OKgrannie

The unborn resemble parasites in some ways which means they are accurately described as parasitical. That has no legal connotation whatsoever, and no scientific connotation of any importance. It has a language arts connotation, the understanding of which enhances our ability to communicate.


None whatsoever as no one is likely to take notice of your description or classification.


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There is no rationalization needed for a woman to terminate a pregnancy. It's her body, it's her pregnancy. She is not obligated. It's not what the fetus IS that matters, it's WHERE it is.


I assure you that loss of teeth and bone, hemmorhoids, varicose veins, and weight gain all have serious effects upon a woman's health. Aesthetic damage to a woman's body can also have serious effects on her life.


YOU are assuming the unborn have the same rights as a person, others are not making that mistake. You have demonstrated limited understanding of these effects on a person, and are therefore not qualified to make such a judgement.


But you have your own agenda, one that requires the fetus be defined as a person.


What is "factual" will always depend upon your point of view. Have you never heard the story of the blind men and the elephant? All of the blind men were correct with the facts.

The Blind Men and the Elephant
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!



My little finger has a complete set of human DNA, it's alive, and it's completely developed as a finger. Is my little finger a person?

__________________
The greatest danger to liberty lurks in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.---Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

Ethereal

Are you just going to completly disregard my previous rebuttal? How can you leave all of these points unadressed? Just because Prometeus choose to adress them doesn't mean you have...

You cannot have it both ways. The abortion debate has legal and scientific implications. If your classification of the unborn as parasitical is not scientific then it has no legal or physiological relevance. What you're doing is akin to saying that society can legally treat a man like a bear because he is big and hairy.

It's easy to say this because it's true. Most of those effects are only permanant if a woman chooses not to adress them. They are easily mitigated and of little consequence to one's overall health.

Remember that we are speaking to the hypothetical situation that the unborn have a right to life, and none of these consequences are a legitimate reason to violate that right.

They possess them? How so? In order to possess intelligence or self awareness one must be capable of exercising them. Coma patients only have the potential to exercise them, and according to you there is no such thing as a potential person.

Says who? How does one quantify a moral responsibility? How do coma patients have a moral responsibility?

This makes absolutely no sense at all. Why does personhood require characterisitcs that are missing in the fetus, besides the obvious implications it has on your political agenda?

All those characterisitcs you gave me were completely circular. They made no sense. It doesn't suprise me that you're having trouble defending a viewpoint you couldn't articulate without the help of some pro-choice network. Do you have a personal definition of a person or do you simply allow the pro-choice movement to dictate that for you?

Once again, it doesn't matter what society thinks a fetus is if science can determine what it actually is. Personhood is not outside the scope of scientific application, therefore we have a moral obligation to analyse that viewpoint.

How many times are we going to have this conversation before you realize you are wrong? You have failed to prove that another right can supercede the right to life, therefore your entire point is irrelevant. The only instance where this is even partially true is Roe v Wade, and as I am currently contesting the validity of that law its implications have no bearing on our discussion.

Then what are you refering to?

Lastly, you did not answer my question...

So, you agree, that pro-choicers, unless they confer the status of personhood upon some primates, are not being consistent in their interpretation and application of the law?

There's that selectiveness again...

OKgrannie

I thought Prometeus answered everything quite well, and I don't see the need for more repetition. These extremely long posts are getting very tedious.


The abortion debate has two parts: 1. what a woman should do as guided by moral and ethical considerations, and 2. what a woman is required to do by force of law. Scientific knowledge may be important to consider in forming moral and ethical decisions. As far as law, the ONLY consideration is whether a law is necessary to maintain order in society. Laws criminalizing abortion do nothing to maintain order in society, so the debate should be centered strictly on what a woman SHOULD do, not on what she is required to do. A second reason why we should not debate criminalizing abortion is that those laws don't work. Women have abortions anyway.


Answered previously. You obviously have no experience with these effects.

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People have been trying since 1973 to prove that the "unborn" have a right to live with no success, but keep going. I understand that is necessary for you to minimize the effects of pregnancy/childbirth to make your point, keep trying.



I did not say there is no such thing as a potential person, only that a potential person does not have rights. You will find that coma patients don't have rights either unless it is fairly certain they will come out of the coma quickly, as the plug can be pulled on the decision of the next of kin.


A moral responsibility is acquired and maintained through a personal conscience, and a personal conscience does not allow one to just discard responsibilities willy-nilly.


Personhood requires at the very least a functioning brain. A person, you see, has personality.


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Analyse away, but members of society, like the blind men, see things from different points of view and therefore come to different conclusions.


You have failed to prove that a "right to life" even exists. A majority of the populace believes that RvW should remain as a limit on government, so all your contesting is unlikely to have much effect.


What law? I have never heard of a law defining or conferring personhood. As a matter of custom, born people are generally referred to as 'persons'. As a matter of custom, zefs are not.

Here's a suggestion: limit a post to one or two questions or points. It will not only be less tedious to reply, but will be less tedious for other readers. No one wants to plow through a book-long post.

Ikari

Aye, but if we want to talk morality it can not be done without empathy. There are certain things which are right and which are wrong, there are things called rights. It actually exists. Morality in its specific religious context isn't legislated, but there is a morality which is not connected to religion. Or rather, that religion adopted as mankind evolved intellectually and socially. It is universally not ok to kill someone because you just felt like it. People do have the right to life, we as individuals understand that. We are able to understand that due to concrete and abstract thought, the understanding of what life is.

Rights are universal, they apply to every human. Societies can act against the rights of the individual, it's not something agreed upon. It's something innate to being human. Life, liberty, and property form the basis of our rights because we understand what that is. Is slavery ok? Is theft ok? Is murder ok? All these things infringe upon the rights of the individual, they are not ok. Humans can recognize this, we can understand these concepts. We're probably the only species on the planet which can. Understanding rights of the individual is part and parcel with intellect. Evolution pushed our species down the path of higher brain function, and because of that we understand a great many things which other species can not. Societies have no rights, and societies can act against the rights of the individual. But there is a true reference point, an absolute scale and on that scale are our rights.

What's good for the goose isn't always good for the gander. There are many social contracts made which go above and beyond the base rights. But there does exist a set of base rights as well.

There are many problems with this line of thought though. Would you say that what Hitler did to the Jews was ok? It's what he's society thought was acceptable, so was it acceptable? Stalin's destruction of his people, the Crusades waged by the Christians, the Inquisitions set to punish those not of like mind...were all these things perfectly acceptable? With your logic they are. But as you said, self-preservation isn't something we apply to others. Yet we understand and accept the right to life, so self-preservation can not be the cause of that understanding (as I stated earlier). There is something beyond that, something possessed by humans which isn't by other species which allows us to understand that there is an absolute scale. That's our empathy, our intellect, our ability to understand the abstract. We don't claim Hitler's treatment of the Jews to be ok because of some mere social contract. As a base, humanity as a whole understands right to life and because of that we claim those actions taken which deprive and steal that right from another to be wrong. It's absolutely wrong.

No, the main role of government is to guarantee and proliferate our rights and liberties. Order and "security" can come at the end of a gun, through treason and tyranny against the people. Rightful government does not act in this manner, rightful government is mindful of the rights of the individual.

Not necessarily. There have been "secure" and "ordered" societies which have engaged in genocide. What that genocide right? The base of humanity would say no because humans on the whole understand the rights of others.

While not killing others definitely has advantages (such as not killing people for the fun of it), it's not social contract which forges that morality. That morality is there and we use social contract to enforce it.

Because it's a base. There is a ground level off of which we build other, more complicated structure. While there certainly is an amount of social contract, there is also an absolute. The appeal to empathy is to show how this absolute is developed and why it is unique to humans.

Yet you condemn me for calling a fetus an unborn child, claiming that it's an appeal to emotion. Fair enough, but if you're going to claim that you have to accept the likening of a fetus to a parasite as the same thing. It's an emotional claim, you're looking to bring up imagery of parasites to disconnect the fetus from "human". Parasites do not offer any benefits, yet reproduction is hugely important to humanity as a whole. We need it, without it our species is doomed. Reproduction serves an important and necessary role for the continuation of a species. A fetus can not be likened to a parasite because it serves a very important role to our species. If you are going to say "unborn child" is a call to emotion, then you must accept likening fetus to a parasite is the same.

__________________
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

prometeus

I clpped the quote to save space.


It appears that you have great difficulty in understanding my post. In order to alleviate your predicament I’ll expand on it to more elementary descriptions that perhaps you can grasp.

So let’s look at the term “parasite.” Setting aside the social connotation of the word, which is by the way its origin meaning sitting next to; and focusing on the biological term, we find that a parasite is according to the American Heritage Dictionary: An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
Looking up other sources as well (by the way you should try this also from time to time) we can also find that parasites exhibit a high level of adaptation to liv e on or in their host and develop at a faster rate than their host.

Now if we look at a zygote and follow its development through its embryonic and fetal stages, we also find that it obtains its nourishment from another organism, namely the pregnant woman, along with protection. Matter of fact, it’s entire survival depends on the organism that shelters or hosts it. A fetus is uniquely adapted to live inside a pregnant woman and it certainly grows faster than she does.

As you can see and is evident to most but the severely challenged, there are similarities between a parasite and a fetus. Or in other words fetuses are in some ways like parasites. They are not parasites, but are like them in some ways.
So to describe them as parasitic is in fact accurate. A description as this is a partial description and does not serve as a classification but rather to explain some negative aspects of the development of the fetus. That is why it can not be considered a classification.
But lets look also at the example you provided in a failed attempt to support your erroneous position. In your example you are trying to describe me as a whole which is incorrect because you do not know me. Based on your description, which you did not qualify as partial one would have to wrongly assume that you are entirely familiar with me and you are describing me as a whole, which of course you are not.
On the other hand, if I described your post as idiotic, I would be correct because that implies that only some aspect of you is acting as one.

I do not understand what you mean by “…we're assuming the unborn have the same rights as a person.” I certainly do not assume anything of the sort and do not recall from any of the posts that you are addressing the issue in anyone else’s name. So unless you are part of some Royalty I fail to see how the “we” applies. If you are assuming that, then it is fine, but do not expect others to share your invalid assumptions.

Whether you care or not what society recognizes is entirely your affair, but I submit that if you are not living alone on a mountain top as a hermit, it would serve you well to do so as it will make you a better member. After all, you do draw some benefits from society and lest you be parasitic, you have to contribute something in return and how can you contribute if you do not recognize what society recognizes?

You refuse to accept the definition of a person by others but you do not offer a better or more valid one. How is that productive or conducive to intellectual exchange?
And why would the definition of a person not require any characteristics? Are persons devoid of such?

I did not say that personhood is not the realm of science; It seems that you fail to understand even the simplest of sentences I post. Just to refresh the point, I said:
“Personhood is a human construct and not in the scope of "exact sciences."
Perhaps you can point us to a scientific dictionary, any scientific dictionary, that contains the definition, instead of supplying your self serving one.

Your understanding of legal documents is also deficient. The DOI is not a legal document, not to mention that it refers only to white men.

The 14th Amendment makes no reference to the “right to life” otherwise how can you explain for instance due process accorded to those who die as collateral damage or are held by the government without charges.

But you are finally right. The UN’s declaration does include the right to life. It has as much meaning and weight as your arguments.

Ethereal

You're avoiding the issue. If your characterization of the unborn is not scientific then it has no relevance to this debate. Yes or no? Why?

Show me some statistics that prove osteopirosis, hemmorhoids, and varicose veins occur in more than fifty percent of post-partum women. And weight gain is easily mitigated. It's called a healthy diet coupled with exercise.

Aesthetic damage is simply that, aesthetic. It has no effect on a woman's overall health, which is the issue at hand.

Well, those people tend to use religious rationale, which, needless to say, is not very logical. And I don't need to minimize the effects of pregnancy in order to make my point. If we assume the unborn have a right to life then the potential adverse health effects of pregnancy are not sufficient reasoning to violate that right. That is the point we are arguing.

So, if they're not a person, then what are they? And what's to stop me from pulling the plug on them if they have no rights? Also, what difference does it make if they come out of their coma quickly or twenty years from now, the implications of pulling the plug would be the same, you took their life without their permission.

Also, you're avoiding the issue of the severely retarded. They do not demonstrate these qualities. They operate on a cognitive level comparable to a sloth.

I'm not asking how it's aquired. I asked how does one quantify a moral responsibility? What is it?

So does my dog. Person?

Fair enough. I'm confident that if people are given the facts, which I don't feel they have been, they will see the illogic inherent in pro-choice.

This is unbelievable. You, an American citizen, are contending the right to life does not exist? I'll give you a chance to reconsider that. So, I ask you again, does the right to life exist?

Laws which state persons have rights. So, if persons have rights and your definition of a person includes primates then we should confer rights upon them as well? It's fairly simple.

I will make points or pose questions as I see fit. The content of my argument will not be dictated by convienance.

rivrrat

Yes. Personhood doesn't require being human.

__________________
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

Ikari

That's one of the reasons I'm wary about using personhood arguments. It seems to me too abstract to base rights on. Cause there isn't anything innate to the system itself to stop one from not acknowledging other people as...well I guess "people" and thus justifying the infringement of their rights. But I suppose that's just a personal hangup.

Ethereal

Just for future reference, do not concern yourself with space. Please isolate my points and adress them seperately in order to retain the continuity of our argument. Look at the format Granny and I have been using. It's much easier that way. I'm not making fun or scolding you. Simply a suggestion to consider if you want people to debate you.

Did you ever consider the possibility that your logic simply didn't make any sense?

Thank you! Oh, wise one!

Definitions found in the dictionary are not meant to be used in a categoricaly specific context. Furthermore, the unborn do neet meet the criteria set forth by this defintion as the unborn are not a different organism than their mother.

I know all of this. Biology is my speciality. What you don't seem to understand is that adaptation and development are not characterisitics which are unique to parasites, and as such they are immaterial to their classification.

What you and Granny are doing is taking characteristics generally shared by two different organisms, but which are not material to their classification, and using this linkage as validation for their comparison.

That would be like saying this...

Both the unborn and prokaryotes exhibit the properties of life, therefore, due to their commonality in this regard, the unborn are prokaryotic.

Same exact logic you are using.

Obtaining nourishment and shelter from an organism is not a characteristic unique to a parasite.

Severely challenged? Do you really want to start exchanging insults, young Padawon?

Yes, they are like them in ways that are immaterial to the nature of parasites. Just because two organisms share a similar characteristic does not mean it is accurate to equate them to one another in a specific context.

How does this explain the difference between classifying and describing? Think hard...

What difference would it make if I described you as idiot or if I classified you as such? Answer the question.

In debates about abortion it is a common practice for both sides to assume, for the sake of argument, that the unborn have rights. In this way we can then discuss the moral and ethical implications of abortion in a different context.

This is why I don't like debating people who jump in on the ***-end of a thread. They lack an understanding of the discussion's context and ask silly questions like this.

In the realm of science it doesn't matter what society thinks, only what can be proven. If science can be used to prove that a fetus is a person then society must change its perception or deny the facts.

Do you know how frustrating it is when someone totally ignores a point you've made? I did provide you with a definition of a person. Did you even bother reading my whole response? Here it is again.

So, what characterisitcs do all person share that no other organisms possess? A: A complete set of human DNA. B: Life. C. Development.

In combination these three characteristics include all persons and exclude all non-human species.

Honestly, how could you miss that?

You truly are a beginner. I never said that, ever. I asked why the characterisitcs a person must possess have to be absent in a fetus. There's a big difference.

Where do you get off talking down to me? You show up out of no where with a disorganized jumble of nonsensical blather and then accuse me of failing to understand your simple sentences? Let's just stick to the facts, shall we?

That's exactly my point. There isn't a scientific definition of a person. That's why I'm trying to establish one. This is really very annoying.

This is truly, truly unbelievable. The Declaration of Independence is a legal docume