Preventing Abuse of Unborn Children.

I'm reposting (and adding a lot to) this post because in my opinion this issue deserves a thread on its own.


A debater wrote(Hi Belgian Freak): Smoking has been proven to be harmful to others therefore there should be restrictions to reduce this, and that inclused smoke free restaurants. Smoking in confined spaces with kids or even worse when pregnant should be seen as child abuse.

I agree with this statement.
However I wonder how we are going to match this with the personhood theories à la bbarr or Singer. Because Non-persons à la Bbarr, unborn children up to six or seven months, whom can be experimented upon (yes I know, with painkillers, very essential Bbarr) and can be killed without any moral problems (again with painkillers. Yes bbarr, indeed very elementary) do NOT have any rights.
Now, how can a non-person have rights to be protected against smoking if you accept the theories à la Bbarr or Singer which do not accept the potential person criterion for deciding whether unborn human beings should have rights ?

The potential personhood theories are dynamic theories and give rights to the unborn because from the very beginning, after conception, they are potential persons. Every capacity needed to become a full grown human being is allready potentially present in the DNA. Therefore these human beings have Human Rights, included the Right to Life. Neo-Kantian and Utilitarian personhood theories are static and do not consider potentiality as being relevant. I always considered this a major, fundamental defect in these static theories.

A woman can give her consent (for money ?) to experiment (with painkillers if necessary, Bbarr, yes of course) on the unborn non-person (up to six or seven months in pregnancy for persons à la Bbarr or during the whole pregnancy for persons à la Singer) in order to find out what the effects of smoking in the presence of the consenting mother has on the unborn child. According to the theory à la Bbarr there is morally nothing wrong with that if the unborn child is younger than six or seven months. The only thing you can do is labelling the mother (in a poor developing country, for instance ?) and eventually the researcher and the decision-making people of the (tobacco)company he is working for as having morally defective characters. But alas, there is nothing you can do to protect the unborn child.

The problem I want to address in this thread is how are you going to claim within the scope of the Neo Kantian and Utilitarian personhood theories that non-persons have a right to be protected against smoking in the presence of the mother if the mother gives her consent ? If this is indeed child abuse as was claimed by the above mentioned debater, and I agree with him, then it should be punishable for the mother who gave her consent and the people who did the actual smoking, the abuse. This is not possible within the scope of the static Neo-kantian and Utilitarian personhood theories. However it will be possible to protect this child (non-person à la Bbarr or non-person à la Singer) by the law if you look at this abuse in the perspective of the dynamic Potential Person personhood theories.

This instance clearly shows we should opt for the dynamic Potential Person personhood theory. The other static Neo-Kantian and Utilitarian theories should be put aside as being clearly lacking and should be added to the long list of pseudo-scientific theories designed throughout history to serve the interests of self-appointed elites.
In this case these static theories create two artificial classes of people, the class of persons and the class of non-persons by simply applying criterions and definitions, based on a pseudo-scientific interpretion of scientific facts in order to be able to discriminate between the two and then be able to discriminate against the most vulnerable of the two classes, being the class of non-persons, in the most extreme way there is, and that is taking away ALL their human rights, including the Right to Life.

These static theories are designed to take away the Human Rights of unborn human beings in order to do with them whatever people ( the other dominant class) want. You can kill them (with painkillers, I know Bbarr) or you can experiment on them (again with painkillers, yes Bbarr) without any moral objections at all. These theories are designed to serve the interests of the companies and corporations in the Bio-Industrial Complex. They want to continue their scientific research, being the experimentation and vivisection on unborn human beings.

If we choose the dynamic Potentional Person Personhood theories instead of the other static personhood theories à la Bbarr or à la Singer we have an effective tool to protect our unborn children against people who want to use and abuse them. If we choose this dynamic “Potential” theory we can effectively prevent the unborn children, members of the human community, from being abused by researchers without conscience operating in the Bio-Industrial Complex.



What are your thoughts on this subject ?

BBarr:

"Hey Jack-Ass,

Of course you didn't forget the details of my view. After all, you can't forget what you never knew.

You claim above that according to my view it would permissible to abort or experiment upon a fetus in the 6th or 7th month. Now, on my view it isn't permissible to abort the fetus in the 7th month. I state clearly that after the 2nd trimester we ought to err on the side of caution and treat the fetus as a person. Thus, we can only abort a fetus in the third trimester if the mother's life is at stake.

Note: It should be clear to all but the stupid that when I say "physical welfare" I'm talking about the life of the mother. As a person, the fetus in the third trimester has a right to life, which is outweighed only by the mother's right to life and her additional right to have the child out of her body before it kills her. The mother's right to be free from pain or injury does not outweigh the third-trimester fetus's right to life.

Further, although I think it is fine to experiment on dead fetuses, I certainly don't think it is permissible to experiment on fetuses in the 7th month. Also, unless a permissible abortion is going to be performed, I don't think it is permissible to experiment on any live fetus, no matter the stage of the pregnancy.

Now, I'm sure you stopped reading half-way through this post, and based upon past experience I've little hope that this time (miraculously) you'll understand what you have read. But, to others out there who may be reading:

It is wrong to experiment upon any fetus, unless a permissible abortion will be performed on that fetus. Similarly, it is wrong for a woman to smoke while pregnant, unless she will have a permissible abortion later. If a woman smokes during the first trimester, for instance, but wants to carry the child to term, although the woman hasn't violated the rights of the fetus while smoking (the fetus has no rights), the woman will be acting a manner that will constitute the violation of the rights of the person the fetus will become. So, once the fetus qualifies as a person, it will have had its rights violated by its mother's previous action. In short first-trimester smoking doesn't violate the rights of any potential person (they don't have any), but it does violate the rights of a future, actual person. If a permissible abortion is performed, however, there will be no future person and hence first-trimester smoking wouldn't violate anybody's rights.

If anybody has the patience, please try explaining this to Ivanhoe. "




I've promised Bbarr to read and study this post very carefully.

I want to invite others to do the same and if they have any remarks or questions: Please, don't hesitate to post them.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
Please, don't hesitate to post them.



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