Clump of Cells

NoMereRanger said:

That's honest of you to say so, at least we can work from the premise of "some humans are more equal than others." My interest lies in what scientifically separates "unborn" from "born" in terms of assigned importance. Scientifically there seems to be very little difference between a baby about to be born and one that has just been born, apart from one is in a uterus and the other isn't.

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Some are, demonstrably. When you are incapable of exercising a single right independently, you are not equal to born people. When your physiology is completely intertwined with another's, you are not equal.

Did you have any answers to this post (94) that addressed this topic?


Why? Science is objective, it applies no value.

Law can be subjective, it does apply value. The very declaration that all 'men' are equal is subjective. Later, SCOTUS examined blacks and then women and determined they/we are equal and recognized our rights. Later, they did the same thing for the unborn and decided they were not equal. The criteria are not all based on having human DNA. That's just part of it.

What new or additional legal basis would you recommend to SCOTUS to reconsider their decision re: the unborn? Keeping in mind that the Constitution and their previous rulings still demand that they protect women's rights.

So continually demanding that we consider something 'equal' just because it has human DNA is not the only basis for personhood or equality or rights.

Is there a reason you have not responded directly to this, which I've posted to you? It does address, among a couple of other things, the physiological aspects:

The unborn has no rights that can be separated from the mother (physically, legally, ethically, practically). It's a dependency that truly demonstrates that it is not equal.

They do not have a single right that they can exercise independently.

The unborn's complete physiology is intertwined with the mother, and it cannot be separated or it dies. OTOH, the mother's physiology is independent and she can survive on her own. When slaves were freed and their rights recognized, they could immediately exercise them. The unborn, even if it had rights, cannot exercise any.

It's not that someone else can just 'take care of the unborn' because they cant. It's not an infant you can hand off.

NoMereRanger said:

So here's an argument that I would like to expound on: One of the more common pro arguments that I hear is "It's just a clump of cells up until X number of weeks." But aren't we all, strictly speaking, just clumps of cells? Aren't all living things just cells made up of molecules and atoms? What makes me a more human clump of cells than the 12 week old clump of cells? Hoping for some scientific insight into this.

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We don't need to apply science. A fetus is an existential threat to the sentient clump of cells with a pre-existing right to self defense that hosts it. There's the only justification anyone needs to be pro choice.

NoMereRanger said:

So here's an argument that I would like to expound on: One of the more common pro arguments that I hear is "It's just a clump of cells up until X number of weeks." But aren't we all, strictly speaking, just clumps of cells? Aren't all living things just cells made up of molecules and atoms? What makes me a more human clump of cells than the 12 week old clump of cells? Hoping for some scientific insight into this.

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Not this stupid **** again. you really aren't expounding on anything here. Lets take a comparative scenario. You have someone who is brain dead. They are just a bag of bones that is being kept alive artificially, not brain. That is no longer a person, and its acceptable to pull the plug and let that person die. An embryo/fetus doesn't think, feel or breath. So they never complete development and are born. There is no suffering. In fact, naturally so many of these embryos never implant, never make it to birth.

another comparative, we kill animals, often inhumanely, that actually think and feel, the animal suffers. People have no problem doing that. many have no problem inflicting pain and abuse on them as well. An undeveloped embryo/fetus is not suffering when aborted, it doesn't even know it exists. In fact, it is less aware than an animals. Just because it is an undeveloped human means nothing, which is the standard deflections when this is mentioned

NoMereRanger said:

So here's an argument that I would like to expound on: One of the more common pro arguments that I hear is "It's just a clump of cells up until X number of weeks." But aren't we all, strictly speaking, just clumps of cells? Aren't all living things just cells made up of molecules and atoms? What makes me a more human clump of cells than the 12 week old clump of cells? Hoping for some scientific insight into this.

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We are a clump of cells or we aren't. Who cares because it is completely irrelevant.

Women have the right to bodily autonomy. If they do not want to be pregnant then they can abort. Deal with it.

NoMereRanger said:

And the toddler outside the mother takes nutrients, time, money, patience, space and a million other things from its mother. Why does receiving aid from within the body make a fetus any less human than if it's receiving aid from outside? What is your scientific basis for this claim? But we've already established that the fetus can survive early birth after a certain point even if it hasn't completed its full developmental process yet. So if it comes out early, is the clump of cells now magically a human despite being early or how does that work?

From what I've read, the fetus pain claim is at least in favor of "yes" to pain, depending on which sources you read(which goes both ways). So let's say, again for the sake of argument, that it does feel pain or at least that there's a very good chance it does. The main concern is not that it is in pain, necessarily, the implication is that there is already some semblance of human awareness at work here. If we are not certain that the fetus does not feel pain, or even if it's actually human or not, wouldn't that be a grave consideration to take into account? Wouldn't it be better to err on the side of caution?

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At the end of the day, though, a woman has the right to decide what is happening or not happening in her own uterus. Nobody, not you or me or crusty old white guys in Congress, has the right to tell a woman what is allowed to happen in her body. I understand your, and many others', moral objection to abortion; personally, I don't know that I would get an abortion in the case of an unwanted pregnancy. However, your morals don't trump a woman's autonomy. The key part of "pro-choice" is the part about choice. It's giving the woman the right to decide what she believes is moral/immoral and to decide what is best for her. In the end, the woman may agree with you, choose to err on the side of caution, and carry out her pregnancy full term. Or, she may decide to undergo an abortion. That said, there is no definitive time at which a fetus becomes capable of feeling pain. And would feeling pain be the defining factor for whether or not an organism is human? If so, would every fetus be tested for reaction to pain in order to determine whether an abortion is moral or not?

And to answer one of your other questions: yes, in my personal opinion, I believe birth is when a clump of cells can be considered human. Birth is when the clump of cells becomes autonomous. The clump of cells we so affectionately call a baby is no longer entirely physically reliant on its mother. Until this separation occurs, the mother has full control over the clump of cells in her body. Independence should be the defining factor on the question of humanity.