Categories Are Meaningful: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life on Personhood

Common sense or, as cognitive science labels it, folk theory informs us that “all things are a kind of thing”. All things have in common with other things certain characteristics; i.e. all things belong in categories with other like things. Things are categorized together based upon what they have in common. It might be worth while to think of category as being a container.

In classical or conventional terms we categorize things in accordance with what are regarded as being that which is essential to that kind of thing. All things that are essentially the same fall into the same category. What is essential to a tree is that which is necessary and sufficient for that thing to be classified as a tree. To categorize a thing, i.e. define a thing, is to give its essential characteristics.

In some way or another all creatures must categorize. At a minimum all creatures must distinguish friend from foe or eat and not eat. Categorization is part of the fundamental needs for survival of the creature. If the mouse mistakes a snake for a stick that mouse becomes toast; the same categorization problem applies to the lion and to the man.

Categorization is meaningful. Meaning is not a thing; something is meaningful for a creature only when there is an association between that thing and the creature. “Meaningfulness derives from the experience of functioning as a being of a certain sort in an environment of a certain sort.” It is meaningful to a soldier when s/he mistakenly categorizes a tank to be only a harmless tree or an enemy to be a friend.

There is nothing more meaningful for a creatures’ survival than correct categorization of the world in which that creature lives.

When does a human female egg fertilized by a human male sperm become a person?

Quotes from “Metaphors We Live By” George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

To tell you the truth I go with this.

First trimester: biological mass

second trimester: biological mass with the potention for human life

Third trimester: a fetus with the potential for human life

Birth : Human life

To tell you the truth I go with this.

First trimester: biological mass

second trimester: biological mass with the potention for human life

Third trimester: a fetus with the potential for human life

Birth : Human life



in a biological way of thinking yes,that's correct. But as a woman who has been pregnant twice,the moment I found out I was pregnant my girls were a human life to me.

I myself would never have an abortion just for the sake of correcting a "mistake" as I have known other women to do. It would have to be very early on and be a threat to my life for me to go through with something like that.

I fully agree, Michelle. I knew my babies from the time they were conceived, therefore, they were life.

in a biological way of thinking yes,that's correct. But as a woman who has been pregnant twice,the moment I found out I was pregnant my girls were a human life to me.

I myself would never have an abortion just for the sake of correcting a "mistake" as I have known other women to do. It would have to be very early on and be a threat to my life for me to go through with something like that.

Michelle. I agree with you. The Women who is pregnant can determine that at the moment of conception the fertilized egg is human life. I have no dreams of divinity myself and would not even consider telling a women what is or is not right, when concerning her own body. But I also believe that neither the Government nor Religions have the divine right to determine what is right or not right when it comes to a Womens Body.

In the First trimester I believe a women has the right to abortion on demand.

In the Second trimester I believe there needs to be some reason for the abortion. Problems with the fetus, problems with the mother, emotional or financial fears.

In the third trimester an abortion should only be done to safe guard the mothers health and well being or because of a defect in the fetus.

I do not believe that the Government nor any religion has the right to enforce a blanket denial of abortion. It is up to the women as set forth under the above conditions. I personally prefer that every boy and girl at the age of thirteen be put on birth control. But that is not likely to ever happen.

I think that abortions in the first trimester should always be legal. I myself would not get one, but I think that a woman has a right to get one. After that, I think there has to be a medical reason for the abortion - the fetus has a serious problem, or the mother's health is seriously at risk. A child can generally live outside the mother's womb at around 25 weeks. Any abortions after that seem like a terrible thing.

On a religious note, I wonder why Christians and Jews think such different things about abortion. My step-mother is Jewish, and she told me that Jews believe life begins at birth (when the fetus survives outside the mother, not when the fetus can survive outside the mother). Most Christians seem to believe that life begins at conception.

In the First trimester I believe a women has the right to abortion on demand.

In the Second trimester I believe there needs to be some reason for the abortion. Problems with the fetus, problems with the mother, emotional or financial fears.

In the third trimester an abortion should only be done to safe guard the mothers health and well being or because of a defect in the fetus.

I do not believe that the Government nor any religion has the right to enforce a blanket denial of abortion. It is up to the women as set forth under the above conditions. I personally prefer that every boy and girl at the age of thirteen be put on birth control. But that is not likely to ever happen.
If the woman has "emotional or financial fears", she should get the abortion in the first trimester. If she ignored the fact that her periods were missing and didn't find out that she was pregnant in time, that is her own responsibility. There are lots of people who would be happy to adopt that baby.

Dark Fantasy

That is the problem with allowing religions to dictate secular law. There is no Universal Belief structure in the world. All belief structures have beliefs incorporated into their belief structure. Even religions with mutipule denominations cannot agree on a Universal Belief structure for their own beliefs.

Because of this confusion. The primary justification for a secular law cannot be based on the beliefs generated from a religion. For there is no way to determine the validity of any religious belief.

Dark Fantasy

One of the reasons I think the Government and Religion needs to keep their noses out of the abortion issue is some of the what ifs. The medical establishment needs to set standards based upon Medical Science and not moral standards.

Let say a female patient who is mentally disabled and is a permenant resident in a asylum. Is made pregnant by another patient or health care worker. There are women who have carried pregnancies clear through the second trimester who were not noticably pregnant. The fetus appears to be normal but there are many disabilities that cannot be discovered until after a live birth.

If the mental Disability of the Mother is Genetic there is a good chance that the fetus could also have a genetic disability. So if the women carries the pregnancy into the third trimester. And the medical doctors advise an abortion and the blood relatives agree with this recommendation. Should the Governments or Religious Moral beliefs out weigh the medical and blood relatives choice to abort. I do not think so.

Now if the blood relatives choose to allow the birth and take responcibility for the Child their wishes outway the medical assessment. I just find it difficult to believe that a hard, fast, written in Stone Law will be beneficial and will not interfere with a womens right over her body.

I find it hard to believe that a medical doctor would advise an abortion during the third trimester for any reason besides dire health risks for mother and/or fetus. That IS killing a baby - that fetus can live outside of the mother. It is therefore a baby, and aborting it is killing it. If the woman is so mentally debilitated as to not realize that she has missed her period, then she is probably monitored for that sort of thing anyway, and one of the doctors would notice far before the third trimester.

My grandmother and mother were both diagnosed with bipolar disorder and clinical depression, and I show some of the symptoms - should I have been aborted because I could inherit a mental disorder? This is a sensitive issue for me, because it was only by chance that I ended up being born. My mother has had far more abortions than she has had children (by my count, at least 3-4 abortions, 2 children, 1 miscarriage).

Dark Fantasy

So we can agree on this

First Trimester. On demand

Second Trimester. For medical reasons

Third Trimester. Only to save the mothers life or health.

To me these are reasonable schedules

Glad you made it, by the way.

The point of the question was to accentuate the importance of categorization.

It appears to me that some people categorize this question based upon theology while other people categorize based upon science while other people categorize based upon other factors. Because categories are so very important this inconsistence represents a serious problem. This problem of categorization is one of the principal considerations of the new paradigm of cognitive science as elucidated by Lakoff.

The point of the question was to accentuate the importance of categorization.

It appears to me that some people categorize this question based upon theology while other people categorize based upon science while other people categorize based upon other factors. Because categories are so very important this inconsistence represents a serious problem. This problem of categorization is one of the principal considerations of the new paradigm of cognitive science as elucidated by Lakoff.

I seen someone in favor of abortion ask a simple question once that helped put peoples perspective in perspective. I don't agree with abortion personally, but it's not my body and not my business.

Heres the question.

If you were in a fertility clinic and a fire broke out and you had a choice of saving a baby or 40 infertile embryos, which would you pick?

You know, in Korea your age starts from the moment of conception. You automatically get a year tacked on to your age to account for gestation. I always find that pretty interesting. Just a little tid bit to throw in there.

As for a personal opinion on abortion, I think that it should only be legal if the woman is in danger, or if she was a rape and/or incest victim.

Cognitive science has introduced a new way of viewing the world and our self by declaring a new paradigm which I call the embodied mind. The primary focus is upon the fact that there is no mind/body duality but that there is indeed an integrated mind and body. The mind and body are as integrated as is the heart and the body.

The human thought process is dominated by the characteristic of our integrated body. The sensorimotor neural network is an integral part of our mind. The neural network that makes movement and perception possible is the same network that processes our thinking.

The unconscious categories that guide our human response to the world are constructed in the same way as are the categories that make it possible of other animals to survive in the world. We form categories both consciously and unconsciously.

Why do we feel that both our consciously created and unconsciously created categories fit the world?

Our consciously formed concepts fit the world, more or less, because we consciously examine the world with our senses and our reason and classify that world into these concepts we call categories.

Our unconsciously formed categories are a different matter. Our unconsciously formed categories fit our world because these basic-level categories “have evolved to form at least one important class of categories that optimally fit our bodily experiences of entities and certain extremely important differences in the natural environment”.