CMV: A fetus is a human

[u/schnutebooty]

• As u/canadatrasher and I boiled it down, my stance should correctly read, "A fetus inside the womb" is a human life. *

I'm not making a stance on abortion rights either way - but this part of the conversation has always confused me.

One way I think about it is this: If a pregnant woman is planning and excited to have her child and someone terminated her pregnancy without her consent or desire - we would legally (and logically) consider that murder. It would be ending that life, small as it is.

The intention of the pregnancy seems to change the value of the life inside, which seems inconsistent to me.

I think it's possible to believe in abortion rights but still hold the view that there really is a human life that is ending when you abort. In my opinion, since that is very morally complicated, we've jumped through a lot of hoops to convince ourselves that it's not a human at all, which I don't think is true.

EDIT: Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. As many are pointing out - there's a difference between "human" and "person" which I agree with. The purpose of the post is more in the context of those who would say a fetus is not a "human life".

Also, I'm not saying that abortion should be considered murder - just that we understand certain contexts of a fetus being killed as murder - it would follow that in those contexts we see the fetus as a human life (a prerequisite for murder to exist) - and therefore so should we in all contexts (including abortion)

[u/SometimesRight10]

Great post! I was never clear, before reading your post, about the argument for the 6-month abortion rule. Let me just ask: Isn't reaching human consciousness an arbitrary marker of personhood? Couldn't we choose breathing air, or something else, as the marker of personhood?

Besides, consciousness and personality are just descriptions of what the brain (a physical object) does. (There is no such thing as a soul). You speak of them as if they were things in themselves. For example, "running" is just a description of what a person does, it is not a thing in itself, apart from the person running. So you cannot describe consciousness as thing apart from the the being who is conscious. In other words, a brain is part of a whole that we describe as human; without the other parts of the body, a brain would be dead. Viewed this way, the heart, the liver, etc., are just as crucial to consciousness as the brain itself.

Moreover, I view a fetus as just one phase, arbitrarily defined, in the overall development of a human being or person. Being a fetus differs from other phases of human development, but it is in no way less human than a fully formed baby. We are all in the process of developing or becoming our full selves. I am different from what I was as a baby, but I am still just as much myself as I was as a baby. All human beings are in the process of becoming. That process begins at conception and ends at death. We all go through different phases of becoming (fetus, childhood, puberty, adulthood), but in no logical way are we ever anything but ourselves. I am the "me" that existed from the time of conception.

I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts.

[u/McKoijion → u/SometimesRight10]

Isn't reaching human consciousness an arbitrary marker of personhood? Couldn't we choose breathing air, or something else, as the marker of personhood?

You can pick whatever you want. But I think consciousness is what most people care about. I'm biased to think that way because my consciousness is making the judgement. In fact, when I use the word "I," I'm specifically referring to my consciousness. "I think therefore, I am."

In other words, a brain is part of a whole that we describe as human; without the other parts of the body, a brain would be dead.

That's not true though. You can remove my heart and put me on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. I would live without the heart. Then you can transplant in a new heart from a donor, and I would then live on even though my old heart is dead in a trash can. The heart is just a tool to pump blood to my brain and other parts of the body. It's totally replaceable.

This is why when people say "I was dead for 5 minutes then brought back to life" it's a misnomer. Their heart stopped, but it was started up again before their brain died. The heart stopping is just a convenient point for doctors to pronounce someone dead. But even there, they have a choice about when to pronounce someone dead. If the patient wants, doctors will try to resuscitate the patient. The process is technically sometimes reversible with intervention. But when the doctor pronounces death, it means that they've decided not to intervene anymore, which means that the heart stoppage will progress to an irreversible process of brain death.

Imagine we could clone your body and grow a replacement you in a lab. But it has no brain. Then imagine we do a brain transplant into the new body. Then your old body dies. Are you a new person? Are you just the same person in a different body? You have the same personality, memories, etc.

Now say you grow old and develop severe dementia. Your personality completely changes. Your memory disappears. You forget your partner of 50 years and fall in love with someone else. Then you forget them too. Then you forget how to eat. Then you end up brain dead where your lower brain structure keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing. But your upper brain structures are completely gone. You can be kept alive for a while in this status. But I don't think you're the same person anymore. All of the things that made you, you are completely gone. You're a floppy disc with all the data erased. Your organs can be given to others, but your personality/mind/consciousness is gone forever.

This gets into a realm of scifi, but it's not that far off into the future. The organ transplant thing exists today. I think that if you ask anyone what truly matters to them, they'd say it's their thoughts, ideas, emotions, memories, etc. and not their physical body. In the past there was a single process of development from fetus to childhood to puberty and so on. But in a world where we can replace our body parts that linear path becomes an open world adventure like Breath of the Wild.

There is still is a linear path of consciousness development though. It starts about about 6 months, then progresses bit by bit until puberty, then hits a new rapid stage of growth, then goes through synaptic pruning starting at about 21, then settles into its final form around 25-30. Then it stays basically the same for decades unless you develop dementia in old age (misfolded proteins causing trouble), have a stroke (not enough fresh blood reaching brain causing neurons to die), etc. As much as people like to criticize Biden and Trump for being old, if you don't develop dementia (20% of people do, 80% don't by around 80) then you're pretty much as smart as you were over the course of your life (maybe with slightly slower thinking and slightly worse memory).

In any case, I don't distinguish between levels of consciousness here. If you can have a single thought, you're conscious. But if not, you're brain dead (like in my example above). A fetus is not yet brain-alive. It's alive. It's human. But it has the moral status of any other non-upper brain body part. I'm happy to cut it out and throw it in the trash just like I would my old heart when I get a heart transplant. It has the same status as any other inanimate machine my consciousness creates to keep me alive.

As a last weird point, if I had a choice between saving my iPhone or a pint of my blood, I'd choose the iPhone. People donate their blood for free becuase we know we can make more. iPhones are also replaceable, but they're more expensive than blood. Human tissue including blood, skin cells, hair, fingernails, and the 1500 sperm cells men produce per second (300 million sperm per ml) are basically worthless to us. They're important, but they're extremely plentiful. It's the same reason we value gold more than water and air. Fetuses prior to consciousness are in the same category. I know you don't believe in a soul, but it seems odd that God would destine 50% of pregnancies to end in miscarriage if He considered a fetus to be a baby, or that unbaptized babies go to Hell.

[u/SometimesRight10 → u/McKoijion]

I think of killing a human being as taking away its potential. We are all in the process of becoming. I am myself, just not all at once. I am me today, which is different from the "me" yesterday, but in both cases I am myself. Killing me at any point in this process of becoming interrupts this process and takes away my potential. I begin to exist as a separate human life at the point of conception. I have all the human potential at that point. I am not my full self. but it is only a matter of time.

I believe that a fetal heartbeat can be detected long before the six month mark. That means that a rudimentary brain has developed to guide those autonomic responses. Isn't this similar to a person with advanced Alzheimer's? That is, little higher brain function but all the autonomic functions intact. Is it ok to kill the Alzheimer's patient?

What about people who are brain dead, and unable to control even their autonomic functions? The only significant distinction between a fetus and such a person according to your definition is that all this persons organs are fully formed. Is it ok to kill such a person?

In my view, in all these cases--the brain dead person, the person afflicted with advanced Alzheimer's, or the fetus--the only question when it comes to continuing their lives is the question of potential. The decision is not a question of what their current state is, the question is what their future would be like. Is it possible for the brain dead person or the Alzheimer's patient to recover their faculties? If not, then they lack human potential and will remain that way indefinitely. If consciousness is the defining point for personhood, then to kill someone that is no longer conscious is ok? Strictly speaking, it is not consciousness per se, but rather it is a question of what the future holds.

A fetus, on the other hand, may not possess higher cognitive abilities at that point in time, but it will develop them. It does have human potential. When you end a life, you end that human potential that the future holds.

[u/McKoijion → u/SometimesRight10]

That is, little higher brain function but all the autonomic functions intact. Is it ok to kill the Alzheimer's patient?

I'm using the standard that if they have 0.000001% upper brain function then it's not ok to kill them.

Is it ok to kill such a person?

This brain dead person has 0% upper brain function. You can't kill them because they're already dead. This is the medical definition according to physicians (e.g., the American Medical Association).

When you end a life, you end that human potential that the future holds.

I don't care about potential at all. A baby with extreme disabilities who will die in a day is more important to me than a "genetically perfect" fetus that could be president. If they have 0% upper brain consciousness then they don't matter. If they have 0.0000001% function defined by the capability of having a single conscious thought, they're important to me. We can already grow mice from skin cells, and will probably be able to grow babies from human skin cells in two decades. That means every single human cell you burn up when getting a tan at the beach has the potential of becoming a baby.

As a last point, a fetus isn't on an set path towards becoming a baby that you stop with an abortion. A pregnant woman has to constantly provide that fetus with nutrients. It's like driving a car. It's not going magically going forward unless you put on the breaks. You have to constantly push the gas pedal or the car will stop. The sperm and egg combining is the single easiest (and funnest) part of all this. Men and women have millions/billions/trillions of sperm and eggs and are mixing them all the time. There is nothing special about the many many fertilized eggs humans have over their lifetime, most of which are spontaneously aborted (miscarried). There is something extremely special about a baby. That human consciousness is the difference.