Summations Only

Hello everyone. This issue is very intriguing to me. I have to agree with nwr and Percy here. The question of "when" does human life begin is a matter of semantics. Obviously "life" never begins. It started at some point in the past and has been going ever since. This is yet another case of the problem not being well defined and therefore the solution being very broad and all over the board. Most fellow Christians I know do not even know how to frame the question before they start trying to impose what they feel is the solution. Firstly I want to point out that as Christians we are not called of God to impose our morals on the non-Christian communities of people we are supposed to be trying to reach rather than repel.Secondly I wish to point out that the real issue here is not when does it become "human life," but rather when does it become a person. This is important, because most Christians have no problem with someone having their tonsils removed. Someone can argue that those tonsils are very much "alive" and they are very much "human." Therefore it is not just "human life" that is the issue, but rather "human person-hood."Therefore in this current society we live in, we Christians can not expect to appeal to this issue on the basis of our own religious and moral beliefs or preferences. There are a lot of secular people out there who share none of our Christian values. And that's got to be okay... after all that is supposed to be one of the corner stones to a free America. We must divorce our selves from bringing our religion into the issue or else we will lose on the grounds of "religious legislation" every time. But on the other hand we can't just sit idly by and watch what we believe to be millions of murders take place each year in the name of convenience.So what the whole issue can be boiled down to, is when does a fertilized egg become a "person?" That is to say, when does it become a person that should have the same rights as any other person? If we look to the Bible, we can not with any honesty point to a single verse that makes this distinction. In the Psalms, David describes himself as having been "knit together" by the Lord in his mothers womb. It doesn't tell us the exact point to which this process was completed.Likewise we can not look to science and make any real definitive evaluation of when this process is. Obviously a person does not become a person at the moment of breathing. My daughter was born 3 months premature, and for her first month after birth she was on a ventilator that breathed for her. But she was legally classed as a person. Why should exiting the body be a good way to determine person hood? This is an argument that appeals to location. Obviously location is not a logical way to determine person hood. Some have suggested that when brain activity reaches a certain stage then it should be considered a person. However there are plenty of "people" who still had "person" status while in comas. Size also should not be a criteria, because then we open the door to discriminate against small people. The same goes for level of development. We would never sanction the idea of retarded children being non-persons.In the end we can not look to either science or the Bible to decide this issue. I don't believe we ever will be able to. Personally as a Christian, I think God does not intend for us to be able to answer this question. God clearly wants us to value people and does not want us to murder them. But I don't think there is a single person on either side of the issue he believes murder is okay. So this is not just a religious issue or a "Christian moral" issue. It is a question of person hood. The answer to this question should be decided the same way that we as a society decide other situations that involve the person hood of others. We must look to other similar situations and see how we have decided them.For example I once heard a story of a police officer who had chased an armed assailant into a construction area. The assailant was shooting at the officer who hid behind a truck. The assailant hid behind a portapotty. The question was, did the officer have the right to shoot through the plastic structure and kill the armed assailant. Upon closer examination of the incident, it was determined that it would have been reckless for the officer to do so. He did not know if there was an innocent "person" inside that structure or not. Therefore in this situation where it was unsure, society deemed it necessary for the officer to error on the side of safety and not take that shot.Likewise in a situation such as this issue where "person hood" is unknown, shouldn't we also CHOOSE to error on the side of safety?

And you seem to be demonstrating my point precisely. That being that the "brain activity" argument -for person hood, put us in the precarious position to decide what exactly is considered viable brain activity. This of course sets us on a slippery slope to which its ultimate end is to judge ones worth based on mental ability. Who is worthy to make such a judgement? Yes but you should note that in all cases where pulling "plugs" are even considered, the prognosis is always the deciding factor. There is not a single case where the doctor said the patient will make a full recovery within the next 9 months to a year, so you better decide now rather or not you want to pull the plug. Therefore though arguments for brain activity seem somewhat logical, they are not at all logical in any cases where it is known that the patient will absolutely achieve full mental function. Which of course is the known outcome to almost all fetuses. Yes that is what many conservative Christians think. However I think I have adequately pointed out that the issue has nothing to do with religious values or morals etc.. and is solely about person hood. If it is not a person then the woman absolutely has the right to terminate it. If it is a person, then the woman has the right to do anything she wishes to her own body so long as it doesn't endanger the life of another person. If we can't determine if it is or isn't a person, then we need to error on the side of safety.

No my analogy actually does take into account the life of the other person. In fact in the situation I described with the armed assailant, the "other life" was the Police Officer. My point was that given the possibility of harming someone innocent, the best "choice" was to error on the side of safety. You sit there and quote all kinds of stats on child birth, but the undeniable fact is the entire issue rests on rather it is a person or not. If not then by all means do with it as you wish. If it is a person, then as a person it has the right to live so long as that right doesn't impose an immediate threat to the mothers life. Likewise if we can't tell if it is a person or not then we must act as responsible beings and error on the side of safety.

My apology, here, but you seem to have mistaken what I was saying. I meant only to convey that this is the typical conservative Christian argument... not that it is my argument. Again my point is that the issue is solely on person hood. Nothing else.

Lol. Here's another interesting little tid bit of information from your Wiki source. Did you know that a common danger exists while having a bowel movement? Yes indeed! This is caused when a persons blood pressure drops due to the parasympathetic nervous system during bowel movements. This condition is actually linked to many toilet related deaths. My point of course is that pregnancy is as a natural of a bodily function as is having a bowel movement and goes back just as far. However in the grand scale of things, skin grafts, liver transplants and blood transfusions are relatively new on the scene. To compare a natural bodily function with these other procedures is just plain ignorance gone to seed.The fact of the matter is that statistics show that 100% of the human population (EVER) all had a mother. (Even Jesus) Pregnancy is the "natural" risk two take, when they get in any situation that allows the sperm to get close to the egg. The "natural" result is that a person will eventually emerge from this pregnancy. Our society places great value over "persons" (normally), and tries to the best of its ability to pass laws that protect persons.The question we are trying to determine here today, is just when does it become a person. As I have pointed out we can not determine the answer to this question, neither through science nor through Christian scripture. However in other cases where we are unsure, we usually pass laws that error on the side of safety. So what is it exactly about this issue that makes it any different?

This is an interesting concept, and may very well be true. However, the thread is not about helping starving children in Africa. If you would like to bring up a thread like that you might submit it. However the issue here is "When does human life begin?" Or as I have shown is more correctly phrased, "When does Person hood take place?" Yes, but doing nothing is decidedly different than doing something. If you don't want to help the children starving in Africa, this is decidedly different than going to Africa to kill the starving children. Society does not sanction the murder of persons. Our current abortion laws were passed because they deemed the unborn to not be persons. They didn't say, "Well we know they are persons, but a mother has the right to kill them anyway because they are in her body."

It seems as if you are excusing humans right to terminate a pregnancy with the fact that it occurs naturally. Try following this to its logical conclusion. We have likewise witnessed thousands of people die from airborne or contact transmitted viruses that occurred "naturally" so does this mean its okay for us to cultivate these viruses and use them to take lives for advantageous reasons? Obviously this is not a logical reason to excuse it or say that its morally okay. But then as I pointed out to another poster, the prognosis for the patient is almost 100% better than most coma patients, in that, within 9 months that "clump of skin" (as you put it) will have a fully functioning and healthy brain that is totally self aware. A prognosis that most coma patients with person hood status do not look forward to. This makes brain development a terrible criteria for establishing one's viability. Of course now we are discussing religious implications that would vary, based upon what religion you are asking. If you are asking Christianity, then the answer is... "I don't know." There is no way to know when the soul enters the body. In Christianity God never tells us. The real question here then becomes, "If we don't know then is it okay to play fast and lose with these embryos or should we error on the side of safety?"

Are you considering the context of my statement or just simply want to appear right? In context we were discussing specifically those zygotes that are being considered for termination. Are you suggesting that those zygotes that reach the stage in which the mother is aware they even exist to consider for termination, are still statistically far from ever reaching full term naturally? You are correct only if you consider the over all zygote population including those that are not ever even known to exist by the mother. However this obviously was not the intent or context of my comment and therefore to twist this in order to give the appearance of some simulation of a valid argument, is simply deplorable. I said "almost." I gotta watch you... I actually didn't say the word "chance" WK. I really gotta watch you. What "I" said was that the prognosis is almost 100% better. What I mean by that is that if you line up a line of healthy fetus' in the womb in one line and a line of coma patients in the other line, "almost" 100% of the time, doctors will give a better prognosis for the fetus becoming self aware within the next 9 months as opposed to the coma patients.

You seem to be suggesting that because a "law" was passed that this is some sort of final arbitration that conclusively proves when person hood begins. Well I'm sorry but it is immoral to decide one's person hood based on something as wishy washy as majority opinion. This was done in the past in Nazi Germany, and even in the history of our own United States with black slavery. I think I have been pretty clear on what I was saying and I never once implied anything of the sort. What I am "basically" saying (and pardon me if I sound like Horton the Elephant) but a person is a person no matter how big or how small.If it is only "goo" then by all means expel it like snot in a tissue if you want. But if you have created a person, then as a person he or she has the right to live, so long as that right does not pose an immediate or direct threat on the life of the mother.

I couldn't agree with you more Larni. I couldn't agree with you any more. When a ship goes down in the ocean, you can't rescue someone else while you your self are still drowning. You have to be reaching from a place of safety before you can ever offer a hand of safety.

I'm guessing you didn't feel the need to back read and see why it became "relevant." But it does become relevant when someone tries to imply that all pregnancy is so risky that termination of another persons life is an acceptable practice just based on that risk alone. See now... the problem with drawing such simplistic lines in the sand, such is this, and saying "anything on that side doesn't qualify as a person," is that there is always a situation that completely eradicates the line. For example, have you considered how many conjoined twins in the world just cringed when they read your comment that implies that one of them is nothing more than an expendable growth?

Except for the fact that you seem to be completely overlooking the countless people who were declared clinically dead in hospitals and yet revived to make a complete and full recovery. Don't forget that when someone is clinically dead, all measurable brain activity stops within 20 to 40 seconds. This fact completely destroys the notion that measurable brain activity is a good criteria for determining person hood. And again those were people who mostly all had a very grim prognosis by the doctors. So how much more is the person hood of someone we can know with pretty good certainty will have full brain activity within only 9 months? First of all I believe, if I'm not mistaken, you are the one who said that person hood was determined by next of kin in the hospital and compared their pulling the plug with an abortion. Secondly "feeling, caring, and knowing" is not what determines person hood. As I pointed out above there are plenty of "persons" who were incapable of all of those things and still held the status of person hood. Again, in all the "other" instances to which you are referring, the prognosis is the key. Sure if a person loses all brain function and the prognosis of a qualified physician is that the person will never again regain said function, then and only then is it even considered to "pull the plug." I doubt you will find many physicians who would declare such a prognosis over a fetus in the womb that the mother is considering terminating.

Actually if you will look at the post I made that seems to have started this fire storm (#28) I was clearly pointing out that there currently exists no basis in which we can establish when person hood begins.

Yes that is what the majority of Rahvin's comment was, however he was in response to a comment by shadow71

quote:

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Yes I do belive in a soul. I know of no physical evidence for a soul. A soul is a gift from God. It enters the human when the human becomes life. Am I wrong? Maybe. Are you wrong? Maybe. It just appears to me after living my life with a wonderful wife, loving children, a little girl who died in the womb at 7 months, and beautiful grandchildren, I don't want to error on the side of being wrong as to when life begins. I can't phantom ending a possible life that is conceived by the natural process of our evolutionary process.

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The context of which was the danger of erring on the wrong side. Rahvin's entire argument hinged on the notion that because the body does it naturally much of the time that this meant it was okay to do artificially. The context of my reply to him was that by the time we know to do it artificially, it will actually have an almost 100% better prognosis of achieving full mental awareness within 9 months than most coma patients.

Well Jar, it's clear to me that is what subbie meant by his reply. That's just a dumb argument of semantics. Obviously that in the same way a conjoined twin might require staying connected to his sibling in order to survive, an unborn person will require remaining connected to his mother to survive. This destroys the notion that because a person requires that connection to live, that they are not a person with the right to live.