I’m not sure what you’re getting at since it was stated that by reason (and even science I believe it was mentioned) we are inherently human and thus deserving the dignity proper of a person.
Yes it does matter because they cannot figure out as of yet what materials were used on the Tilma?
I did not define human as person. I discussed personhood, which is a well known philosophical term. It would be up to competent medical authorities to determine when brainwaves reach a threshold indicative of brain activity. From that determination lawmakers could back off several weeks to draw a bright line. I don’t accept the 25th week as the line. In fact, many pro-life groups claim 6 weeks, which is a claim seemingly pulled from thin air.
If they have the “behavioral characteristics” then they have brain wave activity in the cerebral cortex - that’s an even stronger qualifier of personhood than I set. It would be a medical determination; however, whether these activities were behavioral or reflexive.
I do not accept your assertion that brain wave activity is not present in the fetus at this point of gestation. In any case, what I think and what the law should say are two different things. With rare exception, I don’t think women should have abortions. That does not mean that my personal opinion should trump proper formulation of the law.
There is no hypocrisy involved. The Republicans controlled both Congress and the Presidency when they passed the law. The Democrats had named most of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court when they struck down laws prohibiting abortions. So both political parties are being true to their word. Both parties are wrong because they both use the line drawing fallacy. The Republicans want no line, so they back it up all the way to conception. The Democrats want no line, so they advance it all the way to live birth.
No, we have established that without the religious claim of ensoulment at conception, there is no secular argument against the scientific and therapeutic use of embryos.
Neither is a human or a cow. Without analyzing the proteins and DNA, nobody can tell the difference. Do we really want to accept that scientifically speaking what makes humans distinct from animals is our protein and DNA composition? Take any two microorganism species and chances are excellent that the human to bovine chemistry is much closer than the microorganisms.
Actually, I think that cows might be able to give birth to human babies if there were no biomedical ethics or legal issues to stop scientists from doing it. Scientists use surrogate placental mammals in this way to have live births of different endangered species.
The text you quoted stated that the soul of an embryo cannot be observed experimentally. So I’m asking you this:
I would like for the whole world to seek Truth, the one and only Truth that exists. And there is no point in understanding my fellow Catholics or myself if your intent is to eventually do away with our creed and dogmas, unless of course, you wish to use what you learn against us.It’s not opinion, we have his letters you can check for yourself. He ridiculed the Christian interpretation of God. His vision of God had no trinity, never communicated with humans, never performed miracles, never influenced the world in any way after creating it. That’s why he used the word Creator not God. This vision of God was fashionable among the elites of the Enlightenment.
There are 56 signatories confirming the content of the Declaration of Indepence written as such for the citizens of the United States of America. It would therefore behoove us to interpret said document through the eyes of Thomas Jefferson and those of like mind only (and who most likely did not represent the religious norms of their day). That being said, Jefferson did acknowledge God to whom he owed his existence to.
Believe me, dear Sir: there is not in the British empire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great Britain than I do. But, by the God that made me, I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this, I think I speak the sentiments of America.
—Thomas Jefferson, November 29, 1775[5]
As such, the God to whom he refers to as the Creator in the Declaration is that entity which has created all men equal with inalienable rights the first of which is life .
Apparently the signers of the document didn’t think so. Abortion before the quickening was permitted under English Common Law. The signers of the Declaration had a perfect chance to outlaw abortion when they wrote the Constitution. They didn’t.
This however was based on a false understanding of when life began. By 1837 however all abortions were considered a felony. The CC by the way consistently believed that life began at conception (it’s those “darned” Protestants that are to be blamed).
Nevertheless quickening was wrong and this is why: a woman feels the first movements of her baby in the 4 or 5th month:
"But pregnant women don’t “feel life” until four or five months!
The inside of the uterus has no feeling. The baby has to be almost a foot long (30 cm.) and weigh about one pound (454 gm.) before he or she is large enough to brace a shoulder against one wall and kick hard enough against the opposite wall to dent it outward. Then the mother feels it because the outside of the uterus is covered by a sensitive peritoneal surface."
In actuality a human fetus begins to move:
“In the sixth to seventh weeks. . . . If the area of the lips is gently stroked, the child responds by bending the upper body to one side and making a quick backward motion with his arms. This is called a ‘total pattern response’ because it involves most of the body, rather than a local part.” L. B. Arey, Developmental Anatomy (6th ed.), Philadelphia: W. B. Sanders Co., 1954
At eight weeks, “if we tickle the baby’s nose, he will flex his head backwards away from the stimulus.” A. Hellgers, M.D., “Fetal Development, 31,” Theological Studies, vol. 3, no. 7, 1970, p. 26
Another example is from a surgical technician whose letter said, "When we opened her abdomen (for a tubal pregnancy), the tube had expelled an inch-long fetus, about 4-6 weeks old. It was still alive in the sack. “That tiny baby was waving its little arms and kicking its little legs and even turned its whole body over.” J. Dobson, Focus on the Family Mag., Aug. ’91, pg. 16
Look at it this way… Wouldn’t you like the whole world to come to the RCC? But do you expect it in your lifetime? I’m not looking for middle ground, but a better understanding of people sharing the planet.
I challenge you to find a single elected Democrat at any level who has advocated that.
You defined personhood once brain wave activity could be detected. Now here is what I found in one article about brain wave activity in a fetus (confirming the 25th week mark posited):
14 states have no restrictions on late term abortions. I would venture a guess it’s the Democrats not the GOP in control of those state houses.
But the sentence right after that explains how through reason (and science) we can see how life begins at conception. God bless.I do not accept your assertion that brain wave activity is not present in the fetus at this point of gestation. In any case, what I think and what the law should say are two different things. With rare exception, I don’t think women should have abortions. That does not mean that my personal opinion should trump proper formulation of the law.
Then research it yourself and see what you find. And use those findings to derive truth and use that truth to affect law. This is as it should be in a democracy.
There is no hypocrisy involved. The Republicans controlled both Congress and the Presidency when they passed the law. The Democrats had named most of the justices to the U.S. Supreme Court when they struck down laws prohibiting abortions. So both political parties are being true to their word. Both parties are wrong because they both use the line drawing fallacy. The Republicans want no line, so they back it up all the way to conception. The Democrats want no line, so they advance it all the way to live birth.
I meant the hyprocrisy (the idea of providing a law to protect the unborn in cases of homicide) of viewing a child in utero as protected under the law in regard to homicide and yet still allowing abortion to continue (which is the murder of a child in utero).
No, we have established that without the religious claim of ensoulment at conception, there is no secular argument against the scientific and therapeutic use of embryos.
No, you have not established anything: biologically (human) life starts at conception.
In case you were thinking that the Church has always held the position that ensoulment happens at conception, it’s not that clear. The Church has always considered abortion a grave sin, but in past centuries they had differences of opinion on when the fetus is ensouled. In centuries past, most but not all RC scholars or Popes who wrote on the issue of ensoulment or abortion stated or implied that ensoulment happened at the quickening, not at conception.
From what I understand the Church has always stated life starts at conception (“humans are not only souls but also bodies”).
It’s true that some doctors and fathers and theologians of the Church raised the question of “ensoulment,” asking when an unborn baby receives a soul, and given different answers. But in Christian (as opposed to Gnostic) tradition, humans are not only souls but also bodies. And thus no Father ever, ever used the idea of later ensoulment (often borrowed from Aristotle) to excuse or permit abortion.
Furthermore,
In Christian tradition, until the 1960s, life was thought to begin at conception, regardless of the details certain thinkers put forth about speculative embryonic anthropology.
Neither is a human or a cow. Without analyzing the proteins and DNA, nobody can tell the difference. Do we really want to accept that scientifically speaking what makes humans distinct from animals is our protein and DNA composition? Take any two microorganism species and chances are excellent that the human to bovine chemistry is much closer than the microorganisms.
Yes, you can tell the difference, women who are pregnant are biologically carrying a human/baby (not a cow) so it doesn’t really matter how much you try to state your case about similar molecular chemistry. What you find in a zygote is what you’ll find in an adult.
Actually, I think that cows might be able to give birth to human babies if there were no biomedical ethics or legal issues to stop scientists from doing it. Scientists use surrogate placental mammals in this way to have live births of different endangered species.
But only through human manipulation can this occur otherwise I see no possibility whatsoever of a cow spontaneously giving birth to a human.
The text you quoted stated that the soul of an embryo cannot be observed experimentally. So I’m asking you this:
What difference would we expect to observe between something that “cannot be observed experimentally” and something that is imaginary? Simply put, our observations would be identical – no observation.
So I can claim anything I want and it will never be disproved provided that I add “it cannot be observed experimentally”.
Have you ever really tried to read the Bible in its entirety or do you just decompartmentalize it to its more sensational parts? .How did this thread turn into a debate about when life begins?
Apparently God had no problem with terminating babies by ordering their heads being dashed on rocks, nor did he have a problem with priests in the old testament preforming curses on women accused of adultery to drink a poison.
I’m really wondering how this is proving a God anyone would want to believe in.
Pushing this issue is not wise IMHO.
I’m not seeing your point. I wrote that Jefferson believed in a supreme being. The point is he did not believe in the Christian idea of God. He wrote extensively in his private letters how he thought Christianity was a perversion of his idea of God and of Jesus’s teachings.
It’s more nuanced. Although the CC has always taught that abortion at any point in pregnancy is sinful, in previous centuries there were documents that implied or stated disagreements about when ensoulment happened or if the soul somehow changed during development in the womb.
All I can tell you is you’re wrong. Once again you assume when all you have to do is ask.
But why do this on a forum, why not ask Catholics you know or read the CCC and other such sources to gain insight? I’m not saying I don’t want you here, I’m glad in fact that you are but I’m still not sure what you’ll gain from this.
That’s a good question, Josie. The CCC teaches orthodoxy, which I have studied quite a bit since I like to study many things including religions. But orthodoxy is not enough. If my Catholic experience taught me anything, it’s that lay Catholics whether through ignorance or intent often have different ways of looking at things than the clergy or catechism. So when I mentor my kids, I want to know what the laity is saying, the arguments they’re using, their reasons for believing. More than that, I want to know how they respond to counterarguments. ← This part is critical. If I taught my children the straw men arguments of the typical atheist, they would think like all too many militant atheists do, that something is wrong with the greater part of the world’s population. I do not want my children growing up thinking this way.
to be continued. . . .
This cut and paste did not address the issue at all. The Bush administration could not make ESCR illegal, but they controlled the FDA and never let a single clinical trial get approval. Other major biomedical research nations also had varying degrees of political and funding restrictions on relevant research.
Again, this cut and paste doesn’t even discuss the issue. It doesn’t even touch on SCNT, which no researcher in the field is suggesting, or could even imagine how it would require immunosuppressive therapy.
Not one example on this list meets the standard you set for ESCR, a successful clinical trial – not one. The list of peer-reviewed journal entries cover isolated cases, meta analysis, or conjecture, not one is a clinical trial let alone a successful one.Where is a list of the 70 treatments that have gone through clinical trials to demonstrate their efficacy?
stemcellresearch.org/facts/treatments.htm
The end.