Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen
Well this thread began with a link to discussions about 20 week abortions. At two weeks I doubt that a foetus would even be visible so there is obviously a huge difference between a foetus at this stage and the grown adult. However I think using a person's relationships or lack of connections to establish their overall value as a human being is a bit of a misdirection. We don't use that standard to devalue for example the murder of a homeless drifter.
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Murder laws have a normative basis, a law that we shall not kill. Such a law does not make distinctions between people, but that doesn't mean different humans can't have different values. Convicted criminals f.ex have their rights taken away from them. In some states, they can even be sentenced to death. In other words, killing someone because they have been sentenced to death is no longer illegal. They've lost their moral value and thus protection.
Earlier, I used another example with someone who has been in an accident and became severly brain damaged so that they are no longer to perceive, reflect upon, feel anything. That person has to be on life support, or he or she will die. Killing this person may also be legal. My argument then was that a fetus has more in common with this brain damaged person than a healthy adult human being. The mother, on the other hand, likely is a healthy adult human being entitled to moral consideration and protection.
If you admit that there is a huge difference between a two week old fetus and an adult, like you have, then you've already admitted that you too see that different humans have different moral values. Of course they do. If you were to save only one of two people from dying, one of them your child and the other a homeless stranger, you wouldn't think that it matters not which one you save because both have equal worth. Of course you would save your kid because he or she means more to you and the suffering of your kid dying would be greater than if the stranger dies. Well, other people in the world would feel the same if they had to choose between their friend, father, mother, partner, spouse, whatever or the embryo of some woman who
wants to have an abortion. Noone in their right mind would say that both are equal anyways and so it doesn't matter.
So when you have to choose, humans do have different values and consequences matter. While "thou shalt not kill" makes sense as a law, it's too simplistic to base your personal idea of human worth on. Unless you really feel in your heart that you might as well save the stranger over your own kid because both are humans, you feel that way too.
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