When does human life begin?

[Alpha Wolf]

Please no flame-throwing in this thread. If you can't discuss this issue without screaming and yelling and calling people names, please move on...

As we all know, so much of the abortion debate-- even among fellow Democrats-- revolves around the question of when human life actually begins and if this can be objectively determined from a purely biological, medical perspective-- NOT a religious one.

The following article was one of the more interesting I've seen on the subject.

======================================

Life: Defining the Beginning by the End

Maureen L. Condic

What defines the beginning of human life? This question has been the topic of considerable legal and social debate over the years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision—debate that has only been intensified by the recent controversies over human embryonic stem cells and human cloning. Answers to this question run the full gamut from those who argue that life begins at conception (the view of more than one major world religion) to those arguing that babies are not to be considered fully human until a month after birth (the position of Princeton Professor of Bioethics Peter Singer).

The range of dissent and disagreement on the question of when human life begins has led many to believe it cannot be reasonably resolved in a pluralistic society. Courts have ruled that the diversity of opinion on the topic precludes a judicial resolution, requiring instead that the matter be addressed in the political arena, where accommodation of divergent views can be wrought through debate and compromise. Many Americans appear equally unwilling to impose a single interpretation on society, preferring instead to allow decisions regarding the beginning of life to be largely a matter of personal choice.

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0305/articles/condic.html

[Spinzonner]

1. Define 'Human Life'

in a consistent manner that covers all manifestations.

[soothsayer]

2. Soul enters the body on the first breath

That's the one I like. Or...life begins at 40. Take yer pick.

[Pachamama]

155. When the kids grow up & are off to College - And I can sleep again and

...have sex anyplace, anywhere, anytime in the house...without worry of kids walking in on us....

:)

[MrMonk]

3. I couldn't give fair comment

since I'm still trying to get a life.

[elfwitch]

4. There is an old joke about the Jewish view on when life begins...

According to Jewish mothers life begins when their son/daughter takes his/her first...

professional degree (MD, JD, PhD)

[rocktivity]

10. A variation on that joke

Minister: "Life begins at conception."
Priest: "Life begins at birth."
Rabbi: "You're both wrong. Life begins when the youngest finishes college and the dog dies."

:headbang:
rocknation

[VOX]

158. Thanks for the well-needed laugh!

Appreciate it -- :toast:

[JayS]

5. For me it is when something shows up on the EEG. This can't...

...be an absolute as many politicians don't meet this criteria. :)

[Canuckistanian]

118. That means that Cheney is an artificial lifeform!

I knew it!

[Fenris]

6. When you say it does

And consequently, when I say it does as well. There is no definitive answer to the question of "when does life begin?" Therefore the best answer is to say that it begins whenever you believe it does.

[Alpha Wolf]

52. Did you read the article?

n/t

[LWolf]

7. Sorry.

There is no definitive answer. Start by defining the difference between "human" life and life. Your drawing that contrast defines the debate in a different way, doesn't it? And that requires a definition of "human."

I don't know when human life began, but I know that human bodies form from already living tissue, which formed from already living tissue....if the issue is over when it becomes a human body, as opposed to the potential for a human body, you can choose any arbitrary cut-off point along the way, just like a standardized test. I would say it is a human body when it breathe and survive outside the womb, separate from the original living tissue.

If the issue is when the spirit, or consciousness enters that body, again, there is no definitive answer, because there is no evidence one way or the other. While all of us parents will tell you that our infants were "aware" of their new world at birth, how many of us remember that birth? How many of us remember our earliest conscious awareness? I tend to go with "drawing the first breath" as my arbitrary cut-off. It goes right along with cutting the cord and becoming a separate life form.

But that's just me, going with what makes sense to me at this point in time, and acknowledging the gaps in the information we base our theories on.

[Alpha Wolf]

53. Did you read the article?

That's what it's trying to get at-- a definitive, medical, answer.

[Mandate My Ass]

56. a definitive MEDICAL answer?????

from a religious web site that says its mission is to influence public policy.

Weak, man. Real weak.

[Alpha Wolf]

65. That's the point, Monica_L

The author of the article wanted to investigate if this question could be settled without religion-- an important investigation even to religious people.

Seriously, have you read the article? If so, what is the symmetry the author is trying to establish between the legal, medical standard for the end of life and such a definition for the beginning of life?

[Mandate My Ass]

67. The author made this claim

Linking human status to the nature of developing embryos is neither subjective nor open to personal opinion.

with nothing to back it up. The irony of that statement is that it's an opinion passed off as a fact.

[LWolf]

72. Yes, I read it.

I don't see a definitive medical answer there. For the reasons I already posted. There is no definitive line you can draw to prove when living tissue reaches personhood. Anyone can spin what is "known" all he/she likes to present a personal theory, point of view, etc., to fit a particular belief system. That doesn't make it science. It doesn't make it evidence. It makes it spin. I have no need to dispute anyone's personal belief about the beginning of life, unless they want to use it to drive legislation. As this author clearly does. "The Journal of Religion and Public Life" raises a big flag for me. I like the concept of separation. I don't think religion should have a public life. I think it's supposed to be a private matter. Just another pov.

Those wanting to make human life somehow more sacred than all life would do well to focus their attention, energy, and efforts on human life after birth, in my opinion. The obsession with when the living cells go from being tissue to person is a method of mass distraction from the issues facing the living, breathing, viable 6 billion + already here. If all of those faithful turned their attention to the born instead of the unborn, they'd have to make some radical changes in their life style and their politics to model themselves after Christ, wouldn't they?

The conservative right: masters of mass distraction. Keep everybody arguing about the unknown and unprovable, and they won't be focused on the issues going on in the post-birth world.

[Bunny]

8. Well, first off:

Thanks for instructing us to stay away if we "can't discuss the issue without screaming and yelling and calling people names"... I find that pretty condescending, but thanks anyway.

Second, you claim to want to know if this can "be objectively determined from a purely biological, medical perspective -- NOT a religious one." You then go on to cite an article published in First Things. Let's read up on First Things:

>snip<
FIRST THINGS is published by The Institute on Religion and Public Life, an interreligious, nonpartisan research and education institute whose purpose is to advance a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society.
>snip<


Sounds like a pretty religious perspective to me. At least at first glance. If your intention is to discuss abortion, the bigger question is not when life actually begins, but instead, do women have the right to maintain autonomy over their bodies? If you can answer that, then we can talk about when life may or may not begin.

[DemBones DemBones]

11. The article may be in a religious publication but the science is sound.

Human embryos and fetuses are living human beings at an early stage of development. If we are free to kill them because their thought processes are less than ours, then some can argue that we're free to kill mentally disabled children and adults. Peter SInger even argues we can kill perfectly healthy, 'normal' children up to the age of 2 or 3 because of their being less developed. I find it mind-boggling that he calls himself an ethicist and makes that argument.

[treepig]

15. it's not that their thought processes are less than ours

it's that there are no thought processes at all before the cerebral cortex forms somewheres near the end of the second trimester. before that, a fetus is for all intents and purposes "brain-dead" by the standards applied to determine when death occurs.

of course, a tumor is all of "alive" "genetically distinct" and "human" - but most people don't have much of problem ending this form of human life.

[DemBones DemBones]

17. A tumor is NOT an organism, however. nt

[treepig]

26. neither is a four or five month old fetus

both need elaborate support systems to survive, which up to recent technical advances could only be provided by a host human body.

[DemBones DemBones]

147. A fetus is an organism, its dependence on the mother

for a few months (6-9) doesn't make it less of a living organism. A tumor is never an organism.

[Bunny]

28. Do you honestly believe that a religious magazine is going to

publish any type of "science" that does not support their interpretation that life begins at conception? Of course they're not!

I've worked for 24 years with people with mental retardation. I also have given birth to two children. For anyone to say that it's okay to kill disabled people, or kids up to 2-3 years old, is simply being asinine, e.g., Peter Singer.

None of this addresses the right of women to control their bodies. If we can be made, by the government, to be incubators, what is stopping the government from forcing us to be organ donors? Where is the autonomy?

[DemBones DemBones]

148. Who said the government should control our bodies?

Not me, and I don't recall anything of the sort in the article, either.

[Bunny]

165. Don't be disingenuous.

Outlawing abortion allows the government to then control our bodies. Think outside the lines, please.

[TeacherCreature]

206. dembones doesn't want to think outside the lines

Dembones wants to force his/her religious beliefs on the rest of us and probably gets paid to post here by the national right to life organization. They have people all over the internet.

[Forkboy]

242. Can you back that charge against Dembones up with proof

or is this like when you accused me of voting for Nader and you're just talking out of your ass again?

[msmcghee]

32. We can also kill children up to an advanced age . .

. . even if they appear healthy and otherwise normal. We just call them Iraqi.

[Redleg]

82. Good point. They ain't 'muricans so they ain't got rights!

EOM

[merh]

194. And we just ignore human life when it is not productive or

is too old or is not perfect --

We have nursing homes, "retirement homes", mental institutions (yes, we still have them) and prisons.


We are a disposable society that does not care about the living members in our society that are not perfect, so I find it hypocritical that there is such a debate about when life begins.


The question is not when does life begin, by when did we first begin to stop caring for all living beings and why?

OR

When will we begin to care?

(imho)

[Az]

207. When we began measuring the success of our society by the stockmarket

When the economic measures of corporate success suplanted the quality of our lives as our means of determining how we were doing. We are a social biological entity. We have needs and drives that are not compliant with a primitive notion of survival as construed by social darwinism. Corporations have very limited drives directing their actions and survival of the fittest becomes a primary principle behind their progress. This differs intensly with the social drives that we more evolved entities posess. And yet we have given direction of our society over to these forces in a misguided belief that the freetrade system and the invisible hand of market forces will keep the corporations under control.

[Scout]

36. If the mentally disabled child or adult...

is inside my uterus, yes, I have a right to remove it/kill it. It has nothing to do with thought processes.

[TeacherCreature]

39. I find it mind boggling that you think it is okay to inslave women

who do not want to be pregnant.

[DemBones DemBones]

153. Where did I say it was OK to enslave women?

Answer: I didn't say it, never did, never would.

[TeacherCreature]

209. that is exactly what you are saying

who do you think you are convincing with your claims otherwise?

[Tweed]

183. Unless you are really kinky, you weren't "slaved" into having sex n/t

What a great way to view a living child in your womb. Enslaving!

[Az]

191. That would mean

That each period was the killing of a living being. And think of all the blood. Each of those blood cells is a living thing. The horror.

Human Beings are not just a simple cluster of cells. We are complex entities complete with functioning brains.

Having sex sometimes leads to pregnancy. Even with protection. A person cannot be compelled under any circumstances to be made a vessel for another person. Even if one day they say ok, the next day they can say no way. Your body is your body. No one can take control of your body from you.

As to the ethical dilema, which is seperate from the legal issue, the removal of a few cells is not in any way the equivalent of killing a fully functional human being. Even if the structure bares some resemblance to a human body. We are the result of a fully functional brain giving rise to a mind. Without that we are just a collection of cells and organs with no identity.

Making a person is not a punishment. It should be a choice a person makes under full control of their faculties and with no pressure from the state. The creation of a human being is perhaps the most intense action that requires a person take absolute control of their responsibility on deciding if it is something they truly wish to undertake.

[Tweed]

200. Thank you for forming my own argument. Your words work against you friend

Making a person is not a punishment. (You're right, it's a trade off for the fun) It should be a choice a person makes under full control of their faculties and with no pressure from the state (That's what sex is. After you have sex, you have to live up to your choice that you made under full control of your faculties which you recieved no pressure from the state to take on). The creation of a human being (and sexual intercourse) is perhaps the most intense action that requires a person take absolute control of their responsibility on deciding if it is something they truly wish to undertake. (I couldn't agree with you more. You need to take on the responibility of having sex and having a child if that results from it.)

[TeacherCreature]

213. great just what we need at DU

more morality police.

[iverglas]

219. eating a peanut butter sandwich isn't a punishment

Making a person is not a punishment. (You're right, it's a trade off for the fun)

I didn't actually notice anybody saying that pregnancy was a "trade-off" for fun. Whatever.

But never mind the straw folk.

Being compelled to remain pregnant against one's will is a violation of rights, and if the justification offered for that violation is "you wanted the fun, now you can endure the consequences", then it IS a punishment.

Many people like peanut butter sandwiches. They make me gag. Telling me that if I accepted an invitation to lunch I had to eat a peanut butter sandwich -- and MAKING A LAW THAT SAID THAT -- would mean that eating a peanut butter sandwich would be punishment for accepting an invitation to lunch.

And that would be true whether I liked peanut butter sandwiches or not, and whether I would have chosen to eat the peanut butter sandwich anyway or not. I just wouldn't care that I had to eat it, since I wanted to eat it anyway. Just as in a majority of pregnancies, the women wouldn't care that they were being compelled to remain pregnant, since they would have chosen to anyway.

After you have sex, you have to live up to your choice that you made under full control of your faculties which you recieved no pressure from the state to take on).

Do you REALLY think that if you invite me to lunch, you can compel me to live up to my choice that I made under full control of my faculties and eat your peanut butter sandwiches -- and that the law does, or should, make me do that??

The creation of a human being (and sexual intercourse) is perhaps the most intense action that requires a person take absolute control of their responsibility on deciding if it is something they truly wish to undertake.

What the hell does *that* mean? I can't even parse it.

I can truly wish to have lunch with you without having any desire at all to eat a peanut butter sandwich. What part of "sex is fun" don't you get?

You need to take on the responibility of having sex and having a child if that results from it.

Yeah? Responsibility TO WHOM?

The last time I looked, an un-pregnant woman who has sex isn't pregnant, so don't even try the "to the z/e/f" gambit, if that's what you were thinking. (I doubt you were thinking that, but you might try it.) How can she decide "responsibly" whether to have sex when the thing she's supposed to be responsible to DOESN'T EXIST -- and statistically, very probably WILL NEVER exist??

If you wanna compel women who wish to have sex to take some "responsibility", you just have to tell us what they are responsible for, and to whom. Do that, and we'll talk.

(incoherency fixed)

[Tweed]

225. You compare a peanut butter sandwhich to a human being

That's some interesting morality there. So it's okay that we are over in Iraq, a thousands of peanut butter sandwhiches are being destroyed, what's the difference. As for your last line, I don't have intercourse with my girlfriend because I'm not ready to be a father. So what was that you wanted to talk about?

[iverglas]

232. gee, did I?

"You compare a peanut butter sandwhich to a human being"

Hmm. No, I didn't.

You assert that I did.

Pay attention. That would be my humble advice. And, of course, don't make nasty statements or insinuations about other people's beliefs based on your own misapprehension/misrepresentation of what they say.

If you claim that you have not misapprehended or misrepresented what I said, then you'd better be able to offer something to back up that wild allegation.


"As for your last line, I don't have intercourse with my girlfriend because I'm not ready to be a father. So what was that you wanted to talk about?"

Uh ... I'm at a loss for words, so maybe nothing.

Here's what my last line was:

"If you wanna compel women who wish to have sex to take some 'responsibility', you just have to tell us what they are responsible for, and to whom. Do that, and we'll talk.

... and you reply by giving me details of your sex life, or lack thereof, that I never asked for, don't want, and can't (no matter how hard I try) relate to the question I asked. Eh??

But I think I've got my answer. You're 16, right?

Whatever. Any time you want to tell me what you are alleging that women who engage in sex are RESPONSIBLE FOR, and whom they are RESPONSIBLE FOR IT TO, and how being "IRRESPONSIBLE" about whatever it is, to whomever it is, would justify DENYING THEM THE EXERCISE OF THEIR RIGHTS TO LIFE AND LIBERTY, you go right ahead.

I won't be holding my breath.

[Az]

220. Moral and Ethical choices remain

Until the moment that a person arises from the process the choice to continue or terminate the process remains. If it was not the person's intent to become pregnant then by full means they have not only the right but perhaps the moral duty to end it before there is someone there to be hurt.

Even if they were foolish and had sex with no consideration of the consequences the moral duty they have is to take action before a human being is the result.

Cells are not human beings. Action before the cells come together in a sufficient form to give rise to an individual is very possible. There is a very wide berth of time for them to take action before the question of morality arises.

Even after that moment, a person's body is their own to control. No one. Absolutely no one may enslave another's body for their own gain. If I hooked you to a person needing your blood to survive after you had mentioned that you have the right type of blood, you would have every right in the world to walk away. This despite knowing it would result in the death of a human being. They have no right to your body without your continued permission. It is not something you can give away. You can sign no paper, take no action, that ever gives away your control of your body.

Questions of the morality or ethics may arise from your actions but the fact remains. It is your body. Not someone elses.

[Tweed]

248. "If I hooked you to a person needing your blood to survive after you..."

Yeah, that's called rape if you physically force someone to have a child. Doesn't work between two consenting adults.

[Az]

249. Nope

You gave permission when you blurted out your blood type.

[Scout]

223. excellent post, thank you. eom

[TeacherCreature]

211. nice nonsense answer

So you are saying that if a women choses to have sex, she must be chosing to carry a pregnancy to term.

[Tweed]

212. That's the purpose of sex

Pleasure is a nice side effect. Like I've said in other posts. Sex is a privilege and with privileges come consequences.

[Name removed]

215. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tweed]

217. That's cool. Just ingore all logic and reason and brush it off

I guess we'll agree to agree that I'm correct.

[Scout]

230. speak for yourself.

we do not all agree.

[Az]

231. Sex as a privelige

This presumes that someone has the ability to take away your privelige. Who exactly doles out the privelige?

[noiretextatique]

298. god, apparently

the poster clarified that in a later post.

[Az]

301. Just saw it

Expected it of course. But was hoping that line of argument could be kept out of this one.

[Redleg]

81. Singer did not say it was all right to kill children up to the age of 2 or

3. He was trying to make a point about how we routinely kill animals, who have developed higher brain functions, but would be appalled at killing young children with similarly developed functions.

[Warren DeMontague]

100. More Sound Science For Ya.

"Human Embryos And Fetuses Are Living Human Beings At An Early Stage of Development"..

Yeah, so are Sperm and Unfertilized Eggs. Sperm Swim around. They die little tiny deaths when you leave them wadded up in a kleenex or between the pages of YANK, murderer. They are just as much an "early stage" of human development as a fertilized egg. The only difference between a fertilized egg and the unfertilized egg and sperm before they merge is that one has all 46 chromosomes together, and the 2 gametes have the 2 sets of 23, separate. Same chromosomes, same "potential life". The question is, where do you draw the line? And what is the point of making an arbitrary, point blank "life begins at conception" edict, unless the intent is to start legislating the choices that pregnant women can make? Because if a fertilized egg is a human being, it's a human being in a situation that no born human being is in, with the possible exception of siamese twins- in that it is wholly dependent upon another's body for it's existence. And to legislate that that other person must become a de facto incubator at the behest of of the "early stage human being" inside, strips her of her own rights and "life". So if a fertilized egg must be legislatively defined as "alive", then the woman with the womb in question, apparently, isn't.

My personal answer to the question "When does life begin"?

...Somewhere around the first opening notes of "Goin' Down The Road, Feelin' Bad"

[ronabop]

164. Dem Bones: You need to read more Singer.

Obviously, you are not a trained Ethicist, or you'd be more familiar with ethical arguments, and less inflamed about the bullet point shock-value of those arguments. Ethicists often talk in these extreme-sounding terms, which are logical extensions of a given argument. The shock value merely highlights the argument.

Let me outline Singer's rough basis: We should have a line drawn for when ethical beings can kill (without punishment) other thinking, sentient, creatures. Since humans have seen fit to perform all sorts of killing and violence on any other being which is less intelligent than a 2-3 year old child, that sets up a historical bright line of what kinds of life has been valued as too important to destroy.

So, in response to the obviously biased article which seeks to mask a clearly biblical argument, with no basis in science (that humans should be treated separately from other animals), as somehow being a scientific argument (that we define a sacred point of the significant value of life), Singer's point stands up quite well.

Actually, if you were a trained ethicist, this would all be old hat to you. So, I'll give you a rough out of perspectives:
1. Religious belief that humans should be treated separate from other animals, so testing drugs on, and killing, primates which as smart, alive, and sentient as a 2 year old child is somehow OK.
2. Scientific basis for determining an bright line for when an organism has rights to autonomy. This is what the article clearly doesn't want to do, as it focuses on human life, not life in general. The arguments for that line include those of intelligence, self sufficiency, achievements, future potential, etc.

It's a misleading argument, until it focuses on when *life* has value, not just human life.

-Bop

[Mandate My Ass]

12. spot on, bunnyj

this is anti-choice baiting.

[Alpha Wolf]

54. Please read the article

I'm well aware of what FIRST THINGS is, as I've been a subscriber for 4+ years. The point of this article though, regardless of where it was published, is to examine if there is a MEDICAL, purely SCIENTIFIC manner for determining when life begins.

I don't think you read the article.

[Bunny]

86. Yes, I did read the article.

It doesn't prove anything to me. Hence, the very inherent difficulty in determining when life begins. Which is why there is so much disagreement over the subject.

By the way, can you answer my question about a woman's right to autonomy over her own body? I see you passed right over that.

[Alpha Wolf]

107. Sorry, didn't mean to overlook you bunnyj...

You stated:

"If your intention is to discuss abortion, the bigger question is not when life actually begins, but instead, do women have the right to maintain autonomy over their bodies? If you can answer that, then we can talk about when life may or may not begin."

The bigger of the two questions actually is "when does life begin?" because if it can be determined that it begins at some point prior to birth then the question about maintaining automony over one's body becomes moot-- because the feotus' body would not be the same as the mother's body. It would then become an issue of what "rights" the mother has over the feotus' body.

[Scout]

108. fetus is not separate...

is is INSIDE the woman, attached, sucking the life right out of her...

[Alpha Wolf]

174. That's the whole debate, isn't it?

Obviously, many people do believe the fetus is a separate person-- regardless of its proximity to the mother and its dependence on her for nourishment.

[Scout]

186. It doesn't really matter.

their belief is not sufficient to justify an infringement of my rights to autonomy over my body.

[Pachamama]

156. Does a Woman have autonomy and decision-making over her own

...body and reproductive choices? Just curious on whether your going to answer the question or not....

:think:

[Alpha Wolf]

177. YES

As far as medical science has determined, no woman (excepting Mary for the religious folks) has ever become spontaneously pregnant. So except in cases of rape, every woman has the choice as to whether or not she gets pregnant. And every man has the choice whether to impregnate a woman. We do know how these things happen, right?

Concerning abortion rights, the question gets a little trickier. Even if we grant that a woman has autonomy and decision making over her own body, we still haven't conclusively determined that the developing human within her uterus is part of her body or is its own body. In fact, that's the ENTIRE abortion debate. Those opposed to abortion believe the foetus is a separate person. Those not opposed to abortion believe the foetus is NOT a separate person.

[iverglas]

251. and I believe ...

Those opposed to abortion believe the foetus is a separate person. Those not opposed to abortion believe the foetus is NOT a separate person.

... that there are faeries at the bottom of my garden.

Now, do I get to tax your income in order to provide for their support?

When did anyone's BELIEF about anything become grounds for compelling someone else to do anything?

And what? You don't believe that I believe that there are faeries at the bottom of my garden?

Well, guess what. I don't believe that anyone believes that a z/e/f is a separate person, either.


So except in cases of rape, every woman has the choice as to whether or not she gets pregnant.

Really??

You might want to explain that to all the women out there who have chosen to get pregnant ... and yet aren't.

If choosing to have sexual intercourse = choosing to get pregnant, how come there are so many infertile women?

We do know how these things happen, right?

Well, to be perfectly honest, some of "us" seem to be a little hazy on the whole thing.

Maybe you need to be getting your biology from some high school biology books, rather than religious propaganda internet sites.

Even if we grant that a woman has autonomy and decision making over her own body, we still haven't conclusively determined that the developing human within her uterus is part of her body or is its own body. In fact, that's the ENTIRE abortion debate.

Except that what it actually is, is HOW YOU CHOOSE TO FRAME the "abortion debate".

Too bad you don't actually get to frame it for us, eh?

You choose to frame the debate as if there were a question where there is none. You can do what you like, of course.

What might be interesting would be if you would actually engage in the debate, instead of incessantly telling everybody else what it's about.

May/should abortion be recriminalized in the US? What justification would you advance for doing that, if that is what you advocate?

If you don't advocate that, what exactly is your point here?

[Djinn]

261. wrong

I have absolutely NO idea when a fetus becomes a person - I don't think that can ever be answered as the definition of person is a little vague.

You state that people not opposed to abortion beleive the fetus is NOT a seperate person and that's a mighty broad brush.

I couldn't give a stuff frankly - all I know is that without legal affordable and accesible abortion women who are most definetly people will die from infection and heamoraghing and for me THAT is the abortion issue.

Like it or not women will still have abortions, they have been doing so since ancient times. I don't want them to die for it.

[Pachamama]

157. I'm ready to yell and scream at anyone who tries to take my decisions

...over my body and reproductive choices....

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

162. I'll be screaming along side you!

:o

[DemBones DemBones]

9. As a biologist, I agree with this article,

which explores the criteria biologists use for determining whether something is living or nonliving. I have put them in bold text in the quote below.


"What does the nature of death tell us about the beginning of human life? From the earliest stages of development, human embryos clearly function as organisms. Embryos are not merely collections of human cells, but living creatures with all the properties that define any organism as distinct from a group of cells; embryos are capable of growing, maturing, maintaining a physiologic balance between various organ systems, adapting to changing circumstances, and repairing injury. Mere groups of human cells do nothing like this under any circumstances. The embryo generates and organizes distinct tissues that function in a coordinated manner to maintain the continued growth and health of the developing body. Even within the fertilized egg itself there are distinct “parts” that must work together—specialized regions of cytoplasm that will give rise to unique derivatives once the fertilized egg divides into separate cells. Embryos are in full possession of the very characteristic that distinguishes a living human being from a dead one: the ability of all cells in the body to function together as an organism, with all parts acting in an integrated manner for the continued life and health of the body as a whole."


As Dr.Condic says, "mere groups of human cells do nothing like this under any circumstances." In attempts to support abortion, it is often incorrectly argued that if an embryo is a living thing, an organism, then so are cells grown in culture, or even sperm.

In considering the issue of abortion, it must be asked whether the rights of the mother can be considered to be greater than the rights of the embryo or fetus she is carrying, and, if so, in what cases. Both are living human beings, despite differences in their stage of development. To pretend otherwise for the sake of supporting "women's rights" accomplishes nothing.

If we care about unjust killing in war and capital punishment, we must also care about unjust killing in abortion. That we on the left have not done so is unfortunate. Demonizing abortion opponents, even when they are clearly in the wrong, as with clinic bombings, doesn't change the facts about abortion killing a human being, and typically a healthy human being at that.

Instead of railing at me, I hope DUers will actually think about the scientific facts laid out above and the troubling parallels between "embryos/fetuses aren't fully human" and "blacks aren't fully human," "women aren't fully human," "_(insert name here)_ aren't fully human." It's a terrible paradox that so many of us now support more protections for animals and none for unborn humans. How can we make abortion rare? I don't see banning it as a solution as then we'd have women dying from illegal abortions. I think we need a change in people's hearts and minds, starting with knowing the biological facts about life.


"Once the nature of human beings as organisms has been abandoned as the basis for assigning legal personhood, it is difficult to propose an alternative definition that could not be used to deny humanity to virtually anyone. Arguments that deny human status to embryos based on form, ability, or choice can be readily turned against adult humans who have imperfect form, limited ability, or who simply constitute an inconvenience to more powerful individuals or groups. Indeed, such arguments can be quite protean in their ability to deny rights to anyone not meeting an arbitrary criterion for humanity. Abraham Lincoln made this very point regarding arguments based on form, ability, and choice that were put forth in his day to justify the institution of slavery:


'It is color, then; the lighter having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than your own.


You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore, have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet with an intellect superior to your own.


But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.'

[TeacherCreature]

42. so? As a biologist don't have an abortion if you don't want one

As a women I will do as I think best.

[DemBones DemBones]

150. What an original response! I've never

heard THAT one before! (sarcasm off)


BTW, I AM a woman and I would not have an abortion.

[TeacherCreature]

208. great, then you should understand and approve of the pro-choice

argument. I would never try to force you to have an abortion.

[Tweed]

180. As someone who decided to have sex, you should have to do

what is best for your "consequence".

[Scout]

185. since not even sterilization is 100% effective...

basically what you are saying then is that no woman is ever, under any circumstances "allowed" to have sex if she does not want children?

how liberal of you... NOT!

[Tweed]

187. I'm saying both men & women. Sex is a privilege, don't have it if you...

can't deal with the "consequences".

[Scout]

226. sex is a privilege????

oh please...

sex is a biological function, not a privilege.

So you really are saying that no person is allowed to have sex, ever, in their entire life time, unless they want children.

Are you sure you're a liberal?

[Mandate My Ass]

227. Puritanical claptrap

Sex is part of life. Like bringing a baby into the world without being prepared for the permanently life-altering responsibilities of parenthood is being "responsible."

Hardly.


On edit: OOps, I meant to reply to the other poster.

[iverglas]

237. ah yes!

I'd missed the previous iteration of the nonsense. ;)

Sex is a biological function.

Engaging in sexual intercourse is exercising a right. Actually, a collection of rights and freedoms: it involves liberty, privacy, and all sorts'a stuff like that.

There really just is no such thing as "a privilege" in the context of laws and constitutions and suchlike.

Things that people do are exercises of rights and freedoms. Either there is justification for interfering in their exercises of those rights and freedoms (like interfering in the exercise of the right to liberty by imposing speed limits, and permitting interference in the exercise of the right to life by allowing assault and homicide in self-defence), then there can be no interference.

The fact that there is justification for interfering in the exercise of a right or freedom doesn't turn the right or freedom into a "privilege".

Privileges are extra things that some people, like presidents and cops, are given. They are exempted from the rules that apply to everybody else.

A privilege may be an exemption from a general rule that interferes with the exercise of rights, e.g. people with drivers' licences are exempted from the general rule that people may not drive cars on roads (i.e. the rule becomes that people may not drive cars on roads without a driver's licence), which is itself a violation of the right of liberty.

In order for having sex to be a privilege, there would have to be (legitimate) some blanket rule against having sex, that some people were exempted from.

Stop me before I get completely bogged down in nonsense!!

[Az]

240. A privelige is

Spefically something given to you by another who controls it. No one controls sex. It is a right. Pursuit of happiness etc.

From Merriam Webster:

a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor : PREROGATIVE; especially : such a right or immunity attached specifically to a position or an office

The ability to have sex is not granted by anyone. It is part an parcel of our human existance. Just as do not need to be granted the privilige of breathing you do not need someone to grant you the privilige of sex.

[molly]

124. Amoebas are life forms - do they think?

do they feel pain? Maybe - maybe not. Worms repair themselves. This may sound cruel and harsh.

My definition of HUMAN life is that the organism (1) is sustainable (viable) outside of the womb (2) and/or will eventually function as more than a mere vegetable.

How many right-to-lifers are adopting these unwanted children? When there is an amendment that EVERY unwanted child will be loved and cared for, then, and only then will I change my views.

[DemBones DemBones]

149. Amoebas aren't HUMAN organisms. Human embryos/fetuses are. n/t

[ronabop]

166. Why should humans be special?

This is where the not-so-hidden religious bias of the top argument clearly shows up.

Either scientifically define what *life* (all organisms) is too special to kill, or provide arguments that humans should have a different scientific basis for killing than other sentient creatures, or provide arguments against killing primates, dolphins, and all other thinking animals... or at least a bright line of how much thought is considered acceptable.

I'm here waiting, with the argument that we kill chimpanzees, but not some humans that can never be smarter, more loving, or more socially valuable than chimpanzees.

-Bop

[noiretextatique]

221. excellent point, scout

why is it JUST human life and not all life?

[Az]

234. Bias

Our society is composed primarily of humans. Pets and other animals are secondary to our social structure. But our primary focus is on the moral and ethical interactions of humans. As we are human consideration of the death of a human takes primary importance to us.

Simply put humans have more rights because we are human and our society has not embraced (yet) the implications of other species identities or rights as yet. We are biased for humans. If the entirety of the human race vanished from this planet tomorrow, life would go on. Ants would continue to forage. Lions would continue to hunt. Dogs would be a bit more lonely. But life would go on. But not the specific life that we would prefer.

[Pachamama]

253. Good Definition - Sustainable/viable outside womb & more than a vege

Right on Sister Molly! Agreed, especially on the part of the "Anti-Abortionists" and when they start adopting all these unwanted children, starting with Bu$h...

thanks

[Djinn]

263. My retired father

who is a respected and much published biochemist (study of LIVING organisms and their vital processes would disagree with you most strongly.

This is an argument that has NO definitive medical answer.

[Scout]

13. It doesn't really matter.

So why waste time and bandwidth?

[Nederland]

31. Yes it does

At least, if you agree with Roe vs. Wade it matters.

[Scout]

35. I do support Roe v. Wade...

which concerns viability ... not the "moment" a human life begins.

[Nederland]

87. Roe vs. Wade...

also admits that the question of personhood was critical:

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. Roe vs. Wade, Part IX, Section A

You claim that the moment of when life begins is irrelevant. In order to maintain this, you would have to claim that the definition of personhood and the defintion of when life begins are two seperate questions. I suppose you can do this, but it seems and odd distinction to me...


BTW, viability is a moving target. That's the problem with Roe vs. Wade. It is now clearly apparent that technology will continue advance until the point where a fetus at any stage of development will be viable outside the womb. What right to abortion will a woman have then?

[Scout]

90. my right to autonomy of my own body.

whether a fetus is alive or not, a person or not, as long as it is *inside* my body, I will be the one that decides what happens to it.

under the law, you cannot give a fetus and the pregnant woman the same rights ... it just cannot be done. Someone's rights must take precedence.

iverglas can explain it to you much better than I.

[Nederland]

92. If you are pregnant...

...your right to automony is not absolute.

[Scout]

102. yes, it is.

inside my body, I control it.

[Nederland]

109. Not according to Roe vs Wade

Which you claim you support. (post #35)

[ibegurpard]

14. Greater minds than mine have been unable to agree on this question.

The lack of consensus is the reason the government has no business attempting to legislate the issue.

[gpandas]

49. the answer!! n/t

[Gregorian]

16. The problem is consistency. Not abortion

If they're going to claim that it's about religion, then they MUST be consistent with the ten commandments, and other lessons in the bible. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So that would be giving others freedom. The freedom of choice. OR, it would be NOT KILLING people, in general. AND it would be not killing people in spirit, such as holding people in jail for decades. (And then killing them.)

I don't think we need to be specific. In fact, I think that these ignorant slobs have expected us to do all of their thinking for them. And when they aren't doing that, they're throwing wrenches into the gears of the hard efforts we have made to produce things. This is how we have lost. We've lost time by letting them force us into this position. It's not OUR problem. They need to take responsibility for their inconsistent behavior. The question should be, how are we going to do that.

[DemBones DemBones]

24. Is it consistent to oppose capital punishment & support legal abortion?

We on the left need to do a lot more thinking about this issue. Those on the right also need to do more thinking about capital punishment and war, among other things.

[TeacherCreature]

41. it wouldn't be consistant for you to oppose capital punishment

and have an abortion. What some other woman does with her body is between her and God and none of your business.

We on the left will make sure that you don't get your way with other people's bodies.

[Tweed]

182. Here Here Dem Bones DemBones, when I say I'm pro-life I mean it

I don't believe the state should ever take a human life. I almost think that the two parties planned this out so that no party could swoop in and be the "pro-life" party or the "pro-choice" party and threaten the system.

[Pachamama]

254. Is it consistent to oppose abortion & support the death penalty?

:think:

I by the way am Pro-choice and do not support the death penalty...does that mean inconsistency? No, I don't....I guess I value life more once they are viable and born than the other way around....

[WilliamPitt]

18. When you register as a Republican

Before then, you're dead.

[treepig]

40. but at that point you you're certifiably brain-dead

perhap's at least you've been kind enough to donate your organs,tho?

[Medium Baby Jesus]

140. Where is MoPaul when you need him

His Body Snatcher graphic always cracks me up.

[leftofthedial]

19. only after we get the neocons out of power

until then, we all live less than fully human lives.

[mandyky]

20. Viable human life begins at about 6 months gestation

I have a cousin who was born during my aunts 6th month and she lived.
I know a former schoolmate who had a child that weighed less than 3 pounds, and she survived (I do not recall the gestation period in that case).

My personal feeling about when human life begins is that if an unborn fetus or embryo can not survive on its own then it is not really a human life yet. It is more of a "growth", until it can survive alone.

Personally I am opposed to abortion for myself, but I support choice and think any regulation on abortions should include a health of the mother clause. The decision on whether or when to terminate a pregnancy should be made by a woman and her doctor.

[Cronus Protagonist]

21. My sperm are all alive when they leave home

What happens after that, I have no control over.

Choose Kerry Lose Bush - FUCK BUSH - Drop Bush Not Bombs!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

34. bingo... life doesn't begin, it's passed on

im pro choice, btw.

[Cronus Protagonist]

144. Yup, life is not created or begun

It is and always will be passed on, never begun.

Choose Kerry Lose Bush - FUCK BUSH - Drop Bush Not Bombs!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[msmcghee]

22. Your question is ingenuous.

The conservatives learned 40 years ago that politics is simply marketing. It has nothing to do with ideals of democracy or morals or any of that crap (to them). It is simply selling your product to enough voters to assure that you gain or retain power.

The most effective way to sell any product is to find the most emotionally powerful ideas and thoughts in the recipient's mind - and attach your product to them as a way to make the recipient feel good or at least better than the alternatives with the help of your product. Watch any television advertisement to get an idea how this obvious method works.

The first step is identifying those fears (fear being the most powerful emotion available) that can provide the catalyst. That is why the RW platform is full of social issues like abortion, assisted suicide and same sex marriage. These invoke powerful emotions associated with our own death, murder of others including children and babies, pedophilia, sexually transmitted diseases, etc. Fears that we all hold.

The RW elevates these and parades them around like imminent threats to your own security - just like Iraq. Then they wheel in their legislative platform and ideologues with their talking points to solve the terrible problem - again just like Iraq. And millions of idiots fall for it time and again.

Finally, the idea of life having a beginning is a construct of the human mind. The DNA that life is composed of has been shuffling around inside various life forms for billions of years. If you want to pick a particular time in the human life cycle that you want to call the beginning - then it starts when you think it starts. If you don't want to be a murderer, then don't do anything that would cause that particular DNA to degenerate to simpler molecules after that time. But that's an ethical issue for you to deal with personally.

At the social/legal level, to stay out of jail and be a socially moral person, don't kill any human life after it is born.

At the political level - don't contribute to the fake emotional angst with threads like this that makes simple people see RW ideology as a solution to a false problem.

[chiburb]

192. Hmm...no response to this wonderful, right-on post?

I wonder why...

[Pachamama]

255. Kick!!! It's a Marketing Scam! Thanks!

:kick:

It's a flamebait posting....

[drdigi420]

23. when the cord is cut

but then im not one to buy religious myths and superstitions

[TeacherCreature]

43. many people who are religious agree with you

why insult your allies?

[morgan2]

25. age 7

the age of reason...

[DemBones DemBones]

27. Refusing to think about an issue

because you're afraid you might be wrong is an immature action. It's clear that DUers are not reading the article, or are reading it without considering what it says.

I do remember how hard it was for me to admit to myself I'd been wrong about abortion, buying the political line about it.

[Mandate My Ass]

30. Wrong, I did read it even though the OP

said he wanted a non-religious discussion, and posted from a site that believes public policy should be shaped by religiously informed public philosophy. Posted and ran, I might add.

And then there's this knee-slapper:

Linking human status to the nature of developing embryos is neither subjective nor open to personal opinion. Human embryos are living human beings precisely because they possess the single defining feature of human life that is lost in the moment of death—the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells.

Says who?

I'm tired of people who think freedom of religion means forcing their religion down other people's throats.

[Bunny]

33. Posted and ran, indeed.

It's been two hours since the original post, and where is Alpha Wolf? Drive-by posting?

[chiburb]

51. Not the 1st time...n/t

.

[Alpha Wolf]

60. I didn't run.

I actually have a job. Sometimes I wonder how many other DUers do.

I agree with DemBones-- almost all who have joined this thread have not read the article-- especially if they are complaining that it was published in FIRST THINGS. The whole fricken' point of the article was to investigate a non-religious, purely biological difinition of when human life begins.

[Mandate My Ass]

62. AGENDA

both you and this web site have one.

And the droning repetition of "you didn't read it" is not discussion.

[trotsky]

95. Keeping a person alive with a machine doesn't endanger anyone.

A fetus developing inside a woman has several outcomes, some of them dangerous to "itself" or others:

1) Some 50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant (that figure is off the top of my head).
2) Miscarriages, whether it is the body rejecting an improperly forming fetus or any number of other reasons.
3) Today, even with the medical technology we have at our disposal, a woman is still more than 10 times as likely to die from carrying a fetus to term than she is to die from complications from an abortion.

Missing from your article is the same thing that's missing from every anti-choice argument: the rights of the fully-formed, fully grown WOMAN involved in the situation.

[DemBones DemBones]

154. You are the only one who has cited the article and

argued against a specific portion of it. I salute you for that. Other replies seem to be knee jerk responses and I know DUers can do better.

I don't think it's necessary to consider what happens at death to demonstrate that life begins at conception, so I wouldn't have phrased that quote as the author did. As I stated in an earlier post, the author also discusses the characteristics of life which biologists use to determine whether something is a living organism or not. This is basic biology, used to define life and applied when assessing a new discovery. I don't see how embryos can be excluded from the category of "living humans" unless we pretend they don't exhibit those characteristics, perhaps in order to be comfortable in asserting that abortion should be a right. And I would argue that that is what we have often done since Roe v. Wade.

This does NOT mean I think abortion should be illegal. What I think is that it should be rare. I think it should be rare because women change their attitudes about it, for the future. We know more about embryonic development now then we did when Roe v. Wade became law . And we know that legalized abortion has not ended child abuse, spousal abuse, divorce, illegitimacy, poverty, or teen pregnancy, as its early advocates promised it would.

[TeacherCreature]

44. now you sound like a Naderbot

"If you don't agree with me it is because you haven't read enough".

:puke:

[DemBones DemBones]

151. How about reading the article and discussing what it said?

Repeating old arguments is not discussion.

Do you let your students get away with the lame ad hominem arguments you're making here?

[TeacherCreature]

205. what makes you think I have not read the article?

You aren't going to get control of my body, no matter how many millions of times you post the same old shit on this message board.

[Pachamama]

257. Read the article, thought about it, disagree with it & have a differing

...viewpoint and opinion on the "definition of when life begins" or on the issue of abortion from the author, the poster or you.

That doesn't make me or anyone else here on the DU immature or wrong, just because we disagree or that you disagree with our opinions.

I'm not "Wrong" and neither are you...we are all entitled to our opinions and I will control my body and make those decisions and you make yours....My God and I will come to terms with the decision and any consequences and its no one elses to pass judgement on who is wrong and who is right....

[TreasonousBastard]

29. As at least one person said-- first define human life...

then we can go on to argue when it begins.

And argue over whether or not it actually makes any difference.

Unforunately, religion can't be left out of the discussion, since it permeates everyone's beliefs on the subject. Religion shouldn't poison the subject, though.

It should be noted that in the past, Catholics were pretty well neutral on the issue. Few, if any, scholars find the admonitions against Onanism or the few other passages even remotely relating to it to be a prohibition. Aquinas and Augustine didn't have much of a problem with abortion as it existed back then, and it only started to be an issue lately. It all pretty much revolves around Seamless Garment, which is only a teaching, and not dogma.

Protestants and others against it have a much more difficult time arguing their points rationally.

Taking religion, and the concept of the soul, out of it, leaves us with very little to work with. Is an embryo "human" because of its potential future to become one? Is a "proto-human" as valuable as a real one? It certainly is not human as we commonly define ourselves. It is life, but it is dependant upon a life support system and has no physical or mental abilities of its own. Yet.

[The Flaming Red Head]

37. I think around age 30

maybe 35.

[Iris]

38. Here's a twist

A couple of summers ago, I read a book by Stephen King called "Dark Half." In the book, a young boy goes in for surgery and the surgeons find a cluster of hair, bone, and teeth in his skull. They believe it to be a cannibalized twin.

I started looking into this idea of a cannibalized twin and have found that it is a common occurence. A set of twins may be conceived and one twin dies and is absorbed into the body of the twin. Another possibility is the embryo splits, but not completely. In some cases a child is born with a brainless siamese twin growing from some part of his body. In some cases, the headless twin even had a developed heart.

I believe someone recently posted a link to a site that described fossiled cannibalized twins discovered inside the bodies of people who had been dead for hundreds of years.

I have heard that as many of 50% of fertilized embryos are miscarried before a woman even knows she's pregnant.

It seems to me that Mother Nature is cruelly disinterested when it comes to this sort of thing and our trying to establish when life begins is mere folly in the face of unconcerned forces of nature.

[Cleita]

69. This has been brought up over and over again here at DU.

It seems to me that Mother Nature is cruelly disinterested when it comes to this sort of thing and our trying to establish when life begins is mere folly in the face of unconcerned forces of nature.

Yet, people persist in posting these inane abortion threads over and over no matter how much the "when life begins" argument has been refuted over and over.

It's a woman's issue to be taken care of by women. No one else needs to be involved. All it does is prove the misogynism of the pro-life people.

[DemBones DemBones]

152. The rate of early "miscarriages" is

quite high (more than 50%, actually, according to my sources) but they are almost always due to genetic errors that make the survival of the embryo impossible. Such embryos are alive but their abnormalities preclude a continued life. Most of these defects are severe enough that the new life ends before the mother is aware it started.

Mother Nature may indeed be cruelly disinterested but as thinking human beings we do concern ourselves with moral and ethical questions. If we didn't oppose the unconcerned forces of nature, many women would die from ectopic pregnancies or in attempting to deliver babies too large to pass through their pelvic cavities or due to another obstetrical complication. At one time, such deaths were accepted as natural (or God's will), there being no way to prevent them. Now we can prevent most such deaths.

[Iris]

275. Yes, but where does it end?

Should we presume to trump mother nature just because we are sentimental about life? Is it right to keep a 2 lb. baby that is born way to early and hasn't even got lungs developed enough to breath air alive just because we can and we feel like very single life is worth preserving? Is it right for doctors to do this when really it is nothing but an experiement; when no one really knows what the lives of these children will be like in 30 or 40 years?

Some things are better not made into policy and should be left to the individuals involved to decide.

[iverglas]

278. old tales

The rate of early "miscarriages" is quite high
(more than 50%, actually, according to my sources)
but they are almost always due to genetic errors
that make the survival of the embryo impossible.
Such embryos are alive but their abnormalities
preclude a continued life. Most of these defects
are severe enough that the new life ends before
the mother is aware it started.

(Uh ... and in that case she wouldn't be a "mother", right? I mean, unless she already had a kid or two ...)

Present understanding is that most "early miscarriages" -- whether failures to implant or spontaneous abortions after implantation up to 20 weeks -- have nothing to do with genetic abnormalities.

On a very quick google: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/16/health/main536830.shtml

Susan J. Fisher said coatings on the uterus and on the surface of the embryo act like puzzle pieces that touch and quickly lock.

"One piece of the puzzle is a protein on the embryo and the other is a very specialized carbohydrate sugar structure," said Fisher.

The sugar molecule on the surface of the uterus is secreted for only a short time during a woman's monthly cycle and the embryo, with its L-selectin coating, must arrive at the uterus during this time.

"It has to take place in exact synchrony or you don't get pregnant," said Fisher, noting that failure to implant on the uterus is one of the most common causes of a failed conception.

"Only 50 to 60 percent of all conceptions advance beyond 20 weeks and of pregnancies that are lost, 75 percent represent a failure of implantation," she said.

Nothing to do with genetic abnormalities of the fertilized egg/embryo/fetus at all. Nature really just doesn't give a shit.

[gollygee]

45. The issue isn't when life begins

it is whether I have complete rights to my body or whether someone - incluing a fetus - can use my body forcibly against my wishes. If my uterus can be used against my wishes, why not my kidneys? Would it be ok to, against my wishes, take a kidney from me for someone else's use?

[Caution]

46. As it pertains to abortion

I don't personally believe this matters.

please see

http://www.proconsent.org/

for more info.

Personally I believe life begins when the child is breathing on its own.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

47. my question: when does my body stop belonging to me?

and start belonging to the principles of others?

[Alpha Wolf]

61. The real question is...

when did your body START belonging to you, and not to the principles of others (i.e. you mother)?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

66. soon as i can pay for its upkeep

[Tweed]

184. This is why we should work to make having a child financially easy

n\t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

189. i meant i own MY body as soon as i can afford to feed it,

i dont care if childcare cost $0. if i dont want one i wont have one.

[Tweed]

197. How utterly heartless

As heartless as any Republican cutting funding for the poor, hungering for war, or killing off our enviornment.

You want to have your fun, but won't live up to the consequences. That's no different then cutting a forest down and not replanting it. Horrible

[La Lioness Priyanka]

198. how is it the same thing?

its heartless for me to not want to bring a child into this world? MY FUCKING BODY...MY FUCKING DECISION

[Name removed]

202. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[iverglas]

210. a USAmerican, in the 21st century, ...

... says "Sex is a privilege" ... and it's left to the Canadian to say WHAT THE FUCK??

The reaction to someone saying that in the vicinity I inhabit (which is about as likely to happen as snow in Toronto in July) would be a whole lot of people pointing and laughing.

That's because we aren't in any jeopardy of such a person being taken seriously and our ability to exercise our rights being affected as a result, so we can just point and laugh and get back to what we were doing. In a different time and place -- like, oh, Afghanistan, about now -- it might not sound so funny.

I trust everybody here was pointing and laughing in their hearts! But allow me to recommend that you do it out loud, just in case anyone happening by the soapbox where speakers like this are spouting might think that such notions oughta be taken seriously.

Just think: if people had pointed and laughed at Dumbya a little more and a little earlier, 63% of USAmericans might not be persuaded now that he's intelligent.

Once a notion gains legitimacy and and is given widespread credence, it's too late for pointing and laughing. By then, one is too busy trying to avoid the consequences: the people who adhere to the notion trying to take away one's rights.

[Tweed]

216. A lot of insulting, laughing and pointing, a total lack of backing it up

Care to say why you are laughing? You do a whole lot of insulting but don't say why. Certainly it won't be a stretch for your absolute 'enlightened' mind. :eyes:

[noiretextatique]

224. sex is a privilege...like a drivers' license?

i'm not canadian, but i agree that's an idiotic pronouncement. sex is a natural, human function that each of us "owns." it is not a privilege that is "issued" by some govenmental body. women get pregnant...that's as natural as people having sex.

[Scout]

235. since you are the one asserting that sex is a privilege...

I think YOU are the one who has some 'splaining to do.

[Tweed]

256. You are messing up the state with God, let me explain my views

I'm talking about morally what I believe in. God gives you sex as a privilege. If you want to talk legally though, I don't care what religion you are practicing, so I don't care what happens in your bedroom either. The state doesn't have any type of control over it.

[noiretextatique]

297. i don't believe in god eom

[Az]

300. Unfortunately for that argument you have to demonstrate the existance

of god. I am aware of no evidence for the existance of god and there for must procede with what issues I can determine. As such no one give permission for a person to have sex other than their partner. It is not a privilige and is not regulated by any being in a moral system.

[iverglas]

236. oh, let me see

"Care to say why you are laughing?"

I wonder whether it might have something to do with the fact that a person who says "sex is a privilege" has so little grasp of the concepts of ... oh, constitution, rights, freedoms ... that it's truly a hilarious thing to see in this day and age and place. Sorta like seeing someone walking down the street in spats or a bustle.

Of course, there's always the funny image that is conjured up in one's mind's eye, of the person saying "sex is a privilege" wincing in pain as what s/he said comes back to bite him/her in the ass.

Sex is a privilege. Speech is a privilege. Going to church is a privilege. Crossing the street is a privilege. Eating pizza is a privilege.

And only good little boys and girls will get to do any of them. You better hope that you're a good 'un ... or, more to the point, that everybody agrees that you're a good 'un (or that, if only white folk or men folk or good christian folk get to exercise the privileges, you're one of them) ... or it's your bum that this "privilege" bullshit is going to be biting.

But heck -- in the meantime, don't worry. It's only WOMEN's rights that you're calling a "privilege", so you're safe. For now.

[Susang]

246. I also wonder...

If he believes so strongly that sex is a privilege, then who does he consider the custodian of said privilege? Somehow I feel that the answer to that question might reveal quite a lot.

After all, a privilege must be administered by someone in authority, am I not correct?

A slippery slope indeed.

[Az]

247. Yep, refed that below

Privilige comes from someone giving it to you. Like a drivers license. The government owns the road. Driving on it is not a right. It is a privilige because the government owns it. The government does not own your body. It cannot give you the privilige of having sex.

[Susang]

250. I was going for something a little more personal

Though I thoroughly argee with what you posted and have for some time.

Since the poster felt that he needed to share this with you: "As for your last line, I don't have intercourse with my girlfriend because I'm not ready to be a father.", I felt that maybe he felt that the administration of such a "privilege" was more of a personal obligation. You'll notice that her thoughts on the matter were not mentioned at all and did not seem to be a motivating factor in his decision.

A woman's sexuality appears to be merely an empty vessel for designed merely for procreation in his eyes. :eyes:

[Pachamama]

259. I love Canadians...

Eh, Iverglas....thank you for defending my "privileges"....The fundie USAmericans are wanting to infringe on everything in our constitution these days and call them "priviliges" and dispense them under their terms....

It must be so obvious to people on the outside looking in....too bad not more in this country see it...

:hi:

[Scout]

233. me, me, I was pointing and laughing!

[Az]

214. Creating a person

Is not some cavelier thing we enter into out of some misplaced sense of duty. There is no human being present in a cluster of cells. Taking the very responsible action of removing them before a human being results is exactly the correct course for someone not interested or able to properly care for a human being.

<> means does not equal


Cluster of cells <> Human Being

Human Body with no brain <> Human Being

Isolated human organs <> Human Being

Human Cells <> Human Being

Unique Human DNA <> Human Being

A Human body constructed from Human Cells including a functioning brain = Potential Human Being

[Tweed]

222. Waiting for your defense of post 191 because it was shredded by post 200

"Taking the very responsible action of removing them before a human being results is exactly the correct course for someone not interested or able to properly care for a human being."

The responsible action would be to accepct the conseqeunces of your previous actions. It is irresponsible to get rid of the bad side effects.

If someone is interested in having sex, they don't have a choice in the matter of being interested in having a child.

This is why we Democrats have to fight to make it easier to have a child. If you feel that you can't care for a child in the current climate though, abstain from sex. I'm not ready to be a father. I don't have sex.

[Az]

229. Shredded?

Not exactly sure what you think shredded means. I did respond and am fairly certain I touched on all your points. It is interesting to note your competitive attitude regarding this issue. I am engaged in a discussion with you on this topic. I am not sure what you are engaged in.

[Bunny]

302. So if I got an STD, through unprotected sex,

the responsible thing would be to just accept the consequences? It would be irresponsible to get rid of the bad side effects? So I should suffer with syphillis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HIV, etc.? And not seek any medical treatment? Because, as bad side effects of my actions, the only responsible thing to do would be to just accept them? I do not follow.

:shrug:

[noiretextatique]

306. yes, you should accept your punishment

for violating the privilege of having sex by getting an STD.
if you believe the consequences of non-procreational sex should be punishment, as someone apparently does, this might make sense to you :D

[Bunny]

307. But what if I WAS having procreational sex, and still got an STD?

Then what? Continue the (presumed) pregnancy, and keep the STD going strong too? Both would be consequences of my actions, right? :evilgrin:

[noiretextatique]

311. YES: you must bear the punishment

even for procreational sex, i would assume...if you take the punishment argument to its logical conclusion.
i agree with you...it seems to me the responsible thing to do would be to get treatment, but we don't believe the consequences of sex should be punishment, do we? :evilgrin:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

239. pregnancy is a privilege

not all of us want

[Djinn]

265. WTF

"sex is a priviledge" - what on earth does that mean? - unless this bizarro theory has a religious base to it then it's utterly meaningless - if it DOES have a religious base it is also utterly meaningless to the MILLIONS of people who have differing religious beliefs than you or none at all.

Beleive whatever you like but you have NO right whatsoever to use that belief to legislate or even moralise on MY behaviour. And before you bring in the hoary old chestnut about people not having the right to steal or shoot people in public THOSE laws are based on the decisions of the majority of the population and many of us make those moral decisions in the total absense of God

If you don't have sex because you don't wanna be a father fine - the rest of us don't see celibacy as a desirable/natural/neccesary or effective in the long term because human nature tends to get in the way - choice.

These threads always make me happy to be Australian - this just isn't an issue here - I was listening to some tackback the other day - which only even came up because of some new fetus documentary - and 99% of callers and the host (on a the furthest right wing station I might add) were of the opinion that the state has no right to be getting inside women's bodies.

[Alpha Wolf]

272. Really?

"MY FUCKING BODY...MY FUCKING DECISION"

Actually, it hasn't always been your body. Before you passed through the birth canal, it was apparently someone else's body.

[iverglas]

274. amazing, isn't it?

Actually, it hasn't always been your body.
Before you passed through the birth canal,
it was apparently someone else's body.

It was indeed. Very apparently.

And before it was today, it was yesterday. Or is that "tomorrow"?

Well, before it was night, it was day. And vice versa. And the chicken and the egg.

Funny how that whole time thing works, isn't it? Time passes, and things change. Things become other things. Gosh, if they didn't, where would we be??

This is a really important thing to remember, if you ask me.

Life -- human and otherwise -- is a process. Things become other things. And that includes parts of people's bodies becoming other people. Nothing weird about that at all, wonderful though it may be.

Anyhow, I'm not sure what your comment had to do with what the person you were responding to was saying. Other than how it supports what she said.

[Pachamama]

317. Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust...Kick...

Ah Iverson, another eloquently put answer, couldn't have thunk and expressed it better myself....

Here's a possibility for pondering:

I think in a past life 100's of year's ago I was an Achuar warrior in the Amazon rainforest...I've been a man several times, but prefer being a woman...I've been a slave and a slave owner...I've been a teacher and a student.....it's been fun being an old soul transitioning through the centuries into new bodies...maybe I was aborted atleast once and then I just would learn my karmic lesson and move on to the next body after learning important lessons...My parents over the centuries have ranged across the board, each time selected for what they could teach and I could teach...life has been good... :toast: It's all about the journey...not the destination nor the origin...maybe that's my definition of life...

So, looking at it from a karmic perspective, is it possible that the souls who are either miscarried or aborted have a karmic contract??? Hmmmm...that's what I think....

[iverglas]

320. heh

Ashes to Ashes and Dust to Dust

I didn't actually get around to saying that out loud, did I? It's what I was thinking, though. ;)

Now, I'm sure that in a past life, *bits of me* were Amazon warriors and who knows what else. I remember being fascinated when I read someplace, when I was in public school, about how the molecules of oxygen, and all that, that I breathe have already been breathed by Napoleon, or Cleopatra, or whoever takes your fancy. No degrees of separation.<*> But of course *I* wasn't an Amazon warrior, or Napoleon, or Cleopatra. (I think it's crowded enough inside them already.) Y'can't be an old soul when ya haven't got a soul at all.


____________

<*> Speaking of degrees of separation, I thought ... Tweedtheatre ... is it?, would like this tale.

How many degrees of separation removed are ya from sex with a famous person?

Well, my former co-vivant was a Texan who had previously lived in Austin with a woman named "G". "G" had previously been married to "J". "J" was a bit of a lad about town, and he'd previously had liaisons with Koo Stark and Jerri Hall. Which gets me to Prince Andrew and Mick Jagger (and David Bowie??) in a straight timeline in no time flat.

And you must stop calling me "Iverson" (who, sniff, is *not* a Canadian), or I'll have to call him in to say how flattered he is, again. Moi aussi, of course. ;)

[Az]

283. Biology has no need to comply the our semantic needs

We like to place things into nice neat little categories. We like to label those categories. But our knowledge of things is not perfect. Some of these things do not fit into our happy little categories. A fetus and a mother are just such a semantic tangle.

[sweetheart]

48. It begins right now

Congratulations, you have just been born in this moment. Have a look
around, as "NOW" is the only time you'll ever be alive.

Theoretical arguments about this or that are nice entertainment,
but who is it who is entertained, and why does that person need to
be distracted from "now" to think about another thing that has no
bearing on now? Likely fear that "now" will be boring.

If we take a moment to immerse ourselves in that boredom completely,
and live this moment without needing to "go somewhere else" mentally,
life begins and ends now. Surrendering the future for now and
divisive arguments about abortion for "now". ;-) Heroism is letting
it go and being naked to life.

Being born again, "now", how do you feel?

[Auntie Bush]

50. Human life begins when the soul enters the body.

Religions and people have different opinions/beliefs...so laws can't solve the problem. In other words no matter what laws we pass someone will be offended. Let's be honest here and admitt...
((((NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW WHEN THE SOUL ENTERS THE BODY...PERIOD!)))) so the question is MUTE and totally political. Let everyone decide for themselves and be free to feel whatever they believe in is correct and legal.

[Djinn]

267. not to mention many do not believe that there is a soul (nt)

[Gregorian]

55. Cognisence

And makes it very wrong to be raising pigs for pork, in cages. And chickens too, for that matter. But does that mean we can eat meat if the animal doesn't know it's being killed? Does that mean we can kill humans, if we shoot them from behind without them knowing it?

Perhaps the minimization of hate, and pain and suffering is our goal. In that case, common sense would work. If a mother doesn't want HER OWN CHILD, then that should be a very good sign that the child would be better off aborted. Is that not right? After all, who would know more, or want more, a child than the child's own mother?

I say, common sense. But there isn't much of that left anymore.

[Redleg]

84. Very good point.

Of course, the other folks would say "if the woman doesn't want her baby, why doesn't she put it up for adoption?"

[Cleita]

57. At the big bang. All the elements to produce life were there.

:-)

[Killarney]

58. My opinion.

I don't believe in the soul. I just believe in the physical. I'm not a religious person. However, I do believe that "life" begins when the heart starts beating... around 6-8 weeks gestation. I'm also pro-choice. I know many may find that hypocritical, but there's nothing I can do about that. The idea of viability also factors into my opinion on choice.

[Pathwalker]

59. Life begins when your children leave home.

Still waiting for mine to begin. ;-)

[Warpy]

63. Why the hell does it matter?

I mean, honestly! People seem to think pregnancy and childbirth are benign conditions, risk free, and that women can squat in the ladies' loo at work, deliver a baby, and return to the office as though nothing had happened.

The truth is that carrying to term is 6 times more lethal than abortion, and that doesn't take into account the very real threats to a woman's health, social support system, and finances that unwanted preganacy entails.

Abortion is self defense folks!

[Toot]

64. For me, it begins when the baby is viable outside the mother's

womb.

[Nederland]

89. Question

When you say "viable" what do you mean?

I ask because regardless of how you answer, there is a problem. If by viable you mean the ability to survive without any kind of assistence, then "viability" doesn't happen for several years after birth. But if by viable you mean able to survive with some sort of assistence, you are talking about a moving target that is getting shorter every year.

[LittleApple81]

68. I don't care what anybody says.While it is in MY STOMACH it is part of me.

If I DON'T WANT to keep supporting what is growing in MY stomach, I should have the right to make a decision on what happens to it.

If I want to keep on supporting it and somebody else kills it, then it is a crime.

I COME FROM A COUNTRY WHERE ABORTION IS A CRIME. What is a crime is to see what happens to women that need an abortion and are poor. Rich ones can get anything done with no problem.

And it is a shame to see what happens to un-wanted children when others force the mother to have them.

[noiretextatique]

70. you make a false assumption

"As we all know, so much of the abortion debate-- even among fellow Democrats-- revolves around the question of when human life actually begins and if this can be objectively determined from a purely biological, medical perspective-- NOT a religious one."

if you believe that women are capable of controlling their own bodies, and making decisions about their lives and their healthcare decisions, their own moral choices...when life begins is irrelevant.

the issue is: a woman's choice is just that...her choice. as to when you or this professor believes life begins: that should govern your own choices.

[Mandate My Ass]

71. Fallacy: Begging the Question

Begging the Question is a fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. This sort of "reasoning" typically has the following form.


Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).

Claim C (the conclusion) is true.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because simply assuming that the conclusion is true (directly or indirectly) in the premises does not constitute evidence for that conclusion. Obviously, simply assuming a claim is true does not serve as evidence for that claim. This is especially clear in particularly blatant cases: "X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true."

Some cases of question begging are fairly blatant, while others can be extremely subtle.

Examples of Begging the Question

Bill: "God must exist."
Jill: "How do you know."
Bill: "Because the Bible says so."
Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?"
Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God."

[noiretextatique]

73. "As we all know..."

:thumbsdown:

[Mandate My Ass]

74. Wassa matter? Don't you have a job???

You seem to have a whole lot of time on your hands to be refuting this flamebait thread, missy. ;-)

[noiretextatique]

75. i'm at work :)

just some downtime between projects :hi:
from the as we all know files....i perused some more articles from this publication...check out the one about one judge BORK going on about the international cultural wars being perpetrated by those awful liberal, activist judges. funny...he doesn't seem to mind the activism of folks like rhenquist, scalia, and thomas.

[Mandate My Ass]

76. ohmigawd!! HAHAHAHA.

Good catch. Yeah, no bias here. :hi:

[Nederland]

91. I think

Your post would be clearer if you bothered to explain why you think the original poster is begging the question, rather than simply defining to term and leaving us all to wonder what you are objecting to--assuming that you are even objecting to anything. As it stands, I have no idea what you think...

[iverglas]

96. can I play?

I love begging questions.

When do teeny weeny little feeties begin?

Oooh! When they're teeny weeny little feeties!

There, you see. Intentional abortion is culpable homicide.

My big toe ... human life in every way, on every day.

There, you see. Intentional abortion is culpable homicide.

Well, I'm afraid I may have strayed beyond question-begging, but I just got finished doing 3 days' work in one day and I'm a little dim. Never disingenuous, though ...

[Mandate My Ass]

98. LOL

Thanks for "getting it." :toast:

[Alpha Wolf]

106. Two can play at that game, you know...

Q: If a foetus is a human being, would it be homicide to destroy it?

A: No, obviously, because it's not a human being.

[noiretextatique]

116. a fetus is an organism, according to the article

even this author concedes that an organism is a "human being."

[Alpha Wolf]

178. Not sure what you're getting at...

but just so we're clear:

Not all organisms are human beings

BUT

All human beings are organisms

[noiretextatique]

204. is a fetus a "human being?"

i don't think even YOU can say that with a straight face.

[Alpha Wolf]

273. Are you a human being?

Were you once a foetus? Were you not a human being then? If not, what were you? A hippopotomus? An avacado?

Please explain what magic happened as you passed through the birth canal that turned you into a human being-- which apparently you don't believe you were before that moment.

[Az]

276. Parts of me were also once part of a cow

Other bits of me were once a ear of corn. Going further back I was once partially dirt. A bit further back I was part of a dinosaur. A bit further and I was star stuff. Are stars human beings?

Here is the problem with this question. We are not static. It is difficult to define exactly where you end and the rest of the universe begins. Even the parts that are clearly you are constantly being lost. New parts are grown. You are a process. You are not static.

When some of your cells die it is not the death of a human being. When you consume food and your body processes it and incorporates it into you it is not the creation of a new human being. It is simply the process that you are.

It is an unbroken process that has been going on for billions of years. The only thing special about it is the unique rise of your mind from the process. That is what makes you special. It is not some individual cells. It is not the structure of your nose. It is not the wave in your hair. None of these things are anywhere near as special as your mind. Everything else is just transitory.

[Alpha Wolf]

281. Az, thanks for thoughtful response...

"Are stars human beings?"

No.

"When some of your cells die it is not the death of a human being."

Agreed. It is only the death of a human being when all of my cells die.

"It is an unbroken process that has been going on for billions of years. The only thing special about it is the unique rise of your mind from the process. That is what makes you special. It is not some individual cells. It is not the structure of your nose. It is not the wave in your hair. None of these things are anywhere near as special as your mind. Everything else is just transitory."

Interesting idea, Az. But couldn't we even take this a step further and suggest that the mind is also just transitory. After all, what is the mind? Is it not just the collective chemical and electrical impulses communicated among brain cells?

[Az]

284. Of course

A mind rises and falls back into the chaos in time. But it is the mind that is the thing we value within the process. It is the lack of a mind that we miss when someone dies. The body may still be present. It may even be kept "alive" by medical technology. But without a mind there is no "one" there. And this we lament.

[iverglas]

285. now there's a problem

"When some of your cells die it is not the death of a human being."

Agreed. It is only the death of a human being when all of my cells die.

The fact is that you die well before most of your cells. You're dead, they're still goin'. How else to explain organ transplants? (And yes, they've been done without the donor having been kept artificially "alive" on life support thingies.)

So: some of your cells die, and you're still alive. And you die, and some of your cells are still alive. Damn. That dividing line just won't settle down, will it?

[Az]

287. The body survives the mind

The brain requires some rather high maintenance. It is typical that the brain suffers enough damage to shut down higher functions long before the body dies. In fact there can be cellular activity for quite some time after the brain has ceased functioning.

Consider this. There are viable blood samples of individuals long dead still being used. A dead person's blood could well be coursing through another person's veins.

[iverglas]

289. true, but not what I was saying

"The body survives the mind"

The body can survive the mind and the body still be alive, too -- in those persistent vegetative states. I was talking about the body being dead, but cells in the body being alive. That is, not just "higher brain function" has ceased, but the existence of the organism qua organism has ceased -- it has ceased to perform the functions that keep the organism, not just its cells, alive.

I don't share your view on the mind/body dichotomy. I regard the human being as an organism, of which "mind" is one function. And I don't agree that we value human beings solely based on their minds.

So while the existence of the mind tends to be concomitant with the life of the organism that is a human being, it is not necessarily a perfect correlation.

A person in a persistent vegetative state really is still a human being, and we therefore still do not permit that person to be killed on a whim. We may indeed exempt some people from that rule -- e.g. physicians, in the case of "brain death" statutes -- but we would, quite rightly in my view, not allow a stranger to walk in and shoot the person dead with impunity.

And a z/e/f, no matter how theoretically "viable", is simply not an organism -- its viability is entirely theoretical unless and until it separates and successfully respirates, etc., for itself. The fact that it might be capable of experiencing the sensation of pain at some late stage in pregnancy, for example (a function of "mind"), might found an argument for anaesthetizing it in an abortion, just as we require humane killing of animals that are capable of experiencing pain (and that, really, do have "mind" of their own); but is not sufficient to found an argument for prohibiting the abortion.

[Az]

290. The mind is not seperate from the brain

It is the output of the brain. It does not exist without the brain.

As to the body surviving the brain/mind perhaps I should have phrased it differently. The body can function with assistance from medical technology. But cellular activity will continue for some time without the regulating aspects of a functioning brain. Thus there is life within the body for some time after the death of the mind.

[Alpha Wolf]

291. This is actually discusses thoroughly...

in the original linked article. In fact, it was the whole thesis of the author-- that the truly defining characteristic of life-- human or otherwise-- is cellular cooperation for the collective good of an organism.

I didn't take it to this level because many in this thread have not read the article-- though I know that you did, Iverglas, and I appreciate it.

[noiretextatique]

295. a fetus has the potential to develop into a human being

of course not every fetus actually becomes a human being or and elephant of a hippo. some die (naturally) before they are VIABLE as BEINGS outside the womb. some die because they are not VIABLE even inside the womb. it's really quite simple for those who aren't obsessed with absolutes: a fetus has the potential to develop, but a whole host of factors may terminate its development, not just abortion.
i hope you aren't a biology professor :eyes:

[uhhuh]

77. How about this?

Life doesn't begin until you are a christian.

Since the bible says that all who do not accept Christ are to be destroyed, how can you say that anyone who is not a christian is really alive?
They may show signs of life, like talking, and working, and having sex, and creating more potential christians, but since a large number are to be spiritually aborted in the end times, how can you determine that they are fully human?

Fighting over whether a group of cells is human, or an embryo or fetus, or a born baby is pointless.
Those who accept the teachings of the bible, as interpreted by the fundamentalists, should ignore this whole issue.
It makes God look bad, since he is clearly pro-choice when it comes to himself.

[librechik]

78. I always say" When the Dear Lord breathes the first breath into the baby's

sweet lungs"

That usually shuts them up. Conception is a fucking red herring, even among religionists.

[tjfreeman]

79. It is not a question that can be objectively determined

from either a purely biological or medical perspective.

In truth, the question is a truly philosophical question, and the answer thus depends upon the assumptions concerning the definition of "human."

One classical answer from modern philosophy is, of course, Descartes' famous definition: "I think, therefore, I am." Descartes locates the essence of being "human" in the mind. The question then is when does the mind begin? Descartes, a devout Catholic, held that the mind is entirely seperate and distinct from the body (his argument for the immortality of the soul) and thus if he were to weigh in on this question today would likely agree with the Catholic assessment that the mind is there from conception.

But other philosophers, of course, do not accept Descartes' dualism and accept that the mind is simply the brain, or rather the product of brain functions. No brain, no mind, no "human." Thus it would follow from this position that "human" life would begin only when there is significant enough brain development for "consciousness". A biological or medical perspective could perhaps answer that question but could never approach the prior philosophical question.

I think Peter Singer takes his position as a way of pushing animal rights. If it is true that higher mammals have the "mind" equivalent to a 2-3 year old child, then he is pointing out that our justification for killing animals equates to justifying killing young children. For Descartes only humans (and God) have mind. Everything else in the universe is considered "extended substance" (matter) which is explicitly defined as "unthinking." Animals in Descartes' dualism then become nothing more than a sort of robot. All extended substance obeys the necessary mechanistic laws of nature. "Thinking substance" or "mind," on the other hand, has "free will" in this account. This dualism thus radically separates the human being from the animal.

We know the "mind" is much more intimately connected to the "body" than Descartes' dualism allows for--otherwise why would an "extended substance" like say a drop of LSD have such a dramatic effect upon the mind? We know that memories are spatially located in the brain, and that various parts of the brain effect certain mental functions (which couldn't be explained if the mind is "unextended substance." If the mind is more connected to the brain than Descartes allows, then the human is not so different from the animal after all. If this is true then those "right to lifers" should perhaps think about what's in their BBQ.

Some, of course, might want to challenge Descartes' definition of the "human" and say something like "I feel, therefore, I am" or perhaps "I love, therefore, I am." But then perhaps we should be giving equal respect to all sentient beings....

[Redleg]

80. The ethical dilemma is the conflict between the woman's right

to do with her body as she wishes and the rights of the fetus to life. Both sides on the abortion-choice debate tend to favor the rights of one side over the rights of the other. Many of you who have posted on this thread have illustrated that phenomenon.

It is certainly debatable whether a fetus is to be accorded the same rights as any other human who has been born. It is also debatable whether a woman's right to deal with her own body is absolute when it comes to a fetus she may be carrying.

My sense is that most Americans, whether "pro-choice" or "pro-life," don't really like abortions and would like them to become more rare. Perhaps our focus should be on better access to birth control and better education rather than bashing women who get abortions.

[bread_and_roses]

83. I read the article and consider the arguement flawed

For one thing, the author contradicts herself re: concensus on death:

“In contrast to the widespread disagreement over when human life begins, there is a broad social and legal consensus regarding when human life ends.”

“The question of when and under precisely what conditions people are viewed as “dead” has itself been the subject of considerable debate.”

“Defining death as the irreversible loss of brain function remains for some a controversial decision.”

More importantly, the author completely ignores the dependence of the embryo on the organism known as a woman. This is why the statement, “Linking human status to the nature of developing embryos is neither subjective nor open to personal opinion. Human embryos are living human beings precisely because they possess the single defining feature of human life that is lost in the moment of death—the ability to function as a coordinated organism rather than merely as a group of living human cells.” is ludicrous. Ignoring the dependence is DEFINATELY subjective. Ignoring that dependence means the author is addressing the issue as if the organism "woman" does not exist.

That tells us everything we need to know about this author's position. It also demonstrates the reason why ALL reproductive decisions for a woman must remain in her own control.

[Redleg]

85. Good point.

The woman is expected to subordinate herself to this fetus which she may or may not want inside her.

[ScreamingMeemie]

88. When the individual concerned decides it begins. I think it begins

at conception, my neighbor thinks it begins when she can hear it's heart beating. It is for no one to say but the individual.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

93. Wrong term. What we need to protect is not life but...

mind/consciousness/self/soul. A blob of cells with no brain -- human or not -- does have life, as much life as an eggplant, and has as much mind/consciousness/self/soul as one.

[Tina H]

94. The TomPaine.com site linked to an abortion article today

The link just took me to a registration page, so I didn't read the article. However, TomPaine.com site is generally progressive. Here is the TomPaine.com description of the article for anyone who might be interested in tracking it down:

A Grand Compromise
Jim Boyd
Monday 10:41 AM

Think the abortion debate is so polarized that there is no room for a workable solution? After reading Susan Jacoby's new book on the rational foundations of America, Jim Boyd, the editorial page director for the Minneapolis Star , takes a stab at a new "grand compromise."

[iverglas]

97. and Miss Manners says:

Why do you ask?

[Tina H]

99. answer

"This question has been the topic of considerable legal and social debate over the years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision—debate that has only been intensified by the recent controversies over human embryonic stem cells and human cloning."

[iverglas]

176. oh wow! hey Monica L!

Q.: Why do you ask?

A.: "This question has been the topic of considerable legal and social debate over the years since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision—debate that has only been intensified by the recent controversies over human embryonic stem cells and human cloning."

Do you think we could get them to put this in the dictionary under petitio principii??

begging the question asserting that it is important for someone to ask a question because someone thinks that the question is important.

[Alpha Wolf]

101. See attached article

Very interesting take on a legal/medical determination of when human life begins based on the legal/medical determination of when it ends.

[Mandate My Ass]

103. More circular logic

You persist on repeatedly pointing to biased source with extremely dubious science and unfounded conclusions to back up your beliefs.

THe article is not sound. It proves nothing other than the views it gives are identical to yours. It's not an argument to keep saying "read the article."

[Alpha Wolf]

179. Please enlighten

The article is most definitely an essay. It is an opinion. I never claimed otherwise. I only thought it was an interesting opinion I had never come across before. I teach an ethics and medical ethics class at a large state university. I deal daily with issues (abortion, cloning, stem-cell harvesting, etc.) in the classroom which are inseparably linked to the question of "when does human life begin". The standard answer to this question has been that no one knows, or that there is no way to know, and therefore it is up to each individual's conscience, religious beliefs, etc., to determine this.

This article caught my attention because it investigates whether what we know about the end of human life (death) can shed any light on what we know about the beginning of human life. I have never seen this question looked at from this angle-- and it's my job to stay current with the diverse opinions on this issue.

Regardless of what any of our personal opinions are on when human life begins, can we not entertain other people's opinions on the matter-- particularly one that is a relatively new take on an issue that too often gets bogged down in decades old rhetoric that everyone has heard a million times?

[iverglas]

188. can I spell it out, Monica L?

I teach an ethics and medical ethics class
at a large state university. I deal daily
with issues (abortion, cloning, stem-cell
harvesting, etc.) in the classroom which
are inseparably linked to the question of
"when does human life begin".

Dandy.

Now, did you raise the issue here so that we could all have a fun discussion of this arcane and eternal puzzle, "when does human life begin?"?

Or did you raise it because you are implicitly (or expressly) asserting that it is RELEVANT to the question of whether abortion should be re-criminalized?

Let's see.

As we all know, so much of the abortion debate-- even among fellow Democrats-- revolves around the question of when human life actually begins and if this can be objectively determined from a purely biological, medical perspective-- NOT a religious one.

Looks like the latter.

You are asserting that when human life begins is relevant to, if not determinative of, the question of whether abortion should be re-criminalized.

Except ... that's just an assertion. No matter how many people believe, or claim to believe, that it is so.

Imagine how many other things could be asserted by how many other people to be equally relevant to, if not determinative of, that question.

The standard answer to this question has been
that no one knows, or that there is no way to know,
and therefore it is up to each individual's conscience,
religious beliefs, etc., to determine this.

And it has always seemed to me that this is because it's just so damned hard to tell what anybody means when s/he says "human life". It's kinda like what people mean when they say "good" or "bad", or "lavender" or "pink" or "blue", or "cold" or "warm".

It's one of those things that we just don't have a universal test for, consisting of criteria that we can apply to determine whether something is "X" or "Y". Are you wrong if you say "it's warm out today", while I grab a sweater and say "phew, it's a chilly one!"? Are you wrong if you say "your sweater is lavender", while I say "my sweater is pink"?


Here it is, as simply as possible.

Whether something has human life is not the criterion we have ever used for determining whether something is a human being (which is exactly the same as saying whether something has rights).

The question of whether abortion may be re-criminalized, in a society which is committed to protecting human rights and in which there are no bizarre circumstances (like the imminent extinction of the human species), depends on the answer to the question of whether a z/e/f is a human being, not whether it has human life.

By embarking on an argument regarding whether a z/e/f has human life in the context of a discussion about whether abortion may be re-criminalized, you are begging the question; you are asserting that whether a z/e/f has human life is the question and that the answer to it is relevant to, if not determinative of, the question of whether abortion may be re-criminalized.

You are using as your premise a conclusion that you have not established: that whether something has human life is relevant to, if not determinative of, the question of what may be done to it. And this is true pretty much regardless of what "definition" of human life you may be using.

But what is worse is that these arguments so often depend on equivocation for their force. Because of the extraordinarily fuzzy meaning of the expression "human life", anyone is at liberty to use "human life" in a sentence to mean pretty much anything at all, knowing full well that those hearing it will very often apply an entirely different meaning to what they hear. The equivocation lies in the consequence that the speaker could claim was not intended, but must be assumed to know would occur; the disclaimer is therefore almost always disingenuous.

There are of course all sorts of problems with the screed you have presented to us. The most glaring is the ease with which the author makes the assertion that a z/e/f is an organism, while failing to apply the most basic criteria for organism-ness to her subject.

Most of the rest of it is just a population of straw folk. Nobody serious is suggesting that the status of human being be assigned based on looks, for instance.

The author completely fails to address the essence of human being status: membership in a human group, and possession of rights in the relationship with that group and its members. She obviously knows that this will be the crucial issue if that status were ever assigned to z/e/fs, and she pretends it doesn't exist.

The article's focus on end-of-life determinations of the presence of human life is all very interesting. I don't teach ethics (well, I did teach legal ethics at one time), but I've thought about the question from this angle for a long time, and in fact written about it from this angle right here at DU frequently.

... the courts have repeatedly refused to support persistent vegetative state as a legal definition of death. People whose bodies continue to function in an integrated manner are legally and medically alive, despite their limited (or absent) mental function. Regardless of how one may view the desirability of maintaining patients in a persistent vegetative state (this being an entirely distinct moral and legal question), there is unanimous agreement that such patients are not yet corpses. Even those who advocate the withdrawal of food and water from patients in persistent vegetative state couch their position in terms of the "right to die" fully acknowledging that such patients are indeed "alive." While the issues surrounding persistent vegetative state are both myriad and complex, the import of this condition for understanding the relationship between mental function and death is clear: the loss of integrated bodily function, not the loss of higher mental ability, is the defining legal characteristic of death.

And all precisely true. That is why there are statutes in some jurisdictions (e.g. California) that deem people in persistent vegetative states to be dead, thereby permitting them to be killed and relieving the people who kill them of criminal liability. If we actually regarded them as dead, no such deeming statutes would be necessary or appropriate.

It's interesting that similar deeming statutes exist regarding start of life. I'm familiar with Canada's, which of course (check the archaic language used) derives from much older common law:

http://www.canlii.org/ca/sta/c-46/sec223.html

Criminal Code
PART VIII OFFENCES AGAINST THE PERSON AND REPUTATION
Homicide

When child becomes human being
223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not
(a) it has breathed;
(b) it has an independent circulation; or
(c) the navel string is severed. ...

Homicide is defined by that law as the killing of a human being. There is no general definition of "human being" in that law. We all know perfectly well what a human being is (a thing that is human, alive and born). And if a z/e/f were a human being, that deeming provision would be unnecessary and inappropriate.

So that's the question your source is begging, and it sounds like you beg in your teaching as well: what is the relevance of the question "when does human life begin?" to the question of what has rights?

And yes, as has been mentioned, that's a charming site you got there. Here's my longtime favourite from it:

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9804/articles/swope.html
"Abortion, a failure to communicate" -- how to use subliminal seduction to coerce unhappily pregnant women into doing what you want.

Allow me to offer you an infinitely better consideration of the issues, which you might want to offer to your students:

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_Affairs/Legal_co-operation/Bioethics/Conferences_and_symposium/Symposium%20Embryo%201996%20Closing%20Session.asp
"Conclusion of the Symposium: Conditions for a consensus on embryos in pluralist societies"; I am referring to (and only to) the contribution by Wieslaw Lang, down the page, and in fact only to this bit (emphasis added)--

The consensus on the moral status of an embryo is not a necessary precondition for reaching consensus on legal status of the embryo.

All else he or anyone else says about the moral status of an embryo is mere OPINION.

It is not necessary to have consensus on the moral status of an embryo in order to have consensus on its legal status -- i.e. what may be done to it. (I disagree that this can be characterized simply as "legal status", but will use that term for convenience; laws merely express what I would call social consensus: what is acceptable behaviour in a human group and what is not. That consensus exists independently of, and pre-dates, laws.)

And the corollary, and the problem with your question (in my own words):

the existence of a consensus on the moral status of an embryo is not a sufficient precondition for a consensus on the legal status of the embryo.

We have pretty good consensuses that it is immoral to lie and to commit adultery, but these are insufficient for us to make laws against lying or committing adultery, i.e. to interfere in the exercise of people's rights (e.g. liberty) to the extent that such laws would do.

(By the way, all that applies equally to, say, the "biological status" of z/e/fs; biological status does not determine legal status any more than "moral status" does.)

So you can have all the consensus you want on the "moral status" of z/e/fs -- i.e. that they "have human life" -- and you still will not have made a case for re-criminalizing abortion. Just in case that's what you were thinking of doing.

[Mandate My Ass]

195. Bravo, iverglas

that's exactly what I would have said. :-)

Seriously, well done. I'll be amazed if you get a response from our elusive OP.

[chiburb]

196. It never ceases to amaze me, Iverglas...

How your logic and knowledge can produce NO RESPONSE from the poster you're answering!

Have I said thank you "for being" lately?

[Pachamama]

262. I love Canadians...did I mention that? No response from Alpha Dog eh?

Couldn't have said/thought things any better Iverglas, thanks for "spelling" it out....:hi:

I'm still chuckling....you won't see a response from Alpha Dog, or should we call Alpha Dog "Maureen"? Maybe that's why he/she kept asking "have you read the article?" Poor Maureen is so desperate to have anyone read the article that it had to be posted on DU for debate....

Thanks again Canada for writing it out more clearly for us Americans....

Btw...I'm checking out buying property up near Rossland, BC....Are you familiar with it?

[Swamp Rat]

264. What article? The one I posted about Darwin and the age of the universe?

:D

[Pachamama]

266. Hi Swamp Rodent! I was responding to Iverglas, one of my favorite

Canucks on the DU....

Getting jealous? Yeah, I read the article that you posted re. Darwin and the age of the Universe...interesting reading....should have had that kind of info along with me on last weeks 4th of July camping trip with the fundies that were there freaking out that I was "talking to their kids" about Bu$h and the Iraq War....Darwinism isn't in their Sunday school teachings.....

:hi:

Have you read Iverglas's posts? He amuses and entertains me in an intellectual way, kinda like you except for when you start going off on your anarchist tangents.... :hi:

[Swamp Rat]

269. Ha ha! I'm a very jealous rodent looking for the Cheese Queen.

Yes I like Iverglas, but I was just looking for an active discussion on this thread and ran accross you.:hi:

[iverglas]

271. I was fixin' to post ... (edited)

http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/pics/

Too bad no response from AlphaWolf. I actually find these things quite interesting to discuss, and did my best ... and I thought AW might actually be interested in that embryo symposium thingy I linked to.

And of course I wonder what the opinion of an ethics instructor about that subliminal-seduction "Abortion: A failure to communicate" business, from the same organization/website as the article we were all urged to read, might be.

Rossland BC, eh? Well, I went to Edmonton once ... ;)

Me, I'm a detested Central Canadian. It's a damp cold here. And a damp heat. And getting damper and hotter as we speak.


On edit: we may have spoken too soon. I see that AlphaWolf has returned this morning now, and may not have been in a position to respond yesterday. I shall look forward to a response.

[Alpha Wolf]

277. Thanks for the insights, Iverglas

I will let your own words speak to themselves. (note: in one place I have changed your original "human life" to "human being" as your assertion was concerning the concept of human beings while my assertion dealt with concept of human life.)


Comment:

"We all know perfectly well what a human being is (a thing that is human, alive and born)."


Response:

Except ... that's just an assertion. No matter how many people believe, or claim to believe, that it is so.

Imagine how many other things could be asserted by how many other people to be equally relevant to, if not determinative of, that question.

And it has always seemed to me that this is because it's just so damned hard to tell what anybody means when s/he says "human being". It's kinda like what people mean when they say "good" or "bad", or "lavender" or "pink" or "blue", or "cold" or "warm".

It's one of those things that we just don't have a universal test for, consisting of criteria that we can apply to determine whether something is "X" or "Y". Are you wrong if you say "it's warm out today", while I grab a sweater and say "phew, it's a chilly one!"? Are you wrong if you say "your sweater is lavender", while I say "my sweater is pink"?


==============================

Do you see, Iverglas, this is the whole point. NOT EVERYONE agrees what a human being is-- in terms of when if becomes a human being. Some determine it becomes a human being at conception, others say at birth, and still others say a million varients in between. Peter Singer of Princeton determines that in the case of mentally and/or physically handicapped persons, "human beingness" doesn't happen until several months after birth.

[iverglas]

282. mm hmm

Comment:
"We all know perfectly well what a human being is (a thing that is human, alive and born)."

Response:
Except ... that's just an assertion. No matter how many people believe, or claim to believe, that it is so.

I'm not quite clear on what you're saying. What's the assertion?

What I said: "we all know perfectly well ..."?

Or what we all know perfectly well: "what a human being is ..."?

I take it that you mean the latter. In that case, would you also say that we all know perfectly well is meant by the term "rock" is just an assertion?

In other words, is every definition not "just an assertion", per you?

Because that's what we're dealing with here: a definition, a means of categorizing things according to certain criteria.

Is it meaningful to say that "a rock is a large detached stone" is just an assertion, no matter how many people believe, or claim to believe, that it is so?

I just don't think it is. The fact that we all agree that it is so is what makes it "true". That's the only possible standard for the "truth" of a definition.

In order to determine whether someone is "the mayor of New York City", we don't examine his/her cells under a microscope; we ascertain whether s/he obtained the votes, in an election, that are needed to become mayor of New York City, and whether s/he has been formally confirmed in that office. We apply the criteria that WE, not "science" or "medicine", have agreed to for the purpose.

Ditto for determining whether a geometric figure is "a square". "Mathematics" doesn't tell us that a square is "an equilateral rectangle". We decide to call an equilateral rectangle "a square".

If we suddenly decided to start calling three-sided figures "squares", we'd be living in the Tower of Babel ... and probably of Pisa, too. That is, we would not be able to function as a group.


Oh. I see what you've done. You've pretended that what I've said about the expression "human being" applies to the expression "human life".

That was kind of an odd thing to do. Given what I'd actually said about the expression "human life", it was really a very odd thing to do.

I compared the expression "human life" to the expressions "pink" and "cold" and "bad" -- things that mean different things to different people / in different contexts. There are lots of things like that. Look up "bitch" in yer dictionary.

But when I spoke about the expression "human being", I was referring to a very particular context, the one in which the application of that term to something results in its being assigned rights. Frankly, I can't think of any other context for its use. "Human being" really just doesn't have multiple meanings.

"Human life" does. It really does have multiple meanings. Its meaning is context-dependent. It leaves the door wide open for equivocation, equivocation that may not be obvious to the untrained eye.

(Someone equivocating on "bitch" is easily spotted: if you say my math exam was a bitch, and I say you must license and vaccinate it, you know I'm equivocating. If I say human life is beautiful, and you say then we must protect human life before birth, only I may be aware that you are equivocating.)

So all in all, you've just failed to respond to anything I said. You pretended that you were responding to what I said by quoting what I said, when in fact you were completely misrepresenting what I said.

NOT EVERYONE agrees what a human being is-- in terms of when if becomes a human being. Some determine it becomes a human being at conception, others say at birth, and still others say a million varients in between.

Mm hmm. And if some people say "a rock is a tasty dessert made of whipped cream", shall I care?

Definitions are not matters of personal opinion. People can "disagree" with the definition of a rock all they like, and the fact remains that a rock *is* a large detached stone. Actually, in the US, it's any stone at all -- an example of different groups having different definitions because of the fact that they are actually speaking slightly different languages, not because their personal opinions are different. Defining is just not an individual activity.

Some people may advocate that a definition be changed. But again, their desire to change it doesn't change it, and doesn't negate what it actually is. Peter Singer doesn't determine anything; he advocates that we adopt a set of criteria that is different from the set of criteria we now apply. The only way he can determine what a human being is, *now*, is to apply the criteria that we have in fact adopted.


All in all, you have managed to completely ignore/evade my entire point, and question.

If we consider the "medical" or "scientific" definition of human life (even assuming that your source is correct and such a definition is possible, which I don't assume at all), what are we to conclude about whether abortion should be re-criminalized?

Why is it necessary *or* sufficient to apply that definition to that question? I mean, it seems to me that we already do: we require that something be both human and alive in order to be "a human being". We *also* require that it be born.

If you are advocating that "born" be removed from this set of criteria, the onus is on YOU to demonstrate that your definition is better than the one we now have.

And the thing is, I've never met anyone who could do that, or who even seriously attempted to do it.

Being a "human being" is the necessary and sufficient condition for having rights. That is the entire reason why we even have a definition of "human being" -- to distinguish human beings from everything else, "everything else" being all those things that do not have rights, while "human beings" are all those things that do have rights.

If you want to call everything that is human and alive a "human being", that means that z/e/fs, e.g., will have rights. All rights.

Unless, that is, you're going to start with a whole lot more tinkering, with the absolutely inevitable result that there will be different classes of human beings with different classes of rights, and thus, absolutely inevitably, no such thing as rights at all. I mean, unless we then define rights as "things some people might have in some situations". And then, well, why bother?

So I'll just keep waiting for some response to something I actually did say, I guess.

[Alpha Wolf]

286. mm hmm, part deux

"The only way he can determine what a human being is, *now*, is to apply the criteria that we have in fact adopted."

Where are you getting this criteria from and when was it adopted?

"Why is it necessary *or* sufficient to apply that definition to that question? I mean, it seems to me that we already do: we require that something be both human and alive in order to be "a human being". We *also* require that it be born."

Who requires that it be born? Again, what is the source of this supposedly universally official criteria of "human beingness".

"If you are advocating that "born" be removed from this set of criteria, the onus is on YOU to demonstrate that your definition is better than the one we now have."

Although I obviously don't accept the same criteria for human beingness as you do, (I don't include passage through the birth canal-- other than that, our criteria are similar) I would be happy to demostrate why the criteria I use is more complete, accurate, and humane. Perhaps we should discuss this privately in order to stay on topic and not feel like we are putting on a show for readers.

Let me know what you think.

[iverglas]

293. "on topic"???

Although I obviously don't accept the same criteria for human beingness as you do, (I don't include passage through the birth canal-- other than that, our criteria are similar) I would be happy to demostrate why the criteria I use is more complete, accurate, and humane. Perhaps we should discuss this privately in order to stay on topic and not feel like we are putting on a show for readers.

This IS the bloody topic!

Of course, I'm still waiting for you to explain the relevance of your musings about "human life" to the "abortion debate". YOU are the one who asserted its relevance. *I* am the one saying that it is not relevant. That's what I'm up to here, if you haven't noticed.


Who requires that it be born? Again, what is the source of this supposedly universally official criteria of "human beingness".

What is the source of the universally official criteria of "rock"ness? "Square"ness? "Mayor of New York City"ness?

WE ARE. Whatever "we" has the authority in the situation. I am not part of the "we" who gets to set the criteria for "Mayor of New York City"ness. But we are ALL part of the "we" who get to set the criteria for "human being"ness.

Unless you're about to appeal to some stone tablet not writ by human hand as your authority, that's the only authority we've got.

As far as proving what those criteria are, I'm left having to prove a negative. I need to prove that no lesser criteria have ever been applied by a human group with the authority to set the criteria. (Essentially, that would be all of humanity in a particular time, but we might have to settle for an overwhelming majority to allow for aberrations usually resulting from illegitimate usurpation of authority for profit, where the human group is not the source of those criteria anyway.)

So I need to prove that no authoritative human group has ever applied the criteria "human and alive" sans the criterion "born" to determine what is and is not a human being. And all I can do is offer a body of evidence of that not being done (of the criteria "human and alive" sans "born" not being used) -- i.e. of what I assert has been done being done (the criteria "human, alive *and* born" being used).

Where shall I start? When has it EVER been called homicide to terminate a pregnancy? -- outside of, maybe, Nepal, in recent years. (And when and where, if this was the case, was the decision that abortion "is" homicide not a function of the vicious misogynist desire to oppress women, rather than of genuine "belief" that a z/e/f was a human being?) Was abortion ever proscribed and punished, in US law e.g., on the same basis as any homicide?

When have miscarriages EVER been treated in exactly the same manner as the deaths of children, e.g. in funeral rituals? When have z/e/fs EVER been counted in censuses?

What human society has EVER not made a fundamental distinction between born and unborn?

Where are you getting this criteria from and when was it adopted?

I am getting these criteria from observation: from observing how human groups through history and across geography determine membership in those groups, and what they call the members of those groups, i.e. "human beings". I deduce that a human being is, at a bare minimum, "that which is human, alive and born".

Just as I would observe what people call "rocks", and deduce from their behaviour and words that a rock is "a large detached stone".

The criteria were adopted at about the same time that we became human beings, I suppose. When we started distinguishing between one thing and another, and specifically between us and not-us. The making of that distinction is pretty much what makes us us.


Now what I'll still be waiting for is for you "to demostrate why the criteria <you> use <are> more complete, accurate, and humane". I'd just love to know what makes just throwing the kitchen sink in "complete". Or what's "accurate" about a set of criteria that make it actually impossible to distinguish one thing from another in the majority of cases, since we aren't even aware of the existence of one of them most of the time. Or what's "humane" about a set of criteria that inevitably and inescapably lead to denying one human being the rights that are accorded to other human beings, in the interests of some other human being. And, of course, how you'll be deciding which one is which. And how you'll avoid being the wrong one.

If you can compel me to risk my life and to relinquish my liberty in the interests of a z/e/f "human being", then certainly I can compel you to risk your life to save me from drowning, and relinquish your kidney to save me from dying of kidney failure.

Thought about that much? I'm "human life" too, after all, I'd hope.

[Alpha Wolf]

296. Okay

"Now what I'll still be waiting for is for you "to demostrate why the criteria <you> use <are> more complete, accurate, and humane". I'd just love to know what makes just throwing the kitchen sink in "complete". Or what's "accurate" about a set of criteria that make it actually impossible to distinguish one thing from another in the majority of cases, since we aren't even aware of the existence of one of them most of the time. Or what's "humane" about a set of criteria that inevitably and inescapably lead to denying one human being the rights that are accorded to other human beings, in the interests of some other human being. And, of course, how you'll be deciding which one is which. And how you'll avoid being the wrong one.

If you can compel me to risk my life and to relinquish my liberty in the interests of a z/e/f "human being", then certainly I can compel you to risk your life to save me from drowning, and relinquish your kidney to save me from dying of kidney failure.

Thought about that much? I'm "human life" too, after all, I'd hope.
"

I've thought about all of these things very much. So much so, that my opionion on this issue has changed dramatically because of thinking through it. I look forward to disussing it with you. Shall we do it privately or publicly? You can email me at [e-mail] if you would like to do it privately.

[iverglas]

299. nope

I have no desire to do it privately.

All I'd like is for you to answer at least a couple of those questions.

You started a discussion in public. Why on earth would you suggest making it private at this point?

I'm the one who read your article, and responded to what it was saying, and what you are saying, very directly and very clearly. I don't know why I don't deserve the same courtesy, and instead get post after post that dodges the questions.

[Alpha Wolf]

310. No dodging...

Or at least not intended.

Please post the specific questions and I'll try to answer them.

What I posted publicly was an interesting article, IMHO. That's it. From there, 78 million related and not-so-related discussion exploded in the thread. That is one reason for a private dialogue. But we can do it here as well.

[iverglas]

314. tell ya what

You feel free to go back through my posts in this sub-thread and pick any and all questions you'd like to respond to. If you miss some that I still want answers to, I'll let you know.

Really. Drag the discussion down a bunch of murky tangents, and then ask to have the content reiterated? I don't think so.

[Alpha Wolf]

318. Alright...

Here's your answers:

Yes, No, No, Perhaps, Yes, Definitely, Please clarify, No, Absolutely Not, Yes, When pigs fly, No, No, Yes.

Now, feel free to go back through our posts and figure out which questions these are the answers to.

===========================

You know, Iverglas, I really do think we have the potential for a fruitful dialogue on this issue. But the granduer of your delusions is quite baffling, if not charming.

"Drag the discussion down a bunch of murky tangents..."

Questioning a prima facia assumption-- that we don't become human beings until we are born-- is dragging the discussion down murky tangents?

How is this a tangent; and how is it murky?

Aside from the history of abortion laws/opinions(one might argue that is a tangent...) are you confident in the assertion that passing through the birth canal, or being removed directly from the uterus via C-section, is somehow determinate as to whether one is a human being or not?

[iverglas]

319. yup

[Djinn]

268. wrong

"I deal daily with issues (abortion, cloning, stem-cell harvesting, etc.) in the classroom which are inseparably linked to the question of "when does human life begin"

For many many people the abortion debate has nothing to do with when life begins it has to do with reality and not wanting women dying from dodgy abortions

[Az]

104. Life began several billion years ago

All life since the first occurrence of abiogenesis has been a continuation of that first process. Attempting to distinguish when a new life arises is meaningless. All life is the continuation of that first process.

The thing we seem to value most about the process that we are a part of is our identity. Our ability to perceive self and share with others this perception. Thus it is the unique occurrence of the rise of a mind from within this process called life that we seem to value.

From this observation we can attempt to form some manner of objective morality concerning abortion. Prior to a mind arising within the structure there is little more present than form. There is certainly cellular activity and the continuation of life. But until the brain forms there is no mind present.

The mind does not spring suddenly into existance. It requires a fully functioning brain and a collection of experiences or input. Once it has enough such input the brain is able to extrapulate self from the chaos of the surrounding universe. At this time we cannot pinpoint the exact moment that this occurs. As such the nearest we can conclude is that there is some risk of harming an individual some time after a brain is formed.

[bloom]

105. Whenever one chooses to think it does

I think most people, on a practicle level, choose to say it's sometime after fertilization because there is the strong possibility that many more millions of fertilized eggs (than what abortionists talk about) do not continue to grow to term because of the pill and IUDs....

Others who choose to have abortions probably choose to believe some time later than that.

People who want to control women's sexual habits choose a very early time - and are probably in denial about their own birth control methods or at least the possiblities of failed birth control methods....


I personally like the idea that life is continuous. Eggs and sperm being a part of life that originated millions of years ago.

[Walt Starr]

110. For me, it really didn't start until I was about 25

:shrug:

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

111. The Roe debate may center around when life begins, but the 14th amendment

centers around "person's born" when enumerating constitutional rights which makes this argument moot for the most part.
While the author has made a noble effort in defining when life begins, there seems to be a double standard in the application of justification for defining the legal END of life versus the beginning of life since she accepts the legal definition for brain dead, then returns to the organism definition in closing (at least as I read it)

I continue to believe the liberties of the persons born FOR THE MOST PART trump any proscribed rights that some would claim for that which is UNBORN and is largely undefined in terms of PERSONHOOD.

IF you would like to debate what constitutes PERSONHOOD, be glad to.

[Tina H]

112. I agree with your analysis

But we are seriously at odds with here with the Roe v. Wade opinion itself. Roe v. Wade needs to be expanded.

On edit: I think #111 was edited after I initially made this response. I do not agree with reply #111 (as amended).

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

114. I haven't read the whole thread...do you have the reasons posted elsewhere

in the thread?

I don't know that I would expand R v. W itself so much as create other constitutional protections independent of R V W for poor and young women...

[Tina H]

117. No

but Rv W allows states to apply a balancing test in the third trimester. They allow state law to balance the preganant woman's rights against "potential human life" (or some phrase like that). There are limits to this balancing (eg, must be health of pregnant woman exception to any illegalization of abortion).

But the court is clear that it believes states can outlaw abortion in some late term instances. They also seem to anticipate some regulation (but not outright illegalization) for 2d trimester procedures. These are the parts of the opinion that I find seriously at odds with the (better) Constitutional analysis that you suggest.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

119. It's true that

but again I would look to equal protection clauses since this infringement hurts the poor more than the wealthy who can simply run to another state or country...and but for the life of the mother, I must admit I do favor some restrictions ( I know that puts me at odds with some) but I do believe in the viability argument....viability does occur in the third trimester...certainly in all but the most extreme cases one would hope a pregnant woman would assert her right to termination at the earliest possible time.

[Tina H]

125. I thought you were saying that . . .

the rights of "born" citizens always trumps those unborn whatever-you-want-to-call-thems (we don't need a semantic quibble here). I thought you were saying that this is because only rights of citizens are protected by the Constitition and the Constitution requires birth for citizenship.

Now it sounds like you are saying something different, but I will have to ponder your words a bit because I don't immediately follw your latest reply.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

128. I am not absolute on the right because I DO believe there is a

compelling public interest in humane termination of pregnancies...and includes the mental health of the mother.

[sangh0]

122. I have a suggestion

you said

But the court is clear that it believes states can outlaw abortion in some late term instances. They also seem to anticipate some regulation (but not outright illegalization) for 2d trimester procedures. These are the parts of the opinion that I find seriously at odds with the (better) Constitutional analysis that you suggest.

Ye, it is clear that SCOTUS believes that the states can outlaw abortions in the third trimester. What's not clear is the rationale for that. I would like to suggest that you read Roe v Wade and see if you can clearly explain the rationale for allowing states to outlaw third-trimester abortions.

I bet you can't. I know I can't.

[Tina H]

127. Don't ask me to defend R v W

Candidate Kerry is the one who says "support R v W."

I say "expand R v W" for exactly the reasons you suggest.

Hopefully an R v W supporter can jump in and help us out.

[sangh0]

129. Huh?

Who asked you to defend anything? I suggested that you try to understand Roe v Wade. If you want to expand something, you're more likely to be successful if you know what you're talking about. If you want to convince people that there's something wrong with RvW, it would help if you could explain what RvW says.

[Tina H]

132. Huh? Huh?

You said that you can't explain R v W after reviewing it. I thought this was a criticism of the decision. I can't explain it either, which is why I criticize the decision.

However, in the latest reply you are saying that it is bad to criticize an inexplicable decision. This doesn't make sense to me. I feel like I am missing something.

Not sure if this will clear it up (apologies for repeating myself):

My criticism of R v W is that it allows the states to protect some rights and/or interests of fetuses. There is no Constitutional basis for cognizing such rights and/or interests. That is a flaw (and I think a serious one) in R v W. As far as where the Court found a basis for fetal rights and/or interests, I can't explain.

[iverglas]

190. perhaps

As far as where the Court found a basis for fetal rights and/or interests, I can't explain.

... that would be because IT DIDN'T do any such thing. In fact, it expressly REJECTED that position. It found that there is NO SUCH THING as fetal rights and/or interests.

Are you very very sure that you have read Roe v. Wade?

If so, are you very very sure that you understood it?

If so, are you very very sure that you are not intentionally mischaracterizing it?

[Nederland]

143. The SC Rationale

State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term.

Roe vs Wade, Summary, Section 3


On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman's right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant's arguments that Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to support any limitation upon the woman's sole determination, are unpersuasive. The Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) (vaccination)

Roe vs Wade, Part VIII


The rational seems to be that regardless of when you believe that life begins, everyone agrees that once born the fetus/baby has rights. Since that is undisputable, the court concludes that the state has an limited right to protect something that has the "potential" to reach that state, and that its right to protect such potential life increases the further along you get in the pregnancy. Its worth noting that these seems to be a rejection of the pro-life idea that the fetus acquires rights at a specific point in time. Rather, the court views the development of the fetus in a progressional fashion, with its rights increasing simultaneously with its development.

I'm not sure you'll find this rationale compelling, but there it is. Whether or not you think it is valid or not probably depends entirely on how you feel about late term abortions.

[Warren DeMontague]

113. This Is Why

The so-called "Human Life Amendment", as written into the Republican Platform for the last several decades, decrees by fiat "life" starting at conception haveing rights, quote, "under the 14th Amendment"... And this is why it drives me up the farkin wall that so-called "pro-choice" republicans a) don't bother to read their party's platform, and b) don't take the time to figure the implications of granting single cells rights under said 14th Amendment- namely, criminalizing many forms of birth control (including the pill), criminalizing fertility treatments, and establishing a de facto police presence in 125 Million American Uterii.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

115. Under that definition men can be arrested for jacking off though

truly....

[Warren DeMontague]

123. Well, at least one member of SCOTUS

doesn't think that's such a bad idea, apparently:

“State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity are ... sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation of laws based on moral choices.... What a massive disruption of the current social order, therefore, the overruling of Bowers entails.”
— U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting from the 6-3 ruling June 26 that legalized gay sex in all 50 states, overturning the court’s anti-gay 1986 decision in Bowers vs. Hardwick

[Az]

120. The philosophical question is nonsense

Simply put human "life" is just the continuation of the life that started billions of years ago. This is why the answer to this is so elusive. Its because the question makes no sense.

Life is a continuous stream of reactions that started a long time ago. Evey example of life is an example of the unbroken chain of sequences that lead to this moment. At no time was this chain made of a segment where there was no life. You can trace you'r dna directly back to the first moment of abiogenesis. You are part of that first chemical reaction.

The question we are trying to resolve is not when does life begin. Rather it should be when does life become something we wish to extend the construct of individual to? The very issue is when does the process become a human being?

Consider. A petri dish with a fertelized egg in it is not a human being. A brain dead corpse is not a human being. Neither of these are in the act of being a human. A human being is a collection of cells working in conjunction. They form complex structures. The coding includes structures that can be lost and still a human being remains. The only structure that cannot be lost if the human being is to exist is the brain. Hearts, kidneys, arms, and legs, all can be lost and through medical technology the human being can be kept functional. If the brain is lost the individual is lost. A human
body with no brain is not a human being.

Thus the focus of what it is we are seaking to defend must exist within the construct of the brain. Everything else is secondary to that consideration.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

121. Agreed..you call it an individual, I call it personhood simply

because of the constitutional implications of that word.

:thumbsup:

[Nederland]

126. Personhood defined

IF you would like to debate what constitutes PERSONHOOD, be glad to.

Ok. I'll define person as "a living organism with human DNA".

Unless you'd like to propose a different definition, I think that brings us back to topic of this thread.

[Az]

130. Problematic

Consider this gruesome situation. Rip the brain out of a human. By our terms they will die immediately. But by your terms there are trillions of cells which are still living for some time in the body and they certainly have human DNA. It is not single cells that define humans. It is a specific organisation of cells in a specific structure. Some structures are necissary and some are not. The brain is arguably the primary structure necissary for personhood.

[Nederland]

134. Good points

It is not single cells that define humans. It is a specific organisation of cells in a specific structure.

I agree with this idea--would care to try and define what exactly that "specific structure" is?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

131. That would argue with the legal definition of personhood at death

therefore it would be inconsistent with how personhood is defined when assessing whether one is brain dead..are you prepared to be consistent in the matter?

Is it murder every time the machine is shut off?

BTW...if a man fucks a dog (not meaning to be crass) the dog is then a living organism with human DNA so your definition is a bit loose.

[Nederland]

135. Wrong on both counts

That would argue with the legal definition of personhood at death therefore it would be inconsistent with how personhood is defined when assessing whether one is brain dead..are you prepared to be consistent in the matter?

I don't follow you here. My definition of personhood is "a living organism with human DNA". If the organism is dead, it is logically no longer living and therefore not a person.

BTW...if a man fucks a dog (not meaning to be crass) the dog is then a living organism with human DNA so your definition is a bit loose.

This is just plain dumb. If a man fucks a dog the dog does not suddently go from having canine DNA to having human DNA. Its DNA remains unchanged by the act.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

136. on the first matter...the organism is LIVING unless we NOW need to define

lving, but is DECLARED brain dead..legally so my logic is in tact...the second was facetious because you so loosely defined personhood..I made it clear I was arguing the point from the legal definition of personhood in so far as who the constitution confers rights upon....

[Nederland]

138. Exactly my point

Perhaps I wasn't too clear. In post #111 you stressed the legal importance of defining "personhood" as opposed to a debate about when life begins. I agree with this--the legal wording of the constitution and other relevant texts revolve around "persons" and what their rights are, etc.

My only point is this. A debate over the definition of personhood is very quickly going to be reduced into a debate about what we mean when we say "living". I think the above posts pretty much prove that. I suggested a definition of "personhood" that was composed of two criteria: "living organism" and "human DNA". Take a look above and see if anyone is challenging the "human DNA" part. No. The debate very quickly turned to questioning what we mean when we say "living organism". Is a solitary cell a "living organism"? What about brain function? Etc. In this respect, the question "when does human life begin" clearly becomes relevant.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

139. And I completely disagree with your assessment of what we are arguing

The legal definition in the matter of death is not so loose and open ended as you would argue. Under your argument, shutting the machine off is murder.

While DNA may be part and parcel of the argument it is in no way encompassing enough to accommodate the argument...

Personhood does NOT equate to WHEN life begins....even though it may contain it..and you are reducing at birth what you are not reducing at death.

[Nederland]

142. Prove it

Give me a definition of personhood and I will very quickly show you how that definition implies a definitive time as to when life begins.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

146. Right but are you willing to equally apply that same principle at the

end of life? If so, then you are unequally applying a legal definition where it suits you...if not, then you are saying when we turn off a machine...or don't take heroic measures, it's murder OR you are saying that it is more important for an embryo or zygot to be afforded rights than to end a BORN human being's suffering i.e. by not turning off the machine since it's taking a life.

Of course, as a gay person...given that I am still arguing for personhood in many ways according to these definitions...I find the argument absurd...and in most cases, the hypocrisy of those who argue in this manner self serving.

[Nederland]

201. Yes I am

I am perfectly willing to apply the same definition to the end of life. So I ask again, give me your definition of 'personhood'.

[Az]

228. Personhood

Specifically personhood arises the moment a functioning brain is able to bring together enough experience to establish its own awareness of self. This concept of personhood extends forward from this point until the functionality of their brain has been degraded to such an extent that the possibility of retrieving its functions is gone. This includes periods of lost function. Medical technology has enabled us to recover from some such losses. We therefore extend the rights of personhood during these times with the hope that their identity will return in some measure.

Because we do not yet have the means to determine specifically when identity arises within the mind we must use other means to consider the legal matters. We can base such issues on the minimum requirements known for an identity to arise. The chief one being the presense of a functioning brain. Allowances are made for some level of disfunction. But a reasonably functional brain could be said to be the potential start of personhood.

Note that the notion of personhood does not eradicate a person's right to control their own body. There may be moral implications to this but we cannot enslave any person to the needs or desires of another. It should be noted however that the point at which a brain arises is far into the development and abortions are relatively rare at this stage.

[Nederland]

238. I can live with that

Though I'm curious what test you might apply to determine when a person has an "awareness of self".

[Az]

241. At this time

We do not have such a test. We do not yet have the methodology to determine when the moment arises. In time we may become aware of enough of the brains methods that we could perhaps percieve a particular brain wave pattern or such. But at this time it is beyond our knowledge. This is why we move to the minimum requirements ie having a functional brain. This does not demark when an individual is present. Rather it denotes when the odds are sufficiently high enough that one may be present.

[Nederland]

244. Actually

I thought the there was a test that involved watching how animals (or babies) react to seeing themselves in a mirror.

[Az]

245. This is merely a test

To see if species posess selfawareness. It does not measure when this arises within the brain of the participants.

[iverglas]

193. please please please

and if you'll forgive me for once again playing the foreign expert on things US constitutional.

The citizenship rights in the 14th amendment have absolutely nothing to do with reproductive rights.

Rights of US citizenship are denied to persons not born in the US or naturalized.

Rights of persons are not rights of citizenship.

The 5th amendment covers those:

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Citizenship just has nothing to do with the right to life protected by the US Constitution. I'm not a US citizen, but you may not take pot shots at me when I come to visit, and the US govt may not lock me up on a whim. (hahaha! At least, not in the US ...)

We all just know that in this context, "person" means "human being" (leaving aside the attempts, sometimes arguably proper, to assign such rights to "legal persons", e.g. corporations). And there just never was any "debate" about this -- what's a "person" -- until the new-wave anti-choicers invented it a few years back.

Of course, because of the particular federal nature of the US, the 14th amendment is to some extent and in some respects a source of this right; it's just a different part of it that applies:

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

But person, not citizen. Place of birth doesn't matter; but we just know that birth does.

[Forkboy]

133. More importantly to me is

when will it end?

[mvd]

137. Not sure there's a concrete answer

I think a fetus must be able to exist independently. When that is might be individual, with premature babies not having a particular cut-off time for survival.

[qwertyMike]

141. When the 'little guy'

penetrates the egg

WOW

[Sugarbleus]

145. IMO,

"human life" starts at conception but isn't fully realized until birth(outside the mother's womb), at which time the child breathes in it's first breath of "life" and joins the world.

I am pro choice. In my life, I make the decisions that are best for me. My "personal" feelings are against women who sleep around and have one abortion after another just for contraception reasons alone instead of using another form of contraception to prevent the pregnancy in the first place. I have a friend who's daughter is a little "off". She is now 40 years old. She had about 8-10 abortions at various stages of developement(having to go to difficult lengths with her mother's help to get these many in one lifetime) because she refused to have a sterilization proceedure or take any pills. It seems to me she should have been forced, somehow to get permanently sterilized as she was totally incapable of raising any child. She gave birth to one child who was adopted out and lives with Downs syndrome. This is the type of thing that turns my stomach. But, it's just my own personal thoughts and not an anti choice position.

Other than that, abortion should be safe and legal and a woman's personal choice and the church/purists should keep their rosaries out of our ovaries--(as my sister likes to put it):P

[guitar man]

159. "When does human life begin?" -18

At the age one becomes eligible to vote. They either become human life or they register as a Republican.

[Swamp Rat]

161. Yes, they join the alien lizards who have infiltrated the GOP

It's really a reptilian army of shape-shifting alien lizards... you ever catch Wolfowitz's quirky behavior, or Nader's eye twitch (chip malfunction)?

[Swamp Rat]

160. Human life begins when I think it begins...

I wonder what other humanoids in the universe would think about our strange, mental constructs concerning our own behavior patterns thoughts.

edited: because this humanoid cannot spell.


Darwin's Universe

By Peter Backus
Observing Programs Manager
posted: 07:00 am ET
12 February 2004

For most of history, people thought the sky was unchanging and life was as it had always been. Many believed the Earth was the center of the universe and that humans were in some way "higher" than all other creatures. Then along came the Copernican revolution four centuries ago, and suddenly Earth shifted out of the center of the universe to take up its true position among the planets in our solar system. About two and a half centuries later, another revolution took place when Charles Darwin revealed the true relation between humans and all other life on Earth. These revolutions are similar for the way they shift perspective, and better inform us about our origins and our future.


We now know that everything changes. In four and a half billion years the Earth changed from a hot, dry, cratered rock to a temperate, ocean-dominated world teeming with life. We also know that most of the life that ever existed on Earth has gone extinct. The way that life changes, new species arising while others disappear, only makes sense thanks to Darwin and his theory of evolution. A perspective on how things change over time is also useful in astronomy.


When we look beyond the Earth, into deep space, we look back in history and we see that the universe and its contents change with time. The universe of 13.7 billion years ago has no stars, no planets, and no life of any kind. The universe was very simple then, composed only of hydrogen and helium. Slowly, clouds of these two gasses collapsed to form stars and the universe began to evolve. Stars, you see, are thermonuclear factories forming larger atoms from smaller ones.

(snip)

more:

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_darwin_backus_040212.html

[SeeTheLight]

163. it begins when it begins.

There is really no mystery about it.

Shortly after a sperm enters an egg, it begins the process of growing into a person.

The egg is human, and so is the sperm. There's no argument about that from ANY quarter - scientific or otherwise.

That the fertilized egg and sperm are human is NOT in question. That they are ALIVE is also not in question. That they are human life is ALSO not in question - none of these are even debateable. None of them are subject to whim, to politics, or opinion. They just ARE, like the sunrise in the morning.

Now, if you wish to argue those things, don't bother responding to me. Anyone with a higher-than-third grade education can plainly witness the truth of what's above.

This whole debate really isn't about when life begins. It never has been.

The debaters have tried to FRAME it in those terms, because we seem to be extremely uncomfortable - to the point of utterly unwilling - to confront it head-on. The question, to put it bluntly is:

"At what point do we extend the protections of law to a human life, and what protections will those be?"

Few people on ANY side of this are willing to be that blunt, that brutally honest, and debate it with calculated reason, logic, and then FOLLOW what the conclusions we arrive at.

To do so, opens up our debate to future critique, and often hindsight is not very flattering.

I have settled this question in my mind - it took me years to do so - But not all have. If you haven't, what is it that stops you?

[Swamp Rat]

167. Bzzzt! Wrong!

Ha ha! got your attention?

See post 160 for when HUMAN life begins.

[SeeTheLight]

168. I simply do not

understand whatever point you're trying to make there.

[Swamp Rat]

169. OK, Grasshopper... you need more time.

Perhaps one day you will understand. Good luck!


Welcome to DU! :toast:

[ronabop]

170. The point:

This has nothing to do with when life begins. Never did.

It has to do with making political decisions about who decides what can be killed, what can be legally protected, when, and why.

Are all pro-life people vegetarians? Why not? Don't they value the lives of what they eat? For that matter, would they kill living plants?

The "when does human life begin" is a misleading argument meant to hide a religious bias: the belief than human life is somehow more *sacred* than all other life, the life of a chimpanzee, a cow, a chicken.

-Bop

[Swamp Rat]

171. Rocks have feelings too.

:yourock:

[Pachamama]

258. I miss my Pet Rock....

Oi Swamp Rodent! Glad to see you responding to this line of flamebait on abortion....

How goes it in New Orleans?

[Swamp Rat]

260. Oi Pachamama!

Tudo bem aqui. It's hot and humid in this swampy city, but that's good for a rat's skin.

Did you get a chance to read that space.com article? I wish the abortion nazis would read more often. That's why I posted it (though, it's not "Scientific American" or MIT). If this thread keeps going, I might have to start the Johnathan Swift stuff.

There's not one person that can prove that human life DOESN'T begin when I think it does, and I say it began, hmm... maybe 20 billion years ago... as a discrete part of a cycle?

[Gore1FL]

172. Life began

billions of years agoon earth.

We are merely a perpetuation of this. Life does not begin at conception anymore than light begins at sunrise.

[ScreamingMeemie]

199. Human life began billions of years ago??

Again, I state...it begins when each Pregnant individual thinks it begins.

[Az]

218. Sorry, but

As this is a philosophical question the only real answer is to realise that we are the current state of a process that began billions of years ago. There is no such thing as creating a new life. Life simply combines and recombines with itself. Once the moment of abiogenesis took place all those years ago a process was set in motion. That is the closest thing to the start of life that we can single out.

Consider that if you trace back your genetic code you will inevitably wind up back at that moment. You personally are the result of an unbroken chain of combinations and mixtures tracing back to that very moment.

There is no creation of life occurring within the act of sex. It is merely the combination of two living things continuing the process. An egg (which is alive) and a sperm (which is alive) combine together and continue to do their thing. It is not life ex nihlio. It is continuation.

There are things which do arise from this process that are not continuations. The mind is an example. It is a unique thing which arises from a sufficiently functional brain.

But in the grand philosophical scale of things you could not look at the string of life laid out from that first moment to now and find any breaks in it. We are one contiguous river. There is no break. There is only one start. And everything else flows from that start.

[Gore1FL]

270. Thanks

You summed it up just as I was planning to.

[midwayer]

173. Somebody may have already said it

When George Bush Leaves Office!

[Ripley]

175. Pure Flamebait.

Someone posts an article that's use of one person who says babies aren't human until 1 month old is either lying or using the ultimate wacko as the left wing of the debate and all it does is move us....

surprise! right once again.

[Alpha Wolf]

181. Read more carefully, please...

The author is simply defining how wide and diverse the range of opinions are on when human life begins and when said life ought to have equal protection under the law. The one extreme is conception, the other extreme (at least so far) is Peter Singer's view. And then, of course, there are infinite opinions in between.

If you are not familiar with Singer's ideas you can investigate here:

http://www.petersingerlinks.com/

as well as many other sources on the Internet.

[LunaC]

203. According to the IRS

Human life begins when the fetus is breathing outside the womb....can't claim a deduction 'til then.

[Pachamama]

252. Kick!!! I'll go with the IRS definition! Thanks!

:kick:

Thanks Luna! Needed a sane answer to this clearly "flamebait" posting on abortion issue....

[DarkHorse]

243. Life begins at the beginning

Life begins at the beginning.

When the egg and the sperm come together a new creation is formed. It is alive. It is human life. It isn't fully capable of taking care of itself outside it's environment, but it is alive and it is human.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

279. no it isnt

how can you call with the responses of a flat worm human?

[wadestock]

280. READ NO FURTHER

IT'S A NON ISSUE.
IT'S A NON ISSUE.
IT'S A NON ISSUE.

If you're a democrat and expose that you BELIEVE in abortion...you've had your brains sucked out by a right wing neocon....or Limbaugh himself.

This is a trumped up issue that the neocons want us to fall into.
And our candidates must start getting this straight too....

We democrats have the FREEDOM to actually BELIEVE one way or the other on this issue!!!!!

Isn't that GREAT!!!!

You can certainly NOT BELIEVE in abortion....or possibly even be extremely saddened and alarmed by the belief that abortion is actually the "taking away" of an eventual life and still be a democrat. What's the confusion?

The confusion was CREATED by the right wingers from day one.
It's to get us wrapped up in a moral debate that has us looking like immoral people.

If you defend abortion from a legislative point of view in terms of free choice..... this DOES NOT mean that you have to BELIEF in abortion.

The neocons are trying to trap you into a BS moral argument.

What is really a close analogy....the issue of neocons supporting the death penalty....is a direct taking of a mature life that could be put to SOME productive use somehow. Death penalties have NEVER formed any deterent or resulted in less crime.

But be careful to notice here that the neocons are RATIONALIZING the murder of a person for the apparent benefit of society. What a wonderfully creative "social program" that we can all give them credit for.

Do you see the difference?

By analogy....the Democrats DO NOT think of abortion (and SHOULD NOT) as part of some warped and misguided "social program"....

Carefully look at your core beliefs and you can be honest that it is a very UNFORTUNATE CHOICE......IF the mother decides to do it for whatever reasons.

On the other hand, Democrats do not BELIEVE in abortion for such convoluted social reasons as:

- reducing welfare
- controlling population growth
- improving the mother's potential contribution to society

Get the point?
There are NO BELIEFS that should be attached to this issue.

You get into that argument and you've FALLEN for the neocon right wing trap.

[iverglas]

288. eh?

Get the point?
There are NO BELIEFS that should be attached to this issue.

I get it indeed, and I say the same repeatedly.

In fact, even the anti-choice movement itself gave up on its "abortion is murder" mantra some years ago, moving on to the "abortion hurts women" line. Now that this hasn't worked either, there may indeed be some swing back to the "abortion is murder" one (which was actually entirely novel at the time -- abortion had never in human history been regarded as murder, and was never alleged to be murder before the late 20th century).


But --

Carefully look at your core beliefs and you can be honest that it is a very UNFORTUNATE CHOICE......IF the mother decides to do it for whatever reasons.

(Mother? What mother? Do you know this WOMAN of whom we speak, and are you acquainted with her child/children?)

I'm afraid that I just can't be that "honest". Abortion is NOT a "very unfortunate choice" in probably a majority of the instances in which it is chosen. It may indeed be unfortunate that a woman had to make a choice she would have preferred not to make -- where "choice" means "the act or instance of choosing": she had to choose between two things when she did not want either one of them. (Do you want liver or spinach? Um, I "choose" spinach.) But her choice -- "a thing chosen" -- may be very fortunate.

My core beliefs just don't involve second-guessing the decisions that other people make, in what they believe to be their own interests. And they certainly don't involve passing moral judgment (if that is what you meant by "unfortunate") on people's choices about their own bodies and lives.

So I'd say that it would be best if you followed your own advice, and didn't go attaching beliefs to the issue -- let alone ascribing beliefs to me.

[wadestock]

292. Take out the word "unfortunate"

and insert....painful, heartwrenching....

yes I've dealt with this with my wife and also another close one.

Point is....it's always a very deep disturbing decision for the woman....I think that's a valid point.

So no matter how you look at the live vs. death issue....it never minimizes this very painful decision.

It's an issue which should be effectively taken off the table because it is a true can of worms....exactly what the neocons want us to argue about.

In "championing" free choice...we all want to fight back hard against the neocons....but every step we take in that direction.....we just dig ourselves a deeper hole.

Better to get the story straight....we don't BELIEVE in it....
BELIEVING in it is NOT the issue.

It's how to DEAL with the woman's choice.
Perhaps for the very reason that you question the deep and disturbing nature of this very personal reason is the best reason it should be kept with the potential mother of the child.

[iverglas]

294. nope

Take out the word "unfortunate""
and insert....painful, heartwrenching....
yes I've dealt with this with my wife and also another close one.
Point is....it's always a very deep disturbing decision for the woman....I think that's a valid point.

It's not a valid point. It's a statement of a belief. And it's a false belief still.

You are framing a belief as a statement of fact: "it is ALWAYS a VERY DEEP DISTURBING decision for the woman". That's no different from anybody else's statement of belief about someone else's personal decisions.

It is NOT always any such thing. And there is simply no good purpose to be served by saying it is.

It is, in probably a good majority of cases, very distressing for a woman to find that she is pregnant when she does not want to be. This does NOT mean that the abortion she then has is a very deep disturbing decision.

So no matter how you look at the live vs. death issue....it never minimizes this very painful decision.

The problem is that what YOU are saying and doing DOES minimize women's own feelings, and choices and lives and experience and so on. You are imposing your paradigm on all of them. You don't get to do that. It is fundamentally disrespectful, and indeed minimizing.

Better to get the story straight....we don't BELIEVE in it.... BELIEVING in it is NOT the issue.

You've quite lost me. Don't believe in abortion? You mean, don't believe in it as a solution to a problem? But -- I absolutely do. To the extent that my belief is relevant, which of course it isn't unless I'm the one having the abortion.

The real way to get the story straight is NOT to say "we don't believe in it", it is to say our belief is irrelevant.

Perhaps for the very reason that you question the deep and disturbing nature of this very personal reason is the best reason it should be kept with the potential mother of the child.

Hmm, do I smell an insult in there? I don't "question" anything. I am TELLING you that your statement that this "very personal <decision>" is ALWAYS a VERY DEEP DISTURBING one is FALSE. I say it is false because it IS false, and there is no shortage of evidence for what I say -- that NOT ALL women are deeply disturbed, or even shallowly disturbed, about having an abortion.

I'm also saying that it is *your* saying things like this that is the problem. It does not a shred of good to wander around saying how deeply disturbed women are about having abortions. It just makes them look like warm-blooded killers rather than cold-blooded killers.

You are STILL stating your beliefs about the matter, and superimposing them on other people's experiences.

Taking it off the table is of course the proper thing to do. In our recent Canadian election, the right wing tried to put it on the table. And they were smacked, hard. And they lost the election. They would likely have lost it anyway, but this may have been a deciding factor in some close races; who knows? If the smacking hadn't been administered, the reality of what those people are might not have been driven home for a bunch of pissed off voters planning to vote for them by default.

But the smacking didn't include statements of belief. It consisted of statements of the nature of women's rights, and commitment to protecting women's ability to exercise those rights, and identification of the right wing as would-be violators of those rights. It's pretty straightforward when you just stick to the actual issue.

[wadestock]

309. Your response is a riot....

and a crowning illustration of illogic.

#1 - I started off saying that the issue is a non-issue. That's the central point. Any back and forth after that on abortion in terms of beliefs is a bunch of BS.

You still seem to misunderstand the concept of the neocons trying to make it out that we BELIEVE in abortion. This is not hard to grasp.
They have twisted the issue such that any stance we take in championing a woman's right to choose is automatically translated into a moral failure....and to show that we are completely unprincipled.

What exactly is the ROOT cause of this convoluted moral argument?

I'll try again. It's the fact that "liberals" are made out to be unprincipled and actually so low as to BELIEVE that it's OK.

You seem to have the bottom line support of women's rights correct, but you're confused about how we're losing on the issue.

We have to first step away from the convoluted moral argument and simply say...."I don't believe in abortion.....but that's NOT the point!"

You don't seem to embellish the simple concept that is absolutely OK to have different moral intepretations of what abortion means, or perhaps in your case....what it DOESN'T mean.

I think it's ludicrous to attempt to win the argument by downplaying it's moral significance.

It's a HUGE moral argument that will go on for years and years.

You can try all day long to tell me any theory whatsoever about how abortion may not exactly = taking one's life....or that the decision made by the woman involved is not so troubling as I made it out to be.
But you're not going to make one single advance in the right direction in terms of fighting the right wing that's behind this issue.

My statement that we don't BELIEVE in abortion was meant to accurately convey the sentiments of most Americans.....but that this is not INCONSISTENT with advocating a woman's right to choose.

You have to appreciate that logic. You don't have to try and sidestep the "don't believe in" part to win the argument with the neocons.

You might want to ask yourself the obvious question....
Why are so many DU'ers and other people disturbed about the issue?
Why has it received such serious attention and become such a moral issue?

For the exact reason that the VAST MAJORITY of people can't put into perspective exactly what legislation means and what morality means and how we in a modern society are SUPPOSED to rule on such things.

In most cases...it's the effect on society that has the precedence.
It's perfectly fine to state that you don't believe in taking someone's life....but that I MADE the decision based on this that or the other thing....whether it's an intense moral decision or not.

So I'm not going to agonize over any of the moral theories one way or another. I tried to make the point that since it is such a "disturbing" decision to make....one could conclude that this lends itself to the fact that it is a very PERSONNAL decision to make!!

But you are specifically dead wrong in the fact that my describing the decision this way serves no purpose because I'll give you a very good purpose.

It provides a rationale for why the decision of abortion should be a personal moral decision wrestled with by each and everyone's own moral code.

And if you could think a bit deeper still....
It also provides an excellent rationale for why if the NEOCONS had their way we'd have countless women who might feel morally violated by having the government telling them what to do.

The neocons essential failing is that they cannot solve the issue or improve our society's ability to IMPROVE IN ANY DEMONSTRABLE WAY by attempting to legislate morality.

This is the essential reason why Roe v Wade went down the way it did.

Judges most often use the bottom line of "social effect" in their analysis....and anti-abortion legislation can be viewed this way....and could very well be imagined as creating a whole bunch of ADDITIONAL social problems if it were allowed to go through.

In other words....social benefit truly takes precedence over any potential moral argument in this case.....and why the issue should be made a NON-issue once and for all.

This is exactly why the neocons have it wrong with the death penalty too...because they have attempted to institute an improved social order through the legislation....

But the social improvement has NEVER been historically realized. Sure the morality part of it stinks....but the real issue is that IT DOESN'T WORK!

[iverglas]

312. here's what you don't seem to grasp

You still seem to misunderstand the concept of the neocons trying to make it out that we BELIEVE in abortion. This is not hard to grasp.

Try to grasp this, okay?

I DO BELIEVE IN ABORTION. Many people believe in abortion.

We believe in abortion in the same sense that we believe in heart transplant surgery -- that people would probably mostly prefer not to have to make the choice of having it done, but it is a very good thing that they are able to have it done.

ABORTION IS A GOOD THING. How much more clearly can I say this??

Abortion is a good thing in the same sense that whole lots of things are good things. Many people think that shrimp cocktail is a good thing. I think it's a disgusting thing. But if I were faced with a choice between shrimp cocktail and dog food for the rest of my days, I'd probably choose shrimp cocktail. I would PREFER not to have to eat anything at all, given the choices, but that wouldn't be an option.

And in any event, just because *I* don't want to eat shrimp cocktail, ever, I would NEVER say "I don't believe in shrimp cocktail", presumably meaning, by that, "I believe that shrimp cocktail is a bad thing".

I AGREE with you that none of this has any place in the "abortion debate". But YOU are the one inserting it, by ascribing beliefs to me and to women, and to progressives or liberals (or Democrats) or what have you, in general.


I think it's ludicrous to attempt to win the argument by downplaying it's moral significance.
It's a HUGE moral argument that will go on for years and years.

It undoubtedly will. Particularly if people on "our" side keep saying the kinds of things you're saying -- and AGREEING that it is a "moral argument".

The MORAL content of the "abortion debate" is that WOMEN HAVE RIGHTS, and it is IMMORAL to violate those rights.


You seem to have the bottom line support of women's rights correct, but you're confused about how we're losing on the issue.

Do you work at being boorishly patronizing, or does it come natural?

I'm a woman and you're not, for fuck's sake. When you say things like this, the temptation to say BUTT THE HELL OUT becomes almost overwhelming.


I'll try again. It's the fact that "liberals" are made out to be unprincipled and actually so low as to BELIEVE that it's OK.

I DO BELIEVE THAT IT'S OKAY, and I am neither unprincipled nor low.

And I would NEVER pretend not to believe what I believe in order to placate someone who IS unprincipled and low. Cheeses.


We have to first step away from the convoluted moral argument and simply say...."I don't believe in abortion.....but that's NOT the point!"

And I have to continue to distance myself from you, and simply say I DO BELIEVE IN ABORTION, and you can peddle your apparent misogyny somewhere else.

I DO BELIEVE IN ABORTION, *and* that is not the point.


You might want to ask yourself the obvious question<s>....
Why are so many DU'ers and other people disturbed about the issue?
Why has it received such serious attention and become such a moral issue?

Gee, I guess they'd just never occurred to me. In all my 50+ years, well over 30 of which have been lived as a feminist committed to women's rights and active in various relevant causes. And all those years I spent practising law in a field laden with constitutional and human rights issues ... and teaching in that field ... and all the research I now do into all those legal and public policy issues ...

And my answer? Because they are either
(a) deluded and too lazy to do the work they need to do in order to stop being deluded, with the result that they are part of the problem; or
(b) deluders and intent on perpetuating and exacerbating the exploitation and oppression of women, and conveniently in this case, along the way, of the poor and various minorities.


It's perfectly fine to state that you don't believe in taking someone's life....but that I MADE the decision based on this that or the other thing....whether it's an intense moral decision or not.

What kind of garble is this? It's perfectly fine for me to state that I don't believe in taking someone's life, but to shoot you in the head anyway?? ... and gosh, it was a really intense moral decision, and I agonized over it, but I really wanted your shoes ... or heck, it didn't bother me at all, I just wanted your shoes so I shot you.

Exactly whom do you think this garble might fool?


It provides a rationale for why the decision of abortion should be a personal moral decision wrestled with by each and everyone's own moral code.

Sorry. One's "personal moral code" is a good argument against things like the criminalization of adultery or lying, even though we might virtually universally find them immoral.

It really just does not work when one is arguing against criminalizing homicide. Or ending a "human life". Or whatever other quibble or qualm it is that someone bases/claims to base his/her advocacy of criminalizing abortion on. I mean, unless s/he comes right out and says "I wanna keep women down".


And if you could think a bit deeper still....
It also provides an excellent rationale for why if the NEOCONS had their way we'd have countless women who might feel morally violated by having the government telling them what to do.

Gee, I think I'll just stick to being shallow.

I'm actually kinda concerned about all the women whose lives would be made a very real misery, in very real and not at all "moral" terms, like being unable to earn a decent living or establish a stable and fulfilling intimate relationship/family, or suffering the ill physical and mental health and premature death that accompanies low income, or DYING OR BEING MAIMED IN THE COURSE OF AN UNSAFE ILLEGAL ABORTION -- or IN THE COURSE OF A PREGNANCY/DELIVERY THEY WERE COMPELLED TO SUBMIT TO.

Morally violated yer high-falutin' ass.


Judges most often use the bottom line of "social effect" in their analysis....and anti-abortion legislation can be viewed this way....and could very well be imagined as creating a whole bunch of ADDITIONAL social problems if it were allowed to go through.

Actually, judges, when they have properly instructed themselves, apply the rules of constitutional scrutiny by which they are bound, by precedent. And once they have determined that an individual's right has been violated by a law or policy, they inquire into whether, by those rules, there is justification for the law/policy. And no matter how nice they might think the effect of the law/policy on society, they must strike it down if it isn't justified. I can refer you to my favour US primer on all this if you like, although I'd have to figure out how to access the old bookmark file ...


The neocons essential failing is that they cannot solve the issue or improve our society's ability to IMPROVE IN ANY DEMONSTRABLE WAY by attempting to legislate morality.

This is the essential reason why Roe v Wade went down the way it did.

Well, actually, no it isn't. That case was decided as it was because the state of Texas had no constitutional justification for violating women's constitutional rights. (The rest of the case is a complete dog's breakfast and may indeed illustrate what you're saying, since the rest of what the decision allowed, in terms of restrictions on women's exercise of their rights, is in fact completely unjustified, by those rules of scrutiny. But that's for another day.)


This is exactly why the neocons have it wrong with the death penalty too...because they have attempted to institute an improved social order through the legislation....

But the social improvement has NEVER been historically realized. Sure the morality part of it stinks....but the real issue is that IT DOESN'T WORK!

The real issue is that it is a VICIOUS AND TOTALLY UNJUSTIFIED VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT TO LIFE, and it would be a vicious and totally unjustified violation of the right to life WHETHER OR NOT IT WORKED. And I just don't know what's wrong with saying that.


In other words....social benefit truly takes precedence over any potential moral argument in this case.....and why the issue should be made a NON-issue once and for all.

And fundamental, constitutional individual rights take precedence over ALL of that UNLESS there is some justification demonstrated to the contrary.

So yes indeed -- BOTH "social benefit" AND "any potential moral argument" should be regarded as non-issues.

Women's entitlement to exercise rights is NOT dependent on whether there is (or someone thinks there is -- it's a matter of opinion, after all) a social benefit involved in their doing so. No more than it is dependent on anyone's opinion of the morality of their exercise of their rights.

ONLY if and when someone demonstrates JUSTIFICATION for INTERFERING IN the exercise of the rights -- some evidence that the state has some compelling interest in women's pregnancies, and that its interest can only be protected by restricting women's access to abortion -- do women, or anyone else, have to present any affirmative "defence" of the right to an abortion, or any other right, at all.

It's a right. Period. And I'm just not interested in hearing anybody's opinions about people who exercise that right, at a time when their ability to do so is under such threat.

Aid and comfort to the enemy is not appreciated -- I say as a WOMAN.

[Selwynn]

303. Who cares.

I just wanted to be the one person who would say I think we have more important issues to deal with in these times.

I would give my left nut if Gay Marriage and Abortion could take a back seat for a while.

[Az]

304. Thats the problem

They can't take a back seat.

I would argue that abortion is the single issue which has been most responsible for this nation being dragged into the clutches of the right. Not finding a way to counter this leaves us sliding into their pit. This needs to be dealt with.

[Selwynn]

305. I don't agree, though I get what you're saying

I argue instead, that constantly playing their game, and making all of national poltiics turn into the pro-choice and pro-life parties is a large part of the reason why Democrats have lost so much.

It's not that we shouldn't address the abortion issue and defend choice, but we should at every turn take every opportuntiy to point out all the issues that Republicans constantly refuse to addres, becuase they are obsessed and fixated on two things.

And we ourselves shouldn't get so sucked into it that we start only seeing the national landscape as having two issues to deal with.

Every time Republcians bring up abortion, I'd like Democrats to respond with a one two punch. First counter their lies about the abortion debate with truth, then second follow up by reminding everyone of how many other issues are "value" issues and how many other issues are "moral" isuses and how many other issues are "critical" issues that Republicans systematically refuse to deal with. And then start addressing them and start dealing with them!

We should defend choice, but we should also take back control of the national agenda, and say - fuck you, we WILL talk about these other critical things, whether you want to or not! The country is not defined by two issues.

[Az]

308. Agreed but

We need to move forward on the entire front of issues. But the fact remains that the right has a strangle hold on many in our nation because of this issue. We do not need to make it the primary issue we debate but we should not let it become atrophied either.

I believe the left's position on this issue has become stagnant. We have left a defensive contingent behind to guard it and it is becoming overwhelmed. There needs to be renewed support of the position. We need to understand how to turn the argument around and take back the moral highground.

Abortion need not be our primary issue. But we must keep ourselves informed on how to deal with the matter. Discussion amongst our ranks is not the same as fighting the right in public. Think of these sessions as planning meetings. We are exploring the issues in order to better understand the ground upon which we may have to fight. Relying on "it's her body" is proving to be a defensive seige tactic. And all seiges wind up messy and usually the defenders lose. If we do not have some understanding of both the legal and moral issues in play we will never be able to break their seige.

[noiretextatique]

313. we need to find a common demoniator

on this issue and others.
the bottom line in the abortion debate, imho, has little to do with one's beliefs "the unborn,"...it's really a debate about how much importance one attaches to the health (and lives) of women. no matter what people think about when life does or does not begin in a woman's body, we KNOW that a woman who does not want to have a child will go to extraordinary measures to terminate the pregnancy, including risking her own life.
we also know that, in spite of much talk to the contrary, there still aren't enough social supports to help people raise children in this country...that's especially true for young, single women.
banning abortion simply isn't good (or moral) public policy. then again, i don't think any law based on minority's religious beliefs is good public policy.

[Mandate My Ass]

316. You're right, it's not moral at all

Let's talk about quality of life for all parties involved instead of how many cells have to divide before something is a living human being.

[snooper2]

315. When the Doctor Smacks it on the Ass......

eom