There is no doubt that a fertilized egg is living. In my mind the relevent question is not if the zygote is living, but is it a human being. IMO, the zygote is simply a potential, and as such does not have the same rights as its host, the pregnant woman.
Phoenix32890 wrote:There is no doubt that a fertilized egg is living. In my mind the relevent question is not if the zygote is living, but is it a human being. IMO, the zygote is simply a potential, and as such does not have the same rights as its host, the pregnant woman.
You claim that a fertilized egg is just a single cell - like any other cell of the human body and is only "potential life". However, this single cell is alive by any biological definition of life and defines the beginning of each new human being. This single cell is unique from both the father's and mother's cells, so it cannot be defined as just part of the woman's body.
Phoenix32890 wrote:Intrepid wrote:You claim that a fertilized egg is just a single cell
Only at the beginning of conception. Obviously, as the zygote grows, the organism becomes more complex. The point is that the growing organism cannot survive without the host, the pregnant woman. Until the fetus has reached a point where it can survive on its own, IMO, is is merely a parasite growing in the body of the woman, and is NOT a human being. As such, the rights of the woman trump any rights of the growing organism.
At what stage can the child survive on it's own? Several years must pass before the child can survive independently. So, according t you, a child is a parasite prior to being a human.
Intrepid- I don't know why I am even bothering to answer your query. I get the sense that I am being baited.
Obviously, a child is not independent for many years. But independence is not what I am discussing. I am referring to the time that a child can live outside the womb.
No, you are not being baited. I just want to understand.
Intrepid,
I think the one's being baited here are the ones that disagree with the "fetus, zygote, parasite" view. Do any of you suppose that once your mother knew she was pregnant she viewed any of you as merely a "fetus or a zygote, or a parasite?"
I just can't understand how anyone could have so little compassion they would reduce a life, a human life in it's simplest and basest form, to being a parasite.
Phoenix32890 wrote:There is no doubt that a fertilized egg is living. In my mind the relevent question is not if the zygote is living, but is it a human being. IMO, the zygote is simply a potential, and as such does not have the same rights as its host, the pregnant woman.
You seem to be saying that a 'human being' has rights, or at least trump-suit rights, which living beings that are not human beings do not have. To rephrase my questions:
(1) What qualities must a something possess to be called a 'human being'?
(2) Why do these qualities mean that a 'human being' has 'rights'?
(3) At what stage of pregnancy does a fetus develop these qualities?
Newsflash.....
It has been determined that compassion has nothing to do with reality.
Clearly that wasn't Phoenix's point, Intrepid.
Personally, I couldn't care less what a fetus/parasite/unborn-child is called, but rather what it is and what qualities, deemed to be relevant, it may or may not possess.
Well, compassion has everything to do with reality. You would have us have compassion for the pregnant woman but ignore compassion for the child? True, there are instances in which the woman had nothing to do with becoming pregnant, but for the majority, that is not the case.
What's wrong with taking responsibility for our actions? What's wrong with standing up for what is right? And it's not a religious matter. It is a moral matter. There is right and there is wrong. We were all taught what that is and we know in our hearts what that is.
Society has continuosly changed wrongs into rights to accommodate the ones complaining loud enough that their "rights" are being violated. If you don't want to own up to that, that is where the biggest problem with today's society lies. No one (not meant literally) wants to take responsibility for their actions. Let's just change the laws so we can pass the buck again, and again, and again, and again.
God made the laws, man changes the laws, God still has the same laws.
Phoenix32890 wrote:Quote:I just can't understand how anyone could have so little compassion they would reduce a life, a human life in it's simplest and basest form, to being a parasite.
MA-This has nothing to do with having or not having compassion. I am discussing REALITY! Apparently there are people on this board who have very little compassion for the pregnant woman.
Except in the case of rape, the woman is responsible for her own pregnancy. Abortion should not be used as a form of birth control. Other than the possible dire medical circumstance, the pregnant woman is still killing a living thing if she proceeds with an abortion. It is hard to direct the compassion from the fetus to the mother in such circumstances. This is reality.
Phoenix32890 wrote:If you had read one of my earlier writings, I agreed, that in a perfect world, abortion should NOT be used as birth control. IMO, that is very irresponsible. Abortion is a serious decision, and should not be undertaken frivolously.
Problem is, that this is NOT a perfect world. I believe that an abortion is far preferable than bringing a child into the world whose mother does not have the maturity or responsibility to parent properly.
I find little merit in this argument. Is the killing of a baby is far preferable to it growing up with a mother who does not have the maturity or responsibility to parent properly? I don't agree that something can be killed on the basis of guesswork about the likely quality of its future life.
To me it seems that either it is wrong to abort a child (in which case quality of life/inconvenience to mother/father/etc. are no more valid reasons to abort than they would be to kill someone) or it is not wrong (in which case I wouldn't have strong objections to it being used as birth control, except on health grounds).
I agree, djbt. It should not be a subjective matter.
Phoenix32890 wrote:djbt wrote:To me it seems that either it is wrong to abort a child.............
This is again a difference in our perceptions. A weeks old fetus is not a child.
Quite. That is why I keep asking about the foundations of your perceptions. Otherwise, the difference between a 'fetus' and a 'child' is only in the letters the words contain. I want to know what you
mean by 'fetus' and 'child', and what fundamental differences between them you consider relevant.
