EPTright now we can afford to waste dna so we do.
IVF, embryos and abortion - Page 4
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
right now we can afford to waste dna so we do. | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On July 05 2013 06:55 mcc wrote: I am really interested how you approach cloning, as there is no need for conception there and yet human being comes to existence. I think it is extremely interesting to watch ethical systems based on tradition squirm as science offers them more and more problems they cannot consistently deal with. By cloning, do you mean twins? If so than that has nothing to do with it... What has science offered that makes the ethical position that life begins at conception untenable? If anything, science has supported that position. On July 05 2013 07:05 Diavlo wrote: You do realize that a very large majority of the embryos naturally conceived and implanted don't ever come to term right? Every day girls become pregnant and lose the embryo at an early stage without ever knowing about it. I don't have my gynecology books before me but i'm pretty sure around 95% of successful fecundation don't lead to a baby. IVG is not significantly less successful than the normal process in creating life. Every single human being that has ever lived or will ever live will/has die(d). You know that, right? So why then do we generally oppose human experimentation without consent, and sometimes oppose it even if consent was hypothetically given? They're gonna die anyway. How is it different if they died because of an "unfortunate accident" in a lab experiment or if they died from being stuck by lightning? There is a difference between something dying because it just didn't make it, and something being manipulated with great risk of death being a result of said manipulation. | ||
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Catocalipse
39 Posts
Firstly, is an abortion, or a lack of implantation, moreso, actually 'killing'? I would argue that it isn't (from a logical perspective). As it happens I'm a physician, so I know how pregnancy works in a fair amount of detail. Ultimately though, all a pregnancy is, is the embryo digesting the mother for nutrition. At times it even kills the mother if the embryo starts digesting the wrong thing (ectopic pregnancy). Things can go horribly wrong in other ways, too, but it's besides the point. Long story short, the embryo is eating the mother for nutrition. So basically, the mother is feeding the embryo, albeit in a somewhat complicated manner. Now, I could be wrong about this, but most people would agree humans don't have a right to food. So, even if an embryo is considered human, by the above logic it would still have no right to food. So in the in vitro case, I don't see why it would have any right to be implanted so it may eat some woman, and in the in vivo case, I don't see why it should have a right to eat someone else's property (their body, even), without their consent, even if it was already doing so. Sure, it might be the only food source which is viable for it, but to me it seems like this is just 'saving its life', and 'not saving someone's life' is not generally considered 'killing', so why should this be? Moreover, people have no qualms aborting ectopic pregnancies, or embyos growing out of control (considered a form of cancer) despite the fact that they are both 'human' according to the embryo = human definition. Ectopic pregnancies can actually even go to completion, but there are still no qualms about their removal. If abortions can't be done because to kill an embryo is to kill a human, we should stop doing these procedures, too, right? Secondly, an embryo is not a human, it is the precursor of a human, something capable of developing into a human. In fact, up until to the 8-cell stage, I believe, the cells are completely undifferentiated, so it is theoretically possible to take one of these undifferentiated cells and make it develop into an embryo. Experiments have been done, on animals, not humans, of course, to confirm this. Basically losing one of these undifferentiated cells causes no developmental malformation because they are undifferentiated. But hey, I'd be killing a human right there, by removing that one undifferentiated cell (because it is capable of developing into a human, or just because, even), right? Or I might even be killing it by not removing it, since if I did and implanted it again, we'd get two embryos = two humans, right? In fact, theoretically, you could get as many humans as you wanted like this, even if obviously nobody has an inclination to develop the technology to do so. To my eyes, embryos are human only in the sense that they are 'human embryos'. Oocytes are human precursors, too, but nobody is calling them human. You might argue there is even no line to be drawn between human, and not human, since it's just one cell more, or one cell less. You could make an arbitrary line up, such as when a specific physiological process starts occuring, e.g. heart tubes start beating, but this seems silly to me. Thirdly, why the heck does it matter at all whether an embryo is a human, or whether having an abortion is killing? Sure it might matter to you if you're religious, or you believe in some sort of code that states you shouldn't kill humans (nor let others kill humans), but this is by no means descriptive of all people. In fact, we kill people all the time for various reasons, and in a very strict sense of the word 'kill', too. Why do we do it? For our benefit, ultimately, whether this be a country going to war, a policeman killing an armed criminal, or simply someone defending themselves, it is done because it benefits some group of people. Whether this is a societal, organizational, or individual decision matters not. At the end of the day, it's because it benefits 'us', whoever us is. Here's my argument: 'Us' can be every non-embryo stage human in this case. Occasionally aborting pregnancies is undoubtedly beneficial to us, and so long as you're one of those people who doesn't abide to some odd religious/moral clause, I don't see why you would want to oppose something that is clearly beneficial for us. I suppose you could argue it's not necessarily beneficial, but that's a whole different debate altogether and I don't see a strong case for it anyhow. | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On July 05 2013 22:10 Catocalipse wrote: Now, I could be wrong about this, but most people would agree humans don't have a right to food. So, even if an embryo is considered human, by the above logic it would still have no right to food. Children and infants most certainly do have a right to food, at least in the USA. More accurately (and relevantly), the parent/guardians have a legal responsibility to provide food. Neglect is frequently defined as the failure of a parent or other person with responsibility for the child to provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision to the degree that the child’s health, safety, and well-being are threatened with harm. https://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.pdfMoreover, people have no qualms aborting ectopic pregnancies, or embyos growing out of control (considered a form of cancer) despite the fact that they are both 'human' according to the embryo = human definition. Ectopic pregnancies can actually even go to completion, but there are still no qualms about their removal. If abortions can't be done because to kill an embryo is to kill a human, we should stop doing these procedures, too, right? I have a moral problem with the abortion of an eptopic pregnancy, but not a legal problem. It should be legal (only because we should not require someone to risk their life for another), but morally, that is a different story entirely. Secondly, an embryo is not a human, it is the precursor of a human, something capable of developing into a human. In fact, up until to the 8-cell stage, I believe, the cells are completely undifferentiated, so it is theoretically possible to take one of these undifferentiated cells and make it develop into an embryo. Experiments have been done, on animals, not humans, of course, to confirm this. Basically losing one of these undifferentiated cells causes no developmental malformation because they are undifferentiated. By any reasonable biological definition, the embryo is a living organism with human DNA. Hence, it is a living human being. The nature of it's cells or any manipulation that could occur using them is entirely irrelevant. | ||
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Catocalipse
39 Posts
On July 05 2013 22:24 sc2superfan101 wrote: Children and infants most certainly do have a right to food, at least in the USA. More accurately (and relevantly), the parent/guardians have a legal responsibility to provide food. https://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/statutes/define.pdf I have a moral problem with the abortion of an eptopic pregnancy, but not a legal problem. It should be legal (only because we should not require someone to risk their life for another), but morally, that is a different story entirely. By any reasonable biological definition, the embryo is a living organism with human DNA. Hence, it is a living human being. The nature of it's cells or any manipulation that could occur using them is entirely irrelevant. Sure, but embryos are not 'children', even if you consider them human. If you want them to gain the rights of 'children', you need to make a case for why they should be considered such. That piece you cited is certainly not referring to embryos, anyhow. Besides, whether it's the law or not, is irrelevant to the debate, since people make the laws. This is a discussion about what the laws should be, not what they are. And what the hell, just about any human cell is a "living organism with human DNA", but that doesn't make it a human. Can I now not kill my own cells, because they're also human by your definition? Also, living organisms with "human DNA" are actually capable of developing into stuff which is not human. This happens all the time and is usually spontaneously aborted, and when it's not it often kills the mother or is born dead/deformed. Somatic cells are capable of developing into a human with some screwing around, anyway. In fact there's tissue replacement technology being researched on that basis. Also, there is always risk of death associated with any pregnancy, even if modern medicine makes this rather small, but nonetheless, by your logic, abortions should be thus legal since pregnancies always endanger the mother. | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On July 05 2013 23:04 Catocalipse wrote: Sure, but embryos are not 'children', even if you consider them human. If you want them to gain the rights of 'children', you need to make a case for why they should be considered such. That piece you cited is certainly not referring to embryos, anyhow. Besides, whether it's the law or not, is irrelevant to the debate, since people make the laws. This is a discussion about what the laws should be, not what they are. I think you misunderstand me. I'll requote what I was responding too: Now, I could be wrong about this, but most people would agree humans don't have a right to food. So, even if an embryo is considered human, by the above logic it would still have no right to food. This part was factually incorrect. In this part you already assumed for the sake of the argument that they were human. Human's below the age of majority are "children" (or can be called such). Besides, I didn't say that that embryos have the right to food (though I think they do). I simply said: "Hey, you're wrong. Our laws directly say that children (who are humans) do have a right to food and that adults have a responsibility to provide it." And what the hell, just about any human cell is a "living organism with human DNA", but that doesn't make it a human. I don't think you know what "organism" mean, Dr. Catocalipse. Also, there is always risk of death associated with any pregnancy, even if modern medicine makes this rather small, but nonetheless, by your logic, abortions should be thus legal since pregnancies always endanger the mother. I only support if there is an actual direct threat to the mother's life. | ||
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Mefano
Sweden190 Posts
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Meatex
Australia285 Posts
I don't think you know what "organism" mean, Dr. Catocalipse. @sc2superfan101 You are entitled to you opinion and to argue the merits of your opinion but please don't start making snide/sarcastic or otherwise ill mannered remarks Comments like the above lead only to a derailed discussion with people making personal attacks If you disagree on his idea of what organism means then elaborate as to how rather than remarks like the above I don't agree with your beliefs or ideas but until that point you had conducted yourself with a modicum of decency even if you didn't give due respect to the opinions of others | ||
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RockIronrod
Australia1369 Posts
On July 05 2013 23:51 Meatex wrote: @sc2superfan101 You are entitled to you opinion and to argue the merits of your opinion but please don't start making snide/sarcastic or otherwise ill mannered remarks Comments like the above lead only to a derailed discussion with people making personal attacks If you disagree on his idea of what organism means then elaborate as to how rather than remarks like the above I don't agree with your beliefs or ideas but until that point you had conducted yourself with a modicum of decency even if you didn't give due respect to the opinions of others I don't see what the problem with that statement was. You're incredibly over-sensitive if you really take issue to that. | ||
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Meatex
Australia285 Posts
On July 05 2013 23:53 RockIronrod wrote: I don't see what the problem with that statement was. You're incredibly over-sensitive if you really take issue to that. You're right its not that big a deal in of itself But take a moment to consider the thread topic and how such topics usually end up. If Catocalipse is an actual doctor though and I missed that then my mistake ^^; | ||
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Catocalipse
39 Posts
On July 05 2013 23:15 sc2superfan101 wrote: I think you misunderstand me. I'll requote what I was responding too: This part was factually incorrect. In this part you already assumed for the sake of the argument that they were human. Human's below the age of majority are "children" (or can be called such). Besides, I didn't say that that embryos have the right to food (though I think they do). I simply said: "Hey, you're wrong. Our laws directly say that children (who are humans) do have a right to food and that adults have a responsibility to provide it." I don't think you know what "organism" mean, Dr. Catocalipse. I only support if there is an actual direct threat to the mother's life. An organism is just an organized collection of stuff that has the characteristics of living beings, really. A bacterium (one cell) is an organism. The same is true for a single human cell. Just becuase it's not a human, doesn't mean it's not an 'organism'. But this is all just semantics anyway, and is irrelevant. Ugh, "humans below the age of majority are children", eh? I suppose that's one definition. I don't know whether it's the legal one or not, nor does it matter (beyond arguing technicalities), as I was clearly not using that definition of 'children' in my argument. Anyway, I see your point, though as I said, what the law may or may not state, is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Pregnancy leading to death seems pretty direct to me, but I suspect you are implying that it needs to be likely enough for it to be a "direct threat". This is fairly arbitrary since I don't see why it matters whether one mother dies as a result of not being allowed to abort or 5000. From the perspective of "should not be forced to endanger themselves for others", anyhow. I don't know why you feel so stubbornly inclined to include a cell/bunch of cells into the definition of 'human'. Oocytes, zygotes, embryos, stem cells, or even just random somatic cells, with the right type of help can all become humans, but they are not humans, they only have the potential to become one. They can become any number of things, humans being just one of them. They are not humans, they can become humans if we want them to, and perform the necessary procedures (and nothing goes wrong). It's like wood, you can make wood into a wardrobe, but it needn't become one, it can become a door, too! The same is true for an embryo, it can become a human (multiple humans, even!), somebody's replacement bone marrow, a different human (replace/alter DNA), a tumor, or even dead stuff. Anyhow, I doubt anything I can say will change your mind about an embryo being a human (though I simply can't understand what resemblance you see beyond it having "human DNA"). I'm guessing your objection is a religious one, but if it's a moral one rather than religious one, then I imagine your stance is that abortion is detrimental to society as a whole. If that's not it then I just don't understand where you're coming from. | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On July 06 2013 00:01 Catocalipse wrote: An organism is just an organized collection of stuff that has the characteristics of living beings, really. A bacterium (one cell) is an organism. The same is true for a single human cell. Just becuase it's not a human, doesn't mean it's not an 'organism'. But this is all just semantics anyway, and is irrelevant. Ugh, "humans below the age of majority are children", eh? I suppose that's one definition. I don't know whether it's the legal one or not, nor does it matter (beyond arguing technicalities), as I was clearly not using that definition of 'children' in my argument. Anyway, I see your point, though as I said, what the law may or may not state, is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Well, it does have relevance as it kind of invalidates your overall point about the embryo feeding on the mother. If we establish that the embryo is a human then there is both legal and moral precedent to the argument that feeding it is the responsibility of it's parents and/or guardians. Pregnancy leading to death seems pretty direct to me, but I suspect you are implying that it needs to be likely enough for it to be a "direct threat". This is fairly arbitrary since I don't see why it matters whether one mother dies as a result of not being allowed to abort or 5000. From the perspective of "should not be forced to endanger themselves for others", anyhow. Well, look at it this way. It is illegal for a psychologist to not report a person who has threatened to hurt another person. If we argued that the psychologist could potentially trip and break his/her neck while heading to the phone to make said report, and thus was alleviated of any responsibility... that would be ridiculous. The endangerment that occurs there is so slight that it does not qualify as alleviating the responsibility. However, if the person who threatened to hurt someone was currently pointing a loaded gun at the psychologist, we could say that the psychologist now had a reasonable argument for not picking up the phone and reporting the threat. The relative level of endangerment had reached a point where the situation has now changed and he/she is alleviated of said responsibility. Likewise, if the mother is currently in great danger from the continuation of the pregnancy, then we can say that she is now alleviated of her responsibility to continue the pregnancy. If not, then we can say that she is not alleviated of the responsibility as the endangerment is currently too low to be considered valid excuse. I don't know why you feel so stubbornly inclined to include a cell/bunch of cells into the definition of 'human'. Why are you so stubbornly inclined to not exclude it? Because the assumption among most people is that humans have inalienable rights that should be protected. If the fetus/embryo/zygote is indisputably a human, then it becomes a much harder position to take that it should not be granted equal rights as all other humans. Anyhow, I doubt anything I can say will change your mind about an embryo being a human (though I simply can't understand what resemblance you see beyond it having "human DNA"). I already told you: it is a living human organism. The only difference between it and you is that it is at a different stage of development. You might as well say that a toddler is not a human because it is not fully grown yet. | ||
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Stratos_speAr
United States6959 Posts
At the end of the day, these clusters of cells have no level of consciousness or self-awareness and have zero chance to survive without extreme levels of outside intervention by other humans. Things like IVF and stem cell research can drastically improve the lives of people that are actually living. It blows my mind that people against these things value the lives of hypothetical individuals more than the lives of people that actually exist and are trying to function in society right now. | ||
KwarK
United States42967 Posts
On July 06 2013 00:21 sc2superfan101 wrote: Well, it does have relevance as it kind of invalidates your overall point about the embryo feeding on the mother. If we establish that the embryo is a human then there is both legal and moral precedent to the argument that feeding it is the responsibility of it's parents and/or guardians. Well, look at it this way. It is illegal for a psychologist to not report a person who has threatened to hurt another person. If we argued that the psychologist could potentially trip and break his/her neck while heading to the phone to make said report, and thus was alleviated of any responsibility... that would be ridiculous. The endangerment that occurs there is so slight that it does not qualify as alleviating the responsibility. However, if the person who threatened to hurt someone was currently pointing a loaded gun at the psychologist, we could say that the psychologist now had a reasonable argument for not picking up the phone and reporting the threat. The relative level of endangerment had reached a point where the situation has now changed and he/she is alleviated of said responsibility. Likewise, if the mother is currently in great danger from the continuation of the pregnancy, then we can say that she is now alleviated of her responsibility to continue the pregnancy. If not, then we can say that she is not alleviated of the responsibility as the endangerment is currently too low to be considered valid excuse. Why are you so stubbornly inclined to not exclude it? Because the assumption among most people is that humans have inalienable rights that should be protected. If the fetus/embryo/zygote is indisputably a human, then it becomes a much harder position to take that it should not be granted equal rights as all other humans. I already told you: it is a living human organism. The only difference between it and you is that it is at a different stage of development. You might as well say that a toddler is not a human because it is not fully grown yet. This problem only presents if you argue that rights are derived from containing DNA. Certainly adults have human DNA and have rights, likewise children, despite being immature versions of adults, have human DNA and have rights. But it does not necessarily follow that embryos have rights, despite being immature versions of adults, have rights simply because they have human DNA. If one were to argue that a degree of independent existence is needed too then a child would qualify but an embryo would not. | ||
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oBlade
United States5670 Posts
On July 05 2013 08:56 KwarK wrote: Except if you're going by unique DNA then twins don't count and if you're going by left in a womb then IVF doesn't count. Genetic mechanisms are actually so robust that, according to a 2012 study, monozygotic twins can have hundreds of genetic differences acquired in the fetal stage. The first division of the egg into two cells isn't necessarily when it becomes two embryos. So there doesn't have to be a point where there's 2 indistinguishable embryos. Also, even given the same genetic material, there are differences between twins in what genes are activated. It depends what you count as a genetic difference, the mere presence of molecules or whether they're actually used to code for proteins the body uses. (Although for argument's sake you can engineer an arbitrary cell which is identical to another up to the physical limits of quantum entanglement. That is, for any egg you can in principle copy and play three-card Monte with it against the universe.) Maybe it would be also fruitful to think about higher-order monozygotic embryos like triplets. Not that I'm agreeing with MadProbe. I want to figure out the logic here. Uniqueness is weird to be involved here. Sexual reproduction means millions of ways of combining things which themselves are composed of millions of combinations of base pairs. And not only do they mutate into different combinations, they mutate into different numbers of combinations so you can't even count how many possible chromosomes there are because don't have a fixed length. They can change even change in length. A fertile man can personally make half a trillion sperm in his life. Uniqueness is not special under these conditions. I hope to understand and hopefully undermine people's tendency to flock to it. On July 05 2013 08:11 KwarK wrote: Why would the mother have deciding control over what happens to the embryo if it's not inside her and it's composed of genetic material from both mother and father? It doesn't belong to her any more than it does to him. They both contributed one cell. It's again not that cut and dry depending on what level you agree to look at it... at. They each gave one cell. But one cell is as much larger than the other as SKT T1's budget was larger than MBCGame HERO's. In terms of the number of chromosomes, the contribution looks even. However, chromosomes aren't all equal; for instance, if the man is contributes a Y sex chromosome instead of an X, that's about a third of the size of the girl's X chromosome in terms of base pairs. (Much smaller, as far as we can tell, in terms of actual genes). Also, the man may have actually given up quite a few mL of cell syrup for the IVF procedure, which by mass is more than the eggs, even though the material ends up not being used. But I agree that even if you had that information about who contributed, there's no way to mold it into an algorithm for deciding which party gets power of attorney or something. Genes in a cell aren't shares in a company. Because the genetic material ultimately doesn't have to come from two donors; you can engineer it to be whatever. On July 05 2013 07:53 AnachronisticAnarchy wrote: Not forever. Nobody wants to adopt a test tube, so if the parents don't want it, the cells get defrosted. Don't people buy choice embryos or is that just something I saw on Law and Order? On July 05 2013 07:16 Sermokala wrote: saying "life begins at conception" isn't some specifically created time frame thats the problem you seem to be having. Its not about if they have souls at some point or another its that their life begins at conception. On July 05 2013 08:44 MadProbe wrote: the biological difference between a single embryo cell and a sperm/egg cell is pretty big I will get to this line in a second. and occurs at a specific point in time, when the sperm penetrates the egg. That is not a specific point in time. It's not a black box where one instant it's a sperm and an egg and the next instant it's a fertilized egg. The fact that one sperm gets inside the egg doesn't mean you will have a viable egg. The egg could fail to close and suffer polyspermy. It takes time for the DNA from both cells' nuclei to combine and after that happens it still might not be a viable egg. the main difference is that an embryo has a full set of unique human DNA, whereas the the sperm and eggs each have 1/2 a set of DNA That is not particularly striking from a biological standpoint. We are talking about cells that are not only all eukaryotic, they're all gametes or zygotes and they're all from the same species. The difference between gametes and zygotes is ploidy (sounds more like Lewis Carroll than science). The difference is one set of copies of genetic material. Sperm and eggs have one copy. A fertilized egg has two copies. For comparison, the difference between the masses of a human sperm and a human egg is that the egg is approximately 160,000 times larger than the sperm. Another way, the difference between an unfertilized egg and a fertilized egg's mass is 0.000625%. This is about the largest gap in cell size that exists in the human body. The addition of that 0.000625% of mass is on the order of 10^-14 kilograms. The sperm's DNA is on the order of 10^-15 kilograms. It is not convincing to me to draw a line where the difference is 10^-15 kilograms when the situation looks like a typical Sorites paradox. What about a parthenogenic embryo or diploid egg? With no contribution from a sperm? At any rate. Red blood cells have no nucleus, and therefore no genomic DNA. And they total about a quarter of all human cells (Unless you count bacteria, which are about 90% of the cells on a person, in which case red blood cells are around 2.5% of all cells on a person.) But they're indispensable to your survival. What's the insight gained by counting chromosomes? -- and an embryo, left in the womb, would grow to become a person, Not necessarily, but it would try to eventually grow, with help from the placenta, into a fetus with the potential of becoming a sentient human. whereas lone sperm and eggs just die. That's all any life does is die. It's what sperm and eggs do if you dump them outside of the body. It's what sperm and eggs do if you leave them inside a doomed, mortal body. It's what an embryo does if you defrost it. It's what an embryo does if a woman carries it to term and it grows up and witnesses as many decades as it has fingers. The ability for something to die is characteristic of its being alive, and it's no surprise that sperm and eggs are alive given that to date nobody has overturned the cell theory of life. The idea that life in some way begins when a sperm fertilizes an egg is inconsistent with the fact that the sperm was alive, the egg was alive, and unless you were lost somewhere very gross in the Deep Web, the people who the sperm and egg came from were also alive. The least surprising thing in the world should be that a fertilized egg is alive. Of course it's alive, it's a cell. | ||
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sc2superfan101
3583 Posts
On July 06 2013 00:31 KwarK wrote: This problem only presents if you argue that rights are derived from containing DNA. Certainly adults have human DNA and have rights, likewise children, despite being immature versions of adults, have human DNA and have rights. But it does not necessarily follow that embryos have rights, despite being immature versions of adults, have rights simply because they have human DNA. If one were to argue that a degree of independent existence is needed too then a child would qualify but an embryo would not. What level of "independence" is required for a human being to have rights, and in what way is that not completely arbitrary? | ||
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Catocalipse
39 Posts
On July 06 2013 00:21 sc2superfan101 wrote: Well, it does have relevance as it kind of invalidates your overall point about the embryo feeding on the mother. If we establish that the embryo is a human then there is both legal and moral precedent to the argument that feeding it is the responsibility of it's parents and/or guardians. Well, look at it this way. It is illegal for a psychologist to not report a person who has threatened to hurt another person. If we argued that the psychologist could potentially trip and break his/her neck while heading to the phone to make said report, and thus was alleviated of any responsibility... that would be ridiculous. The endangerment that occurs there is so slight that it does not qualify as alleviating the responsibility. However, if the person who threatened to hurt someone was currently pointing a loaded gun at the psychologist, we could say that the psychologist now had a reasonable argument for not picking up the phone and reporting the threat. The relative level of endangerment had reached a point where the situation has now changed and he/she is alleviated of said responsibility. Likewise, if the mother is currently in great danger from the continuation of the pregnancy, then we can say that she is now alleviated of her responsibility to continue the pregnancy. If not, then we can say that she is not alleviated of the responsibility as the endangerment is currently too low to be considered valid excuse. Why are you so stubbornly inclined to not exclude it? Because the assumption among most people is that humans have inalienable rights that should be protected. If the fetus/embryo/zygote is indisputably a human, then it becomes a much harder position to take that it should not be granted equal rights as all other humans. I already told you: it is a living human organism. The only difference between it and you is that it is at a different stage of development. You might as well say that a toddler is not a human because it is not fully grown yet. No, you're missing the point. Legal precents don't matter. This is about what the laws should be, not what they currently are. Then I guess what you're saying is people have a duty to endanger themselves for others so long as it's not too great a risk, which is fine, and we'll leave it at that. Why are you so stubbornly inclined to not exclude it? Because the assumption among most people is that humans have inalienable rights that should be protected. If the fetus/embryo/zygote is indisputably a human, then it becomes a much harder position to take that it should not be granted equal rights as all other humans. So basically you don't actually care at all whether the embryo is a human, beyond using the claim that it is one to justify not being able to abort it. This seems completely backward to me. It sounds like you want it to be a human so it can't be killed. I don't get it. This discussion of whether it is a human is getting us nowhere. Provide a definition of 'human', so we can actually get somewhere. Also, stages of development mean nothing. There's plenty of stages of development before 'human'. Oocytes, and Graafian follicles are also stages of development towards a human. The process begins long before the embryo stage. Why is there this sudden problem with not producing a human from an embryo, but oocytes can die all they like? They're both stages of development. There's just a huge double standard. Should we ban condoms and contraceptives next. Should we do our very utmost to ensure every cell capable of becoming a fully developed 'human' does so? | ||
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Thermia
United States866 Posts
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KwarK
United States42967 Posts
On July 06 2013 00:42 sc2superfan101 wrote: What level of "independence" is required for a human being to have rights, and in what way is that not completely arbitrary? I've always liked birth as a marker because prior to birth it is has a biologically parasitic nature whereas afterwards it has a much more independent existence. Not independent in the sense that it can go out and find its own food obviously but it gets its oxygen from its own lungs and its nutrients from its own food. It is arbitrary though. | ||
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Catocalipse
39 Posts
On July 06 2013 01:02 KwarK wrote: I've always liked birth as a marker because prior to birth it is has a biologically parasitic nature whereas afterwards it has a much more independent existence. Not independent in the sense that it can go out and find its own food obviously but it gets its oxygen from its own lungs and its nutrients from its own food. It is arbitrary though. I think independence has nothing to do with it. There realistically is no tangible line you can draw between human and not human (at least while we're not using a concrete definition). It's just one cell earlier, or one later, or even one electrochemical interaction earlier, or one later. There is no such line. If we used birth as a marker we could kill it 5 minutes before birth but not just after (as it's not human yet), which is silly. If we want to continue discussing whether embryos are human, I think a concrete definition is necessary, though I doubt a sensible one can be found. In fact, I think whether it's human or not is a silly way of thinking about it, and it's one which is only entertained due to the fact that religion is usually involved in the discussion. I think the real cutoff should be whether it's a member of our society or not. We don't give animals rights (or at least not human ones), because they're not members of our society. They're not one of 'us'. At the end of the day, laws are something erected for the benefit of specific groups. Do we really want to give rights to embryos, which are not conscious in the way we are (and certainly not as much as an animal is), at the expense of fully fledged members of society that actually contributes something to it? | ||
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