When Does Life Begin?

neologist wrote:

Contraception prevents human life from beginning.

Not relevant your specious claims of 20 year old zygotes.

neologist wrote:

Abortion takes place after human life has begun.

Prove a zygote is a human being Mr. argumentum ad nauseam.

neologist wrote:

Pro choice folks apparently believe the rights, if any, of the unborn are trumped by the will of the mother.

Here you engender the Straw Man logical fallacy (again) and also the argumentum ad nauseam logical fallacy (again).

neologist wrote:

Why should the age of that genetically complete individual determine his/her right to life?

Prove your so-called "genetically complete individual" is a human being. You are (again) simply falling back on argumentum ad nauseam.

neologist wrote:

So I responded further with my wet dream post. You missed the point of that as well, for many women who experience miscarriage mourn the death of their babies as much as if they had been full term. The funerals they often have are real. No similar regrets or sorrow applies to any form of contraception or lost gametes I have ever known.

By your myopic definition, a human life is defined as to whether folks have funerals for the remains, in this you commit two logical fallacies - and actually a number of others 1) argumentum ad nauseam 2) argumentum ad populum.

neologist wrote:

You, however have not made any point other than your asseveration that I must be wrong.

If your claims had merit you would be able to address logically and rationally the below without getting trapped into a number of logical fallacies some of which include argumentum ad nauseam, argumentum ad populum and straw man fallacy, but you cannot do it.

Chumly wrote:

neologist wrote:
I think I made my point. Contraception is a red herring in a discussion of abortion.
Given that you have failed to successfully substantiate your arguments.
Given that you have failed to successfully refute my arguments.
I note you are now falling back on the logical fallacy: "Argumentum Ad Nauseam". This logical fallacy is based on the incorrect belief that people will finally accept an assertion as true because they hear it repeatedly.

I further suggest nullifying your below claim, else you run the risk of engendering another logical fallacy, that being argumentum ad hominem, which I'll gentlemanly point out is not your usual modus operandi.
neologist wrote:
I really thought you were a lot smarter than your last few posts. Did you short circuit yourself at work?
An argumentum ad hominem consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

In sum Neo, you cannot expect me or anyone else to accept your arguments if you keep getting stuck in the quagmire of logical fallacies.

0 Replies

Neo - Your last post alone proves that the two issues are worth being discussed together.

Quote:

Contraception prevents human life from beginning.

QED: Those who oppose abortion bet damn well endorse the use of contraceptives/birth control.

Quote:

Abortion takes place after human life has begun. Call it what you want, zygote or fetus, if nothing is done to interrupt its development, it will eventually be born a human being. Pro choice folks apparently believe the rights, if any, of the unborn are trumped by the will of the mother.

Correct, and thank you for using the words: "pro choice." Substitute "will" for "rights" and you'll go from A to A+.

I've yet to hear the convincing arguement for mainking abortion illegal. I'll be the first to describe abortion as an act that can be done for the right reasons, but additionally the wrong reasons. There are so many things like this in the world that are abused. I call for reform in the ways that abortions are done, but I believe ultimately the woman's/couple's choice is what needs to be protected.

If abortion is against your values, you are very fortunate that you will never be FORCED to have one. Pro Choice means that you are in control, it does not mean that you are pro abortion.

Speaking of values, the Religious Right champions the notion of adoption, but given the circumstances where abortion was illegal, the Religious Right would begin the crusade against the horrors of the horrible women abandoning their children.

Quote:

My post was a tongue in cheek attempt to show how the pro choice argument fades with the passage of time. Why should the age of that genetically complete individual determine his/her right to life?

Correct assuming that the age of a genetically complete individual is the meter. However it is NOT age, but instead the personhood of genetically complete individual which is the meter.

I feel no need to define the unborn as not being human or any other form of life that is not human in nature. That is the true red herring of this argument.

RL used to always boast about his medical knowledge and make his contensions on the unborn's status. But our legal definitions/parameters are not solely driven by our medical definitions/parameters. Do you know what the medical definition for murder is? Nobody does, it doesn't exist! I searched.

The arguement for legality by morality is what falls apart with the passege of time.
1) Morality is a subjective measure.
2) Laws aren't based on what is rightious, but what parameters need to be in place to protect the fabric of a controlled culture/society. If laws were based on what is rightious, there would be no law only chaos.
3) Abortion is not murder. Murder one of many words/phrases used for the expiration of a person. Murder is illegal. But Murder being illegal does not answer to our rightiousness, it answers to the part of us that needs order. It protects the fabric of our society. Murder effects communities in a profound way. Tell me how the 1000 abortions today affected/effected you at all? Now go into a dangerous neighborhood and ask how the drive-by shooting today effected/affected them? How did it effect you; your security?
4) Abortion being made illegal will only make people get illegal abortions. I personally wish that patients getting an abortions in the futre will be able to go to hospitals and recieve a greater degree of inpatient/outpatient care. Abortion may be still legal right now, but I won't say that the current means are perfect and some are plain bad. If the government wants to step in, let them step in and help our mother's chose to keep a child. Fix our economics, support our after school programs, fund sex education for public schools especially for at risk populations, etc etc.

Typing makes my knucles hurt.
K
O

0 Replies

I am not trying to force any one's behavior. All I was trying to do is highlight the difference between contraception and abortion in simple terms. I was not taking into account issues of rape or incest and I was not considering extramarital vs. marital sex, all of which have their idiosyncrasies.

If it is not possible to understand that, on the one hand, you have an organism which will at some time have a right to life, (I say sooner rather than later.) and on the other hand you have a collection of gametes which, left to themselves will produce nothing, then I have nothing to contribute.

Whatever moral imperatives may apply I leave to the individual.

0 Replies

neologist wrote:

I am not trying to force any one's behavior. All I was trying to do is highlight the difference between contraception and abortion in simple terms. I was not taking into account issues of rape or incest and I was not considering extramarital vs. marital sex, all of which have their idiosyncrasies.

Difference noted, and agreed.

neologist wrote:

If it is not possible to understand that, on the one hand, you have an organism which will at some time have a right to life, (I say sooner rather than later.) and on the other hand you have a collection of gametes which, left to themselves will produce nothing, then I have nothing to contribute.

There's no deficit in understanding the above biology. The problem the Pro-lifers, perhaps you included have a problem with is that people are not swayed by this information. These people are not willfully ignorant of anything, myself included. I just believe that redusing the number of abortions is better done though other avenues than removing rights.

neologist wrote:

Whatever moral imperatives may apply I leave to the individual.

A good choice. I don't have to agree with every woman's choice to abort, but I too leave it to the individual. Just for different reasons than you.

T
K
O

0 Replies

I was fairly sure you and I would have some common ground. But I don't know if I can offer the donut of peace to Chumly. Laughing

0 Replies

Neologist wrote:

Abortion is the elimination of actual human life.

By your own definition you claim abortion is the elimination of the potential to become to become a human being, thus by your own definition a cell which has the potential to become to become a human being is an "actual human life".

Amusingly and unsurpsingly, contraception adheres to the same description as does menses and male masturbation. Now if you could show that a single fertilized cell is an actual human being you would have an argument but you cannot.

In fact you cannot even show that a human skin cell is not a potential human being. Human cloning closer than ever before

0 Replies

Eorl wrote:

real life wrote:

If you came upon an accident victim, and you were not sure if you had a living human being or a dead corpse in front of you -----

----- would you proceed AS IF the person MIGHT BE alive, or AS IF the person CERTAINLY WAS NOT alive?

Let's say instead of "you", it's a third person....

Let's say this 3rd person sees that it IS alive, and they can help keep this life alive only with a possibility of considerable harm and risk to themselves. How much do feel you can force that 3rd person to take the actions you would take?

You seem to want us to forget that abortion is not a passive indifference to another.

It is the active termination of the other. One must take aggressive action against the unborn to end it's life.

---------------------------------------------------------------

As for 'considerable harm and risk', the number of abortions done to save the mother's life is miniscule; and as you know, I have always allowed an exception for abortion to save the mother's life.

0 Replies

Chumly wrote:

Neologist wrote:
Abortion is the elimination of actual human life.
By your own definition you claim abortion is the elimination of the potential to become to become a human being,

I think this is a misstatement of Neo's view.

Chumly wrote:

thus by your own definition a cell which has the potential to become to become a human being is an "actual human life".

Thus this is a bogus argument.

0 Replies

Chumly wrote:

Neologist wrote:
Abortion is the elimination of actual human life.
By your own definition you claim abortion is the elimination of the potential to become to become a human being, thus by your own definition a cell which has the potential to become to become a human being is an "actual human life".

Funny, your statement of my definition is not anything like my statement.

Chumly wrote:

Amusingly and unsurpsingly, contraception adheres to the same description as does menses and male masturbation. Now if you could show that a single fertilized cell is an actual human being you would have an argument but you cannot.

That is, what the argument is about, isn't it? I have said that, given time, the fertilized egg will develop its human potential and should, therefore, be considered human. You say it is not human until some time later. So the difference is I say sooner, you say later. Hardly enough for your forest of argumentums, wouldn't you say?

Chumly wrote:

In fact you cannot even show that a human skin cell is not a potential human being. Human cloning closer than ever before

I don't remember saying anything about this. Why don't you start a topic on the religious implications of human cloning?

0 Replies

neologist wrote:

Chumly wrote:
if you could show that a single fertilized cell is an actual human being you would have an argument but you cannot.
That is, what the argument is about, isn't it? I have said that, given time, the fertilized egg will develop its human potential and should, therefore, be considered human. You say it is not human until some time later. So the difference is I say sooner, you say later.

Yes. This is exactly the point.

The pro-abortion crowd says 'later' , but seldom are they willing to define , medically speaking, EXACTLY WHEN the 'potential person' becomes a living human being.

Is it at 12 weeks?

Is it at 24 weeks?

Is it at birth?

The reason they will not is that it is obvious that the question then becomes :

Quote:

If the 'potential person' becomes a living human being at 'X' point in time (12 weeks, or 24 weeks, or whatever), what occurred to make him/her 'a living human' when he/she wasn't a living human in your view a few minutes or a day previous?

The pro-aborts dance around this question, but never address it.

0 Replies

Od flatter yourself RL, your question has been answered almost a dozen times.

Quote:

If the 'potential person' becomes a living human being at 'X' point in time (12 weeks, or 24 weeks, or whatever), what occurred to make him/her 'a living human' when he/she wasn't a living human in your view a few minutes or a day previous?

The idea that the medical community creating some sort of marker X as a means to label the point where a something is a human being, is irrelavant because the medical community doesn't dictate the marker Y when the government deems a human a juristic person.

As for a few seconds before lets look at three senarios.

1) A man has sex with an 18 year old: Legal.
2) A man has sex with a 17 year old on the eve before her 18th birthday. In fact, at 11:59PM. Illegal.

The second senario is illegal indepentant of the girl being 18 years old at midnight or at 2:00PM later that afternoon.

The legal system does not count seconds, it operates on a system of parameters. Your "seconds earlier" argument is one of your worst.

T
K
O

0 Replies

Your denial makes the point, TKO.

Scrap the legal definition.

Forget the microscopic meddling of the medical experts.

The decision to abort cuts to the very heart of one's conscience. Are you or are you not ending a human life?

That is why many women mourn so greatly after miscarrying. And perhaps it is why so many women experience bouts of guilt after abortion.

0 Replies

neo: Scrap the legal definition.

Why is it that christians can support legislation that discriminates against gays and lesbians that are binding for all humans in the US, but want to change the laws about legal age to" scrap the legal definition?" Is the "sanctity of marriage" really sanctified? You wouldn't know it by "practice" with over 50 percent of heterosexual marriages ending up in divorce. Christians think a word (marriage) is more important than equality.

0 Replies

cicerone imposter wrote:

neo: Scrap the legal definition.

Why is it that christians can support legislation that discriminates against gays and lesbians that are binding for all humans in the US, but want to change the laws about legal age to" scrap the legal definition?" Is the "sanctity of marriage" really sanctified? You wouldn't know it by "practice" with over 50 percent of heterosexual marriages ending up in divorce. Christians think a word (marriage) is more important than equality.

I have no opinion one way or the other about what many might consider to be moral legislation.

If folks wish to have homosexual encounters or commit abortion, that is something they must come to terms with on their own.

As an aside, and because of the grief I experienced as a teenager, I am not willing to refer to homosexual unions as marriages.

0 Replies

neologist wrote:

Your denial makes the point, TKO.

Denial of what; what am I denying?

neologist wrote:

Scrap the legal definition.

Come again? So I guess we would adopt what definition the biblical one? I didn't know that the Bible had a definition of a juristic person. By Preceedence, if the bible did have such definition it would most likely be exclusive to male landowners, I'd theorize.

Seriously though, scraping it because you don't like it is a poor rationale.

neologist wrote:

Forget the microscopic meddling of the medical experts.

Your point?

neologist wrote:

The decision to abort cuts to the very heart of one's conscience. Are you or are you not ending a human life?

Exactly. Their conscience, hense personal, hense private. Not public. QED: Not a issue for the courts or legislature.

And I'm not ending anything's life. I aim to support and enable people to keep their child without the sacrifice of their rights. I'm trying to save the unborn too, you see.

Perhaps the Right to life camp has forgotten that making abortion illegal does not illiminate abortion. I personally feel that the R2life stance on the protection of the unborn comes second to the goal of making abortion accepted as being morally wrong by legislative means. It's as if they believe abortino is wrong, but they feel they need some sort of authority such as the government to make that feeling legitimate. But I thought the pro-life camp already had their higher authority? sounds like a failure in confidence to me.

Ask yourself this seriously: Given two options, one that would decrease the number of abortions and potentially improve the social welfare of our country, or two simply making abortion illegal, what would you choose? Would you still choose making abortion illegal even if it didn't decrease the number of abortions in the grand scheme of things?

45 million abortions in a year. 25 million of which come from countries where abortion is illegal, 20 million from countries where it is illegal. What kind of result to you think you'd have making it illegal? Would all abortions cease? I hope you say "no." So what does that mean? It means that what will ultimately prevent more abortions is not related to abortion's legal status. There has to be something else, and you are going to have to relaize that sooner or later. This issue is far larger than morality or legality! There are real social and econimical elements that are contributing to the issue.

I don't know what else to tell you: It's just not as simple as the pro-lifers make it out to be.

neologist wrote:

That is why many women mourn so greatly after miscarrying. And perhaps it is why so many women experience bouts of guilt after abortion.

I know several women who have had abortions, and it was a hard descision for all of them. Many of them have families and children now. Many experience grief over their abortion, but they aren't defined by it. nor should they. They, have a far more intimate understanding of the issue than some bible thumper talking out of both sides of their mouth about the value of life. They're still pro-choice. Why do you think that is? Do you think that you with your experience could possibly explain to them the implications of abortion? I don't believe you can.

Of course you forget your own influence in your statement about guilt. What's to say that social varibles are what influence guilt? A young girl raised catholic (or whatever) may be more upset that she is alienated from her family. etc. etc.

T
K
O

0 Replies

neologist wrote:

As an aside, and because of the grief I experienced as a teenager, I am not willing to refer to homosexual unions as marriages.

Although we'll all agree that this is an aside discussion, I still wish to reply.

Let us not forget that Homosexuals being married is much older than the bible. I know some homosexuals that are okay with the term "civil union," as long as they have the same rights as hetrosexual couples. I additionally know other homosexuals that feel that the idea of "marriage" is being hijacked; that who defines marraige is becoming an issue of popularity and has nothing to do with what marragie actually is. A religion may exist (such as many forms of pagan religions) where marraige is not nessisarily between a man and a woman, but their ability to bond two people together in their spiritual practices is limited by the state? Im' sure you're fine with this, but of course it's not your rights that are in jeopardy. Personally I feel that the creation of civil unions created a second class citizenship for our homosexual population.

Tangent
K
O

0 Replies

You know, TKO, I am actually agreeing with you on all but one point; well maybe two.

And I am not in support of any legislation in this matter. All I can hope to accomplish is to ask those who are considering abortion to look seriously at both sides of the issue.

0 Replies

neo: All I can hope to accomplish is to ask those who are considering abortion to look seriously at both sides of the issue.

What makes you think it isn't? I would guess out of hand that most girls/women who consider abortion has "seriously" considered both sides of the issue - generally speaking. There are some women who may have mental problems that do not, but they are in the minority - I would guess.

0 Replies

neologist wrote:

Chumly wrote:

Neologist wrote:
Abortion is the elimination of actual human life.
By your own definition you claim abortion is the elimination of the potential to become to become a human being, thus by your own definition a cell which has the potential to become to become a human being is an "actual human life".
Funny, your statement of my definition is not anything like my statement.
Chumly wrote:

Amusingly and unsurpsingly, contraception adheres to the same description as does menses and male masturbation. Now if you could show that a single fertilized cell is an actual human being you would have an argument but you cannot.
That is, what the argument is about, isn't it? I have said that, given time, the fertilized egg will develop its human potential and should, therefore, be considered human. You say it is not human until some time later. So the difference is I say sooner, you say later. Hardly enough for your forest of argumentums, wouldn't you say?
Chumly wrote:
In fact you cannot even show that a human skin cell is not a potential human being. Human cloning closer than ever before
I don't remember saying anything about this. Why don't you start a topic on the religious implications of human cloning?

Proof by assertion is a logical fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction. Sometimes this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to its not being contradicted (argumentum ad nauseam). In other cases its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief fallacies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion

0 Replies

Chumly wrote:

neologist wrote:
Chumly wrote:

Neologist wrote:
Abortion is the elimination of actual human life.
By your own definition you claim abortion is the elimination of the potential to become to become a human being, thus by your own definition a cell which has the potential to become to become a human being is an "actual human life".
Funny, your statement of my definition is not anything like my statement.
Chumly wrote:

Amusingly and unsurpsingly, contraception adheres to the same description as does menses and male masturbation. Now if you could show that a single fertilized cell is an actual human being you would have an argument but you cannot.
That is, what the argument is about, isn't it? I have said that, given time, the fertilized egg will develop its human potential and should, therefore, be considered human. You say it is not human until some time later. So the difference is I say sooner, you say later. Hardly enough for your forest of argumentums, wouldn't you say?
Chumly wrote:
In fact you cannot even show that a human skin cell is not a potential human being. Human cloning closer than ever before
I don't remember saying anything about this. Why don't you start a topic on the religious implications of human cloning?
Proof by assertion is a logical fallacy in which a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction. Sometimes this may be repeated until challenges dry up, at which point it is asserted as fact due to its not being contradicted (argumentum ad nauseam). In other cases its repetition may be cited as evidence of its truth, in a variant of the appeal to authority or appeal to belief fallacies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion

Ergo?

0 Replies

When Does Life Begin?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know