Actually, I don’t see a difference. The difference in my eyes lies in intent to harm, but that doesn’t to my mind mean that necessarily they are different. So, to me, killing Ben and detaching Ben with the intent of killing Ben because you dislike him are the same. Killing Ben and detaching Ben with the intent of allowing Albert to live are the same thing. Just because something is a side effect of a decision, or an indirect factor of a decision, does not mean that what you have taken is a different decision. Killing Ben, with the side effect that they can be seperated, and seperating them, with the side effect that Ben will die, are the same decision, to me. I really don’t see any difference at all, let alone a clear one. Morally, they are the same decision. It’s sort of like the death by action/inaction debate.
We’re talking pretty much about early-term abortions here. You know, before the brain develops.
The church cannot do wrong because your god cannot do wrong, and you cannot conceive of someone believing in your god unless that person is Catholic.
Interesting.
There are many, many millions of people who are not Catholics and yet are somehow sincere in their belief in God. Are they just wrong, or deluded? Is the God they believe a false one, and only the Catholics know the true God? Is that it? Can you really not conceive of any other possibilities?
I’m okay with late-term abortions, myself, without the need to delve into (or care about) the personhood/brain/human/life issue.
By the way, this is entirely on-topic, because it tells us that you are not arguing in good faith when it comes to the science of the subject if it is impossible for you to conceive of your mother church being wrong.
Just to fight your ignorance on this, “fetus” refers to the, um, entity from about 11 weeks gestation till birth. So you can’t say that fetuses, across the board, don’t have brains. Embryos, on the other hand, you could make that argument. (Of course then the question becomes, “what’s a brain?”)
But yeah, anything resembling a (born) baby’s brain activity is absent until about 20 weeks.
I also take Bricker’s point: Terry Schiavo (long-distance diagnoses by members of congress notwithstanding) was not going to develop brain activity, no matter how long she was sustained. Most embryos will develop brain activity if sustained long enough.
Bottom line - there is no perfect real-world analogy, because pregnancy is a unique situation.
Honest question here - what is the rate of spontaneous abortion? What percentage of fertilized eggs don’t become fetuses? I was under the impression it was a high number, but I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.
I guess it takes the hairsplitting legal mind to find a significant moral difference between killing someone or something directly, and taking an action that doesn’t immediately and directly kill them, but nonetheless dooms them with certainty and in pretty short order.
At any rate, it’s considerably less magical than either example to say that personhood, at least in this world, ceases when brain activity ceases. There’s no earthly reason to think personhood commences before brain activity commences. The only reason to believe that is because you want to believe it, but there’s no reason to expect anyone else to adopt your beliefs. They’re not only based on nothing, but they’re flying in the face of the one solid fact we have about the beginning or end of personhood.
And in the event of an ectopic pregnancy, this fragile distinction is being used by the RCCC to justify inflicting permanent harm on the mother. Can’t forget that.
Just from what I’ve learned in this thread, I’m far more disgusted and appalled by the RCCC than I was just a few days ago. And I was plenty disgusted and appalled then.
No, not really. I think I understand where the Church perspective comes from (i.e., killing is bad so must avoid), but this is one of those situations where they’ve had a serious break with reality.
To get back to the original situation - what possible difference does it make if I kill a fertilized egg by removing it, or kill it by dissolving it? Either way I’m killing the egg.
I think it gets into “intent”, but again, I think the Church position is asinine. My intent is NOT to maliciously kill an egg just for the sheer joy of it. My intent is to save the woman’s life. I should do that in the safest, best manner possible. The fact that an egg has to die in order to save her life is an unfortunate circumstance of the situation.
This dishonest “oh but we’re not killing the egg, we’re just doing a procedure that happens to kill the egg” nonsense is blatantly false. The egg is what is causing the problem. It’s not like there’s something else wrong with that fallopian tube that requires it to be removed. The only problem is the egg.
But when it gets right down to it, I can not comprehend why it matters what method I use to kill that egg. And I think that the pretense that you are not actually killing the egg, just allowing it to die, is ludicrous. “I just put a plastic bag over the baby’s head. I didn’t kill him, he just died all on his own after that.”
If there were no adverse affects of doing things that way, then fine. But you are damaging women so that you can pretend that your hands are clean under some legalistic manipulation made up by some old guys a long time ago.
That is flatly wrong. It is evil and malicious. IMHO, of course.
I am trying to understand how you can defend this, because I believe that you are basically a good person. Can you explain this to me, how you can defend actually harming women for the sake of this sort of casuistry?
I’m glad you asked - I was under the impression that it was pretty high, but substantially less than half, but this recent articlestates that with new more sensitive tests, we’re detecting far more early pregnancies, and the rate is actually 60-70%!
So change “most” to “some.”
Well, perhaps your heirs and assigns will concede the point. Your body will be well-carbonized, and you will in the midst you learning that you were wrong about not having a soul.
But I’m not talking about the claim that souls exist. I am talking about whether a particular clump of cells is a human being. The clump of cells responsible for generating the words you’re reading now is, I assume you’ll agree, a human being. (Or, if this were an act from Othello, one of an infinite number of monkeys, but I digress).
You say “I have science,” as though science supports your claim. But science is silent on this point. Science makes no claim of declaring when a clump of cells is, or is not, a person. You try to sidestep this inconvenient truth (Hi, Al!) by claiming the soul issue, and the lack of proof thereof, is central to the debate. But it is not. We all seem to agree that certain human beings are entitled to consideration when medical decisions are made; that certain human beings should be protected under the law from being killed by other human beings.
We differ one what constitutes a human being.
You cannot point to any science that affirms your view here, any more than I can point to science which affirms mine.
Cinnamon, then the devout really should be holding funerals for their used tampons, despite Aji’s scoffing.
Yeah, I think you’re right!
Sorry if your trying to twist what I said resulted in a loss of comprehension.
Since the question was about ME, I thought it was clear that there was an unwritten ME in the phrase “I cannot conceive of [ME] beleiving in God and not being a Catholic.”
It is completely dishonest to imply that I couldn’t conceive of anyone else not being a Catholic and believe in God.
Czarcasm, reading my mind now? Could you point to one such expression made by me? A moment were I sated something scientifically wrong simply becasue the Church said so?
Er… that cite says:
But other factors beyond pregnancy can result in detectable hCG levels, can they not? Other endogenous components present in the blood, for example>
I can imagine Bricker defending a 40 year old man who has had sex with a girl who was 3 mths below legal age, by saying “Well actually, if we add on the 9mths from when she was conceived, she’ll be 6 mths over the minimum.”
It’s not a twist, Aji. If other people can do it, why can’t you?
And I can imagine Taylor Swift and Drew Barrymore coming over for my Memorial Day cookout.
I didn’t know this was the “List silly things you can imagine,” thread, though.