*edit*
By the way, on a tangential note, if I could cut off an arm and grow it into another me, I would consider it to be me and I would continue to cut off more arms to make more me's. With more hands, brains, eyes, and ears, imagine what I could accomplish! Imagine the wonders I could create when functioning as a collective unit.
The point others are trying to make i believe, is that each one of you would think differently. Unless you are a zergling, each human you created from you would think and function independantly, Unless of course and i dont have enough biological knowledge to know, your brains were all the exact same and thought the exact same because you were the same person. I know twins dont think the same, and there are twins that are smarter than their twin, so who knows??
Media is not making me steal. But in a way is like the story of the very hot girl with the short skirt teasing the old sick guy with a history of rape.
If the fetus is a living human being, this is irrelevant. The mother's convenience is not of greater importance than the life of a living human being. Is an unborn child, then, a living human being? In all ways that I can tell, yes, it is.
i almost agree. but this is why abortion past a specific trimester is illegal. because by then the fetus has started to develop more of the qualities of a seperate living human being. which is why if a pregnant mother is in a car wreck and dies, it's ruled as two deaths (her and the baby), not just one. but up to a certain point, i don't believe that it's a living human being. it's barely a fetus. it's a group of cells that will eventually become a human being.
i almost agree. but this is why abortion past a specific trimester is illegal. because by then the fetus has started to develop more of the qualities of a seperate living human being. which is why if a pregnant mother is in a car wreck and dies, it's ruled as two deaths (her and the baby), not just one. but up to a certain point, i don't believe that it's a living human being. it's barely a fetus. it's a group of cells that will eventually become a human being.
calibretto
What criteria for a living human being does it fail to meet?
*edit*
By the way, on a tangential note, if I could cut off an arm and grow it into another me, I would consider it to be me and I would continue to cut off more arms to make more me's. With more hands, brains, eyes, and ears, imagine what I could accomplish! Imagine the wonders I could create when functioning as a collective unit.
Then would that allow me to legally and morally end your (non-arm created) life? If your answer is yes, then there's really no reason to continue this.
@calibretto: Actually, if a barely pregnant woman is killed, it counts as double-homicide. There is a horrible double-standard, where if a woman kills her child (abortion) it never was human, whereas if someone else kills it (even if the woman was on her way to get said abortion), then it is a child.
@atog: The Christians you talk about believe that abortion is murder. Just like the government steps up to stop murder, those Christians step up to stop abortion. If it is in fact a child, it's everyone's business.
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What criteria for a living human being does it fail to meet?
i wouldn't consider a fertilized egg a human being. would you consider yourself a human being? of course. so now, on that same note would you consider yourself a fertilized egg, or even a fetus? no... it's not the same thing at all. killing a human and having an abortion are two totally different things.
i wouldn't consider a fertilized egg a human being. would you consider yourself a human being? of course. so now, on that same note would you consider yourself a fertilized egg, or even a fetus? no... it's not the same thing at all. killing a human and having an abortion are two totally different things.
calibretto
Cool, I don't consider myself a senior citizen or a Jew either. So I can kill those, right?
Lolz.
"i wouldn't consider a <female> a human being. would you consider yourself a human being? of course. so now, on that same note would you consider yourself a <female>? no... it's not the same thing at all. killing a human and <killing a female> are two totally different things."
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Hey, you! Yeah, you behind the computer screen! You're unconstitutional.
i wouldn't consider a fertilized egg a human being.
Right.
But why?
What criteria do you use to decide who or what is a human?
Are you aware of what criteria the scientific community uses?
If an embryo is not human, but is alive, what other form of life does it belong to, if not humanity? What species is it a member of? None? What functionality does it lack to be considered human?
How about after cleavage? Is it still a component of the mother after it begins growth from internal procedure?
Then would that allow me to legally and morally end your (non-arm created) life? If your answer is yes, then there's really no reason to continue this.
The difference here is that, unlike a fetus in the early stages of development, I have a brain and can fight for my own survival. A fetus doesn't have any concept of itself and it's own survival anymore than a Sea Anemone does.
I guess in the end though, I wouldn't mind if I died as long as I can continue to be alive.
*edit*
Heres a strange thought though.
Lots of people have crappy lives, right? Lots of people wish they had never been born. Well, suppose someone built a Tipler cylinder, making time travel possible (but only as far back as the first activation of the cylinder.)
Suppose people could sign wavers consenting to have their parents abort them and send them back in time.
Would anybody have an issue with this?
Cool, I don't consider myself a senior citizen or a Jew either. So I can kill those, right?
Well you can but you would be breaking the law unlike having an abortion. Now let me ask what and who determines morality
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Scott Adams... Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating, and religion
A government can exhibit morality, a community can exhibit morality, and individuals can exhibit morality.
When it comes to determining morality within society, the members of society decide.
The problem is that morality is subjective.
A lot of people think homosexuality is immoral. A lot of angry Muslim men think it is immoral for women to wear anything less than a Burqa.
Law should be based on reason, not morality.
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The problem is that morality is subjective.
A lot of people think homosexuality is immoral. A lot of angry Muslim men think it is immoral for women to wear anything less than a Burqa.
Law should be based on reason, not morality.
The morality and law are inseparably intertwined. Law reflects a society's morality, its viewpoint on what is acceptable, and what is not. The one is a reflection of the other.
Now, if you argue that morality should be based on reason, we might have an interesting debate and agree on most points, but the problem is that reason is applied subjectively, with different fundamental and arbitrary values as givens.
But at any rate, I don't think a society's right to determine its own laws and collective morality can be reasonably disputed without espousing an anarchic system in its place, and anarchic systems inevitably become non-anarchic. Unless, of course, you're arguing for a dictatorship or technocracy.
Eh, my post was a little hastey.
I don't like the term 'morality' though. It gets thrown around so much its meaningless to me. Everybody has their own concept of morality and they use it to justify blowing up hospitals and raping women. Thats not an attack against you, I'm just saying I hate the M-word.
*edit*
My question is, who is society? What society are you talking about? What do you do if society is split right down the middle and nobody can agree on anything?
The difference here is that, unlike a fetus in the early stages of development, I have a brain and can fight for my own survival. A fetus doesn't have any concept of itself and it's own survival anymore than a Sea Anemone does.
What is the flawed assumption here? Where is the error? It's impossible to advance any logical discussion without critical examination. Begin with yourself.
We can't honestly jump from "A fetus in the early stages of development..." to, "A fetus" as a general term. By the time an infant is aborted, it will almost certainly have a heart and brain and all the major functions of life. Indeed, it is the very fact that it is alive that enables you to kill it and thus perform an abortion.
Lots of people have crappy lives, right? Lots of people wish they had never been born. Well, suppose someone built a Tipler cylinder, making time travel possible (but only as far back as the first activation of the cylinder.)
Suppose people could sign wavers consenting to have their parents abort them and send them back in time.
Would anybody have an issue with this?
This is completely irrelevant, but I would. Let them committ suicide if they want, and skip being a burden on others. I mean, this is ignoring the thousand other impracticalities with the scenario, but yeah.
The difference here is that, unlike a fetus in the early stages of development, I have a brain and can fight for my own survival. A fetus doesn't have any concept of itself and it's own survival anymore than a Sea Anemone does.
How is that relavent? It's ok to kill anyone who is braindead or can't fight for their own survival?
Lots of people have crappy lives, right? Lots of people wish they had never been born. Well, suppose someone built a Tipler cylinder, making time travel possible (but only as far back as the first activation of the cylinder.)
Suppose people could sign wavers consenting to have their parents abort them and send them back in time.
Would anybody have an issue with this?
I don't believe time travel is possible. That said, I imagine there would be the same laws against it as are against suicide.
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Hey, you! Yeah, you behind the computer screen! You're unconstitutional.
Cool, I don't consider myself a senior citizen or a Jew either. So I can kill those, right?
no one said that it was ok to go around killing the things which you don't consider yourself to be. what i said was that i don't see abortion as killing another human because i don't consider myself (as a human) to be the same as a fertilized egg inside pregnant woman's body.
i do, however, consider a jewish person to be a human. i condsider a senior citizen to be a human, so it's not ok to kill either of them. i don't consider an unborn fetus (before a specific trimester) to be a human. and i don't consider abortion's killing.
Eh, my post was a little hastey.
I don't like the term 'morality' though. It gets thrown around so much its meaningless to me. Everybody has their own concept of morality and they use it to justify blowing up hospitals and raping women. Thats not an attack against you, I'm just saying I hate the M-word.
Quite understandable.
But for better or worse, we can't separate it from the law. We can only argue what that morality should be, and what the law should be, and how much space it ought to leave for individual choice before intervening.
Based on my own reasoning, I believe that abortion is the taking of human life, and that human life deserves rigorous protection.
1. Embyros and fetuses are immature members of the human species; they are human.
2. They are alive.
3. Disrespect or disregard for one another, especially to the point of killing, is one of the great causes of suffering and unhappiness in the world. I would prefer if that disregard were not etched into the law of the country I call home.
*edit*
My question is, who is society? What society are you talking about? What do you do if society is split right down the middle and nobody can agree on anything?
Who is society? Depends on context. I'm speaking in terms of hypothetical societies, and of my own (and yours, as it happens).
If society is split, you do exactly what we are doing here: we debate the question until we reach some sort of compromise, agreement, or resolution. We try to tip the balance one way or the other.
no one said that it was ok to go around killing the things which you don't consider yourself to be. what i said was that i don't see abortion as killing another human because i don't consider myself (as a human) to be the same as a fertilized egg inside pregnant woman's body.
The thing is that your reasoning applies exactly as well to killing women and jews and old people. What makes the infant not a human being? Certainly not DNA. The only thing you've offered is this idea that it's different from you. Well, that applies to a lot of people. Whether you meant to or no, the logical extension of your reasoning is that it is okay to kill someone different from yourself.
i do, however, consider a jewish person to be a human. i condsider a senior citizen to be a human, so it's not ok to kill either of them. i don't consider an unborn fetus (before a specific trimester) to be a human. and i don't consider abortion's killing.
But for what reason? Why are those differences relevant? How do you determine the specific trimester? Don't you see how arbitrary your argument is?
. what i said was that i don't see abortion as killing another human *snip*
You are being misinterpreted by a few people. It might help clarify for them and me if you answer this:
What makes an embryo inhuman? How do you decide who or what is human, and what is not? What is your criteria, and why does a fertilized egg not meet that criteria? Also, are your criteria compatible with the scientific definitions of human life?
That's exactly what you said. The only reason you gave for being morally justified in killing a fetus is because you're not one.
actually, no. maybe i worded it funny or something. what i was trying to say is that i don't consider a human and a fetus to be the same thing. and i don't consider it morally wrong to "kill" a fetus by having an abortion.
i don't pretend to decide who or what is human. but my own personal opinion is that an embryo is not yet a human being. it may very well grow into that, but it's not quite there yet. perhaps seeing it that way makes it easier for me to explain why i don't see anything wrong w/ abortion.
as for the specific trimester, i'm not sure. i do know that it is illegal to perform abortions after a specific trimester because by then, the embryo has developed a more human-like body. as in, at that point, it has a brain and a heart and lungs etc. which makes sense to me because at that point, i would consider it a human. before that, i just see it as a lump of cells that will eventually grow into a human. you don't consider an egg to be a chicken right? you consider it to be an egg. if i threw an egg against the wall and it busted, i wouldn't think, 'man, i just killed a chicken.'
i do know that it is illegal to perform abortions after a specific trimester because by then, the embryo has developed a more human-like body. as in, at that point, it has a brain and a heart and lungs etc. which makes sense to me because at that point, i would consider it a human.
If someone replaced your heart and lungs with artificial components, would you be less human and would it be more justified to kill you?
If someone suffers brain damage, are they less human and is it more justified to kill them?
Or is there a better definition for what makes someone a human than their organs or degree of sentience?
I don't see how a fetus is a life form when it isn't capable of life outside its mother.
Answer: Because biological life has no contingency on some vague notion of "independence." Some life forms live in symbiosis with other species. Some life forms, like certain bacteria and parasites, depend on remaining inside of their hosts to survive. Some life forms dwell in open air, depending only on a stable outside environment and a food source that replenishes itself.
If you haven't studied biology, it's easy to choose arbitrary qualities that adult humans have that fetal humans lack and say, "That must be what makes something living or not!" But, again, that's only if you're ignorant of biology.
At the early fetal stage, a person is parasitic and relies on the extreme protection that the inside of its mother provides.
It will become one, just liek a chick fetus in an egg will soon become one, but i dont consider an egg a life form. (Like, a fertilized egg, not a supermarket one)
A fertilized egg contains an immature, living chicken. If that chicken was not alive, he could never metabolize the non-himself content of the egg. If he was not a life form, he could never grow to a state in which he could hatch.
actually, no. maybe i worded it funny or something. what i was trying to say is that i don't consider a human and a fetus to be the same thing. and i don't consider it morally wrong to "kill" a fetus by having an abortion.
i don't pretend to decide who or what is human. but my own personal opinion is that an embryo is not yet a human being. it may very well grow into that, but it's not quite there yet. perhaps seeing it that way makes it easier for me to explain why i don't see anything wrong w/ abortion.
That's an acceptable opinion to have as long as you accept that your opinion does not adhere to biological definitions. And sometimes, it's okay not to use strict scientific definitions.
you don't consider an egg to be a chicken right? you consider it to be an egg. if i threw an egg against the wall and it busted, i wouldn't think, 'man, i just killed a chicken.'
If there was a living chicken inside that egg, I hope that's exactly what you'd think. If the egg was unfertilized, you'd be fine to think that.
Eggs are not chickens. But eggs often contain living chickens. If they didn't, they could never hatch.
The point others are trying to make i believe, is that each one of you would think differently. Unless you are a zergling, each human you created from you would think and function independantly, Unless of course and i dont have enough biological knowledge to know, your brains were all the exact same and thought the exact same because you were the same person. I know twins dont think the same, and there are twins that are smarter than their twin, so who knows??
also: zergrush! KEKEKEKEKEKE
i almost agree. but this is why abortion past a specific trimester is illegal. because by then the fetus has started to develop more of the qualities of a seperate living human being. which is why if a pregnant mother is in a car wreck and dies, it's ruled as two deaths (her and the baby), not just one. but up to a certain point, i don't believe that it's a living human being. it's barely a fetus. it's a group of cells that will eventually become a human being.
calibretto
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What criteria for a living human being does it fail to meet?
Then would that allow me to legally and morally end your (non-arm created) life? If your answer is yes, then there's really no reason to continue this.
@calibretto: Actually, if a barely pregnant woman is killed, it counts as double-homicide. There is a horrible double-standard, where if a woman kills her child (abortion) it never was human, whereas if someone else kills it (even if the woman was on her way to get said abortion), then it is a child.
@atog: The Christians you talk about believe that abortion is murder. Just like the government steps up to stop murder, those Christians step up to stop abortion. If it is in fact a child, it's everyone's business.
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i wouldn't consider a fertilized egg a human being. would you consider yourself a human being? of course. so now, on that same note would you consider yourself a fertilized egg, or even a fetus? no... it's not the same thing at all. killing a human and having an abortion are two totally different things.
calibretto
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Cool, I don't consider myself a senior citizen or a Jew either. So I can kill those, right?
"i wouldn't consider a <female> a human being. would you consider yourself a human being? of course. so now, on that same note would you consider yourself a <female>? no... it's not the same thing at all. killing a human and <killing a female> are two totally different things."
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Right.
But why?
What criteria do you use to decide who or what is a human?
Are you aware of what criteria the scientific community uses?
If an embryo is not human, but is alive, what other form of life does it belong to, if not humanity? What species is it a member of? None? What functionality does it lack to be considered human?
How about after cleavage? Is it still a component of the mother after it begins growth from internal procedure?
The difference here is that, unlike a fetus in the early stages of development, I have a brain and can fight for my own survival. A fetus doesn't have any concept of itself and it's own survival anymore than a Sea Anemone does.
I guess in the end though, I wouldn't mind if I died as long as I can continue to be alive.
*edit*
Heres a strange thought though.
Lots of people have crappy lives, right? Lots of people wish they had never been born. Well, suppose someone built a Tipler cylinder, making time travel possible (but only as far back as the first activation of the cylinder.)
Suppose people could sign wavers consenting to have their parents abort them and send them back in time.
Would anybody have an issue with this?
There is an imposter among us...
Well you can but you would be breaking the law unlike having an abortion. Now let me ask what and who determines morality
Depends.
A government can determine morality, a community can determine morality, and individuals can determine morality.
When it comes to determining morality within society, the members of society decide.
The problem is that morality is subjective.
A lot of people think homosexuality is immoral. A lot of angry Muslim men think it is immoral for women to wear anything less than a Burqa.
Law should be based on reason, not morality.
There is an imposter among us...
The morality and law are inseparably intertwined. Law reflects a society's morality, its viewpoint on what is acceptable, and what is not. The one is a reflection of the other.
Now, if you argue that morality should be based on reason, we might have an interesting debate and agree on most points, but the problem is that reason is applied subjectively, with different fundamental and arbitrary values as givens.
But at any rate, I don't think a society's right to determine its own laws and collective morality can be reasonably disputed without espousing an anarchic system in its place, and anarchic systems inevitably become non-anarchic. Unless, of course, you're arguing for a dictatorship or technocracy.
I don't like the term 'morality' though. It gets thrown around so much its meaningless to me. Everybody has their own concept of morality and they use it to justify blowing up hospitals and raping women. Thats not an attack against you, I'm just saying I hate the M-word.
*edit*
My question is, who is society? What society are you talking about? What do you do if society is split right down the middle and nobody can agree on anything?
There is an imposter among us...
What is the flawed assumption here? Where is the error? It's impossible to advance any logical discussion without critical examination. Begin with yourself.
We can't honestly jump from "A fetus in the early stages of development..." to, "A fetus" as a general term. By the time an infant is aborted, it will almost certainly have a heart and brain and all the major functions of life. Indeed, it is the very fact that it is alive that enables you to kill it and thus perform an abortion.
This is completely irrelevant, but I would. Let them committ suicide if they want, and skip being a burden on others. I mean, this is ignoring the thousand other impracticalities with the scenario, but yeah.
Why am I breaking the law? What law is that? What is the substance and reason of the law that I'm breaking, and why the distinction?
How is that relavent? It's ok to kill anyone who is braindead or can't fight for their own survival?
Ah, but see it's STILL NOT YOU. It's a person that grew from you.
I don't believe time travel is possible. That said, I imagine there would be the same laws against it as are against suicide.
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no one said that it was ok to go around killing the things which you don't consider yourself to be. what i said was that i don't see abortion as killing another human because i don't consider myself (as a human) to be the same as a fertilized egg inside pregnant woman's body.
i do, however, consider a jewish person to be a human. i condsider a senior citizen to be a human, so it's not ok to kill either of them. i don't consider an unborn fetus (before a specific trimester) to be a human. and i don't consider abortion's killing.
calibretto
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Quite understandable.
But for better or worse, we can't separate it from the law. We can only argue what that morality should be, and what the law should be, and how much space it ought to leave for individual choice before intervening.
Based on my own reasoning, I believe that abortion is the taking of human life, and that human life deserves rigorous protection.
1. Embyros and fetuses are immature members of the human species; they are human.
2. They are alive.
3. Disrespect or disregard for one another, especially to the point of killing, is one of the great causes of suffering and unhappiness in the world. I would prefer if that disregard were not etched into the law of the country I call home.
Who is society? Depends on context. I'm speaking in terms of hypothetical societies, and of my own (and yours, as it happens).
If society is split, you do exactly what we are doing here: we debate the question until we reach some sort of compromise, agreement, or resolution. We try to tip the balance one way or the other.
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The thing is that your reasoning applies exactly as well to killing women and jews and old people. What makes the infant not a human being? Certainly not DNA. The only thing you've offered is this idea that it's different from you. Well, that applies to a lot of people. Whether you meant to or no, the logical extension of your reasoning is that it is okay to kill someone different from yourself.
But for what reason? Why are those differences relevant? How do you determine the specific trimester? Don't you see how arbitrary your argument is?
You are being misinterpreted by a few people. It might help clarify for them and me if you answer this:
What makes an embryo inhuman? How do you decide who or what is human, and what is not? What is your criteria, and why does a fertilized egg not meet that criteria? Also, are your criteria compatible with the scientific definitions of human life?
actually, no. maybe i worded it funny or something. what i was trying to say is that i don't consider a human and a fetus to be the same thing. and i don't consider it morally wrong to "kill" a fetus by having an abortion.
i don't pretend to decide who or what is human. but my own personal opinion is that an embryo is not yet a human being. it may very well grow into that, but it's not quite there yet. perhaps seeing it that way makes it easier for me to explain why i don't see anything wrong w/ abortion.
as for the specific trimester, i'm not sure. i do know that it is illegal to perform abortions after a specific trimester because by then, the embryo has developed a more human-like body. as in, at that point, it has a brain and a heart and lungs etc. which makes sense to me because at that point, i would consider it a human. before that, i just see it as a lump of cells that will eventually grow into a human. you don't consider an egg to be a chicken right? you consider it to be an egg. if i threw an egg against the wall and it busted, i wouldn't think, 'man, i just killed a chicken.'
calibretto
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If someone replaced your heart and lungs with artificial components, would you be less human and would it be more justified to kill you?
If someone suffers brain damage, are they less human and is it more justified to kill them?
Or is there a better definition for what makes someone a human than their organs or degree of sentience?
Answer: Because biological life has no contingency on some vague notion of "independence." Some life forms live in symbiosis with other species. Some life forms, like certain bacteria and parasites, depend on remaining inside of their hosts to survive. Some life forms dwell in open air, depending only on a stable outside environment and a food source that replenishes itself.
If you haven't studied biology, it's easy to choose arbitrary qualities that adult humans have that fetal humans lack and say, "That must be what makes something living or not!" But, again, that's only if you're ignorant of biology.
At the early fetal stage, a person is parasitic and relies on the extreme protection that the inside of its mother provides.
A fertilized egg contains an immature, living chicken. If that chicken was not alive, he could never metabolize the non-himself content of the egg. If he was not a life form, he could never grow to a state in which he could hatch.
That's an acceptable opinion to have as long as you accept that your opinion does not adhere to biological definitions. And sometimes, it's okay not to use strict scientific definitions.
It's important not to attribute value to something based on how "weird looking" it is.
If there was a living chicken inside that egg, I hope that's exactly what you'd think. If the egg was unfertilized, you'd be fine to think that.
Eggs are not chickens. But eggs often contain living chickens. If they didn't, they could never hatch.