[quote]Christine wrote:
But I enjoy reading dissenting opinions.
I think this is one of the most civil discussions I have read on the topic.
[/quote]
NOW you’ve done it… way to jinx the thread Christine 
Malone—I’ll try to dig some up. You might have to wait a bit though, I’m not sure I’ll be doing it tonight and I’m leaving for Arkansas tomorrow morning. If not tonight, then probably after the weekend.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
No, because the baby is born and has now personhood. It is now a “human”.
What is your definition of “personhood”? You mentioned you were going to get one out of your ethics book for us to examine, didn’t you?
A fetus is potential life. POTENTIAL.
A fetus is alive, just in a different stage of development from a fully-grown human. It meets the criteria for life: 1. metabolism, 2. growth, 3. reaction to stimuli, and 4. reproduction. (There is cell reproduction and twinning, a form of asexual reproduction, which can occur after conception.)
It has its own separate genetic code and needs only food, water, shelter, and oxygen in order to grow and develop, just like the rest of us in this discussion.
" The damn thing isn’t even conscious, why would it matter if it felt a bit of pain before being fucking eliminated?"
I’m not clear on why this matters. Do you mean, it’s not yet self-aware? If consciousness is what matters, why wouldn’t it be legal to kill me if I ever became knocked out or was temporarily in a coma? Why base legal definitions on temporary states?
[/quote]
I will bring my book tomorrow.
I am at university and i have engineering quizzes coming up. These are my breaks.
A plant is alive too, but i don’t see people caring about it.
A fetus at any stage is alive. I don’t see your point in this case. I assume you are against abortion.
It matters because it seems to be one of the more important issues. You say that when neurological activity is detecteable or the fetus “feels” pain, that is when we should draw the line.
Now my question to you, is why?
Push, you havent explained anything to me.
All you’ve done is made stupid comments. Why don’t you go on back to SAMA and flirt with October girl, Renee and co?
If you want to debate then do it. I thought that was the point of this sub forum.
Instead of using rhetoric or answering my question with a question, why don’t you just outright answer my questions.
You’re all fucking older and wiser than me, so enlighten me damnit. That’s why i’m here.
Why do you care what someone does with THEIR baby? Why does it matter if it’s 7 weeks in or one day before birth?
It is difficult to kill something within something else and not have someone feel pain. Why does neurological activity or pain really matter when the goal is ultimately to kill/destroy?
At what point is a thing a person?
Is a vegetable a person? Should we not kill vegetables?
[quote]pushharder wrote:
blazindave wrote:
…Push, you havent explained anything to me…
Instead of using rhetoric or answering my question with a question, why don’t you just outright answer my questions…
Because I tend to ignore sheer ignorance.[/quote]
Wow, a clever saying. You sure proved your point. How can a question even be ignorant…Just think for a second what the purpose of a question is.
So instead of trying to educate me, you’ll just make stupid remarks.
Say hi to the SAMA crew for me, will you?
[quote]A plant is alive too, but i don’t see people caring about it.
A fetus at any stage is alive. I don’t see your point in this case. I assume you are against abortion. [/quote]
I would argue that we’re unique from plants, but we’re trying to decide what’s murder and what’s not here. My presupposition is that the unborn baby is alive.
I think the burden of proof to the opposite claim belongs to the pro-abortion side because the pro-life side, at the very least, errs on the side of caution. Most people believe that it’s a huge problem when someone is deprived of life without cause (i.e. capital offenses).
If there’s any question, whatsoever, as to whether or not the baby is alive, it makes no sense to allow abortion. I think the case that the baby is alive is overwhelming.
The issue of whether or not a plant is alive is a non sequitur. No one screams, “Murder!” when a plant is cut down.
[quote]You say that when neurological activity is detecteable or the fetus “feels” pain, that is when we should draw the line.
Now my question to you, is why? [/quote]
This actually isn’t where I would draw the line at all. I was pointing out the flaws in someone else’s definition. I would draw the line where it is biologically human life: when the egg meets the sperm and meiosis begins. At that point, it meets the biological definition of life.
Ok. It’s possible that your engineering curriculum isn’t as philosophically rigorous as it needs to be for this discussion, but we’ll see.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
blazindave wrote:
pushharder wrote:
blazindave wrote:
…Push, you havent explained anything to me…
Instead of using rhetoric or answering my question with a question, why don’t you just outright answer my questions…
Because I tend to ignore sheer ignorance.
Wow, a clever saying. You sure proved your point. How can a question even be ignorant…Just think for a second what the purpose of a question is.
So instead of trying to educate me, you’ll just make stupid remarks.
Say hi to the SAMA crew for me, will you?
It’s breaking me up that I’m so aggravating to ya, bud.
Say hi to the Rate My Physique crew for me, will you?[/quote]
I’ve never posted my pic there 
Wuuuuuh?
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
A plant is alive too, but i don’t see people caring about it.
A fetus at any stage is alive. I don’t see your point in this case. I assume you are against abortion.
I would argue that we’re unique from plants, but we’re trying to decide what’s murder and what’s not here. My presupposition is that the unborn baby is alive.
I think the burden of proof to the opposite claim belongs to the pro-abortion side because the pro-life side, at the very least, errs on the side of caution. Most people believe that it’s a huge problem when someone is deprived of life without cause (i.e. capital offenses).
If there’s any question, whatsoever, as to whether or not the baby is alive, it makes no sense to allow abortion. I think the case that the baby is alive is overwhelming.
The issue of whether or not a plant is alive is a non sequitur. No one screams, “Murder!” when a plant is cut down.
You say that when neurological activity is detecteable or the fetus “feels” pain, that is when we should draw the line.
Now my question to you, is why?
This actually isn’t where I would draw the line at all. I was pointing out the flaws in someone else’s definition. I would draw the line where it is biologically human life: when the egg meets the sperm and meiosis begins. At that point, it meets the biological definition of life.
I am at university and i have engineering quizzes coming up.
Ok. It’s possible that your engineering curriculum isn’t as philosophically rigorous as it needs to be for this discussion, but we’ll see. [/quote]
It was a bioethics elective.
Like i said, enlighten me.
[quote]It was a bioethics elective.
Like i said, enlighten me. [/quote]
The fetus is a human being from the point of conception, having fulfilled the criteria for being biologically alive, and as a human being, it is a person.
[quote]blazindave wrote:
Like i said, enlighten me.
[/quote]
Bear with me, this is going to take a number of exchanges. Don’t spout off and make any more ridiculous claims and I’ll walk you through it.
First, why is murder wrong?
[quote]blazindave wrote:
pat wrote:
skor wrote:
blazindave wrote:
[…]While children must gain self awareness at that age, their personhood still exists at birth because they are able to independently interact with the world around them.
If i leave a newborn in a forest somewhere and you pass by and hear it’s cry, that “interaction” produces a history that a non existant being cannot create. Since the fetus is somewhat out of sight and out of mind (except for the mother, but she is more present), it does not have any person qualities.
That’s what i meant by contribute. When i get home ill open up my ethics book theres a fantastic description of personhood there.
As for the killing the baby one day before birth, my point was merely that people should be left to their own devices as long as it doesnt affect you or society as a whole.
Now a serious question (since you made me think of it), why would killing a baby one day before birth be immoral?
Well, if you have a woman who is close to term, a fetus is already viable in a sense that it doesn’t need mothers body to survive. And if you find this woman dead in the forest immediately after sudden death, you can cut out a baby and it will be alright.
Woman die during labor and babies survive. This shows, at least to me, that it’s not the moment babies head comes out of vagina that we shouldn’t kill it anymore. This point comes earlier.
To me, boundary points are very clear:
-
Aborting a clump of cells after conception is not a problem and nothing to cry about.
-
Aborting a baby a day before delivery is not qualitatively different from killing a newborn, unless it’s crucial for saving mothers health/life.
Two principles/questions try guide my thinking about the time inbetween.
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Can a fetus survive outside of the womb and develop normally without significant impairments?
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Is a fetus in it’s current state “live” or “dead” based on a legal definition of “dead” for a grown person.
Based on these
I have no problems with abortion up-to week 20 - not of those fetuses are viable and they have no brain activity;
I’m against abortion (unless mothers health is in danger) past weeks 27 as almost all of those fetuses are viable and have brain activity.
the time inbetween is a grey area.
You are a clump of cells…
You defined no clear line you went from a clump of cells to a day before birth…That isn’t a clear line that’s very broad and slippery line?
How do you know the fetus has no neurological activity unitl 20 weeks? Is it because some machine tells you so. What if a new more sensitive machine comes out and is able to decern neurological activity much sooner?
You would have to argue that the means by which we currently detect neurological activity is infallible.
Further, brains or neurological activity is only one property a person has. People are made of much more than that. You could conceivably keep a brain alive in a jar with machines, but it is no person, yet it has human neurological activity. The brain is an organ, people have lots of organs.
Additionally, a fetus can feel pain as early as 8 weeks. Do you know what pain is? A neurological response. A baby react to being stuck at 8 weeks, so if neurological activity is your measure, then 8 weeks is your time, not 20.
Why would brain/neurological activity matter?
Can someone honestly answer this without giving me a “oh you’re so terrible” bullshit spiel?
So the pregnancy is 4 months in. The mother has decided she can’t have the baby anymore for whatever reason.
Yet she can’t do it because the baby might feel pain. The damn thing isn’t even conscious, why would it matter if it felt a bit of pain before being fucking eliminated?
My point is that instead of trying to get on your soap box and being all “omg look at me im so moral”, you just let people decide their personal matters in their own fashion?
[/quote]
Logic is not your forte. It’s not a “look at me” issue at all…By your “logic” it is ok to kill all humans who can feel pain but are not conscious. You can’t know if the damn kid is conscious or not.
This is not a person matter this decision affects another person…You are deciding on whether or not to kill a human being…Believe me, you want to cut you arm off and stick it in your ass, I could careless, but I do care about killing people. Which is what abortion is, the killing of another person.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
So let’s say abortion is banned. Now what?
Does a black market for backstreet abortions open up? I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather keep it in the public eye, and leave it to medical professionals instead of that guy in Vermont with the stump hand.[/quote]
Sure abortions would continue, but not at 1.2 million a year. There will be darwin award candidates who would try the back ally shit, but I will cruelly say, I have little sympathy if you hurt yourself trying to kill another human being, especially you own child…That person is a special kind of asshole.
[quote]Makavali wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Same thing with rape. I think we should pull it out of the dingy back alleys, empty stair wells and dark rooms and allow it to be openly practiced…with government oversight and regulation of course.
Now we’re equating the two? Rape takes away informed consent, no? I don’t see abortion doing that, especially as we don’t give the ability to give informed consent to anyone under 16/17/18/whatever it is.
Abortion is a touchy subject. Banning it outright will create a black market and probably more problems, letting it continue will piss other people off. Pissing people off is way more appealing to me than creating a new black market or helping an existing one expand.[/quote]
In as much as there is a black market for murder…IT does exist, but it is not prevalent…The argument to allow killing people just because some will do it anyway will not make it OK.
Truly, If nobody had abortions I wouldn’t case if it were legal or not. There are soooo fucking many per year, the most efficient way to stop most of it is to make it illegal.
[quote]blazindave wrote:
A fetus is potential life. POTENTIAL.
That is besides the point, you have not answered my question:
" The damn thing isn’t even conscious, why would it matter if it felt a bit of pain before being fucking eliminated?"
Why would neurological activity matter for abortion? The baby is NOT born yet. So it is not infanticide. Do not mince words.[/quote]
You’ll have to substantiate the claim of potential, if requiring development is analogous to being a potential life then by that definition you are not a person until the moment before death as you continually develop through out life.
A baby is not fully developed, neither is a teenager, neither is a grown person as the body continues to change and the mind continues to gain knowledge.
Neurological activity doesn’t matter, that was someone elses definition, I was merely pointing out that neurological activity occurs mush sooner then he suggested.
[quote]tedro wrote:
blazindave wrote:
Like i said, enlighten me.
Bear with me, this is going to take a number of exchanges. Don’t spout off and make any more ridiculous claims and I’ll walk you through it.
First, why is murder wrong?
[/quote]
Eeek, this gets into meta ethics…That’s a fun discussion, but breaking it down to good and evil and defining the two is laborious.
[quote]pat wrote:
tedro wrote:
blazindave wrote:
Like i said, enlighten me.
Bear with me, this is going to take a number of exchanges. Don’t spout off and make any more ridiculous claims and I’ll walk you through it.
First, why is murder wrong?
Eeek, this gets into meta ethics…That’s a fun discussion, but breaking it down to good and evil and defining the two is laborious.[/quote]
It’s hard to have a discussion on the ethics of abortion without touching on some meta ethics, but it need not get too deep. I didn’t ask if murder was wrong, I am simply going to begin with the assumption that we will all agree that it is.
So long as we can agree on that, the subject will remain one of applied ethics, but we still must begin with some common ground, thus the question.
So nobody got the Family Guy reference.
I’m sad now.