Rational Abortion Support

[Lisa4Catholics]

Tlaloc:

Yes but before becoming an unborn child it is a fetus and a fetus is simply a set of tissues. It becomes a child once it has reached a state that it is an organism unto itself.

Fetus means litle one:unborn young.Even an infant is not what you describe an organism unto itself,because of dependence upon another person to care for it.That is a human not merely a set of tissues.Have you seen any pictures of the slaughtered unborn while you seek to rationalize this barberism?God Bless

 

[Elizabeth_B]

Tlaloc:

Yes but before becoming an unborn child it is a fetus and a fetus is simply a set of tissues. It becomes a child once it has reached a state that it is an organism unto itself.

One premise of your posts in this thread has been that if we can reach common scientific definitions, we can see that each other’s position is reasonable.

With that in mind, The biochemistry department of Northwester University defines fetus as:

In human beings, the unborn young from the eighth week of pregnancy to birth; an organism in the stage of development that follows the embryonic stage.

biochem.northwestern.edu/holmgren/Glossary/Definitions/Def-F/fetus.html

I recommend you use standard definitions if you want to communicate clearly. Anything else is careless at best, deceitful at worst. Unfortunately, distorting language is a common technique of those who want to destroy vulnerable, defenseless human life.

 

[Tlaloc]

Elizabeth B.:

This is not true. I was never an ovum. I came into existence at conception. My DNA is a combination of a portion of my father’s and a portion of my mother’s. My soul was created by God.

Well thats your definition. And its fine, it works along as you are consistent with it. The real question is if you see how my definiton is just as rational.

I’m not sure why you think carefully defining terms is “scientific” – although I believe it is critical to communication. That is why I insist you we use accurate terms. (see above comment.)

It’s the first step in any scientific endeavor.

The definitions you propose distort commonly held definitions in both the secular and scientific world. As I said in my first post, this manipulation of words is Orwellian.

Demonstrate these commonly held definitions that are distorted.

What resolution are you working towards?

I don’t know, we haven’t even made it to the stage of respect each other’s starting positions yet. Of course we probably never will but the attempt continues.

You have made your disdain for the pro-life position clear.

No I haven’t. I disagree with it, I don’t disdain it. I’ve been careful not to insult you or your beliefs (unlike the posters so far comparing me with hitler and orwell’s villains…)

 

[Tlaloc]

Lisa4Catholics:

Fetus means litle one:unborn young.Even an infant is not what you describe an organism unto itself,because of dependence upon another person to care for it.

Not true. An infant is a separate organism. Yes it does rely on food being brought to it but it doesn’t have to be directly connected to another beings blood supply for instance. Taking care of someone is entirely different than being physically connected to them.

That is a human not merely a set of tissues.Have you seen any pictures of the slaughtered unborn while you seek to rationalize this barberism?God Bless

Yes I have seen them and while quite emotionally evocative they aren’t logical arguments. Emotional appeals hold little weight with me. Call it a quirk.

 

[Tlaloc]

Elizabeth B.:

One premise of your posts in this thread has been that if we can reach common scientific definitions, we can see that each other’s position is reasonable.

true.

With that in mind, The biochemistry department of Northwester University defines fetus as:
I recommend you use standard definitions if you want to communicate clearly. Anything else is careless at best, deceitful at worst. Unfortunately, distorting language is a common technique of those who want to destroy vulnerable, defenseless human life.

Since I went to the trouble of explicitly establishing the definition I was using at the outset its rather rude of you to accuse me of deception or carelessness. Consider that your choice of tone will make it harder for you to accomplish your goals.

 

[Catholic_Mike]

Tlaloc:

Do you want to explore that or just agree that its a difference in our premises?

While a fetus is attached to a woman’s body, I don’t think you can say that it is part of the woman’s body. It seems to me that it’s more accurate to describe the fetus as a parasite: it gets nutrition and oxygen from the woman. A seperation will probably result in death of the fetus, but hypothetically another blood/oxygen source could keep it functioning. (This is another issue if you’re going to use the viability criteria - the point of viability gets earlier as technology improves, unless you mean viability without any sort of assistance).

I don’t see how a fetus is a part of a woman’s body unless you also claim that a hookworm is (which seems absurd to me). Okay, the attachment point is a more compilcated and maybe longer-lasting structure, but that seems pretty insigificant to me. And anyway, at one point, the fertalized egg was not attached to the woman’s uterus. Did it start out as something seperate and then become part of the woman’s body? Or do you think that what it fundamentally is somehow changed when it became attached (or at some point after that?)

I think a fetus is a person in a parasitic relationship with the pregnant woman: I think we should use pretty much the same moral framework here as we would with a person who has a much less powerful conjoined twin.

Disclaimers:

1. I am not reading all of this thread, so forgive me if I’m raising issues you’ve already given your opinion on.
2. When I use words like “parasite” I am not being disrespectful, and when I use words like “fetus” I am not necessaraly talking about the specific developmental stage that doctors call the “fetus” - I’m just using something approximate that is more neutral than “baby” or “person.”

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

Tlaloc:

Not true. An infant is a separate organism. Yes it does rely on food being brought to it but it doesn’t have to be directly connected to another beings blood supply for instance. Taking care of someone is entirely different than being physically connected to them.

Yes I have seen them and while quite emotionally evocative they aren’t logical arguments. Emotional appeals hold little weight with me. Call it a quirk.

Emotionally evocative,logical arguments? If the fact these little humans are destroyed can feel being destroyed and you describe the pictures as “emotionally evocative” then please do not be offended when people compare your so-called rational arguments and ideaology to Hitler:banghead: You can rationalise evil all day long,but never the less it will still be evil and wrong.God Bless

 

[chicago]

Tlaloc:

correct the new life begins once the fetus develops enough to become a separate organism. Before that it is merely part of another organism.

False! The new life begins and is it’s own sepearate organism once conception occurs and growth begins. This is a longstanding, undisputed scientific fact. Now you can dispute, philosophically, things like whether that being has a soul or ought to be considered a person (and therefore base your claims upon that basis), but denying the scientific reality simply gets you flunked and dismissed as a serious interloquotor.

Precisely. The goal here was to show that by starting with a slightly different viewpoint on what is “human” we reach opposite conclusions. Hence maybe we can knock off all the inflamatory speech and treat each other maturely.

indeed, if it were purely science the question should be relatively easy to answer. Since it does rely on intabgibles we need to tread more softly.

And in this discussion, there is indeed a value.

 

[Tlaloc]

Catholic_Mike:

While a fetus is attached to a woman’s body, I don’t think you can say that it is part of the woman’s body. It seems to me that it’s more accurate to describe the fetus as a parasite: it gets nutrition and oxygen from the woman. A seperation will probably result in death of the fetus, but hypothetically another blood/oxygen source could keep it functioning. (This is another issue if you’re going to use the viability criteria - the point of viability gets earlier as technology improves, unless you mean viability without any sort of assistance).

While I see your point I think its still more correct to refer to the fetus as part of the mother. A parasite is a fully formed organism. It feeds off of a living host yes but it is not attached to the host at the cellular level. Does that make sense?

I do indeed mean viability without assistance, otherwise you are just substituting an artifical womb for the natural one. That may be fine as a later solution (discussed above) but not good for setting the terminology.

I don’t see how a fetus is a part of a woman’s body unless you also claim that a hookworm is (which seems absurd to me). Okay, the attachment point is a more compilcated and maybe longer-lasting structure, but that seems pretty insigificant to me. And anyway, at one point, the fertalized egg was not attached to the woman’s uterus. Did it start out as something seperate and then become part of the woman’s body? Or do you think that what it fundamentally is somehow changed when it became attached (or at some point after that?)

Consider the umbilical cord. Where precisely does the mother end and the fetus begin? Eventually the fetus gets to a point where it no longer requires that sharing of the hosts body.
I think it’d be fair to say that the fetus is part of the woman through out the early development. Ovum are not directly connected true but we still consider them part of a woman.

I think a fetus is a person in a parasitic relationship with the pregnant woman: I think we should use pretty much the same moral framework here as we would with a person who has a much less powerful conjoined twin.

Excellent! I was wondering if anyone would latch on to the most difficult problem for the definition I used. Under my definition conjoined twins who share critical organs or at least the same blood supply would seem to be one organism rather than two.

I’m impressed with your posts, Mike.

 

[Tlaloc]

Lisa4Catholics:

Emotionally evocative,logical arguments? If the fact these little humans are destroyed can feel being destroyed and you describe the pictures as “emotionally evocative” then please do not be offended when people compare your so-called rational arguments and ideaology to Hitler:banghead: You can rationalise evil all day long,but never the less it will still be evil and wrong.God Bless

Lisa, tissues can feel being destroyed too, what does that mean? It means we have a pretty advanced nervous system. It doesn’t mean getting a kidney taken out is evil.

Let me ask you a question, if you have to choose between:
a) being imperious and calling those who disagree with you evil and therefore never actually making any changes, or
b) toning down the rhetoric and conversing like an adult and possibly seeing some of your goals enacted,

which do you choose?

This is one of those life defining questions, not when you answer it for me, but when you answer it for yourself.

 

[Tlaloc]

chicago:

False! The new life begins and is it’s own sepearate organism once conception occurs and growth begins. This is a longstanding, undisputed scientific fact.

Yes the fetus is alive. All cells are alive. No the fetus is not an organism unto itself. Hence the new human life begins (by the definition i’m using) once the fetus is an organism by itself. The new life you talk about is merely a new bunch of cells.

Now you can dispute, philosophically, things like whether that being has a soul or ought to be considered a person (and therefore base your claims upon that basis), but denying the scientific reality simply gets you flunked and dismissed as a serious interloquotor.

Your “scientific reality” was based on you misunderstanding what life we were talking about.

 

[chicago]

Will you accept that your thesis rests upon rejecting the commonly accepted definition of when new human life begins?

 

[Exporter]

Originally Posted by Tlaloc
In this case i would not define a fetus before a scertain stage of pregnancy as a person for the simple reason that they are not a separate living organism. They are an extension of the mother’s body.
***The very title, “RATIONAL ABORTION SUPPORT” is an oxymoron. Tlaloc, you are intellegent enough to wtite a post but your thinking [read logic] is lacking. ***
Do you know (as Lisa4 posted) the DNA of every enbryo and/or every unborn child IS DIFFERENT from the mother’s DNA.
The unborn child IS NOT an extension of the mother.
In the case of a mole, the DNA is identical to the mothers’s DNA. Not a separate individual.
***From the zygote and blastula/gastrula stages even before the nural groove is detectable the separate individual is a life unto itself, dependant on the mother for nurishment the same as a nursing 2 month old individual. ***
Tlaloc, you are very wrong to promote the concept that an unborn baby is an “extension” of the mother. Sorry, but you are wrong.

 

[Tlaloc]

chicago:

Will you accept that your thesis rests upon rejecting the commonly accepted definition of when new human life begins?

The disagreement is the difference between “when human life begins” and “when conception takes place.” There is no commonly accepted definition for the former for me to be rejecting because “human life” is a nebulous concept.

Thats why I went to the effort of defining how I would use the term right at the outset.

If you want to make up some new word to use instead thats fine but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of the argument.

premise: A human being is an organism
corollary: an organism is a separate entity that fulfills all the requirements of being alive
observation: a fetus cannot by itself perform all the requirements of life (it cannot digest for instance but must absorb digested nutrients from the mother) before some threshold of development
observation: a fetus is not a separate entity from the mother before some threshold of development
conclusion: a fetus before some threshold is not an organism
conclusion: a fetus before that same threshold is not a human being

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

Tlaloc:

Lisa, tissues can feel being destroyed too, what does that mean? It means we have a pretty advanced nervous system. It doesn’t mean getting a kidney taken out is evil.

Let me ask you a question, if you have to choose between:
a) being imperious and calling those who disagree with you evil and therefore never actually making any changes, or
b) toning down the rhetoric and conversing like an adult and possibly seeing some of your goals enacted,

which do you choose?

This is one of those life defining questions, not when you answer it for me, but when you answer it for yourself.

I didn’t call you evil I called the ideaology evil there is a difference, I would be irresponsible to not post that the ideaology is not the same type of ideaology that rationalised the killing of jews,the killing and owning of slaves.I already recognise when a human life begins-at conception God Bless

 

[Elizabeth_B]

I think the bottom line here is that we reject your premises.

Our position is (excuse me for presuming to speak for others here):

From conception, a new life exists.
This life is depends on the mother until birth.
Although dependent on the mother, this life has a distinct identity.
The DNA for this life is identifiable as human.
If uninterupted (naturally or unnaturally) this life will develop from embryo to fetus to infant and so on.
All of this is accepted scientific fact.

As Catholics, we believe:
All human life is sacred.
Intentionally terminating innocent human life is intrinsically evil.

We disagree that the pro-abortion position is rational because science demonstrates that your premises are false and our religious beliefs are in perfect harmony with science on this one.

 

[chicago]

Tlaloc:

The disagreement is the difference between “when human life begins” and “when conception takes place.” There is no commonly accepted definition for the former for me to be rejecting because “human life” is a nebulous concept.

Here is where I believe that you err. For there most certainly is a commonly accepted scientific definition of when human life begins from a scientific standpoint - at conception and the immediately subsequent cell division. It’s not nebulous at all. Now, if what you want to argue is that, on a philosophical level, this “human being” should not be considered fully equal to some other human beings and having the same rights because of whatever justification of differenciations, then you can indeed make a logical and consistent argument for that. It would be an argument which I would consider offbase, wrong, and of disatereous consequence (particularly if consistently carried out by extension). But you’d at least be honestly acknowledging the argument for what it is rather than attempting to build it upon a contradictory basis which can not stand. For when you deny the scientific fact regarding this life’s beginning and use that as your basis, your entire endeavor becomes easily dismissable as foolhardy and unreasonable.

Thats why I went to the effort of defining how I would use the term right at the outset.

If you want to make up some new word to use instead thats fine but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of the argument.

premise: A human being is an organism
corollary: an organism is a separate entity that fulfills all the requirements of being alive
observation: a fetus cannot by itself perform all the requirements of life (it cannot digest for instance but must absorb digested nutrients from the mother) before some threshold of development
observation: a fetus is not a separate entity from the mother before some threshold of development
conclusion: a fetus before some threshold is not an organism
conclusion: a fetus before that same threshold is not a human being

Perhaps the fault of this argument is how one defines “all the requirements of life”. I think that you may be setting too high of a standard. The fact that the embryo has not developed to a certain degree does not mean that it is not fully alive as it’s own, distinct organism. One might logically argue, for instance, that in order to be fully human, a being must have attained the use of reason (this being a key element of humanity). But this would mean that anyone who has not reached a certain age and developed the use of this faculty is not human.

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

Elizabeth B.:

I think the bottom line here is that we reject your premises.

Our position is (excuse me for presuming to speak for others here):

From conception, a new life exists.

This life is depends on the mother until birth.
Although dependent on the mother, this life has a distinct identity.
The DNA for this life is identifiable as human.
If uninterupted (naturally or unnaturally) this life will develop from embryo to fetus to infant and so on.
All of this is accepted scientific fact.

As Catholics, we believe:All human life is sacred.

Intentionally terminating innocent human life is intrinsically evil.

We disagree that the pro-abortion position is rational because science demonstrates that your premises are false and our religious beliefs are in perfect harmony with science on this one.

Thankyou! God Bless

 

[Tlaloc]

Lisa4Catholics:

I didn’t call you evil I called the ideaology evil there is a difference, I would be irresponsible to not post that the ideaology is not the same type of ideaology that rationalised the killing of jews,the killing and owning of slaves.I already recognise when a human life begins-at conception God Bless

You didn’t answer the question.

 

[Tlaloc]

Elizabeth B.:

I think the bottom line here is that we reject your premises.

Well of course you reject the premise, that was never in doubt! I don’t expect you to accept it only to evaluate whether it is rational. If it is rational and you recognize that then we have a reasonable starting ground from which to discuss the problem.

Our position is (excuse me for presuming to speak for others here):

All of this is accepted scientific fact.

It is not scientific fact because it deals in intangibles science cannot measure. It is your position, and I fully agree its a reasonable position. What I’m trying to do is to show you it isn’t the only reasonable position. When you claim your opinion is scientific fact that doesn’t give me great hope that the message is sinking in.