When does life begin?

[ABikerSailor]

Yeppers... and its at that stage where HUMAN LIFE BEGINS.

The notions which seek to set an arbitrary point elsewhere are nothing more than rationalizations which are created for any number of purposes...

But human life begins at the beginning.... Just like everything else.

Like I said dude.....ever build a motorcycle? After putting it together, as well as checking that it's gonna work, if it hasn't been started yet and is pushing air through the carb into the engine, it's still nothing more than a pile of metal. Once it "comes to life" so to speak, THEN it's a motorcycle.

Same with humans. It's really not a human if it's stillborn, it's just a fetus. Until it takes it's FIRST BREATH, it's still a potential human.

 

[Diuretic]

Okay, let's show why a hard and 'black and white' law for this issue is just wrong:

1. Say it is allowed completely and without regulation. Teens start getting pregnant and use abortion as a means of birth control is certainly immoral, however at least the rest of us can rest easy to say it's not our fault because they made the wrong choice not us.

2. Say it is not allowed for any reason. Then a pregnancy is complicated (and this still happens a lot) to the point in which the mother will die if the fetus is not removed. Since this is considered abortion the law forbids it, so the mother dies, as does the fetus. Thus those who made the law become guilty of not only one murder, but two.

Those are the two sides to the argument that everyone hears, but there is a third that no one ever listens to:

3. Abortion becomes regulated to allow for cases in which there is no other option. Doctors are placed in the position to determine such with room to allow for second opinions. Now, if a fetus is aborted then everyone can rest easy with the knowledge that we made what decision we thought best. However, this WILL lead to 'back alley' abortions, as such already occur in many areas where it is illegal for the real doctors to perform.

The back alley procedures are very common, even in the US. They always result in complications and often death, which winds up costing us tax payers a fortune in hospital bills. Too many are looking at this issue as if there is a black and white, not seeing the whole spectrum, as with many issues.

1.Agreed. My thoughts on the possibility of no regulation is that it there should be some regulation. What should the regulation be? I'm not educated enough to even begin to describe what the regulations should be. But the regulation should be based on some solid grounds. Termination should not be refused up until viability and that judgement should be made by a doctor. Termination should be available to any female, regardless of age.

My reasoning for viability is that a female – sorry I'm making an assumption here – should be aware she is pregnant and should make an early decision on termination.

My reasoning for termination regardless of age is that a young person could have their will overborne by family or by other influences such as their religious leaders.

2. Agreed.

3. That's more or less the situation where I am. But I'm not aware of back alley abortions (I wouldn't know but there is no undercurrent in society indicating it's happening) because in essence it's unlikely that doctors will refuse to permit/perform a termination where there are physiological or psychological dangers to the mother provided viability hasn't been reached.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Like I said dude.....ever build a motorcycle? After putting it together, as well as checking that it's gonna work, if it hasn't been started yet and is pushing air through the carb into the engine, it's still nothing more than a pile of metal. Once it "comes to life" so to speak, THEN it's a motorcycle.

Same with humans. It's really not a human if it's stillborn, it's just a fetus. Until it takes it's FIRST BREATH, it's still a potential human.

Man I hear ya... And yeah, I grew up building, riding and repairing motorcycles; dirt-bikes.

And without exception, each bike I built began it's life the minute I started building it; which remains a fact whether the bikes engine ever fired... I had bikes that had several engines and the lives of those bikes still began when I started building them.

Today I own and operate a drag car; which began it's life 12 years ago in Canada I believe. I recently rebuilt its engine; during which time the engine didn't fire a stroke for 4 months. None of which changec or otherwise affected the moment that car began.


Ofcourse cars and bikes aren't living beings, nor do they possess rights inherent in that life, so the analogy is not perfect; but it serves sufficiently well to illustrate that just like human beings, the service life of a machine, begins at the beginning.

I Would also like to add that I enjoyed reading your piece, it was well written and reasoned.

 

[ABikerSailor]

That's more or less the situation where I am. But I'm not aware of back alley abortions (I wouldn't know but there is no undercurrent in society indicating it's happening) because in essence it's unlikely that doctors will refuse to permit/perform a termination where there are physiological or psychological dangers to the mother provided viability hasn't been reached.

Unfortunately, Diuretic, there are always going to be people who will perform them regardless, as well as there will also always be people wanting them. Remember the doctors that got busted for providing HGH for cosmetic purposes only?

 

[Diuretic]

Sure it follows... The State did not force a woman to conceive a child right? The woman freely CHOSE to engage in sexual intercourse; sexual intercourse is the biological means to conceive a human life... thus the state has had no part in the decision to conceive thus the state has had no part in the woman’s CHOICE to risk conception, thus risk the responsibility to bear her child.


The State has no rights at all... States have power. Individuals have rights; rights which were endowed to them by their creator; states, again have power and power alone... So yes, we agree that states have no right to force women to bear children.



When a woman CHOOSES to engage in sexual intercourse, she CHOOSES TO RISK PREGNANCY... PERIOD. A woman has no human right to end the life of another human because she feels that life is an inconvenience; she made the CHOICE, SHE TOOK THE RISK; THUS SHE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR BEARING THAT CHILD. The state has nothing to do with it, except where the woman takes a human life without valid moral justification.



Indeed a fetus is a living thing... and what's more we can state without fear that incontrovertibly that the 'thing' which a human fetus is, is that of HUMAN.



This is the fatal flaw in your argument. A human fetus is, INCONTROVERTIBLY: human... thus it is and can only BE: human life.

You're trying to lean on the 1960s farce that a citizen possesses rights; that for a citizen to be such it must be a person and a person is defined as a sentient being... That argument came out of the Ivy league Feminist movement and is so thoroughly bereft of reason that it is painful to see someone try and trot it out, in this, the 21st century...

First, all humans have rights; a US citizen simply enjoys protections inherent in the US Constitution which prevents the power of government from usurping the means to exercise those rights; this is the sole purpose of the US Constitution.

Secondly, the US Constitution uses the word 'person' to define citizens... the feminists demanded that the word be deliberately taken out of context and that the definition of person be construed to disclude the prenatal human. There is no means to connect that context to the writers of the US Constitution and their use of it. To very suggestion that the Founders of the US were on some fantastic level disqualifying the human life of a prenatal human is absurd on its face. If we need to discuss this in further detail we can; but hopefully you'll agree that 18th century liberals (Classic) would not, even remotely have been considering the notion that a woman should kill her prenatal child as a means of birth control... the premise is quite frankly, absurd.


Third, a human zygote, embryo, fetus, etc.. are merely terms which speak to a prenatal - developing human being; a Zygote is merely a human being in the earliest stages of cellular development. A Fetus is the same except that development is at a stage which is physically recognizable as a human... A Fetus describes the entirety of the prenatal development, spanning the period from conception to the moment of birth. All of these terms represent a human that either is or is not sentient... but sentience is wholly irrelevant because if the woman does not kill it, sentience will come in the normal course of its human development. The Fetus is in point of FACT: HUMAN! Thus is endowed with an unalienable right to its life...



I've left this segment of your argument in this response, so that you can see where it fails. The Fetus is a human fetus... it is not equine, canine, feline... it is human.

That it can't defend itself; that it is in a cellular stage of development and doesn't look like a mature human being and that one can't see it, in NO WAY affects its right to its life.

That state didn't force the woman to have intercourse, let's say she did so voluntarily. So what? She has intercourse. She realises she's pregnant, she doesn't want to bring the pregnancy to full term, she has a termination. No need for the state to force her to bring the pregnancy to full term.

The state has authority, not rights. My statement was that the state has no right to force the woman to bring the pregnancy to full term. I'll clarify that and say that the state should not have authority to force the woman to bring the pregnancy to full term.

Where a woman chooses to engage in sexual intercourse she should be free to engage in sexual intercourse without anyone telling her how to behave. This means that the state nor anyone else has the authority to tell her to use contraceptive methods. That would be repressive. If she falls pregnant then since we've agreed that the state has no authority to force her to bring the pregnancy to full term and it's her decision as to whether or not she terminates.

I'm not a biologist. But I know a foetus of any type is a living thing. A foetus in the uterus of a female elephant is a foetus. A foetus in the uterus of a female human is a foetus. Both have the potential to become an elephant and a human respectively. But the foetus in the elephant is not an elephant, nor is the foetus in the human a human.

When you argue that “A human fetus is, INCONTROVERTIBLY: human... thus it is and can only BE: human life,” my response is that the human foetus is definitely a human foetus. If brought to term it will not become an elephant. So it is human yes. But it is not a human, it's still a foetus albeit its nature is “homo sapiens” as opposed to “elephant”.

Your argument is that since a human foetus is a foetus which may eventually become human then it's human. But that's like arguing that since an acorn is an oak because it will eventually become an oak. Tell that to the pig eating acorns. You'd probably get a Scooby-Doo type grunt of “uh?”

I'm not leaning on a farce or a fence, I'm standing on my own grounds.

Not all humans have rights. Slaves don't have rights. Slaves don't have rights because the state has declared it so.

Humans in the US may have rights. Those rights are assumed and are recognised and protected from unreasonable intrusion by the US Constitution. But that's a different argument and highly specific to the US.

Your point about the founders and their view of life. You need to produce evidence that the founders intended that a foetus was to be seen as a citizen. 18th Century British and colonial attitudes towards pregnancy would need to be examined for evidence.

I appreciate the information about the development of the human. But you are still making an assumption without evidence.

On your final point. I've addressed that already. It's self-evident that a human foetus will, if the pregnancy is brought to full term, become a human and not something else, because of its DNA. It has no will, it has no sentience, that comes later in its development. It is a human foetus and not an elephant foetus. But its predetermined nature – human – doesn't make it a human. Since it's not a human then it has no human rights as human rights are a socially constructed set of relations between humans, not between human foetuses, not between human beings and human foetuses. The only rights in play are the rights of the human being which is carrying the foetus.

 

[Diuretic]

Unfortunately, Diuretic, there are always going to be people who will perform them regardless, as well as there will also always be people wanting them. Remember the doctors that got busted for providing HGH for cosmetic purposes only?

That is probably going to be the case where the state forces a woman to bring a termination to full term. Where termination is available on a far more liberal basis I would think - can't prove it - that the demand for back alley terminations would be minimal. Just a couple of reasons for thinking that. On cost - a termination is at no cost (where I am) to the mother. A back alley termination will cost big money due to risk (it's still unlawful here to perform a termination outside of the regulations in our criminal law). Secondly, a back alley termination is very dangerous and in a clinic the dangers are lessened.

Rational choice is to have a termination in a clinic in a lawful manner.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

That state didn't force the woman to have intercourse, let's say she did so voluntarily. So what? She has intercourse. She realises she's pregnant, she doesn't want to bring the pregnancy to full term, she has a termination. No need for the state to force her to bring the pregnancy to full term.

The state has authority, not rights. My statement was that the state has no right to force the woman to bring the pregnancy to full term. I'll clarify that and say that the state should not have authority to force the woman to bring the pregnancy to full term.

Where a woman chooses to engage in sexual intercourse she should be free to engage in sexual intercourse without anyone telling her how to behave. This means that the state nor anyone else has the authority to tell her to use contraceptive methods. That would be repressive. If she falls pregnant then since we've agreed that the state has no authority to force her to bring the pregnancy to full term and it's her decision as to whether or not she terminates.

I'm not a biologist. But I know a foetus of any type is a living thing. A foetus in the uterus of a female elephant is a foetus. A foetus in the uterus of a female human is a foetus. Both have the potential to become an elephant and a human respectively. But the foetus in the elephant is not an elephant, nor is the foetus in the human a human.

When you argue that “A human fetus is, INCONTROVERTIBLY: human... thus it is and can only BE: human life,” my response is that the human foetus is definitely a human foetus. If brought to term it will not become an elephant. So it is human yes. But it is not a human, it's still a foetus albeit its nature is “homo sapiens” as opposed to “elephant”.

Your argument is that since a human foetus is a foetus which may eventually become human then it's human. But that's like arguing that since an acorn is an oak because it will eventually become an oak. Tell that to the pig eating acorns. You'd probably get a Scooby-Doo type grunt of “uh?”

I'm not leaning on a farce or a fence, I'm standing on my own grounds.

Not all humans have rights. Slaves don't have rights. Slaves don't have rights because the state has declared it so.

Humans in the US may have rights. Those rights are assumed and are recognised and protected from unreasonable intrusion by the US Constitution. But that's a different argument and highly specific to the US.

Your point about the founders and their view of life. You need to produce evidence that the founders intended that a foetus was to be seen as a citizen. 18th Century British and colonial attitudes towards pregnancy would need to be examined for evidence.

I appreciate the information about the development of the human. But you are still making an assumption without evidence.

On your final point. I've addressed that already. It's self-evident that a human foetus will, if the pregnancy is brought to full term, become a human and not something else, because of its DNA. It has no will, it has no sentience, that comes later in its development. It is a human foetus and not an elephant foetus. But its predetermined nature – human – doesn't make it a human. Since it's not a human then it has no human rights as human rights are a socially constructed set of relations between humans, not between human foetuses, not between human beings and human foetuses. The only rights in play are the rights of the human being which is carrying the foetus.

So what you're saying is that a human fetus is in point of fact: human and simultaneously, NOT human...

See the problem? As a general rule, contravening principles advanced as the basis of the same conclusion do not sum to sound reasoning and to be sure, a non sequitur never stands as the basis for a logical conclusion...

In closing, human life, just like everything else in the universe, begins at the beginning... this despite spurious rationalizations which need life to begin elsewhere. Human life BEGINS at the point of conception... period.