Abortion, Genocide, what’s THE difference?!?!?!?!?.... do you condone murder???

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by Maslo

 

The mind is not the source of your rights, because then we have a line between the dumb and smart and the smart get priority. Not so. Unless a life is in danger or a liberty is violated through another's pursuits, there is no right to judge. All of humanity from their beginning at conception to their rightful death have legal protection under the law.

No one said that your mind had to be of a certain caliber, intellect, ect. Just that you had to be conscious to be morally relevant and therefore had to have a brain, as a brain/mind as it is required for consciousness.Nothing to do with intellect level and therefore your argument that smarts determines priority is irrelevant.

Conception is a process, not just a singular point in time. Monozygotic twins, have one fertilisation moment with a result of two completely separate humans; do they share a human life? Do chimeric twins get twice as much life as the average person?

The argument of potential isn't a good one either. You'll often here in these debates, not sure if it has been mentioned so far here, that by stopping the process of development you are putting a stopper to something that could grow into something else that is, without a doubt, morally relevant. So we should treat them as morally relevant to begin with, as they hold the potential. The resulting human being will later result in a corpse, should we treat all babies, including the unborn, as if they are an already dead corpse?

reply to post by Gorman91

Exactly. Now where to draw the line at complexity? This is known as eugenics. That because your some how superior you're more important.

The line is drawn where sentience appears, as an emergent property of the neuronal connections. That correlates with the appearance of brain waves.

I dont thing there is something wrong with considering sentient life as superior or more important as nonsentient life. Otherwise we would have to protect all becteria. And thats NOT eugenics, eugenics is the study of how to improve the human genome.
Its certainly better than life value system based on blatant speciecism.

The mind is not the source of your rights, because then we have a line between the dumb and smart and the smart get priority.

The line is drawn between sentient (having mind) and unsentient (not having mind) life.

The wave of a human begins technically when their molecules are put there by the mothers food digestive system. The brain cells simply produce more waves on top of that.

Wait, what do you mean by "wave"? Only brain waves are relevant, and only because they are the outside manifestation of mind, and that is what we want to determine to know whether the system has rights or dont, if it contains mind or not.

I am not talking about some metaphysical quantum wave or the like.

In ergo, the only thing you can define life as and draw a line for is genes. The genes are formed, and they are unique.

Genes at conception do not define single person, since the embryo often splits into more humans later in embryonic development. Genetic definition of life value is also speciecist.

A human can have a sudden quite literally EMP blast to their brain and all information is lost or reset and they have to regain it. At this moment they are indifferent to that fetus without brain cells. Nothing matters. but they are still human and still have rights.

No such thing is possible. But even if it was, the answer is simple - if they are sentient after the blast (have brain waves), they have rights. If they are not, they are proclaimed brain dead, and do not have rights.

These waves are just electrons. Indifferent to a rock on Pluto. just photons and electrons interacting. The genes, however, are physical.

Photons and electrons are no less physical than genes.

Their creation is birth, their destruction and erasure death.

So does it mean unless all genes in a body are degraded, the body should have human rights? That would make things like disconnecting brain dead patients or organ transplantations illegal.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by WhiteHat

 

A child of 5 is just as dependent as the fetus. therefore the parasitic nature before the age of 13 is irrelevant. What is relevant is if liberty was violated in its formation or if a life is threatened by its continuation.

My point was that even if after birth the child is still dependent, of course, the mother can be replaced by another person; yet never before the birth. It's inside her body that the fetus became a child; it's the woman' natural function, and also her natural choice. People want to ignore woman's will and protect a life that cannot exist yet by itself, thus forcing the woman to nurture it. In my opinion this is wrong. We don't force people to take care of their children, if they don't want to; only to pay child support. Why forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy she didn't planned for or agreed with, like rape pregnancies?

reply to post by byteshertz


What defines law? The nation is built around the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What a bunch of lawyers say to that is of no concern to me or scientific fact. What the law says is not what scientific observation says. The law id flawed. Scientific law is not, once within sufficient reliance of accuracy. And we're not talking about dinosaur bones here and what they looked like. So it's quite sufficiently reliable as fact.

Laws change. Scientific fact does not. Laws once said a black man was not fully human. laws once said a woman was subject to her man. Science, weather observable or not, has always been the same. We just discover it more clearly over time. And it states that humans start at conception and die at death. This is metered. This is factual. This is scientific and an observable fact. It is not plagued with questions of existentialism. It is quite straightforward and obvious.

*Movement (moving parts of the body)
*Reproduction (producing offspring)
*Sensitivity (responding & reacting)
*Nutrition (getting food to stay alive)
*Excretion (getting rid of waste)
*Respiration (turning food into energy)
*Growth (getting to adult size)

Cells are doing all that. What the body made of those cells are doing are irrelevant. They are dependent on the cells. it's a very simple biological hierarchy.

If you go by the overall body, then a human isn't alive until ti first has sex. After all, we can't touch potentiality right? So then isn't a person not alive until the physically have sex and mate. But that creates a logical hole. Because then something is never alive until it creates something that's never alive that creates something that's never alive.

Yo dawg. I created a life that can't be alive till it creates a life that can't be alive till it creates a life....

Failure.

The truth is potentiality is very much so intertwined here. And all potentiality begins at conception.

reply to post by Maslo


Sentience doesn't appear until age 4 or 7 or something. until then you're speaking just in potentials, which all begin with conception.

reply to post by WhiteHat


You could take the fetus and stick in in a machine or another woman too. no real difference. just more difficult.

The fact is simple. If two people willingly decide to have sex and a child comes about, it's their responsibility to keep it. if liberty was violated, the life cannot be legally defended. If a life is threatened because it goes on, the life cannot be legally defended. Thus, ban abortion for anything except rape and when the mother's life is in danger. Personally I would have it all banned. but we live in a republic, you see. Thus my personal opinion cannot govern the law. Only what scientific fact says. and what the basic rights of man are in the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by WhiteHat

 

You could take the fetus and stick in in a machine or another woman too. no real difference. just more difficult.

The fact is simple. If two people willingly decide to have sex and a child comes about, it's their responsibility to keep it. if liberty was violated, the life cannot be legally defended. If a life is threatened because it goes on, the life cannot be legally defended. Thus, ban abortion for anything except rape and when the mother's life is in danger. Personally I would have it all banned. but we live in a republic, you see. Thus my personal opinion cannot govern the law. Only what scientific fact says. and what the basic rights of man are in the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I may agree with you if would be really that simple. But what about teen mothers, girls who can't support themselves yet? What about addicted mothers, who don't even remember having sex?
What about those unwanted kids and their further development? Where they will end up? Who is protesting for them? Is not our responsibility too to take care of them?

Theoretically you are right; but life teach us that the real problems are never coming as black and white, like theories; and many times we only get too choose between two bad solutions, the least worst of them.
Abortion is a cruel and unfortunate solution, but it seems that we, as a society, can't do better than this.

reply to post by WhiteHat


No, it is not our responsibility to take care of them. And by far some of the most spectacular people have come from unwanted households, so you cannot assume jack diddle. Now if you wan to take up the responsibility of taking care of them then yes you may. But as long as no one's liberty life and pursuit of happiness are being robbed, you have no right to touch the situation. The druggy mother chose that life, and her children will choose theirs. The teen mother and her boyfriend/one night stand chose not to use protection, and they have to live with that.

basically, if you make a choice, you bare the responsibility. if the choice is forced on you, you don't have to. if you feel the choice is forced on you after your willingly made it, it was your own choice through poor judgement and that does not change the situation.

There is a reason we have government aid, free public schools, and many other things. For the veyr reasons you listed. We do not kill problems in a free society. We fix them through support.

reply to post by Gorman91

Sentience doesn't appear until age 4 or 7 or something. until then you're speaking just in potentials, which all begin with conception.

Thats just not true. Read something about prenatal and neonatal psychology. Newborns certainly have basic consciousness (which is even more advanced thing like sentience and requires it). Fetuses after 22 weeks have brain waves indicating sentience, late fetuses probably even basic consciousness. They react for example to music or other outside stimuli.
Saying that 6 years old kids starting first grade in school and definately having brain waves are not sentient is really bold and untrue claim.

Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive.

reply to post by Maslo


So do apes and parrots. What makes a human special? What it can do after it's learned everything. After the brain has developed some. It's not even better than a dolphin or an ape until age 3.

Like it or not, you're dealing with potentiality here. Sentience does not reach any remotely "human" potential until long after birth. the seedlings of sentience at birth and fetus stages are indifferent to higher animals and therefore irrelevant.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by byteshertz

 

What defines law? The nation is built around the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What a bunch of lawyers say to that is of no concern to me or scientific fact.

Again I ask that you provide a source for this "Scientific fact"

What the law says is not what scientific observation says. The law id flawed. Scientific law is not, once within sufficient reliance of accuracy. And we're not talking about dinosaur bones here and what they looked like. So it's quite sufficiently reliable as fact.

I have provided you a scientific argument proving that the zygote is not a human life and does not have personhood. Even by scientific definition it does not posses all the 7 traits of life process.

Laws change. Scientific fact does not. Laws once said a black man was not fully human. laws once said a woman was subject to her man. Science, weather observable or not, has always been the same. We just discover it more clearly over time. And it states that humans start at conception and die at death. This is metered. This is factual. This is scientific and an observable fact. It is not plagued with questions of existentialism. It is quite straightforward and obvious.

"Laws change. Scientific fact does not" If that was the case we would all be believing the scientific fact that the earth is flat - hence most of science is called scientific theory.

Cells are doing all that. What the body made of those cells are doing are irrelevant. They are dependent on the cells. it's a very simple biological hierarchy.
If you go by the overall body, then a human isn't alive until ti first has sex. After all, we can't touch potentiality right? So then isn't a person not alive until the physically have sex and mate. But that creates a logical hole. Because then something is never alive until it creates something that's never alive that creates something that's never alive.

Yeah cell's are alive - but they do not have rights, so tell me why they should not have rights but a zygote can. I know you are going to say they potentially become a human being - but potential indicates probability and probability indicates a possibility it does not happen - So the law does follow science, but not until scientific theory becomes scientific fact prooven beyond reasonable doubt.

reply to post by byteshertz


DNA. That's the fact. Why do I have to provide a source for common sense?

Personhood is culture-specific. Some folks say a person isn't there until 2 weeks after birth. Just like morals and other unrelated crap. Don't much care what you think is a claim. Genetics say otherwise. It's human. You used a courtroom law based on interpretation, not scientific fact. irrelevant.

The Earth was flat based off culture and religion, not observable scientific fact. once discovered to be true, the earth was found to be round. Please, no lies here.

What comes from those cells have rights. And their right to get there. Their potential. Beyond reasonable doubt, you would not exist without your cells, but your cells would exist without you. You are a dependency. Not the cells.

reply to post by Gorman91

No, it is not our responsibility to take care of them. And by far some of the most spectacular people have come from unwanted households, so you cannot assume jack diddle. Now if you wan to take up the responsibility of taking care of them then yes you may. But as long as no one's liberty life and pursuit of happiness are being robbed, you have no right to touch the situation. The druggy mother chose that life, and her children will choose them. The teen mother and her boyfriend/one night stand chose not to use protection, and they have to live with that.

Sorry, but that's just crap. As long as you interfere with other's person right of choice, you must make it for a better purpose, not for the sake of empty words or laws. The laws are meant to serve people' interest, not otherwise.
We do have responsibility for our society, for the kids on the street. Or if we don't, we just keep quiet and mind our own businesses, and let others minding their's. We are human beings, before everything else, not machines; we can't do our little program and then unplug, and disregard the effects. We, as society, need to think for the benefit of all.

Liberty it's also every woman right over her own body; to choose if she want to carry a pregnancy or not; forcing her is the denial of that very liberty you talk about.

reply to post by WhiteHat


Sorry, but the social code is a forced moral code. Morals have no place in law nor society. Most people do not keep quite and mind their own business. but you have no legal right to force me not to keep quite and mind my own business. This is called national socialism. And hopefully you remember what it lead to.

Freedom of choice came with sex. It's as simple as that. She choice to ignore the fact that without protection she will have a child. Freedom over her body does not cover what isn't. A fetus is its own body.

reply to post by Gorman91

So do apes and parrots. What makes a human special?

Nothing, just our speciecism.

Sentience does not reach any remotely "human" potential until long after birth. the seedlings of sentience at birth and fetus stages are indifferent to higher animals and therefore irrelevant.

Then dont ignore the elephant in the room - higher animals should have rights if they have sentient mind. Its only the fault of our barbaric speciecist society and cruel tradition that it allows for killing other almost equally sentient species, if there already are other options how to survive.

reply to post by Maslo


Most certainly. I agree. But specisim is in fact the only true way to make laws. They don't make cities, we do. It's a simple as that. We should protect their lives, but have no right to force other people to do that. Marvel at nature, don't kill it. fetuses are just the same. The only legal basis for murder is when freedom or life is forfeited because of its creation.

reply to post by Gorman91

What comes from those cells have rights. And their right to get there. Their potential. Beyond reasonable doubt, you would not exist without your cells, but your cells would exist without you. You are a dependency. Not the cells.

We should protect the dependency (mind). Not the cells (body). We protect the cells only because now we dont have the means to protect mind without them.

reply to post by Maslo


Well now. When you have such a method perfected to work, we'll talk. until then, we'll deal with existentialism with what can be metered and is cold hard fact. What is at the top of the hierarchy. The cells.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by byteshertz

 

DNA. That's the fact. Why do I have to provide a source for common sense?

As stated previously if DNA is all that constitutes a human life then my skin cells i scratch off or pull out with a hair have a human life and therefore have inalienable rights.

Personhood is culture-specific. Some folks say a person isn't there until 2 weeks after birth. Just like morals and other unrelated crap. Don't much care what you think is a claim. Genetics say otherwise. It's human. You used a courtroom law based on interpretation, not scientific fact. irrelevant.

It's human yes - but prove it has a human life. That is the difference

The Earth was flat based off culture and religion, not observable scientific fact. once discovered to be true, the earth was found to be round. Please, no lies here.

Most of science is scientific theory - not much besides mathmatics can be proven to be so true it could never be disproven.

Facts
The word fact can be used several ways, but in general in science, "facts" refer to the observations. They are best when they are repeatable observations under controlled conditions, such as "It is a fact that the speed of light is constant in a vacuum." This is the part of science which will be the same a century from now, unless more precise measurements show otherwise.

Theories
The theories are the explanations proposed in step two of the scientific method. Usually the word "theory" is reserved for more than a first attempt, which might be called a "hypothesis." A theory usually has already survived several falsification attempts, and is pretty well accepted. However, I'll use the word theory to mean any explanation of observations.

Thus, by separating facts from theories, I mean distinguishing between observations and explanations. When you hear the news, "The Dow Jones took a plunge today because of fears about the Asian crisis," is that fact or theory? It was half and half. The fact is that the market went down: that is an observation which was measured. But who knows what drives the market? The matter-of-fact statement that it was caused by such fears could be anything from one reporter's speculation to a general consensus of market analysts. In any case, it remains only a theory. No one will separate the facts from theories for you; the trend is to present everything as truth.

Truth
Let's take just a moment to talk about truth. If science can never prove a theory "true," then truth really has no place at all in science. By "truth" I mean what is "really" going on. Truth has to do with ultimate causes, which are nearly always extremely elusive and beyond the realm of science. Science deals with theories, usually mathematical, which predict outcomes of experiments. For example, if we drop a rock off a cliff, the law of gravity combined with theories of air resistance and other forces can be used to calculate just how long it will take to hit the ground, and how fast it will go, etc. But science does not answer the question of just exactly what gravity is, or why things fall. It just states that given certain conditions, they will fall. In general, science answers questions like "how," "when," "where", but never "why" in the ultimate sense.

As an example of the interplay of the three concepts of observations, theories and truth, consider the courtroom. The observations may be that a man was seen shooting a gun and that the person hit by the bullet died. The theory may be that it was cold-blooded murder, but the truth may be that it was self-defense. Truth tends to be invisible and hidden, such as someone's motives, whereas observations are usually visible. Courts are very interested in truth, where the motive (the ultimate cause) for actions is given considerable weight. The distinction between first-degree and second degree murder is based on intent. Motives are not as yet observable in science, and hence are beyond science.

Try Replacing the Word "Fact"

The word "fact" has several meanings, which can be very confusing. In popular useage it can mean either "observation," "theory," or "truth." As an example of each, one can say, "it is a fact that every time I have dropped this ball, it fell to the ground." That is what has been observed so far, and the word "fact" can be replaced with "observation." One can also say, "it is a fact that every time I have dropped this ball, gravity pulled it to the ground." Even though this statement appears very similar to the first, "gravity" really refers to a theory proposed to explain why the ball is observed to fall. Finally, if one so thoroughly believes that the theory of gravity is really "true," he could replace "a fact" with "true," which would take the meaning beyond science into the realm of his personal convictions.

This confusion can often be avoided by always replacing the word "fact" with "observation," "theory" or "truth," whichever seems to convey the intended meaning best. Remember that if the meaning is "observation," then it is as fallible as the observer. If it is a "theory," then it also could be disproven someday. If it is claimed to be "truth," then it is a statement of the personal conviction of the speaker, which is outside the domain of science.
Source

reply to post by byteshertz


Then you're being really really ignorant because you're afraid to admit potentiality is key here.