Abortion: Permissible Because Fetuses are not Persons?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ต.ค. 2020
- This video covers Mary Anne Warren's famous "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion" where she argues that abortion is permissible because fetuses are not people.
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This video is one in an Introduction to Bioethics series, available here: • Introduction to Bioeth...
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This video is also an update on one other, posted earlier in 2020: • Human, Not Person: Mar...
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Music used for the intro and outro is:
Track: When you Realize - Mauro Somm [Audio Library Release]
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I'd hate to be a sleeping 3-month old baby near Warren
78 views? Deserves more
Ikr
Thank you so much for these videos. They’re so educational and helpful :)) This channel is great
Thanks! I'm glad the videos have been helpful!
Another problems with Warren’s “personhood” criteria (and, to some extent, the whole “personhood” question) is that it treats a fetus as if it is as separate kind of being; not a human being in early development. “Fetus” isn’t a permanent state of existence, like monkey or alien or rock. If you apply Warren’s personhood criteria to any of those, it is true for their entire existence. This is not true of a fetus because a fetus is not a separate type of being. Fetus is a stage of individual human development.
Bottom line: the “performance” view, when applied to only one moment in time, denies the fundamental human reality of change and maturity. We were all fetuses at one time, but we are not now. This is a powerful reality Warren entirely avoids… conveniently, for her position.
Isn't that the whole point of the problem he addresses regarding consciousness, etc.?
I'm fully pro choice but I always felt Warren's arguments were odd regarding how a fetus doesn't count as a person. Especially with the idea of premature births and c-sections strengthening the second objection. Like, if you remove a premature baby, it's fully dependent on some external device to survive (like those that provide oxygen and heat), there could still be people that appreciate or value the infant before its "expected" birth. It seems somewhat arbitrary to be like "This baby is 6 months old and was removed from its mother's womb via c-section is now more of a person because it's now outside of its mom. Wheras this 9 month old baby that hasn't been removed yet is not a person yet even though it arguably could survive outside the womb better so it's totally permissible to abort it". As if being inside the womb automatically disqualifies you from being a person.
I agree. Thats why I still think the sensible position is that fetus' gain personhood as soon as they become capable of living outside the womb (point of viability), and therefore up until that point, abortion is morally permissible.
There are several levels of consciousness. You are still conscious when you sleep it's just a greatly reduced sensitivity. I'm almost superconscious when I sleep because I always lucid dream. I was even conscious of the color black and the passage of time under anesthesia. I would say an embryo or young fetus is completely different because the don't even have the capacity for consciousness if their environment changes.
The best analysis I've seen so far.
Could you make a video like this with the perspective of degrees of personhood? Thanks!
love your work, do you have a Patreon? can you do a video on Peter Singer?
Thanks!! No Patreon at this time, but I'd be happy to do a video on Peter Singer's work -- it may be a while, but I'll add it to my list of things to do!
@@bioethicsondemand6258 thank you! happy new year
Great video!
There is a fallacy in your argument against Warren, as an asleep human being may lose consciousness while asleep (although not the ability to feel pain) but not all other four traits of the performance view of a person (for example they will not lose the capacity to communicate by crying, weeping or else). The problem I see with Warren's argument is the arbitrary (and in my opinion not best fitting) selection of traits. But even more importantly the vague definition of how many of those traits are needed for some human being to be considered a person and the hard to assess moment a foetus acquires those minimum traits, as it will still happen in the womb. Therefore as the law is required to set boundaries in what is general a continuum spectrum of evolving characteristics and events, law makers are forced to simplify and set general terms for allowing abortion to something like the first trimester or the first 20 weeks.
thank you so much! very informative and has helped me so much with my pro-life argument
The performance strategy attempts to define personhood with specific criteria, a difficult task. The endowment strategy just arbitrarily chooses humans with no such attempt. Why not include cows. An adult cow has far more mental capabilities in common with adult humans than does a 3 month old fetus. If endowment is the better moral strategy, then where is the justification for excluding animals?
No, it is not a person at all, inside a mother can the mother decide to have or not to have a baby is inside of a person. People and science call a fetus without the mother is just a fusion, living because the mother.
I think pro choicers are not persons
Oh, we know. You think women are baby factories and have no right to decide what happens to their bodies.
This woman is crazy.