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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 12/02/2007 : 01:09:11 [Permalink]
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Robb said:
| Yes it is. I know that you do not believe that a fetus is a person until some time during the pregnency. I believe it is a person from fertilization, therefore I believe we are killing people. What greater issue is there then that in this country. I would gladly restrict the freedoms of people that want to harm others. |
As long as you stick with that irrational definition of a human life there is nothing to talk about on that front Robb.
But:
There are many things more important to most people in this country than life. Liberty, freedom, etc. rank higher for most people.
When you decide you want to take an irrational, indefensible, arbitrary position that restricts another's freedom and make it into a law.... then I have to consider you an enemy of freedom.
Now, if you want to restrict all abortions to before 23 weeks except in cases where the mother faces certain harm, as agreed by two doctors, then.... oh, wait, that is already the way it is in most places! Hrrrm... imagine that, the only rationally defensible (if still arbitrary, because defining life is so damn difficult) starting point for a human life is the rule already for the vast majority....
When we can turn a somatic cell into a stem cell.... oh, wait, we CAN do that already.... does that mean that we are commiting murder every time we shit, piss, spit, swallow, cry, blow our nose, sneeze, etc Robb? Because it is a matter of time (a very short time if I had to guess) before those stem cells will be coaxed into a blastocyst in the lab, as we learn more. Every living human cell could be a potential life! By your sad "logic" anyway.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 13:24:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
As long as you stick with that irrational definition of a human life there is nothing to talk about on that front Robb. |
How is it irrational? If we do not know when life begins as you admit, then why not default to the only position where we will not kill a human life. Why is this not rational.
| When we can turn a somatic cell into a stem cell.... oh, wait, we CAN do that already.... does that mean that we are commiting murder every time we shit, piss, spit, swallow, cry, blow our nose, sneeze, etc Robb? Because it is a matter of time (a very short time if I had to guess) before those stem cells will be coaxed into a blastocyst in the lab, as we learn more. Every living human cell could be a potential life! By your sad "logic" anyway. |
Now you are being ridiculous. I am only talking about a fertilized egg implanted in the uterous of a woman that has a chance to become a human life. I never brought up these other cells.
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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 13:26:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Whatever US Conservative Christianity is, religion or political crusade, it's not much like the Christianity preached by Jesus Christ himself. There is no possible way you could be pro conservative Republican policy and at the same time be following Jesus' example. The two are diametrically opposite in so many ways the result is institutionalized hypocracy. And it's practice and preaching mystifies me to no end.
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Amen to that. |
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 14:47:22 [Permalink]
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Robb said:
| How is it irrational? If we do not know when life begins as you admit, then why not default to the only position where we will not kill a human life. Why is this not rational. |
Its irrational because you are equating a living cell with a human life. The two things are obviously not the same thing, not even close. Besides, as has already been pointed out to you, 25% of implanted blastocycsts spontaneously abort, not to mention the number that never implant. To call such a thing a human life is insane.
| Now you are being ridiculous. I am only talking about a fertilized egg implanted in the uterus of a woman that has a chance to become a human life. I never brought up these other cells. |
Ridiculous? Maybe, but only to demonstrate how ridiculous your definition of a human life is. What would be the difference between a blastocyst created in the lab from a somatic cell and a blastocyst created in the lab by invitro fertilization, or between a blastocyst occurring naturally in the fallopian tube?
If you took one of each and examined it under a microscope, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart (assuming my prediction about a somatic cell derived blastocyst happens). You can't tell the difference between an invitro and natural blastocyst now.
Again, to claim that these things are the equivilent of a human life is beyond absurd.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2007 : 19:01:34 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Robb
Originally posted by Dude
As long as you stick with that irrational definition of a human life there is nothing to talk about on that front Robb. |
How is it irrational? If we do not know when life begins as you admit, then why not default to the only position where we will not kill a human life. Why is this not rational. |
There's another angle to this.
Cells in the body lives and dies. All the time. Most cells have a specific purpose. Several plants makes offspring by letting an offshoot take root. This daughter plant is a the intermediate stage in the plant's life that isn't really a life-circle, but only a a section of the plant's linear life from the past into the future.
The same way when a flower gets pollinated, the seed is just an intermediate stage in the flower's continuing life. Though with only half it's original DNA, but with DNA from another plant. Eventually the seed takes root and becomes a new flower.
The sperm and the egg is the continuous life of it's respective originator, and when they combine, it's not something not-alive that becomes alive. It is two separate lives that combine into another stage of the linear life travelling from the past into the future. The egg & sperm, blastocyte, embryo, and foetus are just different aspects of a continuous life. You can't seriously talk about person-hood until you have coherent brain-waves. A foetus is parasitic in nature, and isn't viable apart from its host until birth, or given a stretch, the seventh month into the pregnancy.
(edit spelling)
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
| Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 12/03/2007 19:02:19 |
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Robb
SFN Regular
USA
1223 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2007 : 21:34:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
There's another angle to this.
The sperm and the egg is the continuous life of it's respective originator, and when they combine, it's not something not-alive that becomes alive. It is two separate lives that combine into another stage |
That stage is a seperate human life with unique DNA, different than the life the two cells came from. These cells can grow into a human life that can support itself.
| of the linear life travelling from the past into the future. |
I do not understand this, can you clarify?
| The egg & sperm, blastocyte, embryo, and foetus are just different aspects of a continuous life. You can't seriously talk about person-hood until you have coherent brain-waves. |
Why do you define personhood with brainwaves?
| A foetus is parasitic in nature, and isn't viable apart from its host until birth, or given a stretch, the seventh month into the pregnancy. |
So do you believe abortion should be allowed until brainwaves are detected or when it is viable outside the womb?
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Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2007 : 10:29:05 [Permalink]
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My two cents on the abortion part of this conversation going on:
There are two things which make abortion an ethical question: first that the being in the womb is in an underdeveloped stage, thus making us ponder whether we should bestow it with the same rights as any other human life. Second that the being in the womb is dependent on another human's body, whose full rights are not in question. There are plenty of reasons why it is absurd to - both socially and legally - to regard a human life at conception as if it is a full person on which we should bestow equal rights. But there are also plenty of reasons why it is ethically questionable to abort at 8 and a half months when the mother is perfectly healthy and giving birth would pose no greater threat to her health. So we need to find a middle ground. This is the controversy. I wish people would not debate as if it were a clean cut or black and white issue, because it is the farthest thing from that. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 12/10/2007 10:29:29 |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2007 : 11:38:33 [Permalink]
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marfknox said:
| So we need to find a middle ground. This is the controversy. I wish people would not debate as if it were a clean cut or black and white issue, because it is the farthest thing from that. |
There is no controversy except the one invented by the morons who think a fertilized egg is a human life.
I don't know how many people revieved an abortion at 8 months, or even 7 months, when both mother and fetus are healthy, but I doubt it happens often.
And there already is a middle ground. The only position that can be reasonably argued for is already the standard used by the majority of those who perform abortions. Viability outside the womb.
CDC stats say that 88% of all US abortions were before 13 weeks, and only 1.4% happened after 21 weeks.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2007 : 13:08:03 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Robb
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
There's another angle to this.
The sperm and the egg is the continuous life of it's respective originator, and when they combine, it's not something not-alive that becomes alive. It is two separate lives that combine into another stage |
That stage is a seperate human life with unique DNA, different than the life the two cells came from. These cells can grow into a human life that can support itself. |
That life cannot support itself until it is born. That happens 9 months later. Or 7 months later by artificial means.
Then it can be supported by itself by artificial means, then I can accept a limit of abortion.
| of the linear life travelling from the past into the future. |
I do not understand this, can you clarify? |
Life is an ongoing fire burning through generations. It is like a brush, or a net with a lot of nodes. Somewhere we have a thread that is my paternal grandfather, it splits up in my living grandfather and his living seed. This living seed is a piece of thread that is part of the net of life, and finds the thread of my maternal grandmother where it intertwines with her seed. At some point the interwtining is strong enough to continue on it's own and eventually split up into a thread that eventually became me.
It's not a circle of life where my paternal grandfather became alive then died, and my father became alive and eventually dies.
Well, we all eventually die, as persons, but our lives continue in our offsprings that are part of us. I don't think I could consider myself a person before I was self-aware, but then, maybe self awareness is a gradual development. If so, then it would start with brain waves.
| The egg & sperm, blastocyte, embryo, and foetus are just different aspects of a continuous life. You can't seriously talk about person-hood until you have coherent brain-waves. |
Why do you define personhood with brainwaves? |
Because brainwaves is one of the last developing requirements for self-awareness, as far as I know.
Because it is brainwaves that makes us unique. It even makes twins with identical DNA different from eachother, and that happens in the last few months of the pregnancy.
| A foetus is parasitic in nature, and isn't viable apart from its host until birth, or given a stretch, the seventh month into the pregnancy. |
So do you believe abortion should be allowed until brainwaves are detected or when it is viable outside the womb? |
That is a good question. Brain waves don't develope until the last few months of the pregnancy, and we have good artificial means to keep prematurely born children alive outside the womb. I see no contradiction here.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2007 : 20:28:32 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: | There is no controversy except the one invented by the morons who think a fertilized egg is a human life. |
That's not true at all. We can debate all day over whether a fertilized egg that is only a few hours old technically qualifies as human life. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that a 10 week old conception qualifies as a human life, and I (and probably most on this forum) also think any woman should have the right to have an abortion at 10 weeks, regardless of her reasons. I was pointing out that there are a multitude of factors involved, such as the brainwaves that you brought up. Viability outside the womb and other levels of development are factors. The woman's health is a factor. The controversy hardly starts and ends at the question of conception.
| I don't know how many people revieved an abortion at 8 months, or even 7 months, when both mother and fetus are healthy, but I doubt it happens often. |
Given that third trimester abortions are banned in most US states except in the case of the woman's health being in danger, yes, it is rare, and often for good medical reasons.
And there already is a middle ground. The only position that can be reasonably argued for is already the standard used by the majority of those who perform abortions. Viability outside the womb.
CDC stats say that 88% of all US abortions were before 13 weeks, and only 1.4% happened after 21 weeks. |
I would also argue that Roe v. Wade set things on this middle ground, and I personally think it is a very good middle ground. The problem isn't just extremists. A huge problem is that most people aren't even aware of the middle ground already reached that you just mentioned. I once debated with a college graduate who claimed to be pro-life, and who was all happy about the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned. After I explained to him what Roe v. Wade had actually ruled, and its aftermath, he was shocked and regretted his former position. Even worse than the minority of extremists is the majority of ignoramuses. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/10/2007 : 22:46:32 [Permalink]
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marfknox said:
| We can debate all day over whether a fertilized egg that is only a few hours old technically qualifies as human life. |
We can? Are you serious?
Ok, give me the evidence and argument that indicates a newly fertilized egg is a human life.
Because all I have ever heard from the Robbs of the world is the assertion that it is.
There is no debate, because actual debate isn't even possible when one side has nothing but an unevidenced assertion.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 07:08:22 [Permalink]
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A fertilized egg contains all the genetic code and cellular machinery needed to develop into a fully realized human being. But because it is all potential, without awarenes, without social interconnection, without hopes, aspirations, dreams and memories, it is nothing like a fully realized human being.
The same can be said even of a viable infant. The death of an adult human who lives in a network of relationships and responsibilities, who has aspirations and goals and has developed the skills to achieve them, who is a viable and important member of a family and a wider community, is far more tragic than the death of an infant that is more or less only genetic potential. And the death of that fully realized human being is incomparably more tragic than the death of a fetus. To morally equate the two deaths is ridiculously absurd.
When an adult human being is murdered society itself is injured. Humanity is so intertwined and interdependant the cascade of consequences when a human is killed is extensive and widely harmful. In one single death there is the potential that a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, a neighbor, an employee or employer, a teacher, an innovator, a highly skilled expert in any number of important fields, a taxpayer, in general a contributor to the community in many different ways, all could be lost. Memories and ideas, skills and talents, complex plans and solutions, loving and or supporting relationships between many people, all are lost.
None of this is true when a fetus is aborted. There is no way to rationally equate the value of a fertilized egg or a fetus at any level of development to a fully realized human being. That can not be the basis for any serious argument opposing abortion. A fetus is not a human being. |
-Chaloobi
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 07:46:33 [Permalink]
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| The same can be said even of a viable infant. |
Are you saying that the intentional death of an infant is the same as the abortion of a fetus?
At what point, then, does a fully realized human being come to fruition? |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 08:18:27 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by pleco
| The same can be said even of a viable infant. |
Are you saying that the intentional death of an infant is the same as the abortion of a fetus?
At what point, then, does a fully realized human being come to fruition?
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A newborn isn't much more 'realized' than a fetus. It has no relationships beyond the instinctual child-parent, no memories, no accumulated experiences or skills, no hopes or dreams, no concept of past present or future. Is this equivalent to a father of four with an engineering degree who manages a department at a major manufacturer, is on the board of two charities, is active in his local church and his kid's school PTA, who pays for his mother's assited living apartment, who writes poetry on the side and who plans to start his own business some day?
Clearly not. So of these two, whose loss will be felt more by the community, by their respective families, by society as a whole?
But we are programmed genetically and probably culturally to love and cherish our children, especially our newborns, above all else. This is an important survial characteristic, I'm sure. But it is not rational. And no I'm not advocating postnatal abortion. That is not what this is about.
EDITED for clarity... |
-Chaloobi
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| Edited by - chaloobi on 12/11/2007 08:27:42 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 08:26:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
In one single death there is the potential that a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, a neighbor, an employee or employer, a teacher, an innovator, a highly skilled expert in any number of important fields, a taxpayer, in general a contributor to the community in many different ways, all could be lost. |
Shot your argument in the foot right there, where I've bolded.
Full-grown adults only have the potential to be valuable members of society. Full-grown adults who aren't such die all the time without causing a ripple in the fabric of our community.
Thus, because adults are "all potential," the crux of your argument, it is indeed rational to equate fertilized eggs ("all potential") with adults. They are analogous in regards to their possible impact on society. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Ron Paul - Not your hero
