Rational Abortion Support

[Genesis315]

Tlaloc:

possibly, it’s really off the topic though and I’m having enough problems just clarifying the actual topic at hand so i’d rather not wander to far afield.

Depends on your personal definition of human. That’s the point. Homo sapiens is a soul less biological term. Human is not. Its a term rich with individual meaning.

I don’t honestly know that I’m using organism in the strictest scientific meaning. Do you have one?

It’s not reallt off topic since the crux of this argument is what a human bring is.

see, since you say human is so subjective, how can we have a rational argument. We both agree that an innocent human should not be killed. But, for legalized abortion, we need an objective definition. See, I might say you are not human based on my subjective definition of human, so killing you is fine. Likewise, you say an embryo or fetus is not human according to your subjective definition. That’s why, to make this argument reasonable, we need to define what a human being is.

I will say, i have been impressed with your consistency (if not shocked at some of the statements). I’m not sure if there are manyrreasonable people out there who would have said the one adult could have the other dependent one just cut off and killed.

I suggested we use homo sapiens as our definition to avoid the subjectivity. But, you have shown that you do not think the siamese twin is human. Would he have been a homo sapiens? If so, i do not see the diffence between him and the fetus. Since you seem to be for killing innocent homo sapiens in that instance, I’ll leave it at that. I no longer think those statements are reasonable.

Give me an objective definition of a human (or at least your subjective definition).

 

[OhioBob]

Tlaloc:

I’d agree with her that the decision shouldn’t be automatic. I don’t agree with her that removing an extra head from a child is unethical per se.

This is slightly off topic, but not much (since it gets to the whole organism-human-life thing). In the case of conjoined twins, where both are conscious, fully functioning, lucid individuals sharing a single physiological system in some way (heart, lungs, etc.), how many “human lives” are there? One or two?

Is life defined by the intangible; the spirit, the conscience, the mind? Or is life defined by the tangible physiological meat; the heart, the lungs, the organs?

If it’s the former, doesn’t that affect the discussion about whether a fetus is a human life since we don’t know when that intangible spark starts (although we know that are detectable around 13 weeks)?

If it’s the latter, do people cease to be human when their physiological systems fail?

Deep. I need a beer.

 

[Tlaloc]

Genesis315:

It’s not reallt off topic since the crux of this argument is what a human bring is.

You may be right, still it seems at best a very special and unusual case to spend so much time over.

see, since you say human is so subjective, how can we have a rational argument.

The point was to show that:
A) our definition of human is subjective
B) our definition of murder is based on our definition of human

Once you get that then it’s easy to see how a person with a different definition of “human” can reach a very different (but still logical) conclusion about whether abortion is murder or not. That’s the entire point of the thread.

I suggested we use homo sapiens as our definition to avoid the subjectivity. But, you have shown that you do not think the siamese twin is human. Would he have been a homo sapiens? If so, i do not see the diffence between him and the fetus.

the two twins together would be human. Whether they’d count as one or two homo sapiens i’m not sure, I’d have to see the rigorous definition.

 

[OhioBob]

Tlaloc:

I’d agree with her that the decision shouldn’t be automatic. I don’t agree with her that removing an extra head from a child is unethical per se.

This is slightly off topic, but not much (since it gets to the whole organism-human-life thing). In the case of conjoined twins, where both are conscious, fully functioning, lucid individuals sharing a single physiological system in some way (heart, lungs, etc.), how many “human lives” are there? One or two?

Is life defined by the intangible; the spirit, the conscience, the mind? Or is life defined by the tangible physiological meat; the heart, the lungs, the organs?

If it’s the former, doesn’t that affect the discussion about whether a fetus is a human life since we don’t know when that intangible spark starts (although we know that are detectable around 13 weeks)?

If it’s the latter, do people cease to be human when their physiological systems fail?

Deep. I need a beer.

 

[OhioBob]

Tlaloc:

I’d agree with her that the decision shouldn’t be automatic. I don’t agree with her that removing an extra head from a child is unethical per se.

This is slightly off topic, but not much (since it gets to the whole organism-human-life thing). In the case of conjoined twins, where both are conscious, fully functioning, lucid individuals sharing a single physiological system in some way (heart, lungs, etc.), how many “human lives” are there? One or two?

Is life defined by the intangible; the spirit, the conscience, the mind? If so, there are two lives.

Or is life defined by the tangible physiological meat; the heart, the lungs, the organs? If so there is only one life (albeit with an “extra” head)

If it’s the former, doesn’t that affect the discussion about whether a fetus is a human life since we don’t know when that intangible spark starts (although we know that brain waves are detectable around 13 weeks)?

If it’s the latter, do people cease to be human when their physiological systems fail?

Deep. I need a beer.

 

[Tlaloc]

Genesis315:

It’s not reallt off topic since the crux of this argument is what a human bring is.

You may be right, still it seems at best a very special and unusual case to spend so much time over.

see, since you say human is so subjective, how can we have a rational argument.

The point was to show that:
A) our definition of human is subjective
B) our definition of murder is based on our definition of human

Once you get that then it’s easy to see how a person with a different definition of “human” can reach a very different (but still logical) conclusion about whether abortion is murder or not. That’s the entire point of the thread.

I suggested we use homo sapiens as our definition to avoid the subjectivity. But, you have shown that you do not think the siamese twin is human. Would he have been a homo sapiens? If so, i do not see the diffence between him and the fetus.

the two twins together would be human. Whether they’d count as one or two homo sapiens i’m not sure, I’d have to see the rigorous definition.

 

[MaggieOH]

Tlaloc:

no it wouldn’t because I don’t agree that it is separate. Can we focus on that?

Just because you do not agree that life begins at the moment of conception and that the child that is being created is an individual does not mean that you are correct.

MaggieOH

distinct how exactly?

 

[OhioBob]

Tlaloc:

The point was to show that:
A) our definition of human is subjective and

No, your definition of human is subjective and seems to rely upon a variety of factors . My definition is objective, based upon a single event - conception. You might not agree with it, but you can’t say that it’s subjective.

Tlaloc:

B) our definition of murder is based on our definition of human

That indeed is the whole point of this thread.

Tlaloc:

Once you get that then it’s easy to see how a person with a different definition of “human” can reach a very different (but still logical) conclusion about whether abortion is murder or not.

No one is arguing that your subjective definition of human has led you to a different conclusion about whether abortion is murder. The argument is whether that conclusion is correct.

 

[OhioBob]

Tlaloc:

The point was to show that:
A) our definition of human is subjective and

No, your definition of human is subjective and seems to rely upon a variety of factors . My definition is objective, based upon a single event - conception. You might not agree with it, but you can’t say that it’s subjective.

Tlaloc:

B) our definition of murder is based on our definition of human

That indeed is the whole point of this thread.

Tlaloc:

Once you get that then it’s easy to see how a person with a different definition of “human” can reach a very different (but still logical) conclusion about whether abortion is murder or not.

No one is arguing that your subjective definition of human has led you to a different conclusion about whether abortion is murder. The argument is whether that conclusion is correct.

 

[BlindSheep]

Tlaloc:

How is the process of fertilization more of an intrusion than, say, the process of implantaion (without which a zygote will not become a baby)? Or the process of providing oxygen to said zygote (without which the zygote will not become a baby). Or the process of providing food to said zygote (without which the zygote will not become a baby). Or…

Its a huge long string of processes. You’ve arbitrarily chosen one as more significant than the others. Without any of them the zygote does not become a baby.

Implantation isn’t an external intervention which changes the zygote. It is what the zygote itself does in order to obtain nutrition, without which **no **human being of any age can continue to live and grow. Just as food doesn’t change a child into something else, but merely keeps the child alive long enough to grow up, it cannot change the zygote.
Again, if you provide only oxygen and nourishment to a skin cell or ovum for nine months, you will not end up with a baby. Also, no matter how much I eat, I won’t turn into two people. So clearly food does not have the ability to turn human tissue into an individual human entity, as fertilization and cloning do.

 

[martino]

Tlaloc:

How is the process of fertilization more of an intrusion than, say, the process of implantaion (without which a zygote will not become a baby)? Or the process of providing oxygen to said zygote (without which the zygote will not become a baby). Or the process of providing food to said zygote (without which the zygote will not become a baby). Or…

Its a huge long string of processes. You’ve arbitrarily chosen one as more significant than the others. Without any of them the zygote does not become a baby.

I am jumping in here really late in the game so please excuse me if I have missed your point from the above quote.

We say that life begins at conception, which would be fertilization. This event is not arbitrarily chosen among the long string of events that you have laid out for us, it is very simply the first in the line; or you could say the beginning! We are saying that life begins at “the beginning”; if you would claim that there is some other point when life actually begins other than the beginning then you would be relying on an arbitrary argument.

How can life not begin at the beginning? And how can you say that life begins at some other point in time without arbitrarily defining which point in time life actually begins? Why that moment and not the next moment or the moment before?

I am only appealing to common logic; the beginning of something (anything) is always traced back to the very beginning. Where am I going wrong?

 

[Brad]

Tlaloc:

Yes it is a human fetus, I thought we could take that as a given. The imperative difference is between human fetus and human being.

From American Heritage:

human: A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.

fetus: In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo.

Using your distinctions, you would have to be opposed to abortion after the 8th week or else you would be “rationally” supporting murder - according to YOUR distinction here.

Do you agree that it is murder after the 8th week?

 

[Genesis315]

Brad:

From American Heritage:

human: A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.

fetus: In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo.

Using your distinctions, you would have to be opposed to abortion after the 8th week or else you would be “rationally” supporting murder - according to YOUR distinction here.

Do you agree that it is murder after the 8th week?

see, I’ve been through this already with him. He already had to admit that he thinks there’s nothing wrong with killing innocent homo sapiens sometimes. He has this other completely personal and subjective definition of “human” and he says it is always wrong to kill a human. It’s all totally unreasonable.

 

[martino]

Tlaloc:

Yes it is a human fetus, I thought we could take that as a given. The imperative difference is between human fetus and human being.

If a human fetus is not a human being, what type of being is it?

 

[Lisa_N]

martino:

If a human fetus is not a human being, what type of being is it?

Bill Bennett had a great story on this line. He said when his kids were born he called up all the relatives and told them “It’s a BOY!” He said not one of them asked “A boy what?” Turtle? Fish? Dog? If it’s a human being after its head clears its mother’s body, what makes it non-human one second prior?

Lisa N

 

[MaggieOH]

Lisa N:

Bill Bennett had a great story on this line. He said when his kids were born he called up all the relatives and told them “It’s a BOY!” He said not one of them asked “A boy what?” Turtle? Fish? Dog? If it’s a human being after its head clears its mother’s body, what makes it non-human one second prior?

Lisa N

Lisa this is an excellent illustration.

Maggie

 

[Brad]

Genesis315:

see, I’ve been through this already with him. He already had to admit that he thinks there’s nothing wrong with killing innocent homo sapiens sometimes. He has this other completely personal and subjective definition of “human” and he says it is always wrong to kill a human. It’s all totally unreasonable.

Oh. I see. I thought this was he was developing a “rational” argument by the title of the thread. My mistake.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

Tlaloc:

Nobody said it wasn’t alive. What I said is it isn’t a separate living thing, because before a certain point it isn’t.

So siamese twins are one human being since they’re not separate? That’s a ridiculous argument.

 

[Lisa_N]

Brad:

Oh. I see. I thought this was he was developing a “rational” argument by the title of the thread. My mistake.

Brad, even the great Tlaloc cannot do the impossible, in providing rational abortion support. The phrase is an oxymoron.

Lisa N

 

[Genesis315]

The point old Tlaloc was trying to make is that if your definition of a human doesn’t include the unborn, then abortion is rational. The problem with that is he thinks its rational to have a totally subjective definition of a human being. I mean, I could say only people with brown hair are human. Then, it follows totally rationally that killing people with blonde hair or red hair is not murder. The problem is that the original premise (my definition of a human as only brunettes) is not rational, not the logic following it.