Does life begin at conception? I think it does.

[Osborn F Enready]

Fushigi said: It's just a matter of perspective.

But you know, and I know, and we all know that the only perspective that matters is the one that relates to you, and how you are affected by government force, via application of law. ( speaking of the individual, not you in specific )

Neither my perspective, nor your perspective have the power to use force, over others, against their will.

A fetus's will can't be questioned, can't be determined, nor can a fetus be recognized as a legal individual, because it is not an individual, until born.

The question should be, why are we arguing over who can use force over the other to effect their own goals, that go against those we are using force against? What right is it of people, to use force against others, if not for defense?

Can this fetus in the womb use force for defense, or have rights? No. The mother is the rights holder, in entirety, because the fetus resides in her body and is fully, wholly and completely dependent on her. Once born, the child still only has partial rights, due to its citizen status they are granted, and due to its age status they are limited, to who until adult? The parents.

A fetus has no rights.
A child has partial rights.
An adult has full rights, until they infringe the just rights of others.

EVEN THEN, if they do infringe the rights of others, and live to stand in court, they have the RIGHT to assumed innocence, until proven, and found guilty in a trial of their peers.

Pro-life people want to remove the right to privacy, the right to personal volition of both the mother, AND the doctor, as well as remove the right of the ONLY legal RIGHTS HOLDER in the equation, which is the mother.

Its a travesty of common sense, and the very ideals with which this nations laws are based, written and interpreted.

[fushigi]

Well, personally, (and nobody's asked me this, since everyone assumes anyone who's anti-abortion is a religious wingnut) I believe that as pugnacious and barbarous as abortion is, there just isn't the framework to illegalize it in the US.

I realize, of course, that girls/women will get abortions whether they're legal or not. All one has to do is look at Brazil, where abortion is "illegal" but the morning-after pill and drugs to induce miscarriage are prevalent, and many measures exist outside the law to permit it.

But I also think the fact that abortion is legal permits so many miscarriages of justice, so many deaths that are IMO totally against our nature as sympathetic human beings. Fallacies abound - i.e., "Oh, being against abortion means you want to oppress women who can't support the child - forcing them to raise it when they can't afford to!" Wrong. There is adoption, and waiting lists so long that some people resort to adopting from overseas (even though that's their second choice.) The other one that drives me up the wall is, "You're a man! Shut up!" As if men can't be sympathetic enough to support the right of a future person to live because she can't defend herself.

Finally, I don't see this "outlawing abortion means taking away people's privacy" argument at all. If abortion was illegal, and a woman wanted to know whether she was pregnant, she could always use a little thing called a home pregnancy test.

[5010]

Livefree,
Do you have any points other than straw man and ad hominem?

[pikatore]

Quote by: 5010 Livefree, Do you have any points other than straw man and ad hominem?

Do you have anything to add apart from bashing a decent post? I felt it provided a bit of insight.

[5010]

Quote by: pikatore Do you have anything to add apart from bashing a decent post? I felt it provided a bit of insight.

Hmmm... which should I bash?
1) a point actually made
2) a silly point no one is making
3) a person making a point

[pikatore]

Quote by: 5010 Hmmm... which should I bash? 1) a point actually made 2) a silly point no one is making 3) a person making a point

4) yourself for bashing a post that another person thought was alright.

Tell the whole thread what about the post deserved such an earful.

[5010]

Are you saying you are OK with the strawman and ad hominem tactics, or are you saying the points had no such fallacy?

[pikatore]

Quote by: 5010 Are you saying you are OK with the strawman and ad hominem tactics, or are you saying the points had no such fallacy?

I'm saying from what I read, there was nothing wrong. What parts were ad hominem?

[ZNFYRH]

Can you guys stop this on your own or should it be reported to the mods and they make it official?

[livefree]

Quote by: fushigi the organism that I believe is human from the moment a zygote is formed.

Quote by: fushigi I didn't say anything about a soul. I don't believe in souls. And I didn't say anything about God.

If you don't believe in souls and you don't think God is involved, then why on earth do you believe that a pinhead sized cluster of cells is somehow the same as a real live already-born human being. And if you don't think that they are the same then why do you want to call that zygote a human? Is an acorn the same as a mighty oak tree? Or are acorns and zygotes both merely potentials that may or may not become an oak tree or a human? Most don't, in the natural course of things. What exactly is so precious about that cluster of cells that would make its rights paramount over the mother's basic right to have control over her own body? Please try to give this a serious answer 'cause I'm interested in why you would believe this without believing in souls or without being one of these sex-negative wackos who want to punish women for being sexual.

[fushigi]

The reason is simple: I believe that human life is precious.

No, a zygote is not the same thing as a fully-formed human being. But it is human enough for me. It is a miracle, a blessing (maybe not for you, but for the life it possesses) the most beautiful thing in the universe IMO.

I feel so honored and fortunate to have the opportunity to live the life of a human, and I wouldn't want to deprive that of anyone. Furthermore, I think it's unbelievably callous to thoughtlessly kill a being that has the potential for that simply because it bears the cost of some inconvenience to the mother. (Health risks are a different matter - if the mother's life is endangered, there's no sense in trading her life for the baby's - it's a crapshoot.)

I just can't believe people don't see it the way I do. The organism that would be human - would have the chance to experience all the wonderful things you and I do - is eliminated from existence and all we can say to justify it is "it's a woman's choice." Another person's life - while it may not mean as much to you - is as valuable as yours IMO, and you have no right to decide that the benefits from eliminating the crimp in your lifestyle resulting from your pregnancy and the birth outweigh the benefits that person would have in enjoying the wonder and beauty of having a human life.

[livefree]

Quote by: fushigi I believe that human life is precious. ...a zygote...is human enough for me. ...the opportunity to live the life of a human, and I wouldn't want to deprive that of anyone. ...The organism that would be human - would have the chance to experience all the wonderful things you and I do - is eliminated from existence... " Another person's life ... is as valuable as yours... ...and you have no right to decide that the benefits from eliminating the crimp in your lifestyle resulting from your pregnancy and the birth outweigh the benefits that person would have in enjoying the wonder and beauty of having a human life.

I think you are being rather circular in your reasoning. The question I asked in my earlier post was: "Is every zygote really 'a person'?". You start by asserting that human life is precious, which I, along with probably most people on here, would agree with. That would include the mother's life obviously. But then you skip to asserting that a zygote is "human enough for me", which, to me, is just like saying that the acorn is an oak tree. Both statements are sort of partly true in a very limited, strictly biological, genetic sense, but you are trying to slip and slide semantically from "human" genetically to 'human being/person'. But that is the crux of the whole matter here. Does it make sense to talk about a pin-head sized cluster of cells as a person? Who's there?

When you say: "...the opportunity to live the life of a human, and I wouldn't want to deprive that of anyone.", whose opportunity are you talking about? Who is this "anyone"? What constitutes the 'person' whose opportunity you are referring to? Simply possessing human DNA? Are your fingernail clippings "human"? Should they have rights?

Then you go on to say: "The organism that would be human...", which, BTW, is almost an admission that the zygote isn't human yet. But then you jump to asserting that this cell cluster is a "person" when you say: "Another person's life ... is as valuable as yours". And again when you assert that: "the benefits that person would...enjoy...having a human life". Where is the 'person' in all this? Nobody is there yet. It is just a cluster of cells with the potential to possibly develop into an actual human person. The mother is the only 'person' who is actually present at that point. And I mean 'person' in the normal sense that most people use the word; ie - (1)a self-conscious or rational being or (2)the actual self or individual personality of a human being. Without referring to souls, show me the 'person' here whose rights should trump the actual living person called the mother.

To be blunt, you haven't even begun to answer the questions I've asked you and I really am sincerely trying to understand your viewpoint on this. Perhaps your statement that: "I just can't believe people don't see it the way I do", explains your seeming inability to explain your assumptions.
So please, in addition to anything else I've asked you to explain in this post (like explaining the person-hood of a zygote), would you, in particular, answer this question that I posed to you before.
What exactly is so precious about that cluster of cells that would make its rights paramount over the mother's basic right to have control over her own body [and life]?

[fushigi]

Another great post, livefree. I can see you've taken a long time developing your response and I appreciate that.

Let me just start by saying that I view human rights and "that which would be human" rights as the same. In that sense, for me, yes, the acorn deserves the rights that belong to a tree, though it isn't a tree yet. (However, I should also point out that I think acorn::tree =/= fetus::human, since the probability an acorn will become a tree is more akin to ovum::human.)

Perhaps it comes from my view of the passage of time, which 5010 described quite well here. I don't just see zygotes and blastulas as clusters of cells, I can imagine the entire future of that organism's existence, which would include humanity. (This is why I have no problem with you cutting your fingernails; I can't imagine a future where your fingernails become a person. The same goes for sperm; it doesn't, on its own, become a human, so I have no problem with masturbation.)

It's hard for me to think that the physical mass of tissues that had no brain activity in my mother's uterus wasn't me. I can't just explain it away by saying, "I had no consciousness," and therefore it wasn't me. It was me - I just wasn't that developed yet. And just in the same way that, had someone killed me while I slept in my crib when I was six months old I wouldn't be reading your posts and thinking about what you've written, the same would be true had someone killed me while I was that mass of tissue in the womb.

So you got me. Zygotes aren't completely human yet. But it's still life, life that will be human, to return all the way to the OP. For me, that gives a zygote as much right to live as a fetus, a baby, an adult, a person in a coma.

Perhaps to avoid misspeaking, I ought to say fetuses are "pre-humans" or "future humans." Again, for me this wouldn't deny a fetus any right that I would give you as a person or expect for myself.

[pikatore]

good post again livefree

[ZNFYRH]

fushigi,

I agree with your reasoning about "pre-humans".

The only counterargument to that is that children are "pre-adults" but they don't have the same rights as adults. But the counter to that is that those rights aren't basic human rights.

So I still agree that a human, in any stage of development, has those rights.

[Marilyn Monroe]

Quote by: ZNFYRH fushigi, I agree with your reasoning about "pre-humans". The only counterargument to that is that children are "pre-adults" but they don't have the same rights as adults. But the counter to that is that those rights aren't basic human rights. So I still agree that a human, in any stage of development, has those rights.

The mother's right is greater. In a way it could be considered discriminatory, but since the fetus is using the mother as life support, the mother can pull the plug.

[fushigi]

Quote by: Marilyn Monroe The mother's right is greater. In a way it could be considered discriminatory, but since the fetus is using the mother as life support, the mother can pull the plug.

We've gone over this again and again. Just because an organism derives total support from someone else does not make it a justifiable target to kill. We don't lightly take people in comas off life support, do we? Can I feel free to euthanize a boxer who's just been knocked out? What about a premie in an incubator?

All of them use another person as life support, one way or another.

[pikatore]

All of those people have lives, have rights that still might be needed. No so with an embryo. It truly gains it's rights when it's sentient.

[ZNFYRH]

Marilyn Monroe,
fushigi,

Actually, I agree with Marilyn.

It was drowned out earlier by others, but my stance is that a growing fetus is just like a person on life support. Both have their own set of legal rights but both also are in situations where another person is legally able to "pull the plug".

It may seem like fence-sitting, but it isn't. I'm basically saying that a fetus does have full human rights on conception, but because it is dependent on another person, if that person does not feel like they are capable of supporting that life (for whatever legitimate or arbitrary reason) then that person can choose to stop supporting that life.

Pulling the plug, abortion... same thing, in my mind.

[The Bacon Guy]

Quote by: fush We've gone over this again and again. Just because an organism derives total support from someone else does not make it a justifiable target to kill.

The mother is not killing it per se; she is simply refusing to give her resources to a parasite. Given that these resources fall under property rights, she is well within her rights to do so.

Quote by: fush We don't lightly take people in comas off life support, do we?

Only because they have a right to healthcare. If the life support machine is privately owned, the owner should, under basic property rights, be able to withdraw his or her support.

Quote by: fush Can I feel free to euthanize a boxer who's just been knocked out?

Different situation. Euthanasia is actively killing him; abortion is simply refusing to expend resources in preventing a death.

So, on a legal level, I don't think there is any question. On a moral level, I tend to think pro-lifers can be a touch dogmatic in the value they attribute to human life. One needs to ask what gives an adult human life value. The answer surely lies with the value of the person's life to his family and friends, and therefore with his ability to form relationships. A foetus does not have this ability and hence is not analogous to a fully grown human being.