A fetus is not alive? Waaah?

[Diuretic]

that certainly is your opinion. However, You'll have to forgive me for aborting any actual consideration of such things.

snails nor a caterpillars are genetically distinct human beings. a fetus is. I'll go ahead and stick with this criteria until you can come up with a better retort than butterflies and snails, thanks.

You've not defined any element that makes human life inherently superior to nonhuman animal life with similar sensory capacities and ability to suffer. For instance, an adult chimpanzee would be superior in terms of both basic sentience and self-awareness than a human fetus would be. Asserting that a human fetus is of superior moral value simply because it is a member of the species homo sapiens is not an argument; it is a petitio principii (begging the question) fallacy. You need to offer appropriate arguments in favor of your conclusion.

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

You provide a conclusion, yet offer no reasons or arguments in support of your conclusion?

if it wasn't alive you wouldn't have to abort it.....if it wasn't a person wasn't human and didn't have rights scott peterson would not have been charged with murder for killing one......

abortion is leagalized murder of a human life ..... same as the death penalty ......

Peterson was convicted of the murder of his wife and the murder of her foetus.

The California Penal Code specifically separates person and foetus.

187. (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a
fetus, with malice aforethought.

So you can't reference the Peterson conviction to try and define a foetus' status as a person.

 

[manu1959]

so your definition of a person seems to hinge on the word viable?

does viable occur inside or outside of the womb.....

My definition of personhood does not correlate with viability. For instance, as with a fetus, an infant is not a person. I simply consider it morally impermissible to kill an infant because it can be adopted by others, unlike a non-viable fetus. My definition of personhood correlates with a number of factors, the most necessary condition being self-awareness.

fetuses in the womb aren't self aware.....

 

[manu1959]

You've not defined any element that makes human life inherently superior to nonhuman animal life with similar sensory capacities and ability to suffer. For instance, an adult chimpanzee would be superior in terms of both basic sentience and self-awareness than a human fetus would be. Asserting that a human fetus is of superior moral value simply because it is a member of the species homo sapiens is not an argument; it is a petitio principii (begging the question) fallacy. You need to offer appropriate arguments in favor of your conclusion.



You provide a conclusion, yet offer no reasons or arguments in support of your conclusion?

if it wasn't alive you wouldn't have to abort it.....if it wasn't a person wasn't human and didn't have rights scott peterson would not have been charged with murder for killing one......

abortion is leagalized murder of a human life ..... same as the death penalty ......

Peterson was convicted of the murder of his wife and the murder of her foetus.

The California Penal Code specifically separates person and foetus.

187. (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a
fetus, with malice aforethought.

So you can't reference the Peterson conviction to try and define a foetus' status as a person.

ok what is a person then....can i kill them legaly

 

[Agnapostate]

fetuses in the womb aren't self aware.....

I'm quite aware of that. The protection of late-term fetuses isn't related to their self-awareness.

 

[Valerie]

so your definition of a person seems to hinge on the word viable?

does viable occur inside or outside of the womb.....

My definition of personhood does not correlate with viability. For instance, as with a fetus, an infant is not a person. I simply consider it morally impermissible to kill an infant because it can be adopted by others, unlike a non-viable fetus. My definition of personhood correlates with a number of factors, the most necessary condition being self-awareness.

An infant is not a person?

 

[Valerie]

that certainly is your opinion. However, You'll have to forgive me for aborting any actual consideration of such things.

snails nor a caterpillars are genetically distinct human beings. a fetus is. I'll go ahead and stick with this criteria until you can come up with a better retort than butterflies and snails, thanks.

You've not defined any element that makes human life inherently superior to nonhuman animal life with similar sensory capacities and ability to suffer. For instance, an adult chimpanzee would be superior in terms of both basic sentience and self-awareness than a human fetus would be. Asserting that a human fetus is of superior moral value simply because it is a member of the species homo sapiens is not an argument; it is a petitio principii (begging the question) fallacy. You need to offer appropriate arguments in favor of your conclusion.

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

You provide a conclusion, yet offer no reasons or arguments in support of your conclusion?

Just because he doesn't offer the argument or "define any element" does not mean it is not so. Get back to me when the butterfly or the chimp can argue otherwise.

 

[Diuretic]

if it wasn't alive you wouldn't have to abort it.....if it wasn't a person wasn't human and didn't have rights scott peterson would not have been charged with murder for killing one......

abortion is leagalized murder of a human life ..... same as the death penalty ......

Peterson was convicted of the murder of his wife and the murder of her foetus.

The California Penal Code specifically separates person and foetus.

187. (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a
fetus, with malice aforethought.

So you can't reference the Peterson conviction to try and define a foetus' status as a person.

ok what is a person then....can i kill them legaly

Nope.

 

[Anguille]

Uh, no. A baby's heart starts beating at 5 weeks. I believe the one day medical science will progress to the point where the fetus can be removed at 5 weeks and put in an incubator of some sort.

Better yet, medical science will progress to the point where a fetus can be removed at 5 weeks and implanted into a man.

 

[Anguille]

The pointless contention of whether a fetus constitutes "human life" is entirely pointless; a far more pertinent insight would arguably be whether a fetus is a person.

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

A pregnant woman is not a mother till she gives birth.

 

[Diuretic]

The pointless contention of whether a fetus constitutes "human life" is entirely pointless; a far more pertinent insight would arguably be whether a fetus is a person.

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

A pregnant woman is not a mother till she gives birth.

Here we go!

 

[Anguille]

The fact remains that a fetus is a genetically distinct human being. I'll go ahead and skip the part where the guy trying to make an equivalence between a chimp and a human baby is giving out advice on the strength of an argument.


Let's put it THIS way... Le's say I've got your child sitting next to a chimp and I'm going to shoot one of them in the face with a 9mm. Are you busy making equivalences or are you busy hoping that I shoot the monkey instead of your genetically distinct human offspring? Should I shoot your child because the chimp can interact with environment more than your 2 year old? No? Then spare me your silly lecture on this debate while you suggest that a human being is somehow less worthy of consideration than a fucking primate.

A fetus is not a child, you genetically distinct human dimwit!

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I think the issue is less "is the fetus alive" (because, of course it's alive). but we terminate life all the time for various reasons. so the real issue is ... is this the type of life that people should make their own moral judgments about terminating?

but i am wondering why you seem to be obsessing about reproductive choice right now.

No wait, your previous arguments were always that since the thing isn't a person yet and able to live on its own, it was ok to kill it. Now you are playing games. And yes a society is judged on who is murdered for convenience sake in that society.

I mean hell why keep anyone alive after 75? They are just gonna eat up medical resources and most do not contribute much of anything to the group? How about those mentally challenged people that can never run their own lives, what a waste. There is a whole slew of marginal people that we shouldn't waste our time with moral judgements about terminating them.

 

[Anguille]

you can late term abort a human fetus with no penalty whatsoever.....but you can't kill a pregnant dog without going to jail.....

Wrong. In the first case you must be a medical doctor and in the second, a veterinarian.

 

[Anguille]

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

A pregnant woman is not a mother till she gives birth.

Here we go!

I hope so!

 

[POLS]

A fetus is not "a life" until the thurd trimester -- about 24 weeks after the egg is fertilized.


So ruled the US Supreme Court and almost all medical experts agree.

 

[Agnapostate]

An infant is not a person?

No. An infant lacks self-awareness (the ability to conceptualize itself as an independently existing entity), and thus lacks the ability to suffer from its own death in the same manner that a normal human can, since it cannot conceptualize of its own death.

Just because he doesn't offer the argument or "define any element" does not mean it is not so. Get back to me when the butterfly or the chimp can argue otherwise.

I've not seen a fetus "argue otherwise." Conversely, a chimpanzee possesses a greater degree of basic sentience and self-awareness than a human fetus does and has a concept of time, therefore likely also having a concept of its own existence.

 

[Tor Hershman]

I ask you, if a fetues is not aborted and grows into a being with a brain.....what will be the outcome?

The answer is - it WILL end in death.

Birth causes death.

 

[Shogun]

If you see no difference between the following then I feel sorry for your family if you were to be ever caught in a fire at the zoo. You can hide behind whatever jargon you learned in debate class all you want. If you make an equivelance between a human baby and a chimp then you fail this topic at the starting gate. Human feti are not caterpillars. They are not baboons. They are not dogs, cats, gerbils or bats. Their inherent value above animals SHOULDN'T have to be explained to another human being. But, again, feel free to talk debate fallacies with the roaring flame as you guide a chimp to safety instead of your own child.

Another logical fallacy, I see. This one is known as the argumentum ad misericordiam, or more commonly, the "appeal to pity." I shall again note that emotional partiality to a human infant (though I don't see how this applies to abortion, since an aborted fetus is obviously not an object of "partiality"), over a chimpanzee, for instance, does not endow the human with greater moral value any more than emotional partiality to one's own child over three stranger children endows one's own child with greater moral value than the stranger children.

Instead of advancing logical arguments, you've chosen to rely on repeatedly begging the question. Rather than argue about whether an adult chimpanzee could be of greater moral value than a human fetus, you instead claim that there is no argument, effectively constituting an "argument before an argument." You draw conclusions based on premises that you allege are "indisputable." Similar claims were once made about the inferiority of blacks to whites or women to men, yet those premises are obviously not logically sound. It is thus incumbent upon modern analysts to defend their premises and conclusions with the usage of the best logically sound arguments available, to therefore avoid falling prey to a similar pattern of irrational discrimination.

Of course, as was mentioned previously, you're under no compulsion to advance logically sound arguments, though similarly, others are obviously under no obligation to pretend that you had.

Again, if some bullshit conjecture from your high school debate class keeps you from having to place inherent value on the developmental stages of your own species then good for you. The INDISPUTABLE fact is that a human fetus is A) a Homo Erectus as opposed to a fucking baboon and B) a genetically distinct individual that, AGAIN, is not an insect, monkey or any other laughable learch at some comedic utilitarian excuse to kill HUMAN babies.

No adult chimp is worth any remote equivalent to that of a human being. If this is what you think some bullshit ethical standard allows then it's pretty clear why you must reach for a long list of logical fallacy straw men instead of face the fact that human beings, in ANY stage of development, are superior to, excuse me while I laugh my fucking ass off at you, a CHIMP.

 

[Shogun]

that certainly is your opinion. However, You'll have to forgive me for aborting any actual consideration of such things.

snails nor a caterpillars are genetically distinct human beings. a fetus is. I'll go ahead and stick with this criteria until you can come up with a better retort than butterflies and snails, thanks.

You've not defined any element that makes human life inherently superior to nonhuman animal life with similar sensory capacities and ability to suffer. For instance, an adult chimpanzee would be superior in terms of both basic sentience and self-awareness than a human fetus would be. Asserting that a human fetus is of superior moral value simply because it is a member of the species homo sapiens is not an argument; it is a petitio principii (begging the question) fallacy. You need to offer appropriate arguments in favor of your conclusion.

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

You provide a conclusion, yet offer no reasons or arguments in support of your conclusion?

Just because he doesn't offer the argument or "define any element" does not mean it is not so. Get back to me when the butterfly or the chimp can argue otherwise.

Meh... this guy's one trick is to pull some bullshit utilitarian excuses from his hat just to be argumentative. Agnapostate does the same thing when rationalizing 44 year old men fucking 13 year old girls. It truly is the ethical rule set that appeals because it can be twisted in any way according to individual opinion of value based utility.


I'd bet this guy is just flexing what he learned in ethics 101 this semester.

 

[Shogun]

The pointless contention of whether a fetus constitutes "human life" is entirely pointless; a far more pertinent insight would arguably be whether a fetus is a person.

it is alive.....it is a person....it is human and it has rights......unless the mother decides otherwise.....

A pregnant woman is not a mother till she gives birth.

is that a universal standard or just the application of your opinion? Do you really think a huge bellied woman in her 7th month doesn't qualify as a mother?