Baby born at 21 weeks survives-should we revisit abortion laws?

InFront

I'm aware that you're getting the brunt of the other point of view so I'll try to keep this short.

Wicknight wrote:

As I explained a few posts ago I fail to see the relevance of that fact. What something will be is largely irrelevant to what it is. A zygote will become a human being given certain circumstances. So will a sperm and an egg

How can you not differentiate between embryo and sperm cell. Do you see that an embryo doesn't just 'form' without human decision? This is how it differs to another cell, like epithelium or myocardium.
An embryo can form once humans have given their intent for that to happen by engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse, or in sexual intercourse with the risk of fertilisation attached. 40 weeks later (or maybe 22), you have a baby in your hands.

As I've been trying to explain, saying something will turn into something else is pointless.

Do you accept that a human zygote can go on to become a man or a woman if left to nature, and that we have no reason to say otherwise in the normal mother?
Tristrame mentioned miscarriages. Surely you would not deny that pairs who lose babies at five or seven or thirty-seven weeks, have lost children, really? Would you think it is silly for them to name the child any more than to name an unfertilised oocyte? And why?
I'm not trying to put some sort of emotive blackmail to you with that suggestion, I'm really just interested in an honest answer on it.

Saying Bob is a 38 year old man. he might claim that if his mother had destroyed his embryo shortly after she found she was pregnant he would never have existed. Which is true of course. But equally if the sperm that created him had been destroyed he would never have existed either. So what is the difference?

The difference is this: if the sperm was destroyed, it would be demonstration of an intent not to form a child. There would be no 'contract' with nature, sperm will not walk themselves out the door to the nearest oocyte. Therefore, there would be no zygote or embryo to have an obligation to, Bob would be imaginary.
However, if you put a sperm in an oocyte, you are saying "Here I am going to ask nature for a baby". If you destroy this baby you asked for, the 'contract' is dishonoured on your part because you have reneged on your intent, and you have taken it into your own hands to block the natural embryology that would result in a human: Bob very definitely existed for a period of time. And if it were not for you, he would be here today. (poor Bob).

You cannot seperate out the sperm from the reproductive cycle and say that a sperm on its own won't make a baby. Without the reproductive system a fertilised egg on its own won't make a baby either.

Without the reproductive system, you won't have an egg, nor will you have a sperm, nor an embryo.

So it is taken for granted that if the above exist, the necessary conditions exist for human development, and ought not be denied.

What characteristic do we possess that grants us certain rights that other living things do not possess?

A greater intellectual capacity for learned behaviour and potential for strategic intelligence.

Once we have established this characteristic that makes humanity unique the question then becomes does the foetus possess this characteristic?

Not from the beginning, nor is it something the newborn young person has from the beginning of course. Are newborns 'safe' from being killed?

What if we give a newborn a general anaesthetic, can we kill it, do we have that right? It won't survive on its own. It's just cells.

Nature finished with this baby, man decided to hang on to the baby

Can you explain this statement, how does nature give up on the baby in a premature pregnancy?

Now take a baby at 40 weeks in an incubator. It has come to full term, you could say nature has given up on it just like the 21 week old. If left alone it will die, is it not ethical to do so? Even via anaesthetic to block neural transmission to the brain?

humbert

I think you believe there is a design to nature which shouldn't be interfered with at any stage rather than debating at what point after conception does the product(I'm not trying to be callous just avoiding arguments over definitions/semantics) become "a person".

InFront

Is that right,
do you have an opinion on the topic yourself? All you've said in both posts is that my opinion is faulty.

Tristrame

Tristrame wrote:

I usually stay out of these types of debates because I've seen these debates here so many times.
You have two sides and a bit of middle ground.
One side gets all technical and biological about a cluster of cells and the other side get all emotional about the baby.

I simply don't agree with the tautology that you can simply dismiss right up to birth what is inside that womb as not being a baby.
To do so is a cop out ESPECIALLY Bluewolf when you put it in such black and white terms.
Of course it's a baby at 8 months,of course it's a baby at 6 months.
Prior to that,I'd have a personal stand point and go on the scan,if it looks like a baby then in my book it is a baby.
If it can kick its Mum,it's a baby.

Personally I don't like abortion,but I can live with people choosing it ie I'd be pro choice as long as I'm not involved.

Getting emotional about "killing babies" does not help either side. The only definitions I've ever seen of "baby" (except dictionary.com) make no mention of a fetus.
If I'm wrong about the terms, that's fine.
And you'll notice that I did not "dismiss" anything in my post; I didn't say it should have no rights until birth etc. I simply quibbled over the term.


I won't add much more, wicknight seems to be saying exactly what I would say if I was arguing.

Zombrex

Tristrame wrote:

In your opinion,in your belief.
In other words it is not a fact

Issues of morality are never "fact", they are always opinion. It is wrong to kill is not a fact, it is an opinion. It is immoral to murder school children is an opinion not a fact.

Tristrame wrote:

We've nothing to argue with then as we seem to be at the same opinion but for different reasons.

My argument is that deciding the question of if the foetus is a human being based on the ability of the foetus to survive externally to the mothers womb, is a flawed and dangerous method.

Tristrame wrote:

I am the whole when I am a communicative being.

That is a rather cyclical definition since you define a "being" as the whole.

Can you define a "communicative being" without defining it in terms of the whole. I'm also not sure how a zygote can be considered "communicative"?

Tristrame wrote:

For sure theres a grey area if I'm on life support and brain dead.For that I'd expect my next of kin to take the doctors best advice.

They can only decide because your rights have altered in the first place. Your next of kin cannot simply decide that you should die no at this present time when you are perfectly fine.

Tristrame wrote:

And the brain is made up of what exactly?
If it's simply cells why has it rights? You are drawing a line is it?

The cells themselves, on their own, are not important. It is what those cells do that is important.

Tristrame wrote:

I'm not convinced that a baby in its mothers womb cannot feel pain in it's own right at some stage so I'd disagree with that.

In what way can a foetus with no nervous system or spinal cord/brain "feel" pain. That would be the same as saying your kidney feels pain, or your hair feels pain.

Tristrame wrote:

Why is it ridiculous?

I've stated why it is ridiculous, a few times. The status of what is a person would be constantly changing based on the current medical advances of the time, and the medical care the mother has access to at the time. A 22 week old foetus in the UK in 2000 could have completely different status and rights as a 22 week old foetus in Somalia in 2007. One is considered a human being, the other is not simply because the medical staff might be able to keep the UK foetus alive but not the Somalian one. The properties of the babies, the stage of development, which would be very similar, are ignored and their status as human beings are defined based on external abratary factors.

Tristrame wrote:

I don't know you tell me

You brought up the hippocratic oath. I've never taken it nor have I considered it in great detail.

Tristrame wrote:

-After all it's you thats making the argument that you should change nothing due to medical science ergo a life support should be left on indefinitely.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I've never stated that life support should be left on indefinitely after say brain death, and my argument that the fundamental property of a human being is its ability to produce consciousness in the brain would lead to just the opposite conclusion.

Tristrame wrote:

Again we are back to you expressing your opinion.You are not giving me a reason for it because it is simply your belief.

If you would actually read my posts you will see I'm giving your plenty of reason. You cannot define that status of a human being based on where they physically are because none of the characteristics of the human alters based solely on where they are. A human being is a human being based on the characteristics it holds, not where it physically is. If these characteristics don't change then neither does the status of the human being change.

If you disagree with that assessment of morality, if you think that the rights of a human being can alter based on its location please put an argument forward. Simply saying that this is just my opinion and you don't agree without saying why or what your opinion is is rather pointless for a discussion.

Tristrame wrote:

To me it makes a very important difference, it is a difference of viability or potential viability.I wouldnt be happy with it being lawfull to extinguish a foetus that could be at a stage that when out of its mothers womb could live a long adult life.

Would you feel fine about extinguishing a 22 week old foetus that couldn't survive outside of the mothers womb?

Do you think that abortions far passed 22 weeks are ok in places such as Central Africa where the hospitals do not have the ability to sustain a baby born premature let lone one born 4 months premature.

Tristrame wrote:

TBH I'd find it rather unsettling to see what looks human at that stage being aborted.

Well as I said in a previous post I find it rather unsettling that people make decisions about something as important as the status and rights of a human being based on how cute, or close to a baby, something looks. What did you think a foetus looked like?

Tristrame wrote:

It is different though as its not an un natural interference with the unborn in the way abortion is.

It is actually an unnatural interference, that is my whole point. It is not natural to use a condom, or to take the pill. It is actually not particularly natural to put so much though into having sex, which humans but few other species actually do. Most other species' sex lives are controlled by instinct.

Tristrame wrote:

I've not said sperm isn't important or the EGG.
I just wouldn't be in favour of giving them rights.

Why?

Surely the sperm has the right to progress on its natural cycle to become a full term baby, nature willing of course. If we stop this, unnaturally, are we not aborting that potential baby?

Say in one reality I have sex with my girlfriend/wife and one of my sperms joins with her egg and produces a baby boy, that grows to full term and we name him Tim.

Now, say in another reality I decide to use a condom instead when having sex with my girlfriend/wife and my sperm that would have gone on to form Tim is stopped by the latex and dies 30 minutes later as the temperature of the condom drops in my bin (ie it is unnaturally aborted before it can fertilise the egg). Tim never happens because I stopped the sperm from fertilising my wife's egg.

Have I not just aborted Tim? How is this different from aborting when he is a fertilised egg in my wife's ovary, or aborting Tim when he is a embryo in my wife's womb? The end result is the same, no Tim.

Tristrame wrote:

It's only irrelevant to your belief as obviosly if the majority of the public didnt want medical experiment involving the creation to term or half way to term of babies then it's not irrelevant to them.

As I said not allowing something to be done is irrelevant to the fact that it can be done. In fact it is a recognition of the fact that it can be done.

Tristrame wrote:

I was comparing our vastly different belief systems-yours as expressed in your posts.
I couldnt have known what your beliefs are in relation to this subject if you hadn't posted them.

That still doesn't explain what your meant in your previous post, as you are attributing to me a belief that I don't have and then arguing against said belief. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Zombrex

InFront wrote:

How can you not differentiate between embryo and sperm cell.

Because the end result is exactly the same, an adult human.

InFront wrote:

Do you see that an embryo doesn't just 'form' without human decision?

I understand that but I find that fact largely irrelevant. I can stop my future child (call him Tim) forming by using a condom to abort my sperm cell or by my wife aborting the fertilised embryo. The end result is exactly the same, no Tim.

InFront wrote:

An embryo can form once humans have given their intent for that to happen by engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse, or in sexual intercourse with the risk of fertilisation attached. 40 weeks later (or maybe 22), you have a baby in your hands.

Again that is irrelevant to the status of the human being. From a biological point of view the intent of the humans doesn't matter. If a woman is raped by a mad man the biological process is exactly the same. If a woman has semen splashed by accident on her groan and a sperm manages to find her womb the biological process is exactly the same.

If you abort a sperm cell there is no baby. If you abort the zygote there is no baby.

InFront wrote:

Do you accept that a human zygote can go on to become a man or a woman if left to nature, and that we have no reason to say otherwise in the normal mother?

Yes.

InFront wrote:

Surely you would not deny that pairs who lose babies at five or seven or thirty-seven weeks, have lost children, really?

I'm not sure what you mean. They have lost potential children, but then so have I if I use a condom when having sex with my girlfriend. The loss felt by a potential parent is very subjective to what they want and how attached they have become to the idea of their child. A woman who really wants a child but has a miscarriage might be far more upset than a woman who really doesn't want a baby and who uses the morning after pill to prevent fertilisation, despite the fact that the end result is exactly the same, no baby.

InFront wrote:

Would you think it is silly for them to name the child any more than to name an unfertilised oocyte?

They can name their child anything they want, why would I mind? I know people who have named their children that they haven't even conceived yet.

I wouldn't confusing the actual biological reality (its a clump of cells) with the emotional feelings of the future parents (its our child). A woman who is told she cannot have children can weep for children that never even existed, and I would certainly not call that silly or dismiss it. Equally a woman who is told she is not pregnant can weep with relief about being told that and be very thankful that she is not having a child.

All this is, in my opinion, quite irrelevant to the issue of if the foetus is considered a human being with rights. I would be very concerned if that rights of a human, and human, were decided by the feelings its parents had towards it.

InFront wrote:

The difference is this: if the sperm was destroyed, it would be demonstration of an intent not to form a child.

I'm pretty such an abortion would also be considered intent not to form a child.

The problem from my point of view with your argument is that it works on the assumption that a fertilised egg is a "child", and that the sperm and egg cells that formed that fertilised egg aren't. So from your point of view the "child" has already been formed.

My point is that if one works on that basis there is no reason to say that the sperm and egg aren't also the "child" Bob is the sperm and egg as much as he is the fertilised egg or the zygote. You cannot make Bob without the sperm and the egg.

InFront wrote:

However, if you put a sperm in an oocyte, you are saying "Here I am going to ask nature for a baby".

Who says that? I'm pretty sure everyone who doesn't want a child doesn't actually say that at all.

InFront wrote:

If you destroy this baby you asked for, the 'contract' is dishonoured on your part because you have reneged on your intent

Ok, you are kinda going into religious areas about asking for a child and honour and stuff. Which is fine, but I probably should bow out of that aspect of the discussion because I'm not religious.

InFront wrote:

Without the reproductive system, you won't have an egg, nor will you have a sperm, nor an embryo.

That is kinda my point. From a biological perspective the fertilised egg is of no greater importance than the sperm and unfertilised egg in producing the end result, a child.

InFront wrote:

A greater intellectual capacity for learned behaviour and potential for strategic intelligence.

I'm not sure I could agree with that. Surely mentally disabled people would fall short of that definition? Also couldn't super computers fall into that definition?

InFront wrote:

Not from the beginning, nor is it something the newborn young person has from the beginning of course. Are newborns 'safe' from being killed?

They are safe with my definition, which is different to yours.

Intelligence is not in my opinion the important characteristic of humanity, it is instead consciousness, the ability for the brain to be aware of its own existence and produce thought, that is important.

The actual intelligence of the human would be irrelevant to that, as I feel even a mentally disabled person with very limited intelligence by average human standards, seems to possess the ability to produce thought (at least we can't say they don't)

I would ask why new born babies (and mentally disabled) are safe from being killed within your definition since they don't (and in the case of disabled possibly never will) possess the characteristics you mention above.

InFront wrote:

What if we give a newborn a general anaesthetic, can we kill it, do we have that right? It won't survive on its own. It's just cells.

I'm not following? What will giving it anaesthetic do?

If you inflicted serious brain damage on the new born so that it losses its higher brain capacity and the ability to form consciousness and thought, then it would be fine to terminate it, but you would probably get in trouble for causing it to lose its ability to form higher brain functions in the first place.

Also I would point out that the ability of something to survive on its own has never been a determining factor for me in if a life is considered a human being or not. In fact that was the point of my original posts, I think that is a particularly bad and dangerous way to determine if something is a human being or not.

InFront wrote:

Can you explain this statement, how does nature give up on the baby in a premature pregnancy?

Pretty simply, the baby dies. Before modern medicine a baby born 4 months premature would have died very quickly in the wild.

InFront wrote:

Now take a baby at 40 weeks in an incubator. It has come to full term, you could say nature has given up on it just like the 21 week old. If left alone it will die, is it not ethical to do so?

No it isn't ethical to do so because the ability of the baby to survive shouldn't have anything to do with the question of if the baby is considered a human being or not. In my opinion once the foetus has formed the ability to produce consciousness (thought) it is a human being and before that foetus has formed the ability to produce consciousness it isn't a human being. This is because the ability to produce consciousness is the characteristic that defines a human being.

The ability of the foetus to survive once that has happened is irrelevant to the fact that it has happened. This is the same as a terminally ill patient, or a soldier who has just been mortally wounded, retains their full rights as a person up to the very moment they die. At no point does the ability of the person to sustain itself, either naturally or artificially, effect their status as a human being.

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote:

Issues of morality are never "fact", they are always opinion. It is wrong to kill is not a fact, it is an opinion. It is immoral to murder school children is an opinion not a fact.


My argument is that deciding the question of if the foetus is a human being based on the ability of the foetus to survive externally to the mothers womb, is a flawed and dangerous method.

But you are not making an argument for your opinion,you're saying it's ridiciculous and you are expressing your opinion/belief system.

That is a rather cyclical definition since you define a "being" as the whole.

Why?
Theres little point in exchanging one line expressions of belief.

Can you define a "communicative being" without defining it in terms of the whole. I'm also not sure how a zygote can be considered "communicative"?

It kicks or it might be thinking of kicking
Theres also quite a bit of research that children remember music heard whilst in the womb.

The cells themselves, on their own, are not important. It is what those cells do that is important.

To turn that on it's head it's what the zygote is on it's own that is important ,its what it does when left to nature-it gets born,it becomes an adult usually.

In what way can a foetus with no nervous system or spinal cord/brain "feel" pain. That would be the same as saying your kidney feels pain, or your hair feels pain.

I fundamentally disagree.
A baby leaving the womb can feel pain just as it can in the moments before it leaves the womb.
There are various opinions on when it becomes capable of feeling the pain.

I've stated why it is ridiculous, a few times. The status of what is a person would be constantly changing based on the current medical advances of the time, and the medical care the mother has access to at the time. A 22 week old foetus in the UK in 2000 could have completely different status and rights as a 22 week old foetus in Somalia in 2007. One is considered a human being, the other is not simply because the medical staff might be able to keep the UK foetus alive but not the Somalian one. The properties of the babies, the stage of development, which would be very similar, are ignored and their status as human beings are defined based on external abratary factors.

But thats the same for adults in different countries.
Children starve to death in Africa and die form all sorts of diseases due to lack of food,the lack of a developed society and the lack of medical care.
Introducing it specefically to support what is human is a misnomer.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

I was simply using your methods of logic and applying them to the life support switch situation.In theory a person could be on life support and wake up after a number of years.
The life support system is a medical advance.
Using your logic, that person should have died.

If you would actually read my posts you will see I'm giving your plenty of reason. You cannot define that status of a human being based on where they physically are because none of the characteristics of the human alters based solely on where they are.

Thats not a reason/definition.How is it in anyway related to the discussion of what is possible with a foetus?You've given an opinion again but no reason.

A human being is a human being based on the characteristics it holds, not where it physically is.

Well actually you are introducing a bias there.
The bias that I pointed out to you earlier and that is your disregard for the natural potential of an unborn.
The question of the thread was should an already morally based cut off point for abortion be revisited now that evidence has been shown that the premise that the cut off date was based on is no longer valid.

If you disagree with that assessment of morality, if you think that the rights of a human being can alter based on its location please put an argument forward. Simply saying that this is just my opinion and you don't agree without saying why or what your opinion is is rather pointless for a discussion.

But I've stated my view all along,I've even stated it's similar to yours but for different reasons.

Would you feel fine about extinguishing a 22 week old foetus that couldn't survive outside of the mothers womb?

No.
Not now.
You see I've revisited my view based on this evidence

Do you think that abortions far passed 22 weeks are ok in places such as Central Africa where the hospitals do not have the ability to sustain a baby born premature let lone one born 4 months premature.

Not now no.
Just as I don't think their lack of facilities/food and water in certain circumstances is right either.
It's an unfortunate by product of humanity that governments spend more on arms in certain cases that they do on the welfare of their own people.

Well as I said in a previous post I find it rather unsettling that people make decisions about something as important as the status and rights of a human being based on how cute, or close to a baby, something looks. What did you think a foetus looked like?

That view would be so un analogous to my view and belief system as to be undebateable.
But how and ever-to each their own I say.

It is actually an unnatural interference, that is my whole point. It is not natural to use a condom, or to take the pill. It is actually not particularly natural to put so much though into having sex, which humans but few other species actually do. Most other species' sex lives are controlled by instinct.

I've already explained my position on individual sperms and eggs.

Why?

Surely the sperm has the right to progress on its natural cycle to become a full term baby, nature willing of course. If we stop this, unnaturally, are we not aborting that potential baby?

Oh I see,I know you do sometimes have your own cut off points,you had one there with the brain.So where would you like your cut off point to be going down that road?
Are you going to suggest that because my phone wasn't working yesterday that it's Eircoms fault that I didn't flirt with call centre girl and we wont have a chance to go out together and potentially create a baby?

Eircom you are such an abortionist....

I do have to agree with the OP at this stage when he said this is all a convenient excuse to avoid the nuisance of having to deal with something that society as a whole could and does sometimes make a moral calling on that differs from your own.

Say in one reality I have sex with my girlfriend/wife and one of my sperms joins with her egg and produces a baby boy, that grows to full term and we name him Tim.

Now, say in another reality I decide to use a condom instead when having sex with my girlfriend/wife and my sperm that would have gone on to form Tim is stopped by the latex and dies 30 minutes later as the temperature of the condom drops in my bin (ie it is unnaturally aborted before it can fertilise the egg). Tim never happens because I stopped the sperm from fertilising my wife's egg.

Have I not just aborted Tim? How is this different from aborting when he is a fertilised egg in my wife's ovary, or aborting Tim when he is a embryo in my wife's womb? The end result is the same, no Tim.

It's probably Eircoms fault to be honest.

As I said not allowing something to be done is irrelevant to the fact that it can be done. In fact it is a recognition of the fact that it can be done.

Which is relevant to why society usually takes a moral calling on it.

That still doesn't explain what your meant in your previous post, as you are attributing to me a belief that I don't have and then arguing against said belief. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Really? You couldn't grasp that your belief (as expressed in the post I replied to) as to what constitutes a human being and your completely different belief based replies to the OP's question is/are anathema to mine and that I said so in reply to your post?
Do you understand what I said now that I've repeated it ?

Zombrex

Tristrame wrote:

But you are not making an argument for your opinion,you're saying it's ridiciculous and you are expressing your opinion/belief system.

Yes I am, you are just ignoring it.

Tristrame wrote:

Why?

As I have already explained, it is cyclical because you define a human being as the "whole" and then define the "whole" as a human being. That is cyclical.

Tristrame wrote:

Theres little point in exchanging one line expressions of belief.

Well then don't, expand on your positions.

Tristrame wrote:

It kicks or it might be thinking of kicking

A zygote doing kick, since it doesn't have legs.

Tristrame wrote:

Theres also quite a bit of research that children remember music heard whilst in the womb.

That would suggest memory and possibly thought. I'm not sure it suggests communication. For a being to be considered communicative it must possess the ability, or at least inclination, to communicate in some form or fashion.

Tristrame wrote:

To turn that on it's head it's what the zygote is on it's own that is important ,its what it does when left to nature-it gets born,it becomes an adult usually.

The ability to grow and to replicate is found in nearly all forms of life. Yet you (i imagine) consider a human zygote to be of higher value than a zygote of another species. If you are basing that on the abilities of the zygote that would appear to make little sense, since a human zygote does little more than a zygote from any other mammal species.

Tristrame wrote:

I fundamentally disagree.
A baby leaving the womb can feel pain justy as it can in the moments before it leaves the womb.

I'm not sure the relevance of that, since a foetus days or weeks before it is born has a well developed brain, spinal cord and nervous system.

A zygote doesn't, it doesn't have any form of nervous system at all.

Tristrame wrote:

There are various opinions on when it becomes capable of feeling the pain.

I've heard of none that suggest the foetus can feel pain before it has first developed a nervous system.

Tristrame wrote:

But thats the same for adults in different countries.

That is not the same for adults AT ALL

All adults in all countries are considered human beings, with full rights, under the UN Declaration of Human Rights (and various other moral declarations).

The medical health care in the individual country, city or individual hospital, has absolutely no effect on that status what so ever.

Tristrame wrote:

I was simply using your methods of logic and applying them to the life support switch situation.In theory a person could be on life support and wake up after a number of years.

Not if they are brain dead. If a person has suffered serious damage to the brain so that only low level functions still operate, they are considered legally dead, as they will not wake up or function again, and the right to life for that person no longer applies because the right to life is bestowed upon the being not the body.

Tristrame wrote:

The life support system is a medical advance.
Using your logic, that person should have died.

No, by my logic (and modern legal definitions in most western countries) that person is already dead.

If the brain is damaged to the point that higher brain functions such as memory consciousness and thought are no longer possible then the person is considered legally dead, even if the body itself (the heart the lungs the kidneys the hair the skin) is still alive and functioning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_death

Tristrame wrote:

Thats not a reason/definition.How is it in anyway related to the discussion of what is possible with a foetus?You've given an opinion again but no reason.
Well actually you are introducing a bias there.

The reason is that the characteristics of the life form don't change. If it is a human being in room A, with all the rights the entails, it is still a human being if you move it into room B because the life form itself has not changed, only its location has changed.

The relevance is that if a foetus at a certain stage of development is considered a human being in the womb it most also be considered a human being outside the womb (say for example if it is moved to an artificial womb or incubator) as the characteristics of the foetus itself have not changed.

Tristrame wrote:

The bias that I pointed out to you earlier and that is your disregard for the natural potential of an unborn.

I disregard the natural potential of a potential child everytime I use a condom to stop said potential child coming into existence. I hold little regard for something that does not exist yet, since it doesn't actually exist, as I'm sure most people here do if they thought about it.

Tristrame wrote:

The question of the thread was should an already morally based cut off point for abortion be revisited now that evidence has been shown that the premise that the cut off date was based on is no longer valid.

I'm not sure that ever was the premise of the cut off date. If it was then I would strongly object to using the ability of the foetus to survive externally to the womb as a guide to the issue of if abortion is moral or not.

Tristrame wrote:

No.
Not now.
You see I've revisited my view based on this evidence

Ok, would you be perfectly fine with a 2 week old embryo, that could not possibly survive outside the womb at the moment, artificially or otherwise, being aborted?

As people are so found of asking me, where do you draw the line?

Tristrame wrote:

Not now no.

I don't understand what you think has changed by this case?

This was a 22 week old foetus, a 22 week old foetus has always been like a 22 week old foetus, for the last 100,000 years or so. What did you think a 22 week old foetus was like, and why would you have been happy to abort it until this case happened? What do you think has changed?

Tristrame wrote:

Are you going to suggest that because my phone wasn't working yesterday that it's Eircoms fault that I didn't flirt with call centre girl and we wont have a chance to go out together and potentially create a baby?

Perhaps you didn't understand that my question was an attempt to display the illogical nature of your position.

I don't think using a condom is immoral, but neither do I think that aborting a embryo that has not yet developed a brain is immoral. You on the other hand appear to think that using a condom to abort a sperm is fine, but aborting a embryo is not because the embryo has the potential to develop into a child. Does the sperm not also have that potential?

I'm asking you how do you reconcile the idea that abortion a sperm is fine, but aborting a embryo is completely different. Surely, using your own logic, the sperm has as much right to develop naturally into a potential child as the zygote or embryo does?

Tristrame wrote:

It's probably Eircoms fault to be honest.

Are you unwilling or unable to answer?

Tristrame wrote:

Really? You couldn't grasp that your belief (as expressed in the post I replied to) as to what constitutes a human being and our completely different belief based replies to the OP's question is/are anathema to mine and that I said so in reply to your post?

I'm not sure what you mean by anathema. Doesn't anathema mean a curse or something that is hated?

Anyway, you said -

I suppose if it works for you then it works for you but I doubt you'd get that definition past most of the Irish or British public

Please explain what definition you are referring to, since the only definitions in the piece of my post that you quoted were a definitions by other people, not me.

metrovelvet

Wicknight wrote:

I can stop my future child (call him Tim) forming by using a condom to abort my sperm cell or by my wife aborting the fertilised embryo. The end result is exactly the same, no Tim. .

Except a condom doesnt abort anything, it prevents conception. Abortion is when an already conceived embryo or feotus is destroyed.

Wicknight wrote:

I'm not sure what you mean. They have lost potential children, but then so have I if I use a condom when having sex with my girlfriend. .

Your sperm is genetic material, it is not a child, a woman does not lose a child every time she menstruates. She loses the egg also genetic material, not a child.

Wicknight wrote:

A woman who really wants a child but has a miscarriage might be far more upset than a woman who really doesn't want a baby and who uses the morning after pill to prevent fertilisation, despite the fact that the end result is exactly the same, no baby. .

There could be various differences in the health, hormonal and emotional at results of losing a baby depending on how developed the child is. The morning after pill is also preventative,not abortive.


Is the question here about the relationship between feotal viabnility and its rights to life? If so it seems there is no way of measuring a set week at which to determine such a thing.

When I went to my first hospital visit I was told that at 16 weeks if i feel contractions to go straight up to delivery but before that to go to emergency because at 16 weeks there's a lot they can do -which frankly startled me to hear.

Additionally, it is my understanding that there are variables in the rates of how they develop.




.

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

Except a condom doesnt abort anything

Well if you want to get technical on semantics I didn't mean it in the Latin "to miscarry", but then when a military commander says "abort the launch" I doubt he means "miscarry the rocket" either

metrovelvet wrote:

Your sperm is genetic material, it is not a child, a woman does not lose a child every time she menstruates.

That all depends on how you define "a child", which ultimately at the heart of the discussion. If a fertilised egg is "a child" why is the sperm and egg a few seconds before fertilisation not "a child" also?

At the end of the day the end result of aborting a fertilised embryo or destroying the sperm and egg that would form that embryo, are the same :- No baby.

metrovelvet wrote:

The morning after pill is also preventative,not abortive.

The morning after pill can prevent an already fertilised egg attaching to the womb wall. If one defines "a child" as a fertilised egg then that is causing the unnatural death of a child, which would probably fall under murder.

metrovelvet wrote:

Is the question here about the relationship between feotal viabnility and its rights to life?

Not as far as I'm concerned I think that is a very poor way to measure if a foetus is a human being or not.

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote:

Yes I am, you are just ignoring it.

Ah the ultimate resort when faced with a nuisance.

As I have already explained, it is cyclical because you define a human being as the "whole" and then define the "whole" as a human being. That is cyclical.

So? That has what to do with whether a 21 week foetus should be aborted which all your nuisance avoiding tangents on other questions other than the one of this thread are dealing with...

Well then don't, expand on your positions.

Eh? I'll explain my beliefs just as you will yours.The only difference is you feel the need to talk about zygotes sperms and eggs.You feel the need to explain that throwing them away is akin to throwing away a zygote-maybe it is,but it's definitely not akin to throwing away a 21 week old foetus in my belief,especially on the news of the article.

A zygote doing kick, since it doesn't have legs.

Ah I was only being humorous with you suggesting it would be thinking about it.I could have said it had the potential to be thinking about it.It would be remiss of me not to concede that a zygote can't communicate.
That said where have I been argueing for the life of a zygote in the womb ?
I appreciate that you are establishing your belief that there should be no revisiting of abortion laws merely because a 21 week foetus born a baby has survived.
That position I can understand but disagree with for the reasons I stated.
We have different cut off points which is why I introduced the futility of the Eircom extreme cut off point as an example in repy to your Tim and Tim.

That would suggest memory and possibly thought. I'm not sure it suggests communication. For a being to be considered communicative it must possess the ability, or at least inclination, to communicate in some form or fashion.

It has received and retained a communication-that I would consider communicative.If it kicks it's also communicating.

The ability to grow and to replicate is found in nearly all forms of life. Yet you (i imagine) consider a human zygote to be of higher value than a zygote of another species. If you are basing that on the abilities of the zygote that would appear to make little sense, since a human zygote does little more than a zygote from any other mammal species.

I suggest you take what I imagine about that to a more relevant thread to be honest.
The original question was about revisiting abortion laws.
Your whole zygote tangent is merely you explaing the grounding for your belief.
It does nothing for my belief which is based on what I see as having happened ie the possibility of sustained life out side the womb for what is inside it is a big no no when it comes to allowing it to be aborted ie deliberately killed.
It's a big no no when it's got to that stage.

I'm not sure the relevance of that, since a foetus days or weeks before it is born has a well developed brain, spinal cord and nervous system.

A zygote doesn't, it doesn't have any form of nervous system at all.

Again why are we discussing a zygote in relation to my beliefs?It's relevant to yours from the stand point that your cut off point is the here and now legal position on abortion say in the UK ie No to revisiting it because well the zygote is next for protection.

I've heard of none that suggest the foetus can feel pain before it has first developed a nervous system.

and the purpose of this thread was to inquire about the 21 week old foetus-Can it feel pain? I'd suggest it can given that it can be born and it can survive sucessfully.

That is not the same for adults AT ALL

All adults in all countries are considered human beings, with full rights, under the UN Declaration of Human Rights (and various other moral declarations).

The medical health care in the individual country, city or individual hospital, has absolutely no effect on that status what so ever.

Which is a defined moral legal standpoint just as is the decision of the UK government to decide how many weeks a foetus can be in the womb before it develops the right not to be aborted.It's morality being brought into the law making around abortion in deciding at what point it's ok or not to abort-just as it is morality thats applied into what you quoted there.

Not if they are brain dead. If a person has suffered serious damage to the brain so that only low level functions still operate, they are considered legally dead, as they will not wake up or function again, and the right to life for that person no longer applies because the right to life is bestowed upon the being not the body.

A comotose person wouldn't be long before they became brain dead and everyway dead without the respirator no?

No, by my logic (and modern legal definitions in most western countries) that person is already dead.

There are plenty of people who were on respirators who would have died with out them and subsequently woke up.

If the brain is damaged to the point that higher brain functions such as memory consciousness and thought are no longer possible then the person is considered legally dead, even if the body itself (the heart the lungs the kidneys the hair the skin) is still alive and functioning.

You do love your distractive tangents don't you?
What has this got to do with the initial question other than a seemingly unending need for you to justify your belief by taking us down the road of no cut off's?
I've accepted your belief ages ago and understood it for what it is,like mine just a belief.

The relevance is that if a foetus at a certain stage of development is considered a human being in the womb it most also be considered a human being outside the womb (say for example if it is moved to an artificial womb or incubator) as the characteristics of the foetus itself have not changed.

Again we disagree.
As you know I've revisited that notion as I've seen that a foetus currently that would have no protection inside the womb at 21 weeks say in the UK can live.
My belief system would oppose denying any 21 week foetus the same right now.

I disregard the natural potential of a potential child everytime I use a condom to stop said potential child coming into existence. I hold little regard for something that does not exist yet, since it doesn't actually exist, as I'm sure most people here do if they thought about it.

Different cut off points again between you and me.
I don't equate or attach a right to an individual sperm or an Egg in the same way that I would a 21 week foetus.

I'm not sure that ever was the premise of the cut off date. If it was then I would strongly object to using the ability of the foetus to survive externally to the womb as a guide to the issue of if abortion is moral or not.

Why was there a cut off date if it wasn't because the majority opinion would be uneasy at allowing abortion later than currently allowed in the UK?

Ok, would you be perfectly fine with a 2 week old embryo, that could not possibly survive outside the womb at the moment, artificially or otherwise, being aborted?

As people are so found of asking me, where do you draw the line?

Thought I explained that earlier.I'd legislate for the cloning making for strict regulation ie no breeding of babies for the crack like and I'd make the production of a baby artificially a process of no return.

I don't understand what you think has changed by this case?

Dont? or don't want to? or don't simply agree with my analysis of it?
The benefit of the doubt being applied,I'll say it's the last one?

This was a 22 week old foetus, a 22 week old foetus has always been like a 22 week old foetus, for the last 100,000 years or so. What did you think a 22 week old foetus was like, and why would you have been happy to abort it until this case happened? What do you think has changed?

What has changes is two things (1) I've been shown what it looks like and (2) I've been shown that it can become a viable baby born at that age.

Perhaps you didn't understand that my question was an attempt to display the illogical nature of your position.

I don't think using a condom is immoral, but neither do I think that aborting a embryo that has not yet developed a brain is immoral. You on the other hand appear to think that using a condom to abort a sperm is fine, but aborting a embryo is not because the embryo has the potential to develop into a child.

Cut off points as I said earlier based on what i think is right or wrong.

Does the sperm not also have that potential?

Slightly more potential than my date with the call centre Girl probably but well beyond what I'd consider a reasonable cut off point.

I wouldn't ask a pregnant lady to lift 4 stone bags of spuds-why do you think I wouldn't?
I'll tell you why,it would be out of consideration of the fact that it might damage her unborn.
If it was four stone bucket loads of sperm and she wasn't pregnant I wouldn't lament the loss of one or two of the buckets unless of course I'd paid money for them and ran a sperm bank or something.

I'm asking you how do you reconcile the idea that abortion a sperm is fine, but aborting a embryo is completely different. Surely, using your own logic, the sperm has as much right to develop naturally into a potential child as the zygote or embryo does?

Simple enough.I follow nature.If I don't masturbate,then nature will do away with my sperm and yours as it does with the eggs.
It rarely does away with an embryo unless something medically goes wrong.

Are you unwilling or unable to answer?

I've answered you alright,I've told you what I think of using the position of sperm as being anything near the equivalent of a well developed foetus.I used Eircom as an nth degree example of where we'd end up going on that route which ironically is not unrelated to where you are on this-apart from our different cut off points.

I'm not sure what you mean by anathema. Doesn't anathema mean a curse or something that is hated?

Yeah I guess I'd hate to abort a 21week old foetus now that I've seen this article.

Anyway, you said -

I suppose if it works for you then it works for you but I doubt you'd get that definition past most of the Irish or British public

Please explain what definition you are referring to, since the only definitions in the piece of my post that you quoted were a definitions by other people, not me.

Certainly.
You've more than adequately defined your position regarding the question of the thread and I've disagreed with it.
Is that not an acceptable use of the word definition?
Your definition [read: defined position if it's easier] on this issue is anathema to mine.
Perhaps you thought I was talking about the long posts on what is and isn't human,I wasn't.

b3t4

I don't know why but I was thinking about this for a while and something came to me. It's another angle to look at this which I like.

When a woman gets pregnant she would generally not tell anyone for the first three months. This being due to there being a high risk of miscarriage in these months. For these three months the woman is relying on nature to not abort.

So up to three months and sometimes after that nature can decide that circumstances aren't right for the pregnancy to continue and aborts. So my thoughts are that women should be allowed up to three months to abort if the circumstances aren't suitable. Basically it'd be mimicing nature. Nature generally has it's head screwed on therefore mimicing it isn't all that bad an idea I reckon.

metrovelvet

Wicknight wrote:

That all depends on how you define "a child", which ultimately at the heart of the discussion. If a fertilised egg is "a child" why is the sperm and egg a few seconds before fertilisation not "a child" also?.

Because there is no conception and technically we are not talking about children,we are talking about feotus and embryos. What I think you are trying to determine is at what point either becomes a human life.

Wicknight wrote:

At the end of the day the end result of aborting a fertilised embryo or destroying the sperm and egg that would form that embryo, are the same :- No baby. ?.

Infertility and celibacy also bring the same result. What is your point here? The argument is around post NOT pre conception.

Wicknight wrote:

The morning after pill can prevent an already fertilised egg attaching to the womb wall. If one defines "a child" as a fertilised egg then that is causing the unnatural death of a child, which would probably fall under murder.

Murder is a legal term. In countries where abortion is illegal, yes it would be murder, on other countries it would be killing, like killing a deer or taking a shoe to a cockroach.

Wicknight wrote:

Not as far as I'm concerned I think that is a very poor way to measure if a foetus is a human being or not.

Yes it seems impossible and impractical.

Zombrex

Tristrame wrote:

Ah the ultimate resort when faced with a nuisance.

I'm not sure if I would call your method of "discussion" a nuisance Tristrame.

Other words spring to mind :rolleyes:

Tristrame you seem to have no real interest in having a discussion on the issue of abortion or discussing (or even defining) your position, and half the time I cannot understand your posts at all (you seem to reference and then discuss things I didn't even say).

Continuing to reply to your posts would seem to be a large waste of energy on both our parts.

As Token out of South Park would say "That's it, I'm out"

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

What I think you are trying to determine is at what point either becomes a human life.

I preferr the term "being" when attempting to take about what rights are bestowed up, because technically a liver cell, sperm cell or a brain dead person are human and alive.

To me the issue of abortion hinges on two important questions

1 - What is the special property of a human that gives it the special rights that we have over the rights of other animals?

2 - At what point in the development of a human does that property appear.

As I've stated before I believe that the property of humanity that we bestow special rights to is the human consciousness, the ability to think and be aware of ourselves.

I believe that until that property has formed a human being has not yet formed, and destroying a fertilised egg is no different than destroying a sperm, because neither possess that property and as such an individual human being has not yet been created.

metrovelvet wrote:

Infertility and celibacy also bring the same result. What is your point here?
The argument is around post NOT pre conception.

I'm pointing out that destroying a sperm and egg that are going to form has exactly the same result as destroying the fertilised egg the make 5 minutes later.

This is in relation to the argument that a fertilised egg is a potential human child, where as a sperm or egg arent

Therefore the argument that is it fine to destroy the sperm and egg before they have formed yet not ok to destroy the fertilised egg because that has the potential to grow into a human makes little sense, since the sperm and the egg have the same potential, and without the sperm and the egg you wouldn't have the fertilised egg in the first place. Destroying either has the same end result (no human)

metrovelvet wrote:

Murder is a legal term. In countries where abortion is illegal, yes it would be murder, on other countries it would be killing, like killing a deer or taking a shoe to a cockroach.

That was my point ... if one defines a human being as being created from the moment of conception then a morning after pill is as much abortion as aborting the foetus 6 months later.

Wicknight

Wicknight wrote:

As Token out of South Park would say "That's it, I'm out"

LoL

metrovelvet

Wicknight wrote:

I preferr the term "being" when attempting to take about what rights are bestowed up, because technically a liver cell, sperm cell or a brain dead person are human and alive. .

How so?

Wicknight wrote:

1 - What is the special property of a human that gives it the special rights that we have over the rights of other animals?.

Why are you bringing animals into this? Do you think that it will set some dangerous precedent where if one minute abortion is criminalised the next minute your facing the death penalty for eating a cheeseburger?

Wicknight wrote:

As I've stated before I believe that the property of humanity that we bestow special rights to is the human consciousness, the ability to think and be aware of ourselves.?.

Well you cant measure that in utero. And I would argue on a more misanthropic day that most of humanity does not have the quality you are talking about.

Wicknight wrote:

I believe that until that property has formed a human being has not yet formed, and destroying a fertilised egg is no different than destroying a sperm, because neither possess that property and as such an individual human being has not yet been created. .?.

You dont know that. Besides which, when human life begins is a biological decision isnt it and not a philosophical one.

Wicknight wrote:

I'm pointing out that destroying a sperm and egg that are going to form has exactly the same result as destroying the fertilised egg the make 5 minutes later..?.

It takes about three days for fertilisation and implantation to occur. And depending on when you destroy the fertilised egg, it may very well not have the same effect. Not all MAPs work [or RU486 and there are consequences to the woman's body.

Wicknight wrote:

Therefore the argument that is it fine to destroy the sperm and egg before they have formed yet not ok to destroy the fertilised egg because that has the potential to grow into a human makes little sense, since the sperm and the egg have the same potential, and without the sperm and the egg you wouldn't have the fertilised egg in the first place. Destroying either has the same end result (no human) ..?.

No. Because the sperm and egg are clearly only POTENTIAL human life, whereeas what people are arguing is that a fertilised egg is ACTUAL human life.

InFront

Originally posted by Wicknight
They can name their child anything they want, why would I mind?

So it is a child then? Because if a woman miscarries, and names the dead baby, going by your comparisons earlier it would be the same thing as naming a sperm 'John' or keratin 'Ann' in your opinion. You must think that it is a very silly thing to do.

Say a pregnant woman is involved in a motor accident, and loses her unborn child but suffers no functional damage to her reproductive tract.
That, in your eyes, is nothing more than an inconvenience, as she now has to start the process from step 1 again, as if pregnancy is a game of snakes and ladders.

But, by your mindset, any sentimentality or sadness over the loss of the child is not warranted. There is no sadness, it's just a bit of hassle.

That is kinda my point. From a biological perspective the fertilised egg is of no greater importance than the sperm and unfertilised egg in producing the end result, a child.

That's not the biological or medical perspective, it's yours. A zygote is the first entity in the creation of human life and is vastly different to the spermatazoon or the oocyte.

Intelligence is not in my opinion the important characteristic of humanity, it is instead consciousness, the ability for the brain to be aware of its own existence and produce thought, that is important.

But an unborn baby at 40 weeks is not conscious in that it is not aware of its own existence more than a dog or nearly so, nor can he think or produce thought. Like an animal, he has no words to think with.the process is not there, he only has that potential. So why don't you agree with abortion in late pregnancy?

In my opinion that potential he has is enough to confirm that he is valid human life, as is a two week old embryo that you regard as a clump of cells.

I would ask why new born babies (and mentally disabled) are safe from being killed within your definition since they don't (and in the case of disabled possibly never will) possess the characteristics you mention above.

Because as I made clear, I include the potential to develop human intelligence if left to nature.

Just in terms of intellectual disability, there are cases where abortion can be permissible and I did say that already. A previous poster mentioned anencephaly, there is no doubt but that it is one such example.

However you have to be very careful with mental retardation. If one could be sure that the neurological disfunction was to such an extent as to render the individual incapable of intelligence on a human level, or incapable of learning or adapting goal-orientated behaviour as befits a human, then abortion would be allowable in the early stages of pregnancy. the neural tube is developed around the third week, so there is some leeway there. But disability is misleading, because in the extreme vast majority of cases of intellectual disability, we are really talking about more of an intellectual setback than actual inability.
These individuals do still display a level of intelligence that is beyond what we see in other species, and that is what makes them, like us, unique to non-humans.

I'm not following? What will giving it anaesthetic do?

If you administer the general anaesthetic to a newborn infant, you have in your hands an oblivious clump of cells with no conscience or ability to conceive ideas or feel pain. just like an embryo.

People do much of their development after birth, especially neural development, and a newborn's development is actively dependent on this progression by nature, just as is the case with the embryo.

it would be fine to terminate it, but you would probably get in trouble for causing it to lose its ability to form higher brain functions in the first place.

The point is that nature will progress, liver cytochromes will destroy the anaesthetic and the kidneys will progressively remove the remaining compound from the body. But you have said that it is pointless to ask "what nature will bring about". So why not, while the child is under anaesthetic, destroy it?

Or say we anaesthetise the baby before extraction from the uterus in late pregnancy?

This is because the ability to produce consciousness is the characteristic that defines a human being.

What if it is a colt? Colts and fillies are extremely well developed in neurological terms, they are so well developed that they walk within hours of birth. They are also conscious beings.

If you don't bring intelligence, or the potential to develop intelligence along with strategic learning into this, what exactly is a human? What is a horse?

Zombrex

InFront wrote:

So it is a child then?

In the context you are talking about "it" is what they want them to be, since to them the construct of "their child" is more important than what it physically is.

That is why I used the example of a woman crying for her "child" after she have been told they cannot conceive. The child doesn't physically exist, and never will, but it is the idea in the woman's mind that is important, and I certainly would tell that woman she is being stupid for weeping over a child that never existed.

As I mentioned the emotional feelings of the parents towards the foetus are rather irrelevant to the question of if the foetus is a human being.

InFront wrote:

Because if a woman miscarries, and names the dead baby, going by your comparisons earlier it would be the same thing as naming a sperm 'John' or keratin 'Ann' in your opinion.

Well it depends on the age of the foetus. But yes, if the foetus was a zygote or early embryo it would be exactly the same.

InFront wrote:

You must think that it is a very silly thing to do.

Not at all. As I mentioned parents can become emotion for children that do not yet exist. Do you think that is silly?

InFront wrote:

Say a pregnant woman is involved in a motor accident, and loses her unborn child but suffers no functional damage to her reproductive tract.
That, in your eyes, is nothing more than an inconvenience, as she now has to start the process from step 1 again, as if pregnancy is a game of snakes and ladders.

My eyes are rather irrelevant. The woman might be very distraught or she might not mind at all, it depends completely on the woman's attitudes towards her pregnancy.

InFront wrote:

But, by your mindset, any sentimentality or sadness over the loss of the child is not warranted. There is no sadness, it's just a bit of hassle.

InFront I respect you as a poster and I think your posts are very informative and well thought out. But I can't help be a bit put off this discussion with you by comments like this. Please point out where I have stated that any sentimentality or sadness over the loss of a child, a foetus or even an unconceived child is not warranted. As I've stated I've know of women who have become very emotional and upset simply because they have been told then cannot have children, and have weep for their lost children (their words). I know of women who have wept after getting their period because they thought they were pregnant and had become attached to a child that also never existed.

If you think it is illogical and unnecessary to cry over the loss of a child that does not yet exist that is fine, but that is your opinion, not mine. I don't, I can completely see why a person would do this, and I understand it completely. And I would never suggest that the person just get over it.

InFront wrote:

That's not the biological or medical perspective, it's yours. A zygote is the first entity in the creation of human life and is vastly different to the spermatazoon or the oocyte.

"First entity" in what list? Are you saying that the sperm and egg are not alive? How do you define alive?

InFront wrote:

But an unborn baby at 40 weeks is not conscious in that it is not aware of its own existence

You know that how exactly?

InFront wrote:

In my opinion that potential he has is enough to confirm that he is valid human life, as is a two week old embryo that you regard as a clump of cells.

Would that not rule out mentally disabled who have no potential to develop a human level of intelligence as human beings?

InFront wrote:

Because as I made clear, I include the potential to develop human intelligence if left to nature.

Does a sperm not have the potential to develop human intellligence if left to nature?

InFront wrote:

Just in terms of intellectual disability, there are cases where abortion can be permissible and I did say that already.

Sorry, just to be clear, you think it is ok to abort some intellectually disabled children?

InFront wrote:

If one could be sure that the neurological disfunction was to such an extent as to render the individual incapable of intelligence on a human level, or incapable of learning or adapting goal-orientated behaviour as befits a human, then abortion would be allowable in the early stages of pregnancy.

Why the early stages and not the later? Or even why not after the child is born? What changes?

If the foetus never develops the ability to produce intelligence to a human level then surely under your definition it never becomes a human being, and the point you destroy it would be rather irrelevant as a human being is not being destroyed?

InFront wrote:

If you administer the general anaesthetic to a newborn infant, you have in your hands an oblivious clump of cells with no conscience or ability to conceive ideas or feel pain. just like an embryo.

That isn't true. If it were anyone who goes into hospital would come out brain dead, which wouldn't be do the hospitals reputation very good.

InFront wrote:

The point is that nature will progress, liver cytochromes will destroy the anaesthetic and the kidneys will progressively remove the remaining compound from the body.

Then you haven't destroyed the brains ability to produce consciousness.

InFront wrote:

But you have said that it is pointless to ask "what nature will bring about". So why not, while the child is under anaesthetic, destroy it?

Because the consciousness exists and the brain still has the ability to function with it.

It is the difference between simply turning off your computer and wiping the harddrive, smashing the CPU. Putting a person unconscious doesn't destroy the consciousness. When the person wakes up they are still the same person. The only thing that destroys the consciousness is brain damage, and if a person suffers brain death (smashing the CPU) the person can no long function with this consciousness.

InFront wrote:

What if it is a colt? Colts and fillies are extremely well developed in neurological terms, they are so well developed that they walk within hours of birth. They are also conscious beings.

I was unaware of that fact.

It was my understanding that science has yet to determine what consciousness actually is, and have no scientific way to measure and test for it. There are some tests such as the mirror test that dolphins and chimps have passed (they realise that the animal in the mirror is them), but I was unaware that colts had passed this test. If they have then colts need special protection under the law, just as animals such as dolphins and the great apes do.

InFront

Wicknight wrote:

"First entity" in what list? Are you saying that the sperm and egg are not alive? How do you define alive?

They are alive only in that they respire and nothing more, they are themselves useless when preserved in the body under any conditions.
When the successful product of the sperm and the oocyte, the zygote, is preserved in the body under natural conditions, you'll get a baby.

The zygote is undeniably the first step in that process, the DNA contained within it, like the embryo and the foetus, is new. It is the very same DNA that the baby lying in a cradle will be made up of - as long as there is no human interference with the child.
So this is why I say it is not the conventional biological/ medical opinion that the zygote is of is of no greater importance than the sperm and the oocyte or that it is not the first step of embryonic development, it only your opinion.

I think most scientists agree that we are physically created upon fertilisation or else implantation, the only debate usually tends to be from what point there is a right to life. Dianne Irving from Princeton University describes your statement as a common myth.

http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/wdhbb.html

Myth 1: "Prolifers claim that the abortion of a human embryo or a human fetus is wrong because it destroys human life. But human sperms and human ova are human life, too. So prolifers would also have to agree that the destruction of human sperms and human ova are no different from abortions—and that is ridiculous!"

Fact 1: As pointed out above in the background section, there is a radical difference, scientifically, between parts of a human being that only possess "human life" and a human embryo or human fetus that is an actual "human being." Abortion is the destruction of a human being.

Destroying a human sperm or a human oocyte would not constitute abortion, since neither are human beings. The issue is not when does human life begin, but rather when does the life of every human being begin. A human kidney or liver, a human skin cell, a sperm or an oocyte all possess human life, but they are not human beings—they are only parts of a human being. If a single sperm or a single oocyte were implanted into a woman’s uterus, they would not grow; they would simply disintegrate.

According to consultants, is a ritualistic occurance that during the gynaecology rotations in teaching hospitals, many students (not everyone) develop anti-abortion views - and that is not even a religious thing.
If you have an eight week old miscarried embryo, and open up the sac, looking right back at you, you expect to see some tiny irrecognizable clump of embryonic tissue.
While it may be embryonic tissue, it is exactly like a miniature baby - arms, legs, ears, eyes, mouth, nose, fingers and toes, you can see the heart which before death would have been beating. The thing has ankles, it has all of its organs, including a brain.
By your logic, it's okay to dump that child in a wheelie bin or flush it down the toilet, it doesn't matter, because it's litter and isn't really a human in your view. You say it isn't human because it isn't conscious. I think that is a big mistake.

As you point out, of course we shouldn't judge human life on physical appearance. The point is simply that thirty weeks before he is born, the path that nature intends for this embryo is visibly established. How can you maintain that just because he is unconscious, we can kill him (or her)? Just as he has gone on to develop human features, he will go on to develop consciousness and intelligence.

I happen to have noticed (and really I couldn't agree with you more on this) that you think fox hunting is cruelty.
Could you explain why a fox, which in farming terms is vermin, deserves life more than a human embryo which if left undisturbed, will be a crying baby in a delivery room?

Does a sperm not have the potential to develop human intellligence if left to nature?

No, never.

Sorry, just to be clear, you think it is ok to abort some intellectually disabled children?

As I said it depends what you mean by intellectually disabled. If you mean a child with a "normal" intellectual disability, which is the extreme majority of cases, no I don't. They can, and do, live happy lives and they do demonstrate intelligence. They feel pain, exhibit goal-orientated behaviour, both learned and innate, I haven't heard a convincing argument for abortion.

However, in the case of anencephaly, for example, there is neither intelligence nor response to neural stimuli or pain receptors. There is no potential for this to come about, and it is really just a question of pulling the plug. This should happen sooner rather than later for the sake of the family. I also say sooner rather than later in terms of specific religious reasons.
I don't think this ought to be turned into a religious debate, but in Islam for example, the soul is commonly thought to be attributed to the body at 40 days based on the Qur'an. This is in line with scientific knowledge, the baby starts reflexing around then as well. Anyway, that altogether, is my explanation why I say "sooner rather than later".

If the foetus never develops the ability to produce intelligence to a human level then surely under your definition it never becomes a human being, and the point you destroy it would be rather irrelevant as a human being is not being destroyed?

The child was never going to become conscious/ intelligent/ responsive or demonstrate reflex. I think it is safe to say that an early abortion could be okay, given the circumstances.

Then you haven't destroyed the brains ability to produce consciousness.

Anaesthesia doesn't destroy consciousness, it halts it. Consciousness will return because nature will restore it with no human intervention (liver enzymes, kidneys, heartrate will bring about consciousness)

In the case of the pregnant mother, her baby is not yet conscious, but nature will bring it about, just like nature brings about consciousness in the anaesthetised adult.
Why is it not okay to kill an anaesthetised newborn who will become conscious, but okay to kill the unborn baby, who will become conscious also?

metrovelvet

Can someone please explain what they mean by conciousness? Do you mean self awareness, being awake, what?

Dontico

Gurgle wrote:

cost be staggering, and the social problems of tens of thousands of children being raised in orphanages.

So clearly there is much more considered when they make their legislation than a viable human being. As with everything else, the driving forces are money and convenience.

unfortunately alot of people prefere money over human life.

i personally see the potential of raising the 4000(not tens of thousands) in the way/image the government wants. thousands of children raised soley to lead in the miltary. it would make the SS look like scouts.

Dontico

Wicknight wrote:

So then do we classify masterbation as a crime because we could technically store and eventually produce a child with each and every one of those sperms completely independent of nature?

i hate it when people think thats actually a proper arguement.

i'm only going to address this once and once only.
sperm by it self doesnt make a human.
sperm dies and is remade every 72 hours. it is not posible for me to inpreganate that many women. although i would like to.

Dontico

b3t4 wrote:

I don't know why but I was thinking about this for a while and something came to me. It's another angle to look at this which I like.

When a woman gets pregnant she would generally not tell anyone for the first three months. This being due to there being a high risk of miscarriage in these months. For these three months the woman is relying on nature to not abort.

So up to three months and sometimes after that nature can decide that circumstances aren't right for the pregnancy to continue and aborts. So my thoughts are that women should be allowed up to three months to abort if the circumstances aren't suitable. Basically it'd be mimicing nature. Nature generally has it's head screwed on therefore mimicing it isn't all that bad an idea I reckon.

but what if nature decides to let the unborn live?

Zombrex

InFront wrote:

They are alive only in that they respire and nothing more, they are themselves useless when preserved in the body under any conditions.
When the successful product of the sperm and the oocyte, the zygote, is preserved in the body under natural conditions, you'll get a baby.

Can you get a baby without a sperm or egg?

After all we are arguing a potential child here. The characteristics we both agree are important for humans exist in the human brain, which neither a sperm nor a zygote possesses. So the argument is that the zygote will turn into a creature with a human brain. But you cannot make this creature without the sperm that made it either. So surely the sperm that made it is just as important as the zygote that made it?

InFront wrote:

Dianne Irving from Princeton University describes your statement as a common myth.

Dr Dianne Irving is a medical ethicist and is a well know anti-abortionist who's papers are well known and quoted amoung conservative and religious anti-abortionists, but not exactly well regarded in science. As one liberal American blogger put it -

"She is a regular contributor for Life Issues, a right-wing anti-abortion site. Taking apart her work would be a project in and of itself. But suffice it to say that none of it is peer-reviewed or resembles scientific research in any way, shape, or form. She is simply a right-wing ideologue posing as an objective researcher. In other words, a GOP propagandist using her degree to pass her work off as 'science.'"

http://eternalhope.blog-city.com/eric_keroack_and_his_racist_enabler_pals.htm

You can see this in the piece you posted where Dr. Irving doesn't actually answer the question, she simply says they are different. She does appear to admit though that the sperm and egg are alive, but not "beings" She says there is a medical difference, which is pecular since a "being" is more of philosophical idea than a medical one. I would be intersted in seeing how she explains that one. But as the blogger points out above, she has reason to say this.

Depending on how one defines "life" will effect if one defines sperm as alive. Sperm, by itself, cannot replicate, nor does it consume food. But it can replicate and consume food when combined with the egg, which is why I always think of the two together. Another way of thinking about it is that sperm can clearly "die", where they get to a point where they cannot function anymore.

InFront wrote:

By your logic, it's okay to dump that child in a wheelie bin or flush it down the toilet, it doesn't matter, because it's litter and isn't really a human in your view.

What do you do with your sperm after masterbation?

InFront wrote:

You say it isn't human because it isn't conscious. I think that is a big mistake.

I've gathered that

InFront wrote:

As you point out, of course we shouldn't judge human life on physical appearance. The point is simply that thirty weeks before he is born, the path that nature intends for this embryo is visibly established.

I'm not really interested in paths, or destiny, or potential. Beings that do not yet exist do not concern me as I'm not a spiritual person, nor do I believe in the soul or the idea that out there is a soul waiting to enter a body.

I certainly understand that people come to the discussion from a more spiritual position. Its just that I don't. I'm a materialist.

The only thing that concerns me is the question "Does a human being exist at this point in time." Whether or not a human being will exist some time in the future is completely irrelevant to that. People don't concern themselves with the potential human beings that could exist if they don't use a condom, I don't concern myself with the potential human being that could exist if the zygote is allowed to reach full term. The human being, as defined by there consciousness, does not exist yet, just as it doesn't exist yet when the sperm is 5 seconds away from joining with the egg.

Once consciousness has been formed a human "being" has been formed. This being must be protected with all the rights available.

InFront wrote:

How can you maintain that just because he is unconscious, we can kill him (or her)?

The same way I maintain that a sperm doesn't possess consciousness so it is ok to kill it as well, as I'm sure most people here do.

InFront wrote:

Just as he has gone on to develop human features, he will go on to develop consciousness and intelligence.

What the zygote will do is largely irrelevant. What matters is what it is at this moment in time. Has a human being been created yet? No, ok lets stop this before one is created. That is the logic used for a using a condom to destroy sperm as much as destroying the zygote.

Most people have absolutely no problem stopping a sperm from going on to develop a conscious human being because they figure that said human being does not yet exist so nothing is being lost, which is true. Terminating a 2 week old foetus is exactly the same, said human being does not yet exist so nothing is being lost.

InFront wrote:

I happen to have noticed (and really I couldn't agree with you more on this) that you think fox hunting is cruelty.

I do

InFront wrote:

Could you explain why a fox, which in farming terms is vermin, deserves life more than a human embryo which if left undisturbed, will be a crying baby in a delivery room?

Because a fox possesses a brain and probably on some low level, also some form of awareness, at least the ability to experience pain and suffering.

A foetus with no functioning brain doesn't. The fact that it will at some point in the future if everything goes ok and nothing is interupted, doesn't change that fact.

Once a foetus has developed a functioning brain then it is immoral to abort it, because it is at that point that human being comes into existence.

InFront wrote:

No, never.

Notice I didn't say "on its own", since in my opinion "on its own" is just a get out jail free clause that pro-life supporters rather nonsensically put into their argument so they can use a condom or masturbate without feeling guilty about stopping a potential life from existing.

It is biologically impossible to create a human naturally without a sperm cell. Every single person on this planet developed from a sperm cell. Without those sperm cells no one would be here.

InFront wrote:

However, in the case of anencephaly, for example, there is neither intelligence nor response to neural stimuli or pain receptors. There is no potential for this to come about, and it is really just a question of pulling the plug.

I would agree with that but then anecephaly is being born with a large part of your brain missing and most die either at birth or soon after. That isn't really an mental or intellectual disability. I was more talking about some classified with a "profound mental disability", possessing an IQ less than 20, and requiring constant care. Since they have only a tiny fraction of normal human intelligence would aborting them be ok?

InFront wrote:

I don't think this ought to be turned into a religious debate, but in Islam for example, the soul is commonly thought to be attributed to the body at 40 days based on the Qur'an. This is in line with scientific knowledge, the baby starts reflexing around then as well.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "in line" with scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge doesn't recongise the "soul" so how can the idea that the soul enters the body after 40 days, or that this is signified by the baby kicking, be in line with scientific knowledge?

InFront wrote:

The child was never going to become conscious/ intelligent/ responsive or demonstrate reflex.

And if they can become conscious and demonstrate reflex, but not intelligence, or at least not intelligence on a human level. If you would be against abortion then then surely intelligence at a human level is not important for defining a human being.

InFront wrote:

Anaesthesia doesn't destroy consciousness, it halts it.

Well then why do you think I would think it would be ok to kill this child?

If the consciousness still exists then it hasn't been lost and the human being still exists. Killing it would be highly immoral, as it is the destroying of human consciousness that I define as the immoral act.

If on the other hand the consciousness has been destroyed (in that the brain is damaged and can no longer able to form this consciousness) and the person is brain dead then what is lost if they are killed or allowed to die naturally. The "being" is already gone.

InFront wrote:

In the case of the pregnant mother, her baby is not yet conscious, but nature will bring it about

Yes but it hasn't yet. Nothing has yet been created, so nothing is lost if this just doesn't happen.

The key point is the "nothing has been lost" bit. Killing a human being is immoral because you are destroying a human consciousness. That is special, and it deserves rights bestowed upon it. Once it has been created if it is lost it is a tragedy.

But if it has not yet been created yet then what is lost by simply not creating it.

It is similar to the difference between destroying a great work of art and the painter simply deciding that today he isn't going to paint. No great work of art is produced that day, but that is not the same as a great work of art that already exists being destroyed. One is just a painter taking a day off work, the other is a huge tragedy. The reason is because little value is placed on works of art that do not yet exist (but might some day) and works of art that do exist now in this moment.

InFront wrote:

, just like nature brings about consciousness in the anaesthetised adult.

But the consciousness, the unique thoughts and memories of this person, exist before the person is put under anaesthetic. It is halted while they are under, but it still exists. And it still exists afterwards, so no murder has taken place. If one the other hand you destroyed the brain removing the ability to produce this consciousness again, or with some magic machine completely scrambled the persons brain so all their memories and thoughts were reset, then you would have destroyed this person, even if you left the body in a perfect state with a new brain.

Using the analogy above, this is like putting the painting in a storage closet for a year. The painting still exists even if no one can see it, and it stil has value.

InFront wrote:

Why is it not okay to kill an anaesthetised newborn who will become conscious, but okay to kill the unborn baby, who will become conscious also?

Because the consciousness of the anaesthetised newborn exists and you aren't destroying it. The consciousness of a foetus who has not yet developed a functioning brain, doesn't exist yet.

Zombrex

Dontico wrote:

i hate it when people think thats actually a proper arguement.

Personally I "hate" (ok probably too strong) the way that some anti-abortionists just drop in "by itself" into the argument as a get out of jail card because they want to use condoms and masturbate without feeling guilty about preventing a potential life.

Why is "by itself" relevant, since nothing in biology happens "by itself". The zygote doesn't develop "by itself" into anything, the zygote by itself would die very quickly.

If someone is going to have a strong pro-life belief based on the idea that the potential child is what is important then they should at least have the courage of their convictions to stand behind that argument to its full conclusion, even if that leads to suffering inconvenience on their part.

Dropping in clauses and irrelevant definitions to simply get around having to do that is in my opinion rather distasteful, as distasteful as arguments like abortion is murder unless the woman is raped, or that abortion is ok so long as the child's parents are poor.

You either stand by your convictions or they don't mean anything.

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

Can someone please explain what they mean by conciousness? Do you mean self awareness, being awake, what?

It sometimes can be hard to define, which is why I tend to air on the side of caution. For example I was against that woman in America having her feeding tude removed soley based on the idea that she had lost higher brain activity because I wasn't sure they could be sure that she actually had.

Really it is a combination of your self awareness, your memories, your thought and your current experience. You know you exist right, in that you are thinking right now about how you exist. You are aware that you exist. That is consciousness. Not the conclusion that you exist, that is more intelligence, but simply the fact that you are able to think in this manner.

Some claim that babies don't experience this. I would question that conclusion, as it seems based on measuring it to the standards of developed human brain. I don't think one could take the risk of saying that babies are not conscious on some level. Which is why my cut of point is saying that the adult, child or foetus must not have any signs of higher brain functions, and in the case of humans who have already created consciousness, it must be shown that this has been lost forever, not just at the moment.

Basically as soon as a foetus has developed a functioning brain that is it, it is too risky to allow an abortion to go ahead because one cannot be sure that one is not destroying a being that possesses a consciousness.

metrovelvet

Dont you think thats a rather elusive way of determining whether or not a person should be killed?

You cant measure this in utero either because babies develop at different rates.

And you have to consider techological factors, like what if the machines aren't advanced enough to pick up on these qualities?

metrovelvet

Wicknight wrote:

Notice I didn't say "on its own", since in my opinion "on its own" is just a get out jail free clause that pro-life supporters rather nonsensically put into their argument so they can use a condom or masturbate without feeling guilty about stopping a potential life from existing.
.

You've got to be kidding me. The argument doesnt start until the sperm meets the egg and conception has occurred.

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

You've got to be kidding me. The argument doesnt start until the sperm meets the egg and conception has occurred.

That is precisely why the "on its own" clause is placed in, so the argument can be moved up to conception and one doesn't have to worry (or consider) about killing a sperm or egg.

As I said, in my view that is an ethical cop out. It is not the natural conclusion of the argument that a zygote is important and deserving of rights because it will eventually develop into a fully developed human. The natural conclusion of that argument is that the sperm and egg that form the zygote are equally important as the zygote itself, since you cannot form a zygote without the orginial sperm and egg.

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

Dont you think thats a rather elusive way of determining whether or not a person should be killed?

Well in my opinion it is the most logical.

All others end up going to ethical dead ends. For example if one defines a human being as a unique set of DNA formed in the zygote then why doesn't every human cell, which contains that DNA, not have the same rights. If one defines a human being as the whole organism then why is it ok to terminate the life support of a brain dead patient, or a foetus with server brain damage. If one defines a human being as a being that possess human levels of intelligence then what about those that suffer from server mental disabilities. If one defines a human being as the stages of biological reproduction that will eventually produce said human why is the sperm and egg that will and have to produce the zygote not protected under the same rights as the zygote itself, since you cannot form a human without them.

metrovelvet wrote:

You cant measure this in utero either because babies develop at different rates.

That is largely irrelevant. Convenience isn't a factor. If you cannot measure this at a certain point you have to air on the side of caution and move back to a point where you can measure it.

metrovelvet wrote:

And you have to consider techological factors, like what if the machines aren't advanced enough to pick up on these qualities?

Again convenience isn't a factor in the ethical determination, and I'm rather surprised that you would think it is.

If it cannot be determined if the foetus has a functioning brain, but it is known that such a fact is possible, one must air on the side of caution and not proceed with the abortion because one cannot be sure that they are not destroying a human being.

Just like when turning off a life support machine the doctors must be sure that the patient has suffered brain death (brain damage that is irreversable and will never produce consciousness again) equally the doctors must be sure with the abortion that the foetus is not yet a human being.

metrovelvet

Wicknight wrote:

That is largely irrelevant. Convenience isn't a factor. If you cannot measure this at a certain point you have to air on the side of caution and move back to a point where you can measure it.

Again convenience isn't a factor in the ethical determination, and I'm rather surprised that you would think it is. .

Thats my point- you cant measure it. It has to be at the moment of conception, the starting line. There is no other way.

Wicknight wrote:

If it cannot be determined if the foetus has a functioning brain, but it is known that such a fact is possible, one must air on the side of caution and not proceed with the abortion because one cannot be sure that they are not destroying a human being..

Right. So again we're talking about the moment of conception.

Wicknight wrote:

Just like when turning off a life support machine the doctors must be sure that the patient has suffered brain death (brain damage that is irreversable and will never produce consciousness again) equally the doctors must be sure with the abortion that the foetus is not yet a human being.

They cant ever be sure that someone is completely brain dead. Technology changes all the time as does medicine, and a day may come where damage is not always irreversible.

Abortionists do not care if its a human being. And doctors -their comcern is first the mothe so they will perform one if it is to save the mothers life.

Dontico

Wicknight wrote:

"She is a regular contributor for Life Issues, a right-wing anti-abortion site."
...........

The only thing that concerns me is the question "Does a human being exist at this point in time."

shouldnt label pro-life as a right-wing agenda. it has nothing/little to do with economics, most of the time.

now to get physics and philosphy rolled into one.
time is relitive, comrade.

Dontico

Wicknight wrote:

Dropping in clauses and irrelevant definitions to simply get around having to do that is in my opinion rather distasteful, as distasteful as arguments like abortion is murder unless the woman is raped, or that abortion is ok so long as the child's parents are poor.

You either stand by your convictions or they don't mean anything.

condoms isnt preventing life more than women refusing to have my baby wheni ask them to. which i ask more frequent than most.

i'm against abortion for those that have been raped or who are poor.

JC 2K3

Here's a question for you all: Why is it wrong to kill unborn babies?

Say you accept conception as the beginning of life, why is destroying this life so wrong?

Think about it, who is harmed if a baby is killed before birth? The parents might be slightly upset(although largely to do with guilt induced by society's attitude towards abortion IMO), but considering they're the ones who make the decision it shouldn't matter.

Now I know the baby is killed and we tend to perceive killing as bad, but why is it necessarily bad? The only reason I can see for it being bad is that if people could go around killing each other it would cause immense upset to relatives/friends of those killed and could be detrimental to the functioning of society.

However, if "murder" was allowed simply in the case of unborn babies I can't see any harm being done to society - unless there was a population shortage or something, but I can't see that happening any time soon.

Call me "immoral" if you wish, but morality is subjective and laws are in place to protect society. Abortion clearly has no detrimental effects on society. Sentimentalists and religious people might argue against it, but neither of these should influence laws in any way.

metrovelvet

JC 2K3 wrote:

Say you accept conception as the beginning of life, why is destroying this life so wrong?

.

That is probably the heart of the problem. We destroy life everyday, pulling plugs, wars, death penalties, assasinations, drugs, cigarettes and addictions. Genocides come and go and some we justify and others we condemn.

InFront

Wicknight wrote:

So surely the sperm that made it is just as important as the zygote that made it?

Well we've both made our opinions known on that one, I think I understand your viewpoint now, though I still disagree.
I do just have one more question on it though - I presume you accept that this is a new "growing human creature" even if you don't want to use the word child? And that it is unlike anything else of the woman's body, with new genetic identity in its DNA, and therefore characteristic of an individual - albeit one in a state of paralysis?

Dr Dianne Irving is a medical ethicist and is a well know anti-abortionist who's papers are well known and quoted amoung conservative and religious anti-abortionists, but not exactly well regarded in science

I'm not aware of her personal background apart from embryology, but you must mean 'not well regarded in philosophy' surely. The embryology in the linked page is perfectly sound, there's nothing wrong with it that I can see, so I'm not sure why you suggest otherwise. Whether she would be regarded with much esteem in an arts faculty amongst philosophers, I don't know. Whatever about her ethical conclusions, there's nothing wrong with the scientific facts.

Sperm, by itself, cannot replicate, nor does it consume food...
But it can replicate and consume food when combined with the egg, which is why I always think of the two together.

There are scientists who dedicate their academic careers to explaining how sperm (alone) consume food, as do oocytes (alone) by way of biomolecular metabolism - just as we do.
Also, sperm cells do replicate in spermatogenesis, as oocytes do in oogenesis.
The crucial difference is that nothing will ever come of that unless you bring them together, knowing a baby will be the procuct. Or at least, a new human creature with its own DNA and ability to produce intelligence.

There's a bit of a contradiction here below so I'll just ask both...

I'm not really interested in paths, or destiny, or potential... The human being, as defined by there consciousness, does not exist yet... Once consciousness has been formed a human "being" has been formed.

In the first case here, then this goes back to the foetus in the womb. I thought you were against abortion in late stage pregnancy? The late foetus in the uterus is just not a conscious baby looking around him or crying or seeing etc, nor has he ever been. He wouldn't pass any consciousness tests, or be self aware, why not kill that?

What if you get a very eager anaesthetist who during a caeasarian section administers a narcotic anaesthetic to the mother as opposed to an inhalant. Or does something innocent like forgets to keep up her blood pressure or gives too high a dose of epidural, whatever -
In those cases, there's going to be an unconscious baby brought out of the womb as opposed to a conscious one.

Would it be fine, with parental consent and all of that, to take it away, still out under the anaesthetic, and cut off its airway? Of course the answer is no. I have a big problem with this consciousness point.

You simply have to include potential to develop consciousness/ intelligence.

Basically as soon as a foetus has developed a functioning brain that is it... This being must be protected with all the rights available.

This is the contradiction with the previous posts - the functioning brain is there by 40 days, maybe earlier.
Are you saying that you're against abortion from day 40, when the embryo is about one third the size of your baby finger? I thought you didn't mind 8 week embryos being aborted?

Once a foetus has developed a functioning brain then it is immoral to abort it, because it is at that point that human being comes into existence.

A functioning brain does not equal conscience or consciousness though, it just indicates the potential to develop that. The first day you get a neuron firing on the primitive liver doesn't mean the baby is a ware of anything, or is self aware at all. It indicates potential for that by a gradually developing central nervous system that first appeared in week 3 with the neural tube.

metrovelvet

bluewolf wrote:

If you work backwards, it can possibly have consciousness right back until the brain is formed. Before it has a functioning brain, it can't be conscious. So, formed brain should be the starting line I think.
Which is about 3 months according to what I've read.

1.Why conciousness as the determining factor? Why an intellectual quality to determine life?

2. They may only be able to detect it at three months. If more advanced technology comes around who knows. And also embryos and foetuses develop at different rates.

Zombrex

Dontico wrote:

condoms isnt preventing life

That seems a bit silly think to say, considering the whole purpose of a condom is to prevent life.

If a condom isn't preventing life why do millions of guys around the world who don't want a kid wear one every night with their girls and wives?

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

Thats my point- you cant measure it. It has to be at the moment of conception, the starting line.

You can't measure it to a high degree of accuracy, but you can meassure it. If a life form doesn't have a functioning brain it doesn't have consciousness.

metrovelvet wrote:

Right. So again we're talking about the moment of conception.

No, because at the moment of conception the foetus doesn't have a brain. No brain, no consciousness. The only time things get tricky is around the time the brain starts to "wake up" (for want of a better term). It then becomes tricky to tell if the parts of the brain associated with higher functions have started to become active and to what degree.

metrovelvet wrote:

Abortionists do not care if its a human being.

Who are "abortionists"? Do you mean doctors who carry out abortions?

Zombrex

InFront wrote:

I do just have one more question on it though - I presume you accept that this is a new "growing human creature" even if you don't want to use the word child?

Well I don't mind using the word child, though I don't accept that if I do use the word child then that must mean it is a human being with rights. A child, as far as I'm aware, is simply a young human offspring.

But anyway, back to your question...

InFront wrote:

And that it is unlike anything else of the woman's body, with new genetic identity in its DNA, and therefore characteristic of an individual - albeit one in a state of paralysis?

It certainly has a unique set of DNA, but having unique set of DNA is not particularly special. The bacteria in your stomach has a unique set of DNA. We don't bestow rights on them because of it.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a state of paralysis. My understanding was paralysis means loss of muscle movement, in which case I'm not sure what the relevance is. I don't consider the foetus to be in a state of paralysis, especially before it has developed muscles in the first place.

InFront wrote:

I'm not aware of her personal background apart from embryology, but you must mean 'not well regarded in philosophy' surely.

No, science. She claims that established scientific (medical) theories back her up. I don't think that is true.

InFront wrote:

The embryology in the linked page is perfectly sound, there's nothing wrong with it that I can see, so I'm not sure why you suggest otherwise.

Not really. For a start she never defines what she means by "human being" aside from saying that a sperm and an egg aren't a human being. She then uses this as a cyclical proof that sperm and the egg aren't human beings. That isn't exactly what I would call science.

InFront wrote:

There are scientists who dedicate their academic careers to explaining how sperm (alone) consume food, as do oocytes (alone) by way of biomolecular metabolism - just as we do.

Fair enough, I wasn't aware of that fact. I would suggest thought that sperm is alive would it not?

InFront wrote:

The crucial difference is that nothing will ever come of that unless you bring them together

Is the purpose of the entire natural process to bring them together? Is that not what they are ultimately designed to do and what nature tries to get them to do?

Nothing will come of the zygote unless it implants on the womb wall either, and as such there is a process who's entire purpose is to make that happen.

I can think of countless other examples after fertilisation where such and such doesn't happen unless such and such happens.

InFront wrote:

In the first case here, then this goes back to the foetus in the womb. I thought you were against abortion in late stage pregnancy?

Yes I'm against abortion when there is a chance that the foetus has already formed consciousness in its brain.

InFront wrote:

The late foetus in the uterus is just not a conscious baby looking around him or crying or seeing etc, nor has he ever been.

I don't think you need to be able to cry or see to possess conscious. In fact you still possess consciousness and other higher brain functions when you are asleep, which is why you dream.

InFront wrote:

He wouldn't pass any consciousness tests, or be self aware, why not kill that?

I'm not quite sure how you can tell this?

InFront wrote:

In those cases, there's going to be an unconscious baby brought out of the womb as opposed to a conscious one.

I think we are getting slightly in tangled in the difference between a human that is unconscious (knocked out) and a human that is brain dead (no longer possesses the ability to form consciousness), or has never formed consciousness in the first place.

An unconscious person still possesses all the ability in their brain to form consciousness along with that consciousness (personality and memories) itself stored in the neural pathways of the brain.

A brain dead person doesn't possess the ability to form consciousness and as such there is no way to retrieve the consciousness stored in the neural pathways of the brain and it is as good as lost, if the neural pathways even exist any more.

Simply being unconscious does not mean someone does not possess consciousness. It is the difference between turning off your computer, which will boot back up again when you turn it back on, and throwing your computer out of a window and having it run over by a truck. In the former everything is still there, it just is in a different state of nonuse. In the later it is destroyed.

InFront wrote:

You simply have to include potential to develop consciousness/ intelligence.

But there is nothing "potential" about it. The foetus starts developing consciousness as soon as it brain starts functioning and the neural pathways start forming. By the time the foetus is being born it already has 50 billion neural pathways formed in its brain.

So long as the brain is functioning the foetus has the ability to form, and probably is forming, consciousness. Whether or not it is awake or not has little to do with that.

InFront wrote:

This is the contradiction with the previous posts - the functioning brain is there by 40 days, maybe earlier.

That isn't true as far as I know, though it is often quoted on anti-abortion websites based on a speech by a doctor (nothing about abortion) given in 1964.

http://eileen.250x.com/Main/Einstein/Brain_Waves.htm
http://tigtogblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/fetal-brain-development-myths-and.html

According to the blog above George Bush's scientific adviser stated that the human brain starts limited functioning after 13 weeks but at that point it has the functionality of a snail. The cortex starts to function after about 20 weeks (about 5 months), at which point I would start to have serious concerns about aborting the foetus.

InFront wrote:

A functioning brain does not equal conscience or consciousness though

Again I'm not sure how you have determined this. Once the higher brain starts functioning how can you tell the brain is not building a consciousness?

metrovelvet

Im still waiting for you to tell me why you choose the brain and not the heartbeat to determine when life begins.

And technology and scientific discoveries change all the time. The machines which identify and observe feotuses in utero have dramatically changed in sensitivity in the last decades.

Abortionists are people who specialise in abortion and operate out of clinics which perform this service. They are not interested in healing the sick, nor do they take the hippocratic oath. A doctor who can perform and abortion would be an obstetrician who could induce an abortion if it were to protect the health of the mother. Im surprised you dont know the difference.

Zombrex

bluewolf wrote:

I personally meant sentience but got caught up in using "consciousness", and I don't think sentience is related to intelligence.

LOL

I used to use "sentience" but was constantly been criticised because sentience is diffcult to define and can technically include anything that can feel and process sensory information (ie it isn't necessarily related to humans only), so I started using consciousness instead. And now I get people thinking I'm saying it is ok to kill people when they are a sleep or passed out!!!!

You can't win!!

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

1.Why conciousness as the determining factor? Why an intellectual quality to determine life?

It isn't determining "life" it is determining the value of "life".

Why is it not ok to kill a human being but it is ok to kill millions of living bacteria in your stomach everytime you eat chocolate bar?

As bluewolf says, why can't we kill children? Why is that wrong?

What quality do humans possess that makes us more valuable as living creatures than bacteria or cattle or trees?

You may think that is a silly question but if you can't determine why we are worthy of different rights than all other living creatures on Earth you won't be able to properly debate abortion because ultimately why we have different rights is at the heart of the matter of determining when we get these rights.

metrovelvet

Why the brain and not the heartbeat?

Zombrex

metrovelvet wrote:

Im still waiting for you to tell me why you choose the brain and not the heartbeat to determine when life begins.

Apologies, I wasn't aware you had asked me that.

To answer you question I don't choose the brain to determine when life begins. As far as I'm concerned life never stops. The sperm and egg are alive as soon as they are produced in your parents bodies.

I use the brain to determine when a human being first forms because I consider a human being to be the consciousness (sentience, memories, personality, thought etc) stored in the neural pathways of the human brain.

I don't consider the heart to be particular important in that because basically if you have a heart transplant and you are given a completely different heart you are still the same person, are you not?.

This applies to pretty much every organ in the body except the brain. "You" would go where ever your brain goes, as demonstrated by countless "Star Trek" episodes.

metrovelvet wrote:

And technology and scientific discoveries change all the time. The machines which identify and observe feotuses in utero have dramatically changed in sensitivity in the last decades.

Yes, you keep mentioning that. But as far as I know the machines that can detect when a brain starts functioning in a foetus are quite advanced and can certainly tell when a brain isn't functioning or doesn't yet exist. I don't see that changing any more than medical science is going to tell us a few years down the line that actually conception doesn't happen when we thought it did.

metrovelvet wrote:

They are not interested in healing the sick

Ok, if you say so. The next time I find someone having a heart attack on a plane I will remember to shout "Is there a doctor on board, other than an abortionist!"

metrovelvet wrote:

Im surprised you dont know the difference.

Well that could be because I wasn't aware there is one. As far as I knew in the UK, USA, and most of Europe abortions could only be carried out by a doctor or a trained nurse in a government approved hospital or medical centre.

Dontico

JC 2K3 wrote:

Here's a question for you all: Why is it wrong to kill unborn babies?

Say you accept conception as the beginning of life, why is destroying this life so wrong?

Think about it, who is harmed if a baby is killed before birth? The parents might be slightly upset(although largely to do with guilt induced by society's attitude towards abortion IMO), but considering they're the ones who make the decision it shouldn't matter.

Now I know the baby is killed and we tend to perceive killing as bad, but why is it necessarily bad? The only reason I can see for it being bad is that if people could go around killing each other it would cause immense upset to relatives/friends of those killed and could be detrimental to the functioning of society.

However, if "murder" was allowed simply in the case of unborn babies I can't see any harm being done to society - unless there was a population shortage or something, but I can't see that happening any time soon.

Call me "immoral" if you wish, but morality is subjective and laws are in place to protect society. Abortion clearly has no detrimental effects on society. Sentimentalists and religious people might argue against it, but neither of these should influence laws in any way.

in my opinion, producing children is apart of evolution. by aborting babies, isnt slowing down the evolutionary process. we should keep producing children until we get the human spieces right.

also the non-national population in ireland is probably going to increase to the point that by 2050, there will be more of 'them ' than 'us'. i'm NOT saying completely close the borders, but we should try to out breed them.

InFront

Wicknight wrote:

No, science. She claims that established scientific (medical) theories back her up. I don't think that is true.

The conclusions she is drawing from to reach her position on abortion are things scientists talk about, biology, genetics or embryology, and this is what you claim is wrong. While you may disagree with her philosophy, the biology, genetics and embryology of her argument are are completely accurate, I'm wondering which aspect you are rejecting?
She expresses the exact same viewpoint as another medical expert, William Cheshire
http://www.cbhd.org/resources/genetics/cheshire_2002-11-14.htm

Science informs us that the human embryo is, objectively speaking, an early human life, and the same kind of being, a human being, as the scientist. But while science is competent to judge what is a human life, science has nothing to say about what it means to be human.

Thanks to science, arguments that dehumanize the human embryo now belong to a withering and overturned paradigm of the past. Those who choose to cling to that paradigm may find their place in history alongside the U.S. Supreme Court justices who, in the 1857 Dred Scott case, ruled that African-American slaves were not persons but personal property.

Conpare this to the page you linked to to demonstrate Dr Irving's unscientific opinion...

http://eileen.250x.com/Main/Einstein/Brain_Waves.htm

The main page is here. I don't know what "Eileen's" own professional qualification is to speak on science, medicine and medical ethics in the way she does, but she certainly doesn't suggest one.

[I pointed out that EEG brain activity begins weeks 6-8 development, as early as day 42 (heartbeat)]

That isn't true as far as I know, though it is often quoted on anti-abortion websites based on a speech by a doctor (nothing about abortion) given in 1964.

That may be what Eileen said, but it isn't true. It's written in every out of date and every up to date human embryology textbook you'll ever come across. There's enough activity in that tiny embryo about half an inch in length to be measurable by an EEG at eight weeks, neurological activity is seen a bit earlier with the reflexes. To say that there is are no “brain waves” until late in pregnancy is simply a lie – it exists in the first trimester without any shadow of a doubt.

My question is how does this relate to your belief that once neurological activity begins, abortion is out?

The fact is that EEG activity, pain sensation, parasympathetic activity and anything else you think of just doesn’t equal consciousness. Consciousness has not been measured in the embryo or the foetus or the neonate because it is such a conveniently fuzzy term that it really means nothing. It’s some sort of psychology-philosophy hybrid. Pro-lifers and pro-abortionists both use this as an argument in their favour, but you simply cannot measure consciousness, so therefore how can you say when consciousness begins? Exactly what date of pregnancy do you choose?

bluewolf wrote:

My dividing line is current capacity for sentience. It's iffy as to whether a fetus can be sentient or not once its brain is working. That would depend on our ability to test this to great precision.
So, to be safe, I say once its brain is fully formed - which I'm sure we can certainly verify - that's the cut off point

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/brain/mg16522224.200

...a pair of studies that used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor cortex growth in teenagers. Like a high-tech X-ray, an MRI scanner can measure the thickness of the grey matter forming the outer rind of the brain with millimetre accuracy. In the studies, one team tracked changes in the same set of youngsters over a number of years. The other compared the brains of a group of 14-year-olds with a group of adults in their mid-twenties.

Both sets of researchers found that the lower-level areas of the cortex-those to do with more basic functions like sensory and motor processing-did indeed seem to stabilise in early childhood. But the parietal and frontal lobes-cortex areas which respectively are specialised for visuo-spatial ability and what might loosely be called "executive functions" such as planning and self-control-show a surge in growth between the ages of 10 and 12, the years just before puberty (see Diagram)

...Autopsy studies suggest that language areas of the brain do not myelinate until late childhood.

Zombrex

InFront wrote:

While you may disagree with her philosophy, the biology, genetics and embryology of her argument are are completely accurate, I'm wondering which aspect you are rejecting?

She claims that science demonstrates that a sperm and egg, while being alive, are not a "human being", where as a zygote is a "human being" As far as I'm aware that is an opinion based on nothing more than her own philosophy in the matter. Which is fine. But science says nothing of the sort since she has not even defined what she means by a "human being."

InFront wrote:

She expresses the exact same viewpoint as another medical expert, William Cheshire

She can express any opinion she likes. My objection is when she claims that scientific theory shows she is right.

InFront wrote:

That may be what Eileen said, but it isn't true. It's written in every out of date and every up to date human embryology textbook you'll ever come across.

I find that very hard to believe. Which medical text book states that a foetus has functioning brain waves after 40 days?

InFront wrote:

There's enough activity in that tiny embryo about half an inch in length to be measurable by an EEG at eight weeks, neurological activity is seen a bit earlier with the reflexes.

InFront I'm well aware of the anti-abortionists slant on this, but the simple fact is that modern medicine does not consider that to be a functioning brain as anti-abortionists pretend it is. Electrical signals do not a brain wave make. A brain dead someone still has higher levels of electrical signals detectable under EEG than a 40 day old foetus.

InFront wrote:

To say that there is are no “brain waves” until late in pregnancy is simply a lie – it exists in the first trimester without any shadow of a doubt.

It is only a lie if one interprets any electrical activity as "brain waves", which was the point of the article I linked to. That is not the correct medical interpretation.

Any electrical activity is not considered by medical science to be brain waves as anti-abortionists claim, and neither does it indicating a functioning brain.

InFront wrote:

Pro-lifers and pro-abortionists both use this as an argument in their favour, but you simply cannot measure consciousness, so therefore how can you say when consciousness begins? Exactly what date of pregnancy do you choose?

As I've stated a few times you don't need to. All you need to show is when the brain has not yet begin to function.

metrovelvet

InFront wrote:

My question is how does this relate to your belief that once neurological activity begins, abortion is out?

The fact is that EEG activity, pain sensation, parasympathetic activity and anything else you think of just doesn’t equal consciousness. Consciousness has not been measured in the embryo or the foetus or the neonate because it is such a conveniently fuzzy term that it really means nothing. It’s some sort of psychology-philosophy hybrid.
[\QUOTE]

This is the problem Im having too with this argument. How this elusive ndefinable term can be applied to determining what is human life.

Also, Ive read they pick up brain waves at 20 days, which again, is technology dependant. NExt year they may have technology that picks it up at 5 days. Who knows.