ijgs, you took my arguments and gave them perfect examples, well done!
A human life at conception, such as it is, belongs to the mother in every sense of the word. It is dependent on her totally, it is a part of her. There is only one life there, until the embryo develops the capacity to have “self-concept” at which point it belongs to itself and can be considered a person or human being.
Any philosophy that considers an object with no “selfhood” to be a person is a twisted and warped concept of reality.
Finally someone who will debate with knowledge.
To correct this, it’s at 3 weeks that the heart starts beating and it’s at 6 to 8 weeks that the nervous system starts its twitching to develops the baby’s little muscles.
Here in Canada, it is abortion on demand at any stage of pregancy for whatever the reason and it’s funded through the provincial government. If only there would be pro life laws like you mentioned here.
It is a unique human individual worthy of respect from conception.
My point is that I don’t understand why people who are animal rights activists think more about a Balut (fertilized chicken) than someone from our own species. I’ll respond to the rest tomorrow, I have to go to bed, thanks for the response ijgs.
I think you’re willfully not understanding it, its pretty simple. “Animal rights” is about minimizing the suffering of conscious beings. Where there is no consciousness there is no suffering, thats why your Straw-man Animal Rights Activist cares more about a self-aware, unhatched chick than they do about a collection of stem cells that lack the biological structures for consciousness.
Oh, so you have been debating with knowledge, and not with “universal” truths and morals?
Says you. It’s human. It is not an individual.
This will be my last post here, mostly to reply to your positions on morals as there is no reason to work long and hard to develop another valid point only for you to throw the same statements at it again in such a way that they hardly coincide with my point.
Okay, you’re starting to look like a Glenn Beck wannabe. From the beginning you have hardly used any knowledge. the only time you resort to knowledge is when morals are defeated, and morals are most definitely not knowledge as I will explain later in this post most likely.
This makes me utterly shudder. This is beyond simply a different opinion. Most times I can accept that people have differing opinions at the end of a debate and move on, telling myself that perhaps I wasn’t able to see their perspective or they have different experiences. I hardly use this word because I typically don’t believe in it, but you are flat out wrong. Without morals the world would be much closer to a state of order. Keep in mind by order I don’t mean your vision of the perfect '50s movie world, I mean everyone getting along with one another. Differing morals are one of the leading causes of war.
Without morals people would have to turn to science, and with that would be a sudden embrace of rationality. With only rationality almost all war would soon die out. With all people on the same page as far as what to do with human progression, there would be many less dilemmas.
I find this similar to one thing I thought a while ago jokingly, but then began to seriously ponder for a while afterward. I thought that if the whole world were like me, there would be no war, no poverty, and we would all progress beautifully together. In fact this is true. The same would happen if everyone were like you, or if everyone were likely any person who respects life, hates war, and wants a specific, peaceful thing out of humanity. A global belief in pure science would have a parallel effect.
It’s also irresponsible to have unprotected sex, yet thousands of moral people not only do it, they condone it and force their beliefs upon others so that they will do the same. Beyond this, this statement is pure opinion. What I find so scary is that you (like Glenn Beck as I am finding it a more and more accurate comparison), cannot separate opinion from objective thought. You are so caught up in yourself and your own perspective that you can’t look past the idea that maybe, just maybe you might be wrong, if not about stem cell research then maybe marriage, or your spiritual beliefs, or whatever little “philosophical” thought you may have had today.
And with those quotes I dub thee troll, I pity myself for the time I wasted here. I’ll leave the rest of the post only in hope that some of the other people debating here will read it, be able to look past my post count, and realize what you’re doing if they haven’t already.
For the record, morals are just philosophy without the independent thought and to pursue any moral without extreme discretion and research can only lead to becoming close minded.
This is a situation commonly overlooked by pro-life advocates swinging their little signs around and calling doctors murderers. I hope your sister is ok. I’m sure that would have been a tough choice, but at least she was able to make it 
No…I said that if a sperm isn’t human because it needs an egg, then surely a zygote isn’t a human because it needs a womb. Once an fetus surpasses the need for a womb, THEN it is truly alive.
No, the reason they stopped making arms is because they realised that diplomatic negotiation and cooperation was more productive that antagonistic opposition. The Cold War ended because the two sides decided that working together was more productive than not doing so; a decision which had nothing to do with morals.
Uhhh yes, I did read it, and I then disagreed with it, showed why you were wrong and moved on.
Who on EARTH is murdering anyone? These are discarded zygotes. They have been thrown out. Ditched. Trashed. They now serve no purpose than to become part of the next trash collection. If you give them a purpose, then that is the opposite of degrading to human life, so you might actually, you know, save a life.
I think what you’re missing is that these zygotes are never going to become humans. Ever. Ever ever ever ever ever.
Uhh yeahno. In fact, there’s pretty much scientific consensus of the total opposite. A fetus is only truly considered alive after a specific time during the pregnancy, which is most definitely not conception.
Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh no. I just can’t quite fathom why you would do it this way? Zygotes aren’t alive. Period. They can’t think, feel, smell, touch, etc.
cup of joe, just give up. The whole world is against you.
Has anyone else noticed that Cup o Joe continually ignores the posts he get’s systematically owned in?
Nitpicking FTW
endless debate…
I motion that all moralistic viewpoints be discarded from here on. Then we’ll see how the argument goes.
No, the debate ended two or three pages ago. Now its just sad.
This is really getting on my tits. For fuck’s sake Cup o Joe, answer the fucking posts.
So you’re saying you’ve already addressed my point by linking me to a post that says you’ve already addressed my point? Why don’t you actually do it, then things will be far easier.
No, that would make far too much sense.
Wrong. I don’t know about hair and eye color. but gender (and assumedly the other related features) is determined by certain chemical changes produced by the mother. Therefore it is actually possible (albiet unlikely and difficult) to choose the gender of your child simply by your dietary choices, research is still being done to determine exactly what kinds of foods contribute to it. This discovery actually came about after it was noted some communities had a severe difference in male/female births. One community had 80% of all births male. That is not coincidence concidering the community went for 60% female births to 20% in less then 25 years. Starting with the opening of a chemical plant.
As opposed, presumably, to emotive, defamatory and inflamatory ballsackery?:meh:
I’ll start by clarifying your terms for you. That “3 weeks” is the so-called “foetal” age, NOT the gestational age - which is 5 weeks. There is some measure of uncertainty about the precise age of a foetus, usually +/- 7-10 days, given the vagaries of human conception, which is why everyone in the midwifery profession says “6-8 weeks is when the embryo becomes a foetus”; they’re quoting gestation age (and I shall do so for any future reference).
Now to your point, let’s make no mistake, the heart of a 5-week old embryo is not the splendid example of evolved muscle that we all carry around with us once we’re more mature. A 3-week old foetus’ heart is basically a tube; it’s a very primitive structure and the fledgling muscular walls of this tube may begin to spontaneously contract in a regular rhythm at 5 weeks (may because of the aforementioned uncertainty of developmental age).
At this stage, the embryo’s heart is significantly less complex than its originating sperm’s flagellum that spontaneously flails to move it towards the egg and yet you’re quite happy that a sperm is not a human (you’re quite right, it’s merely half the infomation). Just because some muscle structures are exhibiting a spontaneous rhythmic tic (and there are plenty of examples of this happening throughout the amoeba-level natural world) this collection of cells is arguably less “alive” than many amoeboid creatures, since it will certainly die as soon as it is removed from its life-giving mother. Functionally speaking, at this stage of the pregnancy the embryo is little more than a cancer and there’s a 2 in 3 likelihood that the mother’s immune system will respond to it as such.
I don’t believe I mentioned any pro-life laws. I mentioned triage, which is a fundamental medical principle that was formalised during WWI, though likely existed almost as long as humans have had a notion of medical aid. At its most simplistic, triage divides patients into 3 categories (hence the “tri” bit, I guess):
- Those who will likely live, regardless of medical aid
- Those who will likely die, regardless of medical aid
- Those for whom immediate medical aid might make a positive outcome.
In an emergency situation, these groups are ordered as follows: 3, 2, 1.
Triage has little to do with being “pro-life” and everything to do with blunt practicality; what’s the point of trying to save someone who’s probably going to die anyway IF that diverts effort away from someone who may live if they receive immediate attention?
No, AT THIS STAGE OF GESTATION it is not a unique human individual. The word “individual” tells us all we need to know here. Pedant that you are, you should know that individual comes from the latin “individuus” meaning indivisible. If you were to “divide” the mother & embryo at this stage, you would have a perfectly healthy mother and a collection of dead cells. NOT a perfectly healthy mother and a unique human individual.
When the foetus becomes self-supporting (as I said, at the very earliest 20-22 weeks gestation age) then it has the chance of becoming a unique human individual (premature death notwithstanding). Up until that point it is potential, nothing more. Which isn’t to say that it shouldn’t be respected, but we do need to get a little perspective. From the immune system’s point of view, the embryo/foetus represents a significant threat to be dealt with from the word go, right up to matriculation. As far as our own biology is concerned it’s nothing special at all. You can draw your own conclusions from that (I don’t believe there are any conclusions to be drawn personally, but it is interesting!).
I absolutely agree with you 
Surely, if we think it is ethical to quickly and painlessly end the suffering of a terminally injured/sick animal, we should have no issue with quickly and painlessly ending the suffering of a terminally injured/sick human. Yet the pro-life mentality demands that we prolong that human’s suffering for as long as humanly possible, bringing them back from the dead, if necessary, to make sure we wring them and their family emotionally and physically dry. You know what that’s called? Torture. Not very human of you is it? :meh:
[edit]Oh, and don’t go thanking me as if I’m the only person who’s responded to you in this thread. It smacks of arrogance - to say nothing of being patronising to the other forum members in the extreme - and singles me out as some kind of special “fellow intellect”, which is something I’m really not keen on.
Just quoting this in the hope that Cup o Joe won’t pull that hilarious trick where he ignores the points people are making.
That’s some good logic-work there, ijgs.
Abortion doesn’t have much to do with stem cell research. Sure, stem cells can come from abortions, but there’s other ways to get them that aren’t so touchy.
If we’re blathering about abortions, then I’ll give my two cents: humans don’t have a soul until the age of one. My reasons make about as much sense as your morals.
First I was like :facepalm:
Then I went 
Also, good post ijgs. Hopefully Cup o Joe will now at the very least realise his viewpoint isn’t universal.