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Anything that processes information is a computer.

The brain processes information.

Therefore, the brain is a computer.

If you want the abortion to happen as early as possible, then shame is the last thing you want, as it will cause pregnant women to put off the decision for fear of being shamed.

Preventing unwanted pregnancy is the goal. Ending an unwanted pregnancy should happen with shame and as early as possible. It’s a mistake that gets worse with time.

Right, but the absence of a functioning nervous system implies the absence of sentience [see #107]. So I don’t think it’s arbitrary.

It’s arbitrary. A functioning nervous system does not imply complex thought.

But if an accident removes the entire brain yet the body somehow stays alive like a vegetable, then yeah I’d say it’s okay to pull the plug.
Is that fair? It’s interesting how abortion and euthanasia are kind of related in this way.

I think it’s not okay to kill someone whose nervous system stops working later in life if it may work again.
They’ve already been a person and may well continue to be a person. That can’t be said of an organism that has never had a nervous system.

They’re already a person […].

Not at the time the nervous system is broken and the creative program isn’t running. Personhood has ‘halted’.

I think it’s not okay to kill someone whose nervous system stops working later in life if it may work again.
They’re already a person and may well continue to be a person. That can’t be said of an organism that has never had a nervous system.

If my nervous system isn’t working because of coma, is it ok to kill me?

Clarity is suggesting it wouldn’t be okay, thus whether the nervous system is functional can’t be the determining factor.

That the baby can’t survive outside the womb sounds like an additional reason to carry to term, not a reason not to do it.

Except in cases of rape, the mother is responsible for the baby’s existence.

A baby with a nervous system may be a person and thus have rights.

If the fetus has "developed a nervous system" but is not yet capable of surviving outside the mother (even with all the technological knowledge of medicine), why should the mother have an obligation to carry it to term?

According to WebMD:

Most babies will start walking between about 10 and 18 months old, although some babies may walk as early as 9 months old.

And they retain that ability. So something must be being stored here.

They also start saying basic words by age 1, which they retain as well.

Shouldn’t the father have some say? He shouldn’t get to dictate what she does with the baby, but shouldn’t he have some say? It’s his child, too, after all.

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?

Shouldn’t the father have some say? He shouldn’t get to dictate what she does with the baby, but shouldn’t he have some say? It’s his child, too, after all.

It’s true that potential beings cannot have rights. But once a fetus is a person, it’s not a potential being anymore. It’s then an actual being.

It’s not the birth that turns a fetus into a person – it’s the running of the universal-explainer software I mentioned in #119. And that might occur before birth.

Ayn Rand writes:

An embryo has no rights. Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not yet living (or the unborn).

Obligations are only coercive if they are unchosen. People know that sex can result in pregnancy.

More generally, when you take an action that you know (or should know) can result in some obligation, then that obligation is not unchosen.

Fudging unchosen and chosen obligations is why some of the pro-abortion crowd strike me as people who just want to be able to act without consequence or responsibility. Similar to other women’s ‘rights’ issues (which aren’t about rights but special treatment and privileges).

You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

Many suggestions around abortion can be evaluated by asking at whose expense? Whenever the answer is at the baby’s, something is wrong, since the baby did not make any decisions and thus cannot be held responsible.

A lot of the problems around abortion will go away with better technology. (Dirk)

There should be a pill for men, too. That would really shift the power dynamic, too. (Martin)

It’s possible creativity, and with it, personhood and rights, only comes online after birth. For example, the universal-explainer program may be partly memetic, as David Deutsch argues in The Beginning of Infinity. In which case creativity only comes online upon exposure to other people.

But that’s highly speculative. The program might as well be wholly genetic and start running before birth.

According to WebMD:

Most babies will start walking between about 10 and 18 months old, although some babies may walk as early as 9 months old.

And they retain that ability. So something must be being stored here.

They also start saying basic words by age 1.