Anonymous asked:
You ignore the countless scientists who say that even if life begins at conception that personhood does not necessarily start then and that that is a discussion for the philosophers. Most prolifers clearly don't believe that personhood begins at conception given how they don't give a shit if the zygote dies before it starts looking human.
anamericangirl answered:
I don’t ignore those scientists. I reject their idea of personhood. The problem is you’ll claim life doesn’t start at conception and when you get proven wrong you change the goalposts and pretend you were arguing that they’re not people from conception and that’s logical fallacy.
All scientists will acknowledge it is a human life but what they don’t agree on is whether that human life has value.
But also I reject your claim that personhood is a philosophical concept. If someone is a human being they are a person.
Philosophers can argue about personhood all they want but you can’t use philosophy to argue that it’s ok to kill someone because the philosophical concept you subscribe to has decided they aren’t people.
You can find a philosophy that will justify anything you want if you look.
And I think you’re confusing pro-lifers with pro-aborts. You’ll are the ones who don’t give a shit about the death of a baby as long they don’t look human to you.
So what other human beings aren’t people and thus ok to kill, in your opinion?
And we also do care if a human zygote dies either from miscarriage or an abortifacient birth control. A human life if a human life at any stage of development and it’s always a tragedy when we lose a new human being.
@secularprolifeconspectus I know you have a pretty metaphysical definition of person; thought you might want to add it to this post
@a-really-big-cat sure, I can do that. Thanks for tagging me.
First, I want to respond to the original ask. Pro-Lifers very much do give a shit about zygotes and embryos before they start "looking human" (what does a human even look like? That is what humans are supposed to look like at that age! Babies don't look like adults etc; I digress.)
Dr. Calum Miller recently dropped an essay on why we prioritize ending abortion over reducing miscarriage. I'll add to his thoughts that preventing miscarriages would require enforcement via the State; we're interested in collectively preventing the interpersonal violence of abortion, not in policing women's bodies.
My question for you: do you think human embryos leftover from IVF should be destroyed? Pro-Lifers think they should NOT be, which is why embryo adoption agencies now exist.
Note to pro-lifers: this is a good example of why if we want to end abortion, we need to act like it is murder and RESCUE preborn people. You don't rescue an idea, you rescue people. It is in sacrificing for the preborn that they are rehumanized in the eyes of folks like this anon.
Second, to quote Smith, “[i]f the moral irrelevance of humanity is what philosophy teaches, so that we have to choose between philosophy and the intuition that says that membership in the human species is morally relevant, philosophy will have to go.” To quote Gorka, "we don't believe in personhood; we believe in persons."
Third: despite our rejection of personhood, allow me to indulge your demand for proof of it. I wrote an article using Harry Potter to explain how prenatal humans have personhood.
In short, any being with the inherent capacity for kinship with humankind has active relation with personhood. A human fetus is in the actual process of either attaining, retaining, or restoring the capabilities that make her a person. It is this continuous identity relationship that gives us personhood, from fertilization to death.
In other words: humans are always people in virtue of belonging to humankind, and the burden of proof rests on you to show how our metaphysical explanation is insufficient. YOU must prove why the preborn are the only class of humans exceptional to the rule that human beings are full and equal people to ourselves.
It's our rational conclusion that fetuses are human individuals entitled to freedom from violence.
catchymemes