Simple True or False Poll about Human Beings

Not gonna do that.

Not in my lifetime.

 

Because of that you believe that government should force people to believe the way you do which can be carried to any extreme.

 

It is unfortunate that laws are made on the basis of unsupported claims.

Do you think that the claims on which laws are based should be true ?

 

Can I get that in English please?

 

Legalistic basis for your position?

A person is explicitly defined to be someone who is born, therefore it does not apply.

It is self evident.

If they are born alive.

(a) In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development.

I didn't.

That is false. The UVVA does not have that definition at all. You're making stuff up again, as you typically do.

Ditto.

No, it says: 1 U.S. Code § 8(c) - “Person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual” as including born-alive infant: (c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point.

 

Of course, the term "human being" is not, nor can be, precisely defined in terms of some particular stage in the progression from fertilized egg to death. There are no magic dividing lines between alive and not alive, worth saving vs. not, etc., in the development of a human being - at least from a hardcore scientific perspective.

The selection of birth or even viability as some magic line is an arbitrary one since both are functions of such notions as whether the mother lives near the modern hospitals in Boston or dwells in the jungles of Burma. If one doubts whether this is so then we can ask such bizarre questions as, at what point in the delivery process does the "thing" suddenly becomes "human"? Does the umbilical cord require severance? Or, where in the slide down the baby chute does the magical event of thing to human take place? Obviously, such questions are absurd - and likewise, so are our legalistic deliberations and pronouncements concerning the matter.

The entire science of embryology bears witness to the fact that our "development" is a fairly smooth, continuous process that evolves throughout the lifespan of the organism and doesn't cease until its death. One can even logically proceed backwards in time and development to a time prior to conception since even the egg and sperm that will eventually unite are LIVING cells by every definition of the term. And that's so even though every gamete's DNA is haploid vs. the diploid arrangement of the zygote. And of course, such considerations as this obviously take that particular aspect of the issue to its complete absurdity.

I'm not into religion or spirit stuff. I see life in the light of the molecular biology of the cell. That is, we are an astronomically complex systems of molecular, biochemical interactions that transcend arbitrary moral conclusions. In that context, I can make no moral pronouncements of when it's proper or not to halt biological development. One cannot appeal to science to justify our moral-developmental determinations since ANY line drawing we may perform is hopelessly arbitrary. It's an exercise in carving the air and then preaching that the carved portion is something distinct.

Besides that, both sides of this debate typically exhibit such glaring logical inconsistencies and improper extrapolations and conclusions as to render their mental handiwork as deficient in any suitable ability to scientifically convince - that is, in my not-so-humble opinion.

 

In fact, the federal statutes do just that, defining a "human being" as a homo sapiens who is born alive.

Despite the fact that it may be scientifically difficult to draw a bright line as to when a single celled fertilized egg becomes a "human being", you should objectively have no problem with the concept that a singled celled fertilized egg is, in almost every way, a completely different thing than a born baby.

So, logically, IMO, the question to be addressed is why should we afford a single celled fertilized egg the same rights as a born baby?

 

Of course it's different. And the new born is different than it will be at puberty. But not by its DNA. Hell, I'm different than I was when I began this sentence. There are different genes being expressed to meet new needs. There are cells dying and cells being "born" from mitosis and meiosis.

Don't get me wrong. I understand completely your point - and, to a certain extent, agree with it. But make no mistake about one fundamental fact: our line of division between thing and human is an arbitrary one that WE determine quite apart from the existence of any biologically transforming event - that's transforming in the sense of thing becoming human. The baby one second after birth hasn't changed in any fundamental sense from the baby one second before.

 

Of course. And when you are a baby and juvenile you don't have the same rights as an adult.

We have to draw lots of lines that are somewhat arbitrary. But I don't agree it is completely arbitrary. We know the characteristics of a human being, and we know a single celled fertilized egg has few of them. But as it develops, it gains more and more of the characteristics of a human being. So we can view its development in terms of whether it has developed fundamental characteristics of a human being. Again, I agree there is some subjectivity to that point, but it is not, IMO completely arbitrary.

 

But we don't completely remove the right to exist based on what stage of postnatal development we're talking about. Prenatal stages are a different story. Not that I really care what people do with their offspring. Hell, I view living things as composite molecular machinery so what do I care? All this talk of when some organism is developed enough to consider worth protecting is mental poppycock, IMO.

No doubt, you and I will probably always disagree about how arbitrary any dividing line might be - at least when considering biological realities. I just completed another several month adventure in embryology and as a result have become even more convinced of the fact that any lines we draw as to when thing somehow magically becomes more than thing (i.e. human) are in deed quite arbitrary. We'll probably have to agree to disagree on that one.

Now I'm off to work. Cheers!

 

Contemptuous and presumptuous. Your scientific explanation seems to side-step the insinuate ground that pro-choicers regard so reverantly: The absence of life.

Your story equally consists of strong-words such as: microscopic, clumps of cells, mindless, or references to dermal "skin scrapings". This argument is weak and supports nothing in addition to the opposition crying "foul".

Your attempt to deduce human life to a whimsical sentiment falls short of compelling.

Additionally, this isn't (perceivably) a debate of absolutes but rather a debate on a perceived definition on the origins of life or the beginning of life in the womb. It is understandable that your definition differs but a clarification of definition on your part could be helpful to the discussion.

In return I pose this question: If an embryo shares a different DNA code from the pregnant woman is it not considered seperate life?

Remember: it takes two seperate codes of DNA to create an embryo. This new form of life borrows from both donors and and requires a whole different set of nutrients than simple human cells. Upon conception the hormones in a woman begin to change to support this life. This all happens within a few hours of copulation.

The 'devious word games' seem to be relevant only on the side of those wishing to discredit a viable human life in the womb. The 'reality' that you indicate here is highly subjective. You seem to have reached an ultimate conclusion that Pro-lifers have no concept of reality. Also there is no 'evading' here. This subject is far from letting the definition of life disappear into obscurity.

Perhaps you could provide a more altruistic argument to your theory.

 

Of course, I am being neither "contemptuous" nor "presumptuous" in noting that amalgams of living human cells do not all automatically constitute human beings. That should be self-evident.

The reality of which you seem unable to refute because I have used accurate terms. If you regard every, in fact, "microscopic", in fact, "mindless" clump of human cells as a person, you need to explain why.

Quite the contrary. Once the gestative process has resulted in a person forming, I believe that society has a valid interest in protecting it. I reject extremists that insist that a person does not exist until birth as readily as I reject those who insist a person suddenly appears at the instant of conception.

If you do not wish the State to seize control of the womb from the moment a sperm enters through an egg's cell wall, please clarify your agenda. I prefer that the female control her own womb until State intervention is appropriate as defined by the Supreme Court's Roe v Wade compromise.

I would also caution those who advocate in favour of government regulation of pregnancies from their inception that there are States who would order abortion as well as those who would proscribe it. Let's keep such private, personal matters out of the hands of bureaucrats to the extent that is practical.

And let us respect a person's right to control her body until another person has actually developed.