At this point, the number of people who would, in all seriousness, say gays or blacks aren’t people is so vanishingly small, their concept of what the consensus should be doesn’t matter. They’re not part of it. The law doesn’t reflect their views.

But if people get their heads far enough up their asses, there’s literally no limit to what they can decide about this. If a society has no concepts of fairness and justice, and decides that, say, all blonds are slaves, then behavior is organized accordingly. People can and have done that in the past. Those aren’t very happy societies, and they tend to fall apart on first contact with better ones, but the fact remains that social consensus can be anything. It doesn’t have to make sense.

So the answer to the anti-choicers is to point out that they’d better have an inclusive view of who’s human, including women, and blacks, and gays, because if they don’t, there is nothing to stop, say, me, from deciding that their highest purpose would be as spare organ parts.

And a view of humanity that includes women as persons with the same rights as everyone else means that being pro-choice is the only option on a social level. (One can always be anti-abortion for oneself.) Even people who believe the fetus has all the rights of a citizen cannot start giving that fetus more rights. If they insist that women can be forced to provide life support for a fetus, then they’re promoting the idea that some people are more important and others can be used as ambulatory organ storage. As I say, I doubt very much that they really want to go there.

So, short form: no, there’s nothing outside of consensus that decides who’s human. Yes, we better decide women have the same rights as anyone else, because otherwise any class of humans can be declared non-persons if the consensus decides to go that way.

(Hmm. Pretty longwinded. I hope I answered your question, somewhere in there. )

So how do you make that distinction? Because I’d love to be able to understand your reasoning so I can quote/paraphrase you when debating about abortion rights.

It’s another case of trying to entitle people to their own facts, not just their own opinions.

Seems to happen a lot, given the liberal, pro-choice bias in the facts.

Thus, one can say with certainty that the developing embryo’s unmyelinated brain is not thinking or feeling in a way that we could recognize.”

As a woman who’s undergone and abortion and had been mulling over the very idea of hurting said embryo along with killing it, this information is a relief. I mean, in my mind, it’s bad enough I killed it, but wondering ‘did it suffer?’ has been in the back of my thoughts for nearly 2 years now. This kind of information, the kind that provides clarity in an issue that is so emotionally charged, is so necessary I can’t believe I’ve never seen it before. I already have one child, and I’ve read so much literature on the development of the fetus, but I’ve never seen THIS. How is that possible? Thank you very much for writing this piece, and many others. Your whole blog is wonderful.

Actually, I’m not so sure that this is such a simple question, either. There is a very good arguement about how no human being has the right to use the body of another human being without their permission, even if it means their death. So… even if we are killing babies (which I wouldn’t be so much convinced of) we don’t necessarily need to stop.

Glad to see you back. And it sounds like congratulations are in order! (Hope all is going well, and that you’re back to getting some sleep by now?)

I tend not to Google myself or people I know. Something about it gives me the heebie jeebies. It just doesn’t seem right to see all that, (kind of like having a window into your own stomach). However, you made me curious, so I checked. Gawd. How depressing. The first 50 hits were some bible thing. How depressing and inappropriate. I should change the name I guess, but I’m not good at names (as you might have guessed from me calling the blog “Acid Test”). Should I have a “name this blog” contest? Suggestions? Pharyngula (brilliant name!) is taken already.

The only thing I can disagree with is your statement that no animal species has mastered grammar. If you look into some of the ape language studies… most notably Kanzi the bonobo and possibly Washoe the chimp, you will see that they both understood grammatical differences. Kanzi knew that “put the tomato on the elephant” was different than “put the elephant on the tomato”.. even when he was given seemingly nonsensical directions, Kanzi understood what was expected.

Also, I believe Alex the gray parrot is being taught some grammar and is an amazing example of all animals know. Just because they can’t prove it to us doesn’t mean the behavior or mental capacity is lacking… it may just mean that we don’t know how to test for it yet.

Anyway, kudos on a great blog entry. I’m pro-choice myself. Once the fetus could unequivocal by proven to be sentient, I wouldn’t abort (I’m vegan and it’d be awfully hypocritical to abort a sentient human being… as I don’t even believe in exploiting other non-human sentient beings)… but I don’t think my ideals should dictate public policy.

Leona
leonakitty@wildmail.com