Bourgeois pigs kill suicidal 16 year old boy.

[FireIceTalon]

I'm sorry man, I cannot get on board with this. The risk factors, both socially and scientifically are way too great, no matter how noble the intentions may be.

There is no guarantee this would ever be available for anyone but the wealthy, and even if it came to be, the damage could already be done by the time it becomes available for the rest of society. A genetic elite is about the last thing we need. And assuming regular folks eventually have access to it, this can be misused by them as well - many workers also have very reactionary beliefs and attitudes. In some countries it is been deliberately used to make more male children than female - so people are already misusing it. Aside from that, I consider it an objectification of children: it essentially turns them into commodities. It's bad enough that we become commodities when we enter the work force in a capitalist society, now we are going to objectify them instantly instead. It is also a sign of conditional love by the parents. "I want my child to be male, have long blonde hair, and blue eyes" - whenever I hear people say stuff like this, first thing that goes through my mind is "are you going to love them any less if they don't?" I would rather be born ugly but know my parents love me for who I am, or be aborted altogether, than have them systematically handpick everything about me in some catalog; as they see fit or desirable and love me for that, and that only. Right off the bat they are not even giving me a chance to be my natural self.

And again, what about the genetic risks? Some parents may just want something as simple as their child having the same eye color as they do, but changing any gene has potential consequences that are unpredictable, and once done, likely unchangeable.

I have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Taem]

I'm sorry man, I cannot get on board with this. The risk factors, both socially and scientifically are way too great, no matter how noble the intentions may be.

There is no guarantee this would ever be available for anyone but the wealthy, and even if it came to be, the damage could already be done by the time it becomes available for the rest of society. A genetic elite is about the last thing we need. And assuming regular folks eventually have access to it, this can be misused by them as well - many workers also have very reactionary beliefs and attitudes. In some countries it is been deliberately used to make more male children than female - so people are already misusing it. Aside from that, I consider it an objectification of children: it essentially turns them into commodities. It's bad enough that we become commodities when we enter the work force in a capitalist society, now we are going to objectify them instantly instead. It is also a sign of conditional love by the parents. "I want my child to be male, have long blonde hair, and blue eyes" - whenever I hear people say stuff like this, first thing that goes through my mind is "are you going to love them any less if they don't?" I would rather be born ugly but know my parents love me for who I am, or be aborted altogether, than have them systematically handpick everything about me in some catalog; as they see fit or desirable and love me for that, and that only. Right off the bat they are not even giving me a chance to be my natural self.

And again, what about the genetic risks? Some parents may just want something as simple as their child having the same eye color as they do, but changing any gene has potential consequences that are unpredictable, and once done, likely unchangeable.

I have to agree to disagree on this one.

This is to FIT in regards to "designer babies". It happens even now to save lives, and I doubt you have issue with this. I swore to myself I'd stay out of this discussion since my last post, but I really do have something to add. Please, please read these links; they are short but informative news articles, the ones I made some of my comments about earlier but offered no links too:

Child born to save sister's life: Bone marrow transplant...
Again... this is not as uncommon as you seem to think...
Oxford Journal Ethical Consideration of this topic (a little long; you can skip this one if you want)
Legal implications (be sure to read this one also)

On a side-note regarding human rights, it's interesting that this goes against the child's will in some cases, but legally the child has no rights to deny this until they are 18. So it can be deduced that true human rights don't actually begin until a human reaches the age of 18.

[FireIceTalon]

Two of those stories are quite moving, especially the one with the sisters. But having another baby to save a already born sick child is not the same thing as DNA manipulation, or genetically made babies. Nor is embryo selection (they even made this clear at the end of the article in which that was discussed). In both cases, there is a different set of ethical issues involved, and while there are genetic risks involved, they are still much more predictable and more easily controlled than actual designer babies. Not to mention the social consequences - having another baby to save your first child's life isn't going to potentially open doors to things like a 'master race' or an genetic elite class or creating a male (or female) dominated society.

[Taem]

Two of those stories are quite moving, especially the one with the sisters. But having another baby to save a already born sick child is not the same thing as DNA manipulation, or genetically made babies. Nor is embryo selection (they even made this clear at the end of the article in which that was discussed). In both cases, there is a different set of ethical issues involved, and while there are genetic risks involved, they are still much more predictable and more easily controlled than actual designer babies. Not to mention the social consequences - having another baby to save your first child's life isn't going to potentially open doors to things like a 'master race' or an genetic elite class or creating a male (or female) dominated society.

I hear what your saying, but:

The surprise to many may be that despite George Bush’s ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, genetic analysis of embryos and selection for implantation is permitted in the United States. It is often used for diseases such as Beta Thalessemia, Sickle Cell Anemia, Cystic Fibrosis, or yes--even to choose the desired gender of the child.

Is this no different? You screen your child's DNA, even "choose" the correct embryos for the bone marrow - you are essentially designing your child to fit your needs. Your baby has a predisposition to be born with a certain disease so you eliminate it... your are picking and choosing what DNA is right for you.

Now that the human genome has been fully mapped out, and designer baby possibilities are already here (link, and link). But regardless, even if right-now you can now choose your child's sex or eye color, what's the difference between doing that and screening the DNA to tell before your child were conceived what characteristics that child would be most likely to have; then you'd be making that choice to keep or discard that child and choosing what you wanted for your child anyhow. This is really no different than altering the DNA to fit your needs. In one set of circumstances, you wait for your lottery ticket to win, in the other, you pick your lottery numbers after the lottery is already draw to win; either way, the results are the same. When you "design" your baby, you are still designing your baby, rather with the bone-marrow your older child needs, or with blue eyes.

EDIT: Here's an interesting article you may enjoy, albeit written back in 1997: LINK

"Eugenics" is a term of accusation and automatic condemnation. It will forever be associated with Nazi superman projects. Some eugenics-minded authors, however, were not racist murders. They were just unscientific and sinned in thinking that they knew what kinds of human beings ought to populate the earth. What eugeneticists wanted to do was to increase the frequency of socially good genes in the population, but that was too difficult, so they focused on attempting to decrease the frequency of allegedly bad genes in the population. Unfortunately they did not know how to do this either! As a result of this ignorant approach, by the late 1920s, some two dozen American states had enacted Eugenic Sterilization Laws, and such laws were declared constitutional in a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Modern medical genetics tries to avoid these pitfalls and this guilt-by- association. Medical geneticists are not out to make superior people, but to combat disease. This "medical-disease" model works fine for life-threatening diseases. Who would deny gene therapy to a child whose life could be saved by this therapy? But what about cosmetic or benign disease? For example, let us say we agree that it is a good thing to fix by somatic-cell gene therapy an embryo where the infant will inherit a missing hand and certainly would have a difficult time in life.

[Jester]

There is no guarantee this would ever be available for anyone but the wealthy, and even if it came to be, the damage could already be done by the time it becomes available for the rest of society. A genetic elite is about the last thing we need.

The same argument can be made against any improvement in welfare. Education was (and to some extent, still is) only for the wealthy. It created an elite. And yet, do we say education is bad? Advanced medicine was (and also still is) only for the wealthy. And yet, do we say medicine is bad?

No. Instead, we say that it should be available for everyone. So, why not do that instead?

In some countries it is been deliberately used to make more male children than female - so people are already misusing it.

That requires nothing more than an ultrasound and a coathanger. Surely this is not relevant for a discussion of genetic engineering?

Right off the bat they are not even giving me a chance to be my natural self.

What is your "natural self"? Is that a thing? I can't point to it. If I was left without serious medical intervention as a child, odds are I'd be dead. So would most of us, looking at "natural" rates of child mortality Insofar as I have a natural self, that's it, a dead guy. Why is intervention at the genetic level any different? You are not your genes, any more than twins are the same person.

And again, what about the genetic risks? Some parents may just want something as simple as their child having the same eye color as they do, but changing any gene has potential consequences that are unpredictable, and once done, likely unchangeable.

So? We've taken a thousand steps that are unchangeable and unpredictable. Do you think we could predict what would happen when we invented fire? The plow? The railroad? Atomic power? The internet? No. But we did it anyway. We learn and adapt - that's what we're best at.

For the moment, we do not know how to make genetic alterations heritable. So the consequences are quite restricted.

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

A couple of points for Jester:

"18" as a rights threshold might be better presented as "age of legal majority." Such thresholds are arbitrarily assigned based on norms, customs, and making crap up in a given human society.

Science is in part a game of classification and definition: without that, the logical process can't build from foundation to edifice. The entire effort of kpcofgs classification is an effort at definition and classification. (Yes, it has is uses).

As to the nature and nurture mix, yes. It's either a mix or a mess ... depending upon your point of view.

Designer babies, which is where we've gotten to standard Loungian entropic thread morph (from porcine bourgeois and deceased teenagers) is a conclusion arrived at in deterministic fashion as a solution to the problem F.I.T. used to began this thread with gnashing of teeth and rending of garments:

Make another one who looks just like him. (Riff off of an old Bill Cosby joke ... )

Problem solved, eh?

I am currently listening to Great Big Sea, Captain Kidd. Nothing can dampen my mood when good maritime music comes out of my Pandora station.

Cheers.

[kandrathe]

I'm saying a fetus before delivery does have rights and protections, analogous to (though obviously not identical with) those we afford to animals. You cannot kill a fetus without the consent of the mother. You cannot harm it unnecessarily. You cannot be cruel to it. But it is not a citizen. A late-term abortion is not murder, in exactly the same sense that putting down a pet is not murder. That it is alive and feels pain does not mean it has full human rights. Those, I say, begin at birth - which, I might emphasize again, is NOT a conclusion emerging from science, but a value judgment.

Two mothers are impregnated nearly the same time. One has complications in her 8th month and delivers a living baby 3-4 weeks pre-mature. You are saying that the one baby is a citizen, and the other has the rights of a puppy due entirely to their position. It has nothing to do with gestational age.

Then there's something wrong with your scientific and logical mind, because those definitions are arbitrary.

Right, I just need to fight for the rights of puppies. Brilliant.

For me, babies are afforded human rights regardless of the whims of their parents. They are not puppies.

[kandrathe]

For the moment, we do not know how to make genetic alterations heritable. So the consequences are quite restricted.

We can and do make genetic alterations at the egg/ sperm level -- and if not lethal would be inheritable. Maybe we "don't" do it (at least publically), but we know how to do it. So the question would be; should we do it? I have a close friend who died from Cystic Fibrosis -- which is an inherited condition and we know the genes involved. Some genetic ailments we might entirely removed from the gene pool. Should we? I don't see why we wouldn't for this purpose.

Many labs around the world are proscribed from"Somatic" and "Germline" genetic engineering to human embryos, but I believe it is being done under the covers in private labs. It is certainly very commonly done to animals and plants in the US which has no ban on Chimera research at this time.

Google: Dr. Panos Zavos

Only ethics stand in the way, and that we know is a flimsy barrier.

[Jester]

Two mothers are impregnated nearly the same time. One has complications in her 8th month and delivers a living baby 3-4 weeks pre-mature. You are saying that the one baby is a citizen, and the other has the rights of a puppy due entirely to their position. It has nothing to do with gestational age.

Yes.

Except for the puppy bit - hilarious though it is as a sound byte, I quite specifically said that a fetus can have partial, but not full, rights, in a way *analogous* to that of an animal, not *identical* to an animal's rights. It's not an all or nothing proposition, wherein babies are either full citizens, or nonexistent.

For me, babies are afforded human rights regardless of the whims of their parents. They are not puppies.

Whims. Right.

If we're going to be reifying our arbitrary definitions, then allow me to stand on convention: Before birth, fetus. After birth, baby. Mixing the two is, unless I am greatly mistaken, deliberate pro-life prevarication, trying to export our value system for the word "baby" onto the word "fetus."

Shall we then open murder investigations with miscarriages? Accuse mothers who did not take optimal care of their miscarried fetuses with criminal negligence causing death? They're not puppies, but they aren't able to live by themselves, either. I think they get their human rights at birth, and to move it back before that point is to dangerously conflate their lives with that of their mothers. (Or their embryonic vats, either way.) This is a value judgement, how I think the laws should be applied to best preserve justice.

-Jester

[Jester]

So the question would be; should we do it? I have a close friend who died from Cystic Fibrosis -- which is an inherited condition and we know the genes involved. Some genetic ailments we might entirely removed from the gene pool. Should we? I don't see why we wouldn't for this purpose.

Yes, of course we should. If we could eliminate cystic fibrosis, just like we eliminated polio, or smallpox? Why not? Sheer Luddism?

Many labs around the world are proscribed from"Somatic" and "Germline" genetic engineering to human embryos, but I believe it is being done under the covers in private labs. It is certainly very commonly done to animals and plants in the US which has no ban on Chimera research at this time.

Isn't all genetic engineering either somatic or germline? And from my (extremely limited) understanding, the Weismann Barrier is a pretty steep obstacle to making somatic genetic alterations heritable. So we can pursue gene therapies prior to that point without worrying about serious ethical consequences.

Not that I am against germline therapies even in principle - we alter our genetic code by deliberate selection all the time. It's just that when we pick someone up at a bar and whoopsie daisy a pregnancy results, we tend to think of that as "normal" rather than "playing god," but it's all just chemical alterations of our genome. If I have a child with someone with a known faulty gene, causing (for instance) hemophilia, am I committing a crime? I wouldn't have thought so.

-Jester

[Occhidiangela]

Consider this:

The more diseases and defects that are resolved (presumably by the clever device of gene adjustment) the more people will live.

This provides more people to get in each other's way, and then to kill one another as we arrive at the various arbitrary things that we squabble about, sometimes to lethal effect. Then again, it may just make for more targets in the game of rendering a fellow "syndrome" survivor so much splintered bone and mangled flesh with various motored vehicles.

While I appreciate the energy you are putting into this argument, please pardon me if I find droll the continuing efforts at perfection and immortality. At best, it gives us something to do. That by itself isn't a bad thing, but I can't escape the feeling that we are simply spinning our wheels.

Robert Earl Keen's lyrics come to mind:

If I could live my life all over
It wouldn't matter anyway
'Cos I never could stay sober
On the Corpus Christi Bay

(My use of 'us' and 'we' is an admission that I am a member of the human race, not any attempt to establish an all inclusive position held by the entire human race. There isn't enough whiskey for that).

[NuurAbSaal]

with various motored vehicles.

spinning our wheels.

I will unravel the secret code of this message. There should be just enough Whiskey in the world for that.

take care
Tarabulus





P.S.: Ahmagawd I got it! It's "drive safely", right? Right...?

[kandrathe]

Shall we then open murder investigations with miscarriages? Accuse mothers who did not take optimal care of their miscarried fetuses with criminal negligence causing death?

Maybe. Inflicting addiction to drugs, or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome seems to be abusive. It would seem the law makers are uncertain. It is against Federal Law since 2004 "Unborn victim of Violence Act" -- where that takes jurisdiction; since the criminal code is the States business we have another 50 variations possibly.

Should Pregnant Women be Subject to Criminal Prosecution for Activities that are Harmful to Their Fetuses? It probably does create a slippery slope, or opens Pandora's box -- that sounds wrong... I get what you are saying.

They're not puppies, but they aren't able to live by themselves, either.

The same is true of the elderly in nursing homes, the infirm, or human children.

I think they get their human rights at birth, and to move it back before that point is to dangerously conflate their lives with that of their mothers. (Or their embryonic vats, either way.) This is a value judgment, how I think the laws should be applied to best preserve justice.

I don't entirely disagree that being in a womb complicates the situation for both parties. We live in an age informed by science. It is time to set aside Aristotle, and thereby the medieval and common law understanding of "quickening".

In this age of safe and effective birth control, we should be able to entirely eliminate unwanted pregnancy. In my opinion, too much time and effort is spent fighting for and against abortion, whereas the better use of that effort and money would be in getting effective birth control to those that don't want to become pregnant.

But, my main point is that the society has a duty to protect all those we consider to be people. Parents don't get to kill their children, and we don't kill off the unwanted (whether they are mentally ill, infirm, too old, or whatever). I'm just not sure that being unfortunate to be unwanted and in a womb means you can be killed when you might otherwise survive outside a womb.

More succinctly perhaps, "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped." -- H.H. Humphrey, November November 4, 1977 at the dedication of the Humphrey building for Health and Human Services.

[kandrathe]

I will unravel the secret code of this message. There should be just enough Whiskey in the world for that.

P.S.: Ahmagawd I got it! It's "drive safely", right? Right...?

I think I'm winning the human race... Nope, just got lapped by the cat.

[Jester]

Should Pregnant Women be Subject to Criminal Prosecution for Activities that are Harmful to Their Fetuses?

Oh, lovely. That certainly won't go horribly wrong.

The same is true of the elderly nursing homes, the infirm, or human children.

Which then raises the question - what threshold are we willing to accept? I don't, for instance, believe it is a crime to take someone off life support, if they are no longer able to survive without it or make decisions for themselves, so long as the decision is made by those legally entitled to do it.

I don't entirely disagree that being in a womb complicates the situation for both parties. We live in an age informed by science. It is time to set aside common law understanding of "quickening".

First, I wouldn't advocate any such thing - I think birth is the threshold, not "quickening," which in the modern world would pretty much just mean viability anyway. Even if we did replace it, we would replace it with what? You persist in thinking science has answers to these questions. But science cannot, even in theory, answer these questions.

In this age of safe and effective birth control, we should be able to entirely eliminate unwanted pregnancy.

Sometimes I worry that our conversations get too humourless. Then someone cracks a joke like this, and I remember that this is still a funny place.

In my opinion, too much time and effort is spent fighting for and against abortion, whereas the better use of that effort and money would be in getting effective birth control to those that don't want to become pregnant.

Good plan. If only the anti-abortion agenda wasn't being driven by people who don't actually give two figs about the stats, and whose clear and persistent goal is control over women. Sadly, not, and the same people screaming about abortion are also the same people who want abstinence only, who think a woman's place is in the home, and think there's nothing better than "traditional marriage." The agenda isn't tough to piece together, and it's got sweet nothing to do with the objective abortion stats.

But, my main point is that the society has a duty to protect all those we consider to be people.

Precisely. But I don't consider fetuses to be people.

-Jester

---

While I appreciate the energy you are putting into this argument, please pardon me if I find droll the continuing efforts at perfection and immortality. At best, it gives us something to do. That by itself isn't a bad thing, but I can't escape the feeling that we are simply spinning our wheels.

I'm no futurist. I think we should be allowed to do these things, partly because I don't think they're going anywhere fast. Ray Kurtzweil-ish dreams of technological singularities strike me as hilariously unlikely.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Oh, lovely. That certainly won't go horribly wrong.

It's part and parcel of the emerging nanny state, just as wrong as the government raising the children, or giving everyone "make work" jobs.

Which then raises the question - what threshold are we willing to accept? I don't, for instance, believe it is a crime to take someone off life support, if they are no longer able to survive without it or make decisions for themselves, so long as the decision is made by those legally entitled to do it.

I think it is a dangerous idea to allow the "decision is made by those legally entitled" to be anything other than the individual, and even then circumstances are key. One of our fundamental Constitutional rights is the right to life, so it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to take away a life, even when the owner is deserving in the case of heinous crime, or willing in the case of suicide.

First, I wouldn't advocate any such thing - I think birth is the threshold, not "quickening," which in the modern world would pretty much just mean viability anyway. Even if we did replace it, we would replace it with what? You persist in thinking science has answers to these questions. But science cannot, even in theory, answer these questions.

Embryology offers at least 4 answers; 1) Zygote has the DNA of a human and unless interfered with will be born as human, 2) formation of systems including beating heart, 3) functioning nervous system including brain activity, and 4) viable to survive outside the womb.

I believe current position is based on misapplication of common law against quackery in selling abortifactants. It was known as the "born alive" rule. As ecclesiastical laws governing criminal conduct receded with the rise of parliamentary law, this rule rose as the Aristotelian / ecclesiastical definition of "quickening" fell away. All that was left was this civil law relating to quackery.

If only the anti-abortion agenda wasn't being driven by people who don't actually give two figs about the stats, and whose clear and persistent goal is control over women.

The trouble with democratic society is all the other jerks who don't think like I do.

Precisely. But I don't consider fetuses to be people.

We'll have to disagree about it. I believe that at least when they are viable outside a womb they are human fetuses and should at some point be afforded human rights.

[shoju]

Which then raises the question - what threshold are we willing to accept? I don't, for instance, believe it is a crime to take someone off life support, if they are no longer able to survive without it or make decisions for themselves, so long as the decision is made by those legally entitled to do it.

I think it is a dangerous idea to allow the "decision is made by those legally entitled" to be anything other than the individual, and even then circumstances are key. One of our fundamental Constitutional rights is the right to life, so it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to take away a life, even when the owner is deserving in the case of heinous crime, or willing in the case of suicide.

This exchange has me curious, as it is becoming a quasi-hotbutton topic in my family. My father's condition with his Brain has reached a sort of.... "quickening" state of its own, and the doctors fear that another stroke caused by bleeding from either an AVM or related Aneurysm could be closer than what we realize. They said they can count on one hand the number of patients they have personally had that had survived one "Blood Stroke" as they called it (my father being one of them). They said that they have never had a patient survive a second one in anything more than a comatose state.

My father has a DNR, and a No Life Sustaining Support Living Will. There are some in my family who do not support this, and are willing to sue to gain power of attorney rights, because of his "obviously deteriorated mental state". Nevermind that since this all started 13 years ago, and my father wasn't suffering as much limitations due to his condition, he signed the DNR/Refusal of Life Support

So who is legally entitled? My father, who signed the papers 13 years ago? My mother? Myself? My Sister? My Grandmother? My Aunts?

Ultimately, I know how my father feels about it, and I want to do what I can to honor his wishes, even if that means I have to go to court on his behalf against my own family. He doesn't want to be a vegetable. He doesn't want to lay there in a bed, living purely because some machine at the bedside does so for him.

"Legally entitled" is an awfully slippery slope. Where does it end?
Do we allow people to challenge a living will?
Do we allow the government to intervene?

The case of who makes these decisions is hard, and it can, and will, (sadly) get messy.

On one hand, I side with Jester, that isn't living.
On the other hand, I don't know how I feel about legally entitled, or the idea that you could become "legally entitled" by suing for it, and going against the wishes of the person in question.

[Jester]

On one hand, I side with Jester, that isn't living.
On the other hand, I don't know how I feel about legally entitled, or the idea that you could become "legally entitled" by suing for it, and going against the wishes of the person in question.

I don't think you can become legally entitled to contravene someone's living will, can you? I don't know the law here, but I'd have thought that if someone says in writing to pull the plug, you pull the plug.

-Jester

[shoju]

On one hand, I side with Jester, that isn't living.
On the other hand, I don't know how I feel about legally entitled, or the idea that you could become "legally entitled" by suing for it, and going against the wishes of the person in question.

I don't think you can become legally entitled to contravene someone's living will, can you? I don't know the law here, but I'd have thought that if someone says in writing to pull the plug, you pull the plug.

-Jester

They are of the opinion (and apparently have found a lawyer who agrees) that if you can prove that the person made the living will was of somehow not "With it" enough mentally, you could challenge it.

Basically, they are trying to say that my father's condition has impaired his judgement. It hasn't. It's changed his outlook for sure, and it's made him more tired, and it's made him more emotional (who wouldn't be more emotional if you had something in your brain that would eventually kill you?), but it hasn't made him "mentally deficient".

I don't know if they are necessarily trying to say that he is somehow stupid now, or that he isn't thinking clearly or what, but they are certainly going to try and prove that his condition has made him not think this through well enough to decide for himself. Because they look at the advances that have been made, and they think that they will somehow be able to "keep him on ice" until they find a way to remove the mass that is causing the problems without damaging "good tissue", and that when he wakes up from this, and is alive, and happy and healthy (and older) he will somehow be grateful for it. Another Stroke wont ruin him. more years with this thing bleeding in his brain wont hurt him, nope. Those are all just temporary things.

I know some of it is denial, and there is a healthy dose of "I don't want to lose him" involved in it. I truly hope it doesn't get to a point where they decide they want to take this to court. I hope that they listen to reason.

[Jester]

It's part and parcel of the emerging nanny state, just as wrong as the government raising the children, or giving everyone "make work" jobs.

A truly dystopian vision: A nanny state where make-work jobs means hiring bureaucrats to police expectant mothers.

I think it is a dangerous idea to allow the "decision is made by those legally entitled" to be anything other than the individual, and even then circumstances are key.

I agree. Circumstances like, say, not having been born yet.

One of our fundamental Constitutional rights is the right to life, so it should be extraordinarily difficult for the government to take away a life, even when the owner is deserving in the case of heinous crime, or willing in the case of suicide.

Excellent point.

The right to life is set out in the 14th amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Note: your rights as a citizen start when you are born. Not when you are conceived, not when you are a viable fetus, not when your heart starts beating. You can extend the definition of personhood to include fetuses if you can muster the support to amend the constitution, but it is neither currently enshrined in the constitution, nor the product of common law.

Embryology offers at least 4 answers; 1) Zygote has the DNA of a human and unless interfered with will be born as human,

"Unless interfered with"? What's interference? Lots of human pregnancies end in miscarriage. The death of a fetus happens all the time, and so far, we don't pursue negligence cases. Nor, I would argue, should we.

2) formation of systems including beating heart,

And those systems are "formed" when? They begin developing, in the most basic of forms, almost immediately, and continue developing until after puberty. At what point are they "formed," and what bearing does that have on the question of rights?

3) functioning nervous system including brain activity,

The nervous system also starts developing to some limited extent almost immediately, and continues to develop after birth. Where is the line?

4) viable to survive outside the womb.

With a sufficiently advanced lab, we could keep a fetus alive from almost the moment of conception. What's "viable," and to what extent are we willing to enforce it? Some babies aren't "viable" even after birth - is it not murder if you stick a knife in one of them?

These are NOT decideable by science. At best, the developmental process suggests some thresholds at which we might consider granting rights. I think birth has by far the strongest case. But it does nothing more than that.

I believe current position is based on misapplication of common law against quackery in selling abortifactants. It was known as the "born alive" rule. As ecclesiastical laws governing criminal conduct receded with the rise of parliamentary law, this rule rose as the Aristotelian / ecclesiastical definition of "quickening" fell away. All that was left was this civil law relating to quackery.

It seems to me to be a reasonable threshold. (It also happens to be the one in force in Canada, if the wiki has it right.) I don't know by what non-circular reasoning you call this a "misapplication". If you're just assuming that fetuses can be murdered, then of course, the rule is misapplied, but that's just assuming your conclusion in your premises.

The trouble with democratic society is all the other jerks who don't think like I do.

Yes, of course. Majoritarianism has always run the risk of trampling on minority rights, and of perpetuating inequalities in power. If a powerful enough political coalition wants to reinstate slavery, or deny women the vote, or abolish free speech, what's to stop them, if all we have is an appeal to the rawest possible form of democracy?

I'm a social libertarian. I am not a communitarian. I don't believe people should impose their *cultural* values on others, unless they can make the case for an *ethical* imperative. I don't care if they can drum up a majority, a super-majority, or even unanimity. Freedoms are safeguarded by democracy, but they must also be safeguarded against democracy - this is the essence of the liberal paradox of tolerance.

We'll have to disagree about it. I believe that at least when they are viable outside a womb they are human fetuses and should at some point be afforded human rights.

They are also human fetuses before they become viable. I just disagree about the "some point" at which they should be afforded full human rights. But perhaps we will have to disagree about that - unlike most problems, I don't think there is a way to resolve this by reference to any accepted principle or empirical reality.

-Jester