Moral Behavior should be advancement or downgrading?

Philosopher always emphasized that only human has the moral issue. Human who has the following characters as defined as human. The fetus does not have the following characters, which means it does not category as human beings.   

(1)   " consciousness (of objects and events external and /or internal to the being), and in particular the capacity to feel pain;

(2)    reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems)

(3)    self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genstic or direct external control);

(4)    the capacity to communicate, by what ever means,  messages of an indefinite variety of types, that is, not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely man possible topics

(5)    the presence of self-concepts, and self awareness, either individual or racial, or both. "(By Mary Anne Warren)

  

 If human following these characters to define that fetus is not a human beings. It is kind of Anthropocentric, although fetus has the potentials to become the human beings.

 As human are chasing for the higher moral rather than lower. If a person who does something really bad, for example, killing the people crucially, people would say that this guy acts like an animal. Why he did like that? Even though, people kill an ordinary dog, it will be disliked by other people in the modern society. As the moral keeps going to chase for the better not worse, this kind of activity would treat as bad behavior. Human is chasing for the higher moral, the fetus is chasing for the becoming the completed physical body. If human is advancement, the concept of moral is higher. In the meanwhile, killing the fetus in order to personal reason, this activity is morally downgrading.   

How do you determine the humanity of a being?

Noonan is a professor of law at the University of California Berkeley. He has some persuasive points to state that abortion is immoral. Most of the points are based on the view of theology.

Human always defined a person who is rational. In the words of rational, theologian called ensoulment. Theologian can be analyzed as a refusal to discriminate among human beings on the basis of their varying potentialities. Once conceived, the being was recognized as man because he had man’s potential. The criterion for humanity, thus, was simple and all-embracing: if you are conceived by human parents, you are human.

The law in US stated that the abortion is illegal if the fetus is older than 8 weeks. But mere length of life is not an exact measure. The reason is different racial groups with different ages at which their fetuses are viable. Some evidence, for example, suggests that Negro fetuses mature more quickly than white fetuses. In additional, Humanity depends on formation by experience. At an earlier stage the zygote is certainly alive and responding to its environment. It is not clear why experience as such confers humanity.

Fetus has sentiments of adults. When movements in the woman womb manifest a vigorous presence demanding joyful recognition by the parents. Yet feeling is notoriously an insure guide to the humanity of others. Many groups of humans have had difficulty in feeling that person of another tongue, color, religion, sex, are as human as they. Nor can touch provide the test; a being confined by sickness, out of touch with others, does not thereby seems to lose his humanity.

Human defined that fetus does not have the social visible. Excluded from the society of men, the fetus is excluded from the humanity of men. This distinction is to be rejected. If humanity depends on social recognition, individuals or whole groups may be dehumanized by being denied any status in their society. For example, in the Roman empire, for example, condemnation to slavery meant the practical denial of most human rights. In the Chinese communist world, landlords have been classified as enemies of the people and so treated as nonpersons by the state. Humanity does not depend on social recognition, though often the failure of society to recognize the prisoner, the alien, the heterodox as human has led to the destruction of human beings. Anyone conceived by a man and a woman is human. Recognition of this condition by society follows a real event in the objective order, however imperfect and halting the recognition. Any attempt to limit humanity to exclude some group runs the risk of furnishing authority and precedent for excluding other groups in the name of the consciousness or perception of the controlling group in the society.

Philosopher is to ask how he reasons about moral questions without supposing that there is a sense in which he and the other to whom he speaks are human. Second answer is to ask if he does not believe that there is a right and wrong way of deciding moral questions. He stated that moral judgments often rest on distinctions, but if the distinctions are not to appear arbitrary fiat, they should relate to some real difference in probabilities.

The total inability of the fetus to speak for itself and the fact that the right of the fetus regularly at stake is the right to life itself. The principles of double effect was no doctrine fallen from heaven, but a method of analysis appropriate where two relative values were being compared.

 In Catholic moral theology, as it developed, life even of the innocent was not taken as an absolute. Judgments on acts affecting life issued from a process of weighing. In the weighing, the fetus was always given a value greater than zero, always a value separate and independent from its parents.  Even with the fetus weighed as human, one interest could be weighed as equal or superior: that of the mother in her own life.   

Potentiality Is Irrelevant

According to Tooley, the potentiality of the fetus or infant to become a

person is irrelevant. He seeks to show this irrelevancy by the example

of a kitten that is injected with a special serum developed by scientists

to enhance and develop super-feline rationality (Tooley 1972, p. 60).

This serum can turn any young Boots, Whiskers, or Snowball in your

neighborhood into a being as rational as Salem the talking cat from the

TV show

available and you also have your three cuddly kittens nearby.

Would you have an obligation to turn Boots, Whiskers, and Snowball

into talking cats? It might be quite kind to do so, but you certainly would

not be obliged to do so. You have no duty to chase around the entire

neighborhood collecting all stray kittens and changing them all into

rational cats, even though (after the invention of the serum) all kittens

are potentially rational.

To see how the kitten example is relevant to the potentiality of the

fetus and newborn, Tooley introduces a distinct consideration which he

calls the “symmetry principle.” The symmetry principle is, “if it is not

seriously wrong to refrain from initiating such a causal process, neither is

it seriously wrong to interfere with such a process” (Tooley 1972, p. 58).

Similarly, consider two cases (Rachels 1975). Smith enters the bathroom

of his young nephew and drowns the child to get an inheritance. Jones

has exactly the same plan, is going into the bathroom to drown the child,

but watches with delight as the child hits his head and begins to drown

right in front of him. Jones could easily save the child but doesn’t lift a

fi nger, and the young nephew drowns. Jones and Smith are equally at

fault, even though one did something and the other did nothing. One

man performed an act of commission, the other man an act of omission;

but there is no important difference between the two.

Similarly, if you do not inject the kitten with special serum, a functioning

rational animal, a talking cat, will not come to be. If you have an abortion

or destroy a newborn, a functioning rational animal, a human person, will

not come to be. Not injecting the kitten is an act of omission—the failure

to start a process that will have as its end the existence of a functioning

rational animal. Having an abortion or destroying an infant is an act of

commission—interrupting a process that will have as its end the existence

of a functioning rational animal.

According to the moral symmetry principle, there is no important

moral difference between act and omission, between not starting a

process and interrupting a process. We certainly do not seem to have

an obligation to make all kittens rational, thus we have no obligation to

let all human fetuses or all human infants develop into rational animals

(Tooley 1972, p. 62). Since the human infant and the human fetus have

at best the potential to become functioning adult persons (some of course

never make it), the right to life position fails if based on the potentiality

principle.

In sum, there is no duty to turn potential rational beings into actually

rational beings. Further, there is no moral difference between not starting

a process and interrupting a process that is already started (the symmetry

principle). So, since there is nothing wrong with not making potentially

rational beings (the kittens) into rational beings (Salem), so too there

is nothing wrong with interrupting the process whereby a potentially

rational being (the fetusSabrina the Teenage Witch. Let’s imagine such serum is readily

An Attempt to Provide Coherent Arguments and Answers to the Questions Raised under the Italian Case in Abortion Group 2’s Blog, by SWAN = Stephen Wan

An Attempt to Provide Coherent Arguments and Answers to the Questions Raised under the Italian Case in Abortion Group 2’s Blog, by SWAN = Stephen Wan

We may take reference of legal issues of abortion when we focus on the moral issues of abortion. On moral ground we look into aspects including but not limited to the legal. If there is a realistic case as introduced by Abortion Study Group 2, we may apply some contemporary and legal rules, examine the moral standpoints and rationales (if any), and provide arguments and moral justification for application of such rules, if possible. Let us try to make use of the reference materials already discussed in our recent new blogs, and start our ethical studies and analyses as follows:

[Thanks for Abortion Study Group 2’s Italian case as copied fully below in blue]

Our comment and opinion are typed in green. The author never assumes the viewpoints and moral discussions below should be absolute without alternatives, but will try to maintain consistency in argumentation.

 

Complexity of the moral and legal issue of abortion

This is an excellent case which demonstrates the complexity of the moral and legal issue of abortion. [Excellent, yes, agreed. Thanks.]

In April 2010, an Italian pregnant woman committed herself to abort her 22-week infant after being acknowledged that her baby was disabled.

[Within the first 24 months, even a normal healthy foetus may be aborted under absolute discretion of the mother with doctors’ certificates to support the operation, as permitted by UK law.

Reason: 

(a)   From "neurological" view of life, life only begins on acquisition of brain wave pattern between 24-27 weeks of embryo development. In the first 22 weeks, no EEG brain wave pattern, the foetus may not be taken as a person.

(b)   The mother actually need not give any reason to justify abortion at this moment of time. The foetus, being disabled if born, helps to give better excuses.

(c)   As there are so many perspectives about when the life in the womb can be regarded as a person, if no brain wave is accepted as “no person”, then such intended abortion cannot be rejected. There is no murder for there is “no person” to be killed.]

Leave alone the question of whether this act was itself moral, but as stated by the Italian law, women had the right to choose an abortion on the condition that the going-to-be aborted infant did not have a possibility to live separately from the mother.

[Italian law is similar to UK law under EC law together, I suppose.

The mother appears to be sensible and reasonable, making decision only after obtaining full diagnostic report and understanding from the doctors.

She has fulfilled the expected requirement of due diligence and care, and considered the “expected future hard (but is it a sufficient ground? Some critics may demand. But as said above, the mother actually need not justify the abortion in week 22) life of her disabled baby without dignity.

Her decision to abort the foetus should be brave and sound. (We should assume all mothers are caring mother.)

She cannot just hold wait and see attitude causing delay and facing more risks and danger.

She has committed to a pre-term abortion, better than a late-term abortion.

She should be pitied rather than condemned.

She can only rely on doctors’ assessment and judgment that the “baby at birth” will not be capable of leading an independent life.]

What made the case more entangled was that the infant miraculously survived after the abortion procedure yet was left by the doctor and other hospital staffs to die! Not until a priest went to pray beside the baby was this mishap noticed by anyone.

[(a) Either the doctors might have made wrong assessment and judgment, or this particular foetus’ physical development is exceptional- a deviation from normal.

(b) If it should be the former, the doctors might be liable to conviction of murder NOT BECAUSE OF LETTING DIE but in view of the fact that such abortive medical act aims at causing death of such foetus inside the womb has become unsuccessful in failure, and a birth ensues, yet the neonate lives awhile but dies as a result of injuries sustained in the earlier attempt to destroy it, a verdict of murder or manslaughter may ensue.

(c) The moral ground for such severe accusation of the doctors is the non-acceptance of failure in handling an abortion of a pre-term child being born alive outside from the womb, and such a child should become a person, and its destruction may be regarded as destruction of a person, and that means homicide or murder.

(d) Therefore we do not even need to ask whether “letting die” should be the ground for conviction of murder or manslaughter. In fact we should not take “letting die” as the ground in confusing with involuntary passive euthanasia, which is legally permissible.

A number of controversial arguments should be considered in this case, and they are:

1)      The infant who was aborted evidenced that it could literally live independently from its mother (outside her womb) for two days, should it then be regarded as, although premature,  a ‘real’ human being?

[Yes, it is thus defined as a person having independent respiration for 2 days. BUT the doctors can also defend that it is NOT a person because there is no EEG brain wave pattern. Human Being real or NOT is the issue. Arguments only restrict to perception of “person and personhood”.]

2)      If so, should the operation decided by the mother and performed by the doctor be considered as Intentional Murder instead of an abortion?

[Definitely NOT an intended murder because there is no person in the womb. The intention is merely abortion within the normally accepted first 24 weeks. BUT there might have been professional negligence during operation for the abortion.]

3)      Once born alive, the infant was officially an Italian citizen and should be entitled to all of the citizen rights.

[Not really as the “so-called person” outside the womb actually has no EEG brain wave, no personhood and rationality so the status as a “person’ is unsafe and in doubt.]

4)      Was it morally or legally justified for the doctor to simply walked out of the door and leave it to die?

[Yes, both morally and legally. The foetus outside womb is definitely pre-mature for further healthy development outside mother’s womb. There is NO potential, capacity and prospect of successful growth development, no hope, and a desperate case. What’s wrong is not “letting die” as it might have been regarded as “dead” without EEG brain wave. so “letting die” is a wrong  impression as there can never be “letting the dead die”.

5)      And was it morally right for its mother to abandon it?

[Yes, sorry about that. She cannot keep the “dead” forever and make it alive again.]

6)      Undoubtedly that every couples prefer their children to be able-bodied and healthy for reasons like, being healthy leads to a more satisfactory life, having a disabled children would increase the burden (mental and financial) on the couples etc, but was it a strong enough reason for the mother to abort the infant just because it failed to attain her expectation?

[Sorry, but the questions appear unfair to the mother, being just an outsider’s own speculation and private query unrelated to the mother’s own perception, feeling, and personal ground for discretionary decision. The mother has sole discretion.]

7)      If so, would it be justified for a mother to abandon her child who has experienced a tragic accident and was subsequently disabled?

[They are different. To distinguish the two scenarios is simple: that the week 22 foetus is not just disabled but arguably a recognizable “person” who is already dead without EEG brain wave despite 2 days of “independent living with heartbeat and/or respiration”. A living child after accident is still a living child if he is saved alive despite disability after the accident. The child is a living person no doubt. Of course the mother should not abandon the child morally and cannot abandon the child in breach of laws.]

CONCLUSION:

(a)   If we accept EEG wave pattern as the sign for “person” and a recognized life, yet the above tragic happening may arise and becoming disturbing, we may have to ask again whether EEG brain wave should be a reliable test for existence of “person and personhood”.

(b)   If not, then the permission for abortion within the first 24 weeks should be pushed back further to an earlier date and a shorter period after conception.

(c)   Certainly up to now, no theory on definition of “beginning of a person and personhood” is absolutely free from any flaw.

(d)   Abortion should neither be promoted nor prohibited unless there is truth in flawless theory on either side pro-life or pro-choice. So far, it appears nil.

How UK Laws may consider death of babies in- or out-side the womb pre-, or at-birth , and post- natal deaths

Information from SWAN = Stephen Wan
Subject: How the laws take care of controversial death of foetuses in UK
(Indirectly provides us some realistic frames of reference for our discussion on moral grounds for abortion):-


Starting from a case A-G's Reference (no. 3 of 1994), the HL confirmed, obiter, previous understanding that to detsroy a viable foetus, however late in term, would not constitute any form of homicide.

(a) This is so whether the life of the foetus is destructed in the womb or whether the foetus is to be stillborn (i.e. dead at birth, NOT dead after birth).

(b) To attain personhood status, the live foetus' whole body must emerge into the world and at once sustain an independent existence from the mother no matter how brief the time is. [a test of independent respiration is favoured as reliable]

COMMENT:
(i) Of course, the pro-life anti-abortionist group will find this legislation horrible that even the foetus is a life but it never attains personhood until after birth with immediate independent respiration for existence.
(ii) And inside the womb, such a foetus life is NOT a person, and any treatment causing its death will not be regarded as murder or homicide (reason: no "person", no murder).
(iii) In other words, even though we know that as late as the 8th month (as long as the foetus is inside the womb), the foetus is pretty much the "same " as a neonate (a baby less than one month old after birth) - no further metamorphic development, recognition is given only to the baby after birth as a person in disregard of its health or physical fitness. That inside the womb, no matter how healthy, is given no such recognition.

(c) Therefore the legal confernment of personhood reflects a societal perceptions which are not underpinned by biological data.

(d) As a result, no murder, but only child destruction or unlawfully procuring miscarriage may be charged against a defendant whose unjustifiable or inexcusable act causes death of the foetus as long as the dead foetus remains inside the womb.

COMMENT:
The penalty on sentencing under such charges would be not be as severe as that under charge of murder.

(e) BUT if such act aims at casung death of such foetus inside the womb but has become unsuccessful, and a birth ensues, yet the neonate lives awhile but dies as a result of injuries sustained in the earlier attempt to detroy it, a verdict of murder or manslaughter may ensue.

(f) BUT please also note that a LAWFUL abortion may be allowed normally within the first 24 weeks . Cases when the babies should be born with serious deformities and handicap but only found out after the first 24 weeks, special permission shall have to be applied.

COMMENT:
Therefore, abortion purely can be decided even without the husband's consent, if the pregnant woman herself thinks fit. The foetus belongs to her alone for its fate. Under UK law, nobody can interrupt her decision, but a doctor can refuse to carry out abortion for her. She still needs two doctors' certification, both physically and psychologically fit for aborting her child foetus.

(g) a pre-term child born alive outside from the womb should become a person, and its destruction may be regarded as destruction of a person, and that means homicide or murder.

(h) A Late-term child birth in death due to infliction of pre-birth injuries still would not amount to the killing of a person (as firmly held by HL). But if it has been alive for even a short while (has become a person), then there is an offence (murder, manslaughter, child destruction...)

COMMENT (quoted from **):
It is believed that the receptuion of a child into the world after the point of birth is an event of enormous culturla significance, laden with symbolism. These social facts receive more weight than biological data facts when resolving the parameters of the law of homicide.

[** All the above points (except seveal COMMENT)  AND  the last COMMENT with (**) are extracted from Criminal Law: theory and doctrine, by A. P. Simester & G. R. Sullivan, Oxford- Portland Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2000, page 321]

HL stands for House of Lords

Phased & Substance Sortals: Existence and continued existence

When we discuss and argue about moral possibility of toleration or acceptance of abortion, we should learn the divergent opinions on concept of identity, existence and continued existence in order to hopefully grasp some clearer understanding of a life, person or person and personhood, and a thing, and whether a life is a thing or beyond a thing.

To gain more fruitful discussion, we should learn logician's concept of sortals:
(a) phased sortals,
(b) substance sortals

and try to understand statements like:
(a) A phased sortal designates a kind to which an individual may belong through only part of its history.
(b) A substance sortal designates a kind to which an individual necessarily belongs throughout its entire existence.

and
(i) If "x" is a substance sortal, there are criteria for being an "x" that any "x" must satisfy as long as it exists.

(ii) The criteria given by the substance sortal appear to state only a NECESSARY condition for the continued existence of an individual of the kind "x". It is not always SUFFICIENT for the continued existence of an individual "x" that, beginning with that individual, one can trace the continuous presence through space and time of an "x".

The above relates to the problem we come across when we face diffculties in agreeing on personal identity over time and ask what is necessarily involved in our continued existence. For one could cease to be a person without ceasing to exist, just as a child  may cease to be a child without ceasing to exist, [for example].

[The above are extracted out from J. McMahan's The Ethics of Killing: Problems at The Margins of Life, Oxford: OUP, page 6 & 7 (2002)]

Concerning the physical criterion of personal identity, at least 3 important questions have been asked by D. Parfit in his book: Resons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon (1987) , page 202:-
(a) What is the nature of a person?
(b) What makes a person at 2 different times one and the same person? What is necessarily involved in the continued existence of each person over time?
(c) What is in fact involved in the continued existence of each person over time?

Please do not just limit oour thoughts on abortion when we read and re-read the above questions.

Please also think about whether there are contradictions, dilemma and paradoxes already "built-in" or concealed behind the questions that even Parfit, and later, McMahan, may have missed out in their discussions.

The above questions, no matter what, do open up our visions and at the same time, define more clearly some crucial points and scope that we should not ignore when we try to justify the pro-choice or pro-life positions on the topic about abortion.

The above questions help us check whether we may come into agreement on what we mean by "organism", "human", "human organism", and "human being".

Later, I may try to provide some more details on sortals and recognition as part of my studies about "stages, sortals and possible world" as written by A. Brennan

Arguments for or against the 4 Points of Time for Commencement of a Person

(1) At fertilization (conception in human beings):-
Yes, there is a zygote and then embryo, a new genome, and a strong argument from the potential perspective, to hold it as the commencement of a living human person, to many theologians and ethicists.
BUT

(a) 59-60% of all human embryos conceived (WITHOUT induced abortion) still cannot survive but 'miscarried" before th 8th week of pregnancy 'naturally'.

(b) Science at the moment perhaps still cannot answer for sure that fertilization (conception) as the meeting process of two cells (sperm and ovum) must be the sine qua non (an absolutely indispensable thing) of personhood.

(c) The essential discovery is: In marmoset monkeys, parthenogentic embryos can develop and successfully implant in the uterus. (i.e. need no sperm)

(d) Hence science cannot claim that creation of a new genome as a result of conception must be the absolutely indispensable point of time for commencement of personhood, and cannot even claim that conception is the sine qua non of development of the new individual organism.

(2) Acquisition of an Individual Physical Identity:-
An embryo may develop into twins within 14 days of fertilization (gastrulation), and if that does not happen, then it normally will be growing up into a single person, and so also may be supposed to be the start of personhood. In favour of this view, there are-

(a) scientists doing biomedical research on embryonic stem cells critically take refernce of this very important time slot.

(b) theologians talk about "ensoulment" during the short period  within 12- 14 days of fertilization by the obvious assumption that souls must be unique and separate to individuals including twins, and the time of souls entering the body as a metaphysical event must not be earlier than the first 12 days and not later than the 14th day.

(3) Acquisition of the Human EEG (Brainwave pattern):-
From "neurological" view of life, life only begins on acquisition of brain wave pattern bewteen 24-27 weeks of embryo development. Why?

(a) Actual connection between nervous system and the cerebral nerves only start in significant numbers from 7th month onward.

(b) Such synaptical connections allow communication and then coordination of neural activities  facilitating conscious awareness which to some ethicists, defines  personhood (only from this stage onward), as supported by this neurological view.

(4) Life begins at Birth:-
Why?
(a) Basically, the new genome (DNA) with the embryo alone cannot form the blue print for personhood. as the individual's trait and characteristics.

(b) There must be interaction of genetic DNA with the environmental variables throughout the process of development in the mother's womb that results in human characteristics.

(c) Therefore mother's womb is not a vessel, and the mother's body is a participant to help form the personhood of the baby during the full period of pregancy.

[The above discussions are mainly extracted and/ or paraphrased out from Alton, Althea K's "Staying Within an Understanding Distance"- One Feminist's Scientific and Theological Reflections on Pregnancy and Abortion]