Clump of cells? When life begins?

loriersea said:

But you are doing the same thing. You don't believe, I assume, that a sperm has the right to life and that masturbation is genocide. You don't believe that a woman is allowing a child to die every time she menstruates without getting pregnant. You are deciding that human cells--which the sperm and egg are--become a person at the moment of conception. You are making decisions about what being a person is dependent upon, and it is no different from the argument that the development of higher brain activity, or viability, or whatever point one wishes to choose, is the start of personhood.

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A sperm and an egg are just cells of the male and female, with the same genetic identity as the cells of the people they came from. Left alone they would never grow or develop.

At conception a total new genetic individual is created, with a unique genetic make-up, who left to itself would develop and grow through all the stages of life. The only way to stop this is to kill that individual human life.

And no. I'm not doing what you are doing - in other words making decisions about when a human life becomes a "person". I have pointed out that every human life is sacred at whatever stage of development. The "person" argument is one that can be used to justify infanticide, racism, euthanasia of the sick, old or infirm. Since it is up to the power elite to decide who a "person" is.

Didn't the US Supreme Court once say Africans weren't people?

TScott said:

Well what about a fertilized egg. Take fertilized egg, and place it on the kitchen table and watch it grow.

Oh, it won't grow, will it?

If it is not attached to the mother's uterus it will die, won't it?

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Take a young baby, place it on a kitchen table without food or liquid and watch it grow.

Take an elderly person with Alzheimers and do the same.

Take someone wo is mentally incapacitated....

They won't grow either - will they?

See where your argument leads?

Axion said:

And no. I'm not doing what you are doing - in other words making decisions about when a human life becomes a "person". I have pointed out that every human life is sacred at whatever stage of development. The "person" argument is one that can be used to justify infanticide, racism, euthanasia of the sick, old or infirm. Since it is up to the power elite to decide who a "person" is.

Didn't the US Supreme Court once say Africans weren't people?

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Yes, it did. Funny how the very same Christians--by which I mean the same denominations, same individuals--who were so sure that African-Americans were second-class citizens are now entirely sure that a fertilized egg should have the same rights as a born person. It's almost as if they are about having control over the lives of women and minorities, and using the rhetoric of "life" to justify it. It's also funny how the same court that made abortion legal was also the court that decided that blacks were not second-class citizens, and should not live in a segregated society. I guess your argument doesn't really hold up.

An embryo is not a baby. It has never legally been considered a baby. Again, do you want us to start counting our age from the day we were conceived? Should we get social security numbers upon conception? Should an embryo conceived in the United States be granted citizenship rights?

If someone were to die if you didn't donate your bone marrow to them, do you think you should be legally required to donate? Should the government have the right to force you to do that?

Axion said:

Take a young baby, place it on a kitchen table without food or liquid and watch it grow.

Take an elderly person with Alzheimers and do the same.

Take someone wo is mentally incapacitated....

They won't grow either - will they?

See where your argument leads?

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In the first place it was Stinkers agrument. You see that is the way a thread works, I posted Stiker's,

stinker said:

Well, we all know that sperm cells alone do not grow into mature human adults, and neither does the unfertilized egg from the woman.

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and answered it by taking his argument a step further to include the mother's uterus, which is what this whole thing is really all about. I'm sure it is difficult for you to make that distinction, because like me and Stinker, you don't have a uterus. Now, I'm sure if you had a uterus you would have absolutely no problem if a fertilized egg attached it, in fact you guys would probaly offer your uterus as a safe haven for all the little unwanted fetilized eggs and we wouldn't even be arguing about abortion because all of us guys would make it right.

loriersea said:

Yes, it did. Funny how the very same Christians--by which I mean the same denominations, same individuals--who were so sure that African-Americans were second-class citizens are now entirely sure that a fertilized egg should have the same rights as a born person.

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This is absolute nonsense. Guess who it was who led the moral revolt against slavery. Christians! This is because the underlying principle of Christianity - unlike most other moral-ethical systems, sees all humans as being basically equal. Yes. Some people have twisted this, when they had a strong interest in the outcome. And they have generally used the sort of mealy-mouthed arguments the abortionists are now using, about some humans being "persons" and others not.

It's almost as if they are about having control over the lives of women and minorities, and using the rhetoric of "life" to justify it. It's also funny how the same court that made abortion legal was also the court that decided that blacks were not second-class citizens, and should not live in a segregated society. I guess your argument doesn't really hold up.

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No. Which court abolished slavery in the United States? I'll tell you. No court. It certainly wasn't the Supreme Court. What did the US Supreme Court do? Look up the Dredd Scott case of 1850. The Supreme Court defined that African-Americans were non-persons, and were not subject to any constitutional rights or protections. Anything could be done to them without legal right to oppose. Rather like the Roe-Wade decision with regard to the unborn.

An embryo is not a baby. It has never legally been considered a baby. Again, do you want us to start counting our age from the day we were conceived? Should we get social security numbers upon conception? Should an embryo conceived in the United States be granted citizenship rights?

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Nonsense arguments.

An Embryo IS a baby. It is a fully complete human individual, whether it has a Social Security number or not. At birth the only thing that changes is its location. The only way to stop it growing and developing, is to butcher it.

If someone were to die if you didn't donate your bone marrow to them, do you think you should be legally required to donate? Should the government have the right to force you to do that?

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Straw man argument.

The person with the disease would die naturally without artificial intervention. It might be a MORAL responsibility to help him if you could, but you are not forced to intervene. With a baby in the womb, it is living thriving and will normally develop and survive UNLESS a surgeon intervenes and kills it. Big difference.

TScott said:

and answered it by taking his argument a step further to include the mother's uterus, which is what this whole thing is really all about. I'm sure it is difficult for you to make that distinction, because like me and Stinker, you don't have a uterus. Now, I'm sure if you had a uterus you would have absolutely no problem if a fertilized egg attached it, in fact you guys would probaly offer your uterus as a safe haven for all the little unwanted fetilized eggs and we wouldn't even be arguing about abortion because all of us guys would make it right.

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Your attempts at a mocking tone just show the weakness of your position.

You are advocating the killing of human beings because they are inconvenient to their parent(s). This is of course abhorrent and the beginning of a society in which all "inconvenient" humans can be killed at will. And your argument then will be "if you want to save all these old, mentally ill people, why don't you care for them?"

loriersea said:

Even when and where abortion is illegal, it is NOT considered murder. It never has been. Abortions before quickening (about 14-18 weeks) were considered to be relatively minor crimes before Roe, and for centuries were considered minor sins by the church. Legal systems have never considered abortion to be equivalent to murder; it is a rhetorical argument, not one that has ever been or, reasonably, will ever be enshrined in law.

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wrong.

Chapter 2. The Second Commandment: Grave Sin Forbidden. And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge. You shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued, for to be double-tongued is a snare of death. Your speech shall not be false, nor empty, but fulfilled by deed. You shall not be covetous, nor rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor evil disposed, nor haughty. You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor. You shall not hate any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you shall pray, and some you shall love more than your own life.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html

An embryo IS a clump of cells. So is my heart, so is my brain, so am I, if we are talking about a big enough clump. So, that's not exactly a wrong definition. But, being a clump of cells isn't enough to determine whether or not something has a legal right to nurturance, given that the phrase describes both me and a lint ball.

It is far more accurate to say that an embryo is a clump of cells than it is to argue that a fertilized egg is a person, though. When we reduce personhood to that level, it is meaningless. Being a person has to mean more than simply having human DNA, otherwise we all kill millions of people every day when we shower. For all of this talk about embryos being people, I don't think that's actually what people want. Should we start counting birthdays from the day we are conceived? Should we issue social security numbers to embryos? Should a fetus conceived in the United States be considered a U.S. citizen?

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some of these questions are so flippant i just don't even know where to start.

Should every miscarriage be investigated as potential murder? People might dismiss that as ridiculous, but when a child dies, it's not just passed off with "Well, kids die sometimes." It's investigated. If a fetus is a person, then every miscarriage would have to be investigated as a potential murder, in case the pregnant woman was doing something to facilitate the miscarriage. If you don't feed your child and it does, you are charged with negligent homicide. It would stand to reason that, if a fetus is a person, if you didn't eat right while pregnant and miscarried, you should also be charged with negligent homicide.

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that argument is just ludicrous. a woman has no control over her body in a miscarriage. she cannot help the miscarriage or somehow prevent it from happening. but an abortion is a willful and dilberate act.

Saying an embryo is not a person does not mean it has no value. I'd agree with Judy that higher brain activity (perception, sensation, the ability to actually HAVE experiences, even if you are unable to interpret them or reason about them or even remember them) is probably the best line for when a fetus becomes a person. That does not mean that I think that women should have abortions with impunity before about 21 or 22 weeks, or that abortions should necessarily be allowed under all circumstances until then. By the time we get to 14 weeks or so, all of the major organs and features are differentiated and present in some primitive form. I don't think that we are necessarily morally obligated to protect fetal life at that point, although I would say we have more of an obligation to do so than we did at 4 weeks or 7 weeks, but I also don't think that we are placing women in danger by restricting abortion after that point, since pregnancy tests are now sensitive enough to detect a pregnancy even before a missed period and there is little reason why more than three months of deliberating should be necessary before deciding whether or not to continue a pregnancy. For the sake of compromise, I do think it's worth considering whether it would make sense to rethink Roe and limit abortion to the first trimester, which is actually more in line with the laws of other industrialized Western nations than our current laws.

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why not? is life less valuable to you at a certain stage in life than another?

Even if you read Exodus 20:1-17, there is no mention of "murdering a child by abortion" in the bible, well the bible on CF or mine at home.
Anywho it does not matter because even if the early church reguarded abotion the same as murder it does not make it correct or incorrect.. I find it interesting that people can hold people who 'murder a fetus' at the stance as if they have murdered a child, teenager adult, etc..

Axion said:

Your attempts at a mocking tone just show the weakness of your position.

You are advocating the killing of human beings because they are inconvenient to their parent(s). This is of course abhorrent and the beginning of a society in which all "inconvenient" humans can be killed at will. And your argument then will be "if you want to save all these old, mentally ill people, why don't you care for them?"

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Sometimes the faults we see in others, are more within ourselves because they are the faults which disgust us the most.

I believe TScotts argument is more of allowing the person with the uterous to decide. Unlike presuming the next posters statements.

Tscott ( post #9) said:

I don't encourage the women I know to have abortions, in fact I discourage it.

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^This doesn't sound like the tone of someone who would be happy for a woman to have an abortion because they think a baby will be inconvenient.. but I could be wrong......

Axion said:

Your attempts at a mocking tone just show the weakness of your position.

You are advocating the killing of human beings because they are inconvenient to their parent(s). This is of course abhorrent and the beginning of a society in which all "inconvenient" humans can be killed at will. And your argument then will be "if you want to save all these old, mentally ill people, why don't you care for them?"

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I'm sorry you felt it necessary to personally attack me. I hope you feel better, even though that is not my position at all. I don't advocate killing anyone and I challenge you to show where I have!

I saw this show called Frontline, and apparantly most pregnancies are self-aborted within a couple of days by the body.

why not? is life less valuable to you at a certain stage in life than another?

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Yes, it is. When there is no higher brain function--no possibility of sensation, perceptions, or feelings of any sort at all--then the life is less valuable. That is why most people have no problem with the idea of taking brain-dead people (people with no higher brain activity) off of life support and/or donating their organs to others who DO have higher brain activity.

What does it mean to say that humanity is made in the image of God? If we claim that a first-trimester fetus is a person, then apparently that means that we have the same DNA code as God. But, obviously that isn't true. So, what does it mean? I think it is pretty clear that the idea of humanity being made in the image of God has something to do with our feelings, experience, relationships, consciousness in the most rudimentary sense. All of that requires some degree of higher brain activity. Otherwise, we are reducing being human to having a particular DNA code.

As for the idea of investigating miscarriages, I'm not sure why people can't see that this is the logical extension of viewing a fetus as a person. If a fetus is a person, then a miscarriage would be the death of a person. When a person dies, and we are not sure why (and we are not sure why the vast majority of miscarriages happen), there is an investigation, at least a rudimentary one. How would we know that what looks like a miscarriage was not a self-induced abortion? We wouldn't, without an investigation. And, if a first-trimester embryo is a person, we would be obligated to investigate each miscarriage to make sure the mother did not willfully (in terms of purposefully inducing an abortion--falling down the stairs, taking certain drugs, etc.) or negligently (in terms of engaging in behavior that created conditions in which a miscarriage became more likely--improper nutrition, recreational drug use) cause the miscarriage to happen.

If you don't feed your child, and he or she dies, you are guilty of negligent homicide. If an embryo is a person, then if you are not getting proper nutrition and it causes you to miscarry, it would have to be seen as the same. If you push your child down the stairs and your child dies, that's murder. If a first-trimester embryo is a person, than a desperate pregnant woman who throws herself down the stairs and miscarries is also committing murder.

If an embryo is a person, then there is no way around the idea that we would be legally obligated to investigate miscarriages as potential murders, since it is almost always impossible to determine the cause of a miscarriage. We'd have to investigate the circumstances around it--the mother's habits and behaviors--to be sure she didn't willfully or negligently cause it to happen.

loriersea said:

Yes, it is. When there is no higher brain function--no possibility of sensation, perceptions, or feelings of any sort at all--then the life is less valuable. That is why most people have no problem with the idea of taking brain-dead people (people with no higher brain activity) off of life support and/or donating their organs to others who DO have higher brain activity.

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Sorry. There's a big difference between brain death and impaired (or undeveloped) function, which you are trying to gloss over here.

What does it mean to say that humanity is made in the image of God? If we claim that a first-trimester fetus is a person, then apparently that means that we have the same DNA code as God. But, obviously that isn't true. So, what does it mean? I think it is pretty clear that the idea of humanity being made in the image of God has something to do with our feelings, experience, relationships, consciousness in the most rudimentary sense. All of that requires some degree of higher brain activity. Otherwise, we are reducing being human to having a particular DNA code.

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No. We are saying that ALL human life is equally sacred, no matter how much some humans may think certain lives are superior.

As for the idea of investigating miscarriages, I'm not sure why people can't see that this is the logical extension of viewing a fetus as a person. If a fetus is a person, then a miscarriage would be the death of a person. When a person dies, and we are not sure why (and we are not sure why the vast majority of miscarriages happen), there is an investigation, at least a rudimentary one. How would we know that what looks like a miscarriage was not a self-induced abortion?

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Again. This is not a valid argument for two reasons.

1. Investigations occur in deaths where foul-play or some form of negligence is expected. When most adults die naturally there is no investigation. We know people die of illness or old age. We know the unborn can naturally miscarry. Without a reason for an investigation, none takes place.

2. Legalities do not confer human rights. The death of slaves on slave-ships was not normally investigated. The deaths of Nazi camp victims was not investigated by the state of the day. Does these mean the victims were non-persons?

If you don't feed your child, and he or she dies, you are guilty of negligent homicide. If an embryo is a person, then if you are not getting proper nutrition and it causes you to miscarry, it would have to be seen as the same.

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No. It's the purpose of your action that is judged in law. Not feeding yourself, unless it could be proved, this was to cause a miscarriage (an unlikely scenario), would be seen primarily as an attempt to hurt yourself. Taking an abortifacient drug would be clearly an intention to harm the baby, not yourself.

If you push your child down the stairs and your child dies, that's murder. If a first-trimester embryo is a person, than a desperate pregnant woman who throws herself down the stairs and miscarries is also committing murder.

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If it can be proved that was her intention, to murder the child, not to self-harm.

If an embryo is a person, then there is no way around the idea that we would be legally obligated to investigate miscarriages as potential murders, since it is almost always impossible to determine the cause of a miscarriage. We'd have to investigate the circumstances around it--the mother's habits and behaviors--to be sure she didn't willfully or negligently cause it to happen.

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Dealt with above. Most miscarriages DO get medically examined anyway by the woman's doctor, who checks for a cause.

TScott said:

Axion said:

Your attempts at a mocking tone just show the weakness of your position.

You are advocating the killing of human beings because they are inconvenient to their parent(s). This is of course abhorrent and the beginning of a society in which all "inconvenient" humans can be killed at will. And your argument then will be "if you want to save all these old, mentally ill people, why don't you care for them?"

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I'm sorry you felt it necessary to personally attack me. I hope you feel better, even though that is not my position at all. I don't advocate killing anyone and I challenge you to show where I have!

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I'm sorry you feel that my pointing out the consequences of your arguments is a "personal attack".

An unborn child is a living human being and you are arguing for the brutal killing of that human being in order to satisfy the needs or convenience of another. The justification you use is that the human being you advocate being killed is weak and dependent. If that is your justification, then the same reasoning can be, and has been, applied to other weak and dependent human beings.

kopilo said:

Even if you read Exodus 20:1-17, there is no mention of "murdering a child by abortion" in the bible, well the bible on CF or mine at home.
Anywho it does not matter because even if the early church reguarded abotion the same as murder it does not make it correct or incorrect.. I find it interesting that people can hold people who 'murder a fetus' at the stance as if they have murdered a child, teenager adult, etc..

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The bible does not say "You shall not kill one-legged people" either. The command not to kill covers it all. And you can see that the Bible sees the unborn as persons. Read Luke 2 and the visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth.

I find it interesting that people can see a baby as sacred once outside the womb, but free to be torn apart just because of the change of location!

^This doesn't sound like the tone of someone who would be happy for a woman to have an abortion because they think a baby will be inconvenient.. but I could be wrong......

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So, if I said: "I don't encourage people to kill ethnic minorities on sight, but I believe it should be legal." Would that be okay?

Axion said:

No. We are saying that ALL human life is equally sacred, no matter how much some humans may think certain lives are superior.

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Except that nobody really does that. If you were in a burning building and had a bucketful of embryos and a newborn baby in front of you, and could only leave with one, which would you take? If you took the embryos, then I'd say that you do NOT think that human life has much value at all.

Do you believe that women should be legally barred from taking the pill, or from having IUDs? In both cases, fertilized eggs can be expelled from the body. If not, why not? Do you believe that life only becomes sacred after implantation?

Do you honestly believe that a woman taking the pill and expelling a fertilized egg with her menstrual flow is doing something morally equivalent to a woman having an abortion at 26 weeks? If so, then it is ridiculous to lobby against abortion, because far, far more women take BCPs and have IUDs. If all fertilized eggs are as sacred as people, then you should be fighting to make BCPs and IUDs illegal, because they kill far more people each year than abortion.

Dealt with above. Most miscarriages DO get medically examined anyway by the woman's doctor, who checks for a cause.

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No, they don't. In fact, most miscarriages occur before a woman even has her first prenatal appointment. If an embryo were considered a person, we would need to require every single woman to register her positive pregnancy test with some sort of state authority, and if her pregnancy were to end, her behavior would have to be investigated. Otherwise, you are NOT treated all lives as equally valuable.

Axion said:

The bible does not say "You shall not kill one-legged people" either. The command not to kill covers it all. And you can see that the Bible sees the unborn as persons. Read Luke 2 and the visitation of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth.

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Yes, but if we didn't kill anything (eg vegetables etc) we would die. However I think "thou shall not kill" is more directed towards murder.

I find it interesting that people can see a baby as sacred once outside the womb, but free to be torn apart just because of the change of location!

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A fetus is not a baby. (Abotion = termination of fetus). However you can be free to consider both fetus and baby to be human.

So, if I said: "I don't encourage people to kill ethnic minorities on sight, but I believe it should be legal." Would that be okay?

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Heh, descrimination is very different to abortion.. To start with babies are born everywhere but every ethnic groups do not exists in every single country (or island). Also you may have a conflict of interest.

With abortion one of the main reasons people agree with legality and disagree with encouraging people. Is because of what has occured in history dealing with "home abortions", I suggest watching the movie "The Cider House Rules" if you do not know what I am talking about.

Sperm and ova are alive. A fetus is obviously alive as well. But is it human life? Human life is defined by sapience. Consider that we're willing to end the life of a brain dead human because they are no longer really alive. They're just a vegetable as we say.

A fetus is much like that, except we know they will "recover" and grow into a healthy person if the mother carries the baby to term. That's where the problem comes in. You can put a kid up for adoption and disown your relatives. There's no way to end a pregnancy right now except through abortion.

A fetus is something like a parasite. It is entirely dependant on the mother for survival and is not sapient (and early on not even sentient). So it's reasonable to give a woman the choice of ending a pregnancy if she does so early enough. A fetus will become a person in the ordinary course of things, but I don't think you can say that it is a person yet. Not until it can survive without it's mother.

kopilo said:

Yes, but if we didn't kill anything (eg vegetables etc) we would die. However I think "thou shall not kill" is more directed towards murder.

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Correct -- the LXX says "murder" and Jesus quoted it Himself; "Thou shalt do no murder (Mat 19:18)."

Murder is a premeditated act like abortion.

"Killing" for food (or in war) is not Biblical sin.

Axion said:

I'm sorry you feel that my pointing out the consequences of your arguments is a "personal attack".

An unborn child is a living human being and you are arguing for the brutal killing of that human being in order to satisfy the needs or convenience of another. The justification you use is that the human being you advocate being killed is weak and dependent. If that is your justification, then the same reasoning can be, and has been, applied to other weak and dependent human beings.

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It's a personal attack because there are no grounds for you saying that I am advocating abortion for the convenience of anybody. I have not advocated it in any of my posts. If I have please point it out, if I haven't please stop it.