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Member (Idle past 2933 days) Posts: 706 From: Joliet, il, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: When does human life begin? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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shadow71 writes:
I imagine that's probably a full semester class in philosophy or theology.
Could you possibly define "moral agency" for me. shadow71 writes:
I agree with the proposition that you have opinions. But, not being a mind reader, I am not going to guess what those opinions are.I am of the opinion that human life at some point begins. Do you deny that propostion? This is mostly a ridiculous discussion. We can get along quite well without having a precise determination of what it means to say that human life begins.Jesus was a liberal hippie
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Just being real Member (Idle past 3935 days) Posts: 369 Joined: |
On what basis are you suggesting we should attribute personhood? 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.
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Just being real Member (Idle past 3935 days) Posts: 369 Joined: |
Really, because you were replying to a post by Rahvin the major portion of which consisted of discussing the high rate of failure to implant and other forms of spontaneous abortion or miscarriage. Yes that is what the majority of Rahvin's comment was, however he was in response to a comment by shadow71
quote: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.
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Just being real Member (Idle past 3935 days) Posts: 369 Joined: |
Jbr #45: as a person it has the right to live so long as that right doesn't impose an immediate threat to the mothers life.
Well Jar, it's clear to me that is what subbie meant by his reply.
subbie #47: As I demonstrated, pregnancy does pose an immediate threat to the mother's life. Jbr #49: 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. JAR #55: Natural risk is pretty much irrelevant. Jbr #92: 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. JAR #99: But no one stated or asserted that so it is irrelevant. The word "Mother" is not synonymous with the word "other". 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.
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jar Member (Idle past 393 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
jbr writes: 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. If there is anything dumb it would have to be your interpretation of what I said. Did I say "Personhood involves several things, one is being an individual. As long as the thing under discussion is simply a growth attached to the mother, it is not a person."? Read that carefully. Did I say "As long as the thing under discussion is simply a growth attached to the mother, it is not a person."? Read that carefully. In case you missed it I'll underline it for you. "As long as the thing under discussion is simply a growth attached to the mother, it is not a person. You might consider it an issue of semantics; but the reality is it was an attempt to misrepresent what I actually wrote.Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Evlreala Member (Idle past 3075 days) Posts: 88 From: Portland, OR United States of America Joined:
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Just being Real writes:
I find it ironic that in a discussion about semantics, you're complainig about semantics... That's just a dumb argument of semantics. Edited by Evlreala, : spelling
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Just being real Member (Idle past 3935 days) Posts: 369 Joined: |
In case you missed it I'll underline it for you. Well Jar, I didn't miss it. But you seem to have. The above is only a portion of the statement of yours that I responded to. Here is a quote of the statement in your message that I was replying to, as it is found within its context. The parts that I have italicized are the portions that you conveniently have omitted above, and are they that make my interpretation accurate and NOT at all a misrepresentation of you.
"As long as the thing under discussion is simply a growth attached to the mother, it is not a person. quote:Clearly in this context you stated that person hood involves several things, ONE OF WHICH IS "BEING AN INDIVIDUAL." The main topic and sentence structure of the very next line was how the thing being discussed was still attached to the mother. Since the sentence structure did not focus on "the thing" being known to only be a growth, and since the main topic was on determining when the thing becomes a person, common sense would lead anyone to interpret that you were implying connection to the mother as being the disqualifyer for personhood.
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Just being real Member (Idle past 3935 days) Posts: 369 Joined: |
I find it ironic that in a discussion about semantics, you're complainig about semantics... Lol. Isn't it? However in all fairness I qualified my discussion terms in post #28 to avoid such trappings.
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Just being real Member (Idle past 3935 days) Posts: 369 Joined: |
Abortion is not the topic. Howevr since the opening posts was questioning when human life begins, which was framed around the abortion issue, isn't it only logical that within the context of the actual topic, abortion will need to be discussed to some degree?
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Coragyps writes: The Catholic Church, at least, seems to regard attempts to prevent sperm and ova from meeting up with each other as approximately same level of immorality as taking Plan B or having an abortion at eight weeks. What does that say about what they call "when life begins?" I say it's incomprehensible. The Catholics are interested in control, so they say that intent is as important as action. But then they screw it up by allowing the rhythm method. (And 'concience' in the West with condoms.) Basically they make it up as they go along and do what their congregations allow them to get away with.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
Straggler writes: I've yet to see anything that can meaningfully be called a "person" that actually lacks a brain. Whilst I suspect that setting any absolute single criteria for human personhood is going to run into difficulties some sort of brain development based position seems more justifiable than most. On what basis are you suggesting we should attribute personhood? JBR writes: 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. Jolly good. Then can we also agree that anything lacking a brain of any sort fails to qualify for personhood?
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Admin Director Posts: 12995 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
From the opening post:
shadow71 in Message 1 writes: Is there a medical- scientific postion on when human life begins? If so what evidence for that postion? Yes, the OP cites abortion as the issue behind the question, but abortion is not the topic of this thread. Abortion has no more bearing on any answers science might have about when life begins than teenage pregnancy or rape. Anyone can begin a thread in the Coffee House forum, there is no need to go through the topic proposal process for that forum.
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1.61803 Member (Idle past 1503 days) Posts: 2928 From: Lone Star State USA Joined: |
Straggler writes: The thread Topic is:When does human life begin? Then what are you defining in terms of the ability to reproduce and what possible relevance does it have to this thread?One of the criteria used in the definition of life is the ability to reproduce. When someone asks a question or states a premise it is sometimes helpful to define ones terms. Straggler writes: That is when the brain is developed to the point where the fetus is able to have brain activity. It is regarded by some as the first sparks of consciousness. The relevance I hold at this point is one of my own sense of morality that If it is possible for that human fetus to think and move about the womb, imprint on the mother or fathers voice, suck it's thumb; then all those behaviors are consistent with human consciousness. Also 24 weeks is known as the age of viability, the earliest a infant can be delivered and survive.
OK. But that isn't "how". That is "when". What is it about the brain of a 24-28 week old foetus that qualifies it for human life?
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jar Member (Idle past 393 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Is a conjoined twin still just a growth attached to the Mother?
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Kairyu Member (Idle past 203 days) Posts: 162 From: netherlands Joined: |
This might be another direction entirely, and I'm happy to move it to another thread if needed, but the OP is about the start of life.
If one assumes the soul is created during conception. Because if the soul exists, this seems to be the most logical position to me, because anything later would amount to a soulless clump of cells that magically gains a soul with a personality that also somehow bases itself on the DNA in regards of personality... That's just seems strange reasoning to me. Timing it at conception is still a bit odd ,to be honest, because of the unspecified role DNA then has in creating the personality. The only way to solve that would be to assume that a seed and a egg cell both carry some spiritual version of DNA. Not saying that I fully believe this, but otherwise I have to jump through strange logic hoops. But my main point here, and this may be off topic is: If the majority of zygotes, or any later stage, die before childbirth.. Souls are believed to transcend death, and Christians specifically believe them to go to heaven.. This would mean that if we count humans as everything from the conception on because they have a soul, never had a physical life on earth and gets a free ticket to heaven? Or, alternatively, they get another trail before heaven because they just began to exist, but that would still mean the majority of humans never has truly lived on Earth. This has huge theological implications, and I'm a bit puzzled why nobody pointed those out over 10 pages yet. This doesn't fully give a answer to the OP, but I think this does illustrate what happens if a zygote is already considered life complete with a soul. Or taking another approach, what about identical twins? If my limited knowledge is correct, they ARE based from the same zygote right? Does that mean that the ''soul'' splits as well?
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