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Started By
Message
re: Abortion from an INDEPENDENT woman’s perspective
Posted on 9/3/24 at 9:47 am to TigerChick2018
Posted on 9/3/24 at 9:47 am to TigerChick2018
Bravo that is a great answer. My wife probably would agree 100 percent with your answer. She is a republican is pro life but your answers pretty much match her stance when it comes to abortion.
This post was edited on 9/3/24 at 11:34 am
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Posted on 9/3/24 at 11:11 am to FooManChoo
quote:
Biologically it is a human life, no
What is the one thing that separates higher life from basic life?
Self-awareness. Until self-awareness is achieved, a life form is still a basic life form. Clumps of cells are life, we can agree. Until those clumps of cells are aware that they are indeed life, they are not human. They have to potential to be, but are not.
An egg is alive. Sperm is alive. Every cell in your body is alive (this is scientific fact and if we are going to use biology's definitions we must use all scientific definitions) Are they humans? No. They are not. Together they make a human.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 1:07 pm to UtahCajun
Great post. I’m not so certain I agree with the way you phrased it, we do agree in principal.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 1:45 pm to UtahCajun
quote:A baby isn't "self aware" for months after birth. By this standard, killing a 3 month old should be fine, right? There are times in a well developed human's life where they are lacking in self awareness, even temporarily. A person with different forms of dementia have varying degrees of awareness about anything. Is this the standard you want to use to determine when we are free to put a bullet between someone's eyes?
What is the one thing that separates higher life from basic life?
Self-awareness. Until self-awareness is achieved, a life form is still a basic life form.
quote:Sperm is biologically connected to the male. Eggs are biologically connected to the female. They, by themselves, do not have characteristics of life apart from the humans they are produced by and reside within. An egg fertilized by sperm produces a developing human offspring that is uniquely distinct from both the male and female that produced it. It is fundamentally different than the egg and sperm that produced it, and it is fundamentally different than skin cells that "live" and "die" but are not uniquely distinct from the human that produces them. My skin cells are my skin cells and they will never change into cells that are different from my skin. They are not "persons", but are parts of me, as a person. My sperm is produced by me and will never grow and mature into anything other than sperm cells on their own. It's only through the combination of fertilization that my sperm cells contribute towards a distinct living organism that is biologically unique from the sperm that produced it and grows into a human person if left on its own.
Clumps of cells are life, we can agree. Until those clumps of cells are aware that they are indeed life, they are not human. They have to potential to be, but are not.
An egg is alive. Sperm is alive. Every cell in your body is alive (this is scientific fact and if we are going to use biology's definitions we must use all scientific definitions) Are they humans? No. They are not. Together they make a human.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you think that any living human being that is lacking is self-awareness is fair game for being killed, and that a biologically unique human child in the womb is no different than skin cells flaking off my arm on a dry, winter day. Do I have that right?
ETA:
I should add that no one is trying to prevent a person from having autonomy over their own bodies in this discussion; abortion is about one person (the mother) having autonomy over another person (the child). I'm not proposing men have sperm extracted from them against their will (I'm in favor of castration in the case of proven rape, though, but that's different due to the crime committed) and I'm not proposing women can have their eggs harvested against their will. The discussion is about a human child that has formed by the combination of both the egg and the sperm which is constantly developing.
This post was edited on 9/3/24 at 2:12 pm
Posted on 9/3/24 at 1:47 pm to UtahCajun
quote:
Until those clumps of cells are aware that they are indeed life, they are not human.
Dolphins, chimps, elephants, orangutans, orcas, and I'm pretty sure even some bird species like magpies are self aware.
Are they all human too?
quote:
Together they make a human.
Sperm and egg cells themselves are part of a larger multicellular organism. Even though they are single cells, you cannot compare them to a single celled organism in that manner.
Sperm and egg are apart of the organism that produced them, a zygote is it's own organism, seperate from the mother/father.
This post was edited on 9/3/24 at 1:50 pm
Posted on 9/3/24 at 1:57 pm to UtahCajun
quote:
Self-awareness. Until self-awareness is achieved, a life form is still a basic life form. Clumps of cells are life, we can agree. Until those clumps of cells are aware that they are indeed life, they are not human. They have to potential to be, but are not.
I'd argue that it isn't self awareness but threshold for pain.
A child is not self aware for weeks after birth.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 2:07 pm to FooManChoo
quote:
A baby isn't "self aware" for months after birth. By this standard, killing a 3 month old should be fine, right? There are times in a well developed human's life where they are lacking in self awareness, even temporarily. A person with different forms of dementia have varying degrees of awareness about anything. Is this the standard you want to use to determine when we are free to put a bullet between someone's eyes
I am not sure you understand "self awareness". This comes from the development of the cerebal cortex. Cortical development allows a fetus to know that it is indeed alive at about 3 months of pregancy and is why almost all fetuses after this time frame stuggle to survive the abortion process. They are aware of what is happening. This is why most developed countries do not allow abortion after the 3rd month. tUSA was an anomoly in this. Allowing for late term and partial birth is abhorant and all other nations agreed upon this.
My father is very late term dementia. He is still aware that he is indeed alive. That is all self-awareness is. The knowing that you are. The desire to continue being.
Your arguement about the sperm and egg is agreeable, but doesn't really address what I stated. Yes, the zygote is different from the cells that produced it, but it has no conscience.
quote:
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you think that any living human being that is lacking is self-awareness is fair game for being killed, and that a biologically unique human child in the womb is no different than skin cells flaking off my arm on a dry, winter day. Do I have that right
You are wrong. That is in no way my argument or stance.
Look, we use biologists views about when life starts. I agree with this. It starts at conception. If you use this as an argument, you must also be aware that these same biologists say humanity (the act of being human) does not start until awareness (conscience) begins.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 2:10 pm to Azkiger
quote:
Dolphins, chimps, elephants, orangutans, orcas, and I'm pretty sure even some bird species like magpies are self aware.
Are they all human too
Most things we call animals are self-aware. They know they are alive and struggle to stay alive. I believe I said that when I said "higher life form". Even an ant struggles to survive when you try to kill it.
This post was edited on 9/3/24 at 2:21 pm
Posted on 9/3/24 at 2:11 pm to bbvdd
quote:
A child is not self aware for weeks after birth
They actually are aware in the womb. If they were not aware at birth, they would not feel hunger, yet they cry when they feel it.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 2:13 pm to UtahCajun
IMO, the POTENTIAL for life begins when the sperm enters the egg.
I do not believe pregnancy begins until the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall. That’s about 10 days AFTER ovulation begins.
Plenty of time for the morning after pill to prevent pregnancy.
I do not believe pregnancy begins until the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall. That’s about 10 days AFTER ovulation begins.
Plenty of time for the morning after pill to prevent pregnancy.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 2:51 pm to UtahCajun
quote:Sorry but a 3 month old "fetus" doesn't know that it is anything, much less that it is alive. It can certainly begin to experience sensation and be stimulated, but that is not the same thing as self awareness. A sleeping man may instinctively twitch or move in response to certain sensations but he has no idea that anything is happening on a conscious level.
I am not sure you understand "self awareness". This comes from the development of the cerebal cortex. Cortical development allows a fetus to know that it is indeed alive at about 3 months of pregancy and is why almost all fetuses after this time frame stuggle to survive the abortion process. They are aware of what is happening. This is why most developed countries do not allow abortion after the 3rd month. tUSA was an anomoly in this. Allowing for late term and partial birth is abhorant and all other nations agreed upon this.
There are actually different stages of self awareness, usually being tested with a mirror. Newborns have an extremely basic level of awareness with no experience and understanding to know what that awareness is or means. They can differentiative between their own touch and the touch of their mother, for instance, but don't really "know" what they are in relation to their mother. At 2-3 months, they start to become aware of the space around them and begin to interact with it in some sort of real sense of learning, however it's not until about 18 months that children actually are able to pass the mirror test and realize that the image in the mirror represents themselves, not just something different from the things outside the mirror or the things even inside the mirror.
Before 18 months, children typically don't even know what they are and are simply responding to their surroundings instinctively. That's not self awareness.
If your standard is mere responsiveness to external stimuli, then that's something different altogether from self awareness. Some animals like frogs actually can physically respond to stimuli for a time after they die. That doesn't mean they are self aware.
quote:While I'm sorry to hear about that with your father, like I said, dementia causes different levels of awareness. Some very advanced stages can actually cause a person to have difficulty in knowing who they even are. The same is true for some other brain diseases and injuries that impair self awareness to varying degrees.
My father is very late term dementia. He is still aware that he is indeed alive. That is all self-awareness is. The knowing that you are. The desire to continue being.
Just as self awareness comes on in stages, it can be lost in stages. What it seems you're saying is that only a basic awareness of anything, represented by response to stimuli, is enough to count for a human life. Am I understanding that correctly?
quote:Again, consciousness develops over time and in vary degrees, and it can exist to varying degrees over the course of life. I fail to see why this standard should be the standard for determining when a person is alive, nor how we can use it consistently in other human contexts.
Your arguement about the sperm and egg is agreeable, but doesn't really address what I stated. Yes, the zygote is different from the cells that produced it, but it has no conscience.
quote:I get that argument entirely, but while physical development is pretty straight forward and can be observed, consciousness and self awareness are a little on the "soft" side of science as it is touching on immaterial concepts rather than material (physical) ones.
You are wrong. That is in no way my argument or stance.
Look, we use biologists views about when life starts. I agree with this. It starts at conception. If you use this as an argument, you must also be aware that these same biologists say humanity (the act of being human) does not start until awareness (conscience) begins.
If someone is asleep, they may be temporarily lacking any and all awareness, even of their own selves, and so self awareness may not be enough to hang your hat on. Perhaps you need to move to the standard of capacity for self awareness, where a person may not be aware in this moment, but they could be aware in the next because they have the ability to be aware (let's say that while they may be asleep right now, they could wake up). But this would also disqualify people with severe brain injuries who don't know who they are or who anyone else is from being a living human being even if they have a heartbeat. We still to this day wrestle with the question of whether or not a completely brain dead individual on life support is truly "alive". This definition you are using seems to leave no doubt that if a person has not even the capacity for true self awareness then they aren't really a living human being (though I'm not sure what else they could be if they are technically alive and they are of the human species). At least with a developing child, we can have high confidence that they will eventually develop self awareness where a braindead individual likely will not regain it.
At the end of the day, whatever standard is used must be logically consistent and be able to apply to all human beings at varying degrees of development and existence.
This post was edited on 9/3/24 at 3:13 pm
Posted on 9/3/24 at 2:58 pm to UtahCajun
quote:
Most things we call animals are self-aware. They know they are alive and struggle to stay alive. I believe I said that when I said "higher life form". Even an ant struggles to survive when you try to kill it.
That's not what self-aware means. And besides, that was the criteria you used. If it's not a good criteria, blame yourself for attempting to set it.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 3:22 pm to TigerChick2018
Or everyone take a loss on the issue and come up with a 12-16 week law and leave this horrific issue to the trash in of history.
Posted on 9/3/24 at 3:27 pm to Hayekian serf
quote:If only that were sufficient when talking about the taking of human life.
Or everyone take a loss on the issue and come up with a 12-16 week law and leave this horrific issue to the trash in of history.
Posted on 9/4/24 at 3:31 am to UtahCajun
quote:
"self awareness". This comes from the development . . .
Why is self-awareness or sentience or consciousness the threshold for person-hood? This is a matter of development (as you note) and seems arbitrary as would defining person-hoof in terms of development along other stages.
Consciousness comes in degrees and can differ from person to person. So how conscious do we have to be before it’s wrong to kill us?
I have a friend who was the victim of a hit-n-run on I-10 in east NOLA. She has zero recall of the incident. She did not know that she 'was' as the time. She does have a picture of the imprint left in her fender when she was knocked into it. Fortunately, she was taken to a hospital, not a morgue.
No one will ever develop human-consciousness (cerebral cortex) without already being a human in the first place. It takes a person to do that.
quote:
Look, we use biologists views about when life starts.
Yes, but not only biology, so does theology (revelation) and philosophy.
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