From: Alexander 'Sasha' Chislenko (sasha1@netcom.com)
Date: Tue Mar 16 1999 - 15:42:57 MST
At 17:15 03/16/99 , Tim Hruby wrote:
>However, I think Eliezer is wrong in assuming (or purposefully framing) the
>abortion question around "sentience." Many people frame the question as
>one of "having a soul."
Well, those are the non-sentient ones, that's the point... :-)
> Many others think the reasonable question is
>"potential for sentience/intelligence/humanity" (after all, a newborn human
>is much less sentient than my cat).
Exactly. Potentially sentient entities should have potential rights,
real entities-real rights. I could claim that every fertile woman who
passes by is a potential for carrying my sentient offspring, and she
would commit a crime if she refuses to do everything possible to bring
this potentiality into existence.
Of course, a fetus is less intelligent, sensitive, purposeful, coordinated,
etc. than a cat or even a frog. It takes a real idiot to go against all
reason and claim that this blob of flesh that can later turn into a sentient
human if given proper food and education (*everything* can be turned into
a sentient human with proper addition of matter and knowledge) is somehow
"sacred" just because of this fact or because it looks somewhat like a human.
But then, of course, a newborn baby is also inferior to a cat, so rationally,
getting rid of them is ethically no worse than killing a cow - right?
And then, there are mentally retarded folk who will never turn into anything
sentient... But that's really different... right?
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Alexander Chislenko <sasha1@netcom.com>
Home: <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
Work: <http://intelligenesis.net>
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