Another abortion article...

[brennan]

So Potential Human A has 1 cell, Potential Human B has 4 cells, and Potential Human C has 15 billion or so cells. B&C are okay, but A is medical waste waiting to be scraped out? How is that not an appearance-based argument for termination?

I'll reply the way I have done many times before: I do not think it is reasonable to think of a foetus, or any prior stage, as a valid individual until it can survive outside of its mother's body. At current tech levels that is a little after 3 months.

A and B are acceptable for abortion. This does not make it the callous act you suggest but an extremely painful and heart wrenching one.

And again i ask: if God puts such a high value on what you insist on thinking as human life, then why do so many pregnancies not go the distance? Surely if He valued zygotes as much as you then a hell of a lot more of them would survive an entire pregnancy.

 

[Gothmog]

Keirador wrote:

Friendless bums are, by definition, friendless. The people who care for them care for them only in an abstract way, not in a personal way. Sort of in the same way one can care for the unborn children of the world.

Are you saying that legalizing the shooting of homeless people on the street would have only a minor effect on social cohesion? I don't think so.

Also equating a fertilized egg with a human is much more abstract than equating a human with a human. I, like most non-sociopaths, empathize with other humans. Personally I do not empathize with fertilized eggs. I may empathize with their potential future in an abstract way but that's it. More like I might fantasize about winning the lottery. That does not make me a sociopath, nor dangerous to society.

I value life so highly as to prefer to err on the side of caution in protecting it, and you value personal freedom so highly as to err on the side of caution in protecting

I value improvements to the human condition, the main driver of that is measured at the level of society. So I value things that make society better. I have already explained why I feel that abortion laws of the type we have in America make for a better society than the more authoritarian and personally invasive options.

That is not the same as valuing simply personal freedom (though I do value that too).

Again it seems to me that our main difference is that you feel there is some objectively intrinsic value to all human life starting at conception due to the existence of God. I've also tried to explain why I feel that path leads to a spiteful God.

The difference between legalized abortion and extermination of Jews is that, in the second case, the government is clearly engaged in an obviously evil and malicious act, whereas in the first the government is simply wrong.

I'm still not seeing the difference. If a zygote is really equivalent to a person then how is abortion not an obviously evil and malicious act? The German government thought that Jews were not fully human either.

You wouldn't necessarily have to take a life to support your cause. Think of how the civil rights movement was carried out. Again that was about the right to livelihood and personal dignity, not the right to life. You just have to be willing to leave your more selfish concerns behind.

I'm happy to leave the debate at that, but I am still confused at what your 'err on the side of caution' is exactly about, and how it relates to your perspective on God.

@FL2

I really have tried to answer you question a few times. If my argument is too subtle for you maybe you could try and let me know where it fails or what you fail to understand.

Meanwhile, you have not tried to answer the many questions/issues I raised in my last post.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Lifes complicated.

This is very true.

 

[blackheart]

This probably died out after page 1. Please, let us leave this dead and maybe the war will continue in another thread.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

@FL2

I really have tried to answer you question a few times. If my argument is too subtle for you maybe you could try and let me know where it fails or what you fail to understand.

Meanwhile, you have not tried to answer the many questions/issues I raised in my last post.

You have relentlessly dodged this question:

So Potential Human A has 1 cell, Potential Human B has 4 cells, and Potential Human C has 15 billion or so cells. B&C are okay, but A is medical waste waiting to be scraped out? How is that not an appearance-based argument for termination?

so many times now that it approaches legend. Answer the question.

When you answer my question, I'll look at yours. Until then, you are putting this discussion on pause.

(But I WILL keep it on page one for you!)

 

[FearlessLeader2]

BUMP. Answer the question.

 

[Perfection]

I answered it, but you ignored me. Noone else will answer it because I already did and that would be redundant.

 

[cgannon64]

This probably died out after page 1. Please, let us leave this dead and maybe the war will continue in another thread.

As the starter of this thread, I agree.

The only reason this thread was different from other abortion threads (read: worth posting in) was that it focused on the hypocrisy of people having abortions. I didn't intend it to be a debate on the legitimacy of abortion. We've already beaten that horse long past death.

 

[CurtSibling]

I take it that no religious people EVER have abortions.

The same way that none of them ever drink, smoke, kill, steal, lie or have sex before wedding night?

Sure thing.

Most people are hypocritical, Gannon - Even you religious types.

 

[cgannon64]

And I was denouncing the hypocrisy.

 

[Gothmog]

FL2 wrote

So Human A has 1 cell, Human B has 4 cells, and Human C has 15,billion or so cells. B&C are okay, but A is medical waste waiting to be scraped out? How is that not an appearance-based argument for termination?

I really have answered this in a number of ways already. Here's my simplest summary:

In the case on a single cell the issue seems simple to me, humans are multi-celled organisms. Defined by the various collective behaviors of those cells. Obviously a single cell is neither multi-celled nor can in exhibit collective behaviors.This is my personal view.

To reiterate a zygote is not a human. Humans are defined by collective behaviors of their component cells. Which ones? Depends who you ask, separate question. Also note that people are defined by their relationships and not just their biology, certainly not by their DNA.

So, for example, if an embryo never develops a frontal lobe. Though it is exhibiting certain collective behaviors (e.g. heart beat), it is not a human in the sense I mean. This is not an appearance based argument.

I also went into some detail as to my personal criteria for value and why I think abortion should be legal, though again that is a separate issue.

Cell A, and cluster of four cells B are not human. Cell A is known as a zygote, and cluster B is an embryo sometimes known as a Morula (though I don't think we ever go through a 4 cell phase technically). The Morula has not yet implanted, at about 50 cells it starts to become a Blastocyst. It is the Blastocyst that finally implants in the wall of the Uterus.

The Blastocyst has not had sufficient differentiation to be considered human by me.

Even if we have the ten to one hundred trillions cells that make up a typical adult human we do not necessarily have a human. It depends on the nature of the collective behaviors exhibited by those cells.

Again, if you have not been able to follow this argument please let me know. I have not been trying to dodge anything. I was gone for a few days.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Ok, I see where the problem lies. I made the mistake of quoting both questions, and while your dodge answer to the first is a dodge answer, it's technically an answer.

Now answer the IMPORTANT question:

How is that not an appearance-based argument for termination?

 

[Dominus Romae]

Religion is, like CurtSibling said, nothing but a fake. It is amazing how people subject themselves to such ridiculous rules in the name of something unexistant. They stop living their lives for a myth.

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Religion is, like CurtSibling said, nothing but a fake. It is amazing how people subject themselves to such ridiculous rules in the name of something unexistant. They stop living their lives for a myth.

Oh, someone with definitive evidence of the non-existance of God. I am impressed!

Do favor us with a peek at it, won't you? I want to be enlightened like you.

Or, are you just another loud-mouthed atheist whose faith is badly misplaced in the material world?

Yeah, thought so.

 

[Gothmog]

FL2, obviously it's not a dodge answer. I'm trying to answer you honestly so I'd appreciate a bit more patience.

It seems to be a function-based argument for termination? I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

It's not an argument based on what a clump of cells looks like. If a clump of cells exhibited all the collective behaviors that make a human, human. Then I'd say it was a human.

A human corpse is not a human, if you know what I mean.

Could you be a little more specific?

 

[FearlessLeader2]

Why is the ability to think, breathe, eat, or live outside the womb on one's own any different than skin color, religion, age, or nationality when choosing who to push into the wood chipper?

 

[Gothmog]

Because collective cellular behaviors make a human, a human?

Whereas skin color, religion, age, or nationality do not make a human, a human?

What would you say is the difference between a pile of cells that looks exactly like a human but exhibits no collective behaviors, and a human?

 

[FearlessLeader2]

These cells...human DNA? From the same person? In the proper organization? Live?

Assuming the above, I'd say one is in, and one is not in, a PVS.

'Looks like a human' is pretty vague. Are we talking about an assembled mass of cells, or an actual human body that domething has been done to to prevent 'collective behavior'?

 

[Gothmog]

Well, that's the trick isn't it?

Which collective behaviors make a human, a human?

Certainly it has nothing to do with skin color, or the like.

Proper organization is definitely a place to start, but a corpse has that.

I'm not sure, I think neural activity is another show-stopper (consciousness is too vague), especially in the frontal lobes - though frequency is an open question. A beating heart isn't (machines can do that for us e.g. during surgery), breathing and eating neither. It is a tough question.

Something to do with total flow of hormones?

btw, what's PVS stand for?

 

[Gothmog]

I'm still interested in how your particular understanding about God weighs in on this issue.

e.g.
Why you invoke prudence.

If you really think 'It sounds nice' to be an aborted soul who is subsequently resurected in the time of Judgement (excuse me if I got that a bit wrong) and how that weighs in.

If your major objection is simply the 6th commandment (perhaps you know it as the 5th)? Thou shall not murder.

Why you feel that punishment for the mother is more appropriate than forgiveness.

Is the ratio always 50:50, or does it depend in some way on the viability of the embryo?

There were other's but that's all I can remember atm.