Explain Your Reasoning.

[Technocratic_Utilitarian]

I have psychovision.

 

[Ima Troll]

I have psychovision.

oh, well that explains it then; i wonder if i have psychovision too; what precisely is psychovision?

 

[FutureIncoming]

Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite wrote: "All of your keystrokes notwithstanding, I haven't yet come across anyone who wasn't able to accurately distinguish persons from animals. Have you?"


Of course. Every time I see somebody picketing an abortion clinic with a denouncing sign, I'm seeing somebody who can't accurately distinguish human persons from human animals.

 

[Felicity]

The crux is this part of what you wrote: "unborn humans have human nature by virtue of their identification as of the human species" -- Unborn humans only have a SUBSET of the complete human nature. They have a complete set of genes, a completely animal body, and some other things, but nevertheless, they also most definitely lack many of the things that are part of the totality of human nature, like lots of different kinds of mental abilities, the specific things (on your list!) which allow a human to qualify as a person instead of ONLY a mere animal. Shucks, during the very early stages of pregnancy, unborn humans don't even have beating hearts, a rather important aspect of human nature, don't you think?

This demonstrates your misunderstanding of (or your obstinant refusal to acknowledge)what the "NATURE" of a man or animal is. You continually separate the matter and the essence. This is not what I have been asserting throughout the entire debate--and this is what the Bioethics article asserted as well. Here are some philosophy dictionary entries that may help you better understand.

http://www.ditext.com/runes/n.html
entry: Nature
....The objective as opposed to the subjective.
.....Though both matter and form are involved in the changes of a natural being, its nature is ordinarily identified with the form, as the active and intelligible factor. (2)The sum total of all natural beings. See Aristotelianism. -- G.R.M.

http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html
entry: Aristotelianism
....The causes which it is the aim of scientific inquiry to discover are of four sorts: the material cause (that of which a thing is made), the efficient cause (that by which it comes into being), the formal cause (its essence or nature, i.e. what it is), and the final cause (its end, or that for which it exists). In natural objects, as distinct from the products of art, the last three causes coincide; for the end of a natural object is the realization of its essence, and likewise it is this identical essence embodied in another individual that is the efficient cause in its production. Thus for Aristotle every object in the sense world is a union of two ultimate principles: the material constituents, or matter (hyle), and the form, structure, or essence which makes of these constituents the determinate kind of being it is. Nor is this union an external or arbitrary one; for the matter is in every case to be regarded as possessing the capacity for the form, as being potentially the formed matter. Likewise the form has being only in the succession of its material embodiments. Thus Aristotle opposes what he considers to be the Platonic doctrine that real being belongs only to the forms or universals, whose existence is independent of the objects that imperfectly manifest them. On the other hand, against the earlier nature-philosophies that found their explanatory principles in matter, to the neglect of form, Aristotle affirms that matter must be conceived as a locus of determinate potentialities that become actualized only through the activity of forms.
With these principles of matter and form, and the parallel distinction between potential and actual existence, Aristotle claims to have solved the difficulties that earlier thinkers had found in the fact of change. The changes in nature are to be interpreted not as the passage from non-being to being, which would make them unintelligible, but as the process by which what is merely potential being passes over, through form, into actual being, or entelechy. The philosophy of nature which results from these basic concepts views nature as a dynamic realm in which change is real, spontaneous, continuous, and in the main directed. Matter, though indeed capable of form, possesses a residual inertia which on occasion produces accidental effects; so that alongside the teological causation of the forms Aristotle recognizes what he calls "necessity" in nature; but the products of the latter, since they are aberrations from form, cannot be made the object of scientific knowledge.

 

[Felicity]

BTW After having added "successfully" to your challenge...why have you now added the emphasis to "regardless of physical nature" and added "anywhere" to your challenge....???

..if you have to keep changing the question....maybe it HAS already been answered.

 

[Canuck]

Religeous Fanatics,an agenda of mind control,


you dont need religion , religion needs you
stand up and fly right

you want to abort ,abort them beside the evangelims churches go right ahead they got bush into power get them

you dont need religion they need you


most of the bush support is religion
they dont know what they are doing twits

 

[FutureIncoming]

Felicity quoted: "Nor is this union an external or arbitrary one; for the matter is in every case to be regarded as possessing the capacity for the form, as being potentially the formed matter."


I do indeed recognize that the Nature of a human includes the potential as well as the actual. But since the potentials of a fetus are not required to be actualized (because NO potential is required to be actualized), THAT is why I can continue to focus only on the subset of human Nature which a given fetus has actualized, in determining its person-status. So, I repeat what I wrote in Message #542: "However you twist the words, you are still trying to say that a fetus EXISTS WITH traits that it very obviously does not possess. THAT is YOUR fundamental error."


Regarding the edited signature; you yourself indicated that the deleted part (didn't you notice?) "universally applicable" was automatically implied by having a definition. I merely rephrased the thing to more closely match what I originally meant when I first created that signature (accurate when/where applied, that is). I do not consider its essence to be different, therefore.

 

[Felicity]

Felicity quoted: "Nor is this union an external or arbitrary one; for the matter is in every case to be regarded as possessing the capacity for the form, as being potentially the formed matter."


I do indeed recognize that the Nature of a human includes the potential as well as the actual. But since the potentials of a fetus are not required to be actualized (because NO potential is required to be actualized), THAT is why I can continue to focus only on the subset of human Nature which a given fetus has actualized, in determining its person-status. So, I repeat what I wrote in Message #542: "However you twist the words, you are still trying to say that a fetus EXISTS WITH traits that it very obviously does not possess. THAT is YOUR fundamental error."

Then you simply reject the philosophical assertion. It is not an "error"--you just disregard the position, although I'm not sure why...

You say it has to "demonstrate the traits," but the position I'm asserting is that as a being--it does as a whole. It's a way of perceiving the entity you are discussing, and you simply reject that way of looking at the entity.

Regarding the edited signature; you yourself indicated that the deleted part (didn't you notice?) "universally applicable" was automatically implied by having a definition. I merely rephrased the thing to more closely match what I originally meant when I first created that signature (accurate when/where applied, that is). I do not consider its essence to be different, therefore.

No...I didn't notice the deletion... . Still...maybe you should add to the challenge "a definition the fits the world view and philosophical convictions of the poster FutureIncoming" because...since I answered the challenge, but you simply reject the Aristotlelian notion of entelechy....you reject my explanation.

Personaly...I believe there is a theological perspective missing from the TRUTH of all that I have argued here...but as I said...I attempted to avoid that for the sake of secular debate.

Thanks FI...it's been fun.

 

[Fantasea]

Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite wrote: "All of your keystrokes notwithstanding, I haven't yet come across anyone who wasn't able to accurately distinguish persons from animals. Have you?"


Of course. Every time I see somebody picketing an abortion clinic with a denouncing sign, I'm seeing somebody who can't accurately distinguish human persons from human animals.

Human animals? Your attempt to introduce a humorous twist is simply twisted.

That valiant person is there for the purpose of trying to educate those entering and leaving the aboratorium so that they will understand the effect that abortion has on the unborn child involved.

But, you really knew that, didn't you?

 

[steen]

Did you people ever notice that animals don't have abortions? Even if they've been raped? I can explain that very easily. All creatures on this Earth (ALL OF THEM; that means humans as well) exist to keep the species populated. Even God told Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply.

unfortunately, many species reabsorb embryos and even fetuses under stress. Particularly the genus Lepus will do so, but rodents in general do so as well.

And a myriad of species will kill off their young after birth as well.

So your argument doesn't really work here.

That is why I think that abortion is useless. Take an example from our furry, scaly, feathery friends. You can learn alot from nature. ANd we are not so different from them either.

Yes, they abort the embryos and even practice the nature's version of infanticide. Is that what you are glorifying here?

 

[Donkey1499]

unfortunately, many species reabsorb embryos and even fetuses under stress. Particularly the genus Lepus will do so, but rodents in general do so as well.

And a myriad of species will kill off their young after birth as well.

So your argument doesn't really work here.
Yes, they abort the embryos and even practice the nature's version of infanticide. Is that what you are glorifying here?

Thanks fer the hot tip. I didn't know some of that stuff, but I knew that the retarded animals eat their own young. Trust me, I've had a stupid dog that ate her puppies, it was pretty sick so we put her down.

And I don't know about glorifying... I tried that already with the religion discussion and all these secular yahoos did was shoot down my opinions with big scientific words that I don't give 2 hoots about. Imagine that. Smearing my religious beliefs because they don't agree with it. How barbaric...

 

[FutureIncoming]

Felicity wrote: "Then you simply reject the philosophical assertion. It is not an "error"--you just disregard the position, although I'm not sure why...
You say it has to "demonstrate the traits," but the position I'm asserting is that as a being--it does as a whole. It's a way of perceiving the entity you are discussing, and you simply reject that way of looking at the entity."


I just saw a TV program (documentary type) titled "I Am My Own Twin". The anti-abortion crowd REALLY needs to see this show. Google for it. Turns out there are humans walking around with TWO FULL SETS sets of DNA. The explanation is that sometimes in the womb, two separately fertilized eggs merge together, and one human is the result, often very normal. Yes, it is documented that male-DNA and female-DNA cell-clusters can merge, and the result can be the unusual case of a hermaphrodite. There was one lady on the show being threatened with losing her own kids because the DNA in those kids didn't match the DNA in her own blood. In these "chimera" humans, sections of the body develop from one of the original sources of DNA, and other sections develop from the other source of DNA (sometimes with actually visible "seams" in skin coloration). This lady's reproductive system had different DNA in its cells than most of the rest of her body's cells.

Do you see the dilemma for the anti-abortion crowd? They insist that EACH fertilized egg must count as a person! So "obviously" if two merge to form a chimera-human, then that human is really two PERSONS and not just one...even though there is only one physical body standing there in front of you, with just one mind.

Deal with the FACTS. If your "totality of being" thing had validity, then where is the totality of the second being in a chimeric human? The TV show indicated that they have no idea what percentage of the human population is chimeric. I know of one possible clue, though. Did you ever hear of the "Kinsey Report" done 50+ years ago? I understand that they documented something like 10% of newborn babies having blood types incompatible with the official father. Before that TV show, I always thought it was just the result of extramarital sex, but now I wonder about what fraction of that 10% is due to chimerism.


Next, and what I was planning to write before I saw that TV show, you have been saying words to the effect that Personhood is part of human nature, even though you have also indicated (Message #398) that you know that not all humans exhibit the traits indicating Personhood. Well, let's look at a list:

The Nature of God includes the traits of Personhood.
The Nature of Humans includes the traits of Personhood.
The Nature of Klingons includes the traits of Personhood.
The Nature of Wookies includes the traits of Personhood.
The Nature of sufficiently advanced Artificial Intelligences includes the traits of Personhood.
Et cetera. Note how all the REST of the traits of each Nature can be wildly different from each other.
And, finally, the Nature of animals never includes the traits of Personhood.

Now, WHY DO ANY OTHER NATURAL TRAITS MATTER, when all we want to do is identify which organisms are persons and which are animals? We are agreed that just because an organism might be a human, that does not mean it also exhibits the traits of Personhood. "Inherent Nature" is not a reliable guide! And so we are disagreed in that the human should be called a person, regardless. I discussed a specific case in Message #554, regarding "brain-damaged Jed". I want to know why Jed should still be called a person after the brainpower responsible for Personhood has been destroyed -- that is, why you can say that Jed-the-person isn't dead as long as Jed-the-animal lives on. I want to know whether or not you think advanced regeneration technology should be employed, even if we know in advance that the result will be a new person instead of the Original Jed.

Next, I have stated before words to the effect that using Inherent Nature to declare all members of a species to be persons is IMPRACTICAL. Just pretend for a moment that human reproductive biology was K-strategy. Every couple of months, after a two-week pregnancy, every adult woman would give birth to, say, one hundred "grubs", all of which are developed enough to be released into the wild to seek nourishment. Two years later, any survivors instinctively toddle back to their birthplace, seeking the nourishment of knowledge. Well, if they all survived, then every couple of months EVERY WOMAN would have to be prepared to feed an additional one hundred toddlers. This is required by the anti-abortion philosophy. NATURAL philosophy, however, would allow most of the grubs to die in the wild, and one toddler might return to the birthplace every year or two -- very much equivalent, in the end, to our normal R-strategy (a birth every year or two for women not using birth control). In Nature, in the end, both K-strategy and R-strategy yield about the same overall population growth rate. And the Universe is plenty big enough to hold organisms that are Persons who use K-strategy reproduction (giant squids, maybe, without even looking extraterrestrially). The anti-abortion philosophy will require those adult people be told that they have to save their grub/Persons from the dangers of the wild. But managing the consequential hugely-exploding population makes the philosophy wildly impractical. THE POINT IS, IT REALLY ***IS*** IMPRACTICAL TO CLAIM THAT SIGNIFICANTLY UNDEVELOPED ORGANISMS ARE ALWAYS PERSONS, JUST BECAUSE THE ADULTS ARE PERSONS. And an impractical philosophy is a WORTHLESS philosophy. Always has been; always will be. And therefore your "totality of being" definition for Personhood FAILS, because it cannot work everywhere, in all possible cases!

 

[FutureIncoming]

Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite (as proved in Messages #406, #417, and #468) wrote: "I haven't yet come across anyone who wasn't able to accurately distinguish persons from animals. Have you?"


FutureIncoming replied: "Of course. Every time I see somebody picketing an abortion clinic with a denouncing sign, I'm seeing somebody who can't accurately distinguish human persons from human animals."


Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite responded: "Human animals? Your attempt to introduce a humorous twist is simply twisted. That valiant person is there for the purpose of trying to educate those entering and leaving the aboratorium so that they will understand the effect that abortion has on the unborn child involved."


Obviously Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite still holds to the hypocrisy of calling an unborn human a "child". Well, ignoring that, here is some data relevant to the earlier parts of this Message:

1. In Messages such as #344, #400, #405, and #467 (not an exhaustive list), Fantasea The Quibbling Hypcrite has embraced the phrase "biological fact".

2. It is a biological fact that the human body is 100% an animal body.

3. Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite has not, so far as I have been able to recall or find, indicated any test to accurately distinguish persons from animals. Certainly the mere biological fact that the human body is 100% animal does not by itself count as adequate reason to call any human a person. The closed thing I can find to a test is this text, which Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite wrote in Message #291:
"However, here on earth, the child of even the most backward Australian aborigine, African tribesman, or impoverished Asian is far more advanced in every mental respect than any full grown animal or other known life form. Toss in any redneck kid, too, so you will be less likely to complain of discrimination."
But that text, in terms of actual measured biologically factual abilities of humans and animals, is only true if "child" is at least two-and-a-half-to-three years old. NOT unborn.

4. CAN Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite specify what causes mere human animals to qualify as Persons? And, CAN Fantasea the Quibbling Hypocrite show that those qualifiying qualities also exist in unborn humans? We shall SEE whether or not those demonstrators actually know anything about the subject of their complaining!

 

[FutureIncoming]

Felicity wrote: "Personaly...I believe there is a theological perspective missing from the TRUTH of all that I have argued here...but as I said...I attempted to avoid that for the sake of secular debate."


Doesn't matter; the anti-abortion argument fails on religious grounds, also. Just re-read Message #504, if you don't believe me, and answer the question at the end of its longest paragraph (I recommend re-reading that paragraph, of course .

Next, there are various things I've encountered during various Googlings, and some of them are Biblical things relevant to the abortion issue. Yes, I know that the Bible is often used for both sides of practically any argument. So? Do you even know about these items? Therefore....

****
THERE ARE ONLY TWO passages in the Bible that speak directly to the issue of abortion, and both indicate unequivocally that abortion is not murder:

• In Ex. 21:22-25, God tells us what to do if a man who is brawling knocks against a pregnant woman. If the woman dies, the principle of "life for life" is invoked and the man responsible for her death must be killed. If she lives but has a miscarriage, then the death of the fetus is to be compensated for by the payment of a fine, as demanded by the woman’s husband.

Thus has God revealed the status of the unborn fetus: it is not an independent, full-fledged human life, whose destruction amounts to murder. It is a thing owned by the woman’s husband—a thing whose loss, like that of any other thing, may be compensated for with money.

• In Num. 5:11-31, God commands a husband to get an abortion for his wife if he suspects she has been impregnated by another man. A priest is to make her drink a potion and tell her, "If any man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, may the LORD make an example of you . . . by bringing upon you miscarriage and untimely birth."

To deliberately cause a miscarriage is to perform an abortion. And who brings about this miscarriage? Who performs this abortion? It is the LORD who does so. God is an abortionist.

THOSE INTENT ON MISCONSTRUING the Bible for political ends will no doubt persist in denying the facts. But it is time for these anti-abortion zealots to admit that their position contradicts God’s moral law as revealed in the Bible. They should stop misrepresenting the biblical truth.
****


{Regarding "owned by the woman's husband" -- well, times change!}

There are, perhaps you know, religion-oriented organizations that are pro-choice. That ought to mean they think that have as much Biblical reason for their point of view as the pro-life people have for their point of view. If you want to check one of them out, with lots of "position papers", here: http://www.rcrc.org/about/index.htm
And here is one single page that is rather, um, indignant?, of the pro-life crowd: http://www.postfun.com/pfp/blasphemy.html

 

[Felicity]

****
THERE ARE ONLY TWO passages in the Bible that speak directly to the issue of abortion, and both indicate unequivocally that abortion is not murder:

The best answer to this was given on another forum I visit called Catholic Answers. It was provided by a poster called Bible Reader and I found it VERY interesting.

Posted by BibleReader:

Most think, "How could the Bible possibly condemn contraceptive use, if it was written thousands of years ago, and contraceptives weren't invented until our era?"

In fact, around 500 B.C., North Africans discovered silphium. It is not the same "silphium" commercially available today. The silphium of North Africa was a fennel-like plant, which grew wild in North Africa -- nobody ever figured out how to cultivate it. Orally imbibed as a tea, it completely disrupted the girl's reproductive tract. It was a very successful contraceptive. Around 400 A.D., the last silphium plant was picked, and the species became extinct.

Remember "Simon of Cyrene" who helped Christ carry the cross in the gospels? Well, Cyrene, Libya, was the main point of export for silphium. In the centuries before Christ, Cyrene even minted a coin featuring a naked girl holding up a fennel plant and pointing to her genital region.

Other popular and somewhat successful contraceptive herbs used before and after Christ were asafoetida, and what we today refer to as Queen Anne's Lace, and pennyroyal. Asafoetida is still sometimes used as an ingredient in Worcestershire saurce. (Please do not go out and brew your own contraceptive teas or drink a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. You don't know enough about quantity.)

All of these contraceptive preparations game to be referred to with the euphemism pharmakeia in the Greek-speaking Roman Empire -- "drugs."

All of this is well-discussed in the March/April, 1994 issue of Archaeology magazine.

The main retailers of pharmakeia in the Roman Empire were sorcerers! -- palm readers, tea leaf readers, and so on.

The local teaveling sorcerer would come into town. The local promiscuous girls would go running to the sorcerer to ask about his or her latest love prospects. The reader would give the usual vague optimistic answer, and then after charging for her reading would open up her box of contraceptive teas, and make some more money selling these.

As a consequence, contraceptives also came to be referred to with the appellation "sorcery," meaning "sorcerer's stuff." Contraceptive curses -- incantations meant to avert conception -- were referred to with the word magiae, "magic."

The reason why you had to read all of that is to understand the exact meaning of a catechetical summary employed in the early Church -- very shgortly after the time of the Apostles -- called the Didache.

Didache 2:2 condemns (1) magiae; (2) pharmakeia; (3) abortion; and (4) infanticide.

Do you see what is going on there? Progressively-invasive anti-reproductive measuresare being condemned -- reproductive curses, contraceptive chemicals, post-contraceptive abortions, and post-birth child killing.

So, the Didache, essentially written in the same era as Paul's letter to the Galatians and as the Book of Revelation, is a reliable benchmark assuring us that when pharmakeia were condemned by Early Church Christians, use of contraceptives was being condemned.

Continued next post...

 

[Felicity]

...continuation of post of Bible Reader from other forum:

A letter by Pope Clement also condemned use of pharmakeia.

Pharmakeus were users or sellers of pharmakeia.

Okay, here are the 4 Bible verses, 3 of which condemn the persons connected to the pharmakeia use to Hell. They, of course, are found in Galatians and Revelation.

19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery [pharmakeia], hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, 21 occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5:19-21.

21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic potions [pharmakeia], their unchastity, or their robberies. Revelation 9:21. 8

But as for cowards, the unfaithful, the depraved, murderers, the unchaste, sorcerers [pharmakeus], idol-worshipers, and deceivers of every sort, their lot is in the burning pool of fire and sulfur, which is the second death." Revelation 21:8.

15 Outside [the Heavenly City] are the dogs, the sorcerers [pharmakeus], the unchaste, the murderers, the idol-worshipers, and all who love and practice deceit. Revelation 22:15.

In the Galatians verse, "idolatry" is thought to be a reference to sexual rites in Gnostic temples. In Revelation 22:15, "dogs" is thought to be a snide reference to one of the common sex positions of male homosexuals. So, in every case, note well that the pharmakeia term is paired-up with sex sin...


Galatians 5:19-20: impurity, licentiousness,
20 idolatry, sorcery [pharmakeia],

Revelation 9:21: their magic potions [pharmakeia], their unchastity,

Revelation 21:8: the unchaste, sorcerers [pharmakeus],

Revelation 22:15: dogs, the sorcerers [pharmakeus], the unchaste,

Why did the Catholic translators not use "contraceptives" and "contraceptive users" as their English translation?

Because none of the Greek vocabularies they employ for their translations do that.

In any event, there is very little doubt that the New Testament very, very, very nastily condemns contraceptive use. The language of the Didache locks-in the identification of the meaning of the term.

 

[FutureIncoming]

To Felicity:
Regarding the Didache, please refer back to the stuff I wrote about preachers in Message #499. That is, just because the preachers say something is so, why should they be believed -- especially when they obviously personally benefit from the things they say are so?

Also, I'd like to see what you have to say about Message #572

 

[Felicity]

To Felicity:
Regarding the Didache, please refer back to the stuff I wrote about preachers in Message #499. That is, just because the preachers say something is so, why should they be believed -- especially when they obviously personally benefit from the things they say are so?

Quite a big orbit you're making here....

 

[steen]

Quite a big orbit you're making here....

Not really. FI certainly is right in questioning why you find this didache thing to somehow be an authority!

 

[Felicity]

Not really. FI certainly is right in questioning why you find this didache thing to somehow be an authority!

Stick with moles, steen, you know more about them....er....maybe not.... http://www.debatepolitics.com/showthread.php?t=4520

 

[Felicity]

FI--you referenced the Bible...the Didache is pre-Bible Christianity.

 

[Fantasea]

Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite (as proved in Messages #406, #417, and #468) wrote: "I haven't yet come across anyone who wasn't able to accurately distinguish persons from animals. Have you?"


FutureIncoming replied: "Of course. Every time I see somebody picketing an abortion clinic with a denouncing sign, I'm seeing somebody who can't accurately distinguish human persons from human animals."


Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite responded: "Human animals? Your attempt to introduce a humorous twist is simply twisted. That valiant person is there for the purpose of trying to educate those entering and leaving the aboratorium so that they will understand the effect that abortion has on the unborn child involved."


Obviously Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite still holds to the hypocrisy of calling an unborn human a "child". Well, ignoring that, here is some data relevant to the earlier parts of this Message:

1. In Messages such as #344, #400, #405, and #467 (not an exhaustive list), Fantasea The Quibbling Hypcrite has embraced the phrase "biological fact".

2. It is a biological fact that the human body is 100% an animal body.

3. Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite has not, so far as I have been able to recall or find, indicated any test to accurately distinguish persons from animals. Certainly the mere biological fact that the human body is 100% animal does not by itself count as adequate reason to call any human a person. The closed thing I can find to a test is this text, which Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite wrote in Message #291:
"However, here on earth, the child of even the most backward Australian aborigine, African tribesman, or impoverished Asian is far more advanced in every mental respect than any full grown animal or other known life form. Toss in any redneck kid, too, so you will be less likely to complain of discrimination."
But that text, in terms of actual measured biologically factual abilities of humans and animals, is only true if "child" is at least two-and-a-half-to-three years old. NOT unborn.

4. CAN Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite specify what causes mere human animals to qualify as Persons? And, CAN Fantasea the Quibbling Hypocrite show that those qualifiying qualities also exist in unborn humans? We shall SEE whether or not those demonstrators actually know anything about the subject of their complaining!

You won't like the source, but you can't refute their statements.

October 12, 2005

Association of Prolife Physicians​

Primum non nocere - - - - - First do no harm​

When Does Human Life Begin?​

Contrary to popular belief, there is a tremendous consensus in the scientific community about when life begins. This is hardly controversial. If the claim were made that life was discovered on another planet, for example, there are well-defined criteria to which we could refer to conclusively determine whether the claim was accurate. How do scientists distinguish between life and non-life?

A scientific textbook called “Basics of Biology” gives five characteristics of living things; these five criteria are found in all modern elementary scientific textbooks:

1. Living things are highly organized.

2. All living things have an ability to acquire materials and energy.

3. All living things have an ability to respond to their environment.

4. All living things have an ability to reproduce.

5. All living things have an ability to adapt.

According to this elementary definition of life, life begins at conception, when a sperm unites with an oocyte (life created through cloning excepted). From this moment, the being is highly organized, has the ability to acquire materials and energy, has the ability to respond to his or her environment, has the ability to adapt, and has the ability to reproduce (the cells divide, then divide again, etc., and barring pathology and pending reproductive maturity has the potential to reproduce other members of the species). Non-living things do not do these things. Even before the mother is aware that she is pregnant, a distinct life has begun to live inside her.

Furthermore, that life is unquestionably human. A human being is a member of the species homo sapiens. Human beings are products of conception, which is when a human male sperm unites with a human female oocyte (egg). When humans procreate, they don’t make non-humans like slugs, monkeys, cactuses, bacteria, or any such thing. Emperically-verifable proof is as close as your nearest abortion clinic: send a sample of an aborted fetus to a laboratory and have them test the DNA to see if its human or not. Genetically, a new human being comes into existence from the earliest moment of conception.

Genetically and biologically, from the moment of conception this new human being is not a part of the mother’s body. Since when does a mother’s body have male genitals, two brains, four kidneys? The preborn human being may be dependent upon the mother for nutrition, but this does not diminish his or her humanity, but proves it. Moreover, dependence upon a parent for survival is not a capital crime.

At the average time when a woman is aware that she is pregnant (the fifth to sixth week after conception), the preborn human being living inside her is metabolizing nutrition, excreting waste, moving, growing, and doing many other things that non-living things just do not do. Furthermore, at 21 days after conception, the baby’s heart has begun to beat his or her own unique blood-type, often different than the mother’s. (Moore & Persaud, The Developing Human, p.310; Nilsson & Hamberger, A Child is Born, p.86; Rugh & Shettles, From Conception to Birth, p.217.) At 40 days after conception, brain waves can be read on an EEG, or an electroencephalogram. (Dr. Hannibal Hamlin, Life or Death by EEG, JAMA, Oct.12, 1964, p.113.) Medical science already refers to a spontaneous heart rhythm and the presence of brain waves to determine whether someone is alive at the other spectrum of human existence. In simplistic terms, if an organ donor is in an automobile accident and is on life support in a hospital, the physician cannot “pull the plug” and scavenge his organs unless the patient is “brain dead” and his heart is not beating on its own. If the medical community maintained consistency with this generally-accepted medical definition of human life, then we would condemn every abortion after the time when the average woman discovers she is pregnant. Every abortion, by the generally-accepted standards of medical science, kills an innocent human life.

One of the most amazing photographs I have ever seen is of a surgery being performed on a 21 week-old fetus named Samuel Armas. The boy is having surgery performed in utero for his spina bifida. In the photograph, the unconscious boy’s hand is poking through the surgical incision in the uterus and is resting on the finger of the surgeon. You can see the photo at http://www.lava.net/~higak/chain/other/babysamuel.htm. The picture paints a thousand words that my mere words cannot match, but allow me to draw attention to the fact that the surgeon is performing surgery on one living human being who is residing in the womb of another living human being.

“Yeah,” the pro-choice attorney rebuts, “but is it a person?”

In Roe vs. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun noted, “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 (Fourteenth) Amendment.” Proving the humanity and vitality of the preborn human being wasn’t enough for Justice Blackmun; “the suggestion of personhood” must be established for the right of the fetus to live to prevail over the right of the pregnant woman to get an abortion.

According to Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, a person is “a human being.” Attempts to render an entire class of human beings as “non-persons” based upon arbitrary qualities such as age and place of residence in order to discriminate against them is intrinsically immoral and unjust, akin to the Nazis’ attempts to render Jews “non-humans” or the colonial slaveowners’ attempts to make African Americans “property”. As a matter of fact, Justice Blackmun’s wording is strikingly similar to the wording of the Supreme Court of 1857, which ruled that Dred Scott, a black slave, was not a “person” with rights but the “property” of his master (http://www.conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=1386). As our nation’s founding documents make clear, the right to life is God-given and inalienable. The right to live cannot be legitimately usurped by men. No man, no government has the right to deprive one of life or liberty without due process of law, regardless of skin color, age, stage of development, level of dependence upon others for survival, or place of residence.

Abortion is the killing of an innocent person......

 

[FutureIncoming]

Felicity wrote: "FI--you referenced the Bible...the Didache is pre-Bible Christianity."


SO? I repeat: "just because the preachers say something is so, why should they be believed -- especially when they obviously personally benefit from the things they say are so?"

WHEN they said it doesn't matter at all.

 

[FutureIncoming]

In response to FutureIncoming's questions: "CAN Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite specify what causes mere human animals to qualify as Persons? And, CAN Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite show that those qualifiying qualities also exist in unborn humans?", Fantasea The Quibbling Hypocrite posted the text of this web page: http://www.prolifephysicians.org/lifebegins.htm

There ARE some things on that page that are questionable. For example, this statement: "Since when does a mother’s body have male genitals, two brains, four kidneys?" references the norm, but having learned about hermaphroditic chimeric humans (see Message #572), as well as knowing for a long time about conjoined twins, I'd say that such a mother may be possible.

Nevertheless, the first several paragraphs of the quoted page have nothing to do with the questions quoted at the start of this Message. EXCEPT for this: "If the claim were made that life was discovered on another planet, for example, there are well-defined criteria to which we could refer to conclusively determine whether the claim was accurate. How do scientists distinguish between life and non-life?"

The author of the text clearly wants to describe "life" from the broadest perspective. BUT, after the author of the text presents this statement:
"'Yeah,' the pro-choice attorney rebuts, 'but is it a person?' '"
--the author FAILS to consider the broadest perspective, such as by writing text like this:
"If the claim were made that persons were discovered on another planet, for example, there are well-defined criteria to which we could refer to conclusively determine whether the claim was accurate. How do scientists distinguish between persons and non-persons?"

WHY? The obvious answer is that there AREN'T well-definied criteria for scientifically identifying "persons" on another planet. So, why doesn't the author even TRY to offer such criteria? Apparently the answer is, the author CANNOT supply criteria that support the conclusion that the author is trying to reach!

And therefore the author cops out and references a non-scientific dictionary definition: "According to Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, a person is “a human being.” " THAT DOES NOT WORK VERY WELL FOR IDENTIFYING ALL POSSIBLE PERSONS ON OTHER PLANETS. (And maybe not even on Earth, if giant squids qualify, as discussed in Messge #423.)

And so, with the science in that overall Web Page devolving into the mere conventional human-centric opinion of a dictionary, the conclusion is worthless, relative to the broad perspective, in which humans often claim things that are not broad at all.

Got any more reasons why "abortion is wrong"? I will be happy to demolish them just as easily.

 

[Felicity]

Felicity wrote: "FI--you referenced the Bible...the Didache is pre-Bible Christianity."


SO? I repeat: "just because the preachers say something is so, why should they be believed -- especially when they obviously personally benefit from the things they say are so?"

WHEN they said it doesn't matter at all.

Wait a minute...you spoke of contraception being in the Bible only twice and because of that evidenced that there was little religion had to say on the topic....I reference Scripture and the tradition that eventually compiled the canon, and you say..."so?".....

Huh? How does Scripture stand seperate from the tradition in which it was confirmed? It doesn't....the Bible did not drop fully formed, gold-leafed, and leather-bound from the almighty hand of God. It developed in the traditions of the peoples who wrote them. Ergo...if it's a good enough source for you, it's a good enough source for me.