So is it or isn't it a human

[Doc_Keele]

If you’d been explicit about what you found ridiculous, it would have been helpful. I wasn’t actually drawing that conclusion at all, and I’m not sure why you think I was

What am I saying? That this notion that the conceptus is clearly and definitely human from the beginning isn’t based on the biological facts.
What characteristics in the human genome make it human DNA? Is there a particular sequence that one can identify?

 

[St_Francis]

If you’d been explicit about what you found ridiculous, it would have been helpful. I wasn’t actually drawing that conclusion at all, and I’m not sure why you think I was

I’m sorry I wasn’t clear.

What am I saying? That this notion that the conceptus is clearly and definitely human from the beginning isn’t based on the biological facts.

You seem to be using the similarities between unborn humans and the unborn of other species to reduce the human unborn child enough to justify maintaining a right to kill it.

What characteristics in the human genome make it human DNA? Is there a particular sequence that one can identify?

Not being a specialist in genetics, I can’t answer that precisely, but I do see that crime labs can tell human DNA from animal DNA and identification can be made of species from very minute evidence using chromosomal and genetic evidence as well.

Moreover, one can tell from the past and the location the species of the unborn offspring. When two of the same species conceive, the offspring is the same species as the parents. Those sayings referring to humans having cows or kittens are not based in fact.

 

[Doc_Keele]

You seem to be using the similarities between unborn humans and the unborn of other species to reduce the human unborn child enough to justify maintaining a right to kill it

Show me where?

Not being a specialist in genetics, I can’t answer that precisely, but I do see that crime labs can tell human DNA from animal DNA and identification can be made of species from very minute evidence using chromosomal and genetic evidence as well.

Moreover, one can tell from the past and the location the species of the unborn offspring. When two of the same species conceive, the offspring is the same species as the parents. Those sayings referring to humans having cows or kittens are not based in fact.

I don’t know the answer either, but I wasn’t asking for differentiation of human from animal, I asking for something that specifically identifies DNA as belonging to a human being.

 

[jmcrae]

Show me where?

I don’t know the answer either, but I wasn’t asking for differentiation of human from animal, I asking for something that specifically identifies DNA as belonging to a human being.

DNA has markers that not only identify that it’s a human being, these markers can also be used to identify which specific human being it is.

Check this out.

 

[St_Francis]

Show me where?

I said that you seem to be. I say that because throughout this thread you have tried to show some sort of less-than-humanness about unborn babies and this type of remark I have heard before and *only *to justify abortion.

Now, you may have been doing that inadvertently, which I am ready to believe, but you need to remember that a lot of people read these fora who are not Catholic, or who are trying to learn more about the topic of abortion. A lot of times when I run a search on something I will get hits to CAF on the first page. People reading your comments, which can be taken as apologia for support of abortion, could then use your comments for evil purposes.

I don’t know the answer either, but I wasn’t asking for differentiation of human from animal, I asking for something that specifically identifies DNA as belonging to a human being.

If a trained person can pick out the DNA of a human being from the DNA of other species, then I assume that there are certain differentiations which allow them to do that. I do not need to have to know what the precise differentiations are in order to understand that there is something human about human DNA.

Are you suggesting that people working in the field can *not *pick out human DNA from a set of samples containing DNA from other species?

 

[Doc_Keele]

I said that you seem to be. I say that because throughout this thread you have tried to show some sort of less-than-humanness about unborn babies and this type of remark I have heard before and *only *to justify abortion

Ah, you mean you’ve assumed, rather than I seem. Subjective vs objective.

 

[Doc_Keele]

DNA has markers that not only identify that it’s a human being, these markers can also be used to identify which specific human being it is.

It’s not quite as simple as that, RFLPs narrow ID down to a greater or lesser exttent depending on how it’s done eg points of comparison.

 

[jmcrae]

It’s not quite as simple as that, RFLPs narrow ID down to a greater or lesser exttent depending on how it’s done eg points of comparison.

Right - but they can tell that it’s a human being, and whether it’s a male human being or a female human being, and what the race is (if the person is pure-blooded), etc.

 

[St_Francis]

Ah, you mean you’ve assumed, rather than I seem. Subjective vs objective.

I said what I meant: you have said yourself that you are doing something, and the only reason that people do that is for one purpose, and therefore you *seem to be *trying to accomplish the one purpose for which people do that.

If I had assumed anything, then I would have said that you *are *doing it.

 

[Doc_Keele]

I said what I meant: you have said yourself that you are doing something, and the only reason that people do that is for one purpose, and therefore you *seem to be *trying to accomplish the one purpose for which people do that.

If I had assumed anything, then I would have said that you *are *doing it.

Nope, your argument is not sound at all.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Right - but they can tell that it’s a human being, and whether it’s a male human being or a female human being, and what the race is (if the person is pure-blooded), etc.

Sure, hair colour etc etc.

 

[jmcrae]

Sure, hair colour etc etc.

Exactly.

So, the answer to your original question is, the embryo cannot become anything other than the human being of the sex, race, hair, and eye colour that are indicated by the DNA of that embryo.

Even if it “looks like” or has similar DNA to a chicken or a chimpanzee.

 

[St_Francis]

Nope, your argument is not sound at all.

I guess that you and I will have to agree to disagree on the soundness of my argument.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Exactly.

So, the answer to your original question is, the embryo cannot become anything other than the human being of the sex, race, hair, and eye colour that are indicated by the DNA of that embryo.

Even if it “looks like” or has similar DNA to a chicken or a chimpanzee.

Err, that was never my question?

 

[Doc_Keele]

I guess that you and I will have to agree to disagree on the soundness of my argument.

I’ll agree to let you stay in denial about your massive assumption:thumbsup:

 

[Ender]

It is difficult to understand how this discussion continues even after the question has been answered. There is no scientific debate on the point: life begins at conception. The answer to the question of whether there is a valid distinction between a human life and a human being - or a human and a person - is no: any such distinction is completely arbitrary. It could hardly be otherwise as the terms involved contain no fundamental difference in meaning other than denoting different stages in the life of an organism.

Ender

 

[twb1621]

It’s not quite as simple as that, RFLPs narrow ID down to a greater or lesser exttent depending on how it’s done eg points of comparison.

Hello doc, there are those who debate issues to justify and defend their own position or beliefs and there are those who debate issues to learn what others believe and why.
I believe you are one of those fitting the second category above. If I am wrong, please correct me.
As far as anyone attempting to substantiate a division between initial conception and at what point an embryo becomes a human being, they must first prove human beings procreating within their own species have at some point in time produced off spring of other than human species. Man’s quest to substantiate such a division serves no purpose other than as an attempt to diminish the significance of the human embryonic life form establishing a point where it may be considered legally if not morally acceptable to terminate by individual discretion. But man has no control over the soul, can not contain the soul, has no ability to locate or identify a soul, and no ability to separate or join body and soul at his own discretion. Of course man can separate the soul from the body but only through the taking of a person’s life and even then man only causes the separation as a side effect but does not perform the division directly.

So until man can credibly prove human beings have procreated within their own species and produced offspring of an unrelated species, and until man develops the ability to locate, identify, capture, remove and replace the human soul by his own discretion, man can not in truth, justify the discretionary termination of a human pregnancy or any division between the initial point of conception and a specific point that an embryo may or may not be human possessing a soul. In other words, what belongs to God and is to God’s discretion can not be taken away from God and man belongs to God, not man. Abortion is the deliberate termination of human life, and as scripture tells us;
5 For your own lifeblood, too, I will demand an accounting: from every animal I will demand it, and from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life. …7 Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it."* (Genesis CH 9: v5 and v7)*

Now if God will demand an accounting from the animals of a human life, how serious must he take it when He demands an accounting of human life from man himself?

It is human when God intends its existence, not when man determines its viability.

 

[Doc_Keele]

It is difficult to understand how this discussion continues even after the question has been answered. There is no scientific debate on the point: life begins at conception. The answer to the question of whether there is a valid distinction between a human life and a human being - or a human and a person - is no: any such distinction is completely arbitrary. It could hardly be otherwise as the terms involved contain no fundamental difference in meaning other than denoting different stages in the life of an organism.

Ender

Nice glossing over of all the profound issues, but no cigar!

 

[St_Francis]

Nice glossing over of all the profound issues, but no cigar!

The “issues” that you have brought up in this thread are not real issues; they are just mind games.

Of *course *we know when life begins: when separate sets of cell(s) with their own DNA begin to divide and grow.

Of *course *we know when they human: when their parents are human.

For the purposes of the issue of abortion, which is the absolutely *only *reason that *anyone *has ever tried to bring in ideas of “sentience,” implantation, and the like wrt the beginning of life, the above is all that is needed.

The Catholic Church has *always *taught that procured abortion is wrong. There is simply no way of getting around this very clear and simple and unequivocal teaching (not to say that you are trying to get around it…)

 

[Doc_Keele]

The “issues” that you have brought up in this thread are not real issues; they are just mind games.

Of *course *we know when life begins: when separate sets of cell(s) with their own DNA begin to divide and grow.

Of *course *we know when they human: when their parents are human.

For the purposes of the issue of abortion, which is the absolutely *only *reason that *anyone *has ever tried to bring in ideas of “sentience,” implantation, and the like wrt the beginning of life, the above is all that is needed.

The Catholic Church has *always *taught that procured abortion is wrong. There is simply no way of getting around this very clear and simple and unequivocal teaching (not to say that you are trying to get around it…)

You are doing exactly the same - glossing over the profound issues. Calling it something different doesn’t make it so.