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Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Well.. the fetus does take all its needs from the host body in a truly parasitic way.

But that wasnt my argument, my concern was @KenS use of his event as a platform to promote his anti abortion rhetoric

#37

I think his response confirms my position :)
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
When born. That is the beginning of the infant developmental stage. Terms like "baby" are non-technical colloquial terms, and you can call your pet cat a baby and still have the same weight as calling a six week embryo like the one in this dish:

So, what is the technical term when it has been alive outside the womb after 3 months? Or is the term "baby" still a non-technical colloquial term? :rolleyes: And what word did they use before the word "fetus" ever existed? What was it called before that?
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
So, what is the technical term when it has been alive outside the womb after 3 months? Or is the term "baby" still a non-technical colloquial term? :rolleyes:
Infant, like I just said.
And what word did they use before the word "fetus" ever existed? What was it called before that?
Etymologically, fetus has been used since the 14th century, it's an old Latin term for unborn offspring (in womb or egg or seed). Baby came around at roughly the same time but was used as equivalent of infant and newborn offspring. Equivocating baby with fetus is a new phenomenon.

Like I said though, what you call it makes little difference to me outside pure academics.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Infant, like I just said.

Etymologically, fetus has been used since the 14th century, it's an old Latin term for unborn offspring (in womb or egg or seed). Baby came around at roughly the same time but was used as equivalent of infant and newborn offspring. Equivocating baby with fetus is a new phenomenon.

Like I said though, what you call it makes little difference to me outside pure academics.

That is a little more modern for me. I use the legal term from the Hebrew which is way before the 14th Century:

Ex 21: If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit departfrom her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

The Hebrew noun translated "child" in this passage is yeled[4] (yeladim in the plural), and means "child, son, boy, or youth."[5] It comes from the primary root word yalad,[6] meaning "to bear, bring forth, or beget." In the NASB yalad is translated "childbirth" 10 times, some form of "gave birth" over 50 times, and either "bore," "born," or "borne" 180 times.

To each his own...

Today, people usually don't say "I am pregnant with a fetus", usually they say "I have a baby!" way before the actual birth.

But, as you said, makes little difference to me. The "fetus" had a brain, was separate from the mother, had his/her own fingerprints, her own heart beat, her own DNA, her own individual blood, personality and is now a healthy 5lb baby and that is what is important.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
That is a little more modern for me. I use the legal term from the Hebrew which is way before the 14th Century:

Ex 21: If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit departfrom her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

The Hebrew noun translated "child" in this passage is yeled[4] (yeladim in the plural), and means "child, son, boy, or youth."[5] It comes from the primary root word yalad,[6] meaning "to bear, bring forth, or beget." In the NASB yalad is translated "childbirth" 10 times, some form of "gave birth" over 50 times, and either "bore," "born," or "borne" 180 times.

To each his own...

Today, people usually don't say "I am pregnant with a fetus", usually they say "I have a baby!" way before the actual birth.

But, as you said, makes little difference to me. The "fetus" had a brain, was separate from the mother, had his/her own fingerprints, her own heart beat, her own DNA, her own individual blood, personality and is now a healthy 5lb baby and that is what is important.
I dont view ancient Hebrew as more of an authority on developmental science or medical or legal language than ancient Egyptian.

But as an amusing aside, what you described is assault on the mother, with the fetus being treated as property of the husband which the assailant has to pay a fine. It wasnt treated as a person with separate rights. The bible isn't pro life and explicitly states individuality happens at birth, with the first breath. Plus explicitly details an event where an abortion happened as a result of a purity test.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
I dont view ancient Hebrew as more of an authority on developmental science or medical or legal language than ancient Egyptian.

But as an amusing aside, what you described is assault on the mother, with the fetus being treated as property of the husband which the assailant has to pay a fine. It wasnt treated as a person with separate rights. The bible isn't pro life and explicitly states individuality happens at birth, with the first breath. Plus explicitly details an event where an abortion happened as a result of a purity test.
That's another subject.

My point was simply that they did call it a child way before fetus was invented, people who get pregnant call it a child.

Egyptians sacrificed children so I'm not sure you want to go down that route

Not to mention:

ORIGIN OF FETUS
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin fētus bringing forth of young, hence that which is born, offspring, young still in the womb, equivalent to fē- (v. base attested in L only in noun derivatives, as fēmina woman, fēcundus fecund, etc.; compare Greek thēsthai to suck, milk, Old High German tāan to suck,

If it looks like a young child, sucks like a young child... I guess it's a young child
 
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dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Obvious snipe at the abortion debate notwithstanding, I hope that the baby and mom continue to be healthy!


Do you struggle this hard with questions like legal age requirements for consent, alchohol, prison, cigarettes, joining the military etc? Although science can give some objective ballpark data from which to decide reasonable limits (just like viability) they have no magic line either.

Imo, as an aside, I've never found the question of personhood relevant to the abortion debate. I would side with women to end a pregnancy literally any time, since I put value on body autonomy more than any person of any age (even if it were an adult in there). Point of viability just changes the process. After viability through induction of labor or c-section.


When born. That is the beginning of the infant developmental stage. Terms like "baby" are non-technical colloquial terms, and you can call your pet cat a baby and still have the same weight as calling a six week embryo like the one in this dish:

My problem is that you are absolutely right when you say there is no magic line. Everything that is decided about when a child is 'viable,' or a 'person,' or has any rights at all is decided by culture and law...and opinion.

and that could be wrong. I figure, personally, that if there is any chance at all that this conceptus/embryo/fetus IS a real human being (well, it is that...) with an identity that is not replaceable, then it is our responsibility to behave as if s/he is a 'person.' I've never been happy with the 'kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out' sort of approach.

I figure that if there is any chance at all that we are dealing with real, honest to goodness, human lives (and we are) then we should BEHAVE as if those are real, honest to goodness human lives that we are blithely killing off.

I think that abortion should be very, very difficult to obtain, and birth control should be very, very easy to get. I think that people contemplating having sex should think about what sex produces; human beings, and make their choices BEFORE they enter into that physical relationship.

I mean, really....if you were told that if you didn't get into the next room RIGHT NOW and save that baby who is choking, he would die...would you say 'no, thanks, I'm just about to have an orgasm and that's more important?

Because that is exactly what people who enter into consensual sex and then abort their babies because 'they didn't mean to,' or 'I can't do this right now,' or 'I changed my mind" are doing.

They are putting their own physical pleasure above the life of another.

I do not understand that. At all.

Birth control methods are really good; not utterly perfect (though there are methods that pretty much are) but darned near so. There is NO EXCUSE for all the abortions women are getting now because they didn't do their birth control correctly...

And they are irresponsible with their birth control because they figure that, oh, well, they can always get an abortion.

They figure that, oh, well, they can always kill the kid.

As for the embryo in the dish...well, you looked like that yourself once. Once you were even smaller than that. And you were still you. There was no chance that when you looked like that, you would become anything OTHER than you.

Except, of course, dead.

So I'm not impressed with the illustration.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
I mean, really....if you were told that if you didn't get into the next room RIGHT NOW and save that baby who is choking, he would die...would you say 'no, thanks, I'm just about to have an orgasm and that's more important?

Because that is exactly what people who enter into consensual sex and then abort their babies because 'they didn't mean to,' or 'I can't do this right now,' or 'I changed my mind" are doing.



.

Of course I would save a baby, because a baby is a fully sentient human being. But answer me this. If a building was burning down and a 5 year old child was screaming in a room that happened to contain a box of 1000 viable frozen embryos that was about to go up in flames, would you save the child, or the embryos? If you would save the child, then you've acknowledged the obvious fact that humans who have been born are worth more than the unborn. If you would save the embryos instead, then congrats, you are a "pro-life" psychopath.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
I dont have a lot of time tonight so apologies in advance for the abbreviated reply.
My problem is that you are absolutely right when you say there is no magic line. Everything that is decided about when a child is 'viable,' or a 'person,' or has any rights at all is decided by culture and law...and opinion.
I feel like you missed the rest of that paragraph about other developmental stage laws. We don't say "there's no magic line for when teenagers become adult enough to give medical consent so let's just never allow that to happen. Or always allow it to happen." No, we understand that the line is set on a spectrum but that doesnt mean it's arbitrary.
Viability is set at best chance for survival out of the womb. It's not a 100% rule but it's also not opinion. Far less so than many other legal limits set on developmental stages.
I think that abortion should be very, very difficult to obtain, and birth control should be very, very easy to get. I think that people contemplating having sex should think about what sex produces; human beings, and make their choices BEFORE they enter into that physical relationship.
Except for that first part, I mostly agree with you. Abortion is wasteful, hard on the body and could interfere with fertility for when mothers are ready. It can also be devastating on relationships for people who haven't had open and honest communication. Abortion should be a last resort, after much thought, and after taking all precautions.
But for the couple and for the mother's health. But I don't care if they didn't do any prep, if she's had 5 abortions already, if the father wants the child, I would still make abortion available on demand.
I mean, really....if you were told that if you didn't get into the next room RIGHT NOW and save that baby who is choking, he would die...would you say 'no, thanks, I'm just about to have an orgasm and that's more important?

Because that is exactly what people who enter into consensual sex and then abort their babies because 'they didn't mean to,' or 'I can't do this right now,' or 'I changed my mind" are doing.
Pregnancy and childbirth should never be a punishment. Again, I don't care if she actively decided she wanted an abortion just to try it, a world where women are compulsed to give birth is a dystopian nightmare. Because if it were a drunk driver who hit someone and died, you couldn't harvest their organs to save their victim without their consent. A world with criminal abortion is a world where where women are given less rights than corpses.

As for the embryo in the dish...well, you looked like that yourself once. Once you were even smaller than that. And you were still you. There was no chance that when you looked like that, you
Nah, that wasn't me. Pictures of me from 10 years ago weren't even me. Not a cell, not my personality or my identity. Back then I didnt even have a brain in which to house the word 'me' let alone the concept.
But let's say I was me, and I was an adult mind in a six week old embryo inside mymother, and I learned I was about to he aborted. "That's a shame," I would say, "but the womb I'm in is my mother's and I respect her authority over it."

But more realistically, it'd be nothing like your analogy of the baby choking on the table. My capacity for suffering would be less than the chicken you had for dinner.
In fact, as I said in another thread, I'd sooner make vegetarianism compulsory than outlaw abortion. Because eating that chicken objectively caused more suffering than what the contents of that dish had.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
That's another subject.
Indeed.
My point was simply that they did call it a child way before fetus was invented, people who get pregnant call it a child.
Except they didn't. I already explained this.

Egyptians sacrificed children so I'm not sure you want to go down that route
So did the Israelites most likely. but changed policy post hoc, probably even revised the sacrifice of Isaac post hoc too. *And* used child sacrifice as justification of the genocide of the Canaanites even though there's no actual evidence they practiced it, and even evidence against.
But like you said, topic for another time.

Not to mention:

ORIGIN OF FETUS
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin fētus bringing forth of young, hence that which is born, offspring, young still in the womb, equivalent to fē- (v. base attested in L only in noun derivatives, as fēmina woman, fēcundus fecund, etc.; compare Greek thēsthai to suck, milk, Old High German tāan to suck,

If it looks like a young child, sucks like a young child... I guess it's a young child
Quoted for emphasis: young still in the womb. Using it for an infant or born child would have been equivalent to saying a chicken is the egg.

But again, the semantics game is purely academic. We don't define medical or legal terms by their etymological usage. Calling a fetus a baby is about as technical and acceptable as calling car one. Which I certainly won't tell you not to.
But if you're asking the question "when does a fetus become not a fetus" in the context of developmental science, the answer is "when born."
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Of course I would save a baby, because a baby is a fully sentient human being. But answer me this. If a building was burning down and a 5 year old child was screaming in a room that happened to contain a box of 1000 viable frozen embryos that was about to go up in flames, would you save the child, or the embryos? If you would save the child, then you've acknowledged the obvious fact that humans who have been born are worth more than the unborn. If you would save the embryos instead, then congrats, you are a "pro-life" psychopath.

False dichotomy...and one that has been tried before.

You save what you can save.

If you can save the five year old but can't save the embryos (and frankly, saving the embryos would be flippin' impossible...don't you know know how those things are stored? Here's a hint; you won't find them in a beer cooler) then you save the five year old.

If you can't save the five year old but you CAN save the embryos (again, saving the embryos would be flippin' impossible...don't you know how those things are stored? Tanks of liquid nitrogen, and if the building is on fire, they are ALREADY gone!) then you save the embryos. If you can save both, you save both; five year old first because the five year old can help you. The embryos would require ...especially a hundred of them...

Embryo-Freezing-Lab-Room-by-SAFE.jpg


Everything in a situation like that is about triage. You save, first, the ones you can save. Then you go back if you can to save others.

And if the building is on fire, the odds of those embryos being viable is slim to spit diddle.

So there is no need to choose according to whose life is more valuable.

Your question is a bit like asking whether an abortion is acceptable if the reason for it is that the pregnancy is endangering the mother's life, or if the fetus is so damaged that it cannot live outside the womb, even at full term. The answer there is 'triage,' too. You save the one you can. Given that a can of liquid nitrogen weighs considerably more than a five year old, and is a WHOLE lot harder to move, what do you think should be done?

It has nothing whatsoever to do with what lives are more valuable.

Oh, and if you want to change things to unreasonable limits and claim that it would be EXACTLY as easy to save the five year old as the embryos, and that you don't have to take even one step further to save one than the other, and that the choice comes down to precisely which life is 'more valuable,'

Then the answer is obviously....save both. 'cause if you can save the five year old that easily, then the embryos will be as easy to save. Now me, I have five kids. I remember hauling a five year old and a three year old and an infant around, and I'm no fire fighter.

But there is never a situation...and I do mean NEVER...where the choice like that is made only on the merits of which life is more valuable, not if the rescuer isn't hoping for money or reward.

So any fire fighter rescuing a trapped family would save the easily transported child and come back to rescue the parents. Or the elder siblings. That's not because s/he thinks that the baby is more important or more valuable, either.

Dang, I wish you people would come up with original arguments.
 
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dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I dont have a lot of time tonight so apologies in advance for the abbreviated reply.

I feel like you missed the rest of that paragraph about other developmental stage laws. We don't say "there's no magic line for when teenagers become adult enough to give medical consent so let's just never allow that to happen. Or always allow it to happen." No, we understand that the line is set on a spectrum but that doesnt mean it's arbitrary.
Viability is set at best chance for survival out of the womb. It's not a 100% rule but it's also not opinion. Far less so than many other legal limits set on developmental stages.

And that point is changing all the time. Shoot, we already keep embryos frozen and 'alive' for later implantation, and we save babies at earlier and earlier stages. The law isn't keeping up, either. So what happens when someone finally invents the 'artificial womb?" The one that allows us to grow that fetus from conceptus to 'full term' without having a woman be pregnant?

Would that change your opinion about when abortion is acceptable, and why?

If that becomes possible, would that change your mind about the 'humanness' of the human being raised that way?

......and if that would, how much more important is it to protect the lives of those unborn humans now, since at the moment we CAN'T grow 'em outside a woman's body? What will change, scientifically, when that day comes?

Except for that first part, I mostly agree with you. Abortion is wasteful, hard on the body and could interfere with fertility for when mothers are ready. It can also be devastating on relationships for people who haven't had open and honest communication. Abortion should be a last resort, after much thought, and after taking all precautions.
But for the couple and for the mother's health. But I don't care if they didn't do any prep, if she's had 5 abortions already, if the father wants the child, I would still make abortion available on demand.

Pregnancy and childbirth should never be a punishment. Again, I don't care if she actively decided she wanted an abortion just to try it, a world where women are compulsed to give birth is a dystopian nightmare.

That's what birth control methods are for; so that no woman is compelled to give birth. She can avoid getting pregnant in the first place. However, if, even if she has used birth control methods responsibly and correctly, her choice to have consensual sex knowing that sex make babies is HER choice. That's when she made it. Consensual sex isn't an accident or an 'oops.' it's a deliberate choice, and one of the consequences just might be....a baby.

Just like one of the consequences of dancing on the edge of a cliff just might be falling off. If you know the risks before you do something, and the natural consequences occur, that's not being 'compelled.' That is the natural consequence of one's choice. She didn't NEED to have sex. She could have used better birth control. She could have done something really permanent to prevent pregnancy. This isn't compulsion any more than it is compulsion to sneeze and feel really crappy because you decided you don't want the flu shot and DID want to go to a party with a whole bunch of flu victims.

..........and nobody made her get pregnant. Nobody made HIM decide that he didn't need birth control, either. His choice, and her choice. They could both have said no.

Because if it were a drunk driver who hit someone and died, you couldn't harvest their organs to save their victim without their consent.

A. I doubt that the organs of a drunk driver would be usable, but..
B. If they were, I wouldn't have any problems whatsoever in using them, if the victim was a match. I wouldn't have any problems at all making that the law, either. Actions have consequences, and driving drunk....well, that's a bit like having consensual sex thinking that it doesn't matter whether one uses birth control or not because you can ALWAYS kill the kid.

A world with criminal abortion is a world where where women are given less rights than corpses.

No.

It simply gives the fetus one right; the right to try to survive the most dangerous nine months of its life...unless it spends it's adult life dancing in mine fields, that is.


Nah, that wasn't me. Pictures of me from 10 years ago weren't even me. Not a cell, not my personality or my identity. Back then I didnt even have a brain in which to house the word 'me' let alone the concept.

And as a newborn you didn't have the brains or the capability to do anything you can do as an adult, but you were still you. You have grown and learned...but the DNA of that small group of cells is the same DNA that mapped out the adult you are now.

And nobody else is that.

And you would never have been anything else BUT you. Physiologically, that is.

B
ut let's say I was me, and I was an adult mind in a six week old embryo inside mymother, and I learned I was about to he aborted. "That's a shame," I would say, "but the womb I'm in is my mother's and I respect her authority over it."

Really?

That's a little, as you mention, unrealistic.

But more realistically, it'd be nothing like your analogy of the baby choking on the table. My capacity for suffering would be less than the chicken you had for dinner.

So your Qualification for murder is whether the victim suffers?

Dang. All any murderer has to do, then, is provide proper anesthetics so that the victim doesn't hurt and everything is just dandy?

I
n fact, as I said in another thread, I'd sooner make vegetarianism compulsory than outlaw abortion. Because eating that chicken objectively caused more suffering than what the contents of that dish had.
[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
And that point is changing all the time. Shoot, we already keep embryos frozen and 'alive' for later implantation, and we save babies at earlier and earlier stages. The law isn't keeping up, either. So what happens when someone finally invents the 'artificial womb?" The one that allows us to grow that fetus from conceptus to 'full term' without having a woman be pregnant?

Would that change your opinion about when abortion is acceptable, and why?
No, since abortion is terminating the pregnancy, and I still believe al that should be required for a woman to terminate the pregnancy us "I dont want to be pregnant anymore." Like I said, viability just changes the process. If I could beam a fetus our Star Trek style I would. If live extraction is possible, do it. It'll create population booms with problems of it's own but yeah.
If that becomes possible, would that change your mind about the 'humanness' of the human being raised that way?
Nope. The days of calling test tube babies less human than those developed in wet squishy wombs us a 1960's sci fi problem. I've got bigger issues with test tub babies hinted earlier, but that's a topic for another thread another day.
......and if that would, how much more important is it to protect the lives of those unborn humans now, since at the moment we CAN'T grow 'em outside a woman's body?
I'm more interested in protecting the mother from state seizure of said womb.
That's what birth control methods are for; so that no woman is compelled to give birth. She can avoid getting pregnant in the first place. However, if, even if she has used birth control methods responsibly and correctly, her choice to have consensual sex knowing that sex make babies is HER choice. That's when she made it. Consensual sex isn't an accident or an 'oops.' it's a deliberate choice, and one of the consequences just might be....a baby.
Consent to sex is not consent to complete a pregnancy. Just like consent to dangling off a cliff doesnt foforfeit your right to use medical technology to rectify injury.
For me, if I got pregnant despite using two forms of birth control the consequence will be...an abortion.
If they were, I wouldn't have any problems whatsoever in using them, if the victim was a match.
I would. Body autonomy trumps need of any and all persons involved. No matter what the 'greater good' is, no matter your background or actions.
It simply gives the fetus one right; the right to try to survive the most dangerous nine months of its life...
They don't have my such right, especially not at the expense of the will of the mother.
And as a newborn you didn't have the brains or the capability to do anything you can do as an adult, but you were still you. You have grown and learned...but the DNA of that small group of cells is the same DNA that mapped out the adult you are now.

And nobody else is that.

And you would never have been anything else BUT you. Physiologically, that is.
I shouldn't have to say this to a Christian but I'm not my DNA. Even physiologically I'm way more than my genes (brain is part of physiology and it includes the process by which I have identity, perceive my experiences, et al). But again, this is getting into the weeds of topics best left for other days.
Developmental maturity doesn't matter to me in the question of abortion availability anyway, so it's purely academic.
So your Qualification for murder is whether the victim suffers?
Murder is a legal term, not an ethics term. The qualification for murder is law.

Ethically I'm a utilitarian consequentialist. Reduce suffering and raise wellness. The suffering of the mother forced to carry to term, and a sentient sapient victim of legal murder, as well as their family and friends, and a society which allows body autonomy to be compromised, and a chicken killed for supper has greater suffering than an embryo which dies.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
But again, the semantics game is purely academic. We don't define medical or legal terms by their etymological usage.

Except the medical term is simply a product human terminology but doesn't change the reality of a child still in the womb as determined in the OP.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
False dichotomy...and one that has been tried before.

You save what you can save.

If you can save the five year old but can't save the embryos (and frankly, saving the embryos would be flippin' impossible...don't you know know how those things are stored? Here's a hint; you won't find them in a beer cooler) then you save the five year old.

If you can't save the five year old but you CAN save the embryos (again, saving the embryos would be flippin' impossible...don't you know how those things are stored? Tanks of liquid nitrogen, and if the building is on fire, they are ALREADY gone!) then you save the embryos. If you can save both, you save both; five year old first because the five year old can help you. The embryos would require ...especially a hundred of them...

Embryo-Freezing-Lab-Room-by-SAFE.jpg


Everything in a situation like that is about triage. You save, first, the ones you can save. Then you go back if you can to save others.

And if the building is on fire, the odds of those embryos being viable is slim to spit diddle.

So there is no need to choose according to whose life is more valuable.

Your question is a bit like asking whether an abortion is acceptable if the reason for it is that the pregnancy is endangering the mother's life, or if the fetus is so damaged that it cannot live outside the womb, even at full term. The answer there is 'triage,' too. You save the one you can. Given that a can of liquid nitrogen weighs considerably more than a five year old, and is a WHOLE lot harder to move, what do you think should be done?

It has nothing whatsoever to do with what lives are more valuable.

Oh, and if you want to change things to unreasonable limits and claim that it would be EXACTLY as easy to save the five year old as the embryos, and that you don't have to take even one step further to save one than the other, and that the choice comes down to precisely which life is 'more valuable,'

Then the answer is obviously....save both. 'cause if you can save the five year old that easily, then the embryos will be as easy to save. Now me, I have five kids. I remember hauling a five year old and a three year old and an infant around, and I'm no fire fighter.

But there is never a situation...and I do mean NEVER...where the choice like that is made only on the merits of which life is more valuable, not if the rescuer isn't hoping for money or reward.

So any fire fighter rescuing a trapped family would save the easily transported child and come back to rescue the parents. Or the elder siblings. That's not because s/he thinks that the baby is more important or more valuable, either.

Dang, I wish you people would come up with original arguments.

Suppose a theoretical scenario in which both are equally difficult and take the same amount of time to save and there is only time to save one or the other before the building burns down.

Which one do you save?
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
I shouldn't have to say this to a Christian but I'm not my DNA.

My view on abortion has nothing to do with my religious beliefs.

Even physiologically I'm way more than my genes (brain is part of physiology and it includes the process by which I have identity, perceive my experiences, et al). But again, this is getting into the weeds of topics best left for other days.
Developmental maturity doesn't matter to me in the question of abortion availability anyway, so it's purely academic.

Murder is a legal term, not an ethics term. The qualification for murder is law.]/quote]

You are quite right. This is a point I've made several times now. The question under discussion is: should abortion for the sake of convenience be included under the definition of 'murder?"

To refer to the fact that it is no now so included is begging the question and circular. Of course it's not included now. That's the problem. Murder is a legal and cultural term, and thus can be changed at any time. It is not a scientific or medical term.

Ethically I'm a utilitarian consequentialist. Reduce suffering and raise wellness. The suffering of the mother forced to carry to term, and a sentient sapient victim of legal murder, as well as their family and friends, and a society which allows body autonomy to be compromised, and a chicken killed for supper has greater suffering than an embryo which dies.

I don't suppose that you would support someone going into rest homes and rehab centers and killing off all the coma patience and old, confused people, would you?

They aren't sentient and sapient either.
 

dianaiad

Well-Known Member
Suppose a theoretical scenario in which both are equally difficult and take the same amount of time to save and there is only time to save one or the other before the building burns down.

Which one do you save?

You don't pay attention, do you?

There IS no such situation. It's not possible.

For one thing, saving the embryos takes a whole lot more doing than saving the child, and it doesn't stop with putting the kid (or the embryos) on the sidewalk.

Like I said, I wish you guys would come up with an original argument. THIS one is very old, and artificial, and stupid.

and about as helpful to the conversation as the man on the tracks vs the train full of people one.

It is utterly useless to propose situations which do not, and cannot, exist in order to force an answer you prefer. It is especially useless to do so couched in personal insults, as you did.

As far as 'the value of human life' is concerned, I believe that the embryos and the child are precisely equal. One must make decisions like that for other reasons.

Whether YOU approve or not.
 

Rational Agnostic

Well-Known Member
You don't pay attention, do you?

There IS no such situation. It's not possible.

For one thing, saving the embryos takes a whole lot more doing than saving the child, and it doesn't stop with putting the kid (or the embryos) on the sidewalk.

Like I said, I wish you guys would come up with an original argument. THIS one is very old, and artificial, and stupid.

and about as helpful to the conversation as the man on the tracks vs the train full of people one.

It is utterly useless to propose situations which do not, and cannot, exist in order to force an answer you prefer. It is especially useless to do so couched in personal insults, as you did.

As far as 'the value of human life' is concerned, I believe that the embryos and the child are precisely equal. One must make decisions like that for other reasons.

Whether YOU approve or not.

LOL you wrote another wall of text and yet still are dodging the question. Typical.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
Of course I would save a baby, because a baby is a fully sentient human being. But answer me this. If a building was burning down and a 5 year old child was screaming in a room that happened to contain a box of 1000 viable frozen embryos that was about to go up in flames, would you save the child, or the embryos? If you would save the child, then you've acknowledged the obvious fact that humans who have been born are worth more than the unborn. If you would save the embryos instead, then congrats, you are a "pro-life" psychopath.
I would expend all my energy trying to save the five-year-old child. Trying to save the frozen embryos probably wouldn't even cross my mind.

This is a question which I rarely seen answered .... for some reason. ;)
 
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