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Blueberry comments on Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease - Less Wrong
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How does it apply to abortion? I'm not sure what you mean.
Much of the abortion debate is over whether a fetus counts as a "person."
I'm still not sure I understand. So you're saying to taboo the term 'person' (a being with moral rights)? That still doesn't address the main point, which is balancing the value of the fetus against the rights of the mother.
Not exactly. "Is a fetus a person?" is a disguised query. When you ask that question, you are really asking, "should we allow women to abort fetuses?" Which is, as you said, the main point. But that doesn't stop some people from arguing semantics.
No, that's not the same question at all. Suppose we agree that a fetus is a person: that is, that a fetus should have the same moral rights as an adult. It's still not at all clear whether abortion should be legal. One of J. J. Thomson's thought experiments addresses this point: suppose you wake up and find yourself being used as a life support machine for a famous violinist. Do you have the right to disconnect the violinist? Thompson argued that you did, and thus people should have the right to an abortion, even if a fetus is a person.
Alternatively, consider something like the endangered species act: no one thinks that a spotted owl or other endangered species is a person, but there are many people who think that we shouldn't be allowed to kill them freely.
You're missing my point. I'm not saying that it's the same question. Many times when people get into the abortion debate, they start arguing over whether a fetus is a person. The pro-choice side will point out the dissimilarities between a fetus and a human. The pro-life side will counter with the similarities. All of this is in an effort to show that a fetus is a "person." But that isn't really the relevant question. Say they finally settle the issue and come up with a suitable definition of "person" which includes fetuses of a certain age. Should abortion be allowed? Well, they don't really know. But they will try to use the definition to answer that question.
This is what I mean when I say that "is a fetus a person?" is a disguised query. The real question at issue is "should abortion be allowed?" They aren't the same question at all, but in most debates, once you have the answer to the first you have the answer to the second, and it shouldn't be that way because the first question is mostly irrelevant.
Ah, I see! Yes, I agree completely.
ETA: And most people in abortion debates don't seem to realize this. There are also the questions of whether it should be legal even if it's unethical (to avoid unsafe abortions that kill the mother), and whether abortion law should be decided at the state or federal level, which also get confused with the other questions. You can oppose Roe on federalism grounds even if you support abortion.
:"Is a fetus a person?" isn't just about abortion, but about other rights for fetuses as well. If a fetus is a person, is the woman carrying it legally obligated to not endanger it?
I still think that's a disguised query. Whether a fetus is a person is a separate question from whether a woman is obligated to not endanger it. For instance, protected species of animals are not people, but we are legally obligated to not endanger them in certain ways. Convicted murderers on death row, enemy soldiers at war, and people trying to kill you are considered people, but in some situations involving such people, there is no legal obligation to not endanger them.
I can consistently think a fetus is a person, but that there should be no requirement to not endanger it, and vice versa.