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Hume
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No, but the removal of something so deeply attached inside one’s body is something that might require medical aid to accomplish. Like removing a tumor.
So what is the difference between a potential and an actual human being?
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o_mlly
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Tumor removal is good. But when the something is another human being whose removal is lethal then not good but evil.
The woman can choose but no one has a right to do evil.
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Hume
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Ok, I’m just trying to understand.Hume:
Tumor removal is good. But when the something is another human being whose removal is lethal then not good but evil.
The woman can choose but no one has a right to do evil.
So a woman can perform evil as a matter of fundamental bodily autonomy, but she has no right to do so? She should be jailed or punished for it.
So, again, your view would force the unintentionally pregnant mother to gestate the fetus against her will, would it not?
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Rau
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We all have the capacity for evil as a matter of human nature. That’s all he said.
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o_mlly
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What do you mean by “fundamental bodily autonomy”? If you mean she may not excise a healthy vital organ or mutilate herself by amputating a healthy limb then yes, she has no right to do evil.
We’re discussing morality: the difference between “can” and “may” act. We can do more things then the things what we ought not.
The jailing or punishing for immoral acts is a legal matter and often requires a decision on culpability which is subjectively unique in every case. What we do say is that direct abortion subsequent to the free act of sexual intercourse is in every case objectively evil.
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Veritas6
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A potential human being doesn’t yet exist, but can become an actual human being, which is actually in reality.
When the sperm enters the cytoplasm of the oocyte, the sperm nucleus fuses with the ovum, allowing fusion of the genetic material. This process is called meiosis, which ends with the fertilized egg or the zygote.
This zygote is genetically distinct from both parents as they provided two halves to make completely new human DNA.
This zygote is human, distinct, and no longer part of the mother’s (or father’s) DNA. This is when human life begins, because this zygote will not grow into a giraffe, a meerkat, or an elephant.
At this point what was once a potential human being is now an actual human being in reality.
When the sperm enters the cytoplasm of the oocyte, the sperm nucleus fuses with the ovum, allowing fusion of the genetic material. This process is called meiosis, which ends with the fertilized egg or the zygote.
This zygote is genetically distinct from both parents as they provided two halves to make completely new human DNA.
This zygote is human, distinct, and no longer part of the mother’s (or father’s) DNA. This is when human life begins, because this zygote will not grow into a giraffe, a meerkat, or an elephant.
At this point what was once a potential human being is now an actual human being in reality.
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Hume
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The right to have something out of her body she does not want in it. The right to not share her body with someone or something else if she does not want to.
And hey, as a religious matter, that’s great. So should my wife’s body be subject to your religious views?
And if not, then should she have the right to refuse pregnancy in a secular state based on enlightenment ideals?
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Freddy
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If you use your own definitions then it might seem to you that your argument is sound.
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Freddy
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Yikes…have you read Brave New World? The Jesuits reckoned they only needed the child from seven years old. What happens if you have them at seven weeks?MamaJewel:
I think that’s exactly what the Catholic Church should invest a lot of time and effort into - a way to carry fetuses to term without a woman’s body.
If a woman could immediately surrender her fetus to the Catholic Church, I’d say ban abortion tomorrow.
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Hume
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I have. I’m not too terribly worried about it because if they did that then they would realize that they’d have to pay for them. They would be responsible for them.
I have a feeling that the last few steps of that research, if it seemed clearly possible, would never actually get done upon this realization.
Color me a skeptic.
I have a feeling that the last few steps of that research, if it seemed clearly possible, would never actually get done upon this realization.
Color me a skeptic.
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Hume
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Keep in mind, we’re talking about an organization where a lot of the resistance to letting some clergy marry is, imho, secretly financial.
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MamaJewel
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I doubt the Catholic Church would even consider such a thing. But rogue scientists with serious financial backing and access to advanced technology would consider it and it won’t be to keep a cutie pie human safe and sound as it gestates in the lab until term.
It doesn’t matter what percentage of abortions occur at 24 weeks gestation. What matters is that elective abortion (US) is legal way beyond the time frame that an embryo in a lab setting is allowed to exist out of ethical consideration toward a distinct human individual as its gastrulation stage begins.
The difference in expectations is hypocritical to say the least, because location does not change material fact of an individual’s existence. If an embryo is a distinct individual in a lab setting, it is a distinct individual in utero at the same age/stage.
Exactly.
Humanity is moving in that direction. What kind of protections will be afforded a human embryo/ fetus in an artificial womb setting in light of the legal treatment of the embryo/fetus in utero?
I’m a realist. Omg, considering the court arguments in the links I shared earlier in the thread, I can imagine what might ensue for courts to determine if the preemie is a person, human being, or a fetus, once it has been returned to an artificial womb-like environment.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/health-50056405/the-world-s-first-artificial-womb-for-humans
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Hume
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I think the day that’s a legitimate concern going to national courts we’ll also have a considerable lobbying arm for cyborgs and robotic “people”.
The machine that became self aware and argues that it, too, is “ensouled”.
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Hume
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C3PO’s Life Matters!
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Pattylt
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I’m a realist, too and I think much will depend on if they can patent it.
@o_mlly, you’ve made a few comments that I’d appreciate clarification on.
My bolding…are you allowing an exception for rape or incest?
My other question has to do with a medical person performing the abortion. I am assuming you would like for it to be illegal for a medical person to perform the abortion. Wouldn’t that just shift it to a medical medicated abortion? Now, there wouldn’t be any assistant involved. How should this be handled?
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Freddy
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We could crank up the hypothetical as far as we could:
What if a 12 year old was raped by her father. She has a medical condition which ensures she will not survive the pregnancy. The foetus is anencephalictic and will die hours after birth.
There would still be those who would deny her ending the pregnancy.
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o_mlly
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If she were disciplined to only share her body morally then this thread would not exist.
Morality of human acts is not a religious matter. Is murder, the direct killing of an innocent human being, only immoral if one’s religion proscribes it?
Easy. Do not have sexual intercourse and she’d be fine.
No, I’m not. Others may as the mother’s impregnation was an unwanted act of violence to her person. The child remains just as innocent of that act as the child conceived by another mother’s willed act.
The direct abortion advocates look for cases at the extreme in an attempt to justify all cases. I see just such an attempt in a subsequent post in a conjured up case which left only out that the girl is also a blind quadriplegic with hemorrhoids.
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o_mlly
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Sorry, missed this comment.
Yes, medical procedures to effect direct abortions should be outlawed and those who perform them prosecuted.
Pharmaceuticals that induce abortions are just as immoral but enforcing laws that prohibit illegal drugs has not and does not seem practical.
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Abrosz
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Yes, and it will be a very important question. Let’s add another category, which WILL also happen. A fully “artifical” android, who was grown in a vat (or bottle). And another one: the problem of “chimeras” some beings which have some human and some animal genetic material in them. By the way, the “cyborg” is considered an entity, which has an overwhelming percentage of artificial prostheses in them - the million dollar man.
Technology will present all sorts of new problems. That is unavoidable.
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Abrosz
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Yes, it is, just like any other serious question. There are many ethical systems, and some physical act is considered perfectly acceptable in some and “immoral” in others.
Murder is the illegal killing of a human (innocent or not) and as such it is a legal question, not an ethical one.
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