On the one hand, a fetus isn’t quite a person. It has very little intelligence or personality, and no existence independent of its mother, to the point where I am comfortable using the pronoun “it” to describe one. On the other hand, as little as it is, it still represents a human life, and I consider preservation of human life a terminal goal as opposed to the intermediate goal that is personal freedom.
Well, I suppose the question is if it count as a human being. It’s not conscious on the level of an adult human at all. I don’t have much knowledge of the science of it, but it’s below the level of an animal for a good amount of time. Perhaps after birth as well so far as I know, but that’s a whole different can of worms. It grows into becoming a human being, but there’s a definite stretch of time where it isn’t.
I sincerely don’t know what you mean by “human being”. When I ask myself what ‘human’ means, I only come up with an answer that relates to genetics (‘this DNA is human’, or, ‘this DNA is salamander’) and I suppose ‘being’ might relate to some notion of being a complete, living entity.
I’m further confused because giving even the fullest notion of ‘human being’ (e.g., sapient), we still sanction killing human beings in some contexts.Whether or not it is moral to kill someone doesn’t seem to rest on whether they’re human. (Maybe adding the word ‘innocent’, for example, seems too obvious in the case of a baby. But then I least I would be able to deduce that you believe it is immoral to kill any innocent human.)
Oh, huh… I’m thinking of it in a sense of consciousness. So a person who’s a complete vegetable wouldn’t have the same moral significance as a person who isn’t. I’m not sure how to put it in a different way.
Well, I suppose the question is if it count as a human being. It’s not conscious on the level of an adult human at all. I don’t have much knowledge of the science of it, but it’s below the level of an animal for a good amount of time. Perhaps after birth as well so far as I know, but that’s a whole different can of worms. It grows into becoming a human being, but there’s a definite stretch of time where it isn’t.
I sincerely don’t know what you mean by “human being”. When I ask myself what ‘human’ means, I only come up with an answer that relates to genetics (‘this DNA is human’, or, ‘this DNA is salamander’) and I suppose ‘being’ might relate to some notion of being a complete, living entity.
I’m further confused because giving even the fullest notion of ‘human being’ (e.g., sapient), we still sanction killing human beings in some contexts.Whether or not it is moral to kill someone doesn’t seem to rest on whether they’re human. (Maybe adding the word ‘innocent’, for example, seems too obvious in the case of a baby. But then I least I would be able to deduce that you believe it is immoral to kill any innocent human.)
Oh, huh… I’m thinking of it in a sense of consciousness. So a person who’s a complete vegetable wouldn’t have the same moral significance as a person who isn’t. I’m not sure how to put it in a different way.