Douglas, you may want to change your handle to, "Douglas, Begging the Question, Hendrickson" because that's basically what you do in every-single-post. The point of this topic I believe was to discuss what kind of life we have at conception. You are consistently repeating, without any actual argument in its favor, that there exists a distinction between a human being and a human person, or as you like to call them, "human life" and "a hus at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. He said, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”
Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School: “The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, or economic goals.”
Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the prolife cause. Nevertheless, he affirms unequivocally, “The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.
I honestly find it disturbing that we actually have to engage in debate over when a new human physically comes into existence. The answer is simple, known, factual - it's at conception. Period.
So that's point 1 - acknowledge that new human life begins at conception.
Point 2 - acknowledge the Biblical uniqueness and moral worth of each individual human. This also, for us on this Christian forum, should be easy. I believe that we all agree that God has uniquely created each of us. That humans are alone in creation as the only creatures created in the Image of God. All human possess innate and inherent moral worth. It is at all times immoral to take the life of an innocent human.
Points 1 and 2 should be non-issues for Christians.
The only reason that there is a debate over abortion is because humans have subjectively and arbitrarily created a distinction that does not exist either in science or in Scripture with regards to the nature of humans. We have subjectively and arbitrarily determined that there is a difference between a human being and a human person. Or as Douglas would say, between human life and a human being. This distinction is arbitrary and subjective.
I've asked this before, but nobody seems to want to address it.
Armour, I specifically asked you the following since you make the arbitrary jump from human being to human person as consciousness:
1. Can you find anything in Scripture which would indicate a distinction between a human being and a human person?
2. What is the purpose behind creating a distinction between a human being and a human person?
3. By what objective measure do you determine that the transition from a human being to a human person is consciousness? How is that distinction not subjective and arbitrarily determined? Meaning, what gives you the authority to create a distinction between a human being and a human person?
Douglas, you said to someone that unless there is flesh and blood it is not a human. Does this mean you think the human life becomes a human being at around the 11 week mark when there is a beating heart and skin?
Also, you ignored my other question: you seem to be saying that the newly formed human life isn't a human person because it hasn't reached a certain level of development. On what authority are you able to determine at what level of human development that a human life becomes a human being? Do you have some Biblical or scientific argument? Or is this theory just made up on your own?
What I simply cannot come to understand is why there is any desire at all on our part to create a distinction between a human being and a human person. There is nothing biologically or biblically which would drive us to do so. The only reason that I can think of that we would want to create a distinction between a human being and a human person would be so that we could perform some action against a human being that we would otherwise consider immoral. Can anyone dispute that?
I probably SHOULD ignore your questions when you begin with such slander, so falsely indicating my position.
You start with
a personal attack, which may I remind you is not to be done in these pages!
I
never once indicated I think there is a difference between a "human person" and "human being." In fact, I am pretty sure I explicitly denied such a distinction at least once in this thread. You begin and end with this FALSE DISTINCTION attributed to others.
So your entire attack on me is based on FALSITY, falsity of your fabrication.
You say later in this post: "
subjectively and arbitrarily determined that there is a difference between a human being and a human person. Or as Douglas would say, between human life and a human being. This distinction is arbitrary and subjective."
Not the same distinction. What I would say, and did say, as you say, is correct - there is a vast difference between "human life" and "a human being."
A human being could be referred to as "
a human life," but that is NOT the same thing as "human life." Someone's arm is
"human life," it consists of cells that are human and alive. It is certainly not a person. It is that distinction I refer to, not the one you fabricate.
And your "appeals to authority," your supposed "science," is their
unfounded claims, their (whether ignorantly or deliberate "pro-life" intent) introduction of terms like "individual" that suggest (and you take to mean) personhood when there is
no grounds for such a conclusion. They
beg the question, in other words.
So two very big LOGICAL FALLACIES in your "medical and scientific evidence." (Over and above the fact they present
no evidence!)
Begging the question, and appeal to authority.
You say: "
Douglas, you said to someone that unless there is flesh and blood it is not a human. Does this mean you think the human life becomes a human being at around the 11 week mark when there is a beating heart and skin?"
It means very simply that
the idea of "a human being at conception" makes no sense. It says nothing about what happens later in pregnancy. On it's basis anyone who wants to discuss rationally will not continue to claim there is a human being
when there is no blood and guts. That is what I said, that is what I mean.
By the way, you ARE ABLE
here to correctly indicate the distinction
I make when you say "
the human life becomes a human being...." If you simply obliterate that distinction, do not recognize it elsewhere, you are begging the question. THE ENTIRE QUESTION IS
WHEN "HUMAN LIFE" BECOMES "A HUMAN BEING." (Please note again this statement does not involve the expression "
a human life.")
