I’m really not trying to assert anything. I can’t possibly begin to try and define what makes “a person”. Der Trihs made the comment he was once dinner in his mom’s stomach and I was having trouble understanding what he meant by that. The only two possibilities I came up with were DNA and mass. I simply tried to anticipate it being one of those two and countering those claims. If he had something else in mind I’m hoping he’ll elaborate.
But now that you mention it… identical twins don’t have identical DNA. Not that that means anything, since we are still without a definition of what defines “a person”.
A woman who kills her fetus by not doing what a pregnant woman should do (ie drink for instance) will be charged with child neglect.
I’ve said this before but just because the Supreme Court said it does not mean it’s right! The Supreme Court are not some heavenly beings with a transcendent intelligence. They are fallible and considering it was a 5 to 4 decision…
Oh, I see. Have the fetus’s teacher report it, then.
Rucksinator said it, ask him.
And Jesus superceded the law, but this isn’t a question of law. It’s a question of fact. Unless you are saying that in the OT days God sent souls at first breath, and that when Jesus came down God changed his soul delivery system to something completely different, just for the heaven of it?
Well, the information in this case came, with slight variations in each generation, from the first DNA synthesized, however that happened.
It can’t be just DNA, since our hair and toenails have that. It has to be the entire system, booted and running, and while the DNA gives a lot of direction the prenatal environment has a lot to do with the person being slowly formed. That’s why nutrition is important.
You say put them up for adoption? You mean she should use her self for a brood mare, even if she cannot have prenatal care?
Why don’t “you” adopt them? At the very least, sell every thing that is unnecessary that you own,eat only very cheap food, use only hand me down clothes etc., then send all the money to the people who are poor(become poor your self) and be willing to pay most of your salary in taxes so these people won’t starve.
You don’t want a woman to take the morning after pill, even though the chances are good that she may not be pregnant, because you believe the egg fertile or not ,may become a baby?
If adoption was so easy, there wouldn’t be so many starving babies. making the morning after pill available to every woman, raped, or otherwise would prevent a lot of abortions.
Belief in reincarnation does not necessarily conform to the views of the religious traditions of India. Are you saying that you put more stock in Indian tradition than in all of the other traditions? Certain Native American religions? Orphism? A number of prominent Greek philosophers? Jewish traditions that involve Kabbalah? Christian Gnosticism (as well as certain pseudo-gnostic groups such as the Cathars)? Ismaili Muslims? Some expressions of Sufi Islam, the Druze? Why is Indian tradition necessarily the correct one?
Of all the traditions I would think that one would be the least trustworthy in that regard. Assuming there is such a think as reincarnation, it’s more likely that this idea of Karmic punishment is just a logical extension of the same idea, originally intended for human castes. With castes, there was actually a functional reason for them - to legitimize the system of as a means of oppressing the natives of India and maintaining the prominence of the Aryan invaders.
Even IF the the Indian traditions are correct though, the assertion is flawed regardless. Given the premise, there is no reason to believe that any given animal ever was a human. In fact, the given form might actually be their highest form that they have yet achieved. In such a case wouldn’t the person actually be receiving a reward by having been reincarnated as such? If you were to “punish” them, mightn’t you be accruing more Karma in doing so, causing you to be reborn in a lower form? I understand that some (perhaps many) Hindu’s see things way that you are (but in the case of humans), but it is not at all logical given the premise. At best it’s terribly simplistic.
Well several family members of mine are Buddhist so when I think of reincarnation I think Hindoo/Buddhist. And if the animal was rising to a higher form wouldn’t I be doing a favour by killing it since then it can be born a human?
I think that could be a gray area, logically speaking (Of course the same might be said for the argument that if mainstream Christians are correct, wouldn’t you be doing a favor by killing them since they will go to heaven?). Given the premise, if you were to kill an animal it might very well go onto be a human, but on the other hand it might not have shed enough Karma to advance. So, I suppose it is possible that you could be delaying their advancement, having to be born again in the same form. Then you have other issues of causing them pain in killing them, depriving them of whatever they had in that life (like a wild animal who has gotten themselves a really good mate or a large Harem).
Abortion is bad, but taking organs from living people is good if the person is bad. Despite what you say about Jesus, your morality (if it can be called such) is pure Old Testament due to its focus on harsh punishment for people you’ve deemed guilty and protection for those you’ve decided are innocent. There’s a good reason most of us don’t want to be subjected to this kind of whimsy.
It’s pretty clear here that, while a fetus has value (particularly to the father), it is far less than that of a human. If you’ve read much of the OT, it would be obvious that, if a fetus was on the same standing as a “person”, the punishment for causing a miscarriage would be death. Ergo, the OT does not consider a fetus to be a “person”.
And then there is Numbers 5:11 - 28, which is not at all clear, but seems to imply that an unfaithful wife should be put through a test where an extramerital pregnancy would be aborted through God’s intervention.
There are other verses that imply that children less than 1 month old don’t need to be counted as “persons”. That puts the Bible about 7 months more pro-choice than the findings in Roe v Wade.
Of course, I’m sure that none of this matters. I was probably way off-base in even suspecting that your opinions were based on religion.