Wow...anyone think this will lead to some heated debate? ;)  Just a reminder to everyone, let's do our best to keep this civil!

from another thread:


At the moment of conception, it's a single cell.  A human cell, but not a human being.  I'll recover my position on this in a moment.  But first, in regards to your idea about asking people if they wish they were aborted:  ask anyone you know if they wish that their parents had not had sex.  I think you'll get just the same answer.  Is that a reason to ban people from not having sex?  Should abstinence be illegal?

In general, the problem with the abortion debate is that both sides are treating it as a binary switch, rather than a continuous dial.  Both sides view it as a situation where there's something that's 100% not a human being one moment, and then instantly becomes 100% a human being in the blink of an eye.  The pro-choice side says that magical transformation happens at birth, and the pro-life says it happens at conception.  The trouble is that they're both wrong.  It's not an instantaneous change.  It's a slow, gradual change, that takes place over 9 months.  There's no moment when there's a huge, fundamental change.  Rather, there's a long period of very gradual changes that add up to a big change over nine months.  A fertilized egg is a lot more like an egg cell and a sperm cell next to each other than it is to a baby.  And a fetus five minutes before birth is much more like a baby five minutes after birth than it is to an egg cell.  By treating the problem like a binary switch, we create a false impression that there's a huge change in zero time, rather than a lot of small changes over a long time.

The pro-life side needs to realize that killing a tiny ball of cells isn't the same as killing a 8.5 month fetus.  And the pro-choice side needs to realize that killing an 8.5 month fetus isn't the same as killing an unfertilized egg.

I cannot believe no one has run on this platform before...


I assume everyone here assumes it is NOT alright to kill a living human being, from the point of birth afterwards (if you are okay with infanticide, well I suppose that's its own discussion, and one I wouldn't mind arguing either side for :P)  On the other hand, I'll assume everyone is comfortable with killing sperm and eggs (not so sure how I'd argue that one...)  So we know that at some point this 'mass of cells' (whether those cells are simply a sperm and an egg, or something else) becomes a real human being, and legalizing abortion requires setting a line somewhere in the middle.

Given this assumption, I'd have to say that, to avoid accidental infanticide, we need to be conservative with this.  If we set the line too early, the cost is we have some 'unwanted' children.  If we leave the line too late, the cost is we kill someone (specifically, millions). I'd tend to think that 'unwanted' children are the lesser evil, so we need to keep that line pretty early.  I personally would be extremely uncomfortable with anything later than the first trimester (since at this point the fetus has most major organs running).  Within that first trimester, it would be some debate as to where exactly the line should fall, but again, I'd push to keep it conservative.

I think there should be something a bit more dynamic than just a simple yes/no point.  The later the abortion, the worse it is, I would say.  Viewing it as a 100% okay at some point, and 100% not okay at some other point is where the problem arises.  Phrasing it as "at some point the mass of cells becomes a becomes a real human" makes it sound like a sudden, binary switch.  There's not "some point" is my argument.  There's a long period over which this happens.

It's not an issue of "if we make it legal too late, we'll kill real people," but rather, that later we make it, the more like people the things we will be killing are.  It's not an "are we killing people" question, but a "how much like people are the things that we're killing" question.  Just because something isn't 100% a person, we shouldn't assume there's nothing at all wrong with killing it.  But likewise, just because something is 10% a person, we shouldn't assume it's the same as killing a baby.

A one size fits all, yes-no time limit doesn't seem like the right treatment of the problem to me.  Different situations would lead to different results, I would think.  The reason why someone is having an abortion should, in my view, impact how late one should be allowed.  If someone was raped, that's a different issue than if they just were careless.  If birth control failed, that's a different situation than if no birth control was used at all.  And so on.

I don't know just how such a law should be set up.  But I think a lot more agreement could be found if both sides realized that looking for a binary switch isn't what actually happens.

I have heard the best arguement for this and see if we can work through it.  The arguement was raise by Scott Klusendorf and he uses the SLED acronym.

Basically there are only four basic differences between a newborn and the unborn.

The first is S - Size.

Does a fetus, an embryo, and an infant vary in size?  Yes

Does this mean that because I am 6' tall and weight in at 300 lbs make me more of a person then most women?

Okay, just to keep the conversation rolling:
no, size by itself isn't an important issue.

So can we agree that a fetus and an infant don't have any difference in rights because of their size?

Yes, I think people would agree that any difference in rights isn't due to the difference in size.

Next letter is L - Level of development.

An embryo is less developed then an infant, and infant then a toddler, a toddler then an adolescent, then an adult, but all, except embryo, are giving rights as humans, even though they are at different levels.  My daughter is has not developed sexually, does this mean she is less then a person?  Does someone who's brain is underdeveloped, ie retarded, less a person?  Is someone with an IQ of 200 more human then someone with an IQ of 150?  No, all are given rights as human beings.

Thus to say that an embryo is not human by not being developed enough is an irrelevant point.

I actually would tend to say a newborn is less of a human.  They're sort of like larvae, really.  They just 'are'.  They don't show most of the traits I associate with a human (as opposed to an animal).  I don't think they're self-aware.  (Remember what I said about being able to argue on behalf of infanticide?)

I've been amazed watching my two and four-year-old children, as they seem to gradually develop these important abilities.  One day my eldest will come up and say something I'd never heard him say before, which belies a serious understanding of the world he didn't have previously.  It's actually sort of freaky.

But does this make them less human?  Is a caterpiller less of a butterfly?  Not really a caterpiller is a potential butterfly like an embryo is a potential human.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:50, Tue 14 Oct 2008.

Question about this stage of the theory: Would you also consider the sperm and the egg part of this stage of development? Is the single cell zygote that is created when these two merge human, and not the moment before, when these cells were seperate? When does personhood come into this equation?

Is the sperm and egg potential humans in the same way an embryo is?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:36, Tue 14 Oct 2008.

Err.. Yes.  It doesn't have wings.  A butterfly is, by definition, a creature with wings.  There are other differences as well.

Ultimately, I don't think anyone has an issue with killing human cells.  The issue is with killing a sentient creature.  Killing an AI or an intelligent alien would be as bad as killing a human.  But if it's sentience alone we're trying to protect, I dont' see any problem with eating killing infants.

Have to agree with Vexen on this one.  You can always find something less developed.  Do we stop at eggs?  Sperm?  The cells that create sperm and eggs?

However, I would again emphasis the point that it's a continuum, not a step.  A fetus is less of a person than a baby, but that doesn't mean it's 100% less of a person.  A fertilized egg cell is less of a person than is a 5 month fetus, which is less than 8.5 month fetus, etc.  Again, it's the search for a magical switch from 0% to 100% that causes all the trouble.  In reality, it's a matter of degrees.

No an egg and sperm are not humans like an amputated arm is not a human.  Also they are not potential humans because, by themselves, they can't make a human being, just like your skin cells can't grow to make another you (without help that is :P).

The single celled zygote is a human because, it has independant DNA at this point that makes it or will make it a human being.

Also to katisara, we haven't gotten that far yet <smack of the hand>.  <tisk tisk> No moving ahead in the text! :)

A fertilized cell can't make a human by itself either.  Without it's mother, it will die.  Actually, the same could be said for infants as well.

As for independent DNA, would it be okay to kill off one half of a pair of twins, since it has the same DNA as someone else?  Would it be different if the fetus was a clone of the mother?  If there is a mutation in one of skin cells, does it suddenly become unethical to let it die?  The DNA argument doesn't really stand up to closer scrutiny.  DNA isn't really what causes you to value a fetus, so it shouldn't be what you use to argue for it's value.  Sperm and eggs each have a unique set of DNA, different from all other sperms and eggs.  But it's fine to kill them, despite their unique DNA.  Lastly, people were opposed to abortion for the same reasons the are now before they knew what DNA was.  DNA isn't what makes something a person or not a person, anymore than our chemical make up is, or the fact.

Right, but we are talking about physical development here not intelligence, that comes later.

Your points about DNA make sense, but that doesn't change that the cell and the resulting infant are, in the end, the same.  So this still make the zygote a human being.

I'm not sure I buy that. There are those with genetic disorders that make someone have more genes, or less genes than the usual amount of person has. Is someone with Turner syndrome, who has less than a normal genome set, now less a person because they don't have a complete genetic set? I would say, if your argument is based on genetics, that it would.



Only if the zygote meets certain conditions. The mere fact that a sperm and egg meet doesn't mean that it'll become a baby if left uninterrupted. By the same token, the egg and sperm becomes a person if it meets certain conditions as well.

However, I'm curious about this argument of yours and seeing it in it's entirety. If you feel comfortable enough, please do continue.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:19, Tue 14 Oct 2008.

You are correct in your point Ms. I mean Vexen, but they are still no less human.  DNA makes us who we are and if there are not enough errors in the code, the zygote will become a human.  If the cell dies then I was God's choice to remove let it die and not ours.

See we're splitting hairs and our definitions truely don't matter.  You are welcome to your own opinion on wether a zygote is a human or not, I believe it is, but that doesn't change the fact that an embryo most deffinently is a human being when you take into account level of development.

Next arguement is E - Environment

An embryo is inside it mother and and infant is not.  Does this make an embryo less of a person?

If you say yes, did getting out of your car this morning make you less human?  What about when you walked out of your house, did you become more human?  Obviously not.  Then ask yourself this, how does 8" down the birth canal change anything?

Gammaknight, I think you're still making the same mistake that causes all the problems in this debate.  You still believe something has to be 100% a human being, or 0% a human being, with nothing in between.  You don't realize that something that can be close to being a human being, but not completely one.

What you're actually doing here is increasing the definition of "human being" to include embryos, with the intent of turning around and saying "Ah ha! you agree it's a human being, so now you have to agree it's not okay to kill it, because we all agree it's not okay to kill human beings!"  You're trying to make use of the fact that we agree it's not okay to kill human beings, but what you need to keep in mind, is that some of the people who agree to that don't think embryos are human beings.  If you change the definition of human beings to include embryos, then you no longer have the universal agreement that it's not okay to kill human beings.  Similar to if you change the definition to include insects, then there'd be plenty of people who would think it's okay to kill human beings (of the insect variety).

As to environment, it's not just that the infant is inside the mother, but rather that it's still a part of her.  It's not yet an independent creature.  If you think being inside a car is the same as being physically and biologically attached to another creature, you drive a different sort of car than I've ever been in! ;)

At the end of the day, the things that make us think its wrong to kill people are the qualities people have.  Things such as (but not necessarily limited to) sentience, desires, comprehension, etc.  It's not the DNA.  If a robot had all the qualities of a human being, but was made from metal, it'd be wrong to kill it too.  Or if an animal had all these qualities, it'd be wrong to kill it (and I would say many animals do have some degree of them, but that's another topic).  It's not really the fact that it's 'human' that matters, but rather the fact that it has these qualities that we value.  An embryo does not have all of these qualities.  They really are something different.

What you seem to be doing is trying to equate a single cell with a full grown adult.  But they are very, very different qualitatively.  They are very much not the same thing.  They have very different properties.

Also, you seem to be ignoring the issue of degree.  You're saying "this small difference isn't something we find important, so this huge difference of the same type shouldn't matter either."  An anlogous argument would be something like "That building on the right is someone's home.  The one on the left is just the same, except they haven't finished painting one room.  We still consider them both homes even though there's a difference of completeness.  So completeness clearly isn't important.  These two nailed-together two-by-fours are just less complete than those buildings, but we've decided that completeness isn't important, so these two two-by-fours are a home too."

One more time: you're looking for a binary switch, when reality involves a continuous dial.  All things don't fit perfectly into 100% and 0% boxes.  Some things are somewhere in between.

True.  Yum.



None of which infants have either.

Oh yeah! I plug in baby!! :D


The main question though is: Are embryos human?  The arguement only points out the main differences/qualities.  True the embryo is dependant on its mother, but that arguement is covered in D, which I haven't gotten to yet.

Okay if you say that an infant is not a person because it is inside/attached to the mother, then what about siamese twins?  Is one of them less a human, because more of that twin is attached/subsummed by the other?

I hope that by this arguement everyone who reads it will say that killing the most helpless of our citizens is wrong, but what you do with the information is up to you.

Also once I am do with the arguement I will open the floor up for what you all think makes a human human.

May I move on?
This message was last edited by the player at 20:30, Wed 15 Oct 2008.

Not to be picky on technical terminology (back to what I was just saying with TitL and Falkus, *sigh*), but it is generally accepted embryo's are human.  They just may not be human beings.  A fingernail is human (it's human cells), it just not necessarily an individual human being.

This doesn't change the rest of your post, but it may influence posts later, so I thought bringing it up now would be worthwhile.

So far your SLED argument seems to be addressing the points of contention well.  S and E seem to be pretty accepted.  L is a point of contention though.  Is an embryo a human being, even while it is human?  Is a human corpse a human being?  What makes one a human being and the other not?  But go ahead, I'm curious about D.

I may actually have a point of contention with E. But, I am rather curious, so I can come back to it. Please, continue.

The last letter, D, stands for degree of dependancy, which lawyers and politicians call "viability."

Those who argue that viability makes all the difference are wrong. If they were right, many born human beings would have to be considered "non-people." For example, everyone dependent on pacemakers, dialysis machines, insulin, respirators, or wheelchairs would forfeit their status as people. After all, each relies on external help to survive and none are viable in the true sense of the word. In fact, newborn children cannot honestly be considered viable either, because without the care and feeding they receive from their parents, they quickly die. If we refuse to strip diabetics and newborns of their personhood on viability grounds, by what logic can we do so to embryos? As one former abortionist points out, there is no moral difference between a unborn child 'plugged into' and dependent upon a mother and a kidney patient plugged into and "dependent" upon a dialysis machine. Degree of dependency has no bearing on a human being's status as a person.

The complete arguement can be found at http://www.brainshavings.com/2...he-personhood-1.html
This message was last edited by the player at 23:37, Wed 15 Oct 2008.

I'm not sure if this has been said, but the straight forward reply to this, is just you believe that is how reality works, it doesn't mean that is reality.

You must agree that this is an opinion, a belief about how you view reality, right?

We don't base laws on how you view them, right?

So the simple matter is, reality does not have to be this way, reality can have 100% and o% It's no less reality because it disagrees with your view.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:21, Thu 16 Oct 2008.