Help with Abortion Argument

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Koopa said:
I do not. If this were the case, then we truly would have no way of saying that any human being was a human person. If you accept this, then you might as well accept the entirety of moral relativism, and truth is out the window.

The only so-called “debate” possible would be whether or not every human being is a human person or just some. If only some are, then we accept that the criteria for personhood is indefinite and may be changed at will. At this point there would be no argument against the disregard of all human personhood. Since we all agree that human personhood may not be completely disregarded, then we can work backwards from this fact and come to the conclusion that every human being is a human life, starting at the beginning of life, scientifically proven to be at conception.
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I agree with onenow1:thumbsup:

As far as Church teaching, from the early Church on, the teaching has been consistant that abortion kills a human life at conception. Turtullian ~200 AD wrote “We acknowledge…that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul begins at conception. Life begins when the soul begins.” (The Soul, chap27, no 1, in FEF 1:144) St.Clement wrote in The Didiche (60-70A.D.)‘Do not kill a fetus by abortion’ Chap 1, nos.1-2

The Church has been clear from it’s conception, abortion at any stage is a grievous sin a most heinous form of muder due to the relationship between the one being murdered and the one doing the murdering. Clement in his writings, compared abortion to the murder of one’s spouse.
 
Hortense said:
That brings up another can of worms. Suppose science learns how to clone from an existing skin cell. Would that mean the skin cell is a human person because the right set of conditions will result in a softball player? What is the principle here?

Great progress is being made in growing hearts and heart valves. Last I read, the biologists involved think they will be able to grow a heart valve from your own DNA in about five years. They have their sights set on hearts, livers, lungs, etc.

Dogs and sheep have been cloned by transplanting DNA from skin cells into a host egg shell. If this were done with human DNA from a skin cell, would that be a person?

So, I don’t at all discount the notion that science may learn exactly what conditions will cause a skin cell to begin to grow into an animal without using a host egg. Suppose we use a stem cell rather than a skin cell?

People tend to dodge the question because they say it can’t be done. However, a strong position would tackle it head on. It’s not easy.
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Donum Vitae does a great job addressing these issues. Yes, a human being formed by ‘cloning’ is a person, and should be afforded the rights of a person. Cloning them has already violated their right to be conceived through a loving creative act of a mother and a father, and has reduced them to the product of technology. However, once created, regardless of method, they are a person. (You can relate this to rape, the child was conceived through a violent act, not a loving…act. The child’s rights are violated in addition to the mother’s, but that child is still aperson.)
 
I will be praying for you and also will join the site with this same screen name.

God bless
~Betsy

TOTUS TOUS MARIA!
 
Koopa said:
The only so-called “debate” possible would be whether or not every human being is a human person or just some. If only some are, then we accept that the criteria for personhood is indefinite and may be changed at will.
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Western society generally accepts the notion of brain death being the equivalent of the death of the person. The flip side would be personhood occurring when brain activity begins. We could set criteria which is medically verifiable.
At this point there would be no argument against the disregard of all human personhood.
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I don’t see how that would follow.
Since we all agree that human personhood may not be completely disregarded, then we can work backwards from this fact and come to the conclusion that every human being is a human life, starting at the beginning of life, scientifically proven to be at conception.
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Doesn’t that position essentially ignore the idea of personhood? You seem to be saying that since people may disagree on when personhood exists, we should just go with the physical body.
 
GilChrist77 said:
I will be praying for you and also will join the site with this same screen name.

God bless
~Betsy

TOTUS TOUS MARIA!
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Thanks, but be warned, with that screen name, they will launch a full-scale attack. These people are incredibly anti-Christian.
 
Dale_M said:
Western society generally accepts the notion of brain death being the equivalent of the death of the person. The flip side would be personhood occurring when brain activity begins. We could set criteria which is medically verifiable.

I don’t see how that would follow.

Doesn’t that position essentially ignore the idea of personhood? You seem to be saying that since people may disagree on when personhood exists, we should just go with the physical body.
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I think getting into this vague discussion of *personhood *is playing right into the pro-abort’s hands. I like this piece on the issue from abort73.com:

abort73.com/HTML/I-B-1-personhood.html
 
bobolink said:
I think getting into this vague discussion of *personhood *is playing right into the pro-abort’s hands.
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Yes, it probably is. I apologize, I didn’t mean to undermine your efforts or to argue against your position. It was an off-topic excursion. :o
 
Dale_M said:
Western society generally accepts the notion of brain death being the equivalent of the death of the person. The flip side would be personhood occurring when brain activity begins. We could set criteria which is medically verifiable.

I don’t see how that would follow.

Doesn’t that position essentially ignore the idea of personhood? You seem to be saying that since people may disagree on when personhood exists, we should just go with the physical body.
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BTW, bobolink asked what the relation is between a human life, human being, and human person. It is my understanding that every human person is a human being and every human being is a human life by definition. Working the other way, a human “being” is a human who “be’s” (is). A human life would be considered a human (of the human species) so I consider all human lives to be human beings. Lastly I consider all human beings to be human persons. This is a philosophical issue, and I think that because we must not be able to change the criteria of human personhood, because of the chaos that that would cause, that the only acceptable options would be to extend human personhood to every human being or no human being, with the former obviously being the more desirable option.

Does this clarify my position a bit? It was a little confusing.

I don’t accept brain death as the equivalent as the death of a person, but rather the ceasing of all life functions. Of course, that would be a logical effect of brain death, but for this particular discussion, I believe the ceasing of all life functions to be the death of a person. That would solve the flip side, where the “birth” of a person would be the starting of life functions.

Also, could someone educate me in my ignorance? Do cells and stuff stop working instantaneously at brain death, or is their stoppage just imminent? Thanks.

Lastly, everyone has been so polite in this discussion and I do not want to be the person to spoil it. Please slap me if I am offensive and I will be grateful to you. 👍

God bless!
 
Dale_M said:
Yes, it probably is. I apologize, I didn’t mean to undermine your efforts or to argue against your position. It was an off-topic excursion. :o
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No need to apologise.

On a separate issue:

The question of God has not come into the discussion on boards.ie. But I wonder if it will have a place? At the moment, the pro-aborts are saying that human life has a higher value because we are more intelligent and more conscious… But i feel like they are pressing for one of us pro-lifers to mention God and our creation in His image and likeness, and then of course they will mock and scorn 'til the cows come home.
 
bobolink said:
I think getting into this vague discussion of *personhood *is playing right into the pro-abort’s hands. I like this piece on the issue from abort73.com:

abort73.com/HTML/I-B-1-personhood.html
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(Please believe me that I’m not just trying to contradict everything you say! 😛 ) I don’t think so. Personhood is based on philosophy, and the Church is all about that! It certainly puts me personally at a disadvantage, though. Thanks. 🙂
 
bobolink said:
No need to apologise.

On a separate issue:

The question of God has not come into the discussion on boards.ie. But I wonder if it will have a place? At the moment, the pro-aborts are saying that human life has a higher value because we are more intelligent and more conscious… But i feel like they are pressing for one of us pro-lifers to mention God and our creation in His image and likeness, and then of course they will mock and scorn 'til the cows come home.
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I don’t necessarily think it will. Of course God has to do with absolutely everything but the truth is so solid in this case that faith isn’t even necessary.

That may have come out wrong. I do not mean that things we must have faith in aren’t solid truth! 👍

Peace be with you!
 
Hortense said:
Everyone agrees the egg, sperm, and fertilized egg are alive. They also agree they are of the human species. Does anyone know of anybody at all who says they are dead? Pro-choice people do deny the newly fertilized egg is deserving of all the rights of a born human because it has not developed to a state where they choose to recognize such rights.
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The egg and sperm are not members of the human species. They are a part of individual humans. A fertilized egg, zygote, embryo, etc. IS a member of the human species and constitutes human life. That is a very poor argument you make.
Hortense said:
If you bring up religion, especially Catholic religion, they will simply ask you to show the definitive Church teachings that a fertilized egg has an immortal soul at the moment of conception. This will be very difficult to do.

If you insist it has a soul at conception, they will ask about identical twins. How many souls exist at conception? If you say there is one, they will point out that the second soul comes into being well after conception, so your principle is flawed. If you say two, they will ask if human persons can have multiple souls. Good luck with that one.

Lacking a definitive Church teaching on the soul, they will ask what a person is, and is an immortal soul a requirement for a person. If you say yes, they will point out that you have no basis even in your own Church to claim a fertilized cell has a soul. Then they will ask what is wrong with ending the life of something that is not a person because it has no soul.
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I don’t bring up religion, like I said before. But since you did, I will give the answer that Robert Sungenis gave. Even if there were not an infused soul at the moment of conception, God still plans to infuse the being with a soul so if you killed it you would then be interfering in God’s plan of ensoulment.
Hortense said:
There really is no argument that will work. The basis of the disagreement is difference in assumptions that each side makes, and these are assumptions that cannot be demonstrated. One side says a single cell is a person. the other says it isn’t. Science tells us nothing about this.
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Science absolutely tells us about it. Pick up a book and read it. I am so sick of people saying that “we don’t know” for sure if it’s a life or if it’s a person. We do.
Hortense said:
The fall back for anti-abortion people is an appeal to human rights. The opposition will ask for a demonstration that these exist. You can’t do it without introducing asusmptions they do not hold.
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Fall back? Not so. That is simply the next step in the argument. If an unborn child is a human, then it has human rights. Not a fall back at all.

In Christ,
Rand
 
Koopa said:
Also, could someone educate me in my ignorance? Do cells and stuff stop working instantaneously at brain death, or is their stoppage just imminent? Thanks.
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Other bodily functions continue to work for a short period of time. rough estimate ~5 minutes, but varies under different conditions. They were actually capable of keeping a pregnant woman who had died (complete brain death, not just lost of cerebral activity), on life support, for several months in order to keep the baby alive. It ended up that the baby was still born premature, lived for a little while, but unfortunately still died. The point though, is they kept bodily function going artificially. The natural course of action though would be the end of all bodily function within minutes.
 
I feel the pro-aborts have muddied the water and made things vague - we need help!
 
bobolink said:
i did skim read it. but it’s so long, how could i summarise it and a link to a page with the word catholic on it would not impress them?
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Use this link instead:

peterkreeft.com/topics-more/personhood_apple.htm

Use this as your summary:
I will try to prove the simple, common-sensical reasonableness of the pro-life case by a sort of Socratic logic. My conclusion is that Roe v. Wade must be overturned, and my fundamental reason for this is not only because of what abortion is but because we all know what abortion is.
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This is obviously a controversial conclusion, and initially unacceptable to all pro-choicers. So, my starting point must be noncontroversial. It is this: We know what an apple is. I will try to persuade you that if we know what an apple is, Roe v. Wade must be overthrown, and that if you want to defend Roe, you will probably want to deny that we know what an apple is.
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