07-07-2002 01:46									#391
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quote: Originally posted by Ron Jeremy If it sustains fatal injuries it's going to die whether she accepts the consequences or not.

But even then, someone who sustains really nasty injuries should be at least made comfortable by any medical-people around

	07-07-2002 01:54									#392
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quote: Originally posted by November Adam the reason I limit to zygote is that, given the resources to survive a zygote will continue to develope, a sperm, or an egg will not, it will stay exactly as it is.

You say that a zygote "given the ressources to survive" will develop.
Put a sperm and an egg together, and given the ressources to survive, they will develop into a human.

Even if it was not the case : why do the ability to develop into a human make you consider the zygote as a human ?
Why do the POTENTIAL should give it something it has not for now ?

quote: First the zygote isn't an independent organ, it is an organism. The difference is that an organ is a part of the whole, and an organism is the whole. A good comparision of a zygote, embryo, fetus, would be that of an astronaut on a space walk or a scuba diver. Not that of a zygote and an organ, as they are two different things entirely.

Point taken.
Now, a sperm is not an organ, it's an organism. So take the same analogy, but with an egg or a sperm.

quote: I put value on the body due to the fact that it is a shell for sentience.

So you admit that the only value of the body is that it's the shell for the sentience.
Hence a body on itself is worthless.

quote: I also think that it is necessary to protect the shell when we know that sentience will be present. We know that sentience will be present as we are in such a rush to terminate prior to that point.

Well, that's the point : destroying the embryo BEFORE it gets the ability to have sentience, because then it would be murder.

You agree that bad is to hurt a person. As the embryo is still not a person, there is nothing bad about destroying it.

	07-07-2002 02:25									#393
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nope, sperm is still only a part of the organism, it is not an organism itself. A zygote is an organism itself.

Akka, a zygote is already together, a sperm and egg are not. That is the difference.

A zygote is a human, have you not been listening to me?

I said that it is also important to protect the shell because it will develope sentience. As in future tense.

Akka the potential we are talking about is a biological certaintity in the same way that an infant will go through puberty.

You do realize this all stems from a convienience factor. If humans developed in a shell are argument may not even exist.

	07-07-2002 02:53									#394
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A human zygote is a human being, but it is just in it's early development stages. Even after birth your body still continues to develop and become more complex as you go from a child to an adult. This process is accelerated during puberty.

Is a human zygote alive? Of course it is! If it weren't alive it wouldn't develop over time. This is because there are instructions called DNA that tell it how grow and develop; without DNA, it wouldn't do anything. DNA is the building blocks of life.

So, in effect, since zygotes are in an earlier human development stage, and they are alive because they develop over time, then taking away that life would be ending human life, which constitutes murder.

Doesn't this disturb anyone?

	07-07-2002 02:56									#395
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C'mon Cloud, please answer these. Surely you can't advocate banning abortion without weighing all aspects of the matter:

Since you want to make abortion illegal, what should be the proper punishment for doing such a deed?

What should be done with pregnant women who want an abortion regardless of the law forbidding it?

	07-07-2002 03:03									#396
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What will Cloud9 do about the ''underground abortion market'' that will inevitably be created after the prohibition of abortion?

Surely there are people who would still believe abortion is a woman's right, and they will continue to preform abortions regardless of what the law says. What are you going to do Cloud9, declare a ''War on Abortion''?

	07-07-2002 03:42									#397
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quote: Originally posted by Jaakko Since you want to make abortion illegal, what should be the proper punishment for doing such a deed?

It's the same thing as first degree murder; same punishment. That's says enough.

quote: What should be done with pregnant women who want an abortion regardless of the law forbidding it?

Rules are rules. People will get used to it over time.

Abortion will encourage responsible sex by getting more people to use contraceptives than ever before; this is because people will not want to risk unwanted pregnancies that can't be undone. They can give up their chilren for adoption, but not without penalty. Possibly a huge one-time fine (to help pay for their care in the orphanage). If they can't pay the fine, then their medical insurance will have to cover it, resulting in an increase in their monthly payments.

Those who are rape victims should still be forced to have their babies, since those babies are still human beings. But when they do, they should have every right to give them up for adoption without penalty.

Women who are pregnant, but have a substantial risk of death or serious injury as a result of pregnancy and/or labor should be allowed to have an abortion, as not having an abortion would be like commiting suicide. This is not to say that since in any pregnancy there is a very slight chance that the mother may die or have serious injury in labor that she may have an abortion if there is no apparent risk of death or serious injury; this, though very unfortunate when it happens, is extremely rare and should be ignored in considering laws against abortion. Just think how many more babies will be saved than the few women who will die.

Incest should be a sex crime, punishable by imprisonment and huge fine. This will deter people from commiting incest. Those who commit incest are at high risk that a possible pregnancy will result in a severly deformed, mentally unstable, or mentally retarded offspring. Deliberately taking this risk is completely unacceptable. Though the resulting offspring may have deficiensies, they are still human beings and must be protected at all costs.

	07-07-2002 03:43									#398
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Cloud, are you going to comment on your potential misinterpretation of the bible?

Adam, a question for you: what are you going to do when the first human is cloned? Declare that peeling is murder? All those dead skin cells that are potential human beings being violently scraped off their host!

I honestly don't understand how one can argue that a one cell organism is a human... Sentience is the only logical defining factor.

	07-07-2002 03:48									#399
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quote: Originally posted by CyberGnu I honestly don't understand how one can argue that a one cell organism is a human... Sentience is the only logical defining factor.

Individual cells do not develop organs and become a part of society. They are only a part of us, and simply serve a function to ensure that the human body works the way it should.

edit: BTW, cells are not organisms. An organism is a living thing that has multiple organs, and cells do not have any of these things. They don't have hearts, lungs, ribs, livers, kidneys etc. But when you put millions and millions of similar cells together you have an organ. Cells are the building blocks of organs, and organs are the building blocks of organisms.

	07-07-2002 04:16									#400
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quote: Originally posted by November Adam nope, sperm is still only a part of the organism, it is not an organism itself. A zygote is an organism itself. Akka, a zygote is already together, a sperm and egg are not. That is the difference.

I don't see why it makes it more a person than any other pack of cell.
I still can't hurt it, because it can't feel pain, pride, pleasure nor anything.
If I can't hurt it, how can I do anything bad with it ?

quote: A zygote is a human, have you not been listening to me?

I have listened. I just happen to disagree. A zygote is not a human because it has no mind. A zygote is just a pack of cell that COULD become a human.

quote: I said that it is also important to protect the shell because it will develope sentience. As in future tense.

Why does its potential gives it any right ?
It's POTENTIAL. It's not a FACT.

quote: Akka the potential we are talking about is a biological certaintity in the same way that an infant will go through puberty.

Yes.
And ?
It's biological certaintity that I'll be dead one day. Then, should I be considered dead right now ?

quote: You do realize this all stems from a convienience factor. If humans developed in a shell are argument may not even exist.

The argument would be the same : "do I have the right to destroy the egg or not ?"

	07-07-2002 04:16									#401
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I must also argue that we really have no control over the death of individual cells in our bodies. There is nothing we can do about this natural process. Though one might argue that deliberately cutting one's self is murder because your killing millions and millions of cells. But this is more like suicide then murder (because you are killing a part of yourself), and should be treated with therapy. Now if one cuts themself for good cause, such as sticking a needle in themselves to draw blood to test their blood sugar, then who cares; individual cells are not as important as an organism as a whole because they do not live in society, they live as a part of us. A woman's unborn child is not a part of her because it has very different DNA and is not dependent on any of her body parts. Sure, the unborn child gets it's food through the umbilical cord, but this is just a temporary method for the child to get it's nutrition until after the child is born and is old enough to eat on it's own.

And about the "killing" of sperm cells, when you gotta go, you gotta go (to the bathroom, that is). You just can't keep all those wastes in your body; it would kill you if you did. Another suicide mission I say.

Women have no control over their periods. This is a natural process and does not constitute murder.

Masturbation is murder? No. Sex is sex and there is nothing wrong with it (as long as it done responsibly and within the confines of marriage according to my religion), though my personal feelings about masturbation is that it is wrong because the Bible speaks against it.

There is not much we can do to protect our own cells, but we can, without a doubt, protect the unborn.

Last edited by Mr. Nice Guy on 07-07-2002 at 06:39

	07-07-2002 06:25									#402
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quote: Originally posted by Akka le Vil Now, a sperm is not an organ, it's an organism. So take the same analogy, but with an egg or a sperm.

It is not!! Find for me one professional biologist who would agree with that statement!

An organism is an intact autonomous living entity which has the ability to consume energy and reproduce within the proper environment. Sperm do not reproduce, they are part of an organism's reproductive system. They can in fact be considered part of an organ, in the same manner that a nerve cell is not the brain, but it certainly is part of it.

An embryo is part of which organ? Whose organ is it part of?


Unfertilized eggs die at the end of the menestrual cycle. Sperm also die after a period of time.

	07-07-2002 06:40									#403
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Good insight Dr. Strangelove!

	07-07-2002 06:44									#404
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Man I feel some of you are being thick to play with my head.

Are you forgetting basic biology?

The mind does not determine whether you are a member of a species. Your DNA does. quit being so thick.

	07-07-2002 06:46									#405
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quote: Originally posted by November Adam Man I feel some of you are being thick to play with my head. Are you forgetting basic biology? The mind does not determine whether you are a member of a species. Your DNA does. quit being so thick.

Where are you coming from November?

	07-07-2002 06:48									#406
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove It is not!! Find for me one professional biologist who would agree with that statement! An organism is an intact autonomous living entity which has the ability to consume energy and reproduce within the proper environment. Sperm do not reproduce, they are part of an organism's reproductive system. They can in fact be considered part of an organ, in the same manner that a nerve cell is not the brain, but it certainly is part of it. An embryo is part of which organ? Whose organ is it part of? Unfertilized eggs die at the end of the menestrual cycle. Sperm also die after a period of time.

Ah well.
Use a bacteria then. Or a virus. Given enough time, I'm pretty sure they can evolve in an intelligent species.
Oh well, after all, consider I'm wrong on this one. Then we can stop the red herring and goes back to were the true debate is : it's not because something as the POTENTIAL to become something else that it can be considered like if it's already the "else".

	07-07-2002 06:55									#407
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quote: Originally posted by November Adam Man I feel some of you are being thick to play with my head. Are you forgetting basic biology? The mind does not determine whether you are a member of a species. Your DNA does. quit being so thick.

That's not the point.
A sentient alien would not have human DNA, and still I would be consider it immoral to hurt him.
A trisomic has not, strictly speaking, human DNA, as he got one excess chromosom (number 21 in this case). He's still considered human and a full person.

What's important is the mind.
JFYI, in hospital, someone is considered dead when his brain is destroyed. Even if the rest of the body still works (beware : I'm talking about a DESTROYED brain, not deep comas, where the brain is still alive, though barely).

	07-07-2002 07:06									#408
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quote: Originally posted by Akka le Vil That's not the point. A sentient alien would not have human DNA, and still I would be consider it immoral to hurt him. A trisomic has not, strictly speaking, human DNA, as he got one excess chromosom (number 21 in this case). He's still considered human and a full person. What's important is the mind. JFYI, in hospital, someone is considered dead when his brain is destroyed. Even if the rest of the body still works (beware : I'm talking about a DESTROYED brain, not deep comas, where the brain is still alive, though barely).

Surely a newborn can't be considered sentient can it? A baby learns to walk generally by ten months, but that's not sentience is it? Most babies can say a few words by eighteen months, but parrots can repeat words too, are they sentient? Isn't sentience essentially the same as complex reasoning? Doesn't sentience then develop sometime in the school years? So should we allow termination fo the sentient to be up to say six years of age?

	07-07-2002 07:24									#409
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quote: Originally posted by CyberGnu For example, 'You were with me in the womb' (quoting from memory, please correct me if I misquoted) could very well be referring to a fetus, but not an embryo.

Now you're just speculating. The Bible doesn't make any specifics. It is clearly referring to all of the unborn.

	07-07-2002 08:42									#410
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Once again, Predestination.

Just like if I were to throw an apple into the air, all things being equal, it should return to the earth at some point.

Just the same, a fertilized embryo, zygote, or fetus will become a sentient human. The cells I shed every day are not predestined to be clones of myself. Special steps would have to be taken to turn my genetic information into a zygote, and eventually, another human.

Is a bacterium predestined to become sentient? No. At least not in one lifetime. By killing bacteria do you destroy a sentient being? No, because it's not predestined to become sentient in its lifetime, or even in ten lifetimes.

But anyway, the Bacteria/Animal argument is irrelevant because it is neither Human nor Sentient. And for that matter, neither are seperated sperm or eggs; they don't even have a complete genetic code.

The point is that every zygote in every conceiving mother is going to be a sentient human. It's not going to be a horse, duck, cow, or a pig. And nine times out of ten that zygote is going to survive to become a living, breathing human being.

Abortion is no doubt taking the life of a human. At the very least, a soon-to-be sentient human (the only missing ingredient being time itself).

But should it be illegal? That's harder to say. At the very least it should be highly discouraged. As it stands today, getting an abortion in the United States is about as easy as getting a VCR or Television, and about the same price as well.

Should abortions be illegal, in my opinion? Probably not. It's really the choice of the parents. While I consider it to be a high breach of morality and ethics to abort a pregnancy, other people (as is obvious on this webboard) don't feel so, and will probably get an abortion legally or otherwise.

	07-07-2002 13:46									#411
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Darth, the majority of embryos die. Would you be as confident your apple would come down if more than half of them just stayed up?

If you don't like the bacteria, consider a cancer cell. Put it in a nutrient bath, and eventually if will evolve into a sentient, [human, however you want to define that from DNA] being.

Potential as a binary value just doesn't cut it. Would you have some kind of cut-off value for propability instead? I hope you realize how absurd that would be... So we are back to square one. Only a sentient human organism would be a human being.

	07-07-2002 13:52									#412
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quote: Now you're just speculating. The Bible doesn't make any specifics. It is clearly referring to all of the unborn.

I am speculating? I'm saying that you might have misinterpreted the passage, you are claiming to be infallable...

Either way, what the passage says is only that God was with me in the womb, it does not mention how long I spent in there. Could be nine months, could be five minutes. We have no way of knowing.

But to claim that it 'obviously' refers to nine months is just preposterous...

So, to sum up: Science says you are wrong. God says "don't mix me into that, I constructed the system like this, it is up to you guys to figure it out".

	07-07-2002 13:54									#413
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BTW, although I think we moved on from the topic:

From dictionary.com
Organism: An individual form of life, such as a plant, animal, bacterium, protist, or fungus; a body made up of organs, organelles, or other parts that work together to carry on the various processes of life.

So an embryo would be an organism.

	07-07-2002 14:35									#414
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quote: Originally posted by Cloud9 A human zygote is a human being, but it is just in it's early development stages. Even after birth your body still continues to develop and become more complex as you go from a child to an adult. This process is accelerated during puberty. Is a human zygote alive? Of course it is! If it weren't alive it wouldn't develop over time. This is because there are instructions called DNA that tell it how grow and develop; without DNA, it wouldn't do anything. DNA is the building blocks of life. So, in effect, since zygotes are in an earlier human development stage, and they are alive because they develop over time, then taking away that life would be ending human life, which constitutes murder. Doesn't this disturb anyone?

Pursuing similar logic, a recent corpse is human. True- it's unable of sustaining life itself, but it's genetic basis is still human and it still contains some cellular activity.

Is cremation therefore murder?

Another one- since many contraceptive pills do not prevent conception but prevent the ovum from bonding to the uterine lining, this means that the pill is murder too.

	07-07-2002 14:41									#415
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On reflection, I'd like to add a footnote to my last post.

I only invite Cloud9's response if he now feels capable of discussing it like an adult, rather than triumphantly exclaiming that I've been added to his "ignore" list for expressing an alternative point of view. There are many reasons for this, but foremost among them is that I'm not about to waste my limited time on simpletons.

So has that debatorial Damascene conversion happened yet?

	07-07-2002 15:43									#416
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Thanks for answering Cloud9! Here's another question for you:
What would be the punishment for a rape victim who subsequently has an abortion, even though the embryo/fetus is completely viable? After all it isn't the baby's fault how he got conceived.

	07-07-2002 17:06									#417
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove Surely a newborn can't be considered sentient can it? A baby learns to walk generally by ten months, but that's not sentience is it? Most babies can say a few words by eighteen months, but parrots can repeat words too, are they sentient? Isn't sentience essentially the same as complex reasoning? Doesn't sentience then develop sometime in the school years? So should we allow termination fo the sentient to be up to say six years of age?

As I said before, what's important is the MIND, not sentience. Even if the baby has not yet the ability to have complex thoughts, it has the ability to feel. Hence he can be hurt. Hence hurting him is bad.

	07-07-2002 18:38									#418
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quote: Originally posted by Ron Jeremy Pursuing similar logic, a recent corpse is human. True- it's unable of sustaining life itself, but it's genetic basis is still human and it still contains some cellular activity. Is cremation therefore murder? Another one- since many contraceptive pills do not prevent conception but prevent the ovum from bonding to the uterine lining, this means that the pill is murder too.

Sorry, you're wrong.

	07-07-2002 18:44									#419
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quote: Originally posted by Akka le Vil As I said before, what's important is the MIND, not sentience. Even if the baby has not yet the ability to have complex thoughts, it has the ability to feel. Hence he can be hurt. Hence hurting him is bad.

I don't know if you did this somewhere way back in this thread, but would you care to tell me the difference between mind and sentience in your view?

	07-07-2002 19:15									#420
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove I don't know if you did this somewhere way back in this thread, but would you care to tell me the difference between mind and sentience in your view?

The mind is the spirit. The thing that allows us to think and to feel. Sentience is a work made by the mind, just like running is a work made by your body.
Sentience is a level of thought, and the thoughts comes from the mind.

Mind is the essence.