Non-Catholic religions and abortion

[AgnosTheist]

We are dealing with the First Precept.

I undertake the precept to refrain from taking a life.

If the mother will die without treatment, the mother cannot willingly refuse treatment that will definitely save her life but might risk the baby’s because then she would be committing suicide. Suicide is killing and against the First Precept.

If the situation is reversed, the mother may take substantial risk to her life to save the life of the baby short of intentionally killing herself. If the mother died because of those efforts, she would not be in breach of the First Precept against suicide.

I realize this is subtle but in both instances intention is the key. The intention must be that no one is purposely killed.

thats a good answer. is ‘first precept’ very important in buddhism? what about those monks who burned themselves as a form of protest?

ok if the dying woman is unconscious and unable to make a decision, and that decision had been given to you as her next of kin, what would you do?

 

[Jennifer123]

the core argument is personhood. i dont believe i’ve heard your opinion on this yet. is a zygote a person? what is a person for you?

A human zygote is an embryo. An embryo is a human being. A human being is a person. I haven’t met a person who wasn’t a human being.

well not purely. memory, feelings & awareness are facts, not philosophies. the word ‘mind’ simply points to all these things.

No, the science is clear. An embryo is a human being. It has 46 chromosomes and distinct, unique, individual DNA. “Fertilized egg” has no meaning because at the point of conception, the egg ceases to exist.
Specific criteria to determine personhood is purely theoretical and arbitrary.
Infants can not make memories. They are human beings. Are they not persons? It was once thought that autistics could not feel or produce feelings. They are human beings. Were they once not persons? Infants do not posess self-awareness. They are human beings. Are they again not persons?

like i said, i dont really define personhood as consciousness. and i already said a dependent coma patient is still a person as long as there are thought patterns.

What determines consciousness?

no i’m not aware of that. can you show me source for that?

lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_09cloninghuman1.html
Tha man’s name is Richard Frey.

 

[jmcrae]

For those who had regrets, a wrong was done.

For those with no regrets, no wrong was done.

Either a wrong was done, or it was not. We can’t have it both ways.

 

[notself]

thats a good answer. is ‘first precept’ very important in buddhism? what about those monks who burned themselves as a form of protest?

ok if the dying woman is unconscious and unable to make a decision, and that decision had been given to you as her next of kin, what would you do?

Ah, the Burning Monk. For those of you too young to remember Viet Nam. Seven monks set fire to themselves in protest to the Diem regime which was persecuting the Buddhist majority of Viet Nam.

Here is a link. vietnampix.com/fire1.htm

They sat completely immoble while the fire consumed them. It is quite amazing to consider even to this day. Photographs were taken from many angles and none of these men moved a muscle.

These monks were considered aharants, fully enlightened, because of the very nature of their deaths. When one reaches the stage of full enlightenment it is impossible to perform an unskillful act. Therefore the act of suicide which is a breach of the First Precept for the average person does not apply to an arahant. This is one POV.

Others say that these monks were heroic in their actions but still breached the precept and will have a negative karmic result. They may spend some time in the Hell realms before being reborn again in a higher realm. Since the workings of karma cannot be determined, either opinion or neither opinion may be the true one. I am still impressed by their courage and meditative accomplishment.

Second question:

I would make certain as much as possible that every effort would be expended to save both lives. Sometimes doctors need to be kicked in the pants to look outside the box of their own assumptions.They really need to be told to make the effort to save both.

Too bad there aren’t Buddhist hospitals in this country. In Thailand at a Buddhist Hospital, the effort would be made as a matter of course. I assume it would be the same at a Catholic Hospital.

 

[hasikelee]

*agnostheist: i use science to back up my argument that embryos dont have a functioning brain that can host a mind. i repeatedly told you that the answer to your question is ethical, not scientific.

the ultimate decision falls upon each pregnant woman. i can only agree or disagree with what they want.*

I’m sure in the large amount of posts mine got lost.
Before you can argue on a scientific level you need to define your use of the word “mind” then you must prove that it can be accurately used in a scientific application of the abortion debate.
Also, if your argument is purely scientific, your opinion that the pregnant mother must choose is irrelevant to your argument.

 

[jmcrae]

There are children born without brains. Rarely, they live - a few years ago, I was made aware of a seven year old girl who was born without a brain. She does, however, have a mind - she behaves quite normally - speaking, walking, interacting with others in a very ordinary way. How this comes to be is unknown. It is also unknown how long she will live - it is not expected that she will live to become an adult.

But her case shows that it is not true that one requires a brain, in order to have a mind.

 

[brother_dan_mac]

There are children born without brains. Rarely, they live - a few years ago, I was made aware of a seven year old girl who was born without a brain. She does, however, have a mind - she behaves quite normally - speaking, walking, interacting with others in a very ordinary way. How this comes to be is unknown. It is also unknown how long she will live - it is not expected that she will live to become an adult.

But her case shows that it is not true that one requires a brain, in order to have a mind.

That blows my mind!! tell me more,please?

 

[Grace_Angel]

Reading through these posts, it makes me seriously glad that we have the Church to act as a beacon of truth in the defense of human dignity. Without it, our own subjective morality reigns. The relativist garbage some religions propose is stunning.

Thank you Dauphin for these beautiful words and I agree with you. The reason the Church is the beacon pointing to Truth is because Jesus Christ is the beacon and the truth that it points to.
We are guaranteed the Truth. We were promised the Truth. We were promised the hell would never prevail against it and indeed throughout the generations hell has not prevailed. Little demons hav e nipped at her garment but hades has not prevailled and will not prevail.
We are blessed in Our Lord and His promises.
God Bless
GraceAngel.

 

[notself]

There are children born without brains. Rarely, they live - a few years ago, I was made aware of a seven year old girl who was born without a brain. She does, however, have a mind - she behaves quite normally - speaking, walking, interacting with others in a very ordinary way. How this comes to be is unknown. It is also unknown how long she will live - it is not expected that she will live to become an adult.

But her case shows that it is not true that one requires a brain, in order to have a mind.

As I remember it, the girl had a thin layer of gray matter cells. I can’t find the article but there was some sort of layer as well as the much of what some consider the primative brain, although there is nothing primative about it.

Do you have a source?

 

[jmcrae]

As I remember it, the girl had a thin layer of gray matter cells. I can’t find the article but there was some sort of layer as well as the much of what some consider the primative brain, although there is nothing primative about it.

Do you have a source?

Not any more, unfortunately.

 

[st_lucy]

As I remember it, the girl had a thin layer of gray matter cells. I can’t find the article but there was some sort of layer as well as the much of what some consider the primative brain, although there is nothing primative about it.

Do you have a source?

I went and googled this and found this site that has a whole list of things that people have done without a head. It is really bizzar and sad.

wintersteel.homestead.com/Life_Without_Brain.html

Here is a piece about a child being born without a brain in 1935:

There are documents describing instances when a human body could wonderfully do without brain. A baby was born in the New York hospital of Saint Vincent in 1935; he did all things that babies usually do: slept, ate and even cried. When the baby died, doctors were surprised with the results of autopsy: there was no brain inside the cranium. The incredible instance was registered as a scientific mystery.

Here is another of a 14 yr old boy without a brain;

In 1940, a 14-year-old boy was delivered to a Bolivian hospital of Nikolay Ortiz, his diagnose was brain-growth. The patient complained of severe headache that became especially painful in the evening. Soon the boy died, and doctors even had no time to perform an operation on him. What doctors discovered after the dissection wasn’t certainly human brain. A giant abscess filled almost the whole of the cranium, which made doctors hesitate whether the medical science was precise at all.

 

[notself]

I wish we could find the article about the girl. It was a fairly recent occurrence and was validated by Western science. She did die at a young age. I’ll keep looking.

There is also an article that I read recently about the brain stem containing more mental activity than was previously thought. I’ll keep looking for that as well.

The story about the monk is interesting but I think it may have been added to over the years.

The important thing to get out of all this is the mind is really an aggregate of things and is not a thing in itself. To have life there must be:

Form
Feeling
Perception
Mental Formations
Consciousness.

These five things make up the definition of life.

In the link I previously provided, there is this description of the very early stages of the embryo. This description of the blastocele fulfills all of the elements above. The blastocele is clearly interacting with and modifying her/his environment. Clearly the blastocele is active and is to a significant extent influencing if not out right controling the responses of the uterus.

5-6 days post ovulation
The pressure of the blastocele expanding in the middle of the blastocyst against the rigid wall of the zona pellucida, creates “hatching” of the blastocyst from the zona around the sixth day after fertilization.

As the blastocyst enters the uterus free from the zona, the outer layer of trophoblast cells secrete an enzyme to erode the epithelial lining of the uterus and allow the blastocyst to implant.

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is also secreted by the trophoblast cells stimulating the corpus luteum to continue progesterone production. Progesterone maintains the blood rich lining of the uterus. Endometrial glands in the uterus had already begun to enlarge in response to the progesterone stimulated to release by the corpus luteum (“yellow body”) which once surrounded the egg as it grew in the ovary almost six days prior.

The uterus is therefore swollen with new blood capillaries and the circulation between mother and blastocyst begins, a process needed for the continuation of pregnancy.

 

[st_lucy]

I wish we could find the article about the girl. It was a fairly recent occurrence and was validated by Western science. She did die at a young age. I’ll keep looking.

There is also an article that I read recently about the brain stem containing more mental activity than was previously thought. I’ll keep looking for that as well.

The story about the monk is interesting but I think it may have been added to over the years.

The important thing to get out of all this is the mind is really an aggregate of things and is not a thing in itself. To have life there must be:

Form
Feeling
Perception
Mental Formations
Consciousness.

These five things make up the definition of life.

In the link I previously provided, there is this description of the very early stages of the embryo. This description of the blastocele fulfills all of the elements above. The blastocele is clearly interacting with and modifying her/his environment. Clearly the blastocele is active and is to a significant extent influencing if not out right controling the responses of the uterus.

Here is a story of a Frenchman who has lived and is living his life without a brain.

english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/25-07-2007/95241-no_brain-0

It is rather amazing.

 

[dove51]

I thought it was okay in Catholicism to have an abortion if the mother was in danger of dying. It’s not? Sorry if I’m wrong in my thinking, I thought it would be better to save 1 life than let 2 go.

 

[st_lucy]

I thought it was okay in Catholicism to have an abortion if the mother was in danger of dying. It’s not? Sorry if I’m wrong in my thinking, I thought it would be better to save 1 life than let 2 go.

Its never okay to kill. In the very rare case of the mothers life being in danger, what is done is a procedure where the tube that is endangering the mother is removed, in which case the baby will die. But the intent is not to kill the baby.

Hopefully in the future there may be away that the dr can place the baby in the uterus after the removal of the tube.

But as stated before this is not very come, but sadly it does happen.

 

[notself]

Here is a story of a Frenchman who has lived and is living his life without a brain.

english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/25-07-2007/95241-no_brain-0

It is rather amazing.

I think this is one of the stories that I had read from an American source. Note that the gentleman still had white and gray matter although in the article I read it was described as a thin layer rather than being crushed. This layer is what gave him the capacity for higher function. I am amazed he functioned at an IQ 75 level.

 

[notself]

Its never okay to kill. In the very rare case of the mothers life being in danger, what is done is a procedure where the tube that is endangering the mother is removed, in which case the baby will die. But the intent is not to kill the baby.

Hopefully in the future there may be away that the dr can place the baby in the uterus after the removal of the tube.

But as stated before this is not very come, but sadly it does happen.

Yes, in the case of a fallopian tube pregnancy, the death of the baby will occur whether action is taken to save the life of the mother or whether nothing is done.

 

[blacktiger057]

If your child wasn’t always a person - what was he/she?
You’re not a baby anymore. I presume you’re an adult - who grew and changed.
The Church doesn’t look the same as it did when it started - it grew.
The United States doesn’t look like it did before because it matured and grew.
You can’t have it both ways, Agnos. Either a person is a person from conception or it will never be a person. Just as a chicken’s egg that has not gone to full term contains a chicken - not a goat.
This is plight of those trapped in the flawed and convoluted ideas of moral relativism.
**Like the bumper sticker says, *“If it’s not ***a baby - you’re not pregnant!”

No, it depends on how you define what a person is.

An embryo has no personality, no ideas, hardly even thinks. It literally does not know anything, or even feel much, if at all. Yes, it is alive. But, at an embryotic stage, it simply is. It has no purpose as of yet. It is just alive, and that is it. So just because they are alive does not mean that they are really a real person. That is just my reasoning…I know some will agree and others won’t.

I think that women should be given a choice if they want a child or not. If you want to keep the baby, great! If you don’t, that is fine too! As I said, my opinion.

 

[church_mouse]

blacktiger057;2814817]No, it depends on how you define what a person is.

An embryo has no personality, no ideas, hardly even thinks. It literally does not know anything, or even feel much, if at all. Yes, it is alive.

A “person” is a human being. If an embryo is not a human being then what is it? Do you condone killing someone in a coma who

has no personality, no ideas, hardly even thinks. It literally does not know anything, or even feel much, if at all. Yes, it is alive.

 

[st_lucy]

No, it depends on how you define what a person is.

An embryo has no personality, no ideas, hardly even thinks. It literally does not know anything, or even feel much, if at all. Yes, it is alive. But, at an embryotic stage, it simply is. It has no purpose as of yet. It is just alive, and that is it. So just because they are alive does not mean that they are really a real person. That is just my reasoning…I know some will agree and others won’t.

I think that women should be given a choice if they want a child or not. If you want to keep the baby, great! If you don’t, that is fine too! As I said, my opinion.

And what do you think the baby wants?

Why is it okay to kill someone who has done absolutly nothing to you?

You stated that it is alive. So why would it be okay to kill a human baby but not okay to kill an animal. It really boggles me that an animal would have more rights than a child. If it is alive than it would reason to say that alive being deserves to live.