But I would at least encourage you to look into the foundations and history of your beliefs (the whole "killing a fetus is murder" is, historically speaking, very recent -- it has always been serious, but it has rarely been equated to murder until recently). And, of course, I will defend mine if called into question -- especially on a philosophy forum of all places. — Moliere

I want to make this clear again. I don't think "killing a fetus is murder" necessarily. My objection specifically was to the killing of an about-to-be-born fetus on the grounds that it is human and should be granted some protection and that the harm done to the mother to carry the birth through is unlikely to outweigh the harm done to it except in very exceptional circumstances. Earlier abortions should be considered based on the balance of harm and the less developed the fetus the less harm that can be said to be being done to it.

But I wanted to extend an olive branch. I do actually enjoy these conversations. Like I said, it's one of my favorite topics in philosophy for the very reason that people really do care about it. — Moliere

I'm not sure how much I enjoy it. I find it disturbing sometimes. But I accept your olive branch and will try to keep my vociferous disagreement with your view on this issue polite for the sake of the debate.

I could sum up my view like this: A world where people are free to treat babies as they do animals and where abortions could be carried out at any time for any reason would be a much less humane and a much less compassionate world than this one is, and this one isn't exactly winning many awards for humanity and compassion as it is.

I would locate personhood in a complete and functioning brain as part of a functioning body. — Bitter Crank

I certainly would not. To me, personhood has nothing to do with brains except incidentally. I suspect this is the root of the disagreements here. Biological reductionism is culturally mainstream now, and I think this has a lot to do with ethical debates. If a person is defined as a certain configuration of organs and physiological processes, then the concept of a rational moral agent or moral subject, with his or her own reasons for acting in certain ways--and therby the concept of a citizen or rights-bearing member of a community--is rendered irrelevant. I think this is what it comes down to. I'm tempted to say that your own trajectory, from pro-woman to pro-fetus, mirrors an ideological trajectory in Western culture, away from a view of human beings as rational moral agents.

It's really about the ethics of killing foetuses/babies and the ethics of whether women can decide to remove foetuses/babies from their own respective bodies. Most of the attempts to define "personhood" and appeals to biology are indexical pivots to influence someone one way or the other. What is really a debate about the ethics becomes a semantic quagmire, because everyone is throwing out shallow exclamations rather than speaking about the underlying ethical positions they hold.

This looks like a perverse reduction of childbirth to a mechanistic process, ignoring its human significance. Clearly, birth and separation are part of the same event (or process if you prefer). It's an event in which a new person is initiated into the human world, into society. This is what matters to morality, not any mechanical stipulations or biological facts. — jamalrob

I'm not ignoring its significance; I'm saying that your emphasis on it is misplaced. It boils down to symbolism and tradition, and overlooks what's more important, which are indeed related to those biological facts. I say "related" because those facts won't in and of themselves compel one towards a certain view. You must have the right set of values.

And I think it's quite silly to say that in regarding birth as the basic cut-off point we are being arbitrary. You may not agree that birth is where it's at, but it's hardly arbitrary. Birth is the centrally important, ultimate event of a pregnancy, the moment when a person comes to be, or begins to be, and the moment the mother's months of bodily change, discomfort, and anticipation have all been leading up to. For many it is the most significant, most life-changing moment of their lives. — jamalrob

But it is arbitrary, because the grounds for choosing the moment of birth as the moment when the baby deserves to be granted rights aren't based on reason, but rather on symbolism and tradition. It existed before birth, and where else but the human world? It is human after all, and it necessarily exists in the world. It is not a fully independent member of society either before birth or after birth, but it deserves certain rights nonetheless.

There is a new person in the world: this is what birth means, what makes it significant in all human cultures. — jamalrob

What's perverse here is not my emphasis on biological facts, but your overestimation of symbolism and culture. Culture can be backwards or enlightened. Your defence is similar to the defence of religion when it hinders progress.

Biological facts and medical procedures are subsumed by or subservient to the social and cultural, particularly when we're talking morality. — jamalrob

I'm all for the social and cultural, unless it results in barbaric practice.

Well, maybe. I was suggesting something like the opposite: that the concept of personhood underlies, or at least profoundly influences, our ethical positions.

Which scientific literature tells us when something ought to be treated as a bearer of rights? — Moliere

You're taking things out of context. You said that your position depends on your being "correct in considering the fetus an organ". That is what I claimed is in conflict with scientific literature. As is the denial that the foetus has organs or "anything at all".

I don't think you see quite what I mean by the social or cultural. Either that or you grossly underestimate it. I'm not talking about any old tradition or custom. I'm talking about what it means to be human and moral. But I admit that I'm only half-heartedly explaining things; to fill in the gaps would take several monster posts. This might give you some idea:

Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood

But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know)

For sure it influences our ethical positions. Persons get protection from harmful actions. Whether that be an unborn foetus/baby from a mother who wants to kill it to end her pregnancy or a women who gets to choose whether her body continues to carry a baby.

Personhood is an ethical position. It signifies who is important, who matters enough to protect for certain actions .

It is, itself, an ethical position. One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression that someone ought to belong to the world; that their interests and presence matter. It is this ethical value which falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.

But it is arbitrary, because the grounds for choosing the moment of birth as the moment when the baby deserves to be granted rights aren't based on reason, but rather on symbolism and tradition. — Sapientia

But that doesn't make it arbitrary. If you're right, it makes it habitual or conventional at best, irrational at worst. But you're wrong anyway. I am not assigning personhood to a baby on the basis of tradition; I am accurately describing what it means to be a person and how persons come to be, and the significance of childbirth. Moral, social and cultural significance is the primary issue in matters of morality. Note that moral, social and cultural significance is about much more than "symbolism and tradition". It is also about, for example, what it is to feel pain: feeling pain is a subjective experience belonging to an individual, and not mere nociception.

It existed before birth, and where else but the human world? It is human after all, and it necessarily exists in the world. It is not a fully independent member of society either before birth or after birth, but it deserves certain rights nonetheless.

I don't agree. The extent to which a fetus is in the human world--by which I mean the world that a person (the pregnant woman) is socially embedded in but which is external to their body--is the extent to which it has taken on a significance to the mother (and perhaps the father) as a proto-person.

Which seems to be a theme here among you three --

You reject my answer to the question, "When does a fetus have rights?". I ask for one from you, but get none. — Moliere

That isn't true. The other two can correct me if I'm wrong, but all three of us (four of us, if you include Hanover in addition to Baden, Bitter Crank and myself) have - and have expressed - the belief that a foetus has (or effectively has) rights at some point between it's initial formation and birth, and I have appealed to the Abortion Act 1967 as a guide.

It's at times like these that I really miss TMT.

EDIT: I was curious so I searched PF and found this:

To make my implicit argument for the morally unproblematic nature of every kind of abortion explicit, embryos and fetuses are not persons, and they are a part of another person's body. As nonpersons, they can have no rights, and the human person that carries them has a right to dispose of her body as she sees fit, particularly since her actions do not impact other persons. — To Mega Therion

(Y)

One is not a person by having a functioning brain. They are (under that argument) a person because this individual, who has a functioning brain, ought to be protected. Personhood is the expression someone ought to belong the world, that their interests and presence matters. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I understand this, and I agree with it as far as it goes.

It is this ethical value which someone time falls by the wayside when abortion is discussed. In effect, people keep what's really driving their position hidden. The squabble over semantics of "personhood" rather than actually stating their (ethical) position on personhood. We get a second order claims about what must make a person, rather than proper statements about who has personhood.

But I don't understand this.

I don't think you see quite what I mean by the social or cultural. Either that or you grossly underestimate it. I'm not talking about any old tradition or custom. I'm talking about what it means to be human and moral. But I admit that I'm only half-heartedly explaining things; to fill in the gaps would take several monster posts. This might give you some idea:

Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood

But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know) — jamalrob

I think that there is merit in that description of what it is to be a person. It probably works well in practice in many a situation too. Just not this one, which is problematic. I don't have much of a problem in accepting that definition of personhood, and, by presumed implication, accepting that a foetus cannot be a person at any point prior to birth. But it wouldn't change my stance that a 38-week-old foetus deserves rights or protection or worth or sanctity or however you want to word it.

Fair enough. I can appreciate that. In fact I don't know if I'd say that late abortions are, necessarily, always morally unproblematic, for the reason that they are never morally unproblematic for the mother, for whom it is always a difficult decision. When the fetus has all the characteristics you describe, it can become effectively a proto-person in the mind of the mother (and others), which does make it a moral problem to have an abortion so late. But not all ethical decisions can be determined by law. There is, I'm glad to say, room for ethical manoeuvre outwith the law, and this is one area where I think the law should get out of the way.

But that doesn't make it arbitrary. If you're right, it makes it habitual or conventional at best, irrational at worst. — jamalrob

That's more or less what the word "arbitrary" means, isn't it? Anyway, that's what I meant. There's a contrast between that and reason, as Hume noted with regards to the basis for belief in causality.

But you're wrong anyway. I am not assigning personhood to a baby on the basis of tradition; I am accurately describing what it means to be a person and how persons come to be, and the significance of childbirth. Moral, social and cultural significance is the primary issue in matters of morality. Note that moral, social and cultural significance is about much more than "symbolism and tradition". It is also about, for example, what it is to feel pain: feeling pain is a subjective experience belonging to an individual, and not mere nociception. — jamalrob

Morally, socially, and culturally, we ought to grant a foetus of 38 weeks certain rights in law, and we effectively do here and many other places. As for pain, just as I think it'd be wrong to kill a newborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved, I think that it'd be wrong to kill an unborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved. I say "on a whim" because both you and Moliere have made comments about no legal restrictions, so whims would be legitimate. You can't simply dismiss these counterexamples as conservative rhetoric.

I don't agree. The extent to which a fetus is in the human world--by which I mean the world that a person (the pregnant woman) is socially embedded in but which is external to their body--is the extent to which it has taken on a significance to the mother (and perhaps the father) as a proto-person. — jamalrob

And I don't agree with that. The extent to which it has taken on significance should not be exclusive to the judgement of the parent/s, as that will inevitably be problematic in at least some cases: those cases in which the judgement of the parent/s is poor. The state should step in where necessary.

Persons are agentive beings who develop through profound embeddedness in socio-cultural contexts and within inalienable relations to and interactions with others.
—Anna Stetsenko, in The Psychology of Personhood

But it goes back to my reply above to BC. Biological reductionism often seems to be the default position, which I think is why the abortion issue is seeing the reactionary, regressive pressures that you and Baden represent. (Yes, more name-calling, I know) — jamalrob

I think I've made it clear numerous times that I don't necessarily disagree with this definition. In fact, it seems quite a good one to me. But the latter part of your post betrays your and @Moliere's consistent attempts to stereotype your opponents. I mean if our position is reactionary, you're going to have to come up with some new vocabulary for those who would force a woman who had been raped and is suicidal to carry a pregnancy through its full term, which is another form of cruelty I would oppose as much as you would.

As for pain, just as I think it'd be wrong to kill a newborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved, I think that it'd be wrong to kill an unborn baby on a whim if no pain were involved. I say "on a whim" because both you and Moliere have made comments about no legal restrictions, so whims would be legitimate. You can't simply dismiss these counterexamples as conservative rhetoric. — Sapientia

I think I can dismiss them as conservative rhetoric, because the evidence I've already linked to shows that women do not do it on a whim. But in the end it is up to them, whether it is on a whim or not, and that's what is of prime importance to me: the woman's autonomy and human dignity. Also important to me is that women get the medical attention they need as early as possible, and restrictions on late abortions only hinder that.

I mean if our position is reactionary, you're going to have to come up with some new vocabulary for those who would force a woman who had been raped and is suicidal to carry a pregnancy through its full term, which is another form of cruelty which I would oppose as much as you would. — Baden

If this woman only managed to get to the abortion clinic in the third trimester, would you still oppose a law that forced her to go through with the birth? For the sake of argument let's say she's not suicidal or at risk otherwise.

And just because you're not extreme (or should I say consistent?) doesn't make you non-reactionary.

I think I can dismiss them as conservative rhetoric, because the evidence I've already linked to shows that women do not do it on a whim. — jamalrob

Pro-Choice Forum. That sounds like an impartial source.

Even if mass shootings were a rare occurrence in the U.S., I'd still be in favour of restrictions as a preventive measure.

But in the end it is up to them, whether it is on a whim or not — jamalrob

Fortunately, it isn't. At least, not without consequence.

Also important to me is that women get the medical attention they need as early as possible, and restrictions on late abortions only hinder that. — jamalrob

That line of argument is much better than what we've had from the pro-side throughout most of this debate. It's a concern for me too, but my understanding of established medical ethics is that it endorses strongly advising the patient to do what's in the best interest of both the mother and the baby, not just the mother. This is part of a wider problem of people disregarding medical advice. If patient care is your primary concern, then it would make more sense to endorse increased regulation and strengthening the enforcement of regulation to ensure that the patient gets the required medical attention when it's needed, although I doubt whether - or to what extent - it'd be workable in practice.

If this woman only managed to get to the abortion clinic in the third trimester, would you still oppose a law that forced her to go through with the birth? For the sake of argument let's say she's not suicidal or at risk otherwise. — jamalrob

It seems a very unlikely scenario that a woman would need more than 27 weeks to find an abortion clinic after being raped, but I'll answer anyway. First of all, whether I think the abortion would be justified in a case like this would depend on a variety of variables. If the woman concerned was just a week or two before giving birth, most of her suffering would probably have already occurred and be unpreventable, so I would think on balance the greater harm would be to abort the fetus. If she was a month or two before birth and was suffering greatly (even if not suicidal) it might not be. I'm not sure how you would draft a law that would cover the complexities here and if my only choice was to oppose or to not oppose one that would force a mother to go through with a pregnancy after the third trimester in all cases barring a threat to the life of the mother (i.e. including a rape that didn't make the mother suicidal), I would find it very difficult to make a call. I'd just have to think more about it. One very important reason I oppose some abortions, above and beyond the harm to the fetus, is that usually the mother has some responsibility in causing the pregnancy. In the case of rape, there is not only no responsibility, there is a greatly increased risk of psychological suffering being caused by the pregnancy. That obviously carries a lot of weight.

And just because you're not extreme (or should I say consistent?) doesn't make you non-reactionary. — jamalrob

Never mind. I'll enjoy the novelty. I doubt I'll get a chance to be called that again in a while.

I would hold a fetus as more special than a gall bladder. — Moliere

I just don't think the power of law should be involved in the decision to have an abortion prior to birth. — Moliere

If a fetus is special, then why can't there be special laws for it?

It seems a very unlikely scenario that a woman would need more than 27 weeks to find an abortion clinic after being raped, but I'll answer anyway. — Baden

No! Dismiss it as liberal rhetoric! More dismissal and less discussion is what we need.

I'm replying to Hanover here because I had an answer immediately. I'm still digesting the others.



I'd say because the appropriate way of handling its special-ness, with specific reference to whether or not a woman may obtain an abortion, is not and cannot be done by the state -- fines or jail for, in the more humane scenario, the doctor.

Otherwise, I'd be open to hearing what you had in mind. I can see lines being drawn with respect to what may be done with a fetus. I can even see a moral appeal to something different than my proposed line of birth for the law. But I don't think that moral appeal is strong enough to warrant prohibition.

(EDIT: Did some quick edits to make my sentences less ambiguous)

At the other end of a life, the loss of a functioning brain (brain death or profound irreversible coma) is the end of personhood.
— Bitter Crank

Just to make clear, I wouldn't say this. Someone who has lived a life has a separate body, a history, and many relationships, rights, and so forth, even after death. Or if someone is in a coma, for instance, or has brain damage. Since it isn't the state of the brain or cellular structure which defines personhood, under my theory, neither does the deterioration of the brain deny a person their rights, property, and so forth. — Moliere

This requires some unpacking. You have provided some additional details about this view, but I can't find it. (Spending too much time on philosophy often results in badly scorched gruel.)

If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides, if it resides anywhere. Granted, legal systems define personhood in various ways; dead people leave estates with their name attached to it (but executors carry out the will of the deceased); memory and the written and printed word, recordings, photographs, etc. give an after-death existence to people, and as long as the texts are in circulation (sometimes for millennia) a 'personhood' can continue to exist. Christians officially think that Jesus still exists, in heaven, quite a-corporeally. Or maybe not. Haven't been there to check it out. Billions of people think they will survive death a-corporeally in heaven.

But... not everybody looks at it that way.

So, where is the person and how is the person constituted?

If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides — Bitter Crank

Apart from having senses, which is a form of embodiment shared with other animals, none of the things that you mention constitute embodiment, but rather are prerequisites for the acquisition of embodied capabilities and statuses. Human children acquire most of the forms of embodiment (or come to inhabit those forms) that are characteristically human long after birth (e.g. months or years) -- which doesn't entail that they can't be persons before this, of course. But I would not equate personhood with the acquisition of those capabilities either since the latter is a matter of degree while the former is a categorical distinction.

One of the reasons why there can be rites of passage marking birth (broadly conceived as the acquisition of personhood) or adulthood is because the transition that is thus celebrated is categorical (e.g. one is either a person or isn't, either is an adult with voting rights, etc. or isn't) and not because there is something "objective" and independent of those rites that marks us as persons or adults. Also, when some of the requisite capacities (e.g. "sensori-motor", cognitive, emotional, linguistic, intellectual, etc) aren't yet developed, or fail to develop, the celebrated status that is normally their home usually is nevertheless granted proleptically by mature persons (or adults) both as a form of help ("scaffolding") for the development of the individual being granted this status (and an assistance to the exercises of her incompletely developed capabilities), and as providing a social circumstance that constitutes the fact for that individual having this status. That is, one important dimension of the celebration of birth (or of adulthood) is the fact that it is a performative act, in John Austin's sense, rather than a declarative act.

Finally, I would note that some confusion in these debates, it seems to me, may stem from the inability to distinguish (1) the concept of a human being, which is a sortal concept (or "substance form" concept) that supplies criteria for identifying an individual as being the same one from conception until death, from (2) the concepts of a person, or of an adult, which are "phase sortals" as David Wiggins defines them: concepts that only apply to individuals who are in specific phases of their development -- where "development" can be understood to refer to socially constituted, or socially granted statuses, in many cases. Hence it can make sense, and be consistent, to say that (1) I saw *you* in the womb, when *you* were a fetus (e.g. through ultrasonography), that (2) you are a human being, that (3) killing a human being is categorically wrong (and always constitutes murder), but that (4) had you been aborted at that time this would not have constituted murder. This is a consistent tetrad, in my view. It may be the habitual conflations of a sortal concept (e.g. the concept of a human being) with a phase sortal concept (the concept of a person) that sometimes sustains the judgment that abortion always constitutes murder. (Euthanasia also can be justified in some circumstances, in my view, consistently with the categorical significance of the prohibition of murder, but the reasoning is different since its justification doesn't require the withholding of the status of personhood to the person being euthanized.)

But I would not equate personhood with the acquisition of those capabilities either since the latter is a matter of degree while the former is a categorical distinction. — Pierre-Normand

Is there an argument in favour of viewing personhood as a categorical distinction as opposed to a matter of degree, or are you presupposing that position?

Is there an argument in favour of viewing personhood as a categorical distinction as opposed to a matter of degree, or are you presupposing that position? — Soylent

I think it is presupposed by society, not by me, rather in the way being married also is a categorical status rather than a measure of the closeness of a relationship between two adults that may or may not have crossed some conventionally defined threshold of commitment or intimacy, say. But it is important to distinguish such categorical social "presupposition" from mere conventional prejudices through recognizing the widespread consequences of the fact that such social recognitions, we had better call them, have performative significance.

One other example could be the value conferred to genuine dollar bills compared with the lack of value of counterfeit dollar bills. It is likewise a collective performative act that constitutes the value of the genuine dollar bill and that marks off any counterfeit specimen has having zero monetary value, quite categorically, (rather than as having a positive value proportional to the likelihood that it could be passed off fraudulently as a real one, say). Yet, it is clear that the exchange practice within which the categorical status is granted to currencies legally issued (and within which counterfeits thereby acquire some parasitic "value") is a prerequisite to their having this categorical status.

Nevertheless, it would be nonsensical to say that whatever suitably resembles a dollar bill has a monetary value that ranges from zero to 1$ in proportion to the degree to which it shares the physical characteristics of a paradigmatic or "genuine" dollar bill -- and that therefore the genuine items themselves owe their value to their high degree of physical conformity with the "standard" or "ideal" dollar bill (in a manner similar to the way some people seek to measure the "personhood" of fetuses by going through a checklist of empirical criteria). This would misconstrue the modal and categorical significance of the genuine/counterfeit ("presupposed") distinction that we are making, that is part and parcel of the practice through which we institute monetary value, and without which this practice would collapse.

Your answer, as well written as it is, only reaffirms the presupposition in the performative significance. If personhood (or marriage) is not presupposed to be categorical then the performative significance is altered but not eliminated.

The counterfeit currency example seemingly relies on a mistaken theory of currency value. In representative currencies, a counterfeit note has no value because the promise of the respresentation is false. The counterfeit note can have value not connected to the representation (e.g., as a work of art), but as a representative currency the value is always nil because the note does not have a corresponding good to ground the value. That owes to the nature of the currency, not the accuracy of the symbol of representation. Other forms of currency, for instance a commodity currency, the value is tied to the characteristics of the genuine article and the counterfeit, and can be non-zero and measured by degree. In fiat currencies, the counterfeit note has value in proportion to the fiat. If the institution that issues the value declaration confers value to a counterfeit note, it becomes legal tender, regardless of the accuracy.

Honestly Moliere, I don't know why you keep mentioning Catholics with me except as some kind of odd attempt to tar me with religious beliefs I don't have. I only came into this debate to argue about super-late-term abortions. Hanover and Sapientia aren't Catholic either to my knowledge nor are the vast majority of people who oppose your views — Baden

For myself, at least, your position is hard to distinguish from the Catholic position -- not in its effects, but in its justification. That's why I mention it. It's not a tar. As I noted before I can at least respect the Catholic position because it has a justification -- one which I do not agree with in the slightest, but it is consistent and I believe they hold such beliefs in good faith.

But your latter posts seem to strike out into a new territory that I had not been picking up on.

I want to make this clear again. I don't think "killing a fetus is murder" necessarily. My objection specifically was to the killing of an about-to-be-born fetus on the grounds that it is human and should be granted some protection and that the harm done to the mother to carry the birth through is unlikely to outweigh the harm done to it except in very exceptional circumstances. Earlier abortions should be considered based on the balance of harm and the less developed the fetus the less harm that can be said to be being done to it. — Baden

I'm not sure how much I enjoy it. I find it disturbing sometimes. But I accept your olive branch and will try to keep my vociferous disagreement with your view on this issue polite for the sake of the debate.

I could sum up my view like this: A world where people are free to treat babies as they do animals and where abortions could be carried out at any time for any reason would be a much less humane and a much less compassionate world than this one is, and this one isn't exactly winning many awards for humanity and compassion as it is. — Baden

I would ask two things here -- the empirical question and then also what your justification might be.

It seems to me that late term abortions are rarely sought out as it is. So I would wonder if, even granting that late term abortions are not compassionate, the world would actually be less compassionate if it were legal in all cases.

I don't think that a fetus is the same as animals. But I'm wondering what sorts of rights you would assign to a fetus, and why they would have rights too? What makes them special enough to prohibit abortion, for instance?

You're taking things out of context. You said that your position depends on your being "correct in considering the fetus an organ". That is what I claimed is in conflict with scientific literature. As is the denial that the foetus has organs or "anything at all". — Sapientia

Ownership is not settled by scientific literature, and I made clear that I introduced the notion of an organ as an analogy. Or, at least -- if I did not, then take this as a sign that I mean this in analogy. I don't think I'm moving the goal post there, but if I am then let's just say I am and pointing to where it is now.

That isn't true. The other two can correct me if I'm wrong, but all three of us (four of us, if you include Hanover in addition to Baden, Bitter Crank and myself) have - and have expressed - the belief that a foetus has (or effectively has) rights at some point between it's initial formation and birth, and I have appealed to the Abortion Act 1967 as a guide. — Sapientia

Where I'm unclear, though, is where you place the line, and why you place the line where you place it. I have given an answer to both questions.

It seems a very unlikely scenario that a woman would need more than 27 weeks to find an abortion clinic after being raped, but I'll answer anyway. First of all, whether I think the abortion would be justified in a case like this would depend on a variety of variables. If the woman concerned was just a week or two before giving birth, most of her suffering would probably have already occurred and be unpreventable, so I would think on balance the greater harm would be to abort the fetus. If she was a month or two before birth and was suffering greatly (even if not suicidal) it might not be. I'm not sure how you would draft a law that would cover the complexities here and if my only choice was to oppose or to not oppose one that would force a mother to go through with a pregnancy after the third trimester in all cases barring a threat to the life of the mother (i.e. including a rape that didn't make the mother suicidal), I would find it very difficult to make a call. I'd just have to think more about it. One very important reason I oppose some abortions, above and beyond the harm to the fetus, is that usually the mother has some responsibility in causing the pregnancy. In the case of rape, there is not only no responsibility, there is a greatly increased risk of psychological suffering being caused by the pregnancy. That obviously carries a lot of weight. — Baden

There are two things I wanted to note here.

One, you may be surprised how long someone can go without knowing they are pregnant. I know a person who only gained 5 pounds throughout her pregnancy. It simply did not occur to her that she should check. It wasn't until late in her 2nd trimester that she did, and then you have to actually schedule the abortion -- which can take a long time. It's not like you can just go in and get it done. At that point, it was a third trimester abortion, if not as late as we are discussing here.

This requires some unpacking. You have provided some additional details about this view, but I can't find it. (Spending too much time on philosophy often results in badly scorched gruel.) — Bitter Crank

What would you recommend, other than philosophy, we discuss said topic with? What is better suited, in your view?

If embodiment (having a cellular structure, brain, senses, blood, guts -- all the gory details) doesn't define one's personhood, I am not clear about where you think personhood resides, if it resides anywhere. Granted, legal systems define personhood in various ways; dead people leave estates with their name attached to it (but executors carry out the will of the deceased); memory and the written and printed word, recordings, photographs, etc. give an after-death existence to people, and as long as the texts are in circulation (sometimes for millennia) a 'personhood' can continue to exist. Christians officially think that Jesus still exists, in heaven, quite a-corporeally. Or maybe not. Haven't been there to check it out. Billions of people think they will survive death a-corporeally in heaven.

But... not everybody looks at it that way.

So, where is the person and how is the person constituted?

I think you have to at least have an environment, both physical and social, in which you can develop the capacity to experience a world separate from yourself. I don't think you have to have a fully formed identity, but, at least as a human being, you do have to be accepted into a social network and raised, taken care of, form beliefs from, learn language from, and so forth.

You have to have a history of some kind, social relationships, beliefs in the permanency of objects, and so forth. It is constituted over time, and there is no one point where everyone actually obtains personhood. It's more likely a gestalt phenomena that varies from person to person.

However, because I think you have to have the capacity to experience, an environment which allows you to form beliefs about yourself being separate from it, a history, a social world being taught to you -- well, it's not just unlikely, but downright impossible for the unborn to be persons. I like the idea of putting the line in the impossible region, however, so birth -- both as a conventionally understood moment of significance, and easily understood -- works for satisfying the proper respect which persons are due while simultaneously remaining conservative and safe.

Since, at least to my view, persons are the sorts of beings which have rights (in our society).