A secular debate about abortion

[Seth]

The distinction is, of course, the relative moral value between my nephew and my dog. I might beat the ever-loving crap out of you if you killed my dog, and I'd likely serve some time for doing so because the moral worth of my dog does not justify physical harm to a human being, no matter how much I love him, but nobody would question my using lethal force to protect my nephew.

I think that's a different distinction - if you killed me after I killed your nephew, you'd likely serve time too. The question then becomes whether you'd be justified physically harming me to protect your dog before it's killed. I think that you are; indeed, I agree with Texas law that permits even lethal force in some cases in defense of property.

Obfuscation. While I may not kill you after the fact of your killing my nephew, it is not because I am not morally justified in doing so, it is because society dictates that when a crime is committed the defendant be properly tried and THEN executed, if found guilty. Thus, I may kill you to PREVENT or attempt to prevent my nephew's murder, and society may kill you later for actually doing so.

People shouldn't confuse the willingness to let other people abort their fetuses with a belief that the fetuses are not worthy of respect. For example, one argument that's used against the "potential human life" position is a thought experiment where one gets a choice on which to save from a burning building: one child or 1,000 embryos due to be implanted shortly. The assumption is that everyone would choose to save the child. However, given I don't feel I'm obligated to save either, I personally might well choose to save the embryos - not because their "potential" makes them human enough to put a moral obligation on me, but because, having been through the IVF process myself, I understand just how much those embryos would mean to their parents.

The thought experiment is a false dilemma because the obvious answer is "the child." This is because one or the other is going to die, and frozen embryos don't feel pain or experience fear or terror, while a child does. The same reasoning would apply to saving a person in a persistent vegetative state who is insensible to pain because there is no higher brain function and saving someone confined to a hospital bed by a broken leg in the event of a hospital fire. Obviously one is going to save the conscious individual with the minor, though debilitating injury who is going to recover before the individual who is unlikely to recover and will not know what's happening.

But this is not remotely comparable to voluntary abortion of a fetus. There is no such moral dilemma there. It's not a choice between the life of the fetus and the life of the mother. If it is, then the mother wins, of course. But if it's not, if it's an abortion of convenience, merely to avoid the unpleasant but not permanently harmful effects of gestation, then the right to life of the fetus weighs heavily against the mere inconvenience or discomfort of the mother.

[Seth]

What if we say "every strong and mature enough individual might have had an essential positive effect on the survival of the species" - ? In retrospect I realize that is the association I made from this part of the text, but of course the words did not say that.

Nope. Or at least I don't think that one fits in my argumentation at all, as that is rather about to which degree we should save also those that cannot fend for themselves.

I think that paragraph should go out, or if one absolutely wants to save some of it, it should be turned around completely, into something like:

"In almost all time periods, humans have been producing more offspring than they can care for. Before the industrial revolution nature and cruel practices took care of the problem, as is still the case with other animals. Today, with the planet filled with 6 billion humans we might again be facing a situation where we reach a new limit that not even our technology can bridge in a sustainable way. Clearly further proliferation is not a good thing for the humanity of today..."

This is a utilitarian argument that provides no moral guidance on how we go about selecting who does not deserve to live. Shall we go to Carousel?

Why is it not rational to say that the non-productive, those who have no skills that benefit society, those who contribute nothing like, say, the starving poor in Calcutta or Somalia or Sudan, are more "worthy" of being killed to benefit the rest of us? Clearly they are a burden on the ecosystem and our resources and of no objective benefit, whereas any fetus may turn out to be the next Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein who may invent the technology that allows us to fuse seawater and produce unlimited energy.

It's not enough to just say that there are "too many people" and that therefore abortion should be encouraged. You have to state some moral and rational basis for how you go about deciding who is unnecessary and therefore who may be killed in the interests of the collective.

And THAT'S a very slippery slope indeed.

[MiM]

[metadiscussion]
I am sorry, Seth, I am new on the forum and had not read how you introduce yourself before I posted (at least partly) in answer to you, I am especially referring to this:

Sixth, in connection with Article the Fifth, I reserve the right to argue diametrically opposed positions in different debates, and I decline to be tied to any particular position or statement outside of a particular debate. Therefore, I will not acknowledge any accusations of inconsistency between debates, since I may be taking a divergent position in order to move the debate in a particular direction or illuminate a particular point. If you don't like that style of debate, tough noogies, you can scroll past my posts.

If I had read that one in advance, I would have framed my post differently, without referring to your writing or refrained from posting at this point. I have had my times of argument with people who do not stand for what they are saying, but merely argumenting for the sake of argumentation. Frankly, that seldom gets very interesting, and there are enough real people out on the Internet so that I do not have any need to argue with bots. I will henceforth take your advice, and use the scroll button, whenever I see a post from you and I hope that you will lend me the courtesy to do the same with my posts (that is refrain from commenting them directly). Of course there might be times when this can get tricky, but you claim to be good at compartmentalizing and I will certainly do my best.

No hard feelings. I value the frankness in your description of your self. It's just that my interest in you is just about nill.
[/metadiscussion]

[Seth]

[metadiscussion]
I am sorry, Seth, I am new on the forum and had not read how you introduce yourself before I posted (at least partly) in answer to you, I am especially referring to this:

Sixth, in connection with Article the Fifth, I reserve the right to argue diametrically opposed positions in different debates, and I decline to be tied to any particular position or statement outside of a particular debate. Therefore, I will not acknowledge any accusations of inconsistency between debates, since I may be taking a divergent position in order to move the debate in a particular direction or illuminate a particular point. If you don't like that style of debate, tough noogies, you can scroll past my posts.

If I had read that one in advance, I would have framed my post differently, without referring to your writing or refrained from posting at this point. I have had my times of argument with people who do not stand for what they are saying, but merely argumenting for the sake of argumentation. Frankly, that seldom gets very interesting, and there are enough real people out on the Internet so that I do not have any need to argue with bots. I will henceforth take your advice, and use the scroll button, whenever I see a post from you and I hope that you will lend me the courtesy to do the same with my posts (that is refrain from commenting them directly). Of course there might be times when this can get tricky, but you claim to be good at compartmentalizing and I will certainly do my best.

No hard feelings. I value the frankness in your description of your self. It's just that my interest in you is just about nill.
[/metadiscussion]

No hard feelings at all, what you respond to is entirely up to you. I never take offense at people keeping their opinions to themselves, however lamentable and unintellectual such practices may be. However, I decline your polite request for me to ignore your posts. I'll respond to anything that draws my interest or attention. I'm not necessarily responding for your benefit, but may be responding for the benefit of the lurkers and visitors, and I may be using your posts merely as a stepping-stone for further debate.

It's up to you to avoid me, if that is your wish. But I won't be avoiding you.

[Warren Dew]

Many Neolithic groups routinely resorted to infanticide in order to control their numbers so that their lands could support them. Joseph Birdsell believed that infanticide rates in prehistoric times were between 15% and 50% of the total number of births, while Laila Williamson estimated a lower rate ranging from 15% to 20%. Both anthropologists believed that these high rates of infanticide persisted until the development of agriculture during the Neolithic Revolution. Comparative anthropologists have calculated that 50% of female newborn babies were killed by their parents during the Paleolithic era. Decapitated skeletons of hominid children have been found with evidence of cannibalism. The children were not necessarily actively killed, but neglect and intentional malnourishment may also have occurred, as proposed by Vicente Lull as an explanation for an apparent surplus of men and the below average height of women in prehistoric Menorca. Link

That wikipedia article appears to rely excessively on dated sources. Of course it also contradicts itself; neolithic groups resorted to infanticide "until the ... Neolithic Revolution", which was the beginning of the neolithic?

There is evidence of high rates of infanticide during the neolithic, but that's not true of the paleolithic. At one point most paleolithic skeletons were identified as male, but it turned out later that sex was being identified based primarily on a large degree of assumed sexual dimorphism, which didn't actually exist, so that line of reasoning was erroneous. Even with the new estimates of adult females at about half the adult population, it turns out paleolithic populations barely had replacement levels of fertility - they're actually calculated to be slightly below replacement, but since we know they stuck around for 2,000,000 years, most likely that's due to errors in parameter estimation - so there isn't much room for a significant amount of infanticide. I do agree that malnourishment in poor times likely contributed to infant mortality, but that isn't the kind of purposeful killing that would affect how we feel emotionally about infanticide.

Infanticide likely rose substantially in the neolithic, but that was just for the past 10,000 years or so. That's enough time to evolve different cultural views towards infanticide, but is unlikely to be enough time to evolve different genetically determined views.

Note that cannibalism by itself is not sufficient to show infanticide. It seems that paleolithic adults were ritually defleshed, and possibly cannibalized, after dying, and that may be what happened to the infants as well.

[MiM]

[metadiscussion]

...people keeping their opinions to themselves, however lamentable and unintellectual such practices may be.

And by reserving the right to contradict yourself, you are in fact keeping your real opinions to yourself, whereas I was only stating a disinterest in discussing with you, and exactly for that reason.

However, I decline your polite request for me to ignore your posts. I'll respond to anything that draws my interest or attention. I'm not necessarily responding for your benefit, but may be responding for the benefit of the lurkers and visitors, and I may be using your posts merely as a stepping-stone for further debate.

It's up to you to avoid me, if that is your wish. But I won't be avoiding you.

In that case your statement "If you don't like that style of debate, tough noogies, you can scroll past my posts." is only empty air (how come I am not surprised), as that would leave my thoughts and opinions completely defenceless from any attack on them by you.

I know that this is an argument I cannot win. As long as the board is ok with you, I have to live with it. The best I can do is then to try to avoid engaging in discussions with you.
[/metadiscussion]

[Coito ergo sum]

So, does the same rule pertain also to abortions? I don't think so, because there is a very clear and simple line we can draw at the birth of a child. We can use that line to break any slippery slope. Being born is widely recognized as a major milestone in human life (we do celebrate birthdays, not conception days nor mother-felt-the-first-movements days, after all). With today's medical practices, it feels rather natural to move the line to the time when the child can survive ex utero.

What fundamental change in the nature of the organism takes place at birth?

1. Breaths air. The sudden change in temperature in the environment of the fetus causes its nervous system to react and a few seconds after birth it is heard to let out a gasp as it takes its first breath. Previously, the lungs are deflated and filled with amniotic fluid and it "breathes" by exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide through the mother's circulation via the placenta.
2. Eats food. Previously, all nutrients entered through the umbilical cord and placenta.
3. Increased oxygen in the lungs causes a decrease in blood flow resistance to the lungs.
4. Blood flow resistance of the baby's blood vessels also increases.
5. Amniotic fluid drains or is absorbed from the respiratory system.
6. Receptors on the baby's skin send messages to the brain that the baby's body is cold. The baby's body then creates heat by shivering and by burning stores of brown fat, a type of fat found only in fetuses, which is then burned off after birth.
7. Liver functioning changes. After birth the liver produces substances that help the blood to clot, begins breaking down waste products such as excess red blood cells, and produces a protein that helps break down bilirubin. This doesn't happen prior to birth. Before birth the liver acts mainly as a storage unit for iron and sugar.
8. Prior to birth, the gastrointestinal tract does not function at all. After birth, it does.
9. Blood flow through the kidneys increases markedly after birth.

Does it turn from one thing into another, or is it simply part of an ongoing developmental process in which, at birth, the physical location and attachment to the mother's uterus changes?

That's a false dichotomy. Yes, it's an ongoing developmental process, but it does become a different thing, also. Just like:

This ----
Is not this ----
Is not this ---

Each of those different things have different legal rights, and is treated differently under the law in a myriad of different ways.

Yes, it's a "milestone" in development, but it's really just a location change.

It's not just a location change. It's a fundamental change in what it is. You and I are not our infant selves. That person is gone, and we are fundamentally different. That's why the law the treats us fundamentally different. Human embryos are radically different than human adults and human corpses. We treat all those stages of human development in fundamentally different ways.

Moral behavior ought to take more account than merely the location of the organism in deciding if it's to live or die, don't you think?

And, it does. In the case of human embryos and human adults, it's not merely location.

[Coito ergo sum]

What if we say "every strong and mature enough individual might have had an essential positive effect on the survival of the species" - ? In retrospect I realize that is the association I made from this part of the text, but of course the words did not say that.

Nope. Or at least I don't think that one fits in my argumentation at all, as that is rather about to which degree we should save also those that cannot fend for themselves.

I think that paragraph should go out, or if one absolutely wants to save some of it, it should be turned around completely, into something like:

"In almost all time periods, humans have been producing more offspring than they can care for. Before the industrial revolution nature and cruel practices took care of the problem, as is still the case with other animals. Today, with the planet filled with 6 billion humans we might again be facing a situation where we reach a new limit that not even our technology can bridge in a sustainable way. Clearly further proliferation is not a good thing for the humanity of today..."

This is a utilitarian argument that provides no moral guidance on how we go about selecting who does not deserve to live. Shall we go to Carousel?

If it's a utilitarian argument, then it absolutely provides moral guidance. Jeremy Bentham - John Stuart Mill - etc. - all argued for utilitarianism as a moral guide. You may not agree with utilitarianism, but that doesn't mean it doesn't provide moral guidance. Utilitarianism the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined by its usefulness in maximizing utility and minimizing negative utility (utility can be defined as pleasure, preference satisfaction, knowledge or other things) as summed among all sentient beings. It is a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. It's quantitative or reductionist ethics, as opposed to deontological ethics or virtue ethics, etc.

Why is it not rational to say that the non-productive, those who have no skills that benefit society, those who contribute nothing like, say, the starving poor in Calcutta or Somalia or Sudan, are more "worthy" of being killed to benefit the rest of us? Clearly they are a burden on the ecosystem and our resources and of no objective benefit, whereas any fetus may turn out to be the next Stephen Hawking or Albert Einstein who may invent the technology that allows us to fuse seawater and produce unlimited energy.

Depends on the circumstances. If there was an asteroid on its way to Earth and it would be here in 6 months and kill every living thing on Earth, and we had the technology to save 10,000 people in space ships to start a colony on another world, it would make sense to save only those people who best would help the species survive. To save the sick and the weak and the feebleminded IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE would itself be immoral, because it would reduce the chances of survival of the species. If, however, we have the capacity to save the sick, the weak and the feebleminded, then we should - because the circumstances would be different.

Surely you're not suggesting that morality requires us to treat people the same no matter what the circumstances?

It's not enough to just say that there are "too many people" and that therefore abortion should be encouraged. You have to state some moral and rational basis for how you go about deciding who is unnecessary and therefore who may be killed in the interests of the collective.

And THAT'S a very slippery slope indeed.

All slopes are slippery. Some have more friction than others.

[Warren Dew]

1. Breaths air. The sudden change in temperature in the environment of the fetus causes its nervous system to react and a few seconds after birth it is heard to let out a gasp as it takes its first breath. Previously, the lungs are deflated and filled with amniotic fluid and it "breathes" by exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide through the mother's circulation via the placenta.
2. Eats food. Previously, all nutrients entered through the umbilical cord and placenta.

Exactly. I think birth is very similar to implantation in terms of how clear and deep a demarcation it is.

Metabolically, it's a bigger demarcation even than conception, though conception is a bigger demarcation genetically.

Depends on the circumstances. If there was an asteroid on its way to Earth and it would be here in 6 months and kill every living thing on Earth, and we had the technology to save 10,000 people in space ships to start a colony on another world, it would make sense to save only those people who best would help the species survive. To save the sick and the weak and the feebleminded IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE would itself be immoral, because it would reduce the chances of survival of the species. If, however, we have the capacity to save the sick, the weak and the feebleminded, then we should - because the circumstances would be different.

I note that you're talking about saving strangers, whereas Seth is talking about killing strangers.

My answer to Seth is that no one is arguing for forcing others to have abortions, so there's not even an imagined parallel to killing overseas starving poor.

[Coito ergo sum]

Depends on the circumstances. If there was an asteroid on its way to Earth and it would be here in 6 months and kill every living thing on Earth, and we had the technology to save 10,000 people in space ships to start a colony on another world, it would make sense to save only those people who best would help the species survive. To save the sick and the weak and the feebleminded IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE would itself be immoral, because it would reduce the chances of survival of the species. If, however, we have the capacity to save the sick, the weak and the feebleminded, then we should - because the circumstances would be different.

I note that you're talking about saving strangers, whereas Seth is talking about killing strangers.

True, so in that sense the analogy is imperfect.

Let me try again.

3 people are stuck in a spacecraft doomed to die because of a lack of breathable air for 3 people. However, if two of them kill one person, then there will be enough air in the capsule to save two until a rescue ship can arrive. Is it moral to kill the third person, or is it immoral to let the third person live since all three will then die?

If 10 people are in a lifeboat, and the lifeboat can only safely sustain 8 people, otherwise it has a really good chance of capsizing and drowning everyone. Is it moral to toss two people overboard?

If 1000 people are stranded on a deserted island and there is not enough food for everyone. Is it moral to kill off some, so that there is enough food for some to survive?

[Seth]

[metadiscussion]

...people keeping their opinions to themselves, however lamentable and unintellectual such practices may be.

And by reserving the right to contradict yourself, you are in fact keeping your real opinions to yourself, whereas I was only stating a disinterest in discussing with you, and exactly for that reason.

Then you misconstrue. You're hearing my "real opinions," it's just that my opinion changed depending on the conversational circumstances. I'm capable of, and in fact I'm quite proud of my ability to hold diverse opinions without having to pigeonhole myself into one or another philosophical position. As Aristotle said, I can entertain a thought without holding it as a deeply held belief. I follow conversations where they lead, and my primary interest is in detecting and attacking unreason and illogic, whenever it appears, even if that means taking a position that's opposite to my personal beliefs or opposite to a position I was defending moments before. I enjoy attacking the flaws in an argument, in part because it helps others to see the flaws in their arguments, thereby inducing them to improve their argumentative skills, and partly because arguing from a diversity of viewpoints is incredibly helpful and useful to me in improving my reasoning abilities.

However, I decline your polite request for me to ignore your posts. I'll respond to anything that draws my interest or attention. I'm not necessarily responding for your benefit, but may be responding for the benefit of the lurkers and visitors, and I may be using your posts merely as a stepping-stone for further debate.

It's up to you to avoid me, if that is your wish. But I won't be avoiding you.

In that case your statement "If you don't like that style of debate, tough noogies, you can scroll past my posts." is only empty air (how come I am not surprised), as that would leave my thoughts and opinions completely defenceless from any attack on them by you.

Well, yes, that is the cost of trying to ignore someone, they get the last word. The alternative is, of course, to defend your position for the pure joy of defending it rather than taking the rather hidebound and narrow minded position that you won't argue with anyone who doesn't show enough private, intimate candor for your tastes. In a philosophical or political debate, one should be interested in exploring the subject, not in constraining the discussion only to what people truly "believe." Education and enlightenment is always my goal, and I could not possibly care less what you "really" believe. I care only about what you write, and how strong or weak your arguments are, and how they explore the subject. And as a result, I never impute any personal characteristics to anyone I debate with on line, based on what they write. Nor should you.

I know that this is an argument I cannot win. As long as the board is ok with you, I have to live with it. The best I can do is then to try to avoid engaging in discussions with you.
[/metadiscussion]

Or, you could just enjoy the debate for what it is and not assign so much gravity to it. It's way more fun and intellectually stimulating that way. And who knows, you might actually learn something you didn't know before. I know I'm learning new things from such debates all the time. It's why I participate here in the first place.

I think it's actually pretty sad that you would avoid debate just because you don't think I'm being personally intimate with you about my beliefs. Live it up, enjoy the debate and quit being so prudish about it. It can be fun and intellectually stimulating.

[Seth]

Depends on the circumstances. If there was an asteroid on its way to Earth and it would be here in 6 months and kill every living thing on Earth, and we had the technology to save 10,000 people in space ships to start a colony on another world, it would make sense to save only those people who best would help the species survive. To save the sick and the weak and the feebleminded IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE would itself be immoral, because it would reduce the chances of survival of the species. If, however, we have the capacity to save the sick, the weak and the feebleminded, then we should - because the circumstances would be different.

I note that you're talking about saving strangers, whereas Seth is talking about killing strangers.

True, so in that sense the analogy is imperfect.

Let me try again.

3 people are stuck in a spacecraft doomed to die because of a lack of breathable air for 3 people. However, if two of them kill one person, then there will be enough air in the capsule to save two until a rescue ship can arrive. Is it moral to kill the third person, or is it immoral to let the third person live since all three will then die?

If 10 people are in a lifeboat, and the lifeboat can only safely sustain 8 people, otherwise it has a really good chance of capsizing and drowning everyone. Is it moral to toss two people overboard?

If 1000 people are stranded on a deserted island and there is not enough food for everyone. Is it moral to kill off some, so that there is enough food for some to survive?

Ah, the classic lifeboat dilemma. I think the "answer" to this dilemma, such as it is, is exemplified by the following:

The Captain sits in the lifeboat full of too many people. There's not enough food or water for everyone, and the lifeboat is certain to capsize if the seas become rough, so the Captain orders that five people be put over the side to drown, and orders the boat to row away. Two hours later a rescue ship appears on the horizon, and the First Mate sighs, "Too soon, good Captain, too soon..."

You see, the Lifeboat Dilemma doesn't tell us anything useful about morality. When the only alternative is to kill or be killed, or to kill or die, morality generally evaporates and instinct takes over.

Moral choices apply when they are guides to proper social behavior that lubricates social functioning that is ongoing. When the air supply is limited, one of three things happens: someone kills themselves to save the others, the majority kills the minority based on some abstract selection criteria, everyone dies. Worrying about the morals involved is rather pointless.

But when it comes to how society functions, morals are important because they are the respect shown to others in a community by which the community can even exist. Anarchy is never a viable social option, so morality always comes into play when there is a community.

[Seth]

1. Breaths air. The sudden change in temperature in the environment of the fetus causes its nervous system to react and a few seconds after birth it is heard to let out a gasp as it takes its first breath. Previously, the lungs are deflated and filled with amniotic fluid and it "breathes" by exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide through the mother's circulation via the placenta.
2. Eats food. Previously, all nutrients entered through the umbilical cord and placenta.

Exactly. I think birth is very similar to implantation in terms of how clear and deep a demarcation it is.

Metabolically, it's a bigger demarcation even than conception, though conception is a bigger demarcation genetically.

Depends on the circumstances. If there was an asteroid on its way to Earth and it would be here in 6 months and kill every living thing on Earth, and we had the technology to save 10,000 people in space ships to start a colony on another world, it would make sense to save only those people who best would help the species survive. To save the sick and the weak and the feebleminded IN THAT CIRCUMSTANCE would itself be immoral, because it would reduce the chances of survival of the species. If, however, we have the capacity to save the sick, the weak and the feebleminded, then we should - because the circumstances would be different.

I note that you're talking about saving strangers, whereas Seth is talking about killing strangers.

My answer to Seth is that no one is arguing for forcing others to have abortions, so there's not even an imagined parallel to killing overseas starving poor.

The mother and the abortionist are forcing the fetus to "have an abortion." They are killing the fetus. Only by denying the fetus rights can your argument be sustained, and whether a fetus does, or should have rights is precisely the point of the debate, so you can't escape the debate that easily.

[Coito ergo sum]

The mother and the abortionist are forcing the fetus to "have an abortion." They are killing the fetus. Only by denying the fetus rights can your argument be sustained, and whether a fetus does, or should have rights is precisely the point of the debate, so you can't escape the debate that easily.

Nobody has "escaped" the debate or even tried.

You indicated that the embryo and the fetus was no different from a living, breathing human being. You asked for differences - many differences - material, serious, substantial differences - were listed. Clearly, your assertion that the only difference between an embryonic Angelina Jolie and the extraordinarily hot and breathing Angelina Jolie is "time" is plainly incorrect.

The adult human and the surgeon are forcing the appendix to "have an appendectomy." They are killing the appendix. Only by denying the appendix rights can the argument that appendixes can be removed (if the possessor of the appendix desires) be sustained, and whether an appendix does, or should have rights is precisely the point of the debate. It's a human appendix, after all.

Your argument is that because an embryo may develop into a breathing human it must be granted the right to continue existing regardless of the will of its possessor, the mother. The potentiality of birth, in your view, means the mother must serve the embryo or fetus. The only way that can be sustained is to deny the woman the right to control her own health and medical decisions, and place that decision in the hands of the State to decide when her abortion is allowable, and when she must serve as an unwilling host.

[Seth]

So, does the same rule pertain also to abortions? I don't think so, because there is a very clear and simple line we can draw at the birth of a child. We can use that line to break any slippery slope. Being born is widely recognized as a major milestone in human life (we do celebrate birthdays, not conception days nor mother-felt-the-first-movements days, after all). With today's medical practices, it feels rather natural to move the line to the time when the child can survive ex utero.

What fundamental change in the nature of the organism takes place at birth?

1. Breaths air. The sudden change in temperature in the environment of the fetus causes its nervous system to react and a few seconds after birth it is heard to let out a gasp as it takes its first breath. Previously, the lungs are deflated and filled with amniotic fluid and it "breathes" by exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide through the mother's circulation via the placenta.
2. Eats food. Previously, all nutrients entered through the umbilical cord and placenta.
3. Increased oxygen in the lungs causes a decrease in blood flow resistance to the lungs.
4. Blood flow resistance of the baby's blood vessels also increases.
5. Amniotic fluid drains or is absorbed from the respiratory system.
6. Receptors on the baby's skin send messages to the brain that the baby's body is cold. The baby's body then creates heat by shivering and by burning stores of brown fat, a type of fat found only in fetuses, which is then burned off after birth.
7. Liver functioning changes. After birth the liver produces substances that help the blood to clot, begins breaking down waste products such as excess red blood cells, and produces a protein that helps break down bilirubin. This doesn't happen prior to birth. Before birth the liver acts mainly as a storage unit for iron and sugar.
8. Prior to birth, the gastrointestinal tract does not function at all. After birth, it does.
9. Blood flow through the kidneys increases markedly after birth.

None of which are changes in the fundamental nature of the organism. They are merely developmental and behavioral changes that have been ongoing since the zygote was formed. The organism is and at all times remains a living human organism with unchanging DNA programming information. It is the same "thing" in a different form only. It's nature does not change. It does not turn from an inanimate object to a living creature. It does not evolve from a garden slug to a human being. It is the same thing, the same fundamental grouping of genetic material and instructions that it was in the beginning.

Does it turn from one thing into another, or is it simply part of an ongoing developmental process in which, at birth, the physical location and attachment to the mother's uterus changes?

That's a false dichotomy. Yes, it's an ongoing developmental process, but it does become a different thing, also. Just like:

Each of those different things have different legal rights, and is treated differently under the law in a myriad of different ways.

It's not a false dichotomy, and Angelina Jolie was at all times subsequent to her zygotic stage of development, a living human being with unique DNA. Your argument is fallacious because even the adult Angelina Jolie is not the "same thing" at one instant as it is in the next instant. Our cells are constantly dying and being replaced. We continue our course of natural development throughout life, we grow old, our bodies change constantly. It is irrational and illogical to say that the Angelina Jolie seen in "Hackers" is not the Angelina Jolie seen in "Original Sin." They are the same thing at different ages only. She remains the same person as she develops and changes. She never becomes Bill Clinton or Brad Pitt. She never turns from a rock into a lizard and then into Angelina Jolie.

It's pure sophistry (and yes I do know what that word means) to try to stop time at any particular moment and point to a thing and say "this thing is not the same thing as it once was." Biological development and changes that take place throughout the life of a human organism do not make that organism a different "thing" at every time-slice moment. It is a "thing" that is different from it's previous configuration, but it is not a different "thing" entirely. That's like saying that a Chevrolet Blazer is not a Chevrolet Blazer just because someone changed the paint job or modified the suspension. It's still a Chevrolet Blazer with a different paint job and big wheels.

Yes, it's a "milestone" in development, but it's really just a location change.

It's not just a location change. It's a fundamental change in what it is. You and I are not our infant selves. That person is gone, and we are fundamentally different. That's why the law the treats us fundamentally different. Human embryos are radically different than human adults and human corpses. We treat all those stages of human development in fundamentally different ways.

They are different in form only. They are identical in DNA composition, and they are not a different "thing," they are the same "thing" at all times, regardless of the developmental form. Your claims about the law are tautological because the law does not define when a "thing" is a "different thing," it merely assigns rights at a particular stage of development of the human organism. Even the Supreme Court recognized this fact in ruling that a fetus IS entitled to respect of its human rights at some stage of its development. The Court never said, in all of Roe v. Wade, that a fetus is not a human "thing," it merely said that human society has refused to grant rights to the fetus many times in human history. But no rational person can deny that the fetus is a living human organism. It's not another "thing." It does not have rights because society CHOOSES not to extend rights to the fetus, not because the fetus is something non-human until it passes from the birth canal. And because a human fetus is not another "thing," and is always a living human organism, there is no objective basis on which to claim that the law, which is a function of social morality and decision making, cannot extend human rights to a fetus at any stage of development, from zygote to birth.

This "it's a different thing" argument is vacuous and irrational sophistry and pettifoggery that has as its only purpose the dehumanization of the obviously living human being as justification for disregarding its human rights.

Moral behavior ought to take more account than merely the location of the organism in deciding if it's to live or die, don't you think?

And, it does. In the case of human embryos and human adults, it's not merely location.

Wrong. As I point out in the case of a premature c-section delivery, a fetus becomes a "person" merely through the expedient of leaving the mother's body. Natural birth is not required, merely a change in location. It is therefore illogical and irrational to say that a fetus in utero at an identical stage of development as a living fetus extracted by c-section has any different human rights than the fetus now outside the mother's body. This is amply demonstrated by the laws on late-term abortion, where in some cases, it's legal to deliver all of the child's body except the head, forcibly restrain the complete delivery of the child from the birth canal by pushing against the contractions, slide a pair of scissors up inside the vagina and poke them into the brain of the child, killing it, and then deliver the head. In some places that is a legal abortion. But if the abortionist slips up and allows the baby to slide all the way out, the child is now a person endowed with fundamental civil rights and may not be (but often is) murdered by the abortionist.

This is a change of location alone, nothing else. The child has no opportunity to breath or go through any of the other biological developments that take place AFTER full delivery. The child changes from "clump of cells that can be killed with impunity" to "living human being and person imbued with rights" in the instant the head leaves the birth canal.

A change of location alone imbues the child with human rights. And that is a fact of law.

It's also completely irrational and illogical as a demarcation point for the granting of civil rights, as I've demonstrated.