here then.
You seem to have definitively said that from the moment of conception on it makes no sense to talk about potential because it can only be one thing, which I took to mean as saying it can only end up as one thing.... a baby.
If a conceptus aborts when it is only a handful of cells it is a handful of cells. Not a human. Not a baby. Surely the minimum definition of what constitutes a human being is to have a brain? Before an embryo develops you don't even know which cells will end up as embryo and which will become nutrients for the baby.
Edited by Peter Martin on 02 April 2015 at 6:00pm
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Paul Kimball
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2174
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 8:04pm | IP Logged | 6
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I think it's hard for a lot of us to discuss this without snipping at each other
and being passive aggressive. I'll get some ice tea before I try
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 8:27pm | IP Logged | 7
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I really don't understand what you are saying here then.You seem to have definitively said that from the moment of conception on it makes no sense to talk about potential because it can only be one thing, which I took to mean as saying it can only end up as one thing.... a baby. ••• From the moment of conception, that growing packet of cells is a human being. It does not have the "potential" to be a human being, since the use of that word implies a possibility of it being something else. If something goes wrong, and that packet of cells does not grow fully and properly, it is a human being that dies. An unfinished human being, but still a human being, BECAUSE IT CANNOT BE ANYTHING ELSE. As it develops, a human embryo basically traces our evolutionary path. There is even a point at which it has gills. But those gills do not mean there is any "potential" that it will abruptly change its developmental course and be born a fish. When I was in College I dated a girl whose mother was a doctor. She, the mother, told me real life horror stories of the "things" that are born in hospitals around the world, every hour of every day. And that was her word -- "things." Things that the attending doctors did not work very hard to keep alive. But those "things" were the product of sexual congress between a human male and a human female. However distorted they might be, they were human, just like the warped and distorted victims of thalidomide were human. We humans are surprisingly skilled at pretending others are not human. Black people are not human. Jews are not human. Once upon a time, in this country, the Irish were considered less than human. And that's why playing stupid games with words benefits no one. Clear?
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Paul Kimball
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2174
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | 8
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the hardest part of a conversation is listening and not just working to get
your own point across.
This whole situation is tragic and I don't think anyone is saying any
different. What has to change to prevent this sort of thing?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 02 April 2015 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | 9
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What has to change to prevent this sort of thing?••• Getting rid of organized religion would be a start.
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Stephen Robinson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5835
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| Posted: 03 April 2015 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | 10
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JB: We humans are surprisingly skilled at pretending
others are not human. Black people are not human. Jews
are not human. Once upon a time, in this country, the
Irish were considered less than human.
And that's why playing stupid games with words benefits
no one.
Clear?
***
SER: I encounter a great deal of this emotional
"distancing" you describe when discussing abortion with
people who wish for it to remain safe and legal. I wish
that wasn't the case. I wish we could just acknowledge
that a fetus is a human being (fetus is a technical,
age-based term, like newborn, infant, or toddler but
that doesn't make any of them "more or less" human than
any other). I've known women who miscarried within their
first trimester and were devastated and mourned the loss
of a child -- not a potential child but a child.
Many pro-lifers like to imagine women callously having
abortions, but that's not the case, either, at least
from my experience. It is a very difficult decision. But
some people ask, "Why is it a decision at all? Life is
life, right?" However, this is a unique situation in
which the mother and her wishes must take precedence
over her child. Once a human being is born, he or she
can assert his personhood and "inalieanable" rights but
prior to that, it is totally dependent upon the mother.
When my wife was pregnant, I saw firsthand the effort a
mother must take to preserve the life of an unborn child
-- changes in diet, sleep patterns, exercise and so on.
Her health is basically the child's health, which again
is a condition that is not the case once the child is
born. If a 2 year old's mother is an alcoholic heroin
addict who lives on M&Ms and french fries, the health of
the child is not threatened and even if it is
indirectly, the state can effectively remove the child
from the mother's influence.
Abortion is not a "clean" easy problem. I think that's
the issue for many on either side. The reality is that
medical abortion is the most humane method of
terminating a pregnancy. And the further reality is that
if a woman doesn't want to be pregnant, she won't be. Or
do we want a society where a pregnant woman is charged
for drinking or eating sushi and deli meat or smoking or
even just lying around on the sofa eating pork rinds and
soda?
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Kevin Hagerman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 April 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 17997
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| Posted: 05 April 2015 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | 11
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She should have owned up to her choice and dealt with it before this became an option for her. -- There's an entire major political party working night and day to make this more and more common. This is exactly what I would expect to happen. Bill Clinton said it best: Safe, legal, and rare. That's the position this country is lunging away from.
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Joseph Gauthier
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 March 2009
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| Posted: 06 April 2015 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | 12
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There's an entire major political party working night and day to make this more and more common.
Perhaps. But that dynamic doesn't have much bearing on this particular case. Instead, we're examining the case of a seemingly infantilized thirty-three year old woman, still frightened of her parents. Regardless of whatever pressure she felt was brought to bear upon her, as a grown woman in the United States, that pressure was ultimately self-inflicted.
She should have owned up to her choice and dealt with it before this became an option for her.
Unfortunately, based upon the information in the two linked articles, this woman does not strike me as a human being capable of exercising her own individual agency. Instead, this thirty-three year old woman seems to have, for whatever reason, substituted outside judgement for her own, and in effect, abdicated her own personhood; and perhaps, through inaction, allowed a living human being to die.
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Topic Closed)
