As I see it our consciousness and ability to reason are what make us human. As science sees it death of a human is when all brainwaves stop, so it is logical to say that the start of those same brainwaves is the start of human life.
...and in a fetus/zygote... it is actively moving towards creating a brain.
I have been saying that its not human life until the brain is active. Before the brain is active how can it be anything more than a group of living cells? How can it be a living human without a brain?
why is it that if a husband murders his pregnant wife he'll get charged with two counts of murder(i remember something on the news once years ago... might be different nao)? one for her... and one for the unborn?
In terms of laws human life doesn't develop till sometime between 40 days and 7 months, it requires the brain to be capable of operating all the vital organs required for life.
What happens if a man doesn't want the baby and the woman does...and he then does the unthinkable and inflicts blunt force trauma on the unborn and makes it miscarry?... what is he charged with?(no seriously... i don't know...) lets make things consistent then shall we?
Depending on how far along the pregnancy is I would think it would either be assault on the woman or assault on the woman and murder for the child.
Its oddly humorous to me that the only parts of the brain that deal with making us "human" are the only ones that aren't required for us to sustain life. and I do not accept usage of the present stance of the law as argument for the law when the debate is on changing the law. if it happens to parallel your opinion then put it into your own terms and use it as your own opinion. "the law says it doesn't acknowledge life as being life till a however many weeks until brain has developed" ...that needs to be I believe instead of usage w/ the law. I could see the law being used as... this is the opinion of the winning party during the last time it was discussed... but nothing more than that. Its not "here's the law... deal with it".
the parts that make/keep us "alive" and "sentient" don't support the life of the creature (other than actively moving away from danger... i'm talking internal homeostasis here). I don't like the "it has to have a brain to be alive" argument.
those parts just give us mental complexity...not life. someone who is brain dead is still a human. they're just brain dead. The law dubs them dead because as a personality they won't return/reawaken and the body will no longer have coordinated movement outside of subconscious brain stem/spinal cord innervation. if given nutrition via IV or stomach tube they will still live. the human is still alive and can even have other parts of their brains functioning.
according to you the only part of a brain that makes one human is just a small portion of one organ. without a body... that part will die. without that part of the brain... the body will still live. that part of the body is not necessary for life.
If we're going off of how fetuses are clean slates and therefore those slates can be broken... then why not allow braking of those slates even after they've been used for only a small time period? technically a ~an infant that's still just eating and pooping everywhere still isn't really a person. In a previous discussion somewhere else I saw it written that babies aren't technically fully matured and haven't developed personalities nor have they contributed anything... should we allow those that thought they'd be able to afford a poo factory but found out they could not to terminate said poo factory on grounds that its not "human" or a "erson" just yet?
A persn is made a person by their memories and experiences so as an embryo and infant have very few memories they are not really people and as such killing one is not murder.
This is just stupid. It is like homophobia. There is absolutely no logical reason other than the bible says.
are you saying I can't have a phobia of gay people? some people fear ducks... and cockroaches. Not all gay people spread disease... not all roaches spread disease... yet some do. a phobia is an inexplicable fear that is almost instinctual and uncontrollable. I reserve the right to be scurred of whatever I'm scurred of. You can call me a bigot... and I'll call you insensitive to my condition... maybe I can't help it... (and no... I'm not afraid of gay people)
we as a people have over the ages collectively said that its bad to kill other humans. I'm presenting my case in a logical fashion so as to show why I believe a clump of cells is a human life.
A persn is made a person by their memories and experiences so as an embryo and infant have very few memories they are not really people and as such killing one is not murder.
Prove it. If so, then a severely retarded person or perhaps one who had just lost all their memories in a car accident could be killed without remorse?
a personality is developed over time... during the time that the actual person matures. they are parallel occurrences... not the same thing. and personality has been shown to change b/c of trauma to the brain. does that mean that b/c there's a new personality that we have a new person and the old one died?...no... its the same person w/ brain damage. personality does not make you human. what if we make an artificially intelligent computer that is programmed with a personality and intelligence equal to a human. does that mean we have another "human" on our hands... or if you could somehow copy your brains stored data onto a computer and have it be a perfect copy.... does that make that computer "human"?... or just human'esque? ...b/c if you could copy human intelligence onto a computer then I would suggest that you could perfectly recreate that "copy" intelligence and personality from scratch with no original human subject... and what then is the one made from scratch if the one that was "copied" was "human?" they're identical data sets... but one was moved from an original source while the other one was recreated w/o "scanning" the original. so do we have 3 humans on our hands now... or just the 1 original organic one?
if personality and experience alone are all that make us human then if we can recreate it perfectly with a pure from scratch fabrication (inb4 impossible...its symoblism..) then is it not "human"...? If we made robots that learned and acted with perfect equivalency to we humans then aren't they synthetic humans(or if we transfer our mind electronically to a robot shell)...(its hypothetical... deal with it)? if you then choose to say they're sub human b/c of what they are then doesn't that make you a racist? just because it would be a non-evolutionarily produced type of "human" wouldn't make it any less "human" if it has those qualities. Denying someone rights based off of outward appearance is just racist, bigoted, and wrong... technically they could maybe finagle their way into the 7 characteristics of life... the only patchy part is the hereditary information, reproduction, and cell. ...hereditary info in the form of computer download and bytes instead of dna is still info you can pass down. what if the robots built other robots?... technically its reproducing new ones... and if it uses parts from itself to make the new entity then its even using its own body as resources like as seen in pregnancy. what is a cell but a specialized singular unit that helps aid the over all creation/design of the organism come together?... what are screws, bolts, and robotic parts... but specially made/designed individual units of the robot that make it come together as one entity?
...unless of course... it takes something more than a personality and memories to be human. ..but then again... that robot argument has even me all :S
i may not be able to take the abortion debate... but I don't think you want to open the infanticide can of worms all over yourself too. Ur going to have to have some very large guns to back that one up.
umm, there seem to be a relived debate about abortions with an external cause?
I have been saying that its not human life until the brain is active.
Well, does it stop if the brain activity drops down? No. Why should it start then with brain activity going up?
The bible never says anything about abortion. Except perhaps to encourage it.
It did, there are mentions of God caring about a human from conception, therefore a human is valid for God directly from conception.
A persn is made a person by their memories and experiences so as an embryo and infant have very few memories they are not really people and as such killing one is not murder.
A lack of commas makes this gibberish. Either way, according to this statement, if a person loses long-term memory (an amnesiac) he is no longer a person. So if I would find a way for you to lose long-term memory, I am free to kill you afterwards, amirite?
Actually, I disagree with OP. The new law only prohibits the use of federal funds to teach abortion techniques. Clinics are still allowed to teach abortion techniques with their own money or funds received from a different source.
If you're pro-life, the last thing you want is for your tax dollars to go towards abortions. The law is perfectly fair in my opinion.
The law isn't prohibiting health centers from teaching abortion in general. If that was the case, I would not support the law. If you want to teach abortion, something that is clearly very controversial, you should use your own money.
If you want to teach abortion, something that is clearly very controversial, you should use your own money.
That is all well and fine in a good economy, but with how America is shaping up right now, I think that improper funding of the Clinics to teach abortion is just horrible. If they cannot fund themselves, which is more than likely going to be the case, than more women will be getting back alley abortions, which is just more harmful to the women.
I don't care if you like abortion or not. You have to realize that if they want to kill/get rid of their embryo, than they are going to have it happen one way or another. You are actually killing people by not providing the health clinics with enough funding to adequately empower their employees to have safe medical procedures, and subsequently forcing the women to have unsafe abortions.
i'm not saying its my honest opinion b/c its really not. ...but i have something to maybe counter that with... Its a little cold but whatever. If intelligence is linked to genetics and those people were stupid enough to opt for those dangerous procedures then it help weed out the stupid people who have complications during the procedure. suvival of the fittest amirite?...and if they're superhero enough to survive a bad one then they're A ok...
now, if you'll recall from the tv news and all of the John Stewart'esque shows out there... planned parenting centers only have abortion as ~4% of what they do. they do a ton more than that. so... if something that is probably less than 4% of what they do is going to send them belly up when they no longer get funding for it then they probably had problems before then. (maybe I'm getting my organizations mixed up...) ...don't abortion clinics do more than than just abortions?
Step in the wrong direction. Well maybe NoName has a certain portion of a point, maybe it's fair that pro-lifers don't have to pay for that, and that it is no (or beter say, not a lot of, since the funds still help out) restriction to whether they teach abortion with their own funds or not. Yet it still gives a wrong message, abortion should be a choice, it should be an option that someone can choose, and it should be supported imo. Otherwise if the mother can't abort, she will have to pay for the child. And children are a major cause of poverty in the world. Yes, there's overpopulation. Yes, there's technically enough place for more humans, but at what life standarts? At what loss of ecologic niches and networks? At what costs for the rest of the world? How to feed them? Plus, poor people tend to have more children, making them even poorer and increasing all sort of social troubles we have to fight against.
