Obviously I missed the word “pairs”. Are you really that petty?
However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a biological definition, it’s just that there isn’t just one. Generally, those who think as you do are bringing more to the table than just science, with their talks of souls and all that.
Then why do you insist that others do so?
Ii don’t agree it’s petty to ask for an explicit admission of error, especially after the tone you took with me: “So your definition of ‘human’ is 23 chromosomes? Ya know what? Zygotes have 46 chromosomes. Lets pretend you didn’t know that and just made a typo…” With that as the opening salvo in the side discussion, my request that you clarify yourself is not petty, in my view.
Yes, that’s true. But even keeping souls off the table, it’s fair to say that there is no single biological definition of the word “human,” that is both broadly accepted and excludes a zygote.
Because those others don’t caveat their opinion as opinion, but instead insist that their view is a biological fact, like this quote:
All the more reason to skip the unfalsifiables lIke souls and personhood and just concentrate on the demonstrable:
OK, not petty, just whiny.
Sure there are, quite a few. That’s why I told you that Google is your friend. All you have is that a zygote has the same number of chromosomes as a human, completely ignoring all of the changes a zygote goes thru to become an actual human and the biological definition of “zygote”. Is this why you are focusing on me misreading one sentence in one post?
As far as outlawing abortion, it seems to be akin to speed limits or prohibition. Women will seek abortions, whether or not they are legal. Outlawing them generally makes the situation worse for everyone.
You seem to be applying a different standard to me than to yourself. You were perfectly willing to highlight what you thought was my error, not with a request for clarification or even a simple factual correction, but with a snarky tone. Yet when it develops that the error was yours, you react poorly to my simple request for an unambiguous admission of error.
Not at all. I’m pointing out that while there are many principled arguments you can offer to distinguish a zygote from a newborn full-term infant, none of them are unambiguous biological definitions of “human.”
In other words, I am again pointing out an error.
That’s true in a sense. I’d agree, for example, that weighing the life of one against the life of the other, the pregnant woman clearly emerges as the priority.
But i don’t agree that weighing the life of the unborn child (or potential child, if you prefer) against the inconvenience for the mother produces that same unambiguous result.
Is pregnancy inconvenient? Personally, I thought it was nine months of hell. Since I had toxemia, my life was at stake. Seventeen years later, I can’t run or sneeze without wetting myself. Friends have had gestational diabetes that became permanent (happens in about 5% of pregnancies). One of my girlfriends shredded her birth canal giving birth, she almost died on the operating table afterwards, and will never have another bio child. Another had six months of bed rest, during which she couldn’t work (she was the primary breadwinner - her husband had been laid off and hadn’t been able to find another job) and the family almost went bankrupt. Another was in the hospital for four months with hyperemesis gravidarum.
Now, we all wanted the children we were carrying - who are all now teenagers. But I can assure you, none of our pregnancies was “inconvenient.”
You know what is inconvenient? Giving blood. The bone marrow registry. Signing up to be an organ donor at death. Those things were just inconvenient. Legislate requirements for those, then come back and talk about whether we should make a woman continue an “inconvenient” pregnancy.
I was presenting the two ends of a spectrum – at one end, the death of the pregnant mother as a result of pregnancy, and at the other, a mere inconvenience. If you read that as my attempt to argue that all pregnancies are mere inconveniences and do not ever threaten more serious health concerns, I apologize; that was not said nor intended.
There are a lot of consequences to outlawing abortion.
a. If you are an upper middle class family, you or your daughter will have no problem accessing a safe and legal abortion in multiple countries. I really expect a tourist industry to spring up so young women can head to the Carribean, get an abortion, and come home with a nice tan - no one the wiser.
b. Poor women will seek abortions elsewhere. Unlike someone who can go to a place to procure a safe legal abortion, poor women will take bad advice from the internet, using pennyroyal oil or belladonna, or a knitting needle. Or find a hack. Some will die.
a. They will keep the child. Babies really are adorable. They might not be able to afford the child. They might not really want the child. In some cases, the child will end up happy and healthy, despite his mother being uncertain about her pregnancy. In other cases, the child will be raised by a woman who resent him, in a situation of poverty, where statistically the outcome isn’t awesome.
b. They will give the child up. This is great when the child is healthy and white - but not all babies will be high on the desirability list for adoptive parents. I’ve seen adoptive parents turn down healthy white birthmothers who have had ONE DRINK early in pregnancy. Anyone who thinks that there are lines of adoptive parents willing to adopt children of color with opiate addictions is woefully uninformed.
Regardless of if the child is raised by its birthparents, by adoptive parents, in foster care or in an institution (and foster care in this country is broken beyond belief), the child is going to take societal resources to raise. Education will be required. Health care. When they grow up, they’ll need an economy robust enough that there are enough living wage jobs. Society has to be willing to put money into a child in order to get a functional adult who will contribute to society out the other end. This is true even when the parents who raise the kids are like my husband and I (we have one bio and one adopted) - well enough off to pay for most of what they need - but we still need an insurance pool that will take kids with preexisting conditions, we still rely on public schools for their education through high school, we still have utilized public parks and park and rec programs, taken our kids to state and federally funded museums, made use of the public library. On the other end of the spectrum - a child in foster or institutional care has to have all its financial needs met by the state.
To date I’ve seen very little will by American society to throw more money at public schools, health care, public libraries, our parks system, our museums, foster care…I don’t think it wants to throw the additional money that more people in the system would require.
If a women goes to the hospital claiming to have a miscarriage, the doctor will have to find fetal tissue or turn her over to the police for a “suspected illegal abortion.” And if a women is suspected to have caused her miscarriage (maybe she took an aspirin, had some coffee or thought bad thoughts about the baby) she could be put in jail for murder.
And emergency room doctors will have to treat women for illegal abortions, then have them arrested.
That language is often used to minimize the impact of pregnancy on a woman. I know there are women who have happy vibrant pregnancies - in my experience, those are the exception. Pregnancy always carries a danger to the mother - even a low risk pregnancy can result in an infection in the hospital that kills the mother.
No one says “well, if they draft you, three years in the army is just inconvenient.” Most people who got drafted in WWII or Vietnam made it home in one piece - but it wasn’t merely inconvenient for any of them. We don’t minimize what we ask of them when they register for selective service in this way.
Using the word “inconvenient” in any discussion on pregnancy and abortion is really offensive. It means you have no clue what risks a woman is taking, or sacrifices she is making, to bring a child to term - even a desired and wanted one.
Excuse me while I go pee - I also have no ability to hold it and if taking a long car trip, wear an adult diaper.
In his book “Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” Randy Alcorn states “It is reasonable to expect a person to endure a temporary inconvenience if the only alternative is the death of another person.” To which I can only reply “Reasonable to WHOM?”
Which is why pro-life activists always have homeless people sleep on their couch when the temperature drops to well below zero and believe in mandated organ donation. 
I had my daughter when I was nearly 35, happily married, doing well financially, and after thinking it through very carefully. This was a child everyone wanted and was happy to welcome. It nearly killed me, and I have never been in good health since.
“Inconvenient” is not the word I would use to describe pregnancy and parenthood.
Or, as Dangerosa noted, they will exert their social station and be not even impugned.
Cite?
Let me point out that abortion was illegal in some states prior to Roe v. Wade. The descriptions you post above did not happen during the time that legal framework was in place.
What is the basis for your claim that they will happen if Roe v Wade is overturned and abortion is made illegal?
Let me also draw your attention to a question I asked you earlier in the thread, one that you’ve not responded to: in the future, if you tell the story of your discussion with a Catholic pro-life advocate about “being thrown out of the church,” will you also include my reaction to your story?
That’s a fair question.
But the law applies a “reasonable” standard in many situations, and the answer is: how would most people in the given community decide or behave in similar circumstances?
It’s certainly not my intention to offend. But frankly, I say it’s you that is overstating the risks. While there’s no question that risks exist, and your own reminders of pregnancy are obviously long-lasting, yours is not the average case.
This story mentions a CDC study showing an incidence of 590,000 complications in 11 years, out of nearly 45 million births, a rate of roughly 1.3%.
So from a statistical perspective, I would argue the very likely outcome of a given pregnancy is indeed correctly described as ‘inconvenience,’ and I disagree that the use of the word means I have “no clue.”
Obviously not every pregnancy is uncomplicated. And, equally obviously, I have nowhere claimed that every pregnancy is uncomplicated. But most are. That seems to be a factually safe statement. Do you disagree?
The courts have also held that in situations where it is primarily a woman’s issue - there is a reasonable woman standard - not necessarily a reasonable person standard.
But I would like one other example - other than the draft - where as an American I am required by law to legally risk my life for another individual.
(And I don’t agree with the draft. I’m Unitarian, we are usually a bunch of conchies. Not quite as much as Quakers.)
Yes, you are measuring complications. Complications that aren’t measured included diabetes that doesn’t go away. Long term damage to the pelvic floor. Impact on a womans ability to earn a living during pregnancy - and the long term impact on earnings if she needs to take time off. i.e. statistics doesn’t cover it and complications is not a word that is the opposite of convenient.