[quote]pat wrote:
Christine wrote:
You think it is the only question that matters. It is, in my opinion, not.
But no, I do not think a fetus qualifies as a person.
Good now we are getting some where…What other questions matter?
If it is not a person, what is it?[/quote]
I will concede that it is a developing human. As in it has the potential to become human. The potential to become a person. I do not concede that all human life has the same value. I honestly wish it did, but it currently does not. So long as all human life is not valued equally, I do not wish abortion to become illegal.
Unlike you, I can not equate the suffering of a baby being boiled to death or child abuse of any kind to that of the termination of a pregnancy.
I am done with this as it really doesn’t get us anywhere.
[quote]Christine wrote:
I will concede that it is a developing human. As in it has the potential to become human. The potential to become a person. I do not concede that all human life has the same value.
I honestly wish it did, but it currently does not. So long as all human life is not valued equally, I do not wish abortion to become illegal.
Unlike you, I can not equate the suffering of a baby being boiled to death or child abuse of any kind to that of the termination of a pregnancy.
I am done with this as it really doesn’t get us anywhere.
[/quote]
I guess an abortion would then make it a dead developing human. Or a developing human without a chance to develop.
If it has unique human DNA, it is a human.
To usurp the right of that human to develop is just flat wrong.
Great post until the last part. The fetus IS a full-fledged human, just in an earlier stage of development.
I guess I keep having to repeat this, but if the fetus is provided with food, water, shelter and oxygen, it will develop into a later stage, just as everyone in this discussion will. We will grow to be senior citizens if provided with the same.
So, a kind of teleological argument? [/quote]
Teleological means that the ends justify the means. I’ll I’m saying is that everyone living is currently in a stage of human development, so that is why the pro-abortionists have tried to divorce the human creature from its personhood in early stages of development, because it’s much easier to kill something that has been de-humanized.
So far, they’ve refused to move beyond bald assertion that the fetus isn’t human. I’ve yet to see a philosophical defense of non-personhood for the fetus on this thread, unless someone can point me to the page.
I’ve yet to see a philosophical defense of non-personhood for the fetus on this thread, unless someone can point me to the page. [/quote]
Which is why it is so important to define one’s terms in a philosophical discussion. So far, nobody has come up with definitions for basic concepts that all parties can agree on.
What is a person? What is a human?
Once we agree on a definition, we can decide what meets the criteria of that definition, and what does not.
For example, would a severed human head, kept alive in a lab, qualify as a “person,” so long as it gave the appearance of being conscious and aware? And if so, what about a brain in a jar, kept alive in the same manner, so long as the EEG continued to detect activity?
An embryo in cryogenic storage is structurally no different from one on its way down the Fallopian tube to the uterine lining. Are they both people?
And once we start talking about cloning, it becomes very confusing. Yes, human cloning is currently illegal, but that, like abortion law, is subject to change.
At what point does the genetic material taken from the nucleus of a parent cell attain personhood? From the moment it is implanted in an egg? From the moment chemicals are introduced to induce meiosis? From the moment it is implanted into a uterus? When?
I’m jumping ahead of myself. Let us all first agree on the definition of a person. Failing that, we continue to talk in circles.
Yep. And I don’t think we can arrive at a common definition. I think the Christians will have theirs, the atheists theirs, and then we’ll have another religious discussion. Remember the last one we had? Everyone’s feathers got ruffled.
So after reading all that I take it that you indeed do place a high value on life if that life has attained personhood? A value high enough that it should be protected under the law?[/quote]
Sure. Just as high a value as I place on liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and just as deserving of legal protection.
I’ll reiterate what I said earlier: I define murder as the deliberate, malicious, and unjustifiable killing of a human being. If I can be persuaded that abortion meets all of these criteria, then I will admit that it is wrong.
My admission that it is wrong, by the way, will not make a whit of difference in a practical sense. It won’t prevent me from doing anything that I hadn’t already resolved not to do.
When I consider this issue, I consider the situation of the mother, I don’t consider the fetus. The mother comes first for me.
Pat has devolved this discussion as I had mentioned to Push earlier who didn’t seem to pick up on Pat’s vitriol.
Courts do decide personhood all the time in regards to inheritance and even traffic disputes, not just murder. And so you all know, they have different answers depending on circumstance and the judge.
I also place a higher value on a mother than I do on a fetus.
I dread if abortion were ever to become illegal.
I don’t know if I would choose it for myself. I probably would not unless there were some medical tragedy about to occur.
making abortion illegal would be a tragedy.
My appreciation to those of you who posted your beliefs in a civil and enlightening manner. I have a greater understanding for your position. It hasn’t changed my belief, but I more greatly respect your reasons for holding on to your beliefs.
[quote]pat wrote:
EmilyQ wrote:
Skate around it? Avoid at all costs? WTF? Is this a joke? We’ve tromped right up to it again and again. The answer is NO, the early fetus is not a person.
The picture you posted, Pat? Was not a person. TROMP TROMP TROMP.
I agree with Christine that this only serves to reinforce the despair that leaves me helplessly supporting legal abortion.
Ha! I know you only said that to rile me up, you damn well it was too a human. It even had arms, legs and a head. To allege otherwise is simply dishonest because you’re just damn determined to win cone hell or high water. I am more interested in the truth. [/quote]
Win what? There’s no win here. If there is a win to be had, it is already mine. Remember? Abortion is legal. There are not more unwanted babies straining the already-strained system, and some babies will remain unborn and therefore will never be abused. The unwanted need not be fretted over in even greater numbers.
I entered the discussion looking for a way for you to have what is important to you without losing those things I value. I admitted early on that I find abortion “an evil,” and that it disturbs me.
But that doesn’t mean that the tissue you posted meets my definition of a person. Frankly, it looked more like a bloody, grotesquely distorted Casper the Friendly Ghost.
…As for your coma guy, if that were me, I’d want to be eliminated. Happily, I have someone like Christine in my life. (My husband will be more than happy to pull the plug…
Now we’re getting somewhere. Now you are insinuating that all who enter a coma should be terminated despite the widely known fact that many if not most comatose patients emerge from their coma?
Comatose patients are non-persons just like fetuses?
Wow![/quote]
What does it gain you to mischaracterize me? Do I really strike you as someone who is indifferent to life and clueless as to the statistical probability of various medical outcomes? What sort of victory do you hope to gain in this manner?
The photo you posted appeared, at quick glance, to be of a man who has been comatose for a considerable period of time. He had drool pads on either side of his head, was approximately the same color as his white sheets, with thin, translucent skin, and had some sort of cracked lip, which I’m guessing is due to sustained mouth-breathing. Speaking only for myself, no thank you. I don’t want to be the long-term vegetable in room 203. I think “eliminated,” your word, probably overstates my interest in euthanasia (which is not the topic of this debate). But whatever. I am fortunate in that my life, should such a decision ever be necessary, will be in the hands of someone capable of more nuanced thought than “all” or “none.”
I’ve always imagined you capable of nuanced thought, too. Have I overestimated you?
Well, jeez, Push, if Mitz, Cricket, Christine and Emily are all coming, I say we dispense with the arm wrestling, and go with Christine’s original suggestion of naked twister.
I don’t know how that will settle anything, but it sure sounds like a lot more fun than arguing about abortion.
When I consider this issue, I consider the situation of the mother, I don’t consider the fetus. The mother comes first for me.
Pat has devolved this discussion as I had mentioned to Push earlier who didn’t seem to pick up on Pat’s vitriol.
Courts do decide personhood all the time in regards to inheritance and even traffic disputes, not just murder. And so you all know, they have different answers depending on circumstance and the judge.
I also place a higher value on a mother than I do on a fetus.
I dread if abortion were ever to become illegal.
I don’t know if I would choose it for myself. I probably would not unless there were some medical tragedy about to occur.
making abortion illegal would be a tragedy.
My appreciation to those of you who posted your beliefs in a civil and enlightening manner. I have a greater understanding for your position. It hasn’t changed my belief, but I more greatly respect your reasons for holding on to your beliefs.
[/quote]
The irony here is your choice of words. You value the life and well being of the “mother”. A childless woman cannot be referred to as a mother as they have no children. So, if the carrier of said fetus is a mother than by definition alone, the fetus is in fact not only a human being, but that woman’s own child.
So if the fetus is not human, then the carrier is no a “mother” otherwise you are creating a self refuting argument. In which you are admitting in tandem that abortion is the killing of a child but that not allowing such an act is a tragedy. To me the killing of a person is a tragedy. Especially senselessly killing the innocent.
