Zell Miller weighs in on abortion...

[El_Machinae]

Firstly, many good points

What 'intervention' is required to ensure a fetus will continue to develop in the womb? A pregnant woman has to merely continue her life normally (i.e. eat and sleep) and the fetus will continue to develop, no intervention needed.

I'll be a bit semantic here, the increase in calories necessary for the woman is no longer 'normal' but 'extraordinary'. If the woman continued at (say) 1400 calories per day, one of the two organisms would die. And it probably wouldn't be the woman.

Again, the procedure to 'leave' a fetus to its own device entails removing it from the place where it develops. If a fetus is left to its own device in the womb, it will continue to develop.

No argument, so will the skin cell. Neither will die 'unnaturally' until they are intervened with. A woman has to eat properly to have healthy skin cells and a healthy fetus.

Until science intervenes and creates a productive adult out of a skin cell, I think your premise incorrect. Thats more sci-fi than actual science at the moment.

Here is where I'll actually put the brunt of my argument. My premise is not incorrect, not the least bit. It is entirely possible to intervene with a living human cell and nurture that cell into an adult human. You'll just have to trust my knowledge of cellular biology on this one. Just because it hasn't been done yet, doesn't mean that it's not possible.

A similar statement would be "it's possible to put humans on Mars". This is technically 100% true. It doesn't matter that it hasn't been done yet, that's an engineering problem, not a problem with reality.

Or, more closely, segments society has damned the making of SCNT clones with the objection that "they're human life" (meaning, of course, that they believe that the cells could be nurtured into adults). This is entirely an unproven objection, but it still has merit (though the nurturing would have to be extraordinary).

Again, sloughling off a skin cell is not tantamount to an abortion, nor are they similiar in any way.

I'm going to be deliberately precise here. I'm not saying that letting a cell slough off naturally is an abortion, just like a miscarriage is not an abortion. I'm saying that intentionally scraping off a skin cell is deliberately killing something that can become a human adult (which is where the similarity to abortion kicks in)

And again, a skin cell does not equal a potential adult no matter how much 'intervention' you do.

I think your logic is wrong. If it's alive, and can be nurtured into a human adult .... then it's a living organism that's a potential human adult ...

Then again, there is the 'level' of intervention required to produce that productive adult. You would have to admit that the level of intervention required to turn a skin cell into an adult a magnitude that of what would be required to keep a fetus alive in order for it to develop into an adult.

I'll absolutely agree. It's much more costly to raise a scraped skin cell into adulthood than it is to raise a fetus. Of course, at that point we're discussing the economics of abortion. If you state that it's too expensive to raise the scraped cell into adulthood, and thus reasonable to discard it, then you're agreeing with the reasoning of ~25% of aborting American women.

How many skin cells have reached adulthood? Until one does, I think you have a difficult time stating that one could be turned into an adult via intervention of any kind currently known to man.

I don't think this is a viable objection. It's entirely possible, and it's still unlikely to happen any time soon. I certainly hope no one tries, and would object if they did. Of course, there are many options available with regards to those skin cells - all of which are quite viable in the modern age. Don't want to prematurely kill potential adults? Don't scratch or have sex. It's really quite simple.

 

[El_Machinae]

This doesn't seem true.

Our studies are talking about different things. Yours is referring to abortions that the woman knows about, and can report, at a much later stage than what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about creating an embryo and then flushing it down the toilet.

I'm not including Catholic couples, using their evil Natural Family Planning, which results in even more abortions, 2.5 deaths per 10 years of 'child free marriage'

I'm referring to this paper, above.
http://press.psprings.co.uk/jme/june/355_me13920.pdf

 

[MobBoss]

I'll be a bit semantic here, the increase in calories necessary for the woman is no longer 'normal' but 'extraordinary'. If the woman continued at (say) 1400 calories per day, one of the two organisms would die. And it probably wouldn't be the woman.

I wouldnt say the need for more calories 'extraordinary'. My wife has had three kids, and I didnt need to start feeding her with a shovel just to ensure a normal pregnancy. In fact, her doctor ordered her to walk more during her pregnancy to make sure she didnt have unecessary weight gain. The idea that a pregnant woman has to 'eat for two' is just urban myth. Btw, a mere 1400 calories a day isnt healthy for anyone, let alone a pregnant person. Isnt the recommended calorie intake a day for a woman around 1900 to 2000?

No argument, so will the skin cell. Neither will die 'unnaturally' until they are intervened with. A woman has to eat properly to have healthy skin cells and a healthy fetus.

Well, this is directly contradictory to facts you have stated previously. Of course many fertilized eggs 'abort' naturally without any intervention at all, and of course skin cells are constantly dying and sloughing off, no scratching required.

Here is where I'll actually put the brunt of my argument. My premise is not incorrect, not the least bit. It is entirely possible to intervene with a living human cell and nurture that cell into an adult human. You'll just have to trust my knowledge of cellular biology on this one. Just because it hasn't been done yet, doesn't mean that it's not possible.

Again, your knowledge is more theory than practical application. I fully agree that some time in the future it may well be viable to create a human from a single skin cell - but not today. Even 'cloning' of animals still use fertilized eggs and not just a single skin cell. Can you point me to any particular research that is even attempting this sort of thing (creating a full animal from a single non-reproductive cell)?

A similar statement would be "it's possible to put humans on Mars". This is technically 100% true. It doesn't matter that it hasn't been done yet, that's an engineering problem, not a problem with reality.

But until we actually do it and make it reality, it is sci-fi not sci-fact for all practical purposes.

I'm going to be deliberately precise here. I'm not saying that letting a cell slough off naturally is an abortion, just like a miscarriage is not an abortion. I'm saying that intentionally scraping off a skin cell is deliberately killing something that can become a human adult (which is where the similarity to abortion kicks in)

Again, I am simply not currently buying the 'skin cells can become adults' premise at this point.

I think your logic is wrong. If it's alive, and can be nurtured into a human adult .... then it's a living organism that's a potential human adult ...

Well, you are welcome to your opinion, but I think most people (scientists included) would be of the opinion that indeed their is a huge difference between an embryo and a skin cell. The actual 'purpose' of an embryo is to become an adult, as opposed to the 'purpose' of a skin cell which is to cover the body.

I'll absolutely agree. It's much more costly to raise a scraped skin cell into adulthood than it is to raise a fetus. Of course, at that point we're discussing the economics of abortion. If you state that it's too expensive to raise the scraped cell into adulthood, and thus reasonable to discard it, then you're agreeing with the reasoning of ~25% of aborting American women.

That wouldnt be my arguement at all. A skin cell wouldnt become a person except via intervention on a massive scale. An embryo will most likely become a person merely if a woman takes her health seriously.

The two are just not comparable at all. Morally or realistically.

 

[PrincepsAmerica]

El Machinae that article you use itself admits that it's empirical evidence is spotty, based largely on assumptions.

Now as best as I can understand it, the basis of the argument is that sex outside of a certain period makes implantation less likely, and hence would increase the number of abortions. But it seems to me the study I located directly contradicts this assumption.

Overall, there is no excess risk of spontaneous abortion among the pregnancies conceived during natural family planning use.

So to whatever extent they were able to study the rate of conceptions compared to the rate of spontaneous abortions (and unless I'm unaware of some medical delineation between failure to implant and a formal miscarriage) they discovered no statistically relevant increase in abortions when conception happened at times of minimal fertility.

 

[El_Machinae]

I wouldnt say the need for more calories 'extraordinary'.

Well, there's no real point going too far with this. I mean, I'd agree that the amount of additional effort on the woman's part is not all that arduous. But it's still 'additional' calories vs. baseline.

Well, this is directly contradictory to facts you have stated previously. Of course many fertilized eggs 'abort' naturally without any intervention at all, and of course skin cells are constantly dying and sloughing off, no scratching required.

I think we're fully agreeing here, you might just have misread me. Both skin cells and embryos might die 'naturally' if left alone. My point is that they won't die unnaturally unless they're deliberately killed.

Again, your knowledge is more theory than practical application. I fully agree that some time in the future it may well be viable to create a human from a single skin cell - but not today.

The skin cell is already human (and, again, I'm being very precise). What I'm talking about is nurturing it up to a 'normal' adult. Some day we'll be able to get kids with progeria treated so they can be nurtured into normal adults ... just because it's not possible now, doesn't mean it's okay to kill them.

Even 'cloning' of animals still use fertilized eggs and not just a single skin cell. Can you point me to any particular research that is even attempting this sort of thing (creating a full animal from a single non-reproductive cell)?

It's actually quite a bit easier than you'd think. I'd honestly say we have the technical expertise right now, today, to do this to an animal. But it wouldn't really be science, but a 'ta da!' bit of technological gee-wizary, and thus is unlikely to be done soon (those same labs are working on actual science).

If you want me to connect the dots on the science, though, I'd be happy to. It's quite interesting. Oh, and I seriously thank you for accepting that if it can be done with animals, that it's reasonable to accept that it can be done with people. I've never seen you make that divide, but others have.

But until we actually do it and make it reality, it is sci-fi not sci-fact for all practical purposes.
...
Again, I am simply not currently buying the 'skin cells can become adults' premise at this point.

We might have an impassable difference here, then. Since there are options to keep those scratched skin cells alive (or to not kill them in the first place), in my mind, the ability might as well be currently fact.

Regardless of whether it's possible now, we agree that they're living and that at some future date it will be possible to nurture scratched cells into adults (and then later, eventually, it will become relatively cheap). At that stage, we have to ask whether it's immoral to kill skin cells. If it's immoral later, it's immoral now.

Well, you are welcome to your opinion, but I think most people (scientists included) would be of the opinion that indeed their is a huge difference between an embryo and a skin cell. The actual 'purpose' of an embryo is to become an adult, as opposed to the 'purpose' of a skin cell which is to cover the body.

Well, yes, I'd agree that there's a massive difference. Of course, I think there's a massive difference between an embryo and a fetus, and between a fetus and a baby, too.

What seems to be important in the abortion debate (since a brain is seemingly not important to part of the arguers) is the fact that it's alive and can become an adult.

 

[JollyRoger]

What seems to be important in the abortion debate (since a brain is seemingly not important to part of the arguers) is the fact that it's alive and can become an adult.

Plus a male felon and a female felon on death row are alive and through a fairly standard procdure, can become even more adults down the line. Why abort them?

 

[Murky]

I am opposed to late term and partial-birth abortions but I doubt if Zell's arguments could possibly hold up to close scrutiny. Who can say for certain what impact those 45 million could have made if they weren't aborted. He's just speculating to push his political agenda.

 

[Gogf]

Sigh. An embryo is a developing human being. You can call it any name you want, but a label wont change that fact.

No it's not. It is developing, but it is not yet a human being. Cancers, viruses, and bacteria are also developing, and they are also not human beings. We don't "let things progress naturally" when it comes to them. There's obviously a huge difference between them and an embryo (even though I guess you could probably classify an embryo as a parasite), but the argument that all life is sacred obviously holds no water. What people mean by this is that all human life is sacred. It is therefore extremely important to realize that an embryo is not a human being.

A fertilized human embryo is not very different from a fertilized chimpanzee embryo, a fertilized whale embryo, or even a fertilized lizard embryo. We all had tales at one point. The only thing characteristically human about a human embryo is that it is made from human cells which contain human DNA and therefore contains human DNA. But a lot of other cells are also made from cells containing human DNA and contain human DNA themselves. If every cell that contains human DNA is a human being, then every skin cell, every white blood cells, every sperm cell, and every egg cell inside a human being could be considered a human being on its own.

An embryo is much more likely to become a human being than an unfertilized egg or a sperm cell is. That's certainly true. But the fact remains that it is not yet a human being. As I already explained, protecting all potential human beings would be ridiculous. You could argue that potential humans should only be protected if there is a certain likelihood that they actually become human beings, but that delves into very murky waters.

Of course, there's a point when an ebryo changes from a potential human being into an actual human being. That point is certainly before the baby is born. The challenge is finding when it is. I contend that it is once the baby begins to have characteristically human brain waves. Since we can't measure this on every baby that might be aborted, and since we know that this generally happens at about the beginning of the third trimester, preventing abortion after the third trimester sounds like the most reasonable solution to be.

 

[Hygro]

I want to see freakonomic's abortion theory debunked.

 

[PrincepsAmerica]

I want to see freakonomic's abortion theory debunked.

Why? Whether it's true or not it doesn't really affect the abortion debate. It's more just an interesting side study.

 

[El_Machinae]

I want to see freakonomic's abortion theory debunked.

He forgot to control for per capita: abortions may have reduced crime, but it did not reduce the proportion of criminals (in other words, they weren't really aborting the criminals-to-be).

IIRC.

 

[Hygro]

He forgot to control for per capita: abortions may have reduced crime, but it did not reduce the proportion of criminals (in other words, they weren't really aborting the criminals-to-be).

IIRC.

So let me get this straight:

because of abortion, there are (made up numbers to understand a point) 8 crimes out of 100 acts instead of 10, but those 8 crimes are committed by 4 criminals out of 100 people instead of 4 criminals committing 10 crimes?

 

[Hygro]

Why? Whether it's true or not it doesn't really affect the abortion debate. It's more just an interesting side study.

Ah but we're talking about social justifications anyway, like Zell Miller's equally irrelevent hypotheses.

 

[El_Machinae]

No, the number of crimes went from 80 to 60 (numbers made up). But (still) 8 of 100 kids will perform criminal actions.

 

[Hygro]

Ah, that's not per capita.

 

[El_Machinae]

"8 out of 100 kids were criminals" is not a statement regarding per capita?

 

[Hygro]

lol I misread. I thought you said he DID control for per capita but didnt control for proportion of criminals, hence why i contrued a strange, dual-capita model.

 

[Cu Chulainn]

I wouldnt say the need for more calories 'extraordinary'.

Sorry for the major threadjack, I'm latching onto this because I find it interesting. You want to illegalize all abortion, period. Fine. Lets say I'm a pregnant woman but for whatever reason I don't WANT to increase my calorie intake. What are you gonna do about it? Are you prepared to force pregnant women to take care of themselves? To what extent are you prepared to go to force every woman on earth to carry every pregnancy to term? Forced dietary habits? How about limiting what they may do? What about prohibiting emotional stress? Where do you draw the line?

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, that's a major component of the 'right to choose'. If you grant that a woman has the right to starve herself into a miscarriage, then it doesn't really matter if she aborts instead. It's her body.

I'll introduce a personal caveat. If a woman brings a baby to term, she has a moral obligation to treat the fetus (and her body) in such a way as to ensure the most healthy baby she can.

 

[MobBoss]

Sorry for the major threadjack, I'm latching onto this because I find it interesting. You want to illegalize all abortion, period. Fine. Lets say I'm a pregnant woman but for whatever reason I don't WANT to increase my calorie intake. What are you gonna do about it? Are you prepared to force pregnant women to take care of themselves? To what extent are you prepared to go to force every woman on earth to carry every pregnancy to term? Forced dietary habits? How about limiting what they may do? What about prohibiting emotional stress? Where do you draw the line?

One, plenty of really skinny women have had babies and remain skinny and have no complications in their pregnancy. Have you ever tried to not eat when you were hungry? Its a little harder than you think. As for pregnant womens actions that would harm their unborn child thats up for the lawmakers to decide. There was a big hubbub where I live some years ago where a Red Robin (a fancy burger restaurant) employee refused to serve a pregnant woman wine because it could hurt her baby. As I recall the restaurant sided with its employee in her decision and the overall consensus was that the pregnant woman was being irresponsible.

Again, its not my line to draw, but there should be ramifications for people who treat life irresponsibly.