[WikiEN-l] Re: NPOV: Fetus personhood

Thu Jul 28 05:51:56 UTC 2005

In considering these topics, I'd say

* the human life within a body is generally considered to belong to two 
stages : the first being embryo the second being foetus. Just after 
conception, you do not have a foetus but only a set of undifferenciated 
cells. For about 8 weeks, you still do not have a foetus and the live 
being does not look like, nor behave like anything human. It would be 
interesting to check if all medical entities consider the embryo stage 
ends at the same time. In France, I believe it is 50 days of 
development. This might mark a time for some people to believe "before" 
it is an animal, "after", it is a small human.
I had the opportunity to see one of my babies just on the 51th day of 
development, it looks like a human basically.

* another point to consider is medical experiment on human cells. 
Depending on countries, experiments can or can not be done on embryo 
cells, and this to a certain stage. In some people mind, this stage will 
be the difference between making experiment on an animal and on a human. 
The first being sometimes considered normal, sometimes a crime; the 
second being generally considered a crime. Again, it might be 
interesting to note the time limit for such experimenting, with regards 
to population reaction to such experiments.

* another point of non return is the stage of developement until which 
abortion is legal (aside from abnormalities issues). Depending on 
countries, it may be conception, or 10 weeks or more. Often, this stage 
of no-return may indicate a consensus on when stopping the life is 
"okay" and when it is a "crime". In France, it is 10 weeks, so definitly 
when the living being is a foetus.
I had the opportunity to see two of my babies at 10 weeks of 
development, and to lose one exactly at this stage. I know some women 
feel the need to give a name to such a baby to better assume the 
grievance. And when abortions are made, babies are usually not shown to 
the woman, there is a reason for that.
But again, it might be interesting to compare stages of maximum abortion 
depending on countries. It might be interesting to evaluate the 
consensus on when it becomes a crime to eliminate it voluntarily.

* The next point of non-return is the stage of development, when, when a 
  foetus dies, he is recognised by the law. It receives a name, it may 
be buried, and it is registered on legal papers. I'd say, again 
interesting to compare countries. If a country recognise a dead foetus 
as a dead human at ... say 6 months,... it would be quite illogical not 
to claim the foetus at this stage is not human in this country...from a 
legal perspective.

* The near last reference might be the stage at which a foetus can born 
and be kept alive. Even if he might have been better inside, if he is 
outside and alive, he is probably human. In best cases, this might be as 
early as 5 months-6 months, though most will have consequences. But at 5 
months-6 months, most women, if asked, would probably agree that their 
foetus has a personnality. They move or not, they react to your touch or 
not, they play with you moving around depending on your own reaction, 
suck their thumbs or not, react to light, noise... differently. It may 
not be "human", but it definitly has a "specific behavior which makes it 
unique".

Still and finally, many would consider that being "human" is necessarily 
being able to live "independently". Which might be at birth... or 
anytime later... or never for some heavily handicaped people in some 
people opinion.

This suggest to me this
* not everyone agrees there is a foetus personhood and if there is one, 
not everyone agrees when it happens. Considering the "consensus" on this 
topic is not a good idea, because NPOV is not about the "general 
opinion". It is not the mainstream. So an article on foetus personhood 
seems to me a call for disagreement, since the title seems to imply it 
exists, whatever what the article contains. This is not so good.

* however, everyone agrees there is a human personhood. The only thing 
on which possibly some would not agree would be that "some" people are 
not human. But this is likely to be such a rare occurence, that 
probably, an article on human personhood would not be questionnable. Do 
an article on [[human personhood]] and discuss in it the various 
thoughts across the world, upon when a little one becomes a human with a 
human personhood. This will probably cause far less objections and you 
will be able to discuss the topic in length in the article itself.

Anthere

steve v a écrit:
> Then we're in agreement that Fetal personhood needs to
> be an article. I disagree with Skyring's claim that
> NPOV policy and NPOV terminology should be left to
> each article. As physical science has rational bearing
> on issues regarding the concept of universe, so does
> medical science have a bearing on all medical issues.
> The view that NPOV rel. rationality rel. science, and 
> POV rel. irrationality rel. claim/belief is not a
> controversial interpretation of NPOV, IMHO.
> 
> Hence we can feel free to state a dominant consensus
> that at some certain point, a fetus is a human life,
> and hence marginalize both extreme absolutist views
> which claim either that "human life begins at
> conception" or that the issue is entirely "in the
> domain of woman's choice [until its feet are out]."
> 
> Sinreg,
> SV
> 
> PS starting progress on: consolidating issues to
> Template:Abortion 
> 
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> 
>>This is a pretty complex question to sum up easily,
>>and there's a huge 
>>body of writing on it from all sides (not just
>>political advocates 
>>either; there's a huge body of literature in
>>applied-ethics philosophy 
>>journals).  Some opinions agree that it's a "human
>>life" but argue that 
>>"human rights" is a misnomer and ought to be
>>"personhood rights", and 
>>not granted automatically to humans but only to
>>persons; others dispute 
>>that a fetus is "human" in the sense that the term
>>is generally meant, 
>>and instead will only grant it is "of the species
>>homo sapiens" or 
>>something similar.  There is a whole *other* body of
>>literature on what 
>>exactly "personhood" is and means, and once you've
>>established that, 
>>still another body of literature on what sort of
>>ethics ought to apply 
>>to people who have been deemed "persons" in the
>>relevant sense (fifty 
>>flavors of utilitarians, Kantians, and all the
>>rest).
>>
>>Basically there's nothing Wikipedia can say about
>>this subject that has 
>>a consensus anywhere, other than some very basic
>>medical facts like "a 
>>fetus is genetically of the species homo sapiens". 
>>There is, however, a 
>>lot of stuff other people say about it that would be
>>nice to summarize.
>>
>>-Mark
> 
> 
> 
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