Best argument against the abortion "clump of cells"?

[EZweber]

It’s not one thing is my point. I could say a person is a conscious being and then you’ll say that someone in a coma is not conscious so is not a person.

Then it’s a group of things. Listing all of the things that you consider persons is not a good way to define person. If a new possibility came up, you would have to find what really makes a person a person to decide if it is a person.

 

[EZweber]

So let’s stick with this example and see where it goes. It may solve all other areas of disagreement. What does a person in a coma posess that a person who has had his brain removed does not? It can’t be consciousness as neither has it. It can’t be life as both are still alive. So what do you consider to be the difference?

I would consider the person with their brain removed to be a person.

 

[EZweber]

It’s not one thing is my point. I could say a person is a conscious being and then you’ll say that someone in a coma is not conscious so is not a person.

If a person is defined as a conscious being, a human in a coma is not a person.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

So let’s stick with this example and see where it goes. It may solve all other areas of disagreement. What does a person in a coma posess that a person who has had his brain removed does not? It can’t be consciousness as neither has it. It can’t be life as both are still alive. So what do you consider to be the difference?

I would consider the person with their brain removed to be a person.

Even a brain dead person has some flickers of random electrical brain activity. If the brain has been removed, all we have is a warm corpse. And even random electrical activity isn’t enough to justify personhood.

OK, as we’re heading down tbis track…how about ‘a mature brain’. If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.

 

[EZweber]

Even a brain dead person has some flickers of random electrical brain activity. If the brain has been removed, all we have is a warm corpse. And even random electrical activity isn’t enough to justify personhood.

You specifically stated that the person with their brain removed was alive.

 

[EZweber]

OK, as we’re heading down tbis track…how about ‘a mature brain’. If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.

A recently born person does not have a mature brain. I have to go.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

OK, as we’re heading down tbis track…how about ‘a mature brain’. If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.

A recently born person does not have a mature brain. I have to go.

Mature as in that which a neurobiologist would descibe. Sufficient coherent neural and self sustaining activity. A brain dead person doesn’t have that. A new born baby does.

 

[goout]

EZweber:

Wozza:

OK, as we’re heading down tbis track…how about ‘a mature brain’. If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.

A recently born person does not have a mature brain. I have to go.

Mature as in that which a neurobiologist would descibe. Sufficient coherent neural and self sustaining activity. A brain dead person doesn’t have that. A new born baby does.

But not the same baby on the other side of the portal, even 15 minutes earlier.
Your position makes no sense whatsoever.

All you have is the will to power.
“I can kill because… I can. Because I say who’s a person and who’s not, and if you don’t meet the definition you are not a person.”

So, simple question you have avoided 10 times now:
Do you support the assertion that black people are 3/5 of a person, or that Jews are not persons worth protecting?
This is your philosophy in action.

 

[edwest211]

There is no debate. Everyone reading began life as a fertilized egg. The mother and father’s DNA combining to create you.

 

[Emeraldlady]

EZweber:

Wozza:

It’s because it is just a fertilised egg. A ferilised egg doesn’t fit any definition of person that you will find anywhere. Other than personal opinion. Yours for example.

I could use that exact same argument to refute your position by switching a few words. My question is in what way does a fertilized egg fail to fit the definition of person?

Yet again…

Find me a definition that isn’t simply personal opinion that includes a fertilised egg in the definition of person. Do that and we’re good.

All theistic and deistic and pagan religions regard ‘the fruit of the womb’ as sacred and valuable and worthy of special protections. The pagans of every culture have most significant goddesses directly associated with the process from fertility, conception to childbirth and take some sort of serious view of those who destroy the process.

This page lists them.

Our Judeo Christian scriptures guide us more directly.

Psalm 139 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written.

Job 31 15 "Did not He who made me in the womb make him, And the same one fashion us in the womb?

Jer 1 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Luke 1 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. And she cried out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! "And how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me?

While we have always been aware that the Creator animates the child in the womb, science has shown that animation begins from the moment of conception. The work of the ‘Creators weaving’ happens from that biological event. As David wrote Gods word in his psalms, even the unformed substance in the womb is written in the book of life.

That’s not opinion.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

EZweber:

Wozza:

It’s because it is just a fertilised egg. A ferilised egg doesn’t fit any definition of person that you will find anywhere. Other than personal opinion. Yours for example.

I could use that exact same argument to refute your position by switching a few words. My question is in what way does a fertilized egg fail to fit the definition of person?

Yet again…

Find me a definition that isn’t simply personal opinion that includes a fertilised egg in the definition of person. Do that and we’re good.

All theistic and deistic and pagan religions regard ‘the fruit of the womb’ as sacred and valuable and worthy of special protections.

Perhaps you are not aware that the Jewish position (and you probably know someone within your religion who was Jewish) is that personhood is not granted a baby until birth.

 

[edwest211]

Catholics aren’t Jewish in that we do not follow Jewish beliefs.

 

[Wozza]

Catholics aren’t Jewish in that we do not follow Jewish beliefs.

Thanks for putting us straight there, Ed! It wasn’t required because nobody suggested it. But no worries.

Maybe if you read the posts you’d have seen that Emerald hadn’t said ‘Catholics’. She said ‘All theistic and deistic and pagan religions…’.

I was just reminding her of the monstrous difference between what the Jewish faith considers a person and the Catholic fait’s position. So that what she was saying didn’t really carry much weight. And in fact aidded and abetted the opposing view. That personhood certainly doesn’t start at conception or anywhere near it.

 

[Elf01]

Why do you consider people in a coma persons when they don’t meet your definition?

@Wozza care to respond?

 

[Wozza]

Elf01:

Why do you consider people in a coma persons when they don’t meet your definition?

@Wozza care to respond?

Why aren’t you following the thread?

‘If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.’

There were more clarifications a little later but you need to read those yourself.

 

[Emeraldlady]

Perhaps you are not aware that the Jewish position (and you probably know someone within your religion who was Jewish) is that personhood is not granted a baby until birth.

Modern day secular and nominal Jews just like many nominal Christians, don’t reflect the biblical roots of the sacred nature of the life in the womb in their position.

The most respected Orthodox rabbis for nearly a century, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, wrote that abortion constitutes murder. Rabbi Feinstein even prohibited amniocentesis, a test that can detect fetal abnormalities, out of fear that parents might choose to abort a fetus with birth defects. “The murder of an unborn child is classified as a crime,” wrote Rabbi Soloveitchik, who therefore maintained that someone who performs an abortion is deserving of death. He also noted that Jewish law requires one to violate the Sabbath—an action only permitted where necessary to save human life—for the sake of preserving fetal life.

This tradition is reflected in the sixteenth-century codes of Jewish law that are still considered authoritative by Orthodox Jews of both European and Middle Eastern descent. In the twelfth century, Maimonides wrote that abortion is prohibited except to save a mother’s life. This position also appears in the Talmud, one of the earliest sources of rabbinic law. Similarly, the Zohar, the most prominent Jewish mystical source, considered abortion an abominable pagan practice.

Philo and Josephus, prominent observers of Judaism in the Greco-Roman world, both noted that Jews considered abortion a serious sin. This pro-life tradition has its earliest legal roots in the plain meaning of the Bible in Exodus 21:22-25, which suggests that even inducing an abortion through recklessness would constitute a capital offense.

The Jewish Position On Abortion Isn’t What You Think It Is

Although many Jews have been misled into thinking otherwise, Judaism is not compatible with political support for abortion.

www.thepublicdiscourse.com

 

[Elf01]

Why aren’t you following the thread?

‘If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.’

There were more clarifications a little later but you need to read those yourself.

From here

http://www.urbanchildinstitute.org/why-0-3/baby-and-brain

That would be 7 weeks post conception.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Why aren’t you following the thread?

‘If a human has a mature brain, being a brain with recognised synaptic activity, then that human is a person. Conscious or not.’

There were more clarifications a little later but you need to read those yourself.

From here

Baby’s Brain Begins Now: Conception to Age 3 | Urban Child Institute

That would be 7 weeks post conception.

You need to read more about this. The structural components are just that. Nothing is working within those areas that could be remotely described as mature synaptic activity.

 

[Elf01]

You need to read more about this. The structural components are just that. Nothing is working within those areas that could be remotely described as mature synaptic activity.

Ok. Provide a definition of mature synaptic activity please.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

You need to read more about this. The structural components are just that. Nothing is working within those areas that could be remotely described as mature synaptic activity.

Ok. Provide a definition of mature synaptic activity please.

The brain is viable around week 28 and synaptic growth is sufficient at that time for it to be termed mature. But survival outside the womb is possible at week 23 when using the term mature is debatable.

Take it back to 8 weeks and the neural activity is incoherent and random and is comparable to a person declared brain dead. There is no way that a brain dead person could be described as having mature synaptic activity. Neither can an embryo at eight weeks.

Between those two stages…pick a date and run with an argument.