Is the Fetus a Human Being?

[ubicaritas]

If you want to have some religious ceremony for miscarriage that's your option but just the fact its considered unusual is evidence enough that the idea of personhood for fetuses or embryos is highly idiosyncratic, and more subject to individual intuitions.

Women do generally mourn miscarriage because it's about mourning the loss of potential motherhood, and not necessarily a deep statement about personhood of the unborn.

 

[Aldebaran]

If you want to have some religious ceremony for miscarriage that's your option but just the fact its considered unusual is evidence enough that the idea of personhood for fetuses or embryos is highly idiosyncratic, and more subject to individual intuitions.

Women do mourn generally mourn miscarriage because it's about mourning the loss of potential motherhood, and not necessarily a deep statement about personhood of the unborn.

A friend of mine and his wife did. When she miscarried, they both felt that they had lost a son and it affected them deeply.

 

[PaulCyp1]

Biology 101: "The life of a new individual organism of any sexually reproducing species begins at the moment of fertilization. At that moment a new individual, genetically distinct from either parent, comes into existence".

 

[brinny]

If you want to have some religious ceremony for miscarriage that's your option but just the fact its considered unusual is evidence enough that the idea of personhood for fetuses or embryos is highly idiosyncratic, and more subject to individual intuitions.

Women do mourn generally mourn miscarriage because it's about mourning the loss of potential motherhood, and not necessarily a deep statement about personhood of the unborn.

What makes you an expert to give a definitive conclusion as to how or why women mourn?

 

[ubicaritas]

A friend of mine and his wife did. When she miscarried, they both felt that they had lost a son and it affected them deeply.

The religious right has really laid on the emotional manipulation and distorted people perceptions. My mom had two miscarriages and it was difficult for her, as it is difficult for all women, but she doesn't go around saying she's had four children.

 

[SPF]

If you want to have some religious ceremony for miscarriage that's your option but just the fact its considered unusual is evidence enough that the idea of personhood for fetuses or embryos is highly idiosyncratic, and more subject to individual intuitions.

Women do mourn generally mourn miscarriage because it's about mourning the loss of potential motherhood, and not necessarily a deep statement about personhood of the unborn.

So your suggested argument goes like this:

Premise 1: People generally don't perform funerals for humans that die from miscarriage
Premise 2: People perform funerals for human beings.

Conclusion: Therefore, miscarried babies aren't human beings.

I'll let you think about how strong and convincing of an argument that is.

Then let's think about the fact that Scripturally we know that all human beings are created in the image of God and possess inherent moral worth and value. Then let's think about the fact that we know scientifically that a new human being, a unique individual comes into existence at fertilization.

 

[ubicaritas]

What makes you an expert to give a definitive conclusion as to how or why women mourn?

What makes you an expert on what is best for a woman's body?

 

[Aldebaran]

What makes you an expert on what is best for a woman's body?

What makes you so sure that killing the baby is what's best for the baby?

 

[Phil 1:21]

A friend of mine and his wife did. When she miscarried, they both felt that they had lost a son and it affected them deeply.

The religious right has really laid on the emotional manipulation and distorted people perceptions. My mom had two miscarriages and it was difficult for her, as it is difficult for all women, but she doesn't go around saying she's had four children.

Aldebaran states that a friend of his and his wife had a memorial for the unborn child they lost because they felt they lost a son...and your response is to accuse them of being manipulated by "the religious right?"

I have no words.

 

[brinny]

The religious right has really laid on the emotional manipulation and distorted people perceptions. My mom had two miscarriages and it was difficult for her, as it is difficult for all women, but she doesn't go around saying she's had four children.

The religious right has really laid on the emotional manipulation and distorted people perceptions.

Nonsense.

Mourning and the inexplicable pain of loss and grief is very personal.

Discounting and dismissing that loss and pain and how it's expressed, is insensitive, and unnecessary, to say the least.

 

[Phil 1:21]

What makes you an expert on what is best for a woman's body?

I'll go way out on a limb and say what's best for a woman's body is probably not to have it dismembered in the womb and scraped into a pulp.

(half of all aborted babies are female)

 

[Chinchilla]

When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Exodus 21: 22 - 25

Apparently, in God's eyes the fetus is not a human being. Therefore, the abortion is not the murder.

 

[SPF]

Aldebaran states that a friend of his and his wife had a memorial for the unborn child they lost because they felt they lost a son...and your response is to accuse them of being manipulated by "the religious right?"

I have no words.

Clearly the words of someone who has never themselves had children. Immaturity and ignorance can excuse us a little, but the level of insensitivity and ignorance here is really amazing.

 

[brinny]

brinny said: ↑
What makes you an expert to give a definitive conclusion as to how or why women mourn?

What makes you an expert on what is best for a woman's body?

LOL! Wut?

I AM a woman.

Are YOU?

 

[ubicaritas]

Nonsense.

Mourning and the inexplicable pain of loss and grief is very personal.

Discounting and dismissing that loss and pain and how it's expressed, is insensitive, and unnecessary, to say the least.

Of course but why does that require a funeral? It's potentially politicizing a sacred rite.

 

[brinny]

Clearly the words of someone who has never themselves had children. Immaturity and ignorance can excuse us a little, but the level of insensitivity and ignorance here is really amazing.

I agree.

Incredulous.

 

[SPF]

Of course but why does that require a funeral? It's potentially politicizing a sacred rite.

Champ, your ignorant foot is so far in your mouth you should really just stop at this point.

 

[Aldebaran]

Of course but why does that require a funeral? It's potentially politicizing a sacred rite.

Politicizing? Where do you get that? Since when is a funeral a political event???

 

[redleghunter]

For some reason I cannot finish my posts, something is wrong with either the computer that I am using or with the website's LAN.
I'll try again. According to the lat
No I was not a human being at that time.

What were you then if not completely genetically human being? Are you confusing human being with the subjective philosophical term 'person?'

Plus you might have missed this as it refutes your understanding of Exodus 21:

Your Post:

When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
Exodus 21: 22 - 25

Apparently, in God's eyes the fetus is not a human being. Therefore, the abortion is not the murder.

Actually what you quoted is the very first recorded fetal homicide law. Here's why:

Exodus 21: King James Version (KJV)

22 If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,

24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Now another word for word literal translation from a modern English version.

Exodus 21: NASB


"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Exodus 21:22-25 NASB
http://bible.com/100/exo.21.22-25.NASB


Now we take a look at the Hebrew lexicon.



If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

So that her fruit:

Hebrew: יֶלֶד yeled

The KJV translates Strongs H3206 in the following manner:child (72x), young man (7x), young ones (3x), sons (3x), boy (2x), fruit (1x), variant (1x).


child, son, boy, offspring, youth

1. child, son, boy
2. child, children
3. descendants
4. youth

Yeled is not not miscarriage nor still birth, it's a live child.

Is there a Hebrew word for miscarriage and stillborn? Yes and it is not Yeled.

Exodus 23: KJV


26 There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

The above now in the Hebrew lexicon:
שָׁכֹל shakol


The KJV translates Strongs H7921 in the following manner:bereave (10x),barren(2x), childless (2x), cast young(2x), cast a calf (1x), lost children (1x),rob of children(1x), deprived (1x), misc (5x).


שָׁכֹלshâkôl, shaw-kole'; a primitive root; properly, to miscarry, i.e. suffer abortion; by analogy, to bereave (literally or figuratively):—bereave (of children), barren, cast calf (fruit, young), be (make) childless, deprive, destroy, × expect, lose children, miscarry, rob of children, spoil.


So we can see shakol is not used in Exodus 21:22ff.

Yaled is alive; shakol is miscarriage.


Now of course we do know with modern medical technology we become a new distinct human being at conception:

The question as to when the physical material dimension of a human being begins is strictly a scientific question, and fundamentally should be answered by human embryologists�not by philosophers, bioethicists, theologians, politicians, x-ray technicians, movie stars, or obstetricians and gynecologists. The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical question. Current discussions on abortion, human embryo research (including cloning, stem cell research, and the formation of mixed-species chimeras), and the use of abortifacients involve specific claims as to when the life of every human being begins. If the "science" used to ground these various discussions is incorrect, then any conclusions will be rendered groundless and invalid. The purpose of this article is to focus primarily on a sampling of the "scientific" myths, and on the objective scientific facts that ought to ground these discussions. At least it will clarify what the actual international consensus of human embryologists is with regard to this relatively simple scientific question. In the final section, I will also address some "scientific" myths that have caused much confusion within the philosophical discussions on "personhood."

https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]


"I would say that among most scientists, the word 'embryo' includes the time from after fertilization..."
[Dr. John Eppig, Senior Staff Scientist, Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, Maine) and Member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 31]


"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which thespermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]


"The question came up of what is an embryo, when does an embryo exist, when does it occur. I think, as you know, that in development, life is a continuum.... But I think one of the useful definitions that has come out, especially from Germany, has been the stage at which these two nuclei [from sperm and egg] come together and the membranes between the two break down."
[Jonathan Van Blerkom of University of Colorado, expert witness on human embryology before the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel -- Panel Transcript, February 2, 1994, p. 63]


"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1]


"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed withinfemale and malepronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]


"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M�ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]


"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]

https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html

 

[RaymondG]

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
This also tells us something, Does it not.

What I get from this is that I Am before I'mm given a robe dipped in blood....and after.......makes me wonder if removing the robe is actually killing Me.