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VanitasVanitatum
Guest
Even those parts have protection.
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Kei
Guest
The egg and sperm are only living in the sense a cell is living in the body. I mean the start of a new life, that of another human being.
Do you accept that killing the new life is then immoral after fertilization?
Before I was born, I didn’t exist. There was nothing to remember. After death, the immaterial which does not decay as the material does will continue to exist, and be judged at the general judgement, where the soul will get either a taste of Hell, Heaven, and/or purgatory. At the Final Judgment there shall be the Resurrection of the body, which shall be a glorious reunion for some but a lamentable hatred and sadness for others. At which point, you will either be rewarded with the glories of God or “rewarded” with what is surely due, that of eternal damnation.
You can hope that you shall he annihilated instead of facing this most certain of judgments, but such a hope is in vain and shall be shown unfounded.
It is incredibly telling and very notable that you call the right to life a “supposed” right, while you do not call a women’s right to control her body as a supposed right. This is very demonstrative of unclear and dubious thinking. A woman’s “right to choose”, if it exists, would only exist because she herself was not killed. Otherwise, she would have no choice to make. The rights propounded by enlightenment thinkers included life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Life is the basis for all other rights; they cannot exist unless this first right to life is there. The inconvenience is minor when compared to murder. It is not even a question. The murder can even then cause much worse stress on the person who will have to live with themselves afterwards, as it happens to many mothers stripped of their children by the hands of men.
The decision to have children or not is something to think about before becoming sexually active, not after becoming pregnant.
I seriously, sincerely hope you do.
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Vonsalza
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Eh, not entirely. Again, I don’t consider it a person apart from its mother until birth.
What I do know is that forcing a woman to endure pregnancy against her will is immoral.
That was my point. Hence the quotation marks around “remember”.
Many believe that such a state is what you return to.
I’m not an annihilationist. I was just pointing out that “what happens next” is anyone’s guess. We use religious philosophy as a stand-in for certainty, but there are many religions.
Ergo I’d avoid dichotomies on the issue.
Sure. She lives and breathes. She exercises self determination and bodily autonomy. We know, as well as we can “know” a philosophical concept, that she is a “person”.
A fetus enjoys no such benefit. It is not bodily autonomous. It has no self determination. It is not a person, particularly a person-apart-from mother, at least in any meaningful way.
Oh, I certainly agree that most mothers bear some culpability for landing themselves in an unwanted pregnancy. Sure.
I’m merely saying, correctly, that this fact does not automatically force her to complete the pregnancy - particularly as pregnancy is nearly always damaging to the female body and occasionally lethal for the mother - even in the US.
Separate question, I’m afraid.
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Kei
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Is the birth canal so special so as to imbue the child with manhood? Humans can’t give birth to anything other than humans in the natural order. Lots of babies can and do come out prior to the birth, with the c section. Is a baby “born” through c section also entitled to personhood, or does it have to wait until the mother would have been due? Does the location of the child determine its personhood? Why can I kill a child, tearing it out limb from limb, a moment before but not after pregnancy? A newborn baby doesn’t exercise much freedom since he or she is too young to make decisions. The baby will still be dependent upon the mother for a long time.
That doesn’t make sense. I didn’t have anything to remember prior to being given life. Now I have much to remember and an immaterial soul that won’t decay. It is a cause for holy terror.
The fact of many religions doesn’t mean anything. Nor does the fact that many also teach that the soul will go to hell or heaven really matter. Even if the teaching of Hell wasn’t a nearly pancultural phenomena, which it is, it wouldn’t matter. There can be many wrong answers in a math classroom, but only one fully correct one. The man who rose from the dead and who is the Word of God has informed us of what happens, and guards it in His Church.
One may not want to think of this truth of our sure and certain Judgment, because it would then perhaps fill him with a holy terror and make him actually want to do the good and not the bad, but such a thing is against the worldly man’s master, who cannot have that, lest many souls may be better for it.
Why does an infant enjoy the protection of life if it also has no self determination or meaningful will until he or she develops?
Perhaps you are unaware of what I refer to when I speak or the right to life. In America, the founders signed a document called the declaration of independence. In this document, it is outlined that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are “inalienable rights” endowed by the Creator to all men. A right is not dependent upon any ability of a man but is inherent within his existence as man. Hence, a man who has issues so as to be severely handicapped mentally, physically, or both still enjoys all the same rights as you or me.
What you are doing is trying to make a right dependent upon some ability of a man, or trying to weasel out of it by declaring a child as not a “person” unless it fits whatever you then make of it.
The sufferings of a normal pregnancy are incomparable to the life within.
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Vonsalza
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Well, no. Womanhood is also an option…
But to the point, the birth canal is the route through which the fetus goes to become identifiably separate from its mother. It is no longer dependent on her body - and thus her agency - for its survival.
At that point, any one else can care for the child. It is a separate thing.
Because until birth it is dependent on the body of the mother and thus subject to her agency as part of her body.
As I’ve said a few times, the pro-life position requires the deliberate ignoring of the woman and the risks to her that pregnancy brings.
This is not acceptable.
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Kei
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But someone must care for the child. A child is already a separate life within the mother before he or she is birthed and could survive if separated from the mother. In fact, the point at which a baby can survive separated from the mother has grown increasingly farther away from the natural due date with increases in technology.
The baby is dependent upon the mother, but the baby is NOT part of her body. This is clear and obvious.
As moral agents, we can think about moral choices. Upon thinking about moral choices, the one of sound mind realizes that not all things are equal. If I steal 2 cents it is quite different from killing a family. We don’t ignore the mother, but recognize that the inalienable right to life, to living, is of much greater importance than what is comparably slight discomfort for a period of time.
When protecting the mother’s life, a baby’s is jeopardized, this is still licit with the aim being the protection of the mother.
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Sbee0
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Irrelevant. They’re cells…not a unique human life. Human life begins at conception. Cell Life begins at meiosis. Science 101.
A pregnant woman represents two human lives, not one. A man producing sperm represents one life.
Many prochoicers equate an unborn child/fetus with tissue or a clump of cells and they are completely wrong in every possible way. Period.
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Vonsalza
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Sure. And that someone can be literally anyone. In the US you can drop them off at a police station in most jurisdictions.
What’s important to distinguish is at that point the child is no longer part of the mother. The peril of pregnancy that the mother must endure to have the child has been endured. It’s over.
The child is here and a separate person.
The baby is dependent on somebody, but not necessarily her. Anyone can buy formula and shake up a bottle.
Sure. The main difference between us is that while you allow the life of the fetus to be jeopardized in the face of realized extreme peril for the mother, I allow the life of the fetus to be jeopardized in the face of possible peril.
I don’t make the woman carry it. I have no right to.
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Vonsalza
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While I’ve never attended “Science 101”, my college education required two courses in biology to supplement what I was taught in highschool.
According to biology, there is no unique genetic material apart from mom’s and dad’s for at least 12 hours after sperm-meets-egg.
As a man is free to exercise bodily autonomy and self-determination, so too must a woman be free to do the same.
This is not a request. This is a fundamental demand.
But they’re right in that a woman should have control over her body every minute of every day.
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Sbee0
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Human life begins when conception occurs. Not after. That’s a scientific fact. It’s fun to debate opinions but it seems kinda pointless to me to debate what is fact.Sbee0:
While I’ve never attended “Science 101”, my college education required two courses in biology to supplement what I was taught in highschool.
According to biology, there is no unique genetic material apart from mom’s and dad’s for at least 12 hours after sperm-meets-egg.
Also I doubt many women if any at all even know they are pregnant 12 hours from conception. Is there even a test out there to show pregnancy at that early stage? I’ve never heard of one. They certainly wouldn’t be in a clinic looking to abort at that time. So even if prochoicers are correct (they are not, but for arguments sake) that life begins at say 12 hours after conception it’s completely irrelevant and moot with respect to this debate anyway.
Argumentum non sequitur.
Even if the pro life movement completely has their way, she always will.
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Elf01
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Just out of interest what if that was not the case. Would it be OK to kill a born child then?
Covers all bar the morning after pill. It would be a good start.
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Vonsalza
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If your life began when your DNA existed then it didn’t begin until roughly 12 hours after conception. Prior to that, there is no biological material within that cannot be clearly traced to mom or dad.Human life begins when conception occurs. Not after. That’s a scientific fact. It’s fun to debate opinions but it seems kinda pointless to me to debate what is fact.
Science doesn’t involve itself in philosophical debates, Sbee0. It only sticks with what can be observed.
Just lodging a gentle, science and reason based objection to the notion of life beginning at conception. It’s a bit after, actually.
But that doesn’t sound as clear and authoritative, right? It doesn’t “sell” as well as the monolithic “Life begins at conception!”, even if it’s more true.
Don’t you wish?
P: Fetal development requires a woman’s body
P: A woman has sole control over her body
C: A woman has sole control over fetal development
If you can’t see the logical connection then we might be wasting our time discussing it.
Unless, of course, she’s pregnant and doesn’t want to be.
Control lost in that case, right?
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Sbee0
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That’s right. That’s why the concept of personhood and when that starts falls flat on its face in this debate. As it should. There is no such thing as personhood other than what we say it is, hence it is problematic to bring that here.Sbee0:
If your life began when your DNA existed then it didn’t begin until roughly 12 hours after conception. Prior to that, there is no biological material within that cannot be clearly traced to mom or dad.Human life begins when conception occurs. Not after. That’s a scientific fact. It’s fun to debate opinions but it seems kinda pointless to me to debate what is fact.
Science doesn’t involve itself in philosophical debates, Sbee0. It only sticks with what can be observed.
On the other hand it’s not a philosophical question that human life begins at conception. Every inherent and programmed behavior is there to make it so. It’s a scientific certainty and a fact.
No…actually human life does begin at conception. It easily shoots down the “clump of cells” or “tissue” lines that prochoicers love to use.
And like I said the 12 hour thing is not relevant here, as nobody is looking for an abortion at that stage.
I was (rightly) calling out the comparison that common cells like sperm are like human beings once conception occurs. False. The non sequitur I also called out was taking my statement that a man and his sperm is only one life, while a pregnant woman is two lives - both correct and factual statements - and turning it into a comparison of men and women and controlling their bodies. The latter doesn’t really follow from the former.
Your C is actually incorrect and does not follow at all from P1+P2, but for arguments sake - even if you take C it still would be fallacious to conclude C2 that a fetus is a part of the woman’s body like any other.
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Kei
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So much emphasis on the peril of pregnancy. Most pregnancies go over just fine. A truly perilous pregnancy is a relatively uncokmon thing. Successful abortions, though, they always put the baby in mortal peril.
You seem to act like a child like he or she is a cancerous tumor. “Part of the mother”. She or he is a distinct human being. Dependency upon=/=the same as or a part of.
You seem to act like a child like he or she is a cancerous tumor. “Part of the mother”. She or he is a distinct human being. Dependency upon=/=the same as or a part of.
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Vonsalza
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All pregnancy is perilous because, at best, a mother’s body is changed for life.
My wife had three and they were all great pregnancies but she suffers from mild incontinence.
My mom had 7 and grandmother 15. I’m not going to mention again the horrors they’ve dealt with that came about just from having kids.
Regardless, maternal mortality is rising in the US.
We would agree in other environs that something with an observable chance of death should only be continued with explicit consent of all involved that can give consent.
My wife had three and they were all great pregnancies but she suffers from mild incontinence.
My mom had 7 and grandmother 15. I’m not going to mention again the horrors they’ve dealt with that came about just from having kids.
Regardless, maternal mortality is rising in the US.
We would agree in other environs that something with an observable chance of death should only be continued with explicit consent of all involved that can give consent.
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Kei
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Mild incontinence issues are not comparable to ending life before it really gets a chance to begin. My own mother only still has some stretch marks. These are not perilous issues like abortion is, which literally kills the child.
The mother is to consent to having a child when she has intercourse…reproductive organs…reproduce.
Do you get consent of the child before you kill it in the womb? Or no?
The chance of death is slight, especially compared to leading causes of death like accidents.
The mother is to consent to having a child when she has intercourse…reproductive organs…reproduce.
Do you get consent of the child before you kill it in the womb? Or no?
The chance of death is slight, especially compared to leading causes of death like accidents.
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JimG
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A woman does not control the development of the fetus. It is the fetus itself which orchestrates the events of embryogenesis. From conception, even before the genetic materials are combined, the zygote begins the process of development to birth and beyond. First the fertilized ovum changes its exterior membrane to prevent penetration by any other sperm cell. The process of embryogenesis then goes forward, controlled by the embryo, not the mother.
Perhaps the question should be settled by a legal process. Before having sex with any man, a woman should produce a document to be signed by both parties stating that in the event a child should be conceived, the woman reserves the right to keep or to kill the child, at any point up to birth, at her sole discretion. Both parties will be provided a notarized copy. The child who might be conceived, unfortunately has no rights as to whether he or she lives or dies. Such an agreement would, I suppose have to be adjudicated, perhaps by the SCOTUS. I hope that in such a case the child would have an advocate to file an amicus curiae brief on his or her behalf.
Perhaps the question should be settled by a legal process. Before having sex with any man, a woman should produce a document to be signed by both parties stating that in the event a child should be conceived, the woman reserves the right to keep or to kill the child, at any point up to birth, at her sole discretion. Both parties will be provided a notarized copy. The child who might be conceived, unfortunately has no rights as to whether he or she lives or dies. Such an agreement would, I suppose have to be adjudicated, perhaps by the SCOTUS. I hope that in such a case the child would have an advocate to file an amicus curiae brief on his or her behalf.
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goout
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If nothing else, your “arguments” demonstrate the dead end of this thinking. When confronted with science and reason, the appeal is to raw power, because reason has escaped you:
Did you think about that?
Every living human being has “an observable chance of death”, in fact every human being will die. Slight oversight on your part. And none of us arrogates the time or circumstances of our death. (cue the ode to suicide now…)
Life is so inconvenient.
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Vonsalza
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Who makes that call?
What if it’s vaginal prolapse? That’s extremely common for women who have had a large number of births.
Incorrect. The mother consents to intercourse when she has intercourse.
Reproductive organs reproduce roughly 20% of the time if no precautionary measure is taken. So my guess is that sexual contact is occurring for other reasons.
It’s unable to give consent either way. For example, a 27 year old man in India sued his parents for giving birth to him.
What’s certain beyond doubt is that neither you nor I get to speak for it.
Amen. So if they’re chancing death, let’s let the ladies make the choice as to what to do with their bodies.
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MamaJewel
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Who is anyone to say what is acceptable damage to another humans body, especially when body that is being used directly for the benefit of another human? So a woman has to give up the right to her life so another has the chance to begin life?
I’ve been through pregnancies that made me so anemic that it increased my hemorrhage risk. And that anemia didn’t just go away with pregnancy, it continue well-beyond the post-partum time frame. I walked around like a zombie.
And we don’t buy the consent to sex = consent to pregnancy concept anymore. Women can get pregnancy 96 hours out of a month (and that’s being generous with the time frame). Whereas men can get a woman pregnant anytime, if they have a sperm count. Put the onus on the man to avoid getting a woman pregnant then.
As a woman who went through the suffering I did to bring new life into the world, I can unequivocally say (for me) right to life and bodily autonomy (integrity) are inseparable. They are practically the same right. I don’t live without my body being intact.
And I don’t believe that consent to sex equals consent to pregnancy.
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