An Unborn Child is in Fact, Human

[CyberGnu]

Excellent research, Horsie!

One question though: In the last two paragraphs, I don't understand why we can be so sure the interpretation of injury only pertains to the woman. Couldn't it be read as 'if she gives birth prematurely, but the child survives, the assailant pays a fine. If she gives birth prematurely and the child dies, the assailant dies'?

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Excellent research, Horsie!

Thanks but sadly I find a 30 second search on Google puts paid to most fanatics. This never ceases to amaze me. In this case I got a lot of food for thought from it too.

One question though: In the last two paragraphs, I don't understand why we can be so sure the interpretation of injury only pertains to the woman. Couldn't it be read as 'if she gives birth prematurely, but the child survives, the assailant pays a fine. If she gives birth prematurely and the child dies, the assailant dies'?

Follow the second link and read the next part of the article. It goes into that in some detail. It also shows how fundies have tried to get around that text and rebutts their interpretation quite effectively.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Proof by definition. Another fallacy.

Pervert.

[Dr Strangelove]

The Hippocratic Oath explicitly forbids abortion. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
An unborn child is in fact an unborn child. It has the potential to become human but until there is a live birth this is nothing more than a potential.

I used to buy all this hardline anti-abortion crap until I had children of my own and went though the whole process. Now I don't know - so many pregnancies never make it to term - its a very iffy process. In my opinion, the welfare of the mother is much more important than the welfare of the unborn child.

I'm pro-choice as a result and I don't think a bunch of celibate priests and Christian fundamentalists know the first thing about it. Having said that I think abortion is a poor choice in most cases but I respect people's right to choose.

I've been in the delivery ward when a dead baby was born. The nurses were doing the birth cerificate for my son whilst they were doing the death certificate for the other child. It could very easily have been the other way round. That's life.

We've had 4 live births and lost one, our first, so don't tell me what to think about it until you've been there yourself.

Both my sisters have had miscarriages, one of them multiple miscarriages - but she's currently pregnant again - we're not going to send any congrats till she gets to 6 months with it. My sister in law had a couple of miscarriages. Friends of ours had a downes syndrome child, which they love dearly - they also had the courage to try again and had a child with no disability against all the odds.

I'm afraid this is an area where noone has the answers.

Well Horsey, I've been in practice for nearly twenty years now, and I've encountered these situations among my patients, far more often than you can comprehend, so i will speak my mind if it so pleases you! In the US it's standard practice for a woman's physician to try to help her through the grieving process when she looses a pregnancy. We generally encourage the parents to deal with the child's death in the same manner that we would had the child survived birth. This procedure has in fact ben proven to improve the parents' mental health. It's the compassionate thing to do. If it's not standard practice in Australia then that's yet another good argument against socialized medicine.

You don't seem to be saying: "abortion? Big deal! Babies die in utero everyday!" It would appear that you're not making a distinction between abortion and natural death. Even you should be able to understand the fallacy in your reasoning.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Here is an even better article - well worth a read. I'll post just an extract.



I found this here:

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/L-bibleforbids.htm

I saw little proof of his thesis within the article. One would have to accept his word that the bible says what he says it says. Why couldn't he supply actual quotes form the bible? The testimony from the rabbi is also worhtless. One would only have to tune in to "Dr. Laura" for a few minutes to realize that not all jews accept his interpretation of jewish law. I wonder what the law is in Israel?

The article you used above this is even worse. You took phrases ripped from the bible out of context to constuct a phony thesis. That's pretty disgusting. Is this the best you have?

[DanS]

"I WILL FOLLOW that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous. I will neither prescribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine to any patient even if asked nor counsel any such thing nor perform the utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life."

It appears that from the perspective of the oath, whether or not the embryo is a human being is secondary. Rather, a plain reading suggests that it hinges on the fact that the life is both unique and human.

It is very interesting that similar language is in the original version...

"I WILL FOLLOW that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion. "

And amazingly, he was swearing by Apollo the physician.

[November Adam]

yet doctors still perform abortions.

do doctors have to swear by the hypocratic oath when they get there degrees?

[November Adam]

AH, with all due respect I am going to have a little baby born within days, and it is a real person now, even though it isn't born. I say "it" cause I don't know the gender, otherwise it would be little Matthew, or little Sarah.

From a purely emotional stand point the little zygote became a person once I found out my wife was pregers. Because for a non-person it sure had an impact on our lives. Sure you could argue that finding out you have cancer would have an impact, but it would definetly be a different impact, as you don't buy a crib, or clothes for cancer!

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by DanS
"I WILL FOLLOW that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischievous. I will neither prescribe nor administer a lethal dose of medicine to any patient even if asked nor counsel any such thing nor perform the utmost respect for every human life from fertilization to natural death and reject abortion that deliberately takes a unique human life."

It appears that from the perspective of the oath, whether or not the embryo is a human being is secondary. Rather, a plain reading suggests that it hinges on the fact that the life is both unique and human.

It is very interesting that similar language is in the original version...

"I WILL FOLLOW that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give a woman a pessary to produce abortion. "

And amazingly, he was swearing by Apollo the physician.

Was there a point to this post? It is generally understood that the subject of the practice of medicine are humans. I suppose in ages past some physicians also substituted for veternarians at times, but I don't think that is an issue with regard's to Hippocrates' oath.
The concept of uniqueness is also moot since every life is genetically unique from the moment that the sperm's genome merges with that of the ovum's. It is obvious that the inclusion of the word "unique" in the oath at this point is an affirmation of the reason compelling Hippocrates to write his oath rather than a condition for its application.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


My bad - I must have been thinking of the Old Testament's general condoning of the mass killing of children

I found the above here:

http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/abortion.html

I'm an Episcopal. The Protestant Episcopal Church has assiduously avoided publishing an official position on abortion. You may find statements from individual clergy or bishops somewhere. You might even find some mention of a propsed statement somewhere, but you won't find a statement of position fully ratified by the clergy and layity and approved by the Presiding Bishop. I'd deeply appreciate it if you would restrain yourself from posting out right lies about other people's religions.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by November Adam
yet doctors still perform abortions.

do doctors have to swear by the hypocratic oath when they get there degrees?

The oath administered has been changed to exclude mentioning abortion at many American medical schools.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Well Horsey, I've been in practice for nearly twenty years now, and I've encountered these situations among my patients, far more often than you can comprehend, so i will speak my mind if it so pleases you! In the US it's standard practice for a woman's physician to try to help her through the grieving process when she looses a pregnancy. We generally encourage the parents to deal with the child's death in the same manner that we would had the child survived birth. This procedure has in fact ben proven to improve the parents' mental health. It's the compassionate thing to do.

Of course we are talking here about people who wanted the child.

If it's not standard practice in Australia then that's yet another good argument against socialized medicine.

It is practiced here. Free health care is great!

You don't seem to be saying: "abortion? Big deal! Babies die in utero everyday!" It would appear that you're not making a distinction between abortion and natural death. Even you should be able to understand the fallacy in your reasoning.

I'm merely pointing out that both abortion and natural death have been a normal part of pregnancy, or pregnancy management for want of a better term, for millenia. In fact you could argue there wasn't much distinction. When infant mortality was higher people had a much different attitude - and we haven't even talked about infanticide, which was not unusual for sickly babies in Western societies right up to the 20th century.

[CyberGnu]

Proof by definition. Another fallacy.

Pervert.

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

An endless source of amusement!

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The Hippocratic Oath explicitly forbids abortion. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Sorry Doc, no cigar.

All Hippocrates said was physicians should not perform abortions. He did not say it was wrong.

This is not meant to talk down to you but as you probably know in the ancient world the demarkation lines between priest, apothecary, midwife and physician were not clear. What Hippocrates tried to do was define the role of physician's in that division of labour i.e as one of exclusively saving life.

Hippocrates did not see terminating pregnancies as a role for physicians - its that simple. That role, in fact the whole pregnancy area, was probably seen as women's business and left to midwifes.

I would go so far as to say that that all this trouble about abortion probably started when pregnancy and birth got medicalised and male doctors moved onto the midwife's turf.

Women are so much wiser about these things