Comments by "Scott Charney" (@scottcharney1091) on "Accessing Abortion Is Hard Enough, Protestors Make It Harder" video.

What's the harm in never being born?
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Yes, as a matter of fact. Ask the women involved; I'm not going to do your research for you.
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Embryos and fetuses aren't babies. They lack personhood, i.e. all the characteristics that are taken away from someone when someone is killed. They are in a quasi-parasitic relationship with the host organism. There's no harm in not being born.
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Embryos and fetuses are not babies.
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There is no baby (it's an embryo or a fetus), and there is no lord.
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@zsoltbakos685 No, they are incapable of doing anything at all to anyone, as they have no will. You don't know what you're talking about. Human life is not the issue; personhood is.
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Igor Horváth You missed the point.
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Igor Horváth There's no harm in being aborted. It's very different than the killing of someone with personhood.
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@zsoltbakos685 No, embryos & fetuses haven't the capacity to be innocent or guilty. There's no harm in not being born.
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@zsoltbakos685 I didn't say that it wasn't human, nor that it wasn't technically alive. I don't have inconsistent standards, and I think that others should agree because it seems perfectly sensible to me.
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@DiscipleOfTheKing True, and irrelevant. "Sex" is Latin for "six."
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@DiscipleOfTheKing Human being? Of course. It's a question of personhood, i.e. the characteristics that make killing wrong: sentience, a will to live, preferences, hopes & dreams, biological autonomy, etc. In a rudimentary but genuine way, babies have personhood. Embryos don't, and can't. That comes later.
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@DiscipleOfTheKing Yes, personhood is a philosophical stance. It's a philosophical argument. Yes, one can make those arguments, and there's been a lot of interesting discussion around it, usually centering on grievous defects. In fact, that sort of thing has not been uncommon throughout human history, including in (for example) some very Christian environments. As for when personhood arises, I'm not entirely sure, but I can tell you that it's long after nearly all (and perhaps entirely all) abortions occur.
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@DiscipleOfTheKing No, it's not a case of taking another person's life, as embryos and fetuses don't have personhood. Of course we were all fetuses. That's beside the point. There's no harm in not being born.
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@DiscipleOfTheKing Not at all. Human embryos and human fetuses are indeed human. When people talk about "the day before they're due" and that sort of thing, they're throwing out a red herring, deliberately or otherwise. This interview, with a doctor who has thorough knowledge of the situation, is illuminating: https://www.vox.com/2019/3/11/18246702/trump-abortion-ralph-northam-virginia-green-bay
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Actually, the majority of women who have abortions identify with a religion. I am an atheist, but I wanted to point out your error.
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The reason doesn't matter. Abortion is a morally neutral act.
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Babies?
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It's a big part of the reason why abortion rights are so important.
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@shesworthy7217 You're Also, your comment makes no sense.
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@christianuploads8292 There's no baby, and if somehow your ridiculous fantasy came to pass, you would have a lot of married women having abortions (many do already).
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@christianuploads8292 Usually embryos, sometimes fetuses.
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*Embryo (sometimes fetus)
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@crash-ry3eq Precisely. Embryos and fetuses aren't babies; they don't have personhood yet, so the choice defaults to the host organism.
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Igor Horváth Sure; see my other reply.
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Igor Horváth You're already replying to it.
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Igor Horváth Yes, all three do.
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Igor Horváth A newborn is no longer in a quasi-parasitic (emphasis on "quasi") state. It no longer is (by default) sucking on the nutrients of a possibly unwilling host. Even if the mother does not wish to care for it, someone else can be found to do so. Also, newborns do have rudimentary sentience. As for your dog, it's not human, but it is a sentient creature, which is why we usually say that killing them is usually wrong (outside of euthanasia, defense, etc.).
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Igor Horváth I didn't write anything about paying for anybody's life support. If you're referring to comatose people, that sort of thing is decided on a case-by-case basis. Plugs are pulled very often. The point about biological dependence is that it's entirely up to the host organism to decide if that situation should continue. They're the one supplying all of the nutrients. I don't know enough about animals to decide that, but I can say that animal rights do stem from sentience, as I indicated earlier. I don't know exactly when sentience arises, but the point is that it's long after nearly all abortions take place.
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Igor Horváth If I understand your first sentence, and I'm not sure that I do: There's no harm in not being born. Embryos don't have (and cannot possibly have) a desire to go on living, thoughts of any kind, and all the other things that make up personhood, that make us think that killing is wrong. As for sentience: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient
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Igor Horváth No, I did answer your question. You were asserting (if I understood you correctly) that women ought to be obligated to the embryo because they caused said embryo to exist, and I am pointing out that it doesn't matter. Embryos don't have personhood, unlike you and I. Newborns have rudimentary behavior of personhood, and they're no longer inside a host organism. Somebody can be found to take care of them. I was afraid that you were going to reference The Silent Scream. That video was almost immediately found to be fraudulent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silent_Scream#Medical_community Personhood refers to the characteristics that make killing wrong, all that is taken away when somebody is killed: The will to live, biological autonomy, sentience, etc. It's why you wouldn't react the same way to a fire that destroyed countless frozen embryos as you would to a disaster that killed a much smaller number of people. Some animals are indeed sentient, and while the charges aren't murder or manslaughter, note that animal cruelty is definitely criminal.
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Igor Horváth The point is that the scientists and doctors cited in the article noticed immediately that the filmmakers were not honest. The film doesn't depict what the filmmakers claim, and gives a false impression to the uneducated viewer. Also, indeed, the capacity to feel pain is somewhat beside the point.
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Igor Horváth The organs/nerve cells needed for consciousness don't appear until the 24th-28th week, and even then, that doesn't mean that they're in operation. I don't have to prove to you that I have personhood- I'm not sure what kind of fallacy that is, but it's one of them. No, I don't think that personhood appears with a snap of a finger during birth. It's obviously more nuanced than that. When I refer to dependency, I'm referring to the dependency of a being in a quasi-parasitic biological state. Of course the examples you give are all persons. As for various conditions that remove/deny/prevent personhood, one can examine those on a case-by-case basis. Lots of famous medical ethics cases are about just that. The argument about "put[ting] me through your actions into your body and then destroy[ing] me because you don't want me there" only makes sense if there's any harm in said destruction. There isn't.
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Igor Horváth That's more than too much to wade through. I'll put it like this: Nobody minds not being born. (There's also a good case to be made that it's the ideal outcome.) There's nothing approaching a will to live, sentience, preferences, desires, and all the other things taken away when a person is killed. That's why we think that killing is usually wrong. Babies have rudimentary forms of this sort of thing, but, more importantly (and crucially), they're not in a quasi-parasitic relationship with a host organism that may not be willing to serve as a carrier. After delivery, somebody can be found to take care of a child; there's no more inextricable tie to the pregnant woman. Very, very few of those characteristics (if any) apply to embryos or fetuses. There are dishonest and/or naive attempts to do so (like The Silent Scream, among other things), and unfortunately those catch on with certain audiences. Now, as for all the "what abouts," those are case-by-case. Pardon the passive voice: Plugs are pulled all the time, extraordinary lifesaving measures are forgone, and decisions are made about the appropriate use of deadly force. People make those decisions every day; in fact, it could be argued that all of us do that in passive ways. I think that I was referring to this article earlier; I'm not sure: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/
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Igor Horváth How would you care? That's different from being killed while asleep. You already have personhood. It doesn't go away.
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Igor Horváth Yes, newborns do, in a rudimentary (but genuine) way. The only exceptions would be those with the worst of the worst birth defects, of the agonizing, surely fatal variety. As for the mentally disabled, most do, in fact the vast majority probably do. It depends. I'm not an expert on that sort of thing.
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Igor Horváth Personhood includes things like sentience, a will to live, preferences/desires/etc., and biological autonomy. By that last one, I mean that embryos and fetuses are in a quasi-parasitic relationship with a perhaps unwilling host, whereas someone can be found to take care of a newborn. As for links, I can send you quotes from ethicists and the like saying similar things.
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Igor Horváth Newborns have rudimentary personhood, and regarding your second question, what does that have to do with anything?
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Igor Horváth Before birth, the quasi-parasitic state is the situation. As for the other aspects of personhood, I don't know exactly when they're present, but most abortions take place a long time before there's any doubt. There's no guilt involved. Nobody asks to be conceived, and nobody minds not being born.
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Not so.
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@zsoltbakos685 Human beings and persons are different. It informs (and is based upon) what makes killing wrong.
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@zsoltbakos685 If I understand you correctly, you might not realize that you and I obviously have the characteristics of personhood.
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No, abortion is not murder, but Gosnell's actions definitely were. I noticed the image as well, and realized it must be a pretty serious error!
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