Help Defining a Person

[Voco_proTatiano]

Voco Pro Tatiano has said:
[sign]The Human soul, according to Church teaching, as I understand it, reflects the indivisibility, and immergibility of the born human, (ignoring for the moment conjoined twins), and so is seen as such.[/sign]

Yes, I have been meaning to get to the issue of the human soul which seems to be the core of our failure to understand one another. Indeed, Voco you are correct the Church teaches the soul is indivisible. However, and I do ask for your continued patience, but I’m not familiar with this word which you are so fond of: "immergibility". From other posts your suggestions about the sexual gametes each containing a soul has left me scratching my head frankly. In post #49 you made this claim. Elsewhere you said the sperm and the ovum are animated by “micro-souls” and that these “micro-souls can fission”.

The gametes are alive.
Therefore they have souls.
When they merge to form a zygote, neither of them die, but they merge their individuality into a new unity.
Since there is no death involved in the merging, then the souls must continue in some changed form.
Since where there were two living entities, there now exists only one, and death has not occurred in the process, then the souls of the haploid cells must have merged to form the soul of the diploid cell.

Do the parents contribute more to the new human embryo than just matter ie.: the body? . . .Pardon the snip, I have run out of space. . . . It comes directly from G_d and returns directly to Him after death.

I have no argument with this truth.
I am just discussing the details of the mechanism used.
The big picture adequately describes the normal process, where a single sperm penetrates a single egg, and a single whole child is brought to term.
It is in the detail that we find out what happens when the extraordinary happens.
To me, it is no big deal if G_d creates the new soul for the child, by first creating a pair of gamete souls, one in the father, and one in the mother, and enables those gamete souls to merge into a zygote soul, which then forms into a pre-fission embryo soul, which may fission if the embryo should fission, to form the soul(s) of the new individual(s).
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.

Yes, while I agree the sexual gametes contain human life they are not to be confused with a new, genetically unique, single-cell human being which comes into existence at fertilization. What happens at fertilization is radically different from the process of gametogenesis which brings mature sexual cells to the point where they are ready to play their role. After fertilization is complete neither the sperm nor the oocyte continue to exist. Their contribution is complete, finished. Neither of the sexual gametes can survive long once released. The sperm will die in seven days if it hasn’t entered an oocyte successfully and the oocyte has only a twenty four hour window where it can be fertilized before it too dies. The earliest embryo however is self-sufficient and self-directed.

Both sperm and egg are alive and self directed.
Yes they are both on a short fuse, but consider the may-fly: it lives only for a single day, from leaving the chrysalis, to mating, egg-laying, and death.
There is no argument that it is alive, and as such has a soul.

Dr. Jerome Lejeune who was a professor of Fundamental Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, and was the first to discover the chromosomal mistake that causes Down Syndrome summed it up best:

[sign]To accept the fact that, after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or of opinion. The human nature of the human being from conception to old age is not a metaphysical contention. It is plain experimental evidence.[/sign]

lifeissues.net/writers/lej/lej_02whenlifebegins.html

If we accept that the gametes are alive, which I consider is beyond doubt, and that thus they have souls, then the true beginning of life is in the production of gametes.
Though the successful fusing of a complementary pair of gametes into a zygote is vanishingly small in comparison to those produced, yet in truth, the point at which new souls are presented, is now, not at conception, but at gamete manufacture.
Yes, conception is an important incident, but it is only one decision in the process of many decisions.
Yes, conception must occur for a new human being to form, but viable gametes must be produced for conception to occur.
And these viable gametes, be in themselves alive, must have souls.
What looked simple in the big picture gets more complex, the closer you look.

 

[Jennifer123]

The gametes are alive.
Therefore they have souls.
When they merge to form a zygote, neither of them die, but they merge their individuality into a new unity.
Since there is no death involved in the merging, then the souls must continue in some changed form.
Since where there were two living entities, there now exists only one, and death has not occurred in the process, then the souls of the haploid cells must have merged to form the soul of the diploid cell.
I have no argument with this truth.
I am just discussing the details of the mechanism used.
The big picture adequately describes the normal process, where a single sperm penetrates a single egg, and a single whole child is brought to term.
It is in the detail that we find out what happens when the extraordinary happens.
To me, it is no big deal if G_d creates the new soul for the child, by first creating a pair of gamete souls, one in the father, and one in the mother, and enables those gamete souls to merge into a zygote soul, which then forms into a pre-fission embryo soul, which may fission if the embryo should fission, to form the soul(s) of the new individual(s).
On Earth, as it is in Heaven.

Both sperm and egg are alive and self directed.
Yes they are both on a short fuse, but consider the may-fly: it lives only for a single day, from leaving the chrysalis, to mating, egg-laying, and death.
There is no argument that it is alive, and as such has a soul.

If we accept that the gametes are alive, which I consider is beyond doubt, and that thus they have souls, then the true beginning of life is in the production of gametes.
Though the successful fusing of a complementary pair of gametes into a zygote is vanishingly small in comparison to those produced, yet in truth, the point at which new souls are presented, is now, not at conception, but at gamete manufacture.
Yes, conception is an important incident, but it is only one decision in the process of many decisions.
Yes, conception must occur for a new human being to form, but viable gametes must be produced for conception to occur.
And these viable gametes, be in themselves alive, must have souls.
What looked simple in the big picture gets more complex, the closer you look.

You are confusing parts for a whole. Gametes are alive, but they are only a part. They do not consitute a human being. They are a part of the human being, but they are not the whole human being.
Egg and sperm are alive, but they are only a part. They themselves do not constitute a human being. When placed together, at the point of conception, they cease to exist. What is created is an embryo, an independant, individual whole life form, a member of the homosapien species. It is the same organism from the time of conception to death.
The egg, sperm and gametes exist only to provide matter for the individual whole human being. That is fact, not ideology.

Please see this link for a discussion of the philosophical aspects of “personhood”:
unbornperson.org/section_3.htm

As for an acorn, I’d love to see any example of it turning into anything other than an oak tree.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

You are confusing parts for a whole. Gametes are alive, but they are only a part. They do not consitute a human being. They are a part of the human being, but they are not the whole human being.
Egg and sperm are alive, but they are only a part. They themselves do not constitute a human being.

I understand your context. Seen in the context of a complete human being, the gametes are indeed only parts. however, seen from the context of the gametes, they are each an entirety to their purpose of existance, which is to carry a copy of a part of a DNA sequence, and place it in a situation where it can be united with a complementary section.
It comes with all the machinery to execute this purpose, and a sufficient fuel supply to maintain its function for long enought to achieve this purpose.
While each is performing its independant exisence, it is as complete as is a man without a woman, or a woman without a man.

When placed together, at the point of conception, they cease to exist.

No. Science is quite clear here. Nothing dies, and nothing is wasted. Even the tail of the sperm is incorporated into the zygote. What ceases to exist is the individuality of the gametes, for those individualities are subsumed into the individuality of the zygote.

What is created is an embryo, an independant, individual whole life form, a member of the homosapien species. It is the same organism from the time of conception to death.
The egg, sperm and gametes exist only to provide matter for the individual whole human being. That is fact, not ideology.

Please see this link for a discussion of the philosophical aspects of “personhood”:
unbornperson.org/section_3.htm

As for an acorn, I’d love to see any example of it turning into anything other than an oak tree.

It often turns into a meal for a squirrel!

ps.
I have looked at the link, and I consider it to be unbalanced propaganda.

 

[Rosalinda]

[sign]Nothing dies, and nothing is wasted. Even the tail of the sperm is incorporated into the zygote.[/sign]

Voco Pro Tatiano, Very interesting reflections I’m sure. Now perhaps you would be so kind as to show us precisely where the tail of the sperm has been incorporated into the zygote? You have a scientific resource to back you up? I’d really like to see this tail.

 

[Jennifer123]

I understand your context. Seen in the context of a complete human being, the gametes are indeed only parts. however, seen from the context of the gametes, they are each an entirety to their purpose of existance, which is to carry a copy of a part of a DNA sequence, and place it in a situation where it can be united with a complementary section.
It comes with all the machinery to execute this purpose, and a sufficient fuel supply to maintain its function for long enought to achieve this purpose.
While each is performing its independant exisence, it is as complete as is a man without a woman, or a woman without a man.

Gametes posses human life, but they are not living human beings:
lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_01lifebegin1.html
“To accurately see why a sperm or an oocyte are considered as only possessing human life, and not as living human beings themselves, one needs to look at the basic scientific facts involved in the processes of gametogenesis and of fertilization.”

No. Science is quite clear here. Nothing dies, and nothing is wasted. Even the tail of the sperm is incorporated into the zygote. What ceases to exist is the individuality of the gametes, for those individualities are subsumed into the individuality of the zygote.

This is what is frustrating about this conversation. And it is not only you but also many other proponents of abortion. They choose not to believe the scientific facts but yet claim pro-lifers act only on ideological belief, myth and distortions.

Since this is at least the second, maybe third time I’ve stated basic biological facts about conception I think it’s best I bow out. I don’t think my posts are effective. Good luck to you all and may God lift the scales from your eyes. I think you want to believe but just can’t submit. That’s my opinion.

lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_01lifebegin1.html
"In sum, a mature human sperm and a mature human oocyte are products of gametogenesis–each has only 23 chromosomes. They each have only half of the required number of chromosomes for a human being. They cannot singly develop further into human beings. They produce only “gamete” proteins and enzymes. They do not direct their own growth and development. And they are not individuals, i.e., members of the human species. They are only parts–each one a part of a human being. On the other hand, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. "

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

[sign]Nothing dies, and nothing is wasted. Even the tail of the sperm is incorporated into the zygote.[/sign]

Voco Pro Tatiano, Very interesting reflections I’m sure. Now perhaps you would be so kind as to show us precisely where the tail of the sperm has been incorporated into the zygote? You have a scientific resource to back you up? I’d really like to see this tail.

It used to be thought that the sperm injected the nucleus, virus-like into the ovum, but better photomicrographs indicate that the sperm swims completely into the ovum to complete its task.
What seems to happen then is that the total internal structure of both ovum and sperm completely reform into the zygote.
The sperm ceases to exist as a sperm.
The ovum ceases to exist as an ovum.
But nothing dies.
The sperm and the ovum merge and become the zygote.
The zygote complrises the entirety of both sperm and ovum.
The two have become one, but nothing is lost, save the individuality of sperm and ovum.
When a catterpillar turns into a pupa inside a chrysalis, all of its internal organs are re-arranged, and re-formed. The anatomy of a butterfly bears no resemblance to that of a catterpillar. The reconstruction seems to go through the stage of being a bag of mush. If a complex multicellular organism can re-organise so utterly, then a single celled organism can likewise.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Gametes posses human life, but they are not living human beings:
lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_01lifebegin1.html
“To accurately see why a sperm or an oocyte are considered as only possessing human life, and not as living human beings themselves, one needs to look at the basic scientific facts involved in the processes of gametogenesis and of fertilization.”

This is what is frustrating about this conversation. And it is not only you but also many other proponents of abortion. They choose not to believe the scientific facts but yet claim pro-lifers act only on ideological belief, myth and distortions.

Since this is at least the second, maybe third time I’ve stated basic biological facts about conception I think it’s best I bow out. I don’t think my posts are effective. Good luck to you all and may God lift the scales from your eyes. I think you want to believe but just can’t submit. That’s my opinion.

lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_01lifebegin1.html
"In sum, a mature human sperm and a mature human oocyte are products of gametogenesis–each has only 23 chromosomes. They each have only half of the required number of chromosomes for a human being. They cannot singly develop further into human beings. They produce only “gamete” proteins and enzymes. They do not direct their own growth and development. And they are not individuals, i.e., members of the human species. They are only parts–each one a part of a human being. On the other hand, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. "

From the point of view of the entire human being, what you say is completely true.
But the gametes are for a brief period, independant living entities. Whether they are classified under the taxonomy of organisms is another story, but living entities are alive, and that which is alive has a soul.
Yes, we are fencing with words.
Yes, the new humen being begins with conception, but the new life begins with the gametes.
We are both saying the same thing, but from different viewpoints.
At least, that is how I see it.

 

[crowonsnow]

It used to be thought that the sperm injected the nucleus, virus-like into the ovum, but better photomicrographs indicate that the sperm swims completely into the ovum to complete its task.
What seems to happen then is that the total internal structure of both ovum and sperm completely reform into the zygote.
The sperm ceases to exist as a sperm.
The ovum ceases to exist as an ovum.
But nothing dies.
The sperm and the ovum merge and become the zygote.
The zygote complrises the entirety of both sperm and ovum.
The two have become one, but nothing is lost, save the individuality of sperm and ovum.
When a catterpillar turns into a pupa inside a chrysalis, all of its internal organs are re-arranged, and re-formed. The anatomy of a butterfly bears no resemblance to that of a catterpillar. The reconstruction seems to go through the stage of being a bag of mush. If a complex multicellular organism can re-organise so utterly, then a single celled organism can likewise.

You are absolutely correct. And as you’ve said, an acorn can become many things besides an oak tree. Most acorns never become oak trees, and most fertilized human eggs will never mature into humans with brains and limbs.

I like how you have put the life of gametes into perspective. In essence you’ve said that neither the oak tree nor the acorn is the more important.

Most people do not see life as a continuum, but it is. Just because one life stage is shorter than another does not make is less important.

 

[Rosalinda]

Let’s examine what VPT has said:
[sign]The gametes are alive.
Therefore they have souls.
When they merge to form a zygote, neither of them die, but they merge their individuality into a new unity.
Since there is no death involved in the merging, then the souls must continue in some changed form.
Since where there were two living entities, there now exists only one, and death has not occurred in the process, then the souls of the haploid cells must have merged to form the soul of the diploid cell.[/sign]

Supposing we allow, for the sake of argument, that the sexual gametes contain a soul. Can two souls merge and become one? No.

The Lateran Council V declared the following in 1513:

**Since in our days… the sower of cockle, ancient enemy of the human race, has dared to disseminate and advance in the field of the Lord a number of pernicious errors, always rejected by the faithful, especially concerning the nature of the rational soul, namely, that it is mortal, or one in all men, and some rashly philosophizing affirmed that this is true at least according to philosophy, in our desire to offer suitable remedies against a plague of this kind, with the approval of this holy Council, we condemn and reject all who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal, or is one in all men, and those who cast doubt on these truths, since it [the soul] is not only truly in itself and essentially the form of the human body, as was defined in the canon of Pope CLEMENT V our predecessor of happy memory published in the (general) Council of VIENNA} but it is also multiple according to the multitude of bodies into which it is infused, multiplied, and to be multiplied . **. .

Each human body receives an individual human soul by G_d at the time of conception. There is no soul which is “one in all men”. The soul is essentially the form of the human body. The soul doesn’t grow or develop with the human body. It is the body which grows and develops and the soul expresses its power and individuality by means of this body. Take for example, an artist. All the gifts and talents needed to become an artist are there in the genetic make-up of the embryonic child. Only will these talents and gifts be shared with the world when the child has reached a level of physical mastery and co-ordination. When a gifted artist dies does G_d recycle his soul and give it to another? I don’t think so. The extraordinary details of the mystery of life, for all our sophisticated technology, are known only in their fullness by G_d.

Science cannot say when a human person comes into being. Jennifer has pointed out several times that is a philosophical question not a scientific one. Nevertheless, science knows, without a doubt, when human beings begin their existence and that is at the beginning which has been defined as the process of fertilization: not gametogenesis. Anyone pretending otherwise is a “cafeteria scientist”.

Human life has a beginning and it has an end. Only G_d has no beginning and no end.

 

[Rosalinda]

Voco Pro Tatiano again:[sign]To me, it is no big deal if G_d creates the new soul for the child, by first creating a pair of gamete souls, one in the father, and one in the mother, and enables those gamete souls to merge into a zygote soul, which then forms into a pre-fission embryo soul, which may fission if the embryo should fission, to form the soul(s) of the new individual(s).
[/sign]

Can a soul “fission” and form two new souls for two new individuals?

NO. The human soul can neither multiply nor divide. I repeat G_d is generous. He is all powerful. If He created all that exists out of nothing do you really believe He needs a pre-existing soul to create another one? You are putting limits on G_d.

 

[Rosalinda]

I’m not playing word games. Words are important. The lives of countless human beings depend on the definition of words. Whoever controls the definitions and invents the redefinitions controls life. The abortion movement understood this power a long time ago and has achieved monumental success using semantic gymnastics, confusing the issue and withholding the truth from the public.

Voco Pro Tatiano admits:[sign]Yes, we are fencing with words.
[/sign]

We’re not fencing with words. We’re fencing with the truth. This world is deprived of much of the beauty and goodness G_d blessed us with because our culture has exchanged truth for lies.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Let’s examine what VPT has said:
[sign]The gametes are alive.
Therefore they have souls.
When they merge to form a zygote, neither of them die, but they merge their individuality into a new unity.
Since there is no death involved in the merging, then the souls must continue in some changed form.
Since where there were two living entities, there now exists only one, and death has not occurred in the process, then the souls of the haploid cells must have merged to form the soul of the diploid cell.[/sign]

Supposing we allow, for the sake of argument, that the sexual gametes contain a soul. Can two souls merge and become one? No.

I am not talking about the human soul here, I am talking of the animalistic soul which all living entities have, lest they be stone.
Microbes can merge and fission, so their souls must be able to merge and fission.

The Lateran Council V declared the following in 1513:

And I accept that in the context given, the human soul cannot merge or fission.
This is why I insist that full ensoulment, whether it be by delivery of a new individual soul, or by conversion of the animalistic soul into a human soul. cannot take place untol the fission window is closed.

Each human body receives an individual human soul by G_d at the time of conception.

There is no individual human being until the fission window s closed, so there cannot be an individual soul before that time.

There is no soul which is “one in all men”. The soul is essentially the form of the human body. The soul doesn’t grow or develop with the human body. It is the body which grows and develops and the soul expresses its power and individuality by means of this body. Take for example, an artist. All the gifts and talents needed to become an artist are there in the genetic make-up of the embryonic child. Only will these talents and gifts be shared with the world when the child has reached a level of physical mastery and co-ordination. When a gifted artist dies does G_d recycle his soul and give it to another? I don’t think so. The extraordinary details of the mystery of life, for all our sophisticated technology, are known only in their fullness by G_d.

Science cannot say when a human person comes into being. Jennifer has pointed out several times that is a philosophical question not a scientific one. Nevertheless, science knows, without a doubt, when human beings begin their existence and that is at the beginning which has been defined as the process of fertilization: not gametogenesis. Anyone pretending otherwise is a “cafeteria scientist”.

Yes, I agree, a new human being is defined at conception, but the new life of that generation begins with gametogenesis, and that is when the animalistic souls are presented.

Human life has a beginning and it has an end. Only G_d has no beginning and no end.

Yes, human life began with the first Eve, and will end on the Last day.

 

[Rosalinda]

post 118 Voco Pro Tatiano has made an incorrect analogy:

[sign]Both sperm and egg are alive and self directed.
Yes they are both on a short fuse, but consider the may-fly: it lives only for a single day, from leaving the chrysalis, to mating, egg-laying, and death.
There is no argument that it is alive, and as such has a soul.
[/sign]

Yes, the may-fly may be short-lived and when alive does have a soul, an animal soul that dies with it when it dies. The sperm however can hardly be considered the equivalent of a may-fly. The may-fly is a mature adult organism, not a reproductive cell. Furthermore, the may-fly meets all the conditions of an organism. The sperm doesn’t. Whereas the may-fly can reproduce the sperm contains only half of the genetic material necessary: 23 chromosomes. It doesn’t contain even an animal soul. It is only a cell; neither an organism nor an entity. It cannot exchange matter and energy with its surroundings and survive independently. If and when it does work its way into the mature female secondary oocyte it ceases to exist as a sperm. At this point, we can no longer speak of either a sperm or an oocyte (egg). Nor can we cavalierly refer to the newly formed zygote as a “fertilized egg” (as many well-meaning pro-lifers do.) After all, people don’t hatch from eggs or larvae like a swarm of mosquitoes or chickens. It is just that simple.

I beg your patience for this repetition but neither the sperm alone nor the oocyte alone can implant into the uterus. Both will rot; be expelled and trashed. Yes, Voco, while these cells may be “alive”, colloquially speaking, and while they contain human life they are not human beings- at any stage of development- and for such reason do not contain souls miniature or otherwise.

Voco, you continue to draw equivalent values as though all things in the continuum of life are equal. Your world of abstracts and symbols, never links up with the reality to which these symbols revolve around. In your philosophy, life is reduced to a merry-go-round where the gametes, the zygotes, the embryos, the children, the adults, the weak, the disabled, the sick are just non-entities ‘blending one into the other’ spinning around without purpose, without direction and finally without meaning. You paint a miasma of despair.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

post 118 Voco Pro Tatiano has made an incorrect analogy:

[sign]Both sperm and egg are alive and self directed.
Yes they are both on a short fuse, but consider the may-fly: it lives only for a single day, from leaving the chrysalis, to mating, egg-laying, and death.
There is no argument that it is alive, and as such has a soul.
[/sign]

Yes, the may-fly may be short-lived and when alive does have a soul, an animal soul that dies with it when it dies. The sperm however can hardly be considered the equivalent of a may-fly. The may-fly is a mature adult organism, not a reproductive cell. Furthermore, the may-fly meets all the conditions of an organism. The sperm doesn’t. Whereas the may-fly can reproduce the sperm contains only half of the genetic material necessary: 23 chromosomes. It doesn’t contain even an animal soul. It is only a cell; neither an organism nor an entity.

Here we are into ‘special pleading’, and specialized useage of words.
Take the spermatazoan. Note the suffix ‘zoan’, and remember its useage in protozoan. Clearly they are of an ilk. Yes of course the spermatazoan is not a complete human being, but it is a complete spermatazoan.
No, it cannot reproduce itself, it is a haploid cell, and thus cannot fission.
It can feed, it can digest the sugar solution in which it is emitted.
It can respond to its environment, it responds to the pH gradient to guide it to the ovum.
To say it is not an entity is to mock language.
To say it is only alive in the loosest sense of the word is special pleading.
The only differnce between a protzoan and a spermatazoan is the the spermatazoan is haploid genetically, whereas the protozoan is diploid. Functionally there is no difference, for in the diploid cell, half of the duplicated diploid genes are switched off.

It cannot exchange matter and energy with its surroundings and survive independently. If and when it does work its way into the mature female secondary oocyte it ceases to exist as a sperm. At this point, we can no longer speak of either a sperm or an oocyte (egg). Nor can we cavalierly refer to the newly formed zygote as a “fertilized egg” (as many well-meaning pro-lifers do.) After all, people don’t hatch from eggs or larvae like a swarm of mosquitoes or chickens. It is just that simple.

I have not used the word ‘egg’ in any of my postings.

I beg your patience for this repetition but neither the sperm alone nor the oocyte alone can implant into the uterus. Both will rot; be expelled and trashed. Yes, Voco, while these cells may be “alive”, colloquially speaking, and while they contain human life they are not human beings- at any stage of development- and for such reason do not contain souls miniature or otherwise.

I agree entirely. I do not posit that the gametes are blessed with human souls. They are living entities, and so have animalistic souls at the very least, if we accept that all living entities are vivified by souls.

Voco, you continue to draw equivalent values as though all things in the continuum of life are equal. Your world of abstracts and symbols, never links up with the reality to which these symbols revolve around. In your philosophy, life is reduced to a merry-go-round where the gametes, the zygotes, the embryos, the children, the adults, the weak, the disabled, the sick are just non-entities ‘blending one into the other’ spinning around without purpose, without direction and finally without meaning. You paint a miasma of despair.

The ocean comprises, remarkably uniformly, a solution of sodium chloride in water of about 0.6%. It covers 5/6ths of the planet to an average depth of about 2km.
So described, the oceans seem unimportant, but without them, Earth would be a dead planet, and the most beautiful aspect of the planet , as seen from space, is its oceans,
We live on the Blue Planet, not the brown planet. The oceans are blue, the earth is brown.
Just because I give a simplistic overview of something wonderful does not deny that wonder.
Life is almost infinitely complex.
In the overview, simplifications are made, and generalizations.
In detail, it is a wonder.
The overview is not intended to reduce that wonder.

 

[Jennifer123]

There is no individual human being until the fission window s closed,
.

I know I said I wouldn’t post but in keeping with my promise all I ask is for a citation please.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

I know I said I wouldn’t post but in keeping with my promise all I ask is for a citation please.

Dear Jennifer,
I have no citation.
It is however my understanding of English, that an individual human being is indivisible.
It follows logically from this understanding, that the human being under construction, before the closing of the fission window, being divisible, therefore cannot be an individual human being.
If your understanding of English differs from this, then we are stuck in a rut.
However, both ‘individual’ and ‘indivisible’ have their root in the Latin verb ‘divid-o; -ere’ to divide, break-open, distribute, apportion, separate.
The prefix ‘in’ signifying negation, or impossibility.

 

[Ronald_E]

I have just superficially read the above exchanges. It appears to me that it is very easy to debate about the definition of being a person. However, Jesus said to love our neighbor as ourself is one of the greatest commandments. Our faith was primarily spread through action and not debate. Our actions determine how we define a person. Do we express the sacrificial love that Jesus exemplified through a life of continuous acts of love that put us at risk of losing what we value most? I know that I take the safer path most of the time. Am I willing to give up my safety for the lives of those that I have no visible connection to who are my neighbors? Until I make that sacrifice I cannot say that I am living our faith in a manner that would do justice to our faith.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Dear Friends,
I have to agree with Ronald here.
We have been arguing about how many angels can dance on the point of a needle.
We have got ourselves locked into philosophical arguments, as to whether the status of an embryo, as human being, whether or not in the making, or individual, or person, has any effect of the wickedness of abortion.
My view is that this is wanton killing of human life, regardless of the status of the embryo.
Unfortunately, the law does not recognise an unborn baby as a human being, never mind a person, so this wanton killing is not legally murder, and without the context of law, the word ‘murder’ is meaningless.
I think we all feel it should be seen as murder, but there is real danger of taking the law into our own hands, and that is no less a sin.
I believe that termination of pregnancy at any time, can only be defended where the life of the mother is at real and present risk.
However, my concern here is that if it is at all possible, the life of the growing infant should be saved, by whatever means feasible.
If this means pushing the boundaries of in vitro technology, then so be it.

 

[catharina]

Dear Friends,
I have to agree with Ronald here.
We have been arguing about how many angels can dance on the point of a needle.
We have got ourselves locked into philosophical arguments, as to whether the status of an embryo, as human being, whether or not in the making, or individual, or person, has any effect of the wickedness of abortion.
My view is that this is wanton killing of human life, regardless of the status of the embryo.
Unfortunately, the law does not recognise an unborn baby as a human being, never mind a person, so this wanton killing is not legally murder, and without the context of law, the word ‘murder’ is meaningless.
I think we all feel it should be seen as murder, but there is real danger of taking the law into our own hands, and that is no less a sin.
I** believe that termination of pregnancy at any time, can only be defended where the life of the mother is at real and present risk.**
However, my concern here is that if it is at all possible, the life of the growing infant should be saved, by whatever means feasible.
If this means pushing the boundaries of in vitro technology, then so be it.

Bolded above is your extraordinary flaw of reasoning. This “exception” negates the entire rule.
First and last, the duty of parents is to protect the lives of their children.

 

[catharina]

I have just superficially read the above exchanges. It appears to me that it is very easy to debate about the definition of being a person. However, Jesus said to love our neighbor as ourself is one of the greatest commandments. Our faith was primarily spread through action and not debate. Our actions determine how we define a person. Do we express the sacrificial love that Jesus exemplified through a life of continuous acts of love that put us at risk of losing what we value most? I know that I take the safer path most of the time. Am I willing to give up my safety for the lives of those that I have no visible connection to who are my neighbors? Until I make that sacrifice I cannot say that I am living our faith in a manner that would do justice to our faith.

Great post. Thanks. Quite right. The letter of the law can be defined and examined down to the use of the comma - but it is the Spirit of the law that is to lead us.