Working it Out: Audience Participation Requested!

I'm very excited for this series too, Nate! And somewhat selfishly, I'm going to get in first on the comments.

To be pro-life, a basic understanding of prenatal development is *necessary but not sufficient.* You're right that science does not directly answer ethical questions. At the same time, though, someone who believes that unborn children are "goo" or "clumps of cells" is extremely unlikely to ascribe any moral worth to them.

A sizable contingent of rank-and-file pro-choicers are motivated by such scientific ignorance, and for them, an argument focused on prenatal development alone can be highly persuasive. Thus I completely support a pro-life emphasis in this area, even though, as you say, science does not directly "answer the question of the worth of the fetus."

Current Statement: scientific information about fetal development does not answer the question of the worth of the fetus.

Quite true.
The only person who can make an informed decision about the worth of each individual fetus (or embryo – as I'm sure you know, probably a majority of abortions take place at embryo stage) is the pregnant woman herself, with support from her nearest and dearest and advice from her doctors.

No one else is qualified – and no one else should be empowered – to make a decision like that on the pregnant woman's behalf, and then force the woman – or the girl – through pregnancy and childbirth against her will.

The two chief ethical problems with the prolife ideology are firstly that prolife mandates forced use of human beings, and this is always wrong; and second, that prolife makes sweeping judgements without any individual information about a matter extremely personal to the individual pregnant woman and her family.

For these reasons, I think the prolife ideology is entirely wrong, and clearly it leads to so many bad consequences, damaging to women, children, families, and reproductive healthcare.

Those are my primary reasons for opposing the prolife ideology: it's about forced use of girls and women and about disrespecting the judgement of women.

The various arguments against abortion that rest on the importance of an embryo/fetus gestating for nine months til a baby is born, generally dehumanise or disregard the conscience and the health and wellbeing of the pregnant girl or woman, subordinating her life and her human rights to the use of her body. No human life is worth dehumanising or forcing another.

I don't think science can give morality. That's a realm of philosophy and religion. Science can't tell me that gold is worth whatever it is on the market. The fact that it's valued, is a human construction. It might tell is it's scarce or durable or weighty but it can't tell me worth.

I'm wondering what is it about the historical treatment of women that makes this uncertain for you. I don't know that I can accurately address that though I'll give it a go to the best of my ability.

As a woman, even in modern times, I've experienced discrimination or ill treatment. I've been cat-called. Sexually harassed. Unable to get my preferred birth control due to cost. I've felt the panic of getting hired at a job and then immediately finding out I was pregnant and wondering how that was going to turn out (I had a great employer, other women aren't so lucky).

I had a strong willed grandmother and great-grandmother who would have fit the bill of feminist at the time. My great-grandmother refused to be satisfied being treated as a second class citizen and my grandmother went to college in the early 50s.

I know scientifically that the pre-born is alive. I also think human beings have an innate worth. (So a mixture of science with philosophy). Sure, plenty of pregnancies don't make it to term and many before the woman even knows she's pregnant. I don't think that defines worth though. There's a difference between a natural end and actively working to end something. People die of cancer all the time. It doesn't mean it's right to take them out back and shoot them.

It seems to me the option is either value is innate or it is conferred. If it is conferred then it can be taken away. The best example I have is slavery. A slave was 3/5s a person. Some might argue that there's a difference between a full grown person and the one in the uterus. That's usually where I push back with – at what point have they "earned" their value? Is it viability? Is it birth? Why that point and not another?

However, if it is innate, it is there from the moment they first exist. Science says existence happens at conception although I have a doctor who thinks the science shows implantation being the start and I think I could accept that, I'm still exploring that idea.

Yes, women have a history full of oppression *and* one person's oppression doesn't make it right to oppress or kill another. However, that's a philosophical position, not a scientific one.

Sorry if this is a bit rambly. I have a toddler with a cold but I wanted to try to answer 🙂

Technically the statement is true, but only because of the shortcomings of mankind mentally and philosophically.

The unique combination of chromosomes contributed from the father and mother is what makes a new person, objectively. All other conditions/determinations are subjective and therefore susceptible to a dangerous slippery slope.

If your paradigm includes categories "Human with worth" and "Human without worth," as has occurred so many times in history, you might still be able to say that scientific knowledge isn't enough, but if so, then you have to be prepared for others to come and say "well, your sum total of my own criteria doesn't meet my definition of 'human with worth' so you should be killed."

Rather, if we look at the science and see that all the genetic material and DNA that makes a unique person is present at conception, and that zygote is therefore a human, with all the worth that all human beings posses, we have a solid foundation.

So…ultimately, can science tell us the *worth* of a person? Probably not because "worth" is a subjective economic term, and human beings have a looong history of under-valuing or de-valuing certain others of our species, but can science objectively define a human being? Sure, and we ought to protect and value all human beings against those people who don't.

You can look at the history of slavery and genocide to see that others continually have a sliding scale of "worth" of some humans. The problem with relying on the sliding scale of worth is 1) it's not objective, and 2) it will bite you in the ass. Read the original "I Am Legend" to see, allegorically, how the sliding scale of human worth can turn. (You can also just read Wikipedia's plot summary, but what fun is that??)

Rather, if we look at the science and see that all the genetic material
and DNA that makes a unique person is present at conception, and that
zygote is therefore a human, with all the worth that all human beings
posses, we have a solid foundation.

Not necessarily. A zygote is just a genetic blueprint, that DNA has to be read, interpreted and expressed. A zygote is not a homunculus, it is not a complete person that just has to be form – it is both incomplete and unformed, and it may *never* become an autonomous individual, because embryological and fetal development is a roll of the dice, and many things can go wrong along the way.

How is it possible to dehumanize a zygote? Please, explain. How can you dehumanize something with no brain, no mind? A fetus doesn't gain the capacity for sentience until 25 weeks gestation btw…

As for dehumanization, think of it from this angle…

A woman has a mind. A woman can think, suffer and feel. A zygote is a single cell genetic blueprint. It has zero awareness. Why should a woman be subjugated to a single cell? Used as a reproductive object – an object that should have ZERO say in how her body is used, kind of like how your fridge doesn't have a say about what you put inside it – it exists to keep your food cold, just like a woman exists to make babies. Now, denying women's humanity, and using them as easy bake ovens IS a clear example of dehumanization.

On what scientific evidence do you base this statement?

Well if zygotes are babies then there is no need to take it any further, right? You can have your entire family in a petri dish, by your logic!

I think the reason fetal development does not matter is that there is a distinction between describing what something is and assessing the consequences of one's action (i.e. moral agency). Scientific information about the fetus applies only to the former camp, and by definition, is limited temporally (by only focusing on the present) in the context it can provide to assess the consequences of your actions. Indeed, a pro-choicer is inclined to rely on scientific points on fetal development (lack of consciousness) to avoid the question of consequences altogether.

But this is wrong because our actions clearly have real world consequences even when we use fetal development as an argument against a fetus. Here I am thinking about things like sex selective abortion, the impact of abortion on people diagnosed with down syndrome and other conditions identifiable before birth. Somehow, our treatment of the unconscious is having an effect on actual pockets of the population. Why is this? The answer is simple: when making a moral calculation, the impact of that calculation on the future matters, perhaps in many cases, more than the impact of the present. Pro-Choicers will deny this with religious fervor in the context of abortion, but such an argument is an exception, not a rule. Think of any moral decision you are trying to make and try to remove your thoughts about the impact on the future. You might be surprised about how difficult this is.

So to put it succintly: scientific information about fetal development does not matter because in making moral decisions, the future matters. (as a side note: above I relied on future effects on segments of the population. I did this, because I think its more illustrative. But I think the reasoning holds on the individual level, (i.e. abortion is wrong because it denies a fetus a future as a fully functioning human). I haven't read it, but I believe this is similar to an argument by Donald Marquis

I respect that it isn't about that for you, or for many pro-choicers, but it is for many others. There are plenty of people who speak of the human fetus as a blob of cells, a tumor, and other language that makes it clear they consider them worthless.

There are plenty of people who speak of the human fetus as a blob of cells

Yes, they do, because they are not projecting human qualities onto something that has no mind, and in the case of a zygote, no brain.

Pro-lifers often fetishize human DNA, projecting qualities onto it that it doesn't have. A zygote has no self – it is just a genetic blueprint that may or may not develop a self someday.
A zygote does not have any of the qualities that we associate with people other than h.sapiens DNA.

I want to add that I agree with other commenters that scientific literacy on the matter is important. I just think its more important as a matter of appearances and legitimacy. I don't think its important in formulating a moral argument.

What qualities does a zygote have that a person has? And how are those qualities denied? How is the zygote dehumanized? Can you explain?

For example, during slavery, the human qualities of slavers were denied. That they were thinking, feeling beings. That they had hopes and dreams. That they loved, that they had families etc. All of that was denied. They were seen as mere human machines.

Now, what qualities does a zygote have, like the slave above, that are denied? Can you list them?

Hi,

This is off topic, but I thought you should know that the lightweight font used on that site is really hard for a lot of people to read, especially for a post as long as that.

Worth noting, too:

The historical links between the pro-slavery / pro-segregation / anti-civil rights movement, and the modern prolife movement in the US, are clear and factual.

Slaveowners were prolife: they did not believe the women whose bodies they legally owned had the right to decide for themselves how many children to have, and when.

Prolifers dehumanise women for the use of their bodies. Ideologically and historically, prolifers in the US are akin to pro-slavery.

Yes, and if a pregnant slave woman needed to be disciplined, a hole was dug in the ground to protect the fetus, and she was made to lie in it, while they whipped her back. Gotta protect the fetus, after all.

the issue isn't worth its treatment. There are various reasons why you might treat a human being a different levels of development differently, but none of those amount to the right to actively and purposefully kill a human being.

I believe it did.

I cannot truly wrap my head around this. First of all, I didn't think you read my comment all that well. All you saw was "Anti-choicer, women hater – get her!" and gave me your standard fee that you give all other pro-lifers without truly addressing my issues, like bodily autonomy, that I said was having doubts of.
Second – you say zygote. A lot of. As if its relevant.

What is a zygote? A zygote is the result of when conception just occurred. It is indeed a "single cell". For a short time, afterwards it quickly divides in many cells becoming an embryo, then it implant into the uterine wall – grow into fetus and eventually births into a newborn. I hope you know this, I'm not saying this to patronize you. Simply, so I can clear up misunderstanding. You may use the word zygote in reference to fetuses, similar to how pro-lifers use baby in reference. However, you also say "single celled" which a fetus (or embryo) is not. Fetuses and embryos are what are being aborted. In scientific definition, "pregnancy" does not occur until successful implantation. When this happens, it'd no longer be a "single celled zygote". Which is why calling it such, is irrelevant and misleading to those who are not knowledgeable to fetal development.

Now that's over. Let's talk about what is being aborted. Abortions happen in the first trimester. What does a fetus do in this time? What is it? What makes it human? In the mere first weeks it already starts to develop a heart, spinal cord and brain. Long ways away from a single cell. By six weeks, while far from working, the brain is starting develop in its complexity. Brain waves can be detected by EEG around forty days.

So to answer your question: "How is it possible to dehumanize a zygote?" By making it less than what it is.

In terms of bodily autonomy. You accuse me of wanting women just to be used to make babies. Going an highly emotional argument isn't my problem. If you understood my comment, you'd see how I'm a bit confused on front. But you didn't care, you just wanted an argument.

So, we're all dehumanizing humans?

I guess we have more in common than we thought…

"What human qualities does a zygote have that pro-choicers are pretending don't exist? Can you list them?"

I just did. Only now are you changing your argument from the "singled celled" one. I cannot talk about all pro-choicers though, only what you are saying to me.

"Now, when an abortion occurs should be irrelevant, right?"

I suppose. But I'm talking about "real life" rather than analogies. In actuality, no one aborts zygotes.

"those primitive brainwaves have nothing to do with consciousness btw,"

Didn't say they did, I was just point out they were there. You said, and I quote. "How can you dehumanize something with no brain, no mind?" Highlight brain.

"So, what qualities does the human embryo have *as is* that a cow does not?"

Human DNA. To clear things up, its a human organism. I don't want to to get the idea that I'm talking a skin cell or something.

"Also, what a zygote will develop into should also be irrelevant if that zygote, as is, is a person?"

I never commented on what a fetus would be. I only said what it was.

"Except you didn't explain 'what it is' other than to point towards what it *may* become."

When did I mention what it may become? Are you possibly confusing me with someone else? Or are you still on that zygote thing?

"Well, if you are pro-criminalization of abortion, and seek to deny women reproductive freeom, then yes, I would say that you are dehumanizing
women and treating them like mindless baby making machines."

….Okay, then.

Hi Stormii

"Social good" was not the best choice of words. My contention is that given data about how people actually behave – that as prosperity and social mobility of women improve, abortion rates go down naturally in many countries, and abortion has also cut down on infanticide. Given choice, women don't go around having abortions for frivolous reasons. The specifics of the morality of abortion will be debated forever, and I'm sure that with new science showing us a better picture of the life and times of the fetus, opinions will change on this issue. But for now when faced with actual data that shows legal abortions improving the lot of women and families in impoverished nations, it seems to me that allowing choice tends to lead to a healthier society.

Also, another difference between fetuses and the unconscious or mental patients – I'd say that fetuses have never had a will, fear or hope. If they are unable to process any sensory information, killing them just doesn't seem to cause anyone or anything harm. Yes, the fetus has been deprived of a future, but it never had and never will have existential angst about its demise. Unless I gained religion and became convinced that there was innate value put into the fetus by God or something, I simply don't see where the harm is.

The difference is the newborn has been born and is able to survive without the use of an actual person's body against her will. A zygote can only survive if the host is willing to let it stay there.

Again, I'm not talking about zygotes. Fetuses don't sit in petri dishes. Fetuses are growing. Now, before you say that's I'm comparing what they may do in the future, no, I'm simply stating at this point they are growing. That is all.

"possible to dehumanize a zygote, which is, btw, a snippet of DNA surrounded by a cytoplasm"

DNA is DNA.

"Yeah. So? Explain why being a 'human organism' is significant."

Because I'm talking dehumanizing humans. That was my point originally, in case you forgot.

"How is it possible to dehumanize a zygote in a petri dish, but not an amoeba in a petri dish?'

Amoeba is not human.A zygote (and yes, I do actually mean zygote) is. That's the whole point in deHUMANizing.

"What special qualities does the zygote have, AS IS"

DNA, but I already said this. Just like when I mentioned that heart, brains and all that good stuff is common in fetuses, the ones being aborted.

"Well, do you seek to criminalize abortion?"

Its not currently on my To-Do list, if that's what your asking.

Purple Slurpy recognizes the basic truth of human history, and he's not doing the best job of articulating it. Historically, up to and including today, Homo sapiens have three strategies for dealing with unwanted offspring. Contraception, abortion, and abandonment/infanticide. Where you make the first two difficult or impossible, you make the third option inevitable. In times of stress, all three will naturally increase as people go into survival mode. In stable societies, contraception will be very easy, abortion will also be very easy, but less necessary, and no abandonment or infanticide will be almost unheard of. If you want a good peek at what happens in modern society when contraception and abortion aren't available, take a close look at what happened in Romania. That's a cautionary tale.

Exactly. Beautifully stated.

No, he didn't.

No, he just waffled around without answering anything.

So human DNA = person? So like, the human DNA in my skin cell is a person, and should have personhood rights?

Stormii, with all due respect, rational people have a much higher threshold for personhood than "human DNA." That's why "personhood amendments" keep failing. Rational people are very uncomfortable giving human rights to human tissue. If a zygote has human rights, congratulations on having just handing personhood to a hydatidiform mole. That just isn't intelligent. In my opinion, it's simple-minded.

No disrespect, I understand your position.
In my opinion, the difference between a zygote and a

Hydatidiform is that it is a simply a mass, and not living. Its sometimes categorized as a miscarriage so that would be like me saying that corpses deserve rights – though, corpses have some rights. A zygote is living, growing healthy human.

But this kind of goes off track from my original point to night porter. My point wasn't that zygotes deserve rights, it was that they are human.

Also the last comment you sent me about conception/abortion/infanticide was very interesting. I'll make sure to look into that later one.

Yeah, and then you simply started talking about 'human DNA'

Whatever.

What makes a human organism special vs a cow organism?

PS a beating heart cadaver and a hydatidiform mole are also human organisms.

Hi Stormii

I agree in a perfect world, abortion would naturally look like an awfully unattractive choice among the plethora of choices she has. Even in such a world, I wouldn't dream of making it illegal. Even if its not illegal, sociological data already show that abortion rates decline anyway (as explained by lade_black.)

In the current world, abortion DOES improve the lot of women. I think that's a fact that many health organizations would attest to. I think we should work towards a world where abortion is simply unattractive. Luckily, such a world probably also has a host of other positives. I think working toward social justice of all kinds will naturally lead to such a world.

My mom was an ambitious girl, but she grew up in an era and country where girls were not encouraged to achieve academically. She aspired to be a biomedical researcher, but in our country (Japan), women were not paid to do research and were told to leave to make room for the men who had families to support. She came to America in the 70s with my dad, and joined a prestigious lab at Stanford headed by a Nobel laureate. In addition to wanting to succeed as a researcher just because she loved science, she wanted to be a role model to the girls and boys in Japan. That is when she became pregnant unexpectedly with my younger sibling. Given the kinds of hours she worked (way too many, but absolutely necessary working and caring for E. coli cultures that didn't care whether you were a working mother and needed to go home at soon) and the demands of her first child, she agonized over the decision, but she chose abortion. A factor was that we had no extended family in the US to help with the care, and that I had been clamoring for a sibling. There was another relative back home who wanted to adopt if my mother gave birth, but she felt I might be devastated if I had a sibling that was suddenly taken away.

I fully support her decision, and because of women like her, the climate in Japan has improved for working mothers, and she's contributed to modern biomedical technology that has improved the quality of life of humans. Its difficult to say she would've been able to do the same had she chose to keep the baby, but I know it was not an easy decision. To me, each person's situation is different. Outlawing abortion is a one-size-fits-none solution. The best we can hope to do is to make a society where abortion is simply unattractive. Humans have already shown that given more attractive choices than abortions, they will choose it, and naturally, abortion will decrease.

As for the unconscious, it was sort of in relation to the mentally ill patients you referred to.

One last comment about the deformed fetus. Some molar pregnancies don't carry any fetal tissue. If it does, the mass kills the embryo. That goes back to my corpse comment. I guess I knew more about this than I thought.

They do, actually. It's common and normal to mourn a miscarriage–not as a lost opportunity to have a child, but as a child who has actually died. Many women grieve their children that die before being born. What's interesting is that many of these women aren't even religious or remotely pro-life.

Thanks very much. I've learned that websites are good for publishing text, but I haven't become sensitive about the importance or possibilities of presentation.
If there is a way to improve things that you can easily explain to me, I would appreciate that. On the About page of my blog there is an email address.
Otherwise I can probably find someone to help.
My WordPress 3.3.1 doesn't seem to support any playing around with fonts, beyond bold & italic.

Yes, a full mole doesn't carry any fetal tissue, but a partial does. And it is a human organism.

After birth the offspring can survive as an independent organism? Not likely! We are all more of less dependent on others for most of our lives.

Pro-lifers do not dehumanise women; we respect and value all women, born and pre-born.

Yes, yes you do. If you deny women their free will and the right to plan their own reproductive lives, you treat them like appliances, a fetal delivery system, a mere means to an end.

THAT is the very definition of dehumanizing. To pro lifers, women are just the meat around the uterus.

To be sure, there probably IS some kind of activity going on. Its just that we don't have the technology to measure this activity. That is why I say with improved technology, there might be revelations that show the tremendous complexity of the fetal mind at that stage, and my pro-choice position MAY change. But I doubt we will find such unexpected activity, and the correct position is to say we don't know, and not to assume too much about the richness of the fetal mind at 6 wks.

Science may not directly answer the question, but it certainly constrains the answers one can give, I would argue to the point that a fetus cannot be considered to have the moral worth of a person.

Some people seem to attach moral worth to human DNA. Science tells us that if that is true, we must believe that the brain-dead human is of equal moral worth to a healthy conscious human. Science tells us that if that is true, we must also believe that every time you scratch yourself (killing many skin cells) it is mass murder. And I assume you've encountered the burning IVF clinic argument? If moral worth comes with human DNA, science tells us what conclusion we must draw there. All of these scenarios lead to absurdities, so science constrains us to reject the idea that moral worth comes with human DNA.

Some people seem to attach moral worth to the ability to feel pain, and science is certainly useful in telling us when in fetal development that happens. But also tells us that if that is the measure, we must regard killing a rat as equally morally wrong as killing a human, and I cannot accept that conclusion.

My view is that moral worth comes with human level cognitive abilities. If a being an communicate in a language with a recursive grammatical structure, that is sufficient (though perhaps not necessary) evidence that that being has moral worth. That is the only coherent line I can draw, the only line that explains why normal humans have more moral worth than normal animals. The comparison between what science tells me about the qualities of a fetus and what science tells me about the qualities of an animal forces me to reject the idea that a fetus has the moral worth of a person at any stage of fetal development. That is the role I see science playing.

You do every time you come up with a lame excuse to kill them while they are still in the womb.

It doesn't matter if a molar pregnancy contains a 'recognizable' fetus or not. Both full and partial molar pregnancies result from a zygote (fertilized ovum). Neither type is ever viable, fetus or no fetus, and they are life threatening because they are invasive. If any material is left behind after the abortion, it can become a cancerous tumor. So not only is the woman dealing with the loss of a pregnancy she wanted, but she has to worry about what little time bomb it might leave behind. Plain and simple… Human DNA does not equal human being.

"Our species" doesn't mean the same thing as "person" or even "human being." A hydatidiform mole arises from human DNA, whether fetal tissue is present or not.

D&E is rare.

**Rather, if we look at the science and see that all the genetic material and DNA that makes a unique person is present at conception, and that zygote is therefore a human, with all the worth that all human beings posses, we have a solid foundation.**

And why do 'human beings' but not cattle or bacteria, 'possess worth'?

Your supposed 'solid foundation' is just the same old equivocation fallacy, where you want to use one definition of the word 'human' in order to justify having 'human worth', then switch to a different definition of the word 'human' in order to sneak the zef in.

Do you honestly think we are going to fall for the same old equivocation fallacy THIS time, when we didn't fall for it the past 10,000 times?

Or ban menstural cycles. The blood in my diva cup is a lot more bloody than that photo.

In other words, you're trying for the continuum fallacy again. You're also handwaving away the fact that the 'preemie' is no longer inside the mother's body, and attempting to equate it with an unborn fetus, just because they are the same age, which is about as nonsensical as claiming that since you wouldn't castrate a man who was standing at the opposite end of the room and doing nothing to you, you therefore shouldn't take any violent action against a man who was raping you, because both penises were the same length.

God, you're dumb. Does your dentist need a manure spreader after he gets done with you?

Guess what Sweetiepie? I have a right to kill someone who is violating my rights. Occupying my body, without my consent, is violating my rights. Tough shit if it's not 'intentional'. Tough shit if you have sad feelies about that.

If I choose to tolerate someone violating my rights, because I feel they can't help it, or for whatever other reason I might have, that is a pure gift. It is not a 'right' on their part to do so, it is not an obligation or responsibility on my part to do so. Grow up and deal with it.

Are you seriously comparing a fetus to a rapist?

The question is, are they pro-choice because they have more education or are they pro-choice because they're more liberal and there is a trend to think that to be politically liberal is to be pro-choice?

More education doesn't mean that a person is necessarily capable of understanding or grasping the scientific points. Let's take a look at the vaccine or GMO debate (I highly recommend the GMO Skepti-Forum and the Vaccine Skepti-Forum on Facebook). In at least the vaccine "debate" (since 99.99% of science supports vaccination), there is a vein of very educated, liberal parents who aren't vaccinating. They're essentially the liberal version of climate change deniers. And yet *they're highly educated.*

It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. Essentially you don't know what you don't know and you're pretty darn confident in your ignorance.

I won't deny that very conservative politicians have co-opted the pro-life position to grab votes. That doesn't mean, however, that they're necessarily wrong on this issue. In sussing out if they're right or wrong, it would be good to go to the best representation of the argument. Ignorant people can be right, but if they're ignorant, maybe go check out the people who aren't (like SPL LOL).

". For a short time, afterwards it quickly divides in many cells becoming an embryo, then it implant into the uterine wall – grow into fetus and eventually births into a newborn."

Continuum fallacy.

**Brain waves can be detected by EEG around forty days.**

Umm, no. There are specific reasons why there cannot be organized brain function until the 6th month. Until that point, the brain is basically a giant short circuit, there cannot be organized thought. No matter how many sad feelies people might have about it, you cannot violate the laws of physiology.

Barry wrote: **Here I am thinking about things like sex selective abortion, the impact of abortion on people diagnosed with down syndrome and other conditions identifiable before birth.**

Thing here, Barry, is that people with Down's syndrome will need lifelong care. So basically, if pro-lifers claim that you should not get an abortion because the embryo has Down's Syndrome, they are thereby invalidating their other two major claims, in which they say the 'Parents have to be responsible', and 'Only for 9 short months', because that now changes to either 'Relatives and taxpayers have to be responsible' and 'for 70-80 long years'.

They can't have it both ways. If they want to demand the second way, fine, but they can't have it both ways, and I should point out that there are way too many cases of hypocritical pro-lifers who look down on other people who have down's syndrome embryoes aborted, but go running for the nearest abortion clinic when THEY are diagnosed with a down's syndrome embryo themselves.

Generalizing from the example. The fact that you are nuerotic and stay up nights worring about the death of genetically defective zygotes is not proof that very many other people do so.

I'm bringing this back to a direct reply to the OP because conversations with prolifers on this and other threads repeatedly return to the same thing:

Prolifers don't see women and children. Prolifers dehumanise and disrespect the girl or the pregnant women and concern themselves solely and exclusively with the fetus she is carrying.

That prolifers think the morality of abortion is determined by how much "worth" can be allotted to a fetus, and literally don't understand that for most normal people the morality of abortion is determined by the effect of the pregnancy on the human being who is pregnant.

For human rights activists, obviously, the ethics of abortion are around the right of each human being not to be forced, used, enslaved, or harmed at the will of another.

But you don't have to be a human rights activist, just a normal person who knows women are human, to see that pregnancy is an action undertaken by a human that can permanently change her health, her wellbeing, her life.

Yet for prolifers, human health, human wellbeing, human life, are never discussed except with regard to fetuses. The girls and women they want to force do not exist.

Many women who need to have late-term abortions mourn the child they lost. Prolifers taunt and bully and insult those women, both before and after their decision, showing neither compassion nor understanding.

You're not getting any argument from me here, see my first comment to 6wk EEG.

However, as a scientist, I'm not allowed to completely rule out a possibility. I don't think there is something radically wrong with our understanding of the brain, but it is possible there are still key missing components. While pyramidal neurons are thought to be the principle computing elements in cortex, there is for example some evidence that glial cells do some sort of computation or modulates the neural state to change the nature of computation. Also, it is known that we can create logical gates from things like slime molds and dripping faucets arranged in certain ways. I think the arsenal of computational devices nature has evolved is wider than we currently know, so I can't completely rule out some sort of computation in 6wk brains. I think its highly unlikely they do, but hey, who knows. But until there is positive evidence, I think it best to assume they don't.

Doesn't that definition exclude babies?

It's your side that is doing the dehumanizing. Calling unborn children 'clumps of cells' and not even acknowledging that they are human beings.

Most pro-lifers care about the lives of men, women, children AND unborn children. Many volunteer time and money to help families, not just pregnant women.

It is not dehumanizing ANYONE to tell them they should not be able to kill another human being that has done nothing wrong.

All innocent human beings should have the right to life – in a pregnancy, that means a woman and the unborn child.

Unborn children should have a right not to be killed just because someone has 'sad feelies' about their body being 'occupied'. REALLY? You're that selfish that you'd kill your unborn child because you didn't give your 'consent'? REALLY? You'd kill your own unborn son or daughter? Wow. That's selfish.

Wow… Kill an unborn child because he doesn't have a functioning brain, but let an evil rapist live? Really? That's pro-abort 'logic' for you..

IF (key word IF) there was a new kind of brain death where a doctor said "it's likely that your relative on life support will have a functioning brain within 6 months" would you seriously argue the continuum fallacy as an excuse to pull the plug on your relative? Are you that insane?

She didn't say zygotes are babies. She said babies are dependent on others just like an unborn child is dependent on his or her mother. It's selfish for someone to kill an innocent human being that is dependent upon them for survival.

Well of course she does. She's not the brightest bulb on the string.

So what.

Myintx, downthread -and elsewhere – I have seen you dehumanise a living human being to just "the womb" – referring to a woman, a breathing, thinking, feeling human being, as if to you she were merely a walking incubator.

Most prolifers don't support life-saving abortions: if a woman will die if she doesn't have an abortion, most prolifers shrug this off with "oh she would have died anyway".

Of course prolifers care about the lives of men. Prolifers know men are human. But prolifers show utter indifference to the lives of born children – not merely the children who were raped and need abortions, whom prolifers dismiss as being no longer "innocent lives" – but any child once born. No prolifer cares about women: you routinely dehumanise women as mere incubators who exist to gestate babies and should be forced.

For a short time, afterwards it quickly divides in many cells becoming an embryo, then it implant into the uterine wall – grow into fetus and eventually births into a newborn.

Biologically incorrect, FWIW. A zygote grows into both the fetus and the placenta.

If the position of prolifers is that the zygote has the same moral worth as the newborn baby, presumably the placenta also has the same moral worth as the newborn baby.

Exactly. And yet she keeps ranting she's not doing this.

The difference between you, the reader, and the unborn child is time allowed for your growth, and food

O rlly?

A 'scientist' who believes in the homunculus theory of human development…

I suppose you are not at all familiar with epigenetics then, eh?

Nope.. Saying that a woman HAS TO CARE for her newborn – at least until he or she can be handed off safely – is NOT dehumanizing – it's EXPECTING a woman to take RESPONSIBILITY. Same with an unborn child – a woman should have to CARE (GASP!) for her unborn child until he or she can be delivered and handed off SAFELY to someone else. Pro-aborts seem to hate the words CARE and RESPONSIBILITY.

Kill the rapist, not the unborn child.

I don't believe rapists should have parental rights.

And your distortion of science doesn't become YOU. I'll tell you what science DOESN'T say. It doesn't say a woman has to derail her entire life for the sake of an errant sperm.

We do not force women to parent, before or after birth. That never works out well for the parent OR the child. I won't allow you to turn the USA into Romania.

Here's a moral argument for you. If I were carrying a fetus with Down syndrome, I would have to be concerned about 1) the effect on my other children and my marriage, and 2) the effect on society at large, because the kid will likely outlive me, and I don't have a trust fund to leave behind for the child's care after I'm gone. Every family needs to ponder these issues for themselves. But if you choose to bring such a child into the world, you better be prepared to deal with the challenges. And if you aren't prepared, and have the child anyway, THAT is a selfish act.

But they don't.

** But until there is positive evidence, I think it best to assume they don't.**

Well, I would rather think so, since such a mechanism as you describe, allowing thought without the near-completion of the brain would be of 'use' ONLY in the embryo-fetus, which raises the question of what possible evolutionary pressure would select for such a thing (other than sad feelies on the part of those who want to ascribe consciousness to the embryo), since such 'thought' in an embryo fetus would not enable it to survive any better than it currently is.

As for 'positive evidence' as someone pointed it, it's remotely possible that jellyfish are mentally superior to human beings… so mentally superior that we can't even get an inkling of their true superiority. But all the actual evidence we really have suggests that this is not the case.

Experience doesn't mean too much in the world of science. What have you published and how many times have you been cited? Its a crude measure of your prolificness and whether your ideas have contributed to advancement of your field.

To that, I would say that dogs and cats have demonstrated (albeit limited) cognitive ability. It certainly doesn't take an infant long to figure out how to manipulate an adult. Whoever argues that premise is mistaken.

Brava. Of course, in the eyes of myintx, you're "selfish." I can deal with that. She's selfish too.

Your mother is a very courageous woman, and she raised a great son.

Nice goalpost moving. Nobody said women don't "mourn" a miscarriage (or feel relieved, if she didn't want to be pregnant in the first place.) Nobody holds funerals for their used Kotex or Tampax, which may contain a "pwecious embryo" (given that most either never implant, or are lost within hours or days). Such behavior would be considered bizarre.

Nope on the first assertion. A big YES on the second.

Well let me tell you something Ladyblack. I actually have an ancestor who was alive when I was a child, who was actually a slave. Greek, not black. Surprise!

I'm sure it will come as a great shock to Myintx and her little fairytale world that there were people who were still slaves, here in the US, in the early 1900's. In fact, there are people who are still slaves, TODAY in the US. And other unpleasant situations that Myintx and her fairytale world like to pretend don't actually exist, and the people in them are just (sob) 'irresponsible and selfish'.

Anyway, I find it offensive in the extreme, that myintx keeps trying to claim that my great grandmother, who was always very nice to me, is worth no more than a precious widdle zef. So, what am I supposed to conclude? That given the choice between freeing my grandmother from her situation, and saving the 'very life' of a pwecious widdle zef that she'd choose the latter? I can only assume so, especially since she's made it clear that she has no problem with, indeed, actively wants, women to be enslaved, for the sake of the pwecious zefs. Grrr!

Among other characters in the book who myintx would probably put under the 'sad feelie can't help it' category included an insane woman, whose mental state consisted of 'kill, eat, go into neutral' and a teenage girl 'Tani Aduelo' who killed another teenage girl 'Misi Pihn' because Tani was starving and Misi had plenty of food but refused to share it, so Tani needed (so she claimed) to kill Misi for her food, for her 'very life'. The convicts had a different opinion. Misi's food belonged to Misi, no matter how much she had, or how badly Tani needed it, and it was not Misi's job to feed Tani. Not even for her 'very life'. Nor were they impressed when Tani tried to play the 'juvenile' card because she was under 18.

I know a prolifers who chose an abortion upon learning she had a malignant tumor. She felt her other rchildren needed her. It was a very hard decision. She remains prolifers buwould not condemn anyone who made such a hard choice. Nor would I. Not all of these decisions are made public and not all prolifers protest them.

No one is dehumanizing women… except your side -when YOU call them incubators – even women who want their babies.

Most pro-aborts use the "clump of cells" b s to justify abortions well beyond the first few days of a pregnancy.

Unborn children should have rights and should be protected. States are allowed to protect unborn children after viability – ie. telling a woman she has to remain pregnant unless she meets one of the states exceptions. States should be able to protect unborn children before viability as well.

Please provide proof that a clump of cells is an unborn child.

You want to tell Pam Stenzel, and Rebecca Kieslling they should have been killed before they were born?

It's the rapists who are evil and deserve punishment, not the unborn child. The woman should get all the help she needs to get through her pregnancy – including counseling to help understand that the unborn child is a victim of the crime too.

NOPE.. She died because of malpractice. The unborn child died too.

no one is letting children and babies die. Go away with your crazy theories.

It's not a dog or a cat now is it? Has any pregnant woman ever given birth to a dog or a cat or something that isn't a human being?

An unborn child is a human being.

You have a choice to save innocent born babies or let them die and you choose to let them die. Go away and stop letting babies. die.

So, you're claiming that a newborn baby can't eat, breath, or poop on it's own and needs to be attached to another person's bloodstream? Is that what you're claiming? If not, my statement stands, JoAnna is full of shit.

Wow!
Miss my entire statement about how the 'evil rapist' in question is having his
body and brain controlled by a computer put there by an evil scientist! That's
forced gestationer reading comprehension for you…

But lets pretend you're really smart, and actually understood what I wrote, instead of the idiot you obviously are. In that case, I would have to assume that you fully understood that the 'rapist' was not at all in
control of his actions, that he really 'couldn't help himself' which is the same simpering argument you use for the poor widdle zef, but you want to negate the argument in the case of the man, and that you are terming him as 'evil',
despite any lack of real evil intention on his part, simply because he is engaging in what you find to be an un-cute action of rape, rather than doing something cute like sucking his thumb, and he doesn't have a cute head like the widdle embwyo.

In other words, you make moral judgements and grant rights based entirely on cuteness.

Not on intention.

Not on brain function.

Not on 'very life'.

Not on rights of any sort.

On cuteness.

So which is it? Are you an idiot with no reading comprehension,
or do you make moral assessments and grant rights based on cuteness? Those are the only two possibilities, so which one is it?

And your babble about someone who once had a functioning brain
being in a 'temporary' brain death is just that. Babble. Because firstly an
embryo NEVER had a functioning brain. We don't grant priveleges and rights
based on future 'potential' any more than we punish people based on future
possibilities. We punish people based on present of past actions, and we grant
rights based on the same thing.

Secondly, the 'temporarily brain dead person' is not attached to another person. If he were, the other person would have a right to remove him, even if it cost him his 'very life'.

Lastly, a person does not have a 'right' to care and machines at the expense of others. If the patient has insurance or sufficient wealth to cover such care, great. If not, his relatives don't have an obligation to pay for it, no matter how many sad feelies you have. If you want to spend your money to pay for the care of such 'temporarily brain dead people', you will not be stopped.

Please, experience and the use of knowledge in gaining it, do mean much in the world of science. Argumentum ad hominem is a cheap ploy and I shall not engage further in it. I was head-hunted by the EU Commission, as a scientist, for one thing. What I have written here, for the Blogger, about the commencement of life stands, based on establlshed scientific principle.

Yeah, it's 'selfish' when I kill a mosquito, too, because I don't want it drinking my blood. Yeah, I have 'sad feelies' about the mosquito drinking my blood. That's why I (gasp) 'kill' it.

You've yet to give ANY reason, why ANY 'human beings' should have a 'right to life' when mosquitoes do not, let alone, explaining what it is about the zef that gives it special rights that justify it being allowed to do things that I would have the right to kill any other human being on the planet for doing.

She's just the only one that never burns out.

Well said.

OMG, you got THAT right. And she's a one-trick pony.

The only argument I need for abortion is I AM and I WILL.
Your 'morals' are not my imperative.

Um NO, I don't wish to tell anyone they should have been killed before they were born. I am not their mother. The decisions their mothers made are none of my concern. Just as my decisions are none of your concern. And by the way, I've never even had an abortion. I have never been pregnant by rape. However, I have spent most of my life married, with children. How could I ask my husband and kids to accept that? It wouldn't be fair to me, my husband, or my other children. Therefore, I would never carry a pregnancy from rape. It's just not my problem to deal with. Other women are to be supported in whatever decision they make. That's what pro-choice means. That means I support the choices made by women. And incidentally, simply declaring that you do not think rapists should have parental rights… well, duhhhhh. The fact of the matter is that in 31 states, they do. You must deal with how things are… not how you *wish* they were. That's your problem in a nutshell. You confuse how things ARE with how things ought to be. And you don't live in that kind of world.

No pro-choice woman said women are incubators. EVER.

Killing those – or euthanasing those with mental illnesses – say, bipolar disorder – could be considered a "social good", with the right points. I could on.

……….
Van Gogh, Florence Nightingale and I all have bipolar disorder.
And at least two of us have had abortions.
Do go on. Come on to my house and tell me killing me is a 'social good' and see what happens.
'Prolifers' think of themselves as sane and caring. That is the chief delusion of the everyday zealot.

Women get abortions because they do not want to be pregnant. Who are you to tell anyone what they 'should' do?

Unborn children, except those of the middle class or wealthy, of course. Laws passed for 'show' and to make anti-choicers have happy feelies won't affect women in those demographics, only the poor. Myintx has made it clear that fairness doesn't matter and that she has no desire to support laws that actually have some teeth that would result in prosecuting and holding accountable MORE women, not JUST the low-hanging fruit.

Facts are not germane to developing standards/morals? Laughing at you.
Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis. – Karl Kraus

Savita died of Sepsis and malpractice.

See? Prolifers aren't interested in supporting life-saving abortions: they just lie about a woman who died because she didn't have access to an abortion that would have saved her life.

The "malpractice" was the refusal of the Galway hospital to perform the abortion that would have saved Savita's life on Monday (she was admitted on Sunday, knew she was suffering a miscarriage at 17 weeks on Monday, and asked for an abortion then – and was denied).

Don't be silly, myintx. It's prolifers who reject all possibility that girls and women can take RESPONSIBILITY. A person who believes in individual RESPONSIBILITY is prochoice.

You want to force a girl or a woman through pregnancy and childbirth against her will. You're against her having RESPONSIBILITY. What is there about that word you hate so much?

Myintx supports killing people who have had a computer implanted in their brain, controlling their actions from elsewhere, because they are 'evil' if they violate the sanctity of her genitals. Poor widdle her can't be expected to engage in a 'little coexistence for 9 short minutes'.

Her entire morality is based on how cute something is.

Not 'human being'
Not 'very life'
Not 'just a chance'
Not 'innocent'
Not 'just a little coexistence'.

Cuteness.

And yet, you would shoot a poor man whose brain is being controlled by a computer, rather than WAIT a 'few short minutes' because you don't 'feel
like having the sanctity of your genitals violated.

No, actually I think she's far, far worse than she lets on. Any woman who would call a man 'evil' because he rapes her while being controlled by a computer implanted in his brain, and say that he should be 'killed' because she can't tolerate the violation of the precious sanctity of her genitals for 9 short minutes, while weeping over the 'right to life' of a brainless zef and claim other people must put up with it for months and risk death, paralyis and health problems, is a serious cockroach brained sociopath.

** Equally, it says that the conception is fully constituted from the get-go.The difference between you, the reader, and the unborn child is time allowed for your growth, and food.**

Fine? That's the only 'difference'? I can survive just fine without being inside another person. So according to you, the zef should be able to, as well. Since it's 'fully constituted'. So you should have no problem with it being removed. And it can survive just fine that way. Abortion problem solved. Correct?

And, I'm sure, you can show me all the zefs and embryos with brainwaves? Since they're 'fully constituted' and there's no difference between them and me. Yes?

Or are you babbling like myintx?

actually, the only thing that embryologists agree on is that human development starts at conception…

They do not all agree that it is a tiny person from the get go.

They are also studying epigenetics and are realizing that the genetic instructions within the zygote do NOT create a carbon copy of themselves at birth. You could take the same zygote, put it in the same woman 10 times, and each time you would get a DIFFERENT baby, because nurture has a profound effect on how those genes are interpreted and expressed.

Also, recent research has demonstrated that a successful conception is meaningless if the egg has certain flaws:http://discovermagazine.com/2004/may/cover

Please, I am saying that there is no difference in essence between you and the embryo. In what environments you and the unborn child survive are, of course, different. Indeed, a child may be conceived and grown in the laboratory, though this has not yet been taken to term, for legal reasons. As you say, the early removal from a mother of a conception she does not want and its reimplantation in another host (not necessarily human, but safe anyway), would avoid all the ducking and diving (an impoverished scene) to get around moral or secular grounds for not wanting the partial legalisation of killing. Brainwaves, you know well, arise with the development of the brain – and continue apace until the interruption of these, through accident, disease or age, Other functions come and go too – but the status of any human function is not the basis for killing, most especially when life beckons the individual concerned.

Good grief. I said "not all" pro lifers. I do realize there is a very loud and fundamentalist group out there who are horrid. You are not willing to hear anything at all if you cannot acknowledge that there are many pro lifers who are deeply compassionate, care for the life of the mother, want to find solutions that are helpful, grieve with those women who grieve their abortions (because there are women who grieve them). If you can only make sweeping generalizations then there is no point in having any kind of helpful discussion (helpful for both sides) with you.

You are not willing to hear anything at all if you cannot acknowledge that there are many pro lifers who are deeply compassionate, care for the life of the mother, want to find solutions that are helpful, grieve with those women who grieve their abortions (because there are women who grieve them).

I've never met any prolifers who were at all compassionate, let alone "deeply". (Though all of them liked to talk big about "compassion", none seemed to feel any.)

I've never met any prolifers who supported "life of the mother" exemptions in real life. (As detailed below.)

I've never met any prolifers who respected women enough to be able "grieve with" women over miscarriages or abortions. (All prolifers have rules about what it's OK for women to feel about abortions.)

I've never met any prolifers who weren't totally happy making sweeping generalisations about girls and women and reproductive healthcare.

Prolifers support forced pregnancy and childbirth, regardless of the conscience of the woman. How much compassion can someone like that afford to have before they realise the awful wrongness of their ideology?

And no pro-lifer said it either. The word is mostly spewed by pro-aborts. Pro-lifers know that ALL human beings that have done nothing wrong should have a right to life.

The DICTIONARY disagrees with you. Check out definitions of the word 'unborn'. Several reputable dictionaries have examples using the phrases "unborn child" or "unborn baby". 🙂

Well, they don't have a "right to life." Neither do you.

I agree, Myintx (just for the record) that was very rude.

The ZEF starts out as a clump of cells. It has to develop into a actual human. Your side does not care at all about the pregnant woman. All you care about is punishing the little sIut for having sex for a reason besides pregnancy.

I do a lot with my time and money to help other people.

The machine cannot be cut off unless there is another machine to transfer the preemie to without killing him or her.

In Ireland it was legal (and is now) to remove the baby if the mother's life was endangered. The doctor's didn't realize her life was endangered.

Love you pro-aborts like to bring up life of the woman being truly endangered to somehow (?) justify killing for 15 minutes of fame, hiding the results of an affair it simply not being the right time to have a baby.

if anyone has seen headlines lately about toddler tortured to death by his parents, and you wondered what kind of person could possibly be so heartless and malevolent — your answer is here in ann morgan!
THIS is the type of attitude/person that effects and justifies unspeakable violence on those weaker/dependent on her. these people exist and one is trolling this board. it's important we all know that.

Yeah? How about all of the pro life evangelicals, followers of the books "How to Train up a Child" and "Spare the Rod Spoil the Child" who have beaten and starved their children to death?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2011/10/spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child-not-relevant-in-child-abuse-case/

1. Because we are human beings… if cattle want to get together and decide they have rights they can… then they can tell us all about it. Or, you can GO AWAY to another website and petition that we save cattle… buh bye.

2. No, he or she is not.

3. No I wouldn't decline, but organ donation has nothing to do with intentionally poisoning, dismembering or killing someone.

No sweetie it is a potential human being…
There is no help to stop the misery of an unwanted pregnancy for some except an abortion.

Abortion opponents don't use the English language consistently; it makes them look like Stupidly Prejudiced Hypocrites. You, for example, just spouted the phrase "human beings", without any consideration of what you were actually talking about.

PLEASE SPECIFY: What is the difference between "a human", and "a human being"? If there is no difference in your mind, then it logically follows there is no difference between equivalent other phrases like "a mouse" and "a mouse being" –so why do you never use the language consistently, and routinely use phrases like "mouse being", "goldfish being", "dandelion being", "python being", and so on, in your ordinary conversations?

To link the word "being" with "human" almost exclusively means that you understand that there is some sort of difference between the phrases "a human" and "a human being", even if you can't specify exactly what that difference is. But I can explain the difference easily, because there are a few other places where you might have no objection to linking the word "being" to some other word. Relevant phrases are "intelligent being", "extraterrestrial being", and "alien being" –in each case you would be referring to an entity that you perceive has having certain characteristics also possessed by human beings —you would be talking about persons.

So, you don't use the phrase "mouse being" (and so on) because a mouse (and so on) is not a person. Meanwhile, there is the original question, "what is the difference between "a human" and "a human being" –the Answer is now clear: "a human" is an entity that is not a person, while "a human being" is a human that is a person. You might claim that all humans are also persons, but you would be wrong. A hydatidiform mole can be totally human in its DNA, and it most certainly is very much alive, but not even the most staunch abortion opponent would consider for a moment that it qualifies as a person. A brain-dead human on full-life support is no longer a person, because the person died when the brain died, and the Law knows it! –which is why the "plug" can be pulled, even though the human body is still very much alive.

Even YOU know there is a difference between "human" and "person" (and thus there is a difference between "a human" and "a human being"), and I can prove you know that difference by asking a simple Question. All you have to do is think about modern medical technology, and how close it is to being able to keep alive that brain-dead human even if the head was completely removed from the body. Because when modern medical technology can do that, it can also keep the head alive, separate from the body. So, the Question, "If you suffered an awful decapitation accident, but rescuers arrive in time, do you want them to save your human body, because your think "human equals person", and your head is irrelevant to your personhood, or do you want them to save your head instead —which way saves you-the-person?

Then remember what was written above, that an intelligent being is presumed to have a mind equivalent to a human mind, and ditto for an extraterrestrial being or an alien being. But does an unborn human have such a mind? NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST. Its mental abilities are far exceeded by many ordinary animals, and therefore the unborn human is therefore itself only-a/just-another mere animal organism, not a person-class entity –it is only "a human", not "a human being".

In Ireland it was legal (and is now) to remove the baby if the mother's life was endangered.

Interesting how you prolifers strive to stay ignorant of countries where prolife legislation is enforced, isn't it?

Until 2013, all abortion was illegal in the Republic of Ireland under an 1861 Act. A woman who provided illegal abortions was sentenced to death under this Act in 1957. Doctors knew that if they provided an illegal abortion they could be sentenced to two years penal servitude. In September 2012, only weeks from Savita Halappanavar's death by abortion denial, a group of medically-qualified prolifers declared (apparently, ignorant of ectopic and molar pregnancy, eclampsia, prolonged miscarriage, etc) that abortion was never medically necessary/

The doctor's didn't realize her life was endangered.

Yes, they did. Any doctor or nurse or even midwives know that prolonged miscarriage can kill.

Furthermore, they all knew that the foetus's life could not be saved. The faux-justification that prolifers like to tout, that it's all about saving the unborn babies, was obviously void in this instance: the 17-week-foetus could not be saved. Yet prolifers still reject supporting an abortion that would have saved Savita Halappanavar's life.

Love you pro-aborts like to bring up life of the woman being truly endangered

Yes, repeatedly, just to show how you prolifers lie through your teeth pretending your motivation in forcing women is to save foetal lives and pretending that you'd support a life-saving abortion, when it clearly isn't and you won't.

Calling human rights activists "pro-aborts" also shows how you can't imagine why people would support the basic human right of safe legal access to abortion out of compassion and respect for women.

I see. So, in your view, abortions are easy. Doesn't that make you a pro-abort?

Forcing a girl or a woman to gestate a baby against her will, when her reason and conscience has decided that it is not right for her to have a baby, is blanket denial of responsibility. You prolifers – or in your case, you pro-abort, you! – refuse to allow that a girl or a woman can be responsible.

In prolife cultures, where safe legal abortion is unavailable, infanticide is far more common. That's because all prolifers care about is forcing the girl or the woman, denying her responsibility: they've no concern for what happens to the baby once they have forced the girl or the woman through childbirth, unless the baby is suitable for the adoption industry and can be used profitably in that way.

The fact that you do not regard a girl or a woman who is pregnant as a vulnerable human being who deserves protection, shows again how you pro-abort prolifer dehumanises and disrespects women.

No, you really *don't* have a right to life. You might have 30 years left. You might have 30 minutes. Nobody is owed a tomorrow. I found that out in a painful way. You're just going to have to settle for now.

It was a total word salad. I know I said I was upvoting you at LAN and I thought I was but because both my accounts are banned my upvotes don't work. I'm cheering you from the sidelines. Much applause!

By your 'logic' you're not pro-CHOICE either unless you approve of all choices – a woman killing her newborn, a person killing their elderly parents that they deem unwanted, the choice made to rob a bank, etc.

And by your 'logic' I guess we can start killing newborns if the world is overpopulated?

You're spewing ignorant b s …. hope you find a CURE for your ignorance.

I've seen plenty of aborted fetuses that can't be described as human beings. Anencephalic fetuses come to mind. And a lot of the DU monstrosities removed from Iraqi women.

Sorry myintx, but that's pure horse manure. Of COURSE they realized her life was in danger. they're doctors of medicine. Even an RN or LPN knows that a pregnancy with ruptured membranes cannot be permitted to continue for days on end. They just didn't care, because at the end of the day, they weren't going to jail, and it's wasn't their life on the line. What discipline has been done to those doctors? I'll bet nothing. They will go on to malpractice on other pregnant women, and it happens here too, in Catholic "hospitals." If I could shut down the whole Catholic "healthcare" system, I would do it… YESTERDAY.

Very well said. OF COURSE every one of the doctors and nurses knew that Savita's pregnancy could kill her. They just didn't have the guts to defy the law and save her life.

They are VALID terms.. If they weren't, they wouldn't be in legal dictionaries and used in laws 🙂

But hey, feel free to donate all your extra money to fight fetal homicide laws that use the term "unborn child". Guess you don't care about protecting women whose evil boyfriends kill their unborn children, do you?

As an addendum: None of those doctors should have needed to have the guts to save Savita's life.

DU?

It doesn't matter if the fetus has any "worth." The only way to get to an argument prohibiting abortion based on the fetus' "worth" is to argue that the fetus is "worth" more than the woman carrying it. While I get this is ACTUALLY the "pro-life" stance, how many pro-criminalizers are willing to make that argument OPENLY?

Most pro-lifers do not believe the unborn child is worth more than the woman carrying him or her. They believe all innocent human beings have the SAME value. A newborn isn't worth more than his or her mother or father, but the parents are responsible for ensuring his or her safety. The parents cannot decide to kill their newborn if they don't want it. They have to at least ensure his or her safety by handing the baby off SAFELY to someone. Even if that takes time and even if they don't want to – unless they want to put themselves at risk for being charged with a crime.

Depleted uranium.

If a woman is SO PARANOID about resources being "stolen" from her, she should have her uterus removed before she ever gets pregnant. Your load of b s is the most selfish excuse to kill another human being. Parent's have a RESPONSIBILITY to care for their offspring. Yes, with a newborn that may mean sleepless nights and even sleepless nights at the thought of putting a child in the system if they don't want him or her – neither of those excuses are good enough to kill a human being. None of your post above is a good enough excuse to kill a human being eiither.

CARING for your unborn child is a responsibility all parents should have.

Puh-leeze! Time and time again, pro-criminalizers show they think the prenate is somehow exempt from the rules that apply to everyone else–including neonates. Parents cannot decide to kill their parents, but parents are not obligated to let a newborn draw sustenance or life from their very bodies. I don't have to give so much as a drop of blood to my child (assuming I had any). If a newborn doesn't have a right to my body, then neither does a prenate have a right to a woman's body. Come back when you are willing to advocate that anyone can use my body parts if they need it for their very life. THEN you can say that you believe all human beings have the SAME value. Until then, the only one you are fooling is yourself.

If the 'choice' is killing a human being that has done nothing wrong, I'm proud to be anti-choice. I'm proud to be anti-abortion: against the killing of unborn children. Are you proud to be pro-abortion: for the killing of unborn children?

That will never happen. You're reverting back to fairy land again.

I have a strong enough stomach. OTOH, I don't typically watch gorehouse flicks, either.

"Unborn child" is a valid term. Too bad if it makes you THINK about they tiny human being you support killing. Think about it some more. While looking at a 4D ultrasound of an unborn child at 16 weeks. Can you say loud and proud "I support killing that tiny human being"?

A child is different from an unborn human animal organism. For one thing, the unborn human animal organism includes a placenta as a vital organ, while a child doesn't. For other differences, see the "You, Baby/Child" article mentioned in another message here. That message indicates that while you can call an unborn human animal organism "a child", it is not a wise thing to do. So, I repeat what I wrote above, try thinking about how you use the language, instead of being just another copycat/follower.

AND YET ANOTHER fundamental error of abortion opponents is exposed!!!

I invite you to go to a fertility clinic and ask them "who is to blame" when a wanted pregnancy fails to happen. They will not assign the blame to any person, they will assign the blame to various independently-acting entities, such as sperm and egg and zygote and morula and blastocyst. Sex does not force them to do the things they are genetically programmed to do –and of course, if the genetic program is faulty, they will fail to do what you might expect them to do.

THEREFORE, when they actually do what they are genetically programmed to do, sex did not force that to happen, either. Those independently-acting entities deserve EXACTLY as much blame for succeeding at causing an unwanted pregnancy, as if they had failed to cause a wanted pregnancy.

Which means your worthless blather about "responsibility" is exactly that, worthless blather.

FURTHERMORE, you are entirely ignoring a completely different and totally relevant factor. If you write a story, you are as free to destroy it as you are free to try to publish it. If you paint a landscape, you are as free to destroy it as you are free to try to sell it to an art collector. If you are a mad scientist creating life in a laboratory, you are as free to destroy it as you are free to cherish it. SO, TO WHATEVER EXTENT you want to associate the actions of sex-participants with the creation/formation of a new living thing, a zygote, in spite of what was written above about independently-acting entities, that is exactly the extent to which the sex-participants are free to destroy it. The choice is entirely theirs, not yours, to make.

So, take your worthless blather about "responsibility" and toss it into the waste bin, along with the rest of your utterly idiotic anti-abortion arguments.

This is a common misunderstanding (I had it too). There is no such thing as a life saving abortion. Abortions are by definition only meant to produce dead offspring. The term you are looking for is "Preterm parturition", which is the medically nessicary separtion of a woman from her pre born offsring (aka child/ immaturehuman being by common definitions) because something is going wrong. In preterm parturiton the intent is not to produce dead anything, but for the doctors to do their best to ensure the health of both mother and child.

Read more here
http://www.macombdaily.com/opinion/20140620/life-saving-procedures-arent-essentially-abortions

I wasn't aware of the different term till this year I believe. It'd be great if we could pass this info and understanding of the distinction around so that we could focus on the true abortion debate and not on medically necessary procedures that to the best of my knowledge at least, aren't in jeopardy.

"Scientific
evidence may inform this view, but it
does not dictate the view"

This is exactly right. The abortion debate has (or should at least) roots in science but what you do with the scientific information is where philosophy comes in.

For me, I look to current laws. We already have laws saying it is a crime for one person to kill another. A 'person' is a 'human being' by common dictionary definition.* "Personhood" is merely the state of being a person, or human being. Science tells me fetuses are human beings developing as they are supposed to to eventually be born( therefor 'fetus' is just what we call them during that time, like how 'toddlers' are children between 2-3 arguably).

Since fetuses are part of our human family, I see no reason to not extend the same basic rights to them that born people already have, such as the right to continue existing- provided you have not done anything to compromise that right. I'm not saying I agree with capital punishment, but I acknowledged it currently exists in some states and people who break laws in those states may be risking their right to life.

So, it's that simple for me really. I just don't believe in discriminating aginst anyone in our human faimly who hasn't done any wrong. Laws should be consistent and I feel they aren't currently in regards to human rights.

*I mostly use online dictionary sites such as http://www.thefreedictionary.com/, and http://www.merriam-webster.com/ which anyone with internet access has access too and may look up. If someone would like me to cite the definitions I am referring to however, I can.

Doesn't mean we should let people kill their unborn children. We can at least try- just like we have laws protecting infants from uncaring parents – they at least have to care long enough to ensure their child's safety.

Is occupying another persons body, using that body as a life support machine, and threatening that person's health and life a "basic human right?"

We do have something in common here. We both believe in applying the same rules to everyone. But this is exactly what I *don't* see happening with pro-criminalizers. To take night porter's example, who else is required to allow someone to occupy another person's body and using it as life support? No one. Who else is required to give up their body parts when they are needed to keep someone else alive? No one. Who else is required to to risk their life and health to keep someone else alive? No one. Who else is required to give up their rights without due process even though they have committed no crime and have done nothing wrong? No one.

I could go on and on with this. You're right–laws should be consistent. But what pro-criminalizers want to do is make them even *more* inconsistent by carving out a special exception against women who just happen to be pregnant.

You are a mass murderer. The law of charity says you have a choice to save a baby or a fetus. Do you have that choice? Your choice is to let babies die, right?
Of course you have a choice, so the law is valid and you are a murderer.

It's not a zero-sum game. If you want to save a toddler, does that mean you have to let infants die? Does that make you "a mass murderer"?

If you've "literally never seen a prolifer support life-saving abortions in any actual instance where a girl's or a woman's life is at stake", you must not read this blog very often.

http://blog.secularprolife.org/2012/11/what-does-savita-halappanavars-death.html

Are you saying feral children are not human beings? Do they have no right to live?

The dictionary you are reading was written for children. We are discussing whether a zygote with the wrong number of chromosomes is a human child. I say it is neither human nor a child. Children's dictionaries do not cover that usage of the word.

A partial mole is.

Do you consider a blastocyst to be a person?

And no, 'clump of cells' is not a fitting description for us, because unlike a blastocyst, we can *think*

Yes little girl you people DO think the ZEF is more important than the pregnant woman or you would not force her to give up her life and health for it.

The value cannot be the same when ones life is destroyed for the other to gain a life.

Just out of curiosity, what do you mean they don't have enough human DNA? Are you saying that a large percentage of eggs and sperms are just missing genes, and when they come together you don't have a working genome?

In a zero sum game, a toddler and a child are living, saving a toddler would cause the death of a child. In this situation, both a child and a toddler are dying. And because they are dying at the rate of 1.8 per second, you can save only one or the other. So a choice to save one allows the other to die. That is not a zero sum game. There is a net increase in life, either born or unborn. You get to choose which you will let die.

Yes, 42 percent of conceptions are genetically flawed and cannot produce human life.

DO NOT CONFUSE THE LAW WITH THE SCIENCE. Per the Law, feral children are legal persons with the rights of persons. Per the Science, they are mere animals, not persons –they are "humans" but not "human beings" (see another message on this page where the distinction between the two terms is clearly described).

How about you "try" something else? Something that might actually work. Like stop voting for politicians who cut social programs.

Only if human beings lack a brain and parts of their skulls, sweetheart. You can't lack a brain and qualify as a human being. You can't lack a brain and qualify as an animal.

The scientific evidence is that most zygotes do not produce human life. So when you set the zygote to be equal to a woman, you are devaluing the woman to the status of non human life.

And when you claim to be "pro life" yet value non life over human life, that is a contradiction that is untenable. Either you are pro human life or you are pro "whatever" life. Which is it?

And you have a choice, you can call yourself pro life and choose to save real babies or you can call yourself pro life and attempt to save zygotes that most of the time are not human life. If you claim to be pro life, you have a duty to actually save life. If you fail to do your duty, by saving zygotes and not human life, then you have committed murder by omission.

Far as I can tell, women walking into abortion clinics aren't going in for an abortion to save their lives (I would imagine medically necessary abortions are happening in hospitals).

Not all pro lifers stand outside clinics. Many instead lobby the government or work in places intended to help women with unwanted pregnancies.

Pro lifers are interested in supporting women who make hard choices. They just do not support one particular choice.

But I will readily admit, pro lifers who want to truly support women should be out there fighting to make contraception available, accessible, and affordable (or free), fighting against poverty, educating girls, etc – to make a real difference in lessening the felt need for abortions. And I will readily admit, the loudest pro lifers are not the ones who are campaigning for such support for women.

I think there is a common ground for pro choice and pro life – that of empowering women. Abortions are the result of many other problems in the world. If we could stop insulting each other and recognize that, there would be a lot more good done.

But there ARE people out there who want to empower women who ARE pro life.
—-
I'm sorry, but this just does not compute. You can't empower women by depriving them of fundamental rights.

Now you are claiming to know how myintx votes? How progressive and 'tolerant' of you!

Your explanation of the commencement of life is false.

You cannot prove your claims.

Citation for this claim?

Anti-Catholic bigotry.

I can't see how you and I are going to agree on this. Maybe you and I should just put the gloves on sometime to work it out.

Well of course the gutless wonders should have saved her life.

And she may be doing those things.

"Embryologists can all agree that a fully constituted individual item (liable to develop along the paths in front of it) is there at conception."

It does not matter if you and all your friends "believe" that there is a "fully constituted" individual at conception, because you are guilty of a projection fallacy. You cannot know what the DNA will "express" or when it will express of if it will express anything at all. It is impossible for you to prove there is human life until that life is born. Why, because the human fetal heart must transform into the human baby heart. And all fetal systems must transform into human baby systems. There is no way to know if the code for those systems even exists until the fetus is brought to term either naturally or by induction. If the code to change from fetus to baby does not exist, then the fetus was never capable of becoming human life.

"When you say it's a human at 12 weeks or 2 months – is purely a human choice, often, I fear (research it!), to allow legal killing."

You understand that there are hundreds of thousands of eggs and millions of sperm that will be wasted if one forces pregnancy to remain intact.
The choice to force one birth takes away the opportunity to have several others. Each time a pair of egg and sperm die, there is a loss of potential human life. So forcing birth also causes death.
And one has a choice from another perspective as well. There are 10 wanted zefs that die each second, 1.4 unwanted zygotes and 1.8 born people that die each second. We may choose to save any of those three that are dying. Who is to say that it is more "moral" to save a fetus rather than a born baby, child or adult. A choice to save any one is a choice to let the others die.

"Epigenetics is as yet a science of theories, facing extraordinary challenges, at this time. Of course, as regards what you say, influences on our genes continue through life and, under the same science and at any stage can switch off/on a set of same, which eg determines your health in some way. Getting better to know the mechanisms of Nature is very exciting"

I have not seen where you understand what science shows us with regard to zefs. Most (70%) zefs do not become humans and 42 percent cannot become human life.

"- but the port of call, for the results obtained, should not be ending it all for a helpless and voiceless item, which to Nature is an item living an early part of a human life."

That is another projection fallacy. There is no indication that the zef is human, can become human or will live to birth if it is human. And you are making human like projections on "Nature". I seriously doubt that nature feels anything one way or another.

Thanks for the information.

If you are referring to sponantious abortion aka miscarriages I am well aware of them. To the best of my knowledge the zygote is formed, but there is something wrong them to the point they cannot continue developing so the woman's body rejects them.

If you are referring to something else can you please clarify? I do not claim to be a professional scientist; I have merely taken high school and college level biology courses like most people. I also don't have a photographic memory so some jogging would be appreciated.

But what I DO know is that human gametes when combined properly, will ONLY produce human offspring. Not a gamete, not a blood cell, not a skin cell. The briefly single cell that is produces has 46* chromosomes and human DNA just as I do now , making them genetically the same as me species wise and therefor human life.

It should be noted that I didn't refer to zygotes in my original post. Since we were talking about (surgical or chemical) abortion, which happens post implantation, I chose to keep my post focused on that. But perhaps I should clarify that from my understanding of the science, a human being comes into existance at conception(aka fertilization) when the process goes correctly.

When you say "70 percent of conceptions will not produce human life" are you considering human life to start at the same point as me? Maybe that's where we are conflicting?

*I am also aware of chromosome disorders, but those that have them we know to still be human since we know that like produces like.

You don't. You have a right not to be unjustly killed. That's not the same thing as a "right to live." Just as an example, suppose your liver failed. Suppose I was a match, and you asked me to consider donating a lobe of my liver to you. You would pay for the surgery, and my liver would grow back in time. (YES, that actually does happen. The liver is the only organ that re-generates.) I can tell you NO, you may not have a piece of my liver, that I do not wish to miss the time from work, and besides that, I really don't like you. Or that I really do like you, but I can't take the risk of taking time off work because I fear losing my job, or I can't afford to lose income while I recover. Or maybe I just plain don't want to. You cannot sue me to force me to give you what you need on the basis that "you have a right to life." You don't. Even if you were my parent, my sibling, my own child or another relative. You will lose your case. And if you can't find a suitable matched donor, you're going to die. So NO, you do not have a "right to life." Another person's right to bodily integrity and autonomy will always come first.

No, writing a check is not "parenting" Festus.

Who is "Festus"? And writing a check is a part of parenting. Your disdain for men is obvious.

That refers to the government. That means the government cannot execute you without due process. That refers exclusively to criminal law. It doesn't mean you have a right to life from anyone else, or that the government will force anyone to allow you to live. If you don't understand the difference, you don't belong on this thread.

Quit your waffling. If anyone doesn't belong on this thread, it's you. FYI, those rights apply to civil settings, too, not just criminal. That is why we have a civil action for wrongful death when the right to life is violated, and a whole set of causes of action when the rights to liberty or property are infringed upon.

Further, the four elements are needed to state prima facie case. Whether the evidence will prove all of the elements by a preponderance of the evidence is another matter (assuming the matter is not adjudicated on a motion for summary judgment). We're still talking about the right to life as the theoretical underpinning of the whole wrongful death cause of action.

Not that that will ever happen, but you do realize that won't solve anything, don't you?

Never say never. 🙂

It could solve providing a good workout for us and perhaps some sport-generated male bonding that just might make us a little more likely to see one another's point of view.

I hope this doesn't come across as flippant or disrespectful; I mean it in the most positive way.

Custodial parents interfere all the time with the relationships that non-custodial parents have with the two parties' children. With impunity.

Your misandry is showing with the "man or mouse" comment. Like most feminists and pro-abortion types, you want special rights for women.

Pregnancy is the natural state that occurs when sexual intercourse accomplishes what nature intended it for. I don't care what people want to use it for, that's their business but it has an actual purpose dictated by nature. So complain to Mother Nature, not me about that one.
—-
What makes you think nature intended sex to be for reproduction among humans?
===

It seems you are claiming that no one should become pregnant (or everyone should have abortions) and the human race should go extinct?
—-
No, night porter is merely claiming that the choice to get or remain pregnant belongs solely to the woman.
====

Many things in life have risks.
—-
Yes, but we get to *choose* whether to take those risks. Get how that works?
====

I will say though: If someone believes they may be at risk for a problem pregnancy they may want to consider those risks before becoming pregnant. Again, talk to your doctor.
—-
Like that helps someone who has gotten pregnant unintentionally.

Far as I can tell, women walking into abortion clinics aren't going in for an abortion to save their lives (I would imagine medically necessary abortions are happening in hospitals).

Mostly in the UK, that's the case. However, in the US, a sustained campaign of terrorism against abortion providers by the prolife movement – mostly in the 1980s, but continuing in a desultory way even today – has ensured that many hospitals will not provide abortions out of concern for the safety of their staff. Also, hospitals which identify as "Catholic" will never provide abortions and their staff are largely neither trained nor experienced in performing abortions: a woman who needs an abortion, even to save her life, will be referred to another hospital or a clinic, no matter how desperately ill she is. Prolife protesters outside clinics simply have no idea how ill a woman is entering the clinic: they just howl their abuse regardless.

(The rare exceptions for Catholic hospitals, such as the St Joseph's hospital in Arizona in 2009, where the patient would have died en route if the abortion had not been performed immediately, are followed by outrage and expulsion from the Catholic Church, which does not (for doctrinal reasons) support even life-saving abortions.)

Not all pro lifers stand outside clinics. Many instead lobby the government

Yeah, lobbying the government to deny basic human rights to women is actually just as bad as standing outside a clinic howling abuse at patients.

or work in places intended to help women with unwanted pregnancies.

No, you're confused. Prolifers don;t help women who have unwanted pregnancies. Some work in "crisis pregnancy centers", but those aren't intended to help women: they usually try to fake out being health clinics, and often try to funnel women into the adoption industry instead.

Pro lifers are interested in supporting women who make hard choices.

Never seen any evidence of this, anywhere in the prolife movement.

But I will readily admit, pro lifers who want to truly support women should be out there fighting to make contraception available, accessible, and affordable (or free), fighting against poverty, educating girls, etc – to make a real difference in lessening the felt need for abortions. And I will readily admit, the loudest pro lifers are not the ones who are campaigning for such support for women.

Well, that's interesting that you're aware prolifers don't try to "truly support women" and that prolifers aren't interested in preventing abortions. Now you might ask yourself, why is this?

Abortions are the result of many other problems in the world. If we could stop insulting each other and recognize that, there would be a lot more good done.

Well, when prolifers move on from insulting and dehumanising women, lobby government to force women and deny basic human rights to women, you're welcome to join the rest of us do-gooders over here. Cross the fence to the human-rights side. You don't need to hang out with these misogynists if you don't like them.

You are quite right. Indeed, neither I nor you, by definition, can prove anything, we being of limited minds. For your interest, I am putting together (slowly) a list of natural phenomena, which defy our endowment to fathom, even at the level of normally accepted comprehension – eg Nuclear Tunnelling and Black Holes. That said, your bland statement that what I write is false, without rebuttal or perhaps even knowing how to ask about what scientific and medical works are inducted, is only reminiscent of the poorer quips of Shallow Hal.

girls and women are included in "all humans". ALl innocent human beings should have a 'right to life'. That means a woman or man cannot leave their newborn home alone – they have a RESPONSIBILITY to protect their newborn. They cannot wake up one morning, scream about their rights being violated and walk out the door. Their newborns LIFE is worth more then their feelings about their rights being violated. Same with an unborn child.

"A couple of points. Conception can occur in vitro."
However, there is a question about the life in vitro. Normal human life cannot be frozen and reconstituted, yet the in vitro life can. So it is not the same as other life.

"The product can be grown in the lab – though such have not been brought to term for legal reasons. "

Yet we don't know if the in vitro life is the same as normal human life in situ. It could very well be there is no difference and then again there may be evolutionary differences that end the race or make the race better.

"However, this provides reasonable grounds for saying the entity conceived is whole. "

No, we don't know if the in vitro life can exist until it is implanted in the uterus, so there is no indication that it is viable or that it is whole. We do know for a fact that at this juncture, the zygote requires a uterus to continue to develop.

"In the case where a conception does not thrive, this is in the way of Nature (a side reaction, if you wish)."

You cannot prove that.

"I am speaking of letting entities with a future live. "

Life is a continuous process that does not require your control. If you were to remain out of the process, life would then be controlled by the person creating it and not by an intervening third party. Your injection of your personal belief destroys the "Nature" of the process.

"To give you some science, the Prime Cause is also called the Big Bang. We recently saw evidence of the creation/formation of a planet."

You have no proof it was "created" by an outside force.

" 'Cause and effect' requires a cause, no matter what you call it. And the Cause in the Cosmos is a pretty complex piece of work."

There may be no cause and effect that created the Universe. We only know the rules of science in our little spot in space time.

" In my original secular piece, I made space for those of religious persuasion. Fundamentalism, wherever found, eschews reason. A number of comments received come from people on a high horse. Not scholarly."

Your characterization of them is not definitive.

No one is forcing anyone to give up their life.. the woman gets to live and the unborn child gets to live if aborition is restricted – YEAH! No one is killed. Isn't that what you want?

Grasping at straws is what she's doing.

You make the intentional choice to let babies die, I make the intentional choice to save babies. That is what the scientific evidence shows. Your self aggrandizing statements that you "save babies" has been proved to be a lie.

YES forcing a woman into the misery of an unwanted pregnancy IS forcing her to give up her life for a minimum of around a year. Yes she might get to live but her life is ruined. She should not be forced into that for an unwanted ZEF.

What I want is for women to make up their own mind about a pregnancy. Little girl myintx should have no say in it.

Relatively few, since RU-486 has not been approved for wide use in the USA (last I recall). Neverthless, we still are not talking about killing a "someone else", since no unborn human qualifies as a person, either in Law or in Science. And again, if you want to claim otherwise, let's see the Objective Evidence supporting that positive claim!

AN unborn human is a human being and should have basic rights.

At one point in our history salves weren't considered full people. LAWS had to be changed to consider them full people. Laws can be changed to recognize unborn children as people if that's what it takes to protect them. We already have abortion restrictions after viability, so an unborn child doesn't need to be a legal person to be protected. We should be able to have more laws protecting unborn children before viability as well.

The misery of the unwanted pregnancy is going to make it to where the woman CAN'T do a lot of things she did before pregnant.

A woman who doesn't want kids wouldn't give up her life to suffer in misery for an unwanted ZEF and only a horrible person would try to force her into that misery.

**I do a lot with my time and money to help other people**

What do you do with your 'time and money' to help 'other people' who have actually matured beyond the stage of a newborn?

**The machine cannot be cut off unless there is another machine to transfer the preemie to without killing him or her.**, So, basically since there is no guarantee, indeed, it is highly unlikely, that the parents of most preemies can afford such a machine, you've now drastically upped the sacred rights of the sacred fetus, so that instead of merely the mother 'merely coexisting' for a 'few short months' in order to be RESPONSIBLE, which you base on her having had sex, you now are enslaving doctors and several other people in the hospital to the tune of millions of dollars, on the basis of sad feelies (since the doctor and hospital staff were not the ones who had sex).

I'm genuinely puzzled here, myintx. When I asked you why you didn't save the life of precious frozen embryoes in fertility centers, your answer was that you didn't have to, because it was the 'parents responsibility'. So apparently, in that case, it's acceptable to you to let the precious embryoes die, if the parents won't take responsibility. Yet now, in this case, it's suddenly not acceptable to let the preemie die, if the parents won't 'take responsibility'. Instead, the doctors and other hospital staff are on the hook for all the 'responsibility'. Why do they have 'responsibility' for the precious unborn that they aren't the parents to, but you don't? Other than your wanting it to be that way?

**. Because we are human beings **

Umm, no. That's a circular answer. 'Human beings have rights because we are human beings' does NOT explain why human beings have rights.

Is there any actual, real, quality, other than just 'being human beings' that distinguishes human beings from other animals, such that we have rights but other animals do not?

If you feel that rights simply descend magically from the sky, for no explainable reason, just because we are 'human beings', can you photograph or otherwise offer proof of these magical rights coming out of the sky? Otherwise, if you just 'feel' that way, why can't other people 'feel' just as validly that Vampire Bats have rights, 'because they are Desmodus Rotundus' and round up helpless newborn human babies to feed them to Vampire Bats?

I don't really see why not, unless you can show some real, qualitative difference between 'humans' and 'vampire bats' that justifies preferentially giving rights to one, rather than the other.

**No I wouldn't decline, but organ donation has nothing to do with intentionally poisoning, dismembering or killing someone.**

See, now you're contradicting yourself in several ways. You just said in your first statement that the ONLY reason human beings have rights is because they are 'human beings', implying that there is no other quality, other than merely 'being a human being' that either exists in human beings or is necessary to exist in human beings, in order to give them rights.

The brain dead patient is a human being. It isn't a rat or a pig. If merely being a 'human being' in and of itself always grants a 'right to life', as you claim, then the brain dead patient must also have a 'right to life'. Yet you are now saying that you would KILL, that you would DISMEMBER (since it has to be cut up to take the kidney out) a helpless, innocent, human being, just for your own selfish convenience.

Why do you get to KILL innocent human beings, Myintx, but nobody else does? What makes you that much more special than everyone else?

And can you show me exactly where and how it would be legal to dispose of a born person who died of natural causes by throwing their body in the trash, and not reporting the matter to the police and having a death certificate filled out? Failing that, do you propose that all used tampons be turned into the police, tested, and paperwork filled out on them?

So, what you're saying is that if I write my own dictionary, and claim that a cow is a 'human being', then the next time you eat a hamburger, I can force you to say, loud and proud 'I support eating that human being!'

AN unborn human is a human
—–
TRUE.
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being
—–
FALSE. It most certainly is not a "being", any more than a rabbit is a "being". Both have "being", but that is a different definition from qualifying as "a being", the way an extraterrestrial alien intelligent being would qualify as "a being".

Note that in the Oxford English Dictionary, the most authortative of them all, the word "person" has, among its definitions, "a rational being". Unborn humans and rabbits simply don't qualify!

And, again, if you want to claim that an unborn human qualifies as something more than just a mere animal organism, Let Us See The Objective Evidence For It –not your worthless unsupported (or, stupidly, Subjective) claims.
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and should have basic rights.

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Human beings should indeed have basic rights. But since "a human" is not, per the Objective Facts, automatically the same thing as "a human being", and the difference is measurable (for example, look up "rouge test" or the article "Mindful of Symbols"), it would be Sheer Stupid Prejudice to grant basic rights to, say, a hydatidiform mole.

OR to any unborn human.
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At one point in our history salves weren't considered full people.
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There have always been idiots who Deny Facts. In those days the idiots Denied Facts about actual people. In these days the idiots Deny Facts about mere animals organisms, claiming they are equal to people. Tsk, tsk!
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LAWS had to be changed to consider them full people.
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YES, the idiots were overruled.
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Laws can be changed to recognize unborn children as people
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THAT WOULD BE PUTTING IDIOTS IN CHARGE OF THE LAW, exactly like when they originally Denied Facts about actual persons. Are you really that gung-ho about Stupidly Denying Facts? —including the Facts that children, lacking placentas, are different from unborn humans that include placentas?
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if that's what it takes to protect them.
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THEY DON'T NEED PROTECTING. It occurs to me that I have yet to see one single reason why they should need protecting, any more than the average mosquito needs protecting. They ARE extremely easy to replace, after all!
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We already have abortion restrictions after viability, so an unborn child doesn't need to be a legal person to be protected.
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THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PERSONHOOD. It has more to do with the "interests of the State", which tends to think that the more taxpayers there are, the better.
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We should be able to have more laws protecting unborn children before viability as well.

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NOT WITHOUT A VALID REASON. And you haven't provided one. Even the thing just mentioned about "more taxpayers" has a fundamental flaw: Too Much Of ANY Good Thing is ALWAYS A Bad Thing. No exceptions, ever.

Those were proved to be human. They had already been born and lived as humans.

I would ask a woman if she were a woman or a mouse. And nobody has the ability to ruin your life without your permission. If a custodial parent is denying the other parent custody time (who likely has joint legal custody anyway, since that is the rule) the other parent takes them to court where they are told they better stop doing that, or they will lose physical custody. That's how it works.

"Those were proved to be human. They had already been born and lived as humans." … so in order to be considered human you have to be born according to your statement

Congratulations. you have just given human rights to a hydatidiform mole.

It has human DNA and arises from a fertilized ovum. You give "human rights" to a zygote, you have just given human rights to a mole.

That's how it works in your little dream world. Real life is not so generous to non-custodial parents.