Abortion

[Bob Butler]

I go along with the majority opinion, that abortion in the first two trimesters is allowed. In a democracy, the majority opinion counts. I have said this many times. Are you listening?

Once again you have failed to define sentient. What trait does a fetus have which a cow doesn't? Are you listening?

I agree that the doctrines of any given religion cannot according to the Constitution be forced on all. Why do you believe this shouldn't be true of all doctrines? Are you listening?

I believe in protecting all sentient life, but do not share your religious doctrine. Feel free to practice it personally, but the Constitution prevents the government from enforcing it. Are you listening?

I suggest you try listening.

[Tom Mazanec]

I go along with the majority opinion, that abortion in the first two trimesters is allowed. In a democracy, the majority opinion counts. I have said this many times. Are you listening?

Once again you have failed to define sentient. What trait does a fetus have which a cow doesn't? Are you listening?

I agree that the doctrines of any given religion cannot according to the Constitution be forced on all. Why do you believe this shouldn't be true of all doctrines? Are you listening?

I believe in protecting all sentient life, but do not share your religious doctrine. Feel free to practice it personally, but the Constitution prevents the government from enforcing it. Are you listening?

I suggest you try listening.

Again, the majority in the Deep South in 1861 favored slavery. The majority of the Third Reich favored anti-Semitism. Were they right?

A fetus has humanity. Protecting all humans is my first priority.

Religious doctrine cannot be forced on all, but morality not only can but must be. That is what all laws do.
Again, it is not doctrine the pro-choicers are trying to enforce, but morality. The "morality" of murdering a fetus. Similarly pro-lifers are trying to enforce their morality. If no one tried to enforce a morality their would be no laws.

You believe in protecting all sentient life. I assume you are a vegan. Should the government enforce veganism? Meanwhile, Negroes are sentient. Do you believe in the government preventing cops from killing negroes for a traffic violation? If so, then be consistent.

I suggest you try listening.

[Bob Butler]

The slaveholders, the Third Reich, and the bad cops are wrong. They cause harm to others. Freedom is an important principle, but it does not justify harming other sentients. I really find it hard to believe you have not acknowledged and accepted that these examples aren’t examples that support your position. Rule of law is a significant principle. The majority getting to decide the law is important in a democracy as well.

If you could define and get everybody to agree with a version of sentience in such a way as a fetus has it and a cow could not, you would have a real argument. That I have repeatedly asked this of you and you have not leads me to conclude you can’t. What property of humanity does a fetus have that a cow does not? If you were capable of coming up with such a property, your desire to protect humanity would step above that of a religious doctrine. It would make your opinion possible under the Constitution.

And I have repeatedly presented that killing cows is OK, so the vegan proposition is as irrelevant as the LGB one. In neither case is anything human and sentient being harmed. No reason for the medical or law enforcement communities to act.

So unless you come up with a property that uniquely defines humans which a fetus has already developed in the first two trimesters, you have yourself a religious doctrine. No official US religion. No specified power of Congress to enforce religious doctrines. I am guessing you want to define humanity as occurring as soon as the sperm fertilizes the egg. Such a one cell ‘human’ is not recognized by a lot of folks as sentient. It has not yet developed a property that is not common to a lot of animals that we kill all the time. This makes any definition you come up with questionable.

Now this isn’t very new. We can go back and forth with our opinions a few more times, but I don’t think either of us are saying much we haven’t said before. You just come up with more weird examples that can be dismissed with the same arguments I have already presented. If you wish to continue to argue for an undefined and nonexistent sentience, go ahead, but you really ought to find a way a single cell can be considered sentient.

[Tom Mazanec]

You are not arguing for sentience (which most animals are), you are arguing for sapience.
I protect all actual and potential sapients. Even "permanently" comatose people have revived.
When we encounter ETI I will expand my definition.

[John]

What's ETI I?

[Tom Mazanec]

What's ETI I?

ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence.

I would also add AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) to my potential expansions.

[Bob Butler]

You are not arguing for sentience (which most animals are), you are arguing for sapience.

Acknowledged.

[Tom Mazanec]

Don't feel bad, BB, it is not your fault, it is just one (of many) of the English Language's faults. Probably promoted, if not created, by science fiction writers who misuse the terms.

So, a person at night in non-REM sleep is not sapient, but is both pre-sapient (morning) and post-sapient (evening).
A person in a "permanent" vegetative state is post-sapient (and even such "permanent" states have reversed in medical history).
A fertilized human zygote is pre-sapient.
All of these are alive.
A spermatozoan or ovum is not "alive" by this definition in the sense that they cannot grow and divide on their own...they become alive when they join.

I wish to protect all sapient beings throughout natural life. This includes now humans, plus hypothetically aliens (another word misused by science fiction authors...my favorite scene in the old Lost In Space lampshaded this), uplifted animals, AGI computers, and possibly others I have not thought of.

[Bob Butler]

I pretty much agree with your summaries. I would not consider someone sleeping pre or post sapient for purposes of this discussion. The police would call it murder regardless of whether the victim was sleeping.

I would agree that sapient life should be protected, but not long term pre or post sapient life. Yes, the medical community very occasionally messes up post sapient.

If the ‘uses language’ test for if something is sapient is used, you should err considerably on the side of sapient.

Still, computer programs that no one thinks of as sapient are able to communicate with language these days. “Please insert card now.” No one is suggesting that such programs should never be turned off permanently. “Please? A card? I really want to read a card?” Thus, there might be some other element of ‘awareness’ or ‘desire’ that properly should be involved. It would be even more difficult to argue that a fetus has that degree of awareness or desire.

If an elephant can anxiously seek human help in rescuing her calf, if they can mourn a friend by caressing their tusks after death, I am not sure such an awareness doesn’t exist in some animals. If today it is considered OK to kill cows, I am not positively sure it will be considered OK a few centuries from now. But that is a problem for another day. These difficult moral questions evolve over the centuries.

[Tom Mazanec]

Perhaps free will, reason and self awareness are factors in the equation?