#57363: Alon Levy — 01/11  at  12:15 AM
Sentience is about basic consciousness. As there is still not a clear definition of consciousness, no empirical tests currently exist to test consciousness as a whole. So I don't think the above can be supported.

OTOH selfrecognition, which is an indicator of consciousness is testable. Humans pass the test somewhere after 18 months.

There are tests about levels of intelligence based on synapse development; what I said about feeling of pain beginning at earliest in week 31 is empirical.

#57397: — 01/11  at  07:11 AM
"There are tests about levels of intelligence based on synapse development"

Ah, someone knowledgeable so close to hand! I didn't know this.

I did know that the latest fetal-pain study that says 29-30 weeks (as reviewed in http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/12458029.htm for example) but there is a long way from pain perception to consciousness, so I didn't use that as the lower limit.

The method you seem to suggest of comparing development of brain pathways through sensory perception and consciousness may have merit, though. I would like to study it more - perhaps you have time to post a pointer?

#57400: — 01/11  at  07:50 AM
Torbjorn and Alon: There are a number of animals that have pain perception but don't appear to have self-awareness, so I think T is right in saying that the ability to feel pain shouldn't be equated with conciousness. I've also seen it postulated that the uterine environment may be too low oxygen for conciousness, whether the neural equipment is ready or not. (Similar to the way in which a person at a high altitude may not have "usable conciousness" because of the low oxygen tension, even though their brains are perfectly capable of it when adequately oxygenated.) I'm not sure how certain that finding is, but if so, it would mean that birth is the signifcant event in development of conciousness and a 40 week old fetus is not concious whereas a newborn is.

On the other hand, I'm of a conservative nature and would rather avoid hurting anything that can be hurt*, so I'd rather not have abortion on demand during the third trimester. Abortion needs to be availablethroughout the pregnancy for cases of severe fetal abnormalities inconsistent with life and maternal health problems, of course, but anyone who doesn't want to be pregnant should be able to decide that sometime before 30 weeks gestation. I've never heard of a woman who wants to be pregnant suddenly changing her mind at 40 weeks anyway. Women who want abortions for reasons of "convenience" want them as early as possible.

*I don't eat meat on the same grounds: I'm not sure how much awareness animals have so I'd rather not risk hurting them unnecessarily. And I don't need meat to survive.

#57410: — 01/11  at  09:09 AM
And just to reiterate a point I already made: it is completely predictable that the more roadblocks are placed in the way of women who want to get an abortion, the more abortions (legal and otherwise) will be delayed past 30 weeks of gestation. People who claim not to want to ban abortion altogether, but who favor hedging even first-trimester abortions about with all sorts of restrictions, need to think seriously about this. If they're morally serius people, that is.

#57433: — 01/11  at  10:01 AM
While there may be no legal restrictions on late abortions, it is virtually impossible to get a doctor who will do an abortion past about 23 weeks (and remember that a woman is officially two weeks pregnant the moment she conceives because pregnancy is offically counted from the last period). If the fetus were able to survive outside the body, I don't think any doctor would countenance an abortion -- except in China, where the "state controls your body" goes the other way and women 8+ months pregnant can be forced into having abortions to keep the population down. Ethically, the argument for abortion is that, because the fetus needs to use the mother's body to survive, its life is in her gift. Once that is no longer true, she does not get to decide. BUT as I said before, a woman who is 8.5 months pregnant does not WANT an abortion. Making safe abortion available and affordable keeps it early, when we are truly talking about a bundle of cells about the size of a rice grain.

#57439: — 01/11  at  10:13 AM
I'd rather not have abortion on demand during the third trimester.

"On demand" is such a problematic phrase to use about an issue where one person's valid and legitimate need is another person's selfish and immoral want. Who gets to draw the line between what is defined as "demand" and what constitutes a real need?

#57446: — 01/11  at  10:36 AM

sara: Are there any economic arguments against abortion?

Somewhere, I think New Jersey, did a study of abortion costs against other social costs and concluded that every $1 spent on abortion saved $130 on welfare. But that was years ago and I don't know if one has been done recently. The difference might be a lot bigger, now.

#57452: — 01/11  at  10:47 AM
Elanor: You're right about the problem with the phrase "on demand". I just couldn't think of a better one. Basically, I think that during the first trimester and early second trimester, maybe through the 20th week or so, a woman should be able to get an abortion for any reason she pleases and her reasons are no one's business but her own. IMO, that includes gender selection. I'm not happy with the idea that some people are so wrapped up in gender that they're prepared to accept a child only if it is of the "right" gender, but if they are, better for them to have a child in their prefered gender than to have one of the opposite gender and make it's life miserable. Anyway, as I said, it's none of my business. But after a certain point inaction itself becomes a decision. A woman who does not take action to end the pregnancy in 5 months probably feels at least ambivalent about the pregnancy. I wouldn't have maintained mine five weeks if I didn't want a child--I was fairly healthy throughout (until labor, which came close to killing me, but that's another story), but had fatigue that made it hard for me to climb the subway stairs every day and nausea that limited my ability to eat to the point that I actually lost weight during the pregnancy.

If first trimester abortion were readily available throughout the country, I would have no problem with saying that abortions in the third trimester should be limited to cases of danger to the mother's life and fetal anomolies. However, given the lack of facilities and trained personnel in much of the country, which make it possible and even easy for a woman to be unable to arrange for an abortion during the first trimester, I think the greater good rests with accomedating the woman who is pregnant, not the probably not even sentient fetus. But I'd much rather have easy access to early abortion so that the question would not arise.

#57470: — 01/11  at  11:33 AM
Dianne, thanks for clarifying. I think my personal view on the rights and wrongs of the procedure at various stages is very close to yours. But I always come back to the idea that where there's a final choice to be made, it has to be made by the person most closely concerned - with advice from as many competent sources as necessary, of course - because otherwise you're putting the decision into the hands of people who may be putting other interests first. And while I agree absolutely that access to first-trimester abortion prevents many later cases, even the best and easiest access will never prevent them all. Lots of problems don't arise or become apparent till later, and some women don't know they're pregnant until later. The door has to be open to continue helping people who didn't have the opportunity or the information to make a decision earlier on.

(Retrospective sympathies on the nausea, fatigue, weight loss - been there! Like you say, it's not something you'd go through without a reason.)

#57623: — 01/12  at  11:24 AM
Last night I watched a documentary about Prohibition in the U.S. Prohibition didn't stop the drinking of alcohol. Overnight, it merely took alcohol out of the hands of legitimate manufacturers and sellers and put it into the hands of criminals. It removed the production of alcohol from health & safety regulation. It created a widespread disregard of and disrespect for the law that is still the U.S.'s hangover. As is the case now with illegal drugs, it triggered the formation of gangs and then gang warfare to control the huge illegal gains to be got. It corrupted police and politicians, who not only took bribes but also used the services of bootleggers. Sound familiar? Prohiition was strongly urged by evangelical Protestants, who thought that they could regulate other people's morality. But eventually there were enough deaths from bootleg liquor and enough horror at the disrespect into which the law had fallen and the violent consequences, to generate the political will to repeal Prohibition. Making abortion illegal won't stop it. It will just create danger for women, disrespect for the law, and boundless hypocrisy.

In Canada, the Attorney General for Canada, Francis Fox, was standing up in Parliament defending the law restricting abortion while in private he was forging his lover's husband's signature on "permission" for her to have one. Can we have a reality check, please?

#57636: — 01/12  at  02:16 PM
The crusade for Prohibition was not (only) an attempt to "regulate other people's morality", but also represented a form of feminism - a campaign against wife-beating which was too repressed to spotlight its major concern. The women who crusaded against (male) drinking had very legitimate and urgent concerns, but were only able to express them in coded phrases (except possibly in private conversations between close friends). "Demon Rum" was invoked as the symbol of what we now politely call "domestic abuse", and was used to enlist the aid of employers and others who thought they might gain by prohibiting alcohol "for beverage purposes", much as the fetus ("preborn babies") is today used as an emblem for social and economic frustrations whose direct expression would require challenging the dominant system in radical and frightening ways.

#57655: — 01/12  at  08:25 PM

Jerks around the world should donate tissue samples to a biology archive because their genes are less and less going to be a part of our species!

I don't think so, unfortunately. Last I checked, women still flock to jerks...

#57663: — 01/13  at  09:16 AM

Pierce R. Butler: The crusade for Prohibition was not (only) an attempt to "regulate other people's morality", but also represented a form of feminism

You are quite right, feminists were for Prohibition because a woman married to a drunkard was in desperate straits with no legal remedy. And industrialists such as Henry Ford donated large amounts of money and used their influence to rid the world of hung-over workers. I didn't mean to imply that evangelical Christians were the only people who wanted Prohibition. But they were a major force and seem to be repeating their mistake. They appear to believe that changing the law to outlaw something that others do and that they do themselves when they think the situation warrants it, they are fighting a losing battle against human nature.

#57665: — 01/13  at  10:05 AM
You can see that in my previous post I managed to conflate two sentences so that the last one is somewhat incoherent. Just, please, consider the missing words to be evolutionary gaps and stick in enough to make a complete sentence, e.g. "They appear to believe that changing the law to outlaw something that others do and that they do themselves when they think the situation warrants it, they will 'automagically' stop it; but they are fighting a losing battle against human nature."

Now, if I may quote Stephanie Coontz of the <i>Seattle Post-Intelligencer</i< about a similar result in a clash between ideals and human nature, in her column<a href="http://stephaniecoontz.com/articles/article15.htm"></aFamily Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words>:

A recent study of teenagers who pledged in the '90s to remain virgins until marriage found that 88% of them had since violated their pledge. The study also found that their behavior, both before and after losing their virginity, was more risky than that of teens who had not committed to such an absolute value. While they were still virgins, pledgers were six times more likely than non-pledgers to engage in oral and anal sex, probably out of concern for preserving their "technical virginity." Teens who took the pledge did start having sexual intercourse a little later, on average, than teens who didn't, and they had fewer sexual partners. But they were much less likely than the other teens to use contraception and ended up with the same rates of sexually transmitted diseases.

#57666: — 01/13  at  10:07 AM
Arrgh! I meant Family Values: Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

or More Loudly.

#57673: — 01/13  at  06:22 PM
Monado: ... they ... seem to be repeating their mistake.

At least when I was in high school, Prohibition was slipped over quite glibly in history classes, and the obvious conclusions to be drawn were never pointed out (no doubt to avoid discussions of other banned substances and thereby prolong the teacher's employment). For some reason, I suspect the version given in hyperchristian history texts is even more cursory.

That the net result of just-say-no sex "education" has been a massive increase in sodomy is any irony more delicious than chocolate: I eagerly await further studies to determine whether such habits persist in later life.