Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
If anti-abortionists really believed that a zygote was a human life, they would be protesting birth control pills.

You've just stated the position of the Catholic Church and several other anti-abortion groups. Is your point in this instance based on anything specific or just simple ignorance?

BTW, what does D&C mean?

[November Adam]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Dinodoc:

The point here is, if you believe that human life begins at conception, then it is illogical to focus on the thousands of D&C abortions, when millions of pharmaceutical abortions are performed every year.

Ergo, anti-abortionists KNOW that a zygote is NOT a human life. They FAKE that position, to avoid the slippery slope of debating when a fetus becomes human.

If anti-abortionists really believed that a zygote was a human life, they would be protesting birth control pills.

People's responses do not dictate what is considered life.

[loinburger]

Re: Re: Re: lets play the word game!

Originally posted by November Adam
4. That is a homo sapien, (look at it's DNA)

Whoah there. Remember, I've argued that it is possible for an organism to be "alive" and have human DNA without necessarily constituting a "human being."

[Gibsie]

Glad to see someone else using the line of thinking I presented earlier in this thread, TMV. How about we make this debate more interesting by replacing abortion with "the use of birth control pills that stop implantation of an embryo into the uterus"?

Okay, let's start: how many pro-life people here would charge any woman having otherwise unprotected sex and taking such a birth control pill with attempted murder? After all, it is natural for the sperm released during sex to fuse with the egg, so any attempt to stop the product from implanting is attempted murder, non?

[November Adam]

Re: Re: Re: Re: lets play the word game!

Originally posted by loinburger


Whoah there. Remember, I've argued that it is possible for an organism to be "alive" and have human DNA without necessarily constituting a "human being."

You have not given me a response to what it is then. Remember back a while we discussed this. You agreed that if the zygote is an organism, than it is human.

The question was now whether the zygote is a seperate organism, or part of the mother.

If the zygote has a life cycle, has it's own DNA, than it is a seperate organism.

So we go back to where we began when you "for argument's sake", said that the zygote was a seperate organism.

[November Adam]

Here I found what you said...

Fair enough, I guess I won't be able to form a tautology on this one; I realized that there are several species that go through an early parasitic stage, particularly insects and arachnids, so my argument that "an embryo is not a human because it is parasitic" doesn't work. I can no longer assume that "an embryo is a separate organism from its host mother" for the sake of argument, as doing so begs the question.

So, if everybody agrees that an embryo is a separate organism from its host mother (and not merely another cluster of cells that make up the host mother), then it follows that it is human. The matter is therefore a question of whether or not an embryo can be classified as a separate organism from its host mother, which it cannot.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by November Adam
If the zygote has a life cycle, has it's own DNA, than it is a seperate organism.

Recall my post:

Originally posted by loinburger
Similarly, if a human embryo is grown in vitro, it is not "alive" by virtue of the fact that it is existing independently of another living organism. It is "alive as a fertilized egg" just as it would be if it were maturing inside of a womb, not "alive as a human." It is an integrated part of the apparatus used to keep it alive, and not a "human."

Another example is a brain-dead human being kept "alive" on a machine. Such a human is "alive as an integrated part of a machine," but is no longer "alive as a human," which is why I see nothing immoral about "pulling the plug" on someone who is braindead.

This amends my earlier statement, since I had forgotten that technology exists that allows an embryo to exist independently of its mother (since a machine can take the place of the mother). If I sever my arm and hook it up to a machine that pumps oxygenated, nutrient-enriched blood through it, this arm will eventually wear out. This doesn't mean that it is ever "alive" and that it eventually "dies" when it wears out. It is simply a part of the machine, just like an embryo or someone who is brain-dead.

[November Adam]

Okay then once again I will ask... this zygote, which is a seperate organism. What species is it?

Is the embryo another of cluster of cells that make up it's mother?

[November Adam]

Originally posted by loinburger

This amends my earlier statement, since I had forgotten that technology exists that allows an embryo to exist independently of its mother (since a machine can take the place of the mother). If I sever my arm and hook it up to a machine that pumps oxygenated, nutrient-enriched blood through it, this arm will eventually wear out. This doesn't mean that it is ever "alive" and that it eventually "dies" when it wears out. It is simply a part of the machine, just like an embryo or someone who is brain-dead.

Biologically someone who's brain activity is zilch, but kept alive on a machine, is still human.

An arm, is not an organism.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by November Adam
Biologically someone who's brain activity is zilch, but kept alive on a machine, is still human.

Fair enough, then I am able to accept that, biologically, an embryo is also a human. I am also willing to assert (and not just allude; Remember, I've argued that it is possible for an organism to be "alive" and have human DNA without necessarily constituting a "human being" is objectively false if "human being" means "an organism biologically classified as a human being") that the biological definition and the ethical definition of a "human" do not always coincide.

Someone who is brain-dead is biologically a human, but ethically this person is just part of a machine; the person is essentially already dead, they are no longer a self-aware thinking being.

An embryo is biologically a human, but ethically it is just part of a machine; it is a small cluster of cells, a "proto-human," but not a self-aware thinking being.

A newborn is biologically a human, and ethically it is also a human; it is a self-aware thinking being.

Similarly, someone who has an artificial heart is not "just part of a machine" despite receiving assistance from a machine, as the person is still a self-aware thinking being.

A fetus is a grey area; it has begun to develop some brain activity, and whether this brain activity allows it to be classified as a self-aware thinking being is open to question.

So, yes, the zygote is, biologically, a human. Ethically, we don't mourn the loss of the billions or trillions of zygotes that fail to implant, because ethically the zygote is not a self-aware thinking being and is thus not a human.

[November Adam]

Okay.. that's all I was getting at.

So now we have a biological definition of a human.

This was one thing that burned me, was that people would argue that an embryo was not human.

Well biologicaly it is, so if you are okay with the termination of a human in it's embryotic state that is a different beast.

So now for the fun stuff!

[loinburger]

Originally posted by November Adam
This was one thing that burned me, was that people would argue that an embryo was not human.

It's easier if the matter can be settled by biology than by ethics, since biology is fairly concrete, while ethics is convoluted (at best). Hence the initial recourse to biology, before the grudging descent into ethics.

So now for the fun stuff!

Wutang!

[November Adam]

Originally posted by loinburger


It's easier if the matter can be settled by biology than by ethics, since biology is fairly concrete, while ethics is convoluted (at best). Hence the initial recourse to biology, before the grudging descent into ethics.

It seemed life you were clinging to "ethics", to assist your argument, and grudginly agreed with biology.

[DarkCloud]

Originally posted by loinburger


Or, more to the point, murder of convenience; if you believe that an embryo is human, then you aren't merely advocating assisted suicide for the retarded, but murder of the retarded.

Also, be aware that quite a few retarded people contribute to society. One of my professors here has two retarded children, both of whom have a great deal of independence and ability to contribute to society (i.e. "work," not "leech").

Yes. Okay. Yes, Murder of convienience, I am not afraid of the word- however, I'd use them for scientific experiments (not the already born ones, that would be horrid if they did not agree knowingly) so that they could be used to help later retarded people and help solve all the world problems

But you just said that it isn't a human yet. Therefore, it isn't a human during its embryonic stage, regardless of what it might develop into during a later growth stage.

But that makes it just as good as a human.
For the formation of a human= humanity