Is abortion ever acceptable?

[Archivist]

There’s no such thing as potential life. There is life and non life. Basic biology.

To cite just a few examples, the American Heritage Science Dictionary defines “conception” as “the formation of a zygote resulting from the union of a sperm and egg cell; fertilization.” (For reference, a zygote is the first stage of a human embryo.)

Likewise, the entry for “life” in the American Heritage Dictionary of Sciencestates that life is “the form of existence that organisms like animals and plants have and that inorganic objects or organic dead bodies lack; animate existence, characterized by growth, reproduction, metabolism, and response to stimuli.”

Rubio’s statement that “human life begins at conception” is consistent with both of these definitions, because human zygotes display all four empirical attributes of life:

1. Growth – As explained in the textbook Essentials of Human Development: A Life-Span View, “the zygote grows rapidly through cell division.”

1. Reproduction – Per Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia, zygotes sometimes form identical twins, which is an act of “asexual reproduction.” (Also, in this context, the word “reproduction” is more accurately understood as “reproductive potential” instead of “active reproduction.” For example, three-year-old humans are manifestly alive, but they can’t actively reproduce.)

1. Metabolism – As detailed in the medical text Human Gametes and Preimplantation Embryos: Assessment and Diagnosis, “At the zygote stage,” the human embryo metabolizes “carboxylic acids pyruvate and lactate as its preferred energy substrates.”

1. Response to stimuli – Collins English Dictionary defines a “stimulus” as “any drug, agent, electrical impulse, or other factor able to cause a response in an organism.” Experiments have shown that zygotes are responsive to such factors. For example, a 2005 paper in the journal Human Reproduction Update notes that a compound called platelet-activating factor “acts upon the zygote” by stimulating “metabolism,” “cell-cycle progression,” and “viability.”

Furthermore, the science of embryology has proven that the genetic composition of humans is formed during fertilization, and as the textbook Molecular Biology explains, this genetic material is “the very basis of life itself.”

In accord with the facts above, the textbook Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects directly states: “The zygote and early embryo are living human organisms.” This may be controversial from a political perspective, but the sciences of embryology and genetics leave no doubt as to when human life begins.

The science of abortion: When does life begin? - Just Facts

I said potential human life, not life or potential life. Don’t waste my time posting irrelevent definitions.

 

[Archivist]

Yeah that was Adam and Eve. A couple of points.

First when were they a human fetus? They never were.

Genesis confirms in procreation human life begins with the begetting or fathering. See Genesis 5.

Secondly, I am quite happy you are joining fundamentalists in the literal interpretation of the Creation Genesis account. Especially how our parents Adam and Eve were created. I mean who would base their entire philosophy of the beginning of life on myth and legend.

Anyone who things that the Garden if Eden is literal is living in medieval times. It is an allegory, but much can be gleaned from it like “breath of life.”

 

[redleghunter]

No, I'm not. You don't know when the Lord places a soul into an unborn baby, but you do know it is unjust to force a woman to carry a child that it the result of rape.

Perhaps you may be familiar with the following:

Isaiah 44:24 King James Version (KJV)
24 Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself;

Isaiah 49:15 King James Version (KJV)
15 Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.


Psalm 71:6 King James Version (KJV)
6 By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: my praise shall be continually of thee.

Jeremiah 1:5 King James Version (KJV)
5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Galatians 1:15 King James Version (KJV)
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,

Psalm 139:13 King James Version (KJV)
13 For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

Seems God is quite involved throughout our fetal development.

 

[redleghunter]

Am I expected to read long-winded replies?

It is common courtesy to do so if you are responding.

 

[redleghunter]

Your tendency to respond to reasoning by calling it "sophistry" is noted. Your personal defense against logic and reasoning is complete.

Ok I'll add a toe=fetus to my book of arguments which need a response. At least you did not use cancer like another poster did a year ago.

 

[dreadnought]

It is common courtesy to do so if you are responding.

I don't think so. There's no reason to be long-winded, and sometimes someone says something that needs to be responded to.

 

[redleghunter]

Forcing a woman who is a rape victim to carry the fetus to term is indentured servitude

Again how is an innocent life responsible for this alleged enslavement ? You are just using shocking rhetoric attempting an emotional response . The woman raped is a victim. Aborting the child just creates another victim and makes the woman a murderer. The rapist gets 3 meals a day and cable TV if caught and is out on good behavior in a few years ready to rape again. So if you truly want to promote justice for a rape victim, execute the rapist and not the child. No Christian moral or ethical model supports your model.
Not even in war can you blow up a hospital to get at a terrorist hiding in there. It's basic proportionality. Rape does not give one a right to kill.

But it isn’t evil to force a woman to carry the fetus of her attacker to term against he

No it's not evil for a woman to respect innocent human life. The life in the womb is not some demon child. They have done no wrong.

The rights of a life in being trump those of a potential life.

As I have said, you are entitled to your own opinion just as I am entitled to mine.

There is no such thing as a potential life theologically nor scientifically. It must be some made up secular humanistic term.

 

[redleghunter]

A newborn, having drawn the breath of life, is functioning as a self in a way an unborn is not. It is looking around starting to draw conclusions about what it sees. It recognizes how to get the others in its life to come to its aid by crying.

Therefore 5 minutes before birth the child is not a viable human?

The formation of self recognition and abstract thinking starts at birth, and while your argument against a full self being present has some theoretical merit, the granting of human status and human rights at birth makes a lot of sense, legally and socially. In the United States, infants have citizenship rights at birth. They can be counted in the census and they can confer tax benefits to the parents.

Some bioethicists place the cognitive threshold at 3 months to 6 months of age. Thus you are just adding another arbitrary subjective line in the sand.

And this argument from an unknown state of those in heaven . . . what form their self existence takes, how their thoughts are processed being completely out of our realm of knowledge . . . is proposed by a human who accuses me of using sophistry.

Well the Bible confirms we have an immaterial soul/spirit.

 

[redleghunter]

These multiple fates possible are evidence against the "soul issued at egg fertilization" t

It's evidence there are abnormalities or anomalies. How do you draw the conclusion God cannot place a soul in any of the above? You can't. There's still a beginning for all of the above from conception of the first fertilized egg.

You think God rolls the dice?

 

[redleghunter]

You are misquoting me. Inlesscyouvfound a typo I said potential human life, not potential human.

Ok same questions now "potential human life."

 

[redleghunter]

There you go again, counting on alternate definitions of the same word, used confusedly, to advance your thesis.

I've used scientific terms. There is life and non life. There is no such thing as potential human life. It is either life or not. Clear enough?

You cannot live without the death of other life. It's what you eat. That does NOT make you a murderer.

What did the fetus eat?

Please speak with a clearer idea of what the words mean you are using.

That's quite rich.

 

[redleghunter]

That is obviously true. What is your problem with that?

Good maybe you can explain the objective truth behind shades of human worth.

Why are some humans made in the image and according to the likeness of God of more moral worth than others?

 

[redleghunter]

I said potential human life, not life or potential life. Don’t waste my time posting irrelevent definitions.

It's your definition to reveal to us.

What is a potential human life? Theologically and scientifically.

 

[redleghunter]

Anyone who things that the Garden if Eden is literal is living in medieval times. It is an allegory, but much can be gleaned from it like “breath of life.”

I see your theological standing is on an allegory.

What is the nature of the allegorical use of breath of life?

Can you point out the allegorical language in Genesis chapter 2?

 

[Jon Osterman]

Good maybe you can explain the objective truth behind shades of human worth.

Why are some humans made in the image and according to the likeness of God of more moral worth than others?

OK. We can think of a version of the Philippa Foot's trolley problem. You have two people both facing certain death, which you personally can prevent. But you only have time to save one. You have to choose. One is a murderer and rapist who is unrepentant of his crimes and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. The other is a 10 year old girl who is well behaved and has no health issues.

Which one should you save. Is either choice morally correct? If you would chose one over the other you are making a judgement about relative human worth.

 

[Jason Sanders]

OK. We can think of a version of the Philippa Foot's trolley problem. You have two people both facing certain death, which you personally can prevent. But you only have time to save one. You have to choose. One is a murderer and rapist who is unrepentant of his crimes and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. The other is a 10 year old girl who is well behaved and has no health issues.

Which one should you save. Is either choice morally correct? If you would chose one over the other you are making a judgement about relative human worth.

Allow me to answer: They are both of equal worth in God's eyes, and therefore I do not have a right to choose between them.

However, given that this is a question about a train/trolley running over someone, I suppose if I had to choose, I would choose the girl. Not because she is somehow worth more than the murderer, but because she has a longer life ahead of her than him, and therefore ought to be given a chance at doing some good in the world.

If I wasn't restricted by this asinine and utterly ridiculous philosophical word problem, however? Totally save both of them by getting the train to stop and/or involving someone else. Or cutting them from the track. Or any number of ways besides the ones listed in the problem.

 

[Tutorman]

I want to spare her more suffering.

Your adding to it. By making her and anyone who helps her a murderer plus there is psychological trauma many times for the women. All people want to do is make themselves feel better by saying baby murder (abortion) is okay for this or that without thinking through what abortion really is and the consequences of such

 

[redleghunter]

OK. We can think of a version of the Philippa Foot's trolley problem. You have two people both facing certain death, which you personally can prevent. But you only have time to save one. You have to choose. One is a murderer and rapist who is unrepentant of his crimes and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. The other is a 10 year old girl who is well behaved and has no health issues.

Which one should you save. Is either choice morally correct? If you would chose one over the other you are making a judgement about relative human worth.

This works if two lives are at stake .

In the case presented on a healthy mother and child due to rape we are not presented with your stated dilemma.

Choosing one or the other does not lessen the moral worth of either the sick man or child. Most would pick the child from my generation as she is a minor and needs the most assistance. A stranger man I would assume can take care of himself. Neither choice reduces the moral worth of either child or adult. What you present is what an emergency room faces on a daily basis .

 

[Holoman]

OK. We can think of a version of the Philippa Foot's trolley problem. You have two people both facing certain death, which you personally can prevent. But you only have time to save one. You have to choose. One is a murderer and rapist who is unrepentant of his crimes and has recently been diagnosed with cancer. The other is a 10 year old girl who is well behaved and has no health issues.

Which one should you save. Is either choice morally correct? If you would chose one over the other you are making a judgement about relative human worth.

So does the fact an innocent girl is more deserving of life than a murderer mean that you are justified to go and kill said murderer when neither life is in danger? Because that's the analogy with abortion.

 

[AnnaDeborah]

I restate because people keep asking me questions I have already answered.

Genesis tells us that life begins with breath. Until then it is potential life.

And I have already answered that a description of how God brought into being the first human life cannot be compared with the birth of every infant since that point. The same passage that describes God breathing into Adam also talks about him being formed from the dust of the ground as a fully adult human.

But it isn’t evil to force a woman to carry the fetus of her attacker to term against her will?

No. The 'evil' was the act of rape that resulted in the pregnancy. Destroying the child would merely be another evil on top of the first.