Liberals: Personhood Starts With Paul Ryan’s Jizz

[Dinner]

Life is life and if you want to kill people then you're not "pro-life".

[Dinner]

Awww. The cute little bunny thinks he is a sheep.

[Alexander's Horse]

does Paul Ryan still have jizz/

[Al B. Sure!]

So, you are assuming that all persons are of equal value?

Umm... yeah. There's an alternative?

[Ben Kenobi]

Life is life and if you want to kill people then you're not "pro-life".

If all persons are equal, and unborn children are also persons then this isn't a hard argument.

Abortion kills 1 million people a year in the US alone. Ergo abortion should be the top priority.

[Alexander's Horse]

the whole prolife thing is medieval

they should do something about paedo priests

[MrFun]

So, you are assuming that all persons are of equal value?

So you believe that some people are inferior to other people, and not deserving of human rights?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Which is why lesbians flip through books looking for doctor sperm?

IVF works because there is continuity throughout the entire process. If it did not - then sexual reproduction would not work the way it does - nor could we conceive a child outside the womb in a petri dish and still be able to say that the same child conceived in the petri dish, is the same child eventually born at the end of the process.

IVF is a process. It isn't a sentient thing. Therefore it can not assume. You don't have a child in a petri dish. They're awfully hard to fit in one and get kind of whiny if you try to stuff them in. You have a blastocyst. Some flour, sugar, eggs and butter if you will, but the mix has to be right and the bun still has to bake in the oven. Eventually, if everything goes well, you will have a child. In the future, but sorry, it's not a child in the petri dish.

Which child? When does the child become the child? I argue that the child in the womb is exactly the same child as the child outside of the womb.

You can play with word definitions all you want. Pick a standard. Roe v. Wade picks potential viability outside the womb with medical intervention. I'll go a little earlier, to some stage of basic anatomic development.

To whom? You?

To the concept of a single overarching standard for what constitutes a legally cognizable person.

Really? Nonsense. Nobody thinks that - not the lesbians going to the IVF clinic - not the couples having issues conceiving. They all believe that the child conceived in the petri dish is going to be the same child they get at the end when the child is born. Otherwise there is no point in going to the IVF clinic.

Really? You've been hanging out with lesbians at IVF clinics so much, that not only do you feel entitled to legislate what they can do with their bodies, you feel entitled to report what *all* of them think? People's ooey-cooey "lets make a baby" thoughts are irrelevant to a rational medical or scientific standard. You can believe what you want, but it's another story entirely to presume to use the power of the state to force others to abide by your belief system.

So let me ask you a question - MTG. The standard that I am putting forth is an empirical one. I can test it. I can confirm - biologically, that the child in the petri dish is the same child that is born. We've known this for over 30 years now.

Actually, you can't, it isn't, and we haven't. You're playing a sophomoric mind**** word game by pre-designating the cells in the petri dish a child. IF it is successfully implanted, and IF if develops successfully to full term, it will become a child. Your definition is like saying a dirt lot, some boards, nails, ABS pipe and a toilet in a pile are a house. When you go to KFC for a box of fried chicken, and they give you a fried egg instead, do you say "thanks, the chicken is delicious?" A blastocyst in a petri dish is not a child. It is a potential child, if certain steps are taken and everything works out.

Is your standard empirical, or does it depend on opinion? If you were looking on things from outside - which is the most empirical definition? Yours or mine?

"Empirical" is meaningless if "empirical" coincides with "arbitrary" I could just as easily pick an "empirical" standard of birth. Or 18 years of age - it would be great to rid the world of unruly teenagers. Those are "empirical" but they have no more scientific or medical value than does conception.

I don't have a set standard in mind - only a criteria for picking one, that it be based on a broad medical and scientific consensus. You could either pick some degree of brain activity, or to allay concerns about brain activity in Downs or other damaged fetuses, you could go for some sort of anatomical development, easily verifiable by ultrasound, with the consensus that that level of development represents some degree of potential awareness, consistent with a late term fetus or neonate. Either of those would take you back a ways before viability.

[MichaeltheGreat]

How does sex-selection abortion 'empower' women? If you have to build up older women by killing girls, then it seems counterproductive to me if your overall cause is to improve the well-being of all women, not just some. Also - how many women actually 'choose' abortion because they want one? None that I've spoken to. All feel that it's the best choice of ****ty options. Maybe the solution shouldn't be giving women ****ty choices, but giving them better choices.

Point one is valid. I think sex-selection abortion is despicable, but if done at an early enough stage of fetal or embryonic development, it's not the state's business to regulate it.

With respect to point two, let's see right to life legislation that incorporates funded support services for pregnant women, mothers and children. But then we'd have men *****ing that their "rights" were considered inferior because they're having to pay for all these gummint services for all these damned women and their reproductive choices.

[Ben Kenobi]

IVF is a process.

Yes, and? IVF relies on certain principles being true in order to work. If those principles are not true, then IVF doesn't work.

It isn't a sentient thing.

It? When do children acquire their sex?

You don't have a child in a petri dish.

Yes, you do have a child in that petri dish. Which is why you are paying thousands of dollars to get a doctor to stick the embryo into your wife.

They're awfully hard to fit in one and get kind of whiny if you try to stuff them in. You have a blastocyst. Some flour, sugar, eggs and butter if you will, but the mix has to be right and the bun still has to bake in the oven. Eventually, if everything goes well, you will have a child. In the future, but sorry, it's not a child in the petri dish.

So you stick the batter bowl in the oven? Or do you lay it out on the tray? Do the buns that come out correspond with the individual dollop?

Pick a standard.

I have a standared. Fertilization. Why? becuase this is when the dna forms to indentify the child from the parents.

Roe v. Wade picks potential viability outside the womb with medical intervention.

How many women have been charged and arrested under Roe for having a late-term abortion?

To the concept of a single overarching standard for what constitutes a legally cognizable person.

And how does fertilization fail?

you feel entitled to report what *all* of them think?

If they didn't believe that the child in the petri dish were the same child that would be eventually born, why are they in an IVF paying thousands of dollars?

to use the power of the state to force others to abide by your belief system.

Do you believe the state does not have the obligation to protect people's lives?

Actually, you can't, it isn't, and we haven't.

Yes, I can. Louise Brown, back in 1982, was the first, and thousands more since then have been conceived through IVF. The process has been completely documented and proven - there is no break. The embryo in the petri dish has the same dna as the fetus in the womb, and the infant. Therefore there is just one person through the whole process from fertilization onwards. Louise Brown did exist in that petri dish. Louise Brown existed in her mother's womb. Louise Brown was born to her mother, and Louise Brown exists today. This is the same person, just at different periods of her life.

It is a potential child, if certain steps are taken and everything works out.

So someone becomes something after we kill her?

"Empirical" is meaningless if "empirical" coincides with "arbitrary"

Empirical means that we can prove this through outside observation. We can prove continuity of existence by testing the genetic code of the embryo in the petri dish, and then doing the same for the fetus in the womb, and then the infant child. If the same genetic code is found in all three sections, then yes, we have decisively proven that there is continuity of existence of the child from the petri dish to the cradle. This has been done, and was done - 30 years ago. This is proven science.

I could just as easily pick an "empirical" standard of birth.

You would have to show that the child inside of the womb was a different person from the child outside of the womb. That the child inside the womb at 8 months is the same child at birth, all that takes is an ultrasound. We *know* this is true, MtG. How many times do you see people put up ultrasounds of their children? Why do they do that, if what you say is true? If Birth is the empirical standard, then when can we observe the development of the child in the womb, all the way up to birth.

You're correct, that Birth was an empirical standard, in medieval times. Science marches on.

I don't have a set standard in mind - only a criteria for picking one, that it be based on a broad medical and scientific consensus.

So do I. My criteria is empirical. Can it be proven by an unbiased observer? Does it rely only on facts which can be observed, and facts which are collectable? Can it be shown, indisputably so. that the child in the petri dish is the same child in the womb? Yes. Ergo - the only standard that makes sense is fertilization. Once this one fact is conceded. One fact - that is all it takes.

You could either pick some degree of brain activity, or to allay concerns about brain activity in Downs or other damaged fetuses, you could go for some sort of anatomical development, easily verifiable by ultrasound, with the consensus that that level of development represents some degree of potential awareness, consistent with a late term fetus or neonate. Either of those would take you back a ways before viability.

Sure, if I wanted a standard that was vague, undefined and relies upon unreliable observations, absolutely I could use any of these 'standards'. Or I could use a better one that can be indisputably proven to be true. Up to you MtG. Which will you choose?

[Ben Kenobi]

With respect to point two, let's see right to life legislation that incorporates funded support services for pregnant women, mothers and children. But then we'd have men *****ing that their "rights" were considered inferior because they're having to pay for all these gummint services for all these damned women and their reproductive choices.

I have no problem with that - provided that all the children and mothers placed in the care of the government had dna samples taken. If there's a verified match with the father, the state releases these findings to the newspapers.

[Ben Kenobi]

So you believe that some people are inferior to other people, and not deserving of human rights?

Nope, I believe that all persons are equal in value. I had to ask Oerdin that - because it's a required presupposition in my argument that Abortion takes priority, because far more people are killed in abortion than in all the other things.

[Kidlicious]

It's a child, not a choice.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Public education and awareness seems pretty effective already - but yes, prison and detox if necessary to get them clean.

Not really, considering there's still a fair amount of crack babies, HIV+ babies, FAS babies, etc. The numbers may be down percentage-wise, or they may be up in the absolute sense, but they're out there. So where do we get the funding for the prego-police and prison nurseries again?

Scientific evidence is pretty solid in establishing continuity of the person back from fertilization all the way to birth. Again, IVF relies on this to work, and that's what, a several trillion dollar industry? Don't believe me - believe them.

Hardly several trillion, since US GDP is ~16 or 17 trillion? And what the **** is "continuity of the person?" There's a fertilized egg. Implant it, and of course it doesn't suddenly magically become Lindsey Lohan's egg fertilized by Michael Jackson's sperm. Its still a fertilized egg, not a child.

We can cross that bridge if it comes. As it is - we've got individuals who are distinct from fertilization onwards.

It is coming. Less than ten years unless legislated away, perhaps less than five. And we have clumps of cells with a distinct DNA profile that later become individuals, if everything goes well.

How exactly has my argument relied on religion MtG?

Come on, Ben. You're Catholic. It is (recent) Catholic doctrine that human life begins at conception. Your argument starts with conception as the beginning point, then you try to create whatever word redefinition and semantics you can to justify that point, because you know there is no scientific or medical basis for the concept of "personhood" - it is a legal concept. You are free to believe what you want. You are not free to impose that belief by force of law on others with nothing more than your emotional/religious argument.

That's an opinion. Children are viable after about 22 weeks or so. Third trimester is what? 27? So you aren't even consistant with yourself, if you're being honest by saying that viability is your standard.

I never said viability was my standard. However, even right before term, if a doctor's expert opinion is that a medical condition has developed in which carrying the fetus to term will endanger the life of the mother, then IN MY OPINION, it is a healthcare matter between the doctor and patient, not the business of some whackjobs to legislate the outcome in advance. If the doctor abuses his professional license to make such a judgment without a sound basis, let him first be subject to peer discipline, then criminal prosecution if warranted. It worked with Kenneth Edelin.

I think there are objective standards prior to viability, that are not bull**** standards like conception.

Which is why you simply dismissed the argument, "the DNA doesn't change", by saying that "it's irrelevant"? Again, to whom, is it irrelevant? The several trillion dollars being spent on IVF? To you?

On what planet did you get "several trillion" spent on IVF, and FFS, how is that even relevant? IVF could disappear entirely and the abortion argument would still be the same. Irrelevant *as a basis for an objective standard of legally cognizable personhood.* There, is that clear enough? A pair of cells in a petri dish can have whatever DNA, it is still a pair of cells, not a person. Same with a two week embryo, or an early fetus with gills, a tail, fins, no forebrain and no jaw. Not a "person."

If they are humanly constructed rights, then they can be taken away by other persons. Do you believe that Non-intervention is a right irrespective of what someone believes?

Go to Somalia and preach the gospel. Then talk to al Shabaab about your "natural rights" before one of them takes a dull saw and slowly saws your head off. Of course "rights" can be taken away by people. Ask Stalin, Hitler, or Pol Pot. For that matter, ask Torquemada.

Ok, fair enough. I'm amused that despite different presuppositions we share this conclusion.

Yes, once the "uppity ******s" and their "outside agitators" made some progress towards being treated like human beings, women had the nerve to want to get in on the act. They were only about 60 years behind on getting voting rights.

[MichaeltheGreat]

It's a child, not a choice.

It's a mindless slogan, not a legal argument.