The Abortion Debate (continued) (4 Viewers)

[Captain Gh3y]

or more obviously it would mean parasitic organisms aren't alive

 

[Salchow]

An idiot, am I?! I'm just showing you the facts. Life does begin at conception, whether you choose to believe it or not. Buddhists support contraception for this reason. It's okay to prevent conception, but it's never a good thing to end it for any reason. All living beings, once conception's begun, are equal. The mother does not have a right over the foetus. If you're raped, it makes sense to take the emergency pill.

If the foetus is deformed, that's just life. You've probably owed him or her a debt in a past life and if you choose to escape this, you can't. If it's a high-risk pregnancy, still carry on. Doctors these days are so mundane and scientific. It leads onto euthanasia and related issues. Let nature take its course.

Besides, I haven't forced "anti-abortion" down your throat and I'm not judging you & your beliefs. I respect your invidual choices, although I don't believe in the same. So don't you dare call me an idiot.

 

[KFunk]

Technical issue: a number of contraceptive devices are thought to have a partly abortive function. For example, every now and then a woman on the oral contraceptive pill will in fact have an egg fertilised only to have it aborted because the lining of the uterus is inadequate (and similarly for intrauterine devices, morning after pills etc...) N.B. the abortive aspects of the OCP are fairly controversial, though its hard to tell how much of the contoversy is driven by science and how much by ideology.

If the foetus is deformed, that's just life. You've probably owed him or her a debt in a past life and if you choose to escape this, you can't. If it's a high-risk pregnancy, still carry on. Doctors these days are so mundane and scientific. It leads onto euthanasia and related issues. Let nature take its course.

Shall we let nature take its course in cases of cancer, diabetes and syphilis? 'Letting nature take its course' is clearly not intrinsicly valuable (unless you are consistent and think cancer should be left untreated) so I think that's a pretty poor target for criticism.

 

[Kwayera]

An idiot, am I?! I'm just showing you the facts. Life does begin at conception, whether you choose to believe it or not. Buddhists support contraception for this reason. It's okay to prevent conception, but it's never a good thing to end it for any reason. All living beings, once conception's begun, are equal. The mother does not have a right over the foetus. If you're raped, it makes sense to take the emergency pill.

If the foetus is deformed, that's just life. You've probably owed him or her a debt in a past life and if you choose to escape this, you can't. If it's a high-risk pregnancy, still carry on. Doctors these days are so mundane and scientific. It leads onto euthanasia and related issues. Let nature take its course.

Besides, I haven't forced "anti-abortion" down your throat and I'm not judging you & your beliefs. I respect your invidual choices, although I don't believe in the same. So don't you dare call me an idiot.

And there it is. Religion.

A ball of human cells is no more alive than the ball of cells at the end of one's shed hair is alive. Are you committing murder if you groom your dog? Pluck someone's eyebrows?

No. Didn't think so.

 

[KFunk]

Kwayera - Hair contains dead cells, but I still think your point is a good one. Nonetheless, playing devil's advocate: what of the fact that random collections of cells sloughed off from the heart or the intestinal track do NOT contain pluripotential cells, i.e. they cannot differentiate into any kind of tissue in the way cells of the embryonic blastocyst can. Perhaps this is the property that sets embryonic cells apart?

To go back to the other side again: this distinction (between cells that are pluripotential and those that aren't) isn't actually that clear cut. Stem cell research has already shown results which combat the traditional dogma that you can't 'undifferentiate' cell lines. Thus it is quite conceivable that technology will develop to the point where we can coax any colony into an undifferentiated state where it has the 'potential to produce life'. If this is even possible in principle then those who value cells simply because they have potential for life would have to worry about the plight of any human cell culture - embryonic or otherwise.

 

[Kwayera]

Kwayera - Hair contains dead cells, but I still think your point is a good one. Nonetheless, playing devil's advocate: what of the fact that random collections of cells sloughed off from the heart or the intestinal track do NOT contain pluripotential cells, i.e. they cannot differentiate into any kind of tissue in the way cells of the embryonic blastocyst can. Perhaps this is the property that sets embryonic cells apart?

To go back to the other side again: this distinction (between cells that are pluripotential and those that aren't) isn't actually that clear cut. Stem cell research has already shown results which combat the traditional dogma that you can't 'undifferentiate' cell lines. Thus it is quite conceivable that technology will develop to the point where we can coax any colony into an undifferentiated state where it has the 'potential to produce life'. If this is even possible in principle then those who value cells simply because they have potential for life would have to worry about the plight of any human cell culture - embryonic or otherwise.

Actually, as far as I am aware, while hair itself is dead, if you rip it out from the scalp the end of the hair still has living cells from the follicle.

But that is indeed an interesting question - is that all we need to define as "precious life", that of the "rights" of pluripotential cells? Interesting.

 

[KFunk]

That's fair enough if you meant deep in the follicle. In any case, I'm curious to know what pro-lifers think about pluripotential cells. Undoubtedly souls will be the difference for the religious (at which point I suggest Ockham's razor, as per the 'does god exist?' thread). I am quite interested, though, in what secular pro-lifers think about pluripotential cell lines.

 

[TacoTerrorist]

Why?

What makes it worth more?

Because humans have free thought, a society, relationships, morals, personal beliefs and imagination.

An animal is just genetically programmed to live out its life and die, contributing only the meat in its body or the fur on its back to higher beings.

 

[Kwayera]

Because humans have free thought, a society, relationships, morals, personal beliefs and imagination.

An animal is just genetically programmed to live out its life and die, contributing only the meat in its body or the fur on its back to higher beings.

Can you study orca and chimpanzee and honestly say they don't have free thought and relationships, and imagination?

Or is this the magical handwavium you describe as the "soul"?

 

[Iron]

No wonder you attach so little value to human life - you cant even distinguish it from an animal.

 

[Kwayera]

Iron - what you forget is that we are animals.

 

[Iron]

It's not forgetting, it's forcing yourself to believe otherwise

 

[Kwayera]

And no amount of suspension of disbelief will disguise the truth.

 

[Iron]

Dont get me started on truth.
It's ALL disguise. We choose our costumes based on utility. Your ape costume is totally degrading, no utility

 

[TacoTerrorist]

Can you study orca and chimpanzee and honestly say they don't have free thought and relationships, and imagination?

I know little about these animals, but I can say that they at least do not have imagination. Imagination allows a person to think about something that they have not seen or a concept that does not exist. Any 'relationships' a chimpanzee might have do not involve love but are merely a (perhaps evolutionary) tool to improve survivability.

On the whoe, an animal does not have free thought. An animal is driven by basic instincts and everything an animal does is driven by instinct. You can teach a dog to come to you by gradually giving it food each time it obeys and eventually it will come when you don't have food: they come because they are of lesser intellect and cannot tell that you don't have food. They associate the command with food. Hunger is an instinct. Wheras for humans, the need for food is replaced by the need for money.

Or is this the magical handwavium you describe as the "soul"?

The soul isn't a swirly magical thing that revolves around in your chest. The soul is the difference between man and ape, between compassion and primality, kindness and selfishness.

 

[Kwayera]

I know little about these animals, but I can say that they at least do not have imagination. Imagination allows a person to think about something that they have not seen or a concept that does not exist. Any 'relationships' a chimpanzee might have do not involve love but are merely a (perhaps evolutionary) tool to improve survivability.

Then obviously you've never observed those orca spontaneously invent hunting techniques, or chimpanzees utilise a tool they've never seen before (Caledonian crows do this especially well).

And love? Love is chemical, nothing more. Animals mourn for their dead mates just as we do; orca captured from the wild mourn for their family so much that many commit suicide. Yes, suicide, that abstract concept of taking one's own life - is that driven by instinct?

On the whoe, an animal does not have free thought. An animal is driven by basic instincts and everything an animal does is driven by instinct. You can teach a dog to come to you by gradually giving it food each time it obeys and eventually it will come when you don't have food: they come because they are of lesser intellect and cannot tell that you don't have food. They associate the command with food. Hunger is an instinct. Wheras for humans, the need for food is replaced by the need for money.

Apparently you've never thought much about being human. Hunger is an instinct in us as well, and we can be similarly (if more subtely) trained with the same pavlovian responses (want to chime in here on the philosophy, KFunk?). Money is merely an advanced form of what bowerbirds do. Almost everything we do is driven by or evolved from instinct.

The soul isn't a swirly magical thing that revolves around in your chest. The soul is the difference between man and ape, between compassion and primality, kindness and selfishness.

The line that you ascribe between man and other apes is not as solid as you think it is: animals show compassion, and kindness, just as we show primality and selfishness.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

The soul isn't a swirly magical thing that revolves around in your chest. The soul is the difference between man and ape, between compassion and primality, kindness and selfishness.

For sure it is. Unfortunately, it just doesn't exist

 

[Iron]

.

I agree with you. Our intelligence evolved..better and that's the difference, sure. The problem I have is that such theories, when expressed so crudely, become a justification for a much lower standard of behaviour - animal behaviour; following our instinct for what gives us, personally, most happiness - rather than a greater good, like a society which holds all life to be sacred.

 

[Kwayera]

It shouldn't be a justification. It's an explanation.

 

[Kwayera]

Also, TacoTerrorist, upon rereading your post I conclude that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Dogs don't come because it becomes 'instinct' to expect a reward when you call their name. Tidbitting is a training tool to associate the sounds that are their names with good things as opposed to bad - just like we associate bad things to words like "rape" and good things to words like "chocolate". The dogs come when called because you MIGHT have a food reward, not because they dully and instinctually expect you to.