Abortion question

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Cupcake143

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I don’t agree with abortion at all, and in fact it makes me sick to my stomach to think about women having one… However, I was discussing with someone (a doctor) reasons why I don’t like Obama, and I brought up abortion. He told me he agrees with it, and I started getting hyped up about reasons why I believe it is wrong. He said they aren’t alive yet or they aren’t humans (not sure exact words he used)… he told me it’s a tissue. That makes me so sad that people don’t think abortion is wrong 😦 , but can someone educate me more about abortion and what it starts out as? Thank you!!
 
Cupcake143 said:
He said they aren’t alive yet or they aren’t humans (not sure exact words he used)… he told me it’s a tissue.
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Note to self: do not go to doctors who got their credentials out of Cracker Jack boxes.
Cupcake143 said:
but can someone educate me more about abortion and what it starts out as? Thank you!!
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It?

webmd.com/baby/ss/slideshow-fetal-development

babycenter.com/fetal-development-week-by-week

nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002398.htm

nrlc.org/abortion/facts/fetaldevelopment.html
 
Cupcake143 said:
He said they aren’t alive yet or they aren’t humans (not sure exact words he used)… he told me it’s a tissue.
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Ask him to name the moment they become alive. If he says some arbitrary time, like 10 weeks, push and ask him what’s so special about it. If he says birth (which is more unlikely), show him a 8 or 9 month ultrasound video on youtube, and then have him look you in the face and tell you it’s not alive.
 
Cupcake143 said:
I don’t agree with abortion at all, and in fact it makes me sick to my stomach to think about women having one… However, I was discussing with someone (a doctor) reasons why I don’t like Obama, and I brought up abortion. He told me he agrees with it, and I started getting hyped up about reasons why I believe it is wrong. He said they aren’t alive yet or they aren’t humans (not sure exact words he used)… he told me it’s a tissue. That makes me so sad that people don’t think abortion is wrong 😦 , but can someone educate me more about abortion and what it starts out as? Thank you!!
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Let’s say for argument’s sake that he’s right. The tissue, even if it weren’t human or alive, has still extremely strong potential (I’d say perhaps 66.7% chance) to become a fully viable human being 6-7 months later (I’m thinking of premature babies, here) or 9 months later (full term pregnancy). Given these, I think abortion is not morally neutral. You know how in many periods of history, there were practices and cultural elements that make the 21st century man go, “What were they thinking?”. I predict the same fate for abortion. The number of abortions carried out every day worlwide is just unsettling. God have mercy.
 
Seriously? He was a doctor of what?

No one with two brain cells to rub together would argue that anything after conception is not alive. Generally, it turns into a philosophical argument as to how “developed” something must be in order to merit the legal protections of “personhood”. That’s arbitrary-- in our culture, the norm is the moment of birth; many people wish to extend it to some other arbitrary point in the first/second/third trimester; if you’re going to be scientific instead of arbitrary, you should argue for conception itself. And in other cultures, the arbitrary protections of personhood occur days, weeks, sometimes longer, after birth. (Those last cultures tend to be ones that justify infanticide in some shape or form.)

So a problem arises when an individual’s right to existence hinges on whether that individual happened to be conceived by a parent who loves them enough to bring them to term, versus any innate right as a human being. If an individual has a right to exist, that right exists regardless of the answers to any other questions surrounding his existence. If someone believes that an individual’s right to existence hinges on some external factor, the person making the argument needs to be up-front about what that “external factor” is.
 
I think it is a baby as soon as there is fertilization. I have had seven miscarriages and three children and the babies I loss were as dear to me as the ones I gave birth to. If someone votes for a candidate that is pro abortion they have an equal share in the evil of abortion. I would hate to stand before God and try to explain why I did not try to stop this horrible evil that has overtaken our country and the world. I am so proud of all of you on this thread that are standing up for these tiny victims that have no voice. They have a right to be born.
 
You are talking about two different things. “A human being” is a social concept, what Catholics call a ‘philosophical’ specifically an ‘ontological’ concept. Catholics thnk things with immortal souls are human beings. science does not address the issue of immortal souls. Of course the doctor is right: it is tissue. So am I. The argument is over whether a particular grouping of tissue is “a human being”. this is not a question anything so like as simple as posts in this thread make out. There is no hope of social agreement on abortion if people continue to talk past each other like this.
 
Tingo said:
You are talking about two different things. “A human being” is a social concept, what Catholics call a ‘philosophical’ specifically an ‘ontological’ concept. Catholics thnk things with immortal souls are human beings. science does not address the issue of immortal souls. Of course the doctor is right: it is tissue. So am I. The argument is over whether a particular grouping of tissue is “a human being”. this is not a question anything so like as simple as posts in this thread make out. There is no hope of social agreement on abortion if people continue to talk past each other like this.
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I think you raise a valid point. The disagreement is over whether or not the unborn has value. However, what is usually the intent in avoiding calling it “a human being”? Why don’t we call ourselves tissue, if, like you say, we are all tissue? To a large degree, people know intrinsically that “a human being” has value.

Even if you don’t submit to Catholicism, you can look back in history and see that whenever the human race has redefined what “a human being” is (e.g. slavery, racism, the Holocaust, genocide), suffering, destruction, chaos has followed. Not once in the history of mankind has this type of redefinition been to our advantage; as long as the “tissue” development lies been conception and natural death, they are a human being and changing that has only lead to problems.

Science tells us that the unborn is human, from the moment of conception. Our social contract (and natural law, written on our hearts) tells us that humans have value.
 
superamazingman said:
Ask him to name the moment they become alive. If he says some arbitrary time, like 10 weeks, push and ask him what’s so special about it. If he says birth (which is more unlikely), show him a 8 or 9 month ultrasound video on youtube, and then have him look you in the face and tell you it’s not alive.
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I agree with this…Ask him to define when the “tissue” becomes human. This can be a “time frame” or a point in development etc.
If he says “birth” you can point out that birth cannot be right since some babies are born “prematurely” and survive just fine…So - if a baby born at 7 months is human, is a seven month old fetus any less human?
If he says something like “point of viability”, you can point out that medical science has “pushed back” the point of viability quite dramatically over time so is science actually changing the point at which a fetus becomes human?

Then ask him, what makes a human human - scientifically speaking?
The most fundamental answer here is DNA - and the “tissue” he refers to has distinct human DNA from the moment of the first cell division…

Just a thought.

Peace
James
 
Tingo said:
You are talking about two different things. “A human being” is a social concept, what Catholics call a ‘philosophical’ specifically an ‘ontological’ concept. Catholics thnk things with immortal souls are human beings. science does not address the issue of immortal souls. Of course the doctor is right: it is tissue. So am I. The argument is over whether a particular grouping of tissue is “a human being”. this is not a question anything so like as simple as posts in this thread make out. There is no hope of social agreement on abortion if people continue to talk past each other like this.
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Who’s bringing souls into this?

If a human sperm fertilizes a human egg, you have a human being, with its own unique human DNA.

It would be something totally different if sometimes, the fertilized egg developed into a chair, and sometimes the fertilized egg developed into a shark, and sometimes, the fertilized egg developed into a radish, and other times, the egg developed into a human baby, and you had to wait and see what you got. There’s no point where it stops having the “potential” to be human and turns into an actual human, because there is no point after conception where it doesn’t already have everything it biologically needs for humanity. The only difference is the time it has grown and developed, but human beings continue to grow and develop both prepartum and long, long, long postpartum.

The question turns into when people choose to acknowledge another being’s humanity, and the rights and protections associated with it. For example, someone could go on a rampage in bald eagle nesting grounds, and smash eggs. There’s no way you can tell the judge, “I was just smashing tissue that has the potential to grow into a bald eagle, but it’s no big deal.”
 
Tingo said:
You are talking about two different things. “A human being” is a social concept, what Catholics call a ‘philosophical’ specifically an ‘ontological’ concept. Catholics thnk things with immortal souls are human beings. science does not address the issue of immortal souls. Of course the doctor is right: it is tissue. So am I. The argument is over whether a particular grouping of tissue is “a human being”. this is not a question anything so like as simple as posts in this thread make out. There is no hope of social agreement on abortion if people continue to talk past each other like this.
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OK - suppose we change the title “human being” to “Homo-sapien”. Is it still a “social concept”? Or is it now a scientific definition and description that defines us (as a creature) as separate and distinct from any other.
The question then becomes, at what point does a Homo-sapien come into being? That is the scientific question and the only reasonable scientific answer has to be when the human DNA appears in cell structure of the “tissue”. No other point in the development of the the individual is so clear cut as this one in defining that which is homo-sapien from that which is not.

The second question, that follows on this first, must then be - are ALL Homo-sapiens worthy of being justly protected under the law? The foundational principle of the United States says that they should be for, as a country, we hold this truth to be "self evident that all men (homo-sapiens) are created (proper DNA) equal.

Peace
James
 
Tingo said:
You are talking about two different things. “A human being” is a social concept, what Catholics call a ‘philosophical’ specifically an ‘ontological’ concept. Catholics thnk things with immortal souls are human beings. science does not address the issue of immortal souls. Of course the doctor is right: it is tissue. So am I. The argument is over whether a particular grouping of tissue is “a human being”. this is not a question anything so like as simple as posts in this thread make out. There is no hope of social agreement on abortion if people continue to talk past each other like this.
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“Human being,” can be a philosophical concept. Or it can be simply a synonum for "an individual of the species ‘homo sapiens.’

We’re not talking philosophy, although we could. We’re talking biology. When does a new and distinct individual of the human species have its beginning?"

There’s only one answer from a biological standpoint: at conception we have a new and distinct individual of the human species. It’s not mom. It’s not dad. It’s a new human being.
 
I’m sorry you have bad Doctor. Dr’s are supposed to do no harm. It can take the sperm anywhere from 20 minutes to 72 hours for it to meet the egg and create a new life, so even the “morning after pill” can result in an abortion. If you’re still going to see him, ask him at what point does a chicken’s life begin? After all, many people who believe in abortion believe that life starts when it take’s it’s first natural breath but in the case of a chicken for instance, the chick must be alive in order for it to hatch on its own. Hens and roosters do not peck the eggs open. So I’ve asked some of my friends who think life starts at birth, when has a chicken ever lived? No chicken has** EVER **given birth in the history of poltury. Chickens are hatched 🙂
 
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