Abortion from a Atheist viewpoint

BurnsCarpenter

JC 2K3 wrote: »

How so?

In that sperm is just sperm but a zygote/foetus is growing and becoming a human.

JC 2K3

I am against abortion entirely

BurnsCarpenter wrote: »

In that sperm is just sperm but a zygote/foetus is growing and becoming a human.

Come on, that's not argument. A sperm has exactly the same potential to grow into a human as a zygote/fetus does, it's just one step behind in the development process. A zygote/fetus requires a womb to grow, which means it's not independent, the same way a sperm requires an ovum to grow into a zygote.

Dades

JC 2K3 wrote: »

A sperm has exactly the same potential to grow into a human as a zygote/fetus does, it's just one step behind in the development process.

That step is a particularly big one, however. It could never happen by 'accident' - i.e. without a couple engaging in what nature intended as pro-creation.

Millions of sperm get flushed away every day as part of nature's process, but only around one in 4 zygotes terminate naturally over 9 months.

To paraphrase someone I can't remember who said something I can't remember: if you can't see the difference between a sperm and a zygote, you're just not looking hard enough.

Galvasean

I am against abortion except for in cases of rape and also incest

They are both 'forms' of human life (ie: they both have human genetic material), but one is significantly closer and more likely to reach adulthood.

JC 2K3

I am against abortion entirely

Dades wrote: »

That step is a particularly big one, however. It could never happen by 'accident' - i.e. without a couple engaging in what nature intended as pro-creation.

Millions of sperm get flushed away every day as part of nature's process, but only around one in 4 zygotes terminate naturally over 9 months

So what's the distinction then? Viability? How "natural" the development is? The likelihood of natural termination?

And what logical reason qualifies this distinction as being important enough to allow the termination of one but not the other?

Dades

JC 2K3 wrote: »

So what's the distinction then? Viability? How "natural" the development is? The likelihood of natural termination?

Does the distinction have to be summed up in a soundbyte to be worthwhile? I thought I'd explained what I saw as the distinction above.

JC 2K3 wrote: »

And what logical reason qualifies this distinction as being important enough to allow the termination of one but not the other?

I think it's fair to say, left to it's natural devices, a sperm will never grow into a human.

I'm not arguing for either side here btw, I'm just stating what I think is obvious. There's clearly a distinction between a sperm and a zygote - what, if anything, that infers is then up for debate.

JC 2K3

I am against abortion entirely

Dades wrote: »

Does the distinction have to be summed up in a soundbyte to be worthwhile? I thought I'd explained what I saw as the distinction above.

Well, not a soundbyte, but I found your explanation a little vague. Then again, I appreciate that you weren't debating the ethics of killing a sperm as opposed to killing a zygote, which I presumed you were. See below.

Dades wrote: »

I think it's fair to say, left to it's natural devices, a sperm will never grow into a human.

Neither will a zygote.... It needs a womb.

Dades wrote: »

I'm not arguing for either side here btw, I'm just stating what I think is obvious. There's clearly a distinction between a sperm and a zygote - what, if anything, that infers is then up for debate.

Of course I know there's a difference between the two, I just dont see one as being more acceptable to kill than the other.

Dades

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Neither will a zygote.... It needs a womb.

Well they don't grow on trees - so it's probably fair to say it'll already be in a womb.

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Of course I know there's a difference between the two, I just dont see one as being more acceptable to kill than the other.

I can see that, and I'm not sure I can change that opinion.

FWIW admitting that it is less acceptable to kill a zygote than a sperm, doesn't automatically put one the "NO" camp, btw. One can still be pro-choice but with a reluctance to see terminations due to the 'terminee' being more than just a little swimmer.

i.e. You don't need to equate them in order to justify a pro-choice stance, imo.

Zombrex

BurnsCarpenter wrote: »

In that sperm is just sperm but a zygote/foetus is growing and becoming a human.

A zygote is just a zygote. Remove it from the machinery of human reproduction it will die as quick as a sperm will (in fact quicker).

The idea that a sperm is some how of no value but a zygote just some how is of value is deeply flawed in my opinion.

I think the issue people have is that so many sperm die in the process of creating a human, and therefore people think that on average a sperm has no value.

But if one thinks about it another way, you cannot produce a zygote without a sperm. While millions of other sperms may die in the process of sex, the one sperm that joins with the egg is as valuable as the zygote itself.

Imagine a zygote. Now if you say that that is valuable, imagine it a second before conception, when it was sperm and an egg. Imagine the sperm touching the egg wall, a few milliseconds before it is about to burst through. How is that any less valuable than the zygote?

Why if you kill the sperm and egg in the second before it breaks the wall are you killing something of no value, but if you kill the zygote a second after this you are killing a valuable human being?

Or imagine a DELL computer (stick with me )

There is an interesting through experiment I first heard in college about considering when "your PC" is actually your PC.

All the components are on shelves in a big warehouse. While each monitor, hard-drive, CPU etc is in different parts of the warehouse, the ones that will form your PC, theoretical as it is at that moment of time, are present. If you rewound time to this point and destroyed say the CPU, you wouldn't get the same PC as you would before. Your theoretical PC is in this warehouse, even if the components are all over the place.

So say an engineer goes through the warehouse and picks out all your components. Is that now your PC? Do you now have a PC or it is still just components?

What if he places them in a box together? Is that your PC now?

What if they are all laid out on a table about to be assembled?

Or is it only your PC when it has been fully assembled?

It should be clear how this relates to the sperm, egg, zygote issue. At what point is it just sperms and eggs, and at which point is it a human. One can say that it isn't a human until it is a zygote, ie fully assembled. But that to me doesn't make much sense, since before that you know what sperm and what egg will form the zygote, in the same way you know what components will form your PC. Why is the collection of components not a PC?

Dades

I'm curious as to why people are going to great lengths to not see an inherent distinction between a zygote and a sperm.

Some other opinions would be good.

Regarding this PC idea, I would imagine the only relevant part is the hard drive - depending on whether or not there is information contained on it. But I just don't buy the analogy in general.

Zombrex

Dades wrote: »

I'm curious as to why people are going to great lengths to not see an inherent distinction between a zygote and a sperm.

Because a belief in such a distinction muddies the waters as far as I'm concerned, as it really doesn't seem to be based on any ethical foundation that can expanded out to first principles.

It is like people who claim they are against abortion except in the case of rape, a position I think is highly ridiculous and not born out of any solid ethical or rational foundation but rather out of a human emotional need not to see a woman have to carry the child of a man who attacked her. It really has so little to do with any question of whether or not the child is to be considered a human being or not as to be almost utterly irrelevant to the ethics of abortion.

The same I think holds with the zygote and sperm/egg issue.

This, in my view, is an attempt by humans to simply place a pleasing place marker on the formation of the zygote as a stage in the machinery of human reproduction, because it is easier for us to understand or view.

It has no actual bearing on the issue, it is an arbitrary point in the cycle, chosen simply because humans understand things better as units where all the parts are joined or touching.

We have trouble thinking about units in terms of separated parts, as the Dell PC though experiment is supposed to demonstrate. Interestingly this doesn't work the other way around, if you take apart something like a PC our brains tend to still view it as piece of the one unit. This can be seen when one tries to expand out the logic behind saying the zygote is a human being. Imagine an adult who has his arm separated. Even separated people still refer to the arm as "my arm"

The point is that this tendency of humans to think of objects in this fashion is actually irrelevant to the issue at hand.

BurnsCarpenter

Wicknight wrote: »

What if he places them in a box together? Is that your PC now?

What if they are all laid out on a table about to be assembled?

Or is it only your PC when it has been fully assembled?

It should be clear how this relates to the sperm, egg, zygote issue. At what point is it just sperms and eggs, and at which point is it a human. One can say that it isn't a human until it is a zygote, ie fully assembled. But that to me doesn't make much sense, since before that you know what sperm and what egg will form the zygote, in the same way you know what components will form your PC. Why is the collection of components not a PC?

I don't think the PC analogy is valid.
We're talking about an individual sperm or an egg equating to a zygote.
The sperm and the egg together pre- and post-fertilisation would be the equivalent of the PC components before and after assembly.

To use the analogy, the monitor and keyboard on different shelves of the warehouse are certainly not a PC.
All of the pieces laid out on the table ready for assembly are arguably the early stages of the PC.

Dades

wicknight wrote:

This, in my view, is an attempt by humans to simply place a pleasing place marker on the formation of the zygote as a stage in the machinery of human reproduction, because it is easier for us to understand or view.

So the reason one might be at pains to deny there being an inherent difference between a sperm and a zygote, is to deny those that would make it THE arbitrary point at which a 'life' exists?

All that seems to do is force the necessary arbitrary point down the cycle to some other time, when the actual point is far more difficult to discern - such as vital organs, nervous system etc.

I'm not saying conception should be the point - only that at least it's a discernible one!

aidan24326

I am against abortion entirely

Dades wrote: »

I'm curious as to why people are going to great lengths to not see an inherent distinction between a zygote and a sperm.

Some other opinions would be good.

Regarding this PC idea, I would imagine the only relevant part is the hard drive - depending on whether or not there is information contained on it. But I just don't buy the analogy in general.

I agree with you. I don't think it's a valid argument to say that a sperm and a zygote are no different. They are fundamentally different in that a zygote has all the material in place to become a living human being, yes it needs a womb but all the genetic material is there, wheras a sperm is nothing of any significance until it fertilizes an egg. Now I'm not anti-abortion, I just think it's silly to liken what are two fundamentally different biological specimens.

The whole abortion issue is and will be impossible to resolve until there's a clearer understanding of what exactly constitutes a life, and what are the fundamental differences between a zygote, embryo, foetus and even a newborn baby. There are some very tricky questions and very little agreement as to the answers, even among experts in the field, and I think this whole debate will rumble on for a long time to come.

Dades

aidan24326 wrote: »

There are some very tricky questions and very little agreement as to the answers, even among experts in the field, and I think this whole debate will rumble on for a long time to come.

Absolutely.

The problem is we are trying to apply our subjective human concepts of morality and 'life', to a biological process that pays no heed to either.

gramlab

Wicknight wrote: »

It should be clear how this relates to the sperm, egg, zygote issue. At what point is it just sperms and eggs, and at which point is it a human. One can say that it isn't a human until it is a zygote, ie fully assembled. But that to me doesn't make much sense, since before that you know what sperm and what egg will form the zygote, in the same way you know what components will form your PC. Why is the collection of components not a PC?

I think using this sort of analogy could lead you all the way back to molecules and atoms if you wanted to keep going down that road.

Within society you will find endless variances of opinion on a subject like this. What makes me curious is if the OP was written with the mind that athiests would see this issue more from a non-religious stance rather than a moral one.

JC 2K3

I am against abortion entirely

Dades wrote: »

I'm not saying conception should be the point - only that at least it's a discernible one!

So is birth... And if it's just an arbitrary, discernible point we're looking for, this is a much more convenient one.

Now as you were saying you don't think conception should be the point, I don't necessarily think birth should be the point either, though I do believe it's a much more practical one, and and given that I don't believe in a soul and value people on their personhood, i.e. their lives ex utero, rather than simply the fact that they are a living organism with human DNA, I can't come up with a rational reason to oppose abortion during any stage of pregnancy. That said, I'd be more inclined to support a limit of 24 weeks or so, simply because I think leaving the decision to have an abortion so late is silly and also possibly indicates an irrational change of mind by the parents, and also to appease the many who happen to oppose abortion only in the third trimester.

Zombrex

BurnsCarpenter wrote: »

We're talking about an individual sperm or an egg equating to a zygote.

That is kind of my point. People focus on the individual sperm because we, as humans, have trouble thinking about "units" as anything other than single physical entities.

In reality the sperm/egg combination that forms the zygote is as necessary and important to the formation of a human being as the zygote. You can't have a zygote without them.

But because they are not physically joined together people dismiss them, together as two separate an unconnected parts, as being of little worth, but then say that the zygote is of extreme value.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the sperm/egg are of extreme value, but then I don't think the zygote is of any particular value either. But if you are measuring worth based on the ability to produce a new human, the sperm/egg pair are of no less importance or value than the zygote.

BurnsCarpenter wrote: »

All of the pieces laid out on the table ready for assembly are arguably the early stages of the PC.

Exactly. And removing any individual part stops that PC from being that PC.

Zombrex

Dades wrote: »

All that seems to do is force the necessary arbitrary point down the cycle to some other time, when the actual point is far more difficult to discern - such as vital organs, nervous system etc.

That doesn't really matter.

A point doesn't have any particular ethical merit simply because it is easy to discern.

Zombrex

gramlab wrote: »

I think using this sort of analogy could lead you all the way back to molecules and atoms if you wanted to keep going down that road.

Possibly, if one has an ethical "first principle" they wish to go back to. that isn't necessarily a bad thing. We are after all simply molecules and atoms, a reason I think there is much inherent value in say a zygote.

Dades

Wicknight wrote: »

A point doesn't have any particular ethical merit simply because it is easy to discern.

Actually I've been saying that all along. I'm not inclined to give conception 'ethic merit'; the only reason I posted was that I thought it was wrong to say that a sperm and a zygote are equal. It may be a philosophical one, but I feel there is a definite inherent difference.

I voted as "undecided" due to the lack of a reasonable discernible point at which to say it is wrong. In reality however, my indecision puts me in the pro-choice (or abstain) camp.

Unlike with a lot people and the Lisbon treaty, I wouldn't vote "no" in a referendum just because the issue was cloudy. *

* controversial!

Zombrex

Dades wrote: »

Actually I've been saying that all along. I'm not inclined to give conception 'ethic merit'; the only reason I posted was that I thought it was wrong to say that a sperm and a zygote are equal.

Well depends on what you mean by equal. Obviously they aren't physically equal, in the same way that a zygote isn't physically equal to the embryo.

But in the argument of what is a "human being" I see little reason to pick the zygote over the sperm/egg that formed the zygote. They are both equally in terms of either being a human being or not being a human being.

Dades wrote: »

Unlike with a lot people and the Lisbon treaty, I wouldn't vote "no" in a referendum just because the issue was cloudy. *
* controversial!

:eek:

Dades

Wicknight wrote: »

They are both equally in terms of either being a human being or not being a human being.

That, I suspect we will have to agree to disagree on. :pac:

Bottle_of_Smoke

I am against abortion entirely

I'd say it's okay up to the point the foetus develops a nervous system.

If I did believe in a soul etc I don't see why rape cases would be allowed, not like the foetus committed rape, and even if the ydid I'm not sure where I stand on capital punishment.

argolis

I am against abortion entirely

/\
| Freddie Kruger
|
| Pro-abortion
|
. Pro-choice <-- Me
|
| Pro-life
|
| Dana
\/

Zombrex

Who would win in a fight, Dana or Freddie ... now that would be worth paying to view

argolis

I am against abortion entirely

Not sure, but I wouldn't like to be exactly in the middle. Razor sharp claws and a melted face on one side, Freddie Kruger on the other. Scary. :pac:

Standman

I am against abortion entirely

In my opinion a womans pregnancy is hers to do with what she wishes. They baby is living off of her body, it physically depends on her to survive. If she should want to cut the lifeline it should be her choice no matter how immoral anyone else may think it is.

Phototoxin

I am against abortion except for in cases of rape

In my opinion a womans pregnancy is hers to do with what she wishes. They baby is living off of her body, it physically depends on her to survive. If she should want to cut the lifeline it should be her choice no matter how immoral anyone else may think it is.

what happens if someone is on the dole. they are living off the state so by your logic the state should have the right to kill them.

the embryo has a full karyotype. It physically possesses everything it needs to be a human.

as for survival.. we cannot survive without air or food or water so why begrudge the embryo ?

Dades

Phototoxin wrote: »

what happens if someone is on the dole. they are living off the state so by your logic the state should have the right to kill them.

Hmmm. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. :pac: