I didn’t ask you to prove that it isn’t a person. I asked you to prove that it isn’t a human being, despite the fact that it has human DNA (a soccer ball does not) and despite the fact that it will develop into an entity capable of reproduction (a sperm cell will not, nor will a soccer ball).
If you use an anti-potentiality argument to prove that the zygote is not a human, e.g. “It can’t reproduce as a zygote, it only has the potential to reproduce,” then you’ll need to explain why a newborn is a human while a zygote is not, despite the fact that a newborn is no more capable of reproduction than a zygote.
Is a chicken zygote “not-a-chicken”? If not, then what is it? It’s certainly not part of its mother anymore…
If a chicken zygote is a chicken (hint: it is), then why isn’t a human zygote a human?
You still haven’t provided that elusive cite that proves that the human life cycle begins at birth.
1.) A human being is killed in an abortion. There’s your victim.
2.) Legality is not always the same as morality, e.g. slavery used to be legal.
Slavery used to be legal – should the abolitionists have just shut their yaps?
I don’t understand your distinction between a human and a person. A human being is the end product of a pregnancy. Pregnancy RESULTS in the birth of a human being. If you want “proof,” I refer you to the Supreme Court.
It is not a chicken, it is a zygote. This is a completely different thing than a chicken. So what if it isn’t “part of the mother?” That doesn’t make it a chicken. Do you think that a fried egg is the same thing as a fried chicken?
1.) A human being is killed in an abortion. There’s your victim.
2.) Legality is not always the same as morality, e.g. slavery used to be legal.
[/quote]
The only human beings who have ever been killed by abortions are the women who have been killed by illegal ones.
Slavery involved REAL human abuses, not IMAGINARY ones.
Which does not mean that the human being did not exist prior to the birth. Remember, you said that pregnancy results in the BIRTH of a human. This statement, while undeniably true, says nothing about when the human being itself comes into existence.
Since the validity of the Supreme Court’s decision is precisely the matter under dispute, that is a blatant case of circular reasoning.
Exclaiming “But it’s legal! It’s legal!” is not a valid method for defending either the legality or the morality of abortion.
Good grief. How many times must we hear this canard?
Tell me, do you like slavery? No? Then don’t own slaves – but what other people do with their slaves is none of their business.
Your argument amounts to circular reasoning. It ASSUMES that abortion is merely a matter of personal preference – one that every person should be free to choose. It assumes the very notion that you are attempting to defend.
“Don’t like vanilla ice cream? Don’t eat it!” is a valid statement, since one’s choice of ice cream is a matter of mere personal preference. “Don’t like slavery? Don’t own slaves!” is not, since slavery is a moral issue. Ergo, one can not apply this approach to abortion UNLESS abortion is merely a matter of preference. ERGO, this argument amounts to circular reasoning, when used in defense of abortion.
—Let’s see, how do you propose we “find out” about this so-called crime (note: the Supreme Court says it is not a crime).—
I clearly remember an “if” in my post. This tiny little word makes what the Supreme Court thinks utterly irrelevant, because we are discussing moral hypotheticals here, not legal declarations. I wasn’t trying to decide the issue of whether a fetus is rightly thought of as being part of your body or not (indeed, I’m not even sure what difference that would make): I was discussing how, in the face of the idea that the fetus’s life is of as much moral concern as any person, arguments about privacy and viability don’t stand up.
—If I go to my doctor and say I think I’m pregnant, he has to call the pregnancy police to report it, and provide details about my care and, if I mention the word “abortion,” he reports me and I go to jail, where I give birth…and then what? Hmmm…gets a bit complicated - you figure it out and tell the legislators how this would work.—
Please. I’m not interested in any of that: I’m interested only in pointing out that IF the fetus has the moral status of any other person, then it’s simply not a workable argument to say that it depending on you for life makes what happens to it of no moral consequence.
—Diog: You’ve got to be kidding me, eliminating unwanted tissue from one’s own body is akin to wife beating?—
I guess you missed the “if” too. I am leaving open, in this post, the question of whether it does or doesn’t have moral stature. I am pointing out that IF it does, then argument that killing it is private or having to do with one’s own body simply doesn’t hold any water. The analougy is to the privacy argument, as well as, much more loosely the viability argument.
Also, if you had read more than a few lines of my post, or perhaps even one of my previous posts in this thread, you’d notice that I think the entire debate over whether or not we define it as a “person” or “human” is sheer time-wasting claptrap. The fact that anyone thinks that it is even INTERESTING how we define a fetus or a zygote, is, in my mind, simply a sign of how eager people are to attack each other as viciously and pointlessly as possible.
All I want to know is whether it is of moral value, and why. Extending and retracting arbitrary categories is of no interest to me. I’ve already made my case as to why I don’t think what we all understand to be “zygotes” have any moral interests. I have yet to make my case why I think fetuses have various interests at various stages, or say what those interests are, or what having them might proscribe in terms of acceptable treatment.
I’ll forgive you your nasty misread this time, but next time… there’s gonna be lots and lots of —'s
So let me get this straight: You believe that a chicken zygote in fact is a member of some as-yet unclassified species? I.e., in the act of reproducing, a chicken will first give birth to a member of some mysterious species of non-chicken, and this mysterious non-chicken then spontaneously transforms itself into a chicken at some point? How exactly does this not violate Occam’s Razor? And where exactly is your citation for all of this quasi-supernatural phenomena – surely something as miraculous as “spontaneous species transformation” would be well-documented…
BTW, when I fry an egg, I’m frying an unfertilized egg (that’s the kind they sell at the store).
If your wife gives birth to a slave who invariably wishes it had never been born; as many females do, I do believe these points should not be eliminated in consideration.
You stated that potentiality is irrelevant. That is the most coldly dismissive stance with regards to abortion that I can conceive.
If people could actually spend a moment of their lives to project into the future using potentiality simulations, we wouldn’t be having these issues. Since they are incapable of this cognitive function, I think that it’s safe to say that this is the only life which actually wants to live. The Pro-Choice arguement stands to protect the malevolent ignorance of your person - the right for such a being to exist, the right for these beings to reproduce.
As I said, pontential means nothing. If it’s not a person NOW, it’s not a person PERIOD. Everything else is just fantasy.
The old slavery comparison is one of the lamest philosophical analogies in the history of the world. Slavery involved VICTIMS. Slavery caused SUFFERING. Slavery hurt PEOPLE. Abortion does none of these things. A zygote has no self-awareness and cannot suffer.
Pregnancy is only a biological process which ultimately produces a human. Women who are undisputedly persons have every right to stop that process at any time, for any reason, before a new person is produced. This decision belongs to her alone. It is, after all, HER BODY. What part of “It’s none of your business” do you people not understand?
If you people really think abortion is murder, then why aren’t you out there killing abortion doctors? Do you think it would be morally justified to kill someone who is about to kill a baby? If so, then why aren’t you doing it? Afraid to go to jail? Don’t have the courage of your convictions? It’s a good thing the abolitionist movement wasn’t dependant on you people, we’d have had no underground railroad.
Should a woman who has an abortion have to go to prison? Should she get the death penalty? (Don’t fall back on just punishing the doctors here, that’s a cop-out. I want to know if the WOMAN is cupable for murder, and if not, why not?
Also, why is it that anti-abortion people never give a shit about the baby AFTER it’s born? The same people who harrass women at abortion clinics also vote against any kind of public assistance for single mothers, villify mothers on welfare and generally oppose any kind tax-payer funded help which would actually allow a woman to give a baby any kind of a life. Why don’t you just admit that it’s not about imaginary babies, it’s about punishing women for having sex?
—So let me get this straight: You believe that a chicken zygote in fact is a member of some as-yet unclassified species?—
Why do EITHER of you care so much about this?
No, a fertilized egg is not what we think of as a chicken-being, since it lacks most of the things we think of when we think of chickens (including the things that allow chickens to feel pain, etc.). Yes, it is genetically a chicken. Same with the zygote. Why do either of you think that however this is defined changes anything of importance?
—You stated that potentiality is irrelevant. That is the most coldly dismissive stance with regards to abortion that I can conceive.—
Dismissive of WHAT? Doesn’t there has to be an interest in a particular potentiality in the first place before we can talk sensibly about it being frustrated?
Cite? Why is it that your “not-a-chicken” species that’s living inside of a fertilized chicken egg has never been scientifically documented?
Are you ever going to add anything to the debate other than bald assertions?
So, if I were to make an arbitrary claim such as “My newborn is not a human,” then that would give me the right to kill my newborn? After all, my newborn would no longer be undisputedly human…
I was not aware that underground railroad workers were in the habit of killing slave owners – I don’t see how “The underground railroad helped end slavery” leads to “You people aren’t killing abortion doctors, shame on you!”
That’s an awfully cute strawman, but it’s still just a strawman.
The argument that a zygote (or embryo, or fetus) can be aborted because it isn’t biologically a human is a fallacy. I’ve stated previously that personhood is more important than an entity’s biological classification, but if I see a fallacious biologically-based argument then I’m going to take issue with it.
Underground railroad workers were willing vto risk their own lives and freedom for their cause. You, apparantly, are not. I notice you conveniently avoided answering my questions about killing doctors or what should be done with the mothers.
I have no idea where you keep getting your assertion that a zygote is a human being. It is a zygote. It is not a separate entity from the mother. It is not a human being until it is a separate, viable entity from the mother. Where to draw this line is, and must be arbitrary. To say that it is a person after two trimesters is no less arbitrary than to say it it is a person at birth. Since we have to make an arbitrary determination about it we must err on the side of person who is most affected by the decision, and that is the pregnant woman.
It doesn’t really matter if abortion is “right or wrong,” all that matters is if it should be legal or illegal. We have only two realistic choices: are women going to get legal abortions, or are they going to get ilegal abortions? NO abortions is simply not an option. Are we going to keep it safe? THAT is the question.
So I don’t care about babies after they’re borh, huh?
Of course you’ve lumped me in with all pro life folks…I’m assuming you apply the same kind of reasoning for all environmentalists…you lump them with the Earth First crowd, correct? (I mean if you don’t…that would make you a hypocrite…)
The babies aren’t imaginary. It’s legitimate to debate what rights (if any) beings should have. It’s legitimate to debate whose rights trump others in a conflict. However, to refer to “imaginary babies”, and to paint a broad stroke of pro life viewpoints, belies the weakness of your point of view.
Do the words ad hominem mean anything to you? Your statement is an attack on a person’s inadequacies, rather than the issue at hand.
Moreover, an activist’s duty is NOT necessarily to risk life and freedom. Rather, the activist’s role is to seek the most efficacious means to effect change. While there may be situations wherein killing IS necessary to save lives (defending against terrorists, for example), when it comes to the abortion issue, peaceful means would be decidedly more effective in the long-term. In contrast, killing abortionists would be ultimately damaging. It would also vigilante justice rule, which would be further harmful to society at large.
Do you have a science based cite for this claim…or is this just your opinion?
Cites to the contrary (yes the website is prolife…the testimony is from a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing in 1981…pre dating Senate web records).
etc…
If you have a science based cite that supports your assertion that "It is not a human being until it is a separate, viable entity from the mother. ", I’d be most interested in seeing that cite.
Diog, by your logic, people who don’t believe in the death penalty should be required to house inmates themselves.
—The argument that a zygote (or embryo, or fetus) can be aborted because it isn’t biologically a human is a fallacy. I’ve stated previously that personhood is more important than an entity’s biological classification, but if I see a fallacious biologically-based argument then I’m going to take issue with it.—
Sure, but you’re only confusing him: he thinks it actually matters whether we use the biological definition of human or the personable sense of human.
I’m certainly not so cocksure of my own infallible reasoning that I’m going to go around killing abortionists. Do I believe that (some) abortionists are behaving immorally? Yes. Will killing them cause more good than harm? No.
I avoided your “doctor-killing” question because it’s a stupid question – I honestly didn’t know that you were being serious with it, I’d assumed that you were just trolling. I avoided your “what should be done with mothers” question because it isn’t relevant to the debate – it makes sense to determine whether or not something is a crime before you decide how to punish the alleged crime. All you’re trying to do by asking such questions is to to avoid giving a reasonable justification for your position – all you’ve done so far is offer bald assertions (“A zygote is not human, because I say so!”) and emotional appeals (“You’re all freedom-hating misogynists for not offering unequivocal support for abortion!”). I’m paraphrasing, of course, but that’s about the gist of it…
That’s a quote-worthy statement if ever there was one… :rolleyes:
Yeah, I spose you’re right. I was just trying to get the biological question discarded (since it isn’t the most relevant factor), but it doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen…
I haven’t been playing your little semantic game about “human” vs “person” because it is irrelevant. You are welcome to believe that a cluster of cells is a “human being” if that pleases you. I will think of it as a human zygote which is clearly and demonstrably different than a fully formed person. The legal definition is that a fetus becomes human when it leaves the birth canal. That’s good enough for me. Even if you want to pretend that a zygote is a human (and your “cites” represent nothing more than the shrill and specious assertions of other anti-choicers) So what? Does it have the same rights as a real person? When does it acquire these rights? At the moment of fertilization? Implantation? Second trimester? Third? At what specific MOMENT does abortion become murder. Who decides. Do we set a deadline? Do we set a specific TIME? (e.g. you cannot get an abortion after twelve o’clock of day 60). If a woman gets an abortion one minute before the deadline, is it NOT murder?
Finally, I’m still waiting for an answer to what we do with the women who get abortions? Should they be charged with murder, yes or no? What if they SELF-abort. Should we start investigating all women who miscarry to make sure they didn’t do it on purpose? In your ideal world what would the laws be, exactly and how would they be implemented? I think these are fair questions. If you don’t like the laws as they are, you should be able to present a coherent and detailed alternative.
I take issue with a great many things you have said. Firstly:
No. It does not. This is a Strawman.
Sperm and Ova do not deserve protection on the same level as an embryo as gestation cannot begin while they are still separated. While (if I understand the mechanics correctly) gestation itself doesn’t begin until implantation the occurrence of cellular mitosis at fertilisation is indicative of the development of the newly fertilised embryo. In other words, while gestation may not be said to officially begin before fertilisation, development and growth does begin at fertilisation. I care not one whit that the embryo could never have existed without its component parts. The fact of the matter is that they are not the sum of themselves and never will be. As such I do not find logical inconsistency in the fact that pro-lifers only protect genetically unique, separate, spatiotemporal human entities (or in the case of identical twins pairs of genetically unique, separate, spatiotemporal human entities )when, in fact, they actually ARE separate spatiotemporal human entities and not merely component
parts.
There is no logical inconsistency in not protecting what is not a human being.
A fetus is potentially a newborn because that is what it will become barring accidents and abortions. That is a clear distinction between fetuses & haploid cells.
Stop emphasising words all in capitals. It’s rude. Use bolditalics or underlines.
Anti-choice? Anti which choice, may I ask? The choice to drive home drunk, perhaps? Anti-choice is an inaccurate misnomer since it doesn’t state which choice the anti-choicers are anti. The correct term is pro-life. It is discourteous to refer to pro-lifers as anti-choicers in much the same way it is impolite to refer to pro-choicers as baby killers or anti-lifers. I shall refer to you as pro-choice It behooves you to at least try and be civil and do me the courtesy of referring to me by my term of choice.
Since when was pro-life so consistently equated with misogyny? Better tell that to all the pro-life women out there.
As to your question. Rather loaded, no? It assumes from the get go that the unborn isn’t fully human. If the unborn is fully human then it is everyone’s business.
If a fetus is a part of her body then explain why it has a different genetic structure. The fetus is a genetically distinct entity with its own unique and individual gender, blood type, bone-structure, and genetic code. It is another being. Calling it a part of her body is like equating it with a kidney or a fingernail. It is patently neither nor is it anything else other than a distinct, genetically unique, spatiotemporal entity in its own right. It’s not like she’s having a tooth out.
Right back atcha, pal.
Well, point of fact, enforcing ones morality on another is not always wrong. Consider this hypothetical.
One day, I decide to create my own religion. I set up the High Church of Ben Hicks (or whatever) and set about recruiting followers. However, there’s a catch. The central tenet of my religion is the sacrificing of virgins in our religious ceremonies. Me and my followers truly believe that the only way to attain everlasting life is to kill a virgin at each full moon, or whatever. Now, if we were to put our religion into practise we would obviously get shut down and thrown in jail for life. Our ‘religion’ such as it is, would be banned. This is a perfectly just imposition of morality.
Also, we have plenty of current laws on the books which impose morality on the individual. For instance, laws against drunk driving, murder, smoking crack, robbery, and child molestation are all intended to impose a particular moral perspective on the free moral agency of others. Such laws are instituted because the acts they are intended to prevent often obstruct the free agency of other persons; for example, a person killed by a drunk driver is prevented from exercising his free agency. Therefore, a law forbidding abortion would unjustly impose one’s morality upon another only if the act of abortion does not limit the free agency of another. That is to say, if the unborn entity is fully human, forbidding abortions would be perfectly just, since abortion, by killing the unborn human, limits the free agency of another.
Bracketed supplementation mine.
This is irrelevant. Just because a particular group is denied their rights under the law is not an argument for the continued denial of their rights. As others have explained to you, this is circular reasoning. The word of the supreme court is not sacrosanct.
The distinction proponents of this ridiculous Strawman never seem to cotton on to is that as soon as you regress back before the moment of conception you are dealing with an entirely different organism. The potential for a fetus to become a baby is derived from the fact that before and after birth, it is the same organism. If something was, somehow added to the fetus at birth, altering the whole fetuses genetic structure before it became a baby, and if the addition of this special something was not guaranteed (and this distinction is important, the fetuses development is guaranteed unless you kill it first) then it might be fair to say that a fetus doesn’t have the potential to become a baby. However, all through gestation we are dealing with the same developing organism. Thus the ‘potentiality of development’ argument cannot be thrust aside by your pitiable Strawman.
Your thinking is akin to inviting me round to dinner, sitting me down, laying a bag of flour and a box of eggs on the table in front of me and saying ‘Enjoy your omelet’. You haven’t given me an omelet, you’ve just given me its component parts. Just because you know that it will become an omelet once you mix the ingredients doesn’t mean that what I have before me is an omelet. Nor does it mean that the flour and the eggs have the potential to become an omelet. After all, I could just put the eggs back in the fridge if I choose to. No omelet.
Scientifically it already is a reality since its genetic code remains unique and constant all through gestation.
Well, pal, if your posts in this thread were nothing but disjointed cerebral farts then I wouldn’t have to write out this gargantuan post to correct all the errors in your thinking. The author of the paper beagledave linked to has argued cogently and cited her sources. Care to provide some scientific cites to rebut the link in question?
Bzzzt. Incorrect. The human life cycle begins at meiosis. See this link
Might I add, that while the life cycle does begin at meiosis, it is logically consistent to oppose the destruction of an embryo while being indifferent to the fate of its component parts. I repeat my previous point that were we to regress backwards beyond the point of fusion, we would be talking about a different organism.
Ascribing personhood to anything is an exercise in futility. My arguments do not hinge on an arbitrary definition of personhood or any other artificial, pseudo-philosophical absurdity. I believe that a viable human life (that is, a human life worth protecting) begins at fertilisation. At this point, the new, genetically unique entity, is set on the path to growth.
Of course, you can dismiss this with a wave of your hand and say that genetics has nothing to do with personhood. I, in turn, dismiss that facile objection with a wave of my hand because at no point in this thread has it been made clear to me exactly why personhood is important (other than to ensure that pro-choice arguments run with a minimum of conflagration).
This really is like shooting fish in a barrel. I think JThunder made the point already that this reasoning can and was also applied to the slave trade. It is fallacious reasoning.
I don’t want to confer the right of ‘personhood’ onto anything because the whole concept is unnecessary. If you want to confer the right of ‘personhood’ onto something you must do three things.
Define the term
Explain its relevance
Explain why in utero organisms don’t qualify for it while newborns do.
You are the one saying this organism is not fully human whereas this organism, on the other hand, is fully human. I want to see your reasoning for this distinction.
Oh…oh my.
Two things
This assumes the fetus is not fully human. If it is then there are approximately 1.2 million victims per year in America alone. Were we to venture over to Ireland, the fetuses would be regarded as victims. Your assignation of victim status (or lack thereof) is merely driven by legal rulings and not by scientific facts.
So what? If it gets illegalised next year will you start recognising aborted fetuses as victims? Or will you state, as I am currently stating, that legal rulings aren’t the be all and end all of everything?
No. Genetically a human being is the product of fertilisation. To dodge the issue of genetic continuity throughout fertilisation pro-choicers use the term ‘person’ to describe the product of a birth. I reiterate, I am not interested in defending ‘persons’. I am interested in defending human beings.
Loinburger’s excellent post (the 6th one on this page) dealt with your misunderstanding well. I suggest you reread it.
What did I tell you about using caps?
Yet again your objections rest on the assumption that the unborn child is not fully human. If indeed it is, as I claim it to be referring to scientific definitions and references as I go, then abortion does involve victims, does cause suffering and does hurt people.
This really isn’t that complicated.
Wrong again. It starts with a human and ends with one. This fact is immutable and non debatable. Beagledave’s excellent link deals with this very well. (I really must thank you for posting that, beagledave. It’s a gold mine of information)
Here is a pertinent quote from the article
Bolding mine.
Care to contradict this? Or is she just espousing “nothing but opinion”? Or maybe she’s just not playing the same semantic games you are vis a vis personhood.
I am not killing abortion doctors because I am not a murderer.
Spurious generalisation. Waste of time reading it. First of all, I would be more than happy to vote for a tax hike to raise funds for expectant mothers and new mothers. Second of all, this whole line about the pro-life position used as some vantage point to punish women for having sex is ridiculous. To reiterate what I said above arguments and philosophical positions do not have genders! There are a great many pro-life women. Are they punishing women for having sex?
That’s about it. Please rethink your attitude. I don’t expect you to become pro-life since your prose is militant in tone to say the least. However, in my time lurking on these boards I have read a great many reasonable pro-choice posts. Yours are not among them.
