Chinese exploration

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_exploration

Chinese exploration includes exploratory Chinese travels abroad, on land and by sea, from the travels of Han dynasty diplomat Zhang Qian into Central Asia during the 2nd century BC until the Ming dynasty treasure voyages of the 15th century that crossed the Indian Ocean and reached as far as East Africa.

Land exploration

Pamir Mountains and beyond

Further information: History of the Han dynasty, Sino-Roman relations, and Daqin

Countries described in Zhang Qian's report (visited countries are highlighted in blue).

The Western Han envoy Zhang Qian traveled beyond the Tarim Basin in the 2nd century BC, introducing the Chinese to the kingdoms of Central Asia, Hellenized Persia, India, and the Middle East in search of allies against the Xiongnu.

From 104 to 102 BC, Emperor Wu of Han waged war against the "Yuezhi" who controlled "Dayuan", a Hellenized kingdom of Fergana established by Macedonian king Alexander the Great in 329 BC. Emperor Wu also expanded Han territories beyond the Gansu corridor into the Western Regions, in what is now Xinjiang. Han military control of the region was established with the Protectorate of the Western Regions, but the Tarim Basin states were only loosely under Han control as tributary vassals on the western frontier.

In 97 AD, Gan Ying, the emissary of Eastern Han General Ban Chao, traveled as far as the Persian Gulf in the Parthian Empire, but was deterred by his Parthian hosts who falsely informed him that the journey to the Roman Empire necessitated an arduous trip around the Arabian peninsula. Nevertheless, he returned to the Han court with a report describing the Mediterranean civilization of ancient Rome (called "Daqin" in Chinese historiography). After these initial discoveries, the focus of Chinese exploration shifted to the maritime sphere, although the Silk Road leading all the way to Europe continued to be China's most lucrative source of trade.

The pilgrimage of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang from Chang'an to Nalanda in India not only greatly increased the knowledge of Buddhism in China – returning more than 650 texts including the Heart and the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras – and inspired the immensely influential novel Journey to the West, but it also led to Xuanzang's publication of the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, a text which introduced China to Indian cities such as the port of Calicut and recorded many details of 7th-century Bengal for posterity.

Maritime exploration

South China Sea

Before the advent of the Chinese-invented mariner's compass in the 11th century, the seasonal monsoon winds controlled navigation, blowing north from the equatorial zone in the summer and south in the winter. This most likely accounts for the ease with which Neolithic travelers from mainland China were able to settle on the island of Taiwan in prehistoric times. After defeating the last of the Warring States and consolidating an empire over China proper, the Chinese navy of the Qin dynasty period (221–206 BC) assisted the land-borne invasion of Guangzhou and northern Vietnam. (Called first Jiaozhi and then Annan, the northern half of Vietnam would not become fully independent from Chinese rule until AD 938.) In 1975, an ancient shipyard excavated in Guangzhou was dated to the early Han dynasty (202 BC – AD 220) and, with three platforms, was able to construct ships that were approximately 30 m (98 ft) in length, 8 m (26 ft) in width, and could hold a weight of 60 metric tons.

During the Three Kingdoms, travelers from Eastern Wu are known to have explored the coast. The most important were Zhu Ying and Kang Tai, both sent by the Governor of Guangzhou and Jiaozhi Lü Dai in the early 3rd century. Although each wrote a book, both were lost by the 11th century: Zhu's Record of the Curiosities of Phnom (t 扶南異物誌, s 扶南异物志, Fúnán Yìwù Zhì) in its entirety and Kang's Tales of Foreign Countries During the Wu Period (t 吳時外國傳, s 吴时外国传, Wúshí Wàiguó Zhuàn) only surviving in scattered references in other works, including the Shuijing Zhu and the Yiwen Leiju.

Later, during the Eastern Jin, a rebel known as Lu Xun managed to fend off an attack by the imperial army for a hundred days in 403 before sailing down into the South China Sea from a coastal commandery. For six years, he occupied Panyu, the largest southern seaport of that time.

Southeast Asia

Between the 15th and 18th centuries, much of Southeast Asia was explored by Chinese merchants. Some parts of Malaysia were settled by Chinese families at this time, and Chinese garrisons established Similarly, some Chinese traders settled in north Java in the 1400s, and after China legitimized foreign trade again in 1567 (licensing 50 junks a year), hundreds of Chinese trade colonies developed in what is now Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Indian Ocean and beyond

See also: Ming treasure voyages

A Song dynasty junk ship, 13th century; Chinese ships of the Song period featured hulls with watertight compartments

Chinese envoys sailed into the Indian Ocean from the late 2nd century BC, and reportedly reached Kanchipuram in India, known as Huangzhi (黄支) to them, or otherwise Ethiopia as asserted by Ethiopian scholars. During the late 4th and early 5th centuries, Chinese pilgrims like Faxian, Zhiyan, and Tanwujie began to travel to India by sea, bringing Buddhist scriptures and sutras back to China. By the 7th century, as many as 31 recorded Chinese monks, including I Ching, managed to reach India the same way. In 674, the private explorer Daxi Hongtong was one of the first explorers to end his journey at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, after traveling through 36 countries which were located west of the South China Sea.

Chinese seafaring merchants and diplomats who lived during the medieval Tang dynasty (618–907) and Song dynasty (960–1279) often sailed into the Indian Ocean after visiting ports in Southeast Asia. Chinese sailors would travel to Malaya, India, Sri Lanka, into the Persian Gulf and up the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq, to the Arabian peninsula and into the Red Sea, stopping to trade goods in Ethiopia and Egypt (as Chinese porcelain was highly valued in old Fustat, Cairo). Jia Dan wrote Route between Guangzhou and the Barbarian Sea during the late 8th century that documented foreign communications, the book was lost, but the Xin Tangshu retained some of his passages about the three sea-routes linking China to East Africa. Jia Dan also wrote about tall lighthouse minarets in the Persian Gulf, which were confirmed a century later by Ali al-Masudi and al-Muqaddasi. Beyond the initial work of Jia Dan, other Chinese writers accurately described Africa from the 9th century onwards; For example, Duan Chengshi wrote in 863 of the slave trade, ivory trade, and ambergris trade of Berbera, Somalia. Seaports in China such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou – the most cosmopolitan urban centers in the medieval world – hosted thousands of foreign travelers and permanent settlers. Chinese junk ships were even described by the Moroccan geographer Al-Idrisi in his Geography of 1154, along with the usual goods they traded and carried aboard their vessels.

A giraffe brought from Somalia in the twelfth year of Yongle (1414)

From 1405 to 1433, large fleets commanded by Admiral Zheng He – under the auspices of the Yongle Emperor of the Ming dynasty – traveled to the Indian Ocean seven times. This attempt did not lead China to global expansion, as the Confucian bureaucracy under the next emperor reversed the policy of open exploration and by 1500, it became a capital offence to build a seagoing junk with more than two masts. Chinese merchants became content trading with already existing tributary states nearby and abroad. To them, traveling far east into the Pacific Ocean represented entering a broad wasteland of water with uncertain benefits of trade.

Exchanges

Main articles: Foreign relations of Imperial China, Sino-Roman relations, Europeans in Medieval China, and Sogdia

See also: Tang dynasty, History of the Song dynasty, and Islam during the Song dynasty

Chinese Muslims traditionally credit the Muslim traveler Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas with introducing Islam to China in 650, during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, although modern secular scholars did not find any historical evidence for him actually travelling to China. In 1008 the Fatimid Egyptian sea-captain Domiyat, in the name of his ruling Imam Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, travelled to the Buddhist pilgrimage-site in Shandong in order to seek out Emperor Zhenzong of Song with gifts from his court. This reestablished diplomatic ties between China and Egypt which had been broken since the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–960). The trade embassy of the Indian ruler Kulothunga Chola I to the court of Emperor Shenzong of Song in 1077 proved an economic benefactor for both empires.

Technique

In China, the invention of the stern-mounted rudder appeared as early as the 1st century AD, allowing for better steering than using the power of oarsmen. The Cao Wei Kingdom engineer and inventor Ma Jun (c. 200–265 AD) built the first south-pointing chariot, a complex mechanical device that incorporated a differential gear in order to navigate on land, and (as one 6th century text alludes) by sea as well. Much later the Chinese polymath scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095 AD) was the first to describe the magnetic needle-compass, along with its usefulness for accurate navigation by discovering the concept of true north. In his Pingzhou Table Talks of 1119 AD the Song dynasty maritime author Zhu Yu described the use of separate bulkhead compartments in the hulls of Chinese ships. This allowed for water-tight conditions and ability of a ship not to sink if one part of the hull became damaged.

Evolution of morality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

The concept of the evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior. The emerging fields of evolutionary biology, and in particular evolutionary psychology, have argued that, despite the complexity of human social behaviors, the precursors of human morality can be traced to the behaviors of many other social animals. Sociobiological explanations of human behavior remain controversial. Social scientists have traditionally viewed morality as a construct, and thus as culturally relative, although others such as Sam Harris argue that there is an objective science of morality.

Animal sociality

See also: Social animal

Though other animals may not possess what humans may perceive as moral behavior, all social animals have had to modify or restrain their behaviors for group living to be worthwhile. Typical examples of behavioral modification can be found in the societies of ants, bees and termites. Ant colonies may possess millions of individuals. E. O. Wilson argues that the single most important factor that leads to the success of ant colonies is the existence of a sterile worker caste. This caste of females are subservient to the needs of their mother, the queen, and in so doing, have given up their own reproduction in order to raise brothers and sisters. The existence of sterile castes among these social insects significantly restricts the competition for mating and in the process fosters cooperation within a colony. Cooperation among ants is vital, because a solitary ant has an improbable chance of long-term survival and reproduction. However, as part of a group, colonies can thrive for decades. As a consequence, ants are one of the most successful families of species on the planet, accounting for a biomass that rivals that of the human species.^[1][2]

The basic reason that social animals live in groups is that opportunities for survival and reproduction are much better in groups than living alone. The social behaviors of mammals are more familiar to humans. Highly social mammals such as primates and elephants have been known to exhibit traits that were once thought to be uniquely human, like empathy and altruism.^[3][4]

Primate sociality

See also: Altruism in animals

Humanity's closest living relatives are common chimpanzees and bonobos. These primates share a common ancestor with humans who lived four to six million years ago. It is for this reason that chimpanzees and bonobos are viewed as the best available surrogate for this common ancestor. Barbara King argues that while primates may not possess morality in the human sense, they do exhibit some traits that would have been necessary for the evolution of morality. These traits include high intelligence, a capacity for symbolic communication, a sense of social norms, realization of "self", and a concept of continuity.^[5][6] Frans de Waal and Barbara King both view human morality as having grown out of primate sociality. Many social animals such as primates, dolphins, and whales have shown to exhibit what Michael Shermer refers to as premoral sentiments. According to Shermer, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great apes:

attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group.^[7]

Shermer argues that these premoral sentiments evolved in primate societies as a method of restraining individual selfishness and building more cooperative groups. For any social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group should outweigh the benefits of individualism. For example, lack of group cohesion could make individuals more vulnerable to attack from outsiders. Being part of a group may also improve the chances of finding food. This is evident among animals that hunt in packs to take down large or dangerous prey.

Social evolution of humans^[8]

Period years ago	Society type	Number of individuals
6,000,000	Bands	10s
100,000–10,000	Bands	10s–100s
10,000–5,000	Tribes	100s–1,000s
5,000–4,000	Chiefdoms	1,000s–10,000s
4,000–3,000	States	10,000s–100,000s
3,000–present	Empires	100,000–1,000,000s

All social animals have societies in which each member knows its own place.^{[citation needed]} Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment. However, higher order primates also have a sense of reciprocity. Chimpanzees remember who did them favors and who did them wrong.^{[citation needed]} For example, chimpanzees are more likely to share food with individuals who have previously groomed them.^[9] Vampire bats also demonstrate a sense of reciprocity and altruism. They share blood by regurgitation, but do not share randomly. They are most likely to share with other bats who have shared with them in the past or who are in dire need of feeding.^[10]

Animals such as Capuchin monkeys^[11] and dogs^[12] also display an understanding of fairness, refusing to co-operate when presented unequal rewards for the same behaviors.

Chimpanzees live in fission-fusion groups that average 50 individuals. It is likely that early ancestors of humans lived in groups of similar size. Based on the size of extant hunter gatherer societies, recent paleolithic hominids lived in bands of a few hundred individuals. As community size increased over the course of human evolution, greater enforcement to achieve group cohesion would have been required. Morality may have evolved in these bands of 100 to 200 people as a means of social control, conflict resolution and group solidarity. This numerical limit is theorized to be hard coded in our genes since even modern humans have difficulty maintaining stable social relationships with more than 100–200 people. According to Dr. de Waal, human morality has two extra levels of sophistication that are not found in other primate societies. Humans enforce their society's moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. People also apply a degree of judgment and reason not seen in the animal kingdom.^{[citation needed]}

Adaptive valley of disgust at cruel individual altruism

Some evolutionary biologists and game theorists argue that since gradual evolutionary models of morality require incremental evolution of altruism in populations where egoism and cruelty initially reigned, any sense of occasional altruism from otherwise egoistic and cruel individuals being worse than consistent cruelty would have made evolution of morality impossible due to early stages of moral evolution being selected against by such sentiments causing the individuals with some morality to be treated worse than those with no morality. This would have caused low degree morality to become an adaptive valley that would preclude the early steps away from the no morality condition, precluding an early necessary condition for later evolution of higher degrees of morality. These scientists argue that while this rules out evolutionary explanations of the specific type of morality that feels disgust at some empathy from rarely empathic individuals by assuming it to be psychopathic Machiavellianism, it does not rule out evolution of other types of morality that accept a little altruism as better than no altruism at all.^[13][14]

Punishment problems

While groups may benefit from avoiding certain behaviors, those harmful behaviors have the same effect regardless of whether the offending individuals are aware of them or not.^[15] Since the individuals themselves can increase their reproductive success by doing many of them, any characteristics that entail impunity are positively selected by evolution.^[16] Specifically punishing individuals aware of their breach of rules would select against the ability to be aware of it, precluding any coevolution of both conscious choice and a sense of it being the basis for moral and penal liability in the same species.^[17]

Human social intelligence

The social brain hypothesis, detailed by R.I.M Dunbar in the article The Social Brain Hypothesis and Its Implications for Social Evolution, supports the fact that the brain originally evolved to process factual information. The brain allows an individual to recognize patterns, perceive speech, develop strategies to circumvent ecologically-based problems such as foraging for food, and also permits the phenomenon of color vision. Furthermore, having a large brain is a reflection of the large cognitive demands of complex social systems. It is said that in humans and primates the neocortex is responsible for reasoning and consciousness. Therefore, in social animals, the neocortex came under intense selection to increase in size to improve social cognitive abilities. Social animals, such as humans are capable of two important concepts, coalition formation, or group living, and tactical deception, which is a tactic of presenting false information to others. The fundamental importance of animal social skills lies within the ability to manage relationships and in turn, the ability to not just commit information to memory, but manipulate it as well.^[18] An adaptive response to the challenges of social interaction and living is theory of mind. Theory of mind as defined by Martin Brüne, is the ability to infer another individual's mental states or emotions.^[19] Having a strong theory of mind is tied closely with possessing advanced social intelligence. Collectively, group living requires cooperation and generates conflict. Social living puts strong evolutionary selection pressures on acquiring social intelligence due to the fact that living in groups has advantages. Advantages to group living include protection from predators and the fact that groups in general outperform the sum of an individual's performance. But, from an objective point of view, group living also has disadvantages, such as, competition from within the group for resources and mates. This sets the stage for something of an evolutionary arms race from within the species.

Within populations of social animals, altruism, or acts of behavior that are disadvantageous to one individual while benefiting other group members, has evolved. This notion seems to be contradictory to evolutionary thought, due to the fact that an organism's fitness and success is defined by its ability to pass genes on to the next generation. According to E. Fehr, in the article, The Nature of Human Altruism, the evolution of altruism can be accounted for when kin selection and inclusive fitness are taken into account; meaning reproductive success is not just dependent on the number of offspring an individual produces, but also the number of offspring that related individuals produce.^[20] Outside of familial relationships altruism is also seen, but in a different manner typically defined by the prisoner's dilemma, theorized by John Nash. The prisoner's dilemma serves to define cooperation and defecting with and against individuals driven by incentive, or in Nash's proposed case, years in jail. In evolutionary terms, the best strategy to use for the prisoner's dilemma is tit-for-tat. In the tit-for-tat strategy, an individual should cooperate as long others are cooperating, and not defect until another individual defects against them. At their core, complex social interactions are driven by the need to distinguish sincere cooperation and defection.

Brune details that theory of mind has been traced back to primates, but it is not observed to the extent that it is in the modern human. The emergence of this unique trait is perhaps where the divergence of the modern human begins, along with our acquisition of language. Humans use metaphors and imply much of what we say. Phrases such as, "You know what I mean?" are not uncommon and are direct results of the sophistication of the human theory of mind. Failure to understand another's intentions and emotions can yield inappropriate social responses and are often associated with human mental conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, some forms of dementia, and psychopathy. This is especially true for autism spectrum disorders, where social disconnect is evident, but non-social intelligence can be preserved or even in some cases augmented, such as in the case of a savant.^[19] The need for social intelligence surrounding theory of mind is a possible answer to the question as to why morality has evolved as a part of human behavior.

Evolution of religion

See also: Evolutionary origin of religions

Psychologist Matt J. Rossano muses that religion emerged after morality and built upon morality by expanding the social scrutiny of individual behavior to include supernatural third-party agents. By including ever watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.^[21] The adaptive value of religion would have enhanced group survival.^[22][23]

Wason selection task

Main articles: Wason selection task and Social selection

In an experiment where subjects must demonstrate abstract, complex reasoning, researchers have found that humans (as has been seen in other animals) have a strong innate ability to reason about social exchanges. This ability is believed to be intuitive, since the logical rules do not seem to be accessible to the individuals for use in situations without moral overtones.^[24]

Emotion

See also: Moral emotions and Moral foundations theory

Disgust, one of the basic emotions, may have an important role in certain forms of morality. Disgust is argued to be a specific response to certain things or behaviors that are dangerous or undesirable from an evolutionary perspective. One example is things that increase the risk of an infectious disease such as spoiled foods, dead bodies, other forms of microbiological decomposition, a physical appearance suggesting sickness or poor hygiene, and various body fluids such as feces, vomit, phlegm, and blood. Another example is disgust against evolutionary disadvantageous mating such as incest (the incest taboo) or unwanted sexual advances.^[4] Still another example are behaviors that may threaten group cohesion or cooperation such as cheating, lying, and stealing. MRI studies have found that such situations activate areas in the brain associated with disgust.

Foeticide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foeticide

Foeticide (British English), or feticide (North American English), is the act of killing a fetus, or causing a miscarriage. Definitions differ between legal and medical applications, whereas in law, feticide frequently refers to a criminal offense, in medicine the term generally refers to a part of an abortion procedure in which a provider intentionally induces fetal demise to avoid the chance of an unintended live birth, or as a standalone procedure in the case of selective reduction.

Etymology

Foeticide derives from two constituent Latin roots. Foetus, meaning child, is an alternate form of fetus coming from the writings of Isidorus, who preferred oe due to its association with foveo "I cherish" as opposed to feo "I beget". Foetus is compounded with the suffix -cide, from caedere, "to cut down, to kill." Also see homicide, genocide, infanticide, matricide, and regicide.

As a crime

Laws in the North America

Laws in the United States

Fetal homicide laws in the United States

  Homicide or murder.

  Other crime against fetus.

  Depends on age of fetus.

  Assaulting mother.

  No law on feticide.

In the U.S., most crimes of violence are covered by state law, not federal law. 38 states currently recognize the unborn child (the term usually used) or fetus as a homicide victim, and 29 of those states apply this principle throughout the period of pre-natal development. These laws do not apply to legally induced abortions. Federal and state courts have consistently held that these laws do not contradict the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on abortion.

In 2004, Congress enacted, and President Bush signed, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes the "child in utero" as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed during the commission of any of the 68 existing federal crimes of violence. These crimes include some acts that are federal crimes no matter where they occur (e.g., certain acts of terrorism), crimes in federal jurisdictions, crimes within the military system, crimes involving certain federal officials, and other special cases. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." This federal law (as well as many similar state laws, such as the one in California), does not require any proof that the person charged with the crime actually knew the woman was pregnant when the crime was committed.

Of the 38 states that recognize fetal homicide, approximately two-thirds apply the principle throughout the period of pre-natal development, while one-third establish protection at some later stage, which varies from state to state. For example, California treats the killing of a fetus as homicide, but does not treat the killing of an embryo (prior to approximately eight weeks) as homicide, by construction of the California Supreme Court. Some other states do not consider the killing of a fetus to be homicide until the fetus has reached quickening or viability.

In states where the overturning of Roe v. Wade has resulted in the complete illegalization of abortion except to preserve the life of the carrier, such laws may be used to prosecute any such procedure resulting in fetal demise.

Fetal homicide laws have also been used to prosecute women for recklessly causing stillbirths, such as in the cases of Rennie Gibbs, Bei Bei Shuai, and Purvi Patel. Gibbs was charged with murder in Mississippi in 2006 for having a stillborn daughter while addicted to cocaine. Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. The judge in that case ruled that the charges be dismissed. In 2011 Shuai was charged by Indiana authorities with murder and foeticide after her suicide attempt resulted in the death of the child she was pregnant with. Shuai's case was the first in the history of Indiana in which a woman was prosecuted for murder for a suicide attempt while pregnant. In 2013 Shuai pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal recklessness and was released, having been sentenced to time served. In 2015 Purvi Patel became the first woman in the United States to be charged, convicted, and sentenced on a foeticide charge. However, her conviction was later overturned, and she was resentenced to time served for a lesser charge.

Laws in Canada

Feticide is not considered a crime in Canada, as the Revised Statutes of Canada does not define a fetus as a person until it has either (1) taken a breath, (2) had independent circulation, or (3) had its umbilical cord severed. However, if the feticide occurs in the process of birth, it is a criminal offense.

Laws in the Central America

Laws in Belize

In Belizean Law, Feticide is a crime, although the prosecution and exact legality of such a such an action is difficult to conclusively ascertain, as legal experts disagree on how the law, and its requirement for Mens rea should be applied.

Laws in Costa Rica

In Costa Rican law, feticide exists as a crime, but it does not stand equivalent to homicide, nor does it result in similar penalties.

Laws in El Salvador

In Salvadoran law, any act which results in the death of a fetus is heavily criminalized. This has resulted in numerous women being charged and convicted for miscarriages, as was the case with Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, María Teres, and others.

Laws in Guatemala

In Guatemalan law, anyone who, during "acts of violence" causes on abortion "when the pregnant state of the victim is evident" has committed what the law calls an unintended abortion, and faces penalties up of up to three years imprisonment.

Laws in Honduras

In Honduran law, causing the death of a fetus where the mother is visibly pregnant is known legally as feticide.

Laws in Nicaragua

In Nicaraguan law, feticide is known legally as Reckless Abortion, and the law specifies that whoever causes "abortion through recklessness" is guilty of the offense and shall face six months to one year in prison.

Laws in the Caribbean

Laws in Bahamas

In Bahaman Law, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). In cases tried both recently and historically the murder of pregnant women, even when the women was obviously pregnant, resulted in no greater penalty for the destruction of the fetus.

Laws in Jamaica

In Jamaican law, feticide is not a crime. In recent history there have however been repeated calls for this to change.

Laws in Haiti

In Haitian law, feticide is a crime. Under Section 2, Article 262 of the Penal Code of Haiti, "Anyone who, by means of food, drink, medicine, violence or any other means, procures the abortion of a pregnant woman, whether she has consented to it or not, will be punished by imprisonment."

Laws in The Dominican Republic

In Dominican law, feticide is a crime. Under Article 317 of the Criminal Code of the Dominican Republic, "Whoever, by means of food, medicines, medicines, probes, treatments or in any other way, causes or directly cooperates to cause the abortion of a pregnant woman, even if she consents to it, shall be punished with the penalty of minor imprisonment."

Laws in St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica

In the countries listed above, English Common Law remains the law of the land, and as such, feticide is prohibited by a combination of two acts, the first, the Offences Against the Person Act, makes feticide a crime, but only when the act that induced it was itself intended to "to procure... (a) miscarriage", defining the act as an abortion. The second act on the subject, the Infant Life (Preservation) Act further outlines a separate crime, child destruction, which occurs when a person with "intent to destroy the life of a child capable of being born alive" takes an action which, "causes a child to die before it has an existence independent of its mother". The act goes on to specify that any fetus which has gestated for 28 weeks or more is to be considered capable of being born alive.

Laws in St. Lucia

In St. Lucia, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime, known as "causing a termination of a pregnancy" occurs when someone causes the pregnant person to "be prematurely delivered of a child" but only if they also have "intent unlawfully to cause or hasten the death of the child"

Laws in St. Vincent and the Grenadines

In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime, which is known simply as abortion occurs when someone "unlawfully administers to her (a pregnant person), or causes her to take, any poison or other noxious thing, or uses any force of any kind, or uses any other means whatsoever" but only if they also have "intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman".

Laws in Barbados

In Barbados, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage) or, when the pregnant person "is about to be delivered of a child". The crime for intentionally inducing a miscarriage, which is known as "Administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion" occurs when someone "with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman,... unlawfully administers to her or causes to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means whatsoever". The crime for feticide where the pregnant person "is about to be delivered of a child", is defined as "Killing an unborn child" and occurs when a person "prevents the child from being born alive by any act or omission of such a nature that, if the child had been born alive and had then died, he would be deemed to have unlawfully killed the child"

Laws in Grenada

In Grenada, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime is known simply as causing abortion, and is committed when someone takes an action "causing a woman to be prematurely delivered of a child, with intent unlawfully to cause or hasten the death of the child."

Laws in Trinidad and Tobago

In Trinidad and Tobago, feticide is only a crime if fetal demise was the intent of the act (for example, if a perpetrator performed an abortion, or assaulted a pregnant person with the explicit intent of inducing a miscarriage). The crime, which is known simply as abortion occurs when someone "unlawfully administers to her or causes to be taken by her any poison or other noxious thing, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means whatsoever with the like intent" but only if they also have "intent to procure a miscarriage".

Laws in Europe

Laws in the United Kingdom

Main article: Child destruction

In English law, "child destruction" is the crime of killing a fetus "capable of being born alive", before it has "a separate existence". The Crimes Act 1958 defined "capable of being born alive" as 28 weeks' gestation, later reduced to 24 weeks. The 1990 Amendment to the Abortion Act 1967 means a medical practitioner cannot be guilty of the crime.

The charge of child destruction is rare. A woman who had an unsafe abortion while 7½ months pregnant was given a suspended sentence of 12 months in 2007;^[40] the Crown Prosecution Service was unaware of any similar conviction.

Laws in Asia

Laws in India

Main article: Female foeticide in India

In Indian Law, feticide is considered a form of "culpable homicide". Section 316 of the Indian Penal Code defines the crime as "an act (that) cause(s) the death of a quick unborn child", but only applies when it occurs as an effect of another crime which would cause death, such as the murder of the mother.

In the case of sex-selective abortion, the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act prohibits the act, although there is question as to the degree of enforcement, as the ratio of male to female live births continue to be misaligned with the international average.

As a medical practice

A sign in an Indian hospital stating that prenatal sex determination is a crime. The concern is that it will lead to female foeticide.

In medical use, the word "foeticide" is used simply to mean the induction of fetal demise, either as a precursor to a further abortion procedure, or as a primary abortive method during selective reduction due to fetal abnormality or multiples. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists recommends foeticide be performed "before medical abortion after 21 weeks and 6 days of gestation to ensure that there is no risk of a live birth". In abortions after 20 weeks, an injection of digoxin or potassium chloride into the fetal heart to stop the fetal heart can be used to achieve foeticide. In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled that a legal ban on intact dilation and extraction procedures does not apply if foeticide is completed before surgery starts.

Historically, a multitude of methods both mechanical and pharmaceutical were used to induce fetal demise. These included intrafetal injection with meperidine and xylocaine, injection of lidocaine into the umbilical vain, intracardiac calcium gluconate or fibrin adhesive injection, umbilical occlusion by way of alcohol or embucrilate gel injection, umbilical cord ligation, intraarterial coil placement, and cardiac puncture. These methods are rarely if ever used in modern practice, as both digoxin and potassium chloride have better, and more reliable outcomes.

Injecting potassium chloride into the heart of a fetus causes immediate asystole, but depending on the method used, digoxin may fail to induce fetal demise in some cases (up to 5% if injected into the fetus and up to a third if injected into the amniotic sac) even though it is the preferred drug in many clinics. Digoxin is preferred because it is technically difficult to inject KCl into the heart or umbilical cord.

The most common method of selective reduction—a procedure to reduce the number of fetuses in a multifetus pregnancy—is foeticide via a chemical injection into the selected fetus or fetuses. The reduction procedure is usually performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. It often follows detection of a congenital defect in the selected fetus or fetuses, but can also reduce the risks of carrying more than three fetuses to term.

Right to life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_life

The right to life is the belief that a human or other animal has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on issues including capital punishment, with some people seeing it as immoral; abortion, with some seeing the fetus as a human being in an early state of development whose life should not be ended; euthanasia, where the decision to end one's life outside of natural means is seen as incorrect; meat production and consumption, where the breeding and killing of animals for their meat is seen by some people as an infringement on their rights; and in killings by law enforcement, which is seen by some as an infringement of a person's right to live. Various individuals may disagree in which of these areas the principle of a right to life might apply.

Abortion

See also: Abortion debate, Abortion-rights movements, and Anti-abortion movement

The term "right to life" is used in the abortion debate by those who wish to end the practice of abortion, or at least reduce the frequency of the practice, and in the context of pregnancy, the term right to life was advanced by Pope Pius XII during a 1951 papal encyclical:

Every human being, even the child in the womb, has the right to life directly from God and not from his parents, not from any society or human authority. Therefore, there is no man, no society, no human authority, no science, no “indication” at all whether it be medical, eugenic, social, economic, or moral that may offer or give a valid judicial title for a direct deliberate disposal of an innocent human life

— Pope Pius XII, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession Papal Encyclical, October 29, 1951.

In 1966 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) asked Fr. James T. McHugh to begin observing trends in abortion reform within the United States. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) was founded in 1967 as the Right to Life League to coordinate its state campaigns under the auspices of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. To appeal to a more broad-based, nonsectarian movement, key Minnesota leaders proposed an organizational model that would separate the NRLC from the direct oversight of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and by early 1973 NRLC Director Fr. James T. McHugh and his executive assistant, Michael Taylor, proposed a different plan, facilitating the NRLC move toward its independence from the Roman Catholic Church.

Ethics and right to life

See also: Abortion debate, Philosophical aspects of the abortion debate, and Infanticide

Some utilitarian ethicists argue that the "right to life", where it exists, depends on conditions other than membership of the human species. The philosopher Peter Singer is a notable proponent of this argument. For Singer, the right to life is grounded in the ability to plan and anticipate one's future. This extends the concept to non-human animals, such as other apes, but since the unborn, infants and severely disabled people lack this, he states that abortion, painless infanticide and euthanasia can be "justified" (but are not obligatory) in certain special circumstances, for instance in the case of a disabled infant whose life would be one of suffering.

Bioethicists associated with disability rights and disability studies communities have argued that Singer's epistemology is based on ableist conceptions of disability.

Capital punishment

Further information: Capital punishment § Roman Catholic Church

Opponents of capital punishment argue that it is a violation of the right to life, while its supporters argue that the death penalty is not a violation of the right to life because the right to life should apply with deference to a sense of justice. The opponents believe that capital punishment is the worst violation of human rights, because the right to life is the most important, and capital punishment violates it without necessity and inflicts to the condemned a psychological torture. Human rights activists oppose the death penalty, calling it "cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment", and Amnesty International considers it to be "the ultimate, irreversible denial of Human Rights".

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 non-binding resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, with a view to eventual abolition.

Killings by law enforcement

See also: Lists of killings by law enforcement officers and Police brutality

The International Human Rights Standards for Law Enforcement has created a system whereby it is recognised that international human rights law is binding upon all state actors, and that said state actors must know and be capable of applying international standards for human rights. The right to life is for the most part an inalienable right granted to every human upon the planet, however, there are certain situations in which state actors are required to take drastic action, which can result in civilians being killed by law enforcement agents.

Appropriate occasions for killings by law enforcement are strictly outlined by the International Human Rights Standards for Law Enforcement. Any lethal action taken by law enforcement agents must be taken following a certain set of rules that have been set out in the 'Use of Force' section of the Pocket Book on Human Rights for the Police. The essential tenet of the Pocket Book surrounding the use of lethal force is that all other means of a non-violent nature should be employed initially, followed by proportionately appropriate use of force. Proportionately appropriate use of force can, and will in some circumstances, refer to lethal force if a law enforcement agent genuinely believes that ending the life of one civilian would result in the preservation of his life, or the lives of his fellow civilians, as is outlined in the 'Permissible Circumstances for the Use of Firearms' section of the Pocket Book. The Pocket Book also outlines in the 'Accountability for the Use of Force and Firearms' section that there are stringent measures of accountability in place to maintain integrity within state law enforcement agencies as regards their right to the use of lethal force.

International institutions have outlined when and where law enforcement agents might have the availability of lethal force at their disposal. The International Association of Chiefs of Police have 'Model Policies' which incorporate various pieces of information from leading sources. One of these model policies states that law enforcement agents will engage in reasonable necessary force to efficiently bring a scenario to a conclusion, giving specific thought to both the safety of themselves and other civilians. Law enforcement officers are given the prerogative to engage in department-approved methods to safely bring a conclusion to a scenario and are also given the ability to use issued equipment to resolve issues in scenarios where they are required to protect themselves or others from damage, to bring resistant individuals under control, or to safely conclude unlawful incidents. There is no mention as to what "reasonably necessary" should be interpreted as meaning, but there is reference made to the reasonable man method of determining how one should approach a scenario. However, it has been highlighted through events such as the killing of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, which resulted in public unrest, that there is confusion and debate surrounding the use of firearms and lethal force. The 'Procedure for the Use of Firearms' section provides the process through which law enforcement agents must progress when using firearms. It states that they must identify themselves as a law enforcement agent, issue a clear warning, and give an adequate amount of time for response (providing that time would not likely result in harm being done to the agent or other civilians) before deadly force can be used within the bounds of international law.

While the Pocket Book on Human Rights for the Police outlines the academic circumstances under which law enforcement agents may use lethal force, the literal scenarios in which police killings have occurred are also relevant. Rosenfeld states that there is considerable literature that gives reason to believe that social conditions also have a part to play in how law enforcement killings can occur. Rosenfeld states that there are numerous studies that have been conducted which link law enforcement agents' use of lethal force to the area's rate of violent crime, the size of the non-indigenous population and the socioeconomic position of the community concerned. Appropriating a blanket description of how police killings can occur across the board is difficult given the vast differences in social context from state to state.

Perry, Hall and Hall discuss the phenomena across the United States of America which became highly charged and widely documented in late 2014, referring to the use of lethal force from white police officers on unarmed black male civilians. There is no legal prerogative which gives law enforcement agents the ability to use lethal force based on the race of the person they are dealing with, there is only a legal prerogative to engage in lethal force if there is a reasonable fear for your life or the lives of others. However, the Propublica analysis of federal data on fatal police shootings between 2010 and 2012, showed that young black male civilians were 21 times more likely to be killed by police than young white male civilians. The use of lethal force from law enforcement agents in the United States created widespread feeling amongst US citizens that they were not being protected by the police. The justice system mostly found that these agents acted within the boundaries of the law because the actions of the people who were shot were judged to be sufficiently questionable in character for the police officer to fear for their own life or the lives of others. Coppolo investigated Connecticut law and reported that the use of lethal force must be followed by a report that determines whether the law enforcement agent's lethal force was proportionately necessary in the circumstances. Coppolo also stated that a reasonable lethal response must only be made when there is a reasonable belief that the facts you have been presented with could realistically result in a risk of death or grievous bodily harm.

Animals

See also: Ethics of eating meat, Sentiocentrism, and Argument from marginal cases

In Animal Liberation, Peter Singer writes that the killing of animals for the consumption of their meat should be seen as immoral and a violation of their right to life. He holds that rights should be based on sentience, rather than species membership.

Numerous authors have invoked the argument from marginal cases to argue that animals should have similar moral status to human infants, senile people, the comatose, and cognitively disabled people.

A 2020 survey of 1812 published English-language philosophers found that 48% said it was permissible to eat animals in ordinary circumstances, while 45% said it was not.

Euthanasia

Main article: Legality of euthanasia

Those who believe a person should be able to make the decision to end their own life through euthanasia use the argument that persons have a right to choose, while those who oppose the legalization of euthanasia argue so on the grounds that all persons have a right to life, which they interpret as an obligation to live. They are commonly referred to as right-to-lifers.

The European Convention on Human Rights defended the possibility of the existence of a “right to die” through the application of euthanasia and granting the individual the right to choose the method of implementing this type of dying, considering that the latter is one of the parts of the right to life.

Juridical statements

• In 1444, the Poljica Statute declared a right to live "-for nothing existed forever".
• In 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence declared that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".
• In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly declared in article three:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

• In 1950, the European Convention on Human Rights was adopted by the Council of Europe, declaring a protected human right to life in Article 2. There are exceptions for lawful executions and self-defense, arresting a fleeing suspect, and suppressing riots and insurrections. Since then Protocol 6 of the convention has called for nations to outlaw capital punishment except in time of war or national emergency, and at present this pertains in all countries of the council. Protocol 13 provides for the total abolition of capital punishment, and has been implemented in most member countries of the council.
• In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

— Article 6.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

• In 1969, the American Convention on Human Rights was adopted in San José, Costa Rica by many countries in the Western Hemisphere. It is in force in 23 countries.

Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

— Article 4.1 of the American Convention on Human Rights

• In 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrined that

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

— Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

• In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
• The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany holds the principle of human dignity paramount, even above the right to life.
• The Catholic Church has issued a Charter of the Rights of the Family in which it states that the right to life is directly implied by human dignity.
• Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, 1950, guarantees the right to life to all persons within the territory of India and states: "No person shall be deprived of his right to life and personal liberty except according to procedure established by law." Article 21 confers on every person the fundamental right to life and personal liberty which has become an inexhaustible source of many other rights.

The right to life is considered the most important and first right urged by the European Convention on Human Rights, and it is a right granted to all persons, which makes it necessary in the system of basic human rights and freedoms that this Convention works to protect and preserve.