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Drachasor
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Frankly, I think it is rather silly to say that a small collection of cells that has no emotions or feelings should have the same rights as a human being. It can't feel, it can't suffer, it can't think. It has none of the qualities that we refer to when we talk of humanity.
We let people die whose brains have been destroyed except for the brain stem, because they do not have the significant qualities that give it humanity. The first trimester embryo is even worse off, as most of its organs beyond the brain aren't working either. To say that this 3-inch long collection of cells is a human and deserves the rights of a baby or a 7 month old fetus doesn't follow.
I fail to see how the line of brain functioning is even remotely as arbitrary as the line of conception. Living cells with human DNA do not make a person, that much is clear, nor does the vague shape of a human body with human DNA make a person. All that is left is then saying that if left to develop, if left to nature, then it will develop into a human being. We intefere with nature all the time however, we even already interfere to stop potential human life via contraception. I have never seen a compelling arguement that justifies mandating that a women allow all pregnancies continue to full term against the wishes of the mother. Why should a collection of cells with no of the characteristics of personhood be given such protections?
And yes, abortion is about the convience of those persons that exist, but it is over those persons that do not yet exist. There are many, many people that could exist if we bothered to try; such as all the unused embryos in fertility clinics, or all the eggs that don't get fertilized. There are many good and legitimate reasons why people have abortions; some don't have the money to support any children, some aren't ready to be a parent and have other important priorities, and there are other reasons as well.
-Drachasor
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BlackCat
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Drachasor : I agree fully to your last to posts - why haven't you written that earlier ? Those golden words could have spared much obsolete writing (and reading).
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackCat
Drachasor : I agree fully to your last to posts - why haven't you written that earlier ? Those golden words could have spared much obsolete writing (and reading). |
....point taken, I guess this thread is getting a little repetative. Arrian added something new and useful though, imho.
-Drachasor
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BlackCat
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quote:
Originally posted by Patroklos
Once again, when did it become acceptable to kill people of said personal problems?
I am glad we all agree it is arbitrary though, so when I lose my job when my child is three, I will feel no guilt crushing its skull, chopping it up into peices, and stuffing it down the garbage disposal.
Isn't dehumanification (not sure if that is a word) FUN! |
Could we pease keep this discussion to pre natal situation !!!
The argument of going home to kill your already born children is totally insane and has nothing to do with abortion.
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Patroklos
Once again, when did it become acceptable to kill people of said personal problems?
I am glad we all agree it is arbitrary though, so when I lose my job when my child is three, I will feel no guilt crushing its skull, chopping it up into peices, and stuffing it down the garbage disposal.
Isn't dehumanification (not sure if that is a word) FUN! |
You're good at making irrelevant and graphic references, but poor on anything resembling a logical argument.
Until it pops outta momma, its just a lump of cells. Once it is born, it's a person.
I'm kind of liking the idea that life begins at conception... we should change the law so that 9 months before your birth date is your actual birthday.
A human being doesn't really become self-aware of its own existence until around 3 or 4 years old. I'm not saying infanticide is okay, because I believe life begins at birth. But certainly putting to death an unaware, non-sentient lump of cells in the womb is acceptable. It does not have a soul; it is not born.
How come you place so much value in an unborn fetus? It's a seed still... undeveloped... not a person.
And how come conservatives don't believe in welfare for the poor and the needy after they are born? Where is "PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" with abortion? How come we can't leave abortion legal and those fetuses that are killed are just the result of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY? How come you want to take the choice away from the doctors and the women? Are doctors not moral, intelligent people? Can't they make for themselves the choice to terminate a pregnancy? And if they can make their own choices, can't you respect it? Can't you respect the fact that the would-be child isn't the only person affected by the choice? Or do you believe that these women are evil and want to kill babies for fun?
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Drachasor
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Personally Sava, I must respectively disagree. I think the "life begins at birth" is just as shakey as the "life begins at conception" reasoning.
Personally I think this needs to revolve around how we define what human life is; what properties do humans outside of the womb have that make it so they deserve the right to life and other rights?
My personal opinion at this moment is that it is the brain which is this difference, and I have proposed a time that is on the safe side of when the brain starts to have the tiniest flicker of meaningful activity.
However, I am open to other people that have other thoughts on how we define what properties are important or when those properties come into play.
Personally I favor the brain approach because it is going to come in handy when we start dealing with truly thinking AIs that have certain essential human-intelligence-like characteristics. I like to keep an eye to problems we might face in the future and develop philosophies and analyses to deal with them now, or at least the beginnings of a method.
-Drachasor
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:19
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quote:
Is there much debate on abortion based on that rationale? If abortion is necessary to save the mother's life, and if there is no way to otherwise save the mother while keeping the fetus alive, then its hard to credibly agrue against that abortion.
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Much debate? Not really. I find that such considerations help clarify positions, in such a way as to garner respect from the medical community.
quote:
I have problems with abortions on a whim, with no other justification than "I don't want to carry this child to term."
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Why do you have this problem? If abortion does not kill a child, then it should not matter why they are done.
quote:
I don't think that conception should be the absolute measuring point for the beginning of human life; its not unusual for fertilized eggs to naturally abort themselves.
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First of all, sperm and egg cease to be after conception. There is no such thing as a 'fertilised egg'. The single cell after conception formed from the union of the sperm and egg, is called a zygote. This cell grows to become an embryo and then later a fetus like an infant grows to be a toddler, and then later, an adolescent.
quote:
For the first few weeks, its impossible to tell if the egg will develop into a fetus.
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Again, there is no egg. The egg is gone. By the 21st day, you already have an embryo with enough of a circulatory system developed to have measureable heartbeat.
quote:
I think that its hard to make an argument that your "murdering" something that hasn't developed into anything yet.
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Have you seen any pictures of an unborn child 2 weeks after conception? If not, how do you know that there has been no development?
quote:
However, I think that after the fertilized egg has definately developed into a proto-human, with a developing brain/nervous system, then its too late to abort that fetus.
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Why coin the term proto-human? Species does not change with development. You have a pig embryo and a pig fetus, so why not a human embryo and a human fetus?
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I support the morning after pill because:
-it comes into play during the earliest stages of uncertainty, when its unclear if the fertilized egg will develop at all
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You may die tomorrow. Does this mean I have a right to kill you now, because we do not know whether you will develop any further?
Just because the unborn child may spontaneously abort, is not a justification for someone to kill the child.
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-it gives women who have been raped/ otherwise victimized to take a precaution against an unwanted pregnancy, so that they wouldn't need to get an abortion later in the pregnancy (if she is even pregnant when she first takes the pill)
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First off, the morning after pill procures an early abortion. You are not sparing the woman an abortion by giving her a morning after pill.
Secondly, why should sending a rape victim in for an abortion be a bad thing?
Finally, are there not better options than killing the child? Why must the child die for the sins of his father?
quote:
Women who know that they've had sex and know that they don't want to be pregnant should be obliged to take the morning after pill. If they wait 4 months before they decide that they don't want it, its too late. The fetus has developed into enough of a person that it would be murder to abort it.
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So if you define personhood to be the development of the brain, what week do you believe personhood begins?
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Wycoff
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why do you have this problem? If abortion does not kill a child, then it should not matter why they are done. |
I think that at a certain stage abortion does kill a child, especially partial birth abortions. Do they really exist? I couldn't imagine them ever being necessary, nor could I imagine a serious argument justifying them as not being murder.
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Again, there is no egg. The egg is gone. By the 21st day, you already have an embryo with enough of a circulatory system developed to have measureable heartbeat. |
If that's the case, then wouldn't they have brain function? If the brain has developed enough to run the circulatory system, then thats enough sign of life for me to prevent the abortion.
quote:
Why coin the term proto-human? Species does not change with development. You have a pig embryo and a pig fetus, so why not a human embryo and a human fetus? |
wasn't trying to play semantics here, just using the term to further illustrate. Proto in the sense of something in development, not in an evolutionary sense.
quote:
Just because the unborn child may spontaneously abort, is not a justification for someone to kill the child. |
I agree with this to a point. There's obviously a chance for a miscarriage throughout a pregnancy, and I'm not advocating abortion based on that train of reasoning. My point of diversion with your thinking lies much, much earlier, in the earliest stages of cell division. I don't have the info with me right now (I'm having trouble finding unbiased info upon which to base an argument, relying on memory). I'm talking about when the cells are beginnig to divide, during the period when its still possible for a cell to split into what can become twins. (again, apologize for the lack of specificity) At this time there are no guarantees that anything is going to come out of it, this is the period of the highest chance of "natural abortion." To me, the body is still "rolling the dice." The day after pill isn't killing anything, its just "loading the dice."
If the pill was designed to be taken after the first missed period, and would work by poisoning a developing fetus I would be against it.
quote:
First off, the morning after pill procures an early abortion. You are not sparing the woman an abortion by giving her a morning after pill. |
I disagree. I think that it works so early in the process that there's not anything there to abort. Its simply making the body chemistry hostile to the incubation.
quote:
Secondly, why should sending a rape victim in for an abortion be a bad thing?
Finally, are there not better options than killing the child? Why must the child die for the sins of his father? |
I don't think that the child should. I'd much rather execute the rapist and let the rape child live. After all, its not the child's fault the its father was a rapist monster. However, I think that a rape victim would know right away that they wouldn't want to carry their rapist's child. They should take the day after pill to ensure that the fetus never has the chance to begin growing. If the raped women decides to carry the baby for a few months, she shouldn't be able to later decide to abort it on the rationale that she's been raped. After all, if she didn't want to carry the baby, she should have taken the morning-after pill.
quote:
So if you define personhood to be the development of the brain, what week do you believe personhood begins? |
Again, I don't have reliable info on me. If a 21 day old fetus has a brain functioning enough to run a circulatory system, then personhood begins at 3 weeks. I need more research to be able to firmly specify a time, but I would place it very early in gestation, but it would be sometime past the point where it becomes impossible to split off into twins. If something can still divide into twins, then it is too undeveloped for me to call it a human being.
Basically, I think abortion should only be used is in a medical emrgency such as the one that I described in my initial post. Other than that, I support contraceptives. I consider the day after pill a contraceptive, and one that can prevent the horror story pregnancy that pro-abortionists always use: the rape case and the incest case. If you can eliminate those situations, then the arguments for non-emergency abortions lose much of their potency.
Ben, are you against birth control pills?
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
When do they have a 'functioning' brain?
How do you determine whether a brain is functional or not? |
Brain Waves, and these don't occur until the second trimester.
http://www.tnr.com/013100/easterbrook013100.html
EEG readings confirm this interpretation (that article goes over that and much more).
-Drachasor
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Drachasor
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
At what point?
Abortionists recommend anaesthetia for the unborn child during an abortion. It calms the mother not to have her child squirm. |
How old the foetus you are talking about?
First trimester and early second trimester abortions do use anesthesia, but this is for opening and dealing with the cervix. It is for the *woman* not the fetus.
-Drachasor
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11-11-2004 01:40
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