So is it or isn't it a human

[LittleSoldier]

You’re making several erroneous assumptions here, Tamsulosin. I suggest you relax like your namesake does the muscles of the bladder neck?

“I suggest you relax like your namesake does the muscles of the bladder neck?”

This is a comprehensible sentence? Oy vey!

 

[Doc_Keele]

“I suggest you relax like your namesake does the muscles of the bladder neck?”

This is a comprehensible sentence? Oy vey!

Yes I agree - a very ugly sentence:blush:

 

[Tamsulosin]

You’re making several erroneous assumptions here, Tamsulosin. I suggest you relax like your namesake does the muscles of the bladder neck?

Do not get personal or distracted with comments unrelated to the topic at hand.They will teach you that in debate classes.
See if you can concentrate on the “several fallacies” contained in my question, and enumerate them.
Thank you for your cooperation

 

[lil_flower_luv]

This is nothing to do with science and new technology actually - and no one is saying murder is in the gray (although legally and morally actually there’s some interesting issues about culpability).
“Let’s try to keep the black and white things black and white”. There’s a massive problem with this statement.
“And apply some God-given common sense for that matter.” Yes, Charlemagne II keeps on appealing to commonsense. Is it “commonsense” or intuitive to let two people die instead of one? Most people would say not.

Jesus told us, “You are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.” (Mark 8:33) I think this applies to the abortion debate. Science and Religion both says it’s a baby, so what’s your beef?

 

[LittleSoldier]

Well the whole thing is just one massive circular argument isn’t it?
It’s just saying abortion is murder over and over again, and also arguing ad hominem along the way. No attempts to prove the position at all. Appeal to authority. There would have to be more actual argument for there to be more logical fallacies, so in that respect it does OK.

I’ve copied and pasted the post we are both discussing:

Pro-murder people have nothing to stand on other than word games. Choice, human or human being, blah blah blah. I can call a person a rock, or I can call a person a pencil, the language doesn’t matter. It (person, rock, pencil, fetus, what ever you want to call “it”) was made in God’s image, He knew us BEFORE he put us in our mothers womb and we ALL have an inherant right to live.

I would like to point out that the poster did not present his/her post as a logical argument. It was presented to back up his/her beliefs as a Christian and as a Catholic. I would also like to point out that the words “murder” and “abortion” (the words used when you state that the post “is just saying that abortion is murder over and over again”) don’t even appear once. Not one time. Neither of them. The term “pro-murder” isn’t the same as the word “murder.” And that really does make your explanation of the argument being circular rather, uh, unfounded, doesn’t it?

The first sentence speaks for itself.
The second sentence is a description of the subject of the first sentence. We don’t need to keep it as it is extraneous.
The third and (most of the) fourth sentences makes the point that "the language doesn’t matter - “it” was made in God’s image. We were all made in God’s image and God knew us before He put us in our mothers’ wombs.
We then come to the conclusion:

“We ALL have an inherant right to live.”

Let me attempt to translate this. Please understand that I have never had a course in logic, and this is new to me. I was really hoping you would give me the actual accepted names of the fallacies so I could look them up, but as I didn’t request that, I can’t complain. Logic is not my field of expertise, but I do try to pick apart arguments so that I can learn. Of course the word “inherent” is misspelled:

Pro-murder people have nothing to stand on other than word games but the language doesn’t matter.
“It” (referring to an unborn child) was made in God’s image, God knew us before He put us in our mothers wombs.
We ALL have an inherant right to live.

Pro-murder people have nothing to stand on other than word games.
But the language doesn’t matter.
We were made in God’s image; God knew us before He put us in our mothers’ wombs.
We ALL have an inherant right to live.

I would say there are two basic arguments here and these two arguments are joined to form the conclusion. The first argument is:

Pro-murder people have nothing to stand on other than word games, but the language doesn’t matter.

The second argument is:

We were made in God’s image; God knew us before He put us in our mothers’ wombs.

The conclusion:

No matter what a person calls an unborn child, we ALL have an inherent right to live.

I don’t see anything circular about it. I also don’t see any ad hominem attacks. What I see is a conclusion based (correctly) on the word of God, and a comment made on the attempts of proaborts to use language (as in word games) to prove that what is being murdered is not a human being. From what I have seen in the threads I have been involved in is an attempt by most proabortion activists to use language as a basis of their argument that what is conceived is not a human being, not a person, not a human (although “it” may be composed of human tissue), not a life, a potential life, a clump of cells, a “womb squatter,” a parasite, a being who takes the mother hostage, a being who “forces” the mother to undergo painful medical tests, an intruder, a reminder, tissue belonging to the mother, a one-celled organism that prolifers somehow absurdly believe deserves the same rights as the woman carrying it, an inconvenience, a pain, something to kill and get rid of, something to kill so that the woman carrying “it” can prove she is indeed liberated and free and has control of her own body, a tumor, a “thing” used by men to show their supposed superiority, a punishment for having sex…

The right of ALL human beings to live is inherent and based on the undeniable (to Christians) fact that we were made in God’s image and God knew us before He put us in our mothers’ wombs.

I agree with the poster (with the following exception: I have seen some arguments used by proabortion activists that do state that what is murdered is a human being).

I think that what you see as ad hominem attacks are simply examples of word games. I don’t see anything circular about it, but I would appreciate it if you would point out why you find it circular. Also, please remember that the poster did not present his/her arguments as a formal argument.

This is the best I can do. As I stated before, I have never taken a class in logic and have very little knowledge of fallacies (although I do know what Godwin’s Law is ).

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Once you’ve presented formal arguments, I will do likewise. Reciprocity.
That’s a restatement, not the formal argument I was seeking. I think it’s pretty poor that no one on the site was able to step up to the plate, given the name of the site.

Perhaps you aren’t aware that if you are expecting a 50,000 word formal argument, you won’t get it here. Posts are limited to a certain number of characters. A 50,000 word formal argument would fill up so many posts that it would most likely be deleted by the moderators. I’ve had to cut over 1,000 characters from some of my posts because they are just too long. This forum seems to emphasize brevity.

It’s not appropriate for this forum. If you want to find a formal argument, you will have to go elsewhere and I have no idea where that “elsewhere” is. Maybe you could form a blog, or something like that.

I’m sorry (really) but it’s just not going to happen here.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[jmcrae]

Perhaps you aren’t aware that if you are expecting a 50,000 word formal argument, you won’t get it here. Posts are limited to a certain number of characters. A 50,000 word formal argument would fill up so many posts that it would most likely be deleted by the moderators. I’ve had to cut over 1,000 characters from some of my posts because they are just too long. This forum seems to emphasize brevity.

It’s not appropriate for this forum. If you want to find a formal argument, you will have to go elsewhere and I have no idea where that “elsewhere” is. Maybe you could form a blog, or something like that.

I’m sorry (really) but it’s just not going to happen here.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

Plus, there is a time limit on responding. The amount of time it would take to put together a formal argument would outlast the amount of time permitted to respond, here.

This Forum is designed so that people can post things they already know - it’s not designed for the inclusion of a lot of footnotes, etc.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Little Soldier - yes, fair point about the formal arguments. The place to find them is philosophical literature. I had hoped there would be more people who didn’t just take things on faith tho.
Re arguing ad hominem, although people equate this to personal attacks there is a broader meaning - in this case the opening comment of “pro-murder people” could be seen as an ad hominem argument, making a statement about the morality of people who are pro-choice. It’s arguable of course.

 

[Timbothefiveth]

Occasionally we can get formal philosophical arguments, or you could try reducing posts to such.
If you want a formal argument.

1: Directly killing an innocent human being is wrong.
2: A human being is something with human DNA that is not someone’s cell.
3: A fetus meets 2, therefore a fetus is human, and a fetus is innocent
4: Abortion kills a fetus
5: Therefore, abortion is wrong.

On some other issues it’s hard to set up a formal argument. For instance, I could say that a fetus doesn’t change much right before and right after birth, but I personally can’t really express that in a philosophical argument, I’m currently just a beginner in formal philosophy.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Plus, there is a time limit on responding. The amount of time it would take to put together a formal argument would outlast the amount of time permitted to respond, here.

This Forum is designed so that people can post things they already know - it’s not designed for the inclusion of a lot of footnotes, etc.

Thank you for the clarification.

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Little Soldier - yes, fair point about the formal arguments. The place to find them is philosophical literature. I had hoped there would be more people who didn’t just take things on faith tho.
Re arguing ad hominem, although people equate this to personal attacks there is a broader meaning - in this case the opening comment of “pro-murder people” could be seen as an ad hominem argument, making a statement about the morality of people who are pro-choice. It’s arguable of course.

Yes - I see your point. I’ve had so many ad hominem attacks thrown at me that I don’t usually even think about anything less than something like: “F you!” or “Go F yourself!” “You’re a stupid Catholic idiot!” as an ad hominem attack.

Fortunately they don’t allow that sort of thing here.

Really, though, if you want the argument, it is there. Somewhere. You might have to at least be able to read Latin in order to understand it. If I were you, I would use the online Catechism of the Catholic Church and check the footnotes and references. There are a lot of them. The CCC is a summary of Church teaching and, although it will contain quotes from the original documents, it won’t show the whole document. There just isn’t enough room.

Good luck in your project!

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Occasionally we can get formal philosophical arguments, or you could try reducing posts to such.
If you want a formal argument.

1: Directly killing an innocent human being is wrong.
2: A human being is something with human DNA that is not someone’s cell.
3: A fetus meets 2, therefore a fetus is human, and a fetus is innocent
4: Abortion kills a fetus
5: Therefore, abortion is wrong.

On some other issues it’s hard to set up a formal argument. For instance, I could say that a fetus doesn’t change much right before and right after birth, but I personally can’t really express that in a philosophical argument, I’m currently just a beginner in formal philosophy.

I’m a little confused about #2. What do you mean by “not someone’s cell?” If the zygote is a one-celled organism, doesn’t the cell belong to the zygote (which is a human being)?

Do you mean it contains DNA unique in that this DNA does not match the DNA of either of its parents?

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[LittleSoldier]

This is nothing to do with science and new technology actually - and no one is saying murder is in the gray (although legally and morally actually there’s some interesting issues about culpability).
“Let’s try to keep the black and white things black and white”. There’s a massive problem with this statement.
“And apply some God-given common sense for that matter.” Yes, Charlemagne II keeps on appealing to commonsense. Is it “commonsense” or intuitive to let two people die instead of one? Most people would say not.

No, it is not common sense or intuitive to let two people die instead of one. But what is the problem? The Church teaches that the death of an unborn child that occurs because of techniques to save the life of the mother is not an abortion. Do you honestly believe that (for an example) the Church demands that an ectopic pregnancy be allowed to continue even though both child and mother will die? She doesn’t.

Aren’t we discussing abortion here?

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Yes I agree - a very ugly sentence:blush:

Are you actually a real person, with emotions and feelings and everything?

Wow, we have something in common!

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Are you actually a real person, with emotions and feelings and everything?

Wow, we have something in common!

Ave Maria! Ora pro nobis.

Well hopefully

 

[Major_Tom]

To the original question, I vote ‘yes’. I do think, though, that the issue is nuanced. And I am not completely comfortable saying that I know when life begins.

I’ve read that significant numbers of fertilized eggs spontaneusly abort (I’ve seen numbers starting at 25%, going to 50% and higher). If egg fertilization is the stage when a soul is ‘attached’ to the egg… this means that half of the souls (or more) in Heaven would never have lived in the physical world that we now of! This twists my head…! It also makes me ponder the possibility that this is NOT the stage at which a soul is joined to the egg… although if it isn’t, I don’t know where else that event would occur.

 

[Major_Tom]

I also just read the following in a book by Carl Sagan.

“Neither St. Augustine nor St. Thomas Aquinas considered early-term abortion to be homicide (the latter on the grounds that the embryo doesn’t look human). This view was embraced by the Church in the Council of Viene in 1312, and has never been repudiated. The Catholic Church’s first and long-standing collection of canon law (according to the leading historian of the Church’s teaching on abortion, John Connery, S.J.) held that abortion was homicide only after the fetus was already “formed”- roughly speaking, the end of the first trimester”.

1. I’m not familiar enough with their writings to know if this is accurate, but I found it surprising, especially in light of other threads stating the Church doctrine doesn’t change.
2. I’m familiar with the idea of ‘quickening’ being the starting point of viability/life, especially in the Middle Ages, but don’t know if it was a concept practiced by Catholics, or non-Catholic Christians. Any insight…?

 

[Doc_Keele]

To the original question, I vote ‘yes’. I do think, though, that the issue is nuanced. And I am not completely comfortable saying that I know when life begins.

I’ve read that significant numbers of fertilized eggs spontaneusly abort (I’ve seen numbers starting at 25%, going to 50% and higher). If egg fertilization is the stage when a soul is ‘attached’ to the egg… this means that half of the souls (or more) in Heaven would never have lived in the physical world that we now of! This twists my head…! It also makes me ponder the possibility that this is NOT the stage at which a soul is joined to the egg… although if it isn’t, I don’t know where else that event would occur.

Yes, this is my thoughts too. I read a very good paper by a philosopher titled “The Scourge” which picked apart the inconsistencies if we believe that ensoulment occurs at formation of the zygote. If people are actually interested in reading it I can look for a URL.

 

[JimG]

To the original question, I vote ‘yes’. I do think, though, that the issue is nuanced. And I am not completely comfortable saying that I know when life begins.

I’ve read that significant numbers of fertilized eggs spontaneusly abort (I’ve seen numbers starting at 25%, going to 50% and higher). If egg fertilization is the stage when a soul is ‘attached’ to the egg… this means that half of the souls (or more) in Heaven would never have lived in the physical world that we now of! This twists my head…! It also makes me ponder the possibility that this is NOT the stage at which a soul is joined to the egg… although if it isn’t, I don’t know where else that event would occur.

I’ve seen those numbers claimed, but I’ve never seen the studies that back it up or an explanation of how the data was obtained. It seems to me that one would have to personally observe a vast amount of zygotes on their way to the uterus in order to come up with such statistics.

 

[Doc_Keele]

I’ve seen those numbers claimed, but I’ve never seen the studies that back it up or an explanation of how the data was obtained. It seems to me that one would have to personally observe a vast amount of zygotes on their way to the uterus in order to come up with such statistics.

The studies are there if you know where to look