Abortion: is it murder?

A fetus is a living person.  At 6 weeks it has a beating heart.  How is that not alive?!

Originally posted by JanusRook Let me tackle first my definition of life. You disagree with it by saying that any cell that shares human genome code should be considered human. I never said that Hugo, in fact because of that very arguement I was very leery about saying that. What I did say was.... I define it as an organism that shares the genetic structure of human beings. I believe that means that a zygote, embryo, fetus are human. Therefore sperm cells, egg cells, hair cells, skin cells are not human, but when a sperm cell and an egg cell combines into a zygote then it is human, its been a while since microbiology, but I believe humanity would occur somewhere around (meiosis?). I think that you are specifically talking about the conceptus cell. Only those cells that can eventually result in the creation of a full human are human. Yes exactly. Part of the food that I eat will eventually become part of my body. In this manner, it is becoming human. However, I don�t grant humanity to the hotdog that I have on my hand. The hotdog cells will eventually become part of a human organism, but they are not by themselves human. Technically the food you eat will become part of your body, but it will not become a living cell, at least not directly, it will be reprocessed and repackaged until its most basic compounds are refitted into your human body. However hot dogs do not become human the same way zygotes become human, if you put a hot dog into a womb it will not grow into a human nor a hog nor another hot dog. However if you put a zygote in a womb it will grow into a human. We can all identify humans on the street. We can all identify human babies. We can even identify human fetuses after a certain point. But most of us cannot identify a human embryo. If we can identify it is because we either studied enough biology to tell or because someone told us so. Looks are not only what defines humans, are people with horrific deformities not human, it is our genetic framework that determines humanity, in the sense that a cell on its own, given the proper environment, can grow into a human being.

As long as we can identify a deformed person as a human, they are human. Let me give you an example. Let's say that you are born with no legs and arms. I can still see you and know immediately that you are a human. Let's say that your mouth is fused, you noly have one eye, and you eat through a hole in your throat. You are still human. Anyone on the street can tell the difference between a deformed human being and a dog.

Most people will not be able to tell the difference between a human and a dog cell.

By stating that our genetic material defines humanity is you are going back to the incoherent claim that a lump of hair is human. By making the exception that only cells that can grow into humans are human, you are implying that we, adult humans, are not human beings; we are not a cell that will become a human.

In fact, your definition is self-referential. Play with it and you will find a paradox.



If a woman gives birth to a lump of flesh, let's say, a hand, the hand is not a human being.

We cannot interact with a cell the same way that we interact with a human. We can interact with children, we can interact with babies, we can interact with fetuses, but we cannot interact with a lump of cells.

So you prescribe to a belief in "You must be this tall to be human"?

We can most definetally interact with a lump of cells, if we could not than abortion could not be possible. Do you define it as being able to hold a human, well you most definetally can hold cells, even though you can't see or feel them, or does their small stature make them not human?

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You know what I am talking about. We can play with babies. We can play with fetuses. When we talk, they begin to kick. You can play music and they react.

A lump of cells do not react this way.

And the fact that we can extract the lump of cells doesn't qualify for interaction. They routinely take out cancer cells, and none of those lumps of cells react. They are multiplying, yet they will not react to us playing Bach.

Also, what defines us as humans is our ability to think and communicate our thinking to other beings. If we do not have a brain, we cannot think, thus we are not human. A cluster of cells lacks a brain, lacks thinking, so it lacks humanity too.

So people who are braindead are not human, people with severe autism are not human. Or do you mean just without a brain. Many different organisms at the single-cell level show learning and conditioned responses to stimuli. Is this not thinking, do you not believe that chemicals released by the zygote do not interact with the mother that it is dwelling inside. Now of course it cannot read poetry or ride a bike or express love just yet, but neither can a newborn, the zygote is just limited in its physical nature, in a short period of time it will develop its first specialized nerve cells. That's all our brains are, stem cells that have become specialized to store information and process stimuli.

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Yes, people without a brain are not human. People who are brain dead are also not human anymore. The essential characteristic of a human being is lost, and that is the end of your life.

When a person becomes brain dead, he becomes a self-sustaining lump of cells.

And conditioned-response is not thinking. We built machines that react in conditioned-response manners. In fact, we are communicating via one kind of them.

A cell may go away from the light. But this is not thinking. This is just a bio-chemical reaction, more complex but similar to pouring vinegar in bicarbonate sodium.

Also, you are contradicting yourself when you say that a just born baby doesn't think. They can think, althoug in very primitive ways.

Autistic people can think; they can't communicate with other people.

Retarded people can think, only at a very low level.

A lump of cells that lacks a brain-like structure cannot think. And you will have a hard time explaining how a lump with four non-specialized cells is thinking.

Besides, by your definition, we should grant human intelligence to many other beings, like chimp, dogs, rats, flies, fungi, and even plants. They all react to stimuli.

Again, would you rescue a living human being or a petri dish if there were a fire in a fertility clinic and you could only rescue one?

Of course I would rescue the living human, but that does not make the embryo any less human. [/quote]

Why did you chose the human being? What made you decide to go for her instead of the petri dish?

But let me change the scenario a bit. If it is between a petri dish and a baby, which one would you go for?

To illustrate this I'll give you a scenario/P] If a building was on fire and there was a newborn baby and an 16 year old girl and you could only save one, which would you save? Is the other one any less human?

I would go for the newborn, because the 16-year-old already had a chance to live, and the baby hasn't. But I could easily go for the 16-year-old, because the chances that she will survive longer are better than the baby. But this is chosing between two identifiable human beings. I actually have to think about which life I would go for.

I doubt that any rational person would even begin to compare the petri dish and the human being.

But let me change the scenario a bit. If it is between a petri dish and a newborn baby, which one would you go for?

Also, Hugo I too respect and like you, even though we have a difference of opinion. I do not believe I can, nor do I wish to change your mind, only clarify my own beliefs on the issue. Which you as always are helping me do.

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I do want to change your mind No, not really

I like discussing with you because you bring up good argument, and you understand that ideas are not the same than the person telling them. Even though we disagree with issue, we agree on the premise that there is no intellectual growth without testing our ideas with worthy opponents.

By making the exception that only cells that can grow into humans are human, you are implying that we, adult humans, are not human beings; we are not a cell that will become a human.

Man I hate nitpicking.

Ok how about this definition, a human being is a living organism, with the genetic code of a human being that has the ability to grow given the proper conditions into a thinking individual, that has the potential to create more human beings. -Don't know how to squeeze braindead babies and sterile people into the mix, although it does get rid of hair and fingernails being people.

Also, you are contradicting yourself when you say that a just born baby doesn't think.

Hugo I never said that, I said about a human baby:  "...it cannot read poetry or ride a bike or express love just yet..."

.....Hugo your always doing this, treating me like one of those psycho internet nuts that just spouts off the whole I told you so arguement.

But let me change the scenario a bit. If it is between a petri dish and a newborn baby, which one would you go for?

Newborn, no petri dish, no wait newborn......

Seriously the petri dish loses every time, not because its not human, but because it's less likely to survive.

But wait, I too must end with this repetitive scruples question.

What if you and your wife have tried unsuccessfully to have a child, and finally doctors were able to get one of your embryos fertilized.

In doing this it renders you sterile, so this is your only shot to have a child.

And then the fertility clinic is going up in flames and you can either save the petri dish or the 78 year old receptionist lying unconcious on the floor.

Who do you save?

And if you cant interact with someone because you are deaf, blind, and mute does that mean nobody is human?

I only can see it as acceptible if it is the result of incest or rape I consider that as euthenasia. Otherwise it is murder, plain and simple afterall, it is illegal to kill unwanted children. 

If you are going to be stupid about having sex then you must face the consequences.

i am not sure but i think its ok to do it in the first or the second week of the pregnancy.

more than do it is considered a murder.

iam not very sure but i heared something like that on TV.

 I'll never change my mind on this topic, abortion is never right, the fact this has become so common even accepted by many is sickening at best. Purely on moral grounds for me, nothing religious.

 Ive spoken to people who are for abortion if the mother wants it for whatever reason but fiercely oppose euthanasia, so its okay to destroy a life for possibly the most trivial reasons, but not to end the life of somebody who is in agony and begging for death to come. Thats always confused me.

 You can be sent to prison for years for assisting your partner or whoever to commit suicide, but its nice and legal for a woman to get an abortion and end a life just like that.

 I feel like exploding when I hear people who got an abortion because it'd of got in the way of their career or they just didnt want one at the moment and I think to myself if they didnt want a baby then why the hell did they have sex without using a condom or the pill?  

 Then you get the ridiculous excuse of "I was drunk" have people no obligation to be responsible anymore? Is it the unborn childs fault that somebody has been irresponsible sexually?

 Babies are being treated like objects or possessions that can be discarded at will, these are lives being legally destroyed, I really dont care what the scientific definition of life is, X number of weeks or whatever. I'm so disgusted by abortion and how it has become accepted by so many people, I feel like these people have lost their minds.

The status of person is defined by social standards. In some societies slaves or women or children under certain age are/were not considered fully persons with all the rights. In others outsiders or mebers of some castes are treated the same way. It is above anything a social belief.

Our society only gives the status of person to the born baby, in some cases one day after the birth only. The status of the proto-person or foetus is determined by diferent laws and under these laws it is not considered a murder in any case. The most it would be an unlawful abortion but never a murder, as a foetus is not a person.

Also when you kill in the battlefield or equivalent circumstances it is not considered murder either, even if, in most cases the victim is legally considered to be a person with full rights. When you admit that killing in the battlefield or that killing via economic deprivation is a murder, I will be willing to discuss this marginal case.

Anyhow, my personal ethic approach is that, while life is holy and abortion is never the best solution (but it can be the lesser evil) the rights of other people, specially women have to be considered prioritarily to those of a criature that is not even a fully formed person, just an undeveloped animal with a human genetic code (human potential).

So killing a human potential is not the same as killing a wholly developed human, that is a person with at least 10 months of age, where the baby developes the cognitive attributes that will make him/her human.

If we would live in a pink world where women would be entitled to full social protection only for being mothers, I am sure that much less abortions would happen. Yet it is an unalienable right of women and it must be protected, in order to protect women and their full power of decission on their own lifes.

The topic of abortion is a very deep topic with a lot of ethical views.

Where there can be certain circumstances as to why a female would get an abortion, it seems to be that we are on the subject of "Is it murder" and "Is it considered human".

In my personal opinion it is murder and it would seem to me that we are asking ourselves the wrong question in "Is it really a human?" whereas we should rather be asking "Is it going to retain life?". the simple answer to this question is yes.

No matter what stage the "human", "embryo", "seed", or whatever you would like to call it is in, the simple fact of the matter is it will develop into a human life. Now we cant be certain of this because we can not forsee the future in that it may have birth problems but the question then becomes "In the action of abortion is that halting the human or would-be human from living?" and the answer is yes. that is by definition murder.

We are emphasizing to much on "Is it a human" rather than focusing on the fact that no matter what stage its in it will be a human life and thus by aborting it you are stoping it from living, thus "killing" or "murdering" it.

 

Though it is a private matter of the couple, I think abortion is murder. It should not be considered like a contraceptive method. I believe the life of those unborn babies should be taken more into account.

In cases where the mother's life is at stake or when there is serious malfunction and deficiency in the embryo (medical), abortion should be allowed.

 

Edited by Infidel