**2012 Election Day thread**

[cabiness42]

So after all of this you just flat out agree with me that they arent protected at conception, but instead protected at a time later on.

 

Thus the only argument is "WHEN".

 

Hilarious that you agree with me now, just flipping hilarious.

 

I'm not flipping anything, you're not reading all of what I'm saying, and I've said it several times.

 

At conception, the zygote has a full set of chromosomes and is therefore a life form as opposed to sperm and eggs which are not life forms.

 

In the 8-10 week range, the zygote has become a fetus with a full set of human characteristics and is therefore a human life form.

 

If this is what you are saying, then yes I agree with you.

[StrangeSox]

How is becoming a human being a moral issue? A human being is a biological creature with a well-defined physical development. Other than physical development, what makes somebody a human being?

 

Physical development is a continuum of biological processes. What is or isn't a human being is a moral question, not a scientific one. Scientific knowledge can help form that opinion, but scientific findings cannot actually say "this is a human being, this isn't." People must make moral judgements as to what constitutes a human and use medical knowledge to gauge that. Some may say it's a beating heart, others may say it's an active brain with brain waves. The difference between those two measures isn't a scientific question.

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm not flipping anything, you're not reading all of what I'm saying, and I've said it several times.

 

At conception, the zygote has a full set of chromosomes and is therefore a life form as opposed to sperm and eggs which are not life forms.

 

In the 8-10 week range, the zygote has become a fetus with a full set of human characteristics and is therefore a human life form.

 

If this is what you are saying, then yes I agree with you.

 

He's not. He's saying it's not "alive" or "human" until at least 21-24 weeks, the point at which the "thing" can be born, separated from its mother and kept alive.

[Soxbadger]

I'm not flipping anything, you're not reading all of what I'm saying, and I've said it several times.

 

At conception, the zygote has a full set of chromosomes and is therefore a life form as opposed to sperm and eggs which are not life forms.

 

In the 8-10 week range, the zygote has become a fetus with a full set of human characteristics and is therefore a human life form.

 

If this is what you are saying, then yes I agree with you.

 

What Im saying is im not a scientist and that if scientists tell me its life at 8 weeks, so be it, and if scientists say its life at 20 weeks so be it.

 

I have no strict guidelines on it, I just know that something that isnt "alive" doesnt have the same right as something that is "alive", therefore Ill leave it to the scientists to tell me what is "alive".

[cabiness42]

Physical development is a continuum of biological processes. What is or isn't a human being is a moral question, not a scientific one. Scientific knowledge can help form that opinion, but scientific findings cannot actually say "this is a human being, this isn't." People must make moral judgements as to what constitutes a human and use medical knowledge to gauge that. Some may say it's a beating heart, others may say it's an active brain with brain waves. The difference between those two measures isn't a scientific question.

 

Beating heart and active brain waves occur at nearly the same time, and both very early in pregnancy. Other than actually being born, any significant physical marker that someone might use to make such a moral judgment happens very, very early in the process, often before or very shortly after a woman even discovers she is pregnant.

[StrangeSox]

I'm not flipping anything, you're not reading all of what I'm saying, and I've said it several times.

 

At conception, the zygote has a full set of chromosomes and is therefore a life form as opposed to sperm and eggs which are not life forms.

 

In the 8-10 week range, the zygote has become a fetus with a full set of human characteristics and is therefore a human life form.

 

If this is what you are saying, then yes I agree with you.

 

What is a "full set of human characteristics?" There is quite a bit undeveloped and unformed at 8-10 weeks.

[Soxbadger]

He's not. He's saying it's not "alive" or "human" until at least 21-24 weeks, the point at which the "thing" can be born, separated from its mother and kept alive.

 

I said that is one way of determine when it is alive, but I am open to other scientific evidence that would suggest life is earlier. I just need evidence, and once again this argument is now simply "when is abortion okay" which presupposes at some point abortion is okay, which is all I am arguing against.

 

I have no bright line rule for when its not okay and I am open to modification. Which is why even in my view, if science was able to take out a zygote at 10 seconds and save its life, I would be for protecting the zygote, not because its human or life, but because its no longer the mothers burden, and therefore the potential of life does have some rights.

[cabiness42]

What Im saying is im not a scientist and that if scientists tell me its life at 8 weeks, so be it, and if scientists say its life at 20 weeks so be it.

 

I have no strict guidelines on it, I just know that something that isnt "alive" doesnt have the same right as something that is "alive", therefore Ill leave it to the scientists to tell me what is "alive".

 

Well, scientists will tell you that it is a life immediately upon conception. The question you are getting at is when that life has developed into a human being. Even as a single fertilized cell, a human zygote is more complex than billions of life forms on the planet, but of course those life forms don't get the kinds of protections that we give human beings.

 

 

 

[cabiness42]

I have no bright line rule for when its not okay and I am open to modification. Which is why even in my view, if science was able to take out a zygote at 10 seconds and save its life, I would be for protecting the zygote, not because its human or life, but because its no longer the mothers burden, and therefore the potential of life does have some rights.

 

It's not out of the question that we reach that point in our lifetimes.

[NorthSideSox72]

1. Abortions very late as was used illustratively earlier, are illegal everywhere.

 

2. The current timeframe used where abortion is legal, is typically determined by the very outside of the range of ability to survive outside the womb. About 4-5 months, as I recall. The laws are not generally based on measures of how "human" it is.

 

3. There is a problematic piece of that puzzle. As medical science advances, it may eventually reach a point where a fetus can be kept alive outside of the mother at a very early age. That may complicate things down the road.

 

Continue.

 

[StrangeSox]

Beating heart and active brain waves occur at nearly the same time, and both very early in pregnancy. Other than actually being born, any significant physical marker that someone might use to make such a moral judgment happens very, very early in the process, often before or very shortly after a woman even discovers she is pregnant.

I would morally judge that this is not a human being, not a person deserving full rights and veto power over a woman's decision on what to do with her own body.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/books/ch...ed=all&_r=0

That is the quick and easy neurobiology of fetal brain development. The embryonic stage reveals that the fertilized egg is a clump of cells with no brain; the processes that begin to generate a nervous system do not begin until after the fourteenth day. No sustainable or complex nervous system is in place until approximately six months of gestation.

 

The fact that it is clear that a human brain isn't viable until week 23, and only then with the aid of modern medical support, seems to have no impact on the debate. This is where neuro "logic" loses out. Moral arguments get mixed in with biology, and the result is a stew of passions, beliefs, and stubborn, illogical opinion. Based on the specific question being asked, I myself have different answers about when moral status should be conferred on a fetus. For instance, regarding the use of embryos for biomedical research, I find the fourteen-day cutoff employed by researchers to be a completely acceptable practice. However, in judging a fetus "one of us," and granting it the moral and legal rights of a human being, I put the age much later, at twenty-three weeks, when life is sustainable and that fetus could, with a little help from a neonatal unit, survive and develop into a thinking human being with a normal brain. This is the same age at which the Supreme Court has ruled that the fetus becomes protected from abortion

[cabiness42]

What is a "full set of human characteristics?" There is quite a bit undeveloped and unformed at 8-10 weeks.

 

Vital organs. I'm not talking about fingernails and eyelashes and bulls*** like that.

[StrangeSox]

Well, scientists will tell you that it is a life immediately upon conception. The question you are getting at is when that life has developed into a human being. Even as a single fertilized cell, a human zygote is more complex than billions of life forms on the planet, but of course those life forms don't get the kinds of protections that we give human beings.

Scientists speaking as scientists and not on their own personal, moral beliefs will not tell you that "life begins at conception" with the moral weight that is behind that pro-life argument.

[StrangeSox]

Vital organs. I'm not talking about fingernails and eyelashes and bulls*** like that.

 

That's my point. What constitutes the "full set of human characteristics" is itself a moral judgement.

[cabiness42]

That's my point. What constitutes the "full set of human characteristics" is itself a moral judgement.

 

The difference between a liver/spleen and a fingernail/eyelash is not a moral judgment. It's a matter of whether or not a human being needs those to live.

 

[Reddy]

how did this happen!? lol

[StrangeSox]

The difference between a liver/spleen and a fingernail/eyelash is not a moral judgment. It's a matter of whether or not a human being needs those to live.

 

A fetus at 8-10 weeks is lacking many, many things that a human being needs to live. Like the ability to process gas exchange in the lungs. Or anything close to resembling an actual human brain.

[cabiness42]

Scientists speaking as scientists and not on their own personal, moral beliefs will not tell you that "life begins at conception" with the moral weight that is behind that pro-life argument.

 

Scientists will tell you that a zygote is a life form.

[StrangeSox]

Scientists will tell you that a zygote is a life form.

 

Perhaps*, but that's a substantially different statement from the political/moral argument that underlays "life begins at conception" and assigning moral weight to a zygote.

 

*http://en.allexperts.com/q/Biology-664/species-membership.htm

In simple answer to the above question: an organism is defined by more than its ability to survive in the proper environment. A zygote is a zygote. A multicellular life form is just that. What you want to name them is up to you. But a zygote is not an organism. It is a single, fertilized cell that can survive only if it is able to grow and differentiate into whatever finished "product" is encoded by its DNA. That's a simple definition, and I did not devise it.

[Jake]

I would contest that a sperm and an egg are very much alive, and depriving them of each other denies them the right to continue living.

 

Scientists are happy to tell you when brain activity starts, when it could be extracted and live on its own, etc. but science doesn't like arbitrary designations which is what the abortion argument is all about. Informed by science, we then make a moral (and hence arbitrary) distinction of what is what. There are some arbitrary measures I'm happy to make (don't abort the baby right as you go into labor), but others I don't feel that science can inform us enough to make them clear. Just because scientists make a distinction between zygote and fetus, that doesn't mean they deserve a moral distinction. They might, but it isn't because scientists gave them different names.

[cabiness42]

Perhaps*, but that's a substantially different statement from the political/moral argument that underlays "life begins at conception" and assigning moral weight to a zygote.

 

*http://en.allexperts.com/q/Biology-664/species-membership.htm

 

I'm not defending the position that abortion should be outlawed from conception or that a zygote is a human being--I'm just noting the technicality that a zygote is some kind of life form.

[cabiness42]

I would contest that a sperm and an egg are very much alive, and depriving them of each other denies them the right to continue living.

 

I find that statement very troubling simply due to the fact that it is impossible for every sperm, or even any reasonable percentage of them, to ever be united with an egg.

[Jake]

I find that statement very troubling simply due to the fact that it is impossible for every sperm, or even any reasonable percentage of them, to ever be united with an egg.

 

Yep, one of those sad facts of nature. It's about as irritating as knowing I have to die someday...I could even die any moment now, who knows!

[Reddy]

I'm not defending the position that abortion should be outlawed from conception or that a zygote is a human being--I'm just noting the technicality that a zygote is some kind of life form.

so are the animals we eat and the plants we step on and the bugs we swat

[cabiness42]

so are the animals we eat and the plants we step on and the bugs we swat

 

I understand that, though plant life and animal life are very different.