When are the souls handed out?

[papau]

When are the souls handed out?
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-barash18jul18,0,2234030.story?track=tottext

<snip>The answer is obvious for those who assume that into each life a leap must fall exactly once: the instant of conception, the magical moment of "ensoulment." By this logic, the beneficiary of such a leap is suddenly rendered human. Therefore, using embryos in stem-cell research, or allowing women to get abortions, must be opposed because even the tiniest human embryo, once conceived, is "ensouled." Here's the problem: There is no moment of conception. In what follows, try to pick out precisely when a person becomes personified.

Aparticular egg and sperm, each destined to contribute one-half the genome of a future human being, is produced via complex processes of oogenesis and spermatogenesis, respectively. (Is that moment now?) The fated sperm cell migrates through a layer of follicle cells before reaching the egg's "extracellular matrix," known as the zona pellucida. The latter consists of three different glycoproteins, one of which acts as a sperm receptor and binds to its complement on the sperm's head. (Maybe now?)

This induces a vesicle at the tip of the sperm, the acrosome, to spill its contents of enzymes, which enable the sperm to penetrate the zona and bump up snugly against the egg's plasma membrane. (Or now?) A protein in the sperm's membrane then binds to and fuses with the egg membrane. (Now?) This in turn triggers depolarization of the latter, which prevents other sperm from entering. (Now?)

Shortly thereafter, granules in the egg's cortex release enzymes that catalyze additional, long-lasting changes in the zona, achieving a more long-lasting block to other sperm. (Now?) Pseudopod-like extensions of the egg's interior proceed to transport the sperm into the egg. (Now?) If you've been waiting all this time for the genetic fusing of sperm and egg, note that it doesn't happen immediately, at least not in mammals such as ourselves.

Rather, the nuclear envelopes around sperm and egg remain fundamentally distinct through the "fertilized" egg's first mitotic division. Only at this point, with two "daughter" cells already in existence, do the parental chromosomes unite, forming two nuclei. But even at this point, the parental genes remain identifiable and distinct, as either paternally or maternally derived. Paternal and maternal genes thus remain separate for at least 24 hours after sperm successfully breaches those follicle cells, and it takes an additional day or so before their combined influence directs cell function. There is, to repeat, no cymbal-crashing "moment" of fertilization. Natura non facit saltum.

Although the problem of ensoulment is especially dramatic, comparable difficulties arise if we substitute "mind" for "soul," because the former unquestionably derives from brain activity and the brain also does not arrive in a sudden flash of incandescence, to be suddenly plugged in with its complex operating system ready to start humming. The two "daughter" cells have no neurons, and certainly no brain. Neither does a subsequent four-cell, eight-cell, or 128-cell descendant. Somewhere along the line, however, between egg and baby, brain cells aggregate and start whispering electrochemically to each other, whereupon a mind gradually coalesces.

<snip>

[Tsiyu]

1. I could say something really sick

but instead I will just say that nature kills a lot of "souls" because only a few fertilized embryos actually make it to birth. Most end up...uh....le't not go there, unless we plan on holding funerals over the waste basket every month.....

[papau]

3. In the US about 3 million fertilized embryos are "spontaneous abortions"

each year where the body ("Mother Nature"?) sends a terminate because we have a problem signal.

Few end up in a waste basket I would guess, but you are correct that disposal is usually the only action taken (perhaps plus a D&C to clean up the area).

[Tsiyu]

5. My thoughts are that most women don't even realize

when an embryo is rejected and flows out of her body. Just a heavy period, she thinks. So the medical profession isn't involved, because you can't exactly "see" these little souls.

Thus, my wastebasket comment. :hi:

[papau]

6. true!

:-)

[HockeyMom]

34. What my OB/GYN said to me once

My period was about 5 days late and was very heavy when I got it. When I went that month for my pap test, my doctor asked me if my period was late that month. When I told him yes, he said from my exam that it looked like I had a very, very early miscarriage (DAYS).

Somebody PLEASE teach these Fundies some BIOLOGY. Majority of "fertilized egg babies" (up to 60%) DON'T MAKE IT. Call it Mother Nature of God, but it is the natural way of correcting mistakes.

[zonmoy]

36. Simply proves that god is really evil even by the standards of the

fanatical pro life movement since he is the biggest and most prolific abortionist around.

[Deep13]

2. ensoulment?

Is that even a word?

Let philosophers and priests waste their time on this matter. There is no evidence that a soul exists and its existence is unnecessary to explain reproduction. Consequently, from a scientific or public policy point of view, the question is irrelevant.
:hangover:

[papau]

4. Well that approach will get you perhaps 3 % of the vote in any given

election.

[Deep13]

7. I'm merely commenting on the article, ...

...not suggesting we make it a campaign issue.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

33. Yeah, isn't it sad that atheists are despised so much that

implying you're one (or simply that you have one particular opinion in common with most atheist, as is this case) practically precludes you from running to public office? An outrageous situation indeed.

BTW, nice article. The author seems way more articulate and fallacy-free than, say... Mark G. McKim.

[HereSince1628]

8. Mythology and Semantics if you ask me

Making humanness depend upon something called ensoulment is a great concept for western religion in which the myth of the immortal soul plays such an important role. The concept of the soul in contemporary arguments about reproductive rights is a rhetorical floodgate that opens or closes the discussion to different streams of ideas and clearly enables or cuts off certain lines of argument.

On the other issue introduced here, the concept that not all things Homo sapiens are human is clearly dangerous to society. That sort of talk enables belief in the existence of subhuman Homo sapiens and begs whether these Untermenchen (sp?) have any, some, all of the rights of true humans? Hitler had some pretty pat answers to those questions.

The crux of the issue is whether women should have an absolute and unalienable right to control their reproductive state. The dilemma is, of course, that both sides of the argument privilege one individual's rights over another's.

[iverglas]

9. sorry, nope

On the other issue introduced here, the concept that not all things Homo sapiens are human is clearly dangerous to society.

My big toe is a "thing homo sapiens"; it is also indisputably "human", and a "human thing".

What might well be dangerous to society would be to give legislative recognition to the bizarre notion that my big toe is a human being.

The crux of the issue is whether women should have an absolute and unalienable right to control their reproductive state. The dilemma is, of course, that both sides of the argument privilege one individual's rights over another's.

"Individual"? Looked that one up lately?

MY SIDE of the argument does not privilege any individual's rights over any other individual's. So I guess I'm just having a different argument ...

Oh, that's right, I am. I'm having the one that was had in your Supreme Court in Roe. v. Wade, for example. The one in which one individual's rights are juxtaposed with a society's interest in that individual's actions, and justification for interfering in them.

A z/e/f is NOT an individual, and does NOT have rights -- and cannot be deemed to be an individual, or assigned rights, without upsetting the entire applecart of human social organization -- and so the dilemma you cite is a purely false one.

[HereSince1628]

10. Nope, sorry

The argument you make is _exactly_ my point.

"A z/e/f is NOT an individual, and does NOT have rights"

Excluding zygotes, embryos or fetuses from identities as individuals is part of the conceptual construction you have accepted. If that conception is accepted it clearly sets up your side of the argument to win because it denies the conceptual constructions of the other side.

While ravaging misconceptions is a reasonable thing in rhetoric, you must realize that your assertion does not devastate or even set aside that argument. Individuals has all sorts of meanings. There are individuals relative to the law, which include non-living things like corporations. If you consider the life-cycle of Homo sapiens from a biological standpoint, there are both diploid and haploid "individuals" which according to the OP aren't all human.

I regret that you did not see that the "other" individuals I wrote about include all the individuals that make up society. Because, indeed, it is the interests of all these individuals set against the interest of women to control their reproductive state that are the genesis of the debate.

I am a supporter of a woman's right to choose. I am also a biologist and I find the argument over when is a Homo sapiens a human to be as useless to resolving the argument as debating "When does life begin?"

[iverglas]

11. nokey dokey

Excluding zygotes, embryos or fetuses from identities as individuals is part of the conceptual construction you have accepted.

Actually, it's the "conceptual construction" that human groups have been organized around since the first human groups existed.

Any other "conceptual construction" someone might claim to hold is of no more concern to me than their "conceptual construction" of the origin of the universe as lying in the Big Sneeze of the Pink Unicorn.

If someone wants to organize human groups -- from the family on up to the state -- according to some other conceptual construction, then s/he has a job of work to do. The onus is on that person to persuade the rest of us that this is a good idea.

I'm not open to persuasion, personally, since I've considered the notion in great depth and detail, and determined that it's a very foolish one.

But I've issued a standing invitation to the world at large: anyone who wants to persuade me that human groups should be organized around the "conceptual construction" that a z/e/f is a human being is welcome to explain to me how it's gonna work.

Once we've worked out some weensy details like what manner of due process will enable what manner of tribunal to decide, legitimately and constitutionally and all that, that a human being (a woman) will be compelled to accept risks to her life and limitations on her liberty that she does not agree to accept -- i.e. to continue a pregnancy against her will -- or, conversely, what manner of due process / tribunal can be devised to decide that "another human being" (a z/e/f) will be "killed" despite being guilty of no wrongdoing ... then we'll be getting somewhere.

Calling something a human being isn't like writing a poem. It means something. And unless and until we decide that there can be "type 1" human beings (the real deal, with all the rights that come with the label) and "type 2" human beings (women, with only *some* of the rights that come with the label), and maybe "type 3" human beings (z/e/fs, also with only some of the rights that come with the label), then me, I'll stick with what we've got.

Individuals has all sorts of meanings. There are individuals relative to the law, which include non-living things like corporations.

Yes, that's true and ever so fascinating. There are individual birds and bees and all that too.

A human individual is a human being. A human being has human rights.

If a z/e/f is to be "defined" as a human being, it will have human rights. The tautological truth.

If you consider the life-cycle of Homo sapiens from a biological standpoint, there are both diploid and haploid "individuals" which according to the OP aren't all human.

Oh, don't let's be setting up those straw armies, eh?

The article quoted in the OP said no such thing.

If a cell comes from a human being, how the bleeding hell could it not be human?

And the terms "diploid individual" and "haploid individual" may be all very cute and fun to type, but not much use to us. The eyelash I just shed is an eyelash individual too. It still ain't a human being.

I regret that you did not see that the "other" individuals I wrote about include all the individuals that make up society. Because, indeed, it is the interests of all these individuals set against the interest of women to control their reproductive state that are the genesis of the debate.

Oh, you mean the totally apples-and-oranges analogy you purported to construct, and that I ignored as I tend to ignore analogies between myself and Nazis? --

That sort of talk enables belief in the existence of subhuman Homo sapiens and begs whether these Untermenchen (sp?) have any, some, all of the rights of true humans? Hitler had some pretty pat answers to those questions.

That ignorance deserves ignoring, you see. (In fact, I don't know what you are referring to, in your most recent post, that I didn't "see" in your other post -- what individuals you "wrote about" in the earlier post, and exactly how the interests of all those other individuals are set up against women's interests -- but what the heck, I'll address this crap anyhow.)

It was premised on the assertion that I *did* address:

On the other issue introduced here, the concept that not all things Homo sapiens are human is clearly dangerous to society.

Having demonstrated that the premise in question was itself premised on a nonsense, as I did, I had no reason to address the conclusion drawn from it.

There is NO conclusion regarding human beings that can be drawn from the premise that a z/e/f is not a human being.

If you think that the criteria I have applied in determining that a z/e/f is not a human being and that human groups throughout the history and geography of the world have, I submit, universally applied in making that determination -- it is not human, alive and born -- could be used to determine that Joe Person of Colour or Jane Person with a Disability is not human, you go right ahead and explain how.

Until then, all we have is a slippery-slope argument missing its first step.

I am a supporter of a woman's right to choose. I am also a biologist and I find the argument over when is a Homo sapiens a human to be as useless to resolving the argument as debating "When does life begin?"

So do I. That would be because the expression "a human" really just doesn't mean anything. I have no trouble at all resolving the "argument" over when something that is human and alive becomes a human being: when it is born. And *that* is when it becomes an individual member of that homo sapiens group.

And I don't actually know anyone whose stated claim to "believe" otherwise holds up under the slightest scrutiny.

'Cause none that I have met, ever, has been able to explain to me how all that's gonna work.

[HereSince1628]

12. I am pretty sure that pragmatism could be a useful approach

in a discussion but these cannot be...

"Any other "conceptual construction" someone might claim to hold is of no more concern to me..."

"I'm not open to persuasion..."

I understand and readily accept that you are not open to persuasion.

But for others reading this thread, it should be clear that all sides of the argument must be considered and overcome.

The concept that life begins at birth is obsolete and useless in this debate regardless of its practicality and lack of ambiguity.

Trying to define away biological activity as non-life, or the individuality of zygotes, embryos and fetuses is readily seen as arbitrary.

A really good argument in favor of pro-choice would not depend on arbitrary definitions, but on a clear preponderance of value that choice provides to society.

[iverglas]

13. oooooh, I do always love a good taken-out-of-context quotation

It really is usually the best way of settling a dispute, doncha think?

Any other "conceptual construction" someone might claim to hold is of no more concern to me...

Maybe you'd tell me how much concern it is to you if someone claims to believe that the universe originated in the Big Sneeze of the Pink Unicorn.

Then maybe you'd tell me how you'd feel if said person set about getting rules made to compel you to organize your life around the conclusions s/he claims to draw from that belief.

Is it just moi, or would you not be too concerned -- in the sense of not giving a damn -- if someone claimed to hold that conceptual construction, and to be entitled to tell you what to do because of it?


I'm not open to persuasion...
I understand and readily accept that you are not open to persuasion.

Yeah. Dot dot dot.

It's just the damnedest thing how I actually said that I AM open to being persuaded that human groups can be organized around the principle that a z/e/f is a human being -- that being what the purpose of the "conceptual construction" human being is actually for, and all.

I'm just still waiting for someone to do the job.

So, y'know what else I see in your post, besides these disingenuous little tricks?

The concept that life begins at birth is obsolete and useless in this debate regardless of its practicality and lack of ambiguity.

A bald assertion of something quite different from a fact, with nothing offered to back it up.

So y'know what I get to say in this case?

No it isn't.

Trying to define away biological activity as non-life, or the individuality of zygotes, embryos and fetuses is readily seen as arbitrary.

And here we have yet another straw fella, followed by what seems to be a bit of a sentence fragment.

Do you want to tell us who has tried to "define away biological activity as non-life"? Does switching from the unsubstantiated allegation that someone called a z/e/f non human to the unsubstantiated allegation that someone called its biological activity non life actually help you here? Well, not unless you're actually trying to look evasive, it doesn't.

Life, the process, is present in z/e/fs just as it is in me, and in my big toe, and in my cat's ear. Trying to say otherwise wouldn't really be "arbitrary", it would actually be just plain dumb. Just as (as I said) saying that a z/e/f (or my big toe) wasn't "human" would be.

What's yer point, again?

If you wanted to make this kind of assertion without all the straw and fishies and other pointless distractions, would you be saying that defining a human being as that which is alive, human and born is arbitrary?

And that would be ... compared to what?

A really good argument in favor of pro-choice would not depend on arbitrary definitions, but on a clear preponderance of value that choice provides to society.

Oh dear oh dear oh dearie me.

Allowing women to determine the course of their own lives provides society with more value than denying women that opportunity? Is that what you're saying?

Yech. Who's on the slippery slope to where, now? if I might ask.

I can think of a number of things that I might do that would clearly provide society with big value (I mean, to the extent that such things can be foretold without crystal balls, foretelling the future being what the exercise does involve). But I certainly wouldn't be proposing I be permitted to do them all. Just imagine, if that first George Bush had been compelled to submit to sterilization ... the value of that choice, to society, would have been virtually inestimable, and at the least far higher than the value of him reproducing, no?

Surely if society can decide that it gets more value by allowing women to kill little bitty z/e/f human beings than by refusing to allow that, then it can decide that it gets more value by allowing obnoxious fascistic rich men to be forcibly sterilized ... or heck, bumped off ... than by refusing to allow that ... and it may legitimately implement both decisions.

Remember: we just can't have two classes of human beings, right? And the value that society is getting by allowing women to bump off little bitty z/e/f human beings comes at the price of the z/e/f human beings' lives. A tad high, doncha think? Well, I bet you would if you were a z/e/f ... and a z/e/f were a human being.

You may be a scientist, but you are simply not a rights theoretician. Perhaps that's why scientists do science, and rights theoreticians do rights theory.

Society simply does not get to decide what it will tell people to do, or not to do, based on what it thinks it might get out of the deal. Not the way our societies have been organized for quite a while.

Society does not get to tell anybody to do or not to do anything, unless it can establish the kind of justification for doing so that is commonly required. The foreseeable "value" to society is one factor in the figuring. But just one.


A really good argument against denying women the exercise of reproductive rights really doesn't start off with the notion that it's okay for members of one class of human beings to bump off members of another class of human beings.

And it's thee, not me, who's saying that it is.

[musical_soul]

14. The "soul"

The "soul" is handed out when one gets their brain connected. My opinion of course.

[iverglas]

15. oh no!

Where was I when that was supposed to have happened??

I seem to have a connected brain ... and yet ... no soul!

(No rhythm either, for that matter ...)

[musical_soul]

17. Partially my point.

You're nothing without consciousness. If you want to call your consciousness your soul, then so be it. Some don't care to, and that's fine too.

[WildClarySage]

16. The brain doesn't get 'connected' all of a sudden one day

From the beginning of conception, physical actions begin which culminate in the formation of a neural net which transfers energy even at it's earliest construction. There isn't any magic moment when the brain 'switches on', it's a gradual process.

[musical_soul]

18. But.

We do know that it's at least the third trimester before the lights come on.

[mgr]

32. If you believe there is a 'soul'

As a materialist, I can only believe that any animal life begins after delivery. Even a dualist would have a difficult time arguing that personality begins prior to delivery. Only with the religious concept of a soul being invested into a corporal body at conception can you even begin to have this argument. On a personal level, one needs to examine whether such a concept is consistent with one personal view. And since it is religious, it is an unnecessary intrusion into a personal decision.

Mike

[Odin2005]

35. Same here.

I am an atheist, I don't think there is such a thing as a soul. The "life begins at conception" thing only makes sense if you beleive that souls exist. The reason this doesn't make any sense is that eggs and sperm are, technically, human individuals, because of the mixing of maternal and paternal DNA during meiosis, they are genetically unique. Just because they are microscpoic and haploid (have only one set of chromosomes, as opposed to diploid, with two sets of chromosomes) shouldn't matter, in many protozoans and algae the haploid and diploid forms look identical. For those anti-choice people to be consistant, they should be saying that a woman is a murderer every time she ovulates without getting pregnant.

:rant:

[zonmoy]

37. does that mean

that most fundies are without souls.

[Iris]

19. Identical twins usually don't split of for days after fertilization

Do they share a soul up until then? Or, is the soul split in half as well?

[Kerrytravelers]

20. Our "fearless leader" has no soul...

Just my ten cents!

[musical_soul]

21. Hehehe. So true.

[noamnety]

22. The entire concept of "souls"

strikes me as a religious concept based on faith and thus shouldn't be relevant to a discussion of reproductive choice and US law.

[kestrel91316]

23. At the time of viability without any medical intervention being needed.

[iverglas]

24. and yet ...

"At the time of viability without any medical intervention being needed."

If that possibly viable fetus (no one knows whether a fetus is actually viable until it goes for that first test run) were not to remain in the body of a woman who, for whatever reason, no longer wants it there -- wouldn't that call for medical intervention? To get it out? How would anybody know whether it was viable if somebody didn't get it out?

A fetus isn't "viable" in a vacuum; it can't be determined to be viable by doing a bit of adding and subtracting. If it survives delivery, it's viable. Hindsight is the absolute only manner of determining this issue.

Conversely, many full-time and predictably viable fetuses need considerable amounts of medical intervention after they're born full-term. Don't they got souls?

I wish somebody would answer the question about wot the hell this soul jazz has to do with laws ...

[kestrel91316]

25. You don't need to do any tests to know that ............

a 6 month fetus isn't going to survive without extraordinary intervention. Little things like lung maturity actually do matter...........

[iverglas]

26. Indeed

But I was drawing the somewhat necessary conclusion from what you said -- assuming, bizarrely as it is, that we are considering this "soul" jazz as having some determinative effect on the exercise of people's rights.

If you are saying that there is a point at which it can be determined that a fetus is not "viable" ... and therefore has no soul ... are you not saying that there is a point at which it is "viable"?

Every particular fetus?

I'm saying that we may be able to say with quite a lot of confidence that fetus "A", which is 17 weeks LMP (by the "last menstrual period" method of dating, which usually assigns a fetus an "age" that dates to before the actual time of conception/implantation), *is not* viable, even with humongous medical intervention. If the lungs don't have the equipment to function, they don't function.

But we have absolutely no way in the world of knowing that fetus "B" *is* viable. Not even if it's at 40 weeks LMP and halfway out into the air. If the lungs just inexplicably fail to function, they don't function.

So if this "viability" biz is being advanced as a basis for a cut-off line between when abortion should be permitted and when it should not be permitted, or should be permitted only under strict restrictions -- if this "soul" biz is a proxy for that discussion -- then you see the problem.

No matter what excellent health a woman may appear to be in, at any moment continuing a pregnancy or going into labour and delivering could kill her. My sister's happy healthy first pregnancy very well might have killed her at the point of delivery, had she not had some of that medical intervention.

So we're looking at imposing a rule that might -- and almost certainly one day will, as denial of access to abortion has already -- one day result in a woman's death because she is compelled to continue a pregnancy.

And the weird thing is that the fetus she is carrying will very likely die with her. But even if she experiences not a health problem in the world during her pregnancy (and let's pretend it has not an effect in the world on the rest of her lifetime health), the evidently "viable" fetus may just up and not take that first breath, and never live.

This is a pretty classic gamble, with very high stakes. A pregnant woman is staking her life on the bet that she'll come out of it alive. Her odds, in our time and places, are pretty excellent. But she might be the one whom luck decides to smite down. She can't know.

And what's being offered by the house? Well, a shot at a baby. If she wants a baby, that may sound like a good deal. If she doesn't, it would not likely matter how infinitesimal the odds of her being smitten down are, she just might not think the risk is worth the potential reward.

And that's all it is: a potential reward. There's no contract that if you assume these risks you'll get a plump and pretty baby at the end of the term. Nope. You might well have risked your life for nothing at all but a dead almost-baby.

So this is my problem with this line-drawing, if you're catching my drift. Any line drawn anywhere in a woman's pregnancy means that she will be compelled to assume some risk, or accept some known cost, that she does not want.

Given the enormity of the stakes - her life - I expect some damned good justification for imposing that kind of straightjacket. Nothing I've ever heard comes close to meeting that standard. And the fact that the fetus might be "viable" certainly doesn't.

[Nobody]

31. At the risk to your life...

How many examples in the media are there of a woman choosing to die so that the baby she's giving birth to will live?

Is this even scientifically likely that when a woman dies giving birthm she'll have a healthy baby? And by that I arbitrarily assign a 50% chance that baby will be healthy with mom being dead.

My next question is this: Can a woman in childbirth xhoose to die and will this choice help the baby being born one iota?

I've heard people describe movies and even in one case a music video (the song was "Lightning Crash" by a band called Live) depicting women as making the CHOICE to die and that it being such a beautiful thing.

What???? Beautiful? For a woman to die so that the baby could live? It's always been an either/or choice. It's not mom struggles, both live or mom struggles and both die. it's either mom struggles, she lives baby dies, she's a villain or mom struggles, gives up, baby lives, she's an angel.

Beautiful? This depiction is the worst kind of ugly.

[musical_soul]

28. Erased.

I made two of the same copy. I'm sorry.

[musical_soul]

29. Whoa. Hold the phone here.

My cousin gave birth to her daughter about a month early. It was said that her lungs were not fully developed yet. She needed the extra help at first. Six months? There's no way that kid will survive without a doctor's help. It might not work even then.

[kestrel91316]

30. A fetus delivered at 6 months ..................

may survive with extraordinary measures and hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical care, but it will never grow up to be a normal, fully productive, fully able human.

[musical_soul]

27. How do you know that?

It could be at some other time.

Not like the soul is scientific. We can't know anything for certain.