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Member (Idle past 4676 days) Posts: 598 From: Pocomoke City, MD Joined: |
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Author | Topic: The Problem with Legalized Abortion | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Taz Member (Idle past 3292 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
Omni writes:
Haha, actually I've explained it a few times before. It's just that nobody was interested in an atheist who's also a moral absolutist. Either take off your clothes or leave the room. I'll summarize it now. I'm a moral absolutist because I believe in moral truths that are absolute. However, I don't believe for a second that anyone in this world has it right yet. Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5820 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
the original Chinese siamese twins that gave us the expression, their condition was anything but "incurable".
Could they have been separated without help? I'm not being sarcastic, I don't know and am curious.
crash has an ego
There are some twins that could use being separated. Doctor!
I am not a moral relativist. I'm a moral absolutist. Why and how? It's a very very long story.
Well if you ever feel like telling I'd be interested. I am somewhat beyond relativism. I believe there are no real moral statements beyond "I like" and "I don't like"... and based on their use by any individual (including ones self) we know the nature of an individuals character. None are better or worse objectively, but it dictates who will like who, and for what reason. h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Merry Christmas, Taz.
You're a good egg. Real things always push back. -William James Save lives! Click here!Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC! ---------------------------------------
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Taz Member (Idle past 3292 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
Silent H writes:
Yes. There really was nothing that prevented them from being seperated beside skin. I saw this on the history channel about famous conjoint twins in history. If this info is wrong either due to the history channel's incompetence or me having false memory syndrome, please call me out on this. Could they have been separated without help? I'm not being sarcastic, I don't know and am curious. Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!
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Silent H Member (Idle past 5820 days) Posts: 7405 From: satellite of love Joined: |
I didn't know, but since I still had a tab open to wiki I decided to check out of curiosity...
Chang and Eng were joined by a band of flesh, cartilage, and their shared liver at the torso. In modern times, they could have been separated easily.[4] I'm assuming you meant them. It looks like they'd still have needed some help, though perhaps they could have tried it ala monty python... live organ donation. h "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard
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Taz Member (Idle past 3292 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
Told you I had bad memory.
Still, their condition was not that bad. Could have easily seperated them. Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!
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LinearAq Member (Idle past 4676 days) Posts: 598 From: Pocomoke City, MD Joined: |
LinearAq writes: molbiogirl replies: As far as your ideas about making it illegal for women to do things that endanger the child she is carrying, I don't know.Have you ever read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? What you are proposing is beginning to sound an awful lot like the dystopian future in that book. Yes, I have read that. Amazingly enough I also understand the value of individual rights. I just don't agree that those rights usurp the rights of another individual who cannot defend himself. I also don't think those individual rights are more important than taking responsibility for your actions. If you're hungry and steal to eat, that doesn't absolve you of your obligation to pay back the person you stole from. If you drink and drive, then get in a car wreck that kills someone, you should be held responsible. If you smoke and get lung cancer you can't kill another person to get new lungs.From a certain point of view, women and men who have sex run the risk of creating a child, and they shouldn't kill someone to get out of the responsibility that results from running that risk. By referencing this novel, are you trying to say that not allowing abortions-on-a-whim is the first step in the slippery slope toward the complete subjugation of women? Has this happened somewhere else? Is there some country where restricting abortions has caused the enslavement of their women? You have yet to demonstrate that a zygote has any "potential" beyond its genetic blueprint.
Every rebuttal you provide, makes me wish more and more that I had kept up with modern biology. I have to confess my ignorance. I really did not know that you could implant a skin cell in a woman's uterus and it would become a child. Amazing! What journal can I go to and read about the research in this field?Every cell in your body has that same blueprint, yet you don't consider each of your cells "a child". So all our skin cells are exactly like a zygote? Wow!!! Maybe this is off topic but I have to ask. What keeps the uterine wall cells from becoming babies? Is there some mechanism within the uterus that recognizes its own cells and prevents a profusion of babies from being produced? Is that how multiples occur...through a uterine wall cell being somehow converted into a baby? Maybe a hormone imbalance from the implantation of the original zygote? And here I was with that outmoded idea that zygotes and blastocysts contained stem cells that could become the various cells of the body, and that was one of the things that made zygotes and blastocysts special. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So that means that someone who doesn't want a child shouldn't have sex at all, and a woman should certainly wear a chastity belt at all times in case of rape, since there isn't a birth control method in the world that prevents contraception 100%, including sterilization. No married people who don't want any children should ever have intercourse. Not even once, not even if they are both sterilized. All married people who don't want any more children should never have intercourse ever again, not even if they are both sterilized.
quote: It is not a coincidence that abortion is severely restricted or outright banned in religious patriarchal countries where women do not have much personal or political power. The urge to control women's uteruses goes hand in hand with controlling everything else about them. If it is that way now, today, in many places, and used to be that way nearly everywhere not that long ago, what makes you think that it can't ever go back to being that way if we are not diligent in preserving our rights to bodily autonomy?
Here is a link to a map which shows the abortion rights status of various places around the globe. If you click on the "for a printable version of this poster, click here", you will be able to blow up the image to read it. Notice the general trend; countries with the most restrictive abortion laws also have the most patriarchal societies. Religious dictatorships are common, too. It is terribly complacent and naieve of you to think that we can't go back. I mean, didn't everyone think that there was no way that we in the US would lose the right to habeas corpus? We have lost that right, however and lots of others, thanks to the NeoCons. It isn't a matter of "making abortion illegal on day and enslaving all the women the next". It is the slow erosion of our individual autonomy and civil rights, including reproductive rights, that we allow, step by step, out of fear. Fear of terrorists, fear of people who are different, fear of women having control of their own bodies. That fear, if we allow ourselves to give in to it, will enable the religious Authoritarians to gain more and more power in our government. Who would have thought it would be so easy? Edited by nator, : No reason given. Edited by nator, : No reason given. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2642 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
What keeps the uterine wall cells from becoming babies? Not just skin cells. Any cell. Because any cell contains the full complement of DNA. Any of your somatic cells has the same potential to become a zygote as an egg fetilized by a sperm. "Turning on" a somatic cell, however, requires intervention in the lab.
Is that how multiples occur...through a uterine wall cell being somehow converted into a baby? No. A somatic cell would produce a clone. Multiples happen in the first 3 weeks as the conceptus divides.
Maybe a hormone imbalance from the implantation of the original zygote? No. A zygote does not implant fully into the uterine wall, which is why there is a 30-60% spontaneous abortion rate. Linear, a zygote is not a "human". The lump of cells doesn't even get around to "deciding" what is embryo and what is not-embryo (aka placenta) until the primitive streak forms in the third week. Even Bush's Bioethics Committee admitted that much. They drew the line (14 days) based on five principles: individuality, organization, implantation, neural development, and utility. Let me repeat that: even the stooges that Bush hired to bolster his pro-life agenda agreed that a zygote is not a "human". You're on the wrong side of this argument, Linear.
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Hyroglyphx Inactive Member |
Remember, Juggs, researchers were recently able to flip a few genetic switches and "turn" a skin cell into a totipotent cell. I know. But so what?
That means every cell in your body has the potential to become a zygote (without the benefit of having its nucleus injected into an ovum). I know. So what? DNA is DNA is DNA is DNA. How does that effect the argument?
The difference between what they are and what they could become is the environment in which their DNA is found. Thus, the mere existence of human DNA in a cell cannot be the source of a relevant moral difference. First of all, its you that thinks a human being is the sum of their parts, not me. You simply asked when a new human being, full of rights and all is formed. I said at conception. Whether Dr. Frankensetin genetically engineers a chimera or not is inconcsequential. I mean, you are acting as if I can't think of it as being human. If that's the case, then why am I against cloning too? I OBVIOUSLY believe that whether it came through natural conception or by the hand of Dr. Moreau, it is still a human being. Remember, this whole argument stems for your inability to come up with a coherent demarcation for what is human and what is not. It is you that continually brings up reductionist arguments as if its supposed to mean something.
You have the problem, Juggs. Not me. Since I don't consider a cell or a group of cells "human", I have no problem at all declaring a zygote a wad of undifferentiated cells and nothing more. No, its no problem for me. The problem is for you to come up with something coherent. Now you are saying that the difference is between undifferntiated cells versus differentiated ones. That would include fetuses after the 12th week. All the cells in their body at that point have been assigned to its proper function.
Because my definition of human = a group of cells with genetic input and the appropriate biochemical pathways. Then you would think that a fetus after its 12th week of gestation is a human being... Yet, you don't. The more you try to explain yourself, the more you end up an entangled mess.
Using your definition, each of your cells is a "child". What? Absolutely not! When a new human begins, i.e., a child, is through the process of fertilization. A sperm is not a child. An ovum is not child. A somatic cell is not a child. Any undifferentiated cell in the body is not a child. When the process of fertilization begins, that is the nano-second that a new life begins. Its really, really very simple. For the sake of your own posterity, I want you to tell me when someone is allowed to be called a human, fitted with all the inalienable rights vested to a human.
Human gametes could in theory also be made by chimaeric animals produced by injecting human embryonic stem cells into animal blastocysts. The use of gametes produced by grafted or chimaeric animals in fertilization theoretically could result in blastocysts that are capable of implantation and forming a viable pregnancy. They are already doing this with specific pluripotent cells from animals, and grafting them in to humans. I don't see how this presents a problem. You are acting as if they are mating goats with humans. That isn't close to what they are doing.
You do realize, of course, that I could synthesize a lump of 10 trillion cells (estimated # of cells/body), all of human origin, and that would not be a "human", right? My definition includes genetic input and the appropriate biochemical pathways. You conveniently ignored half of my definition. That's funny because when Dr. Moreau isn't tinkering with DNA, the natural pathways naturally form a human being -- never, ever, ever, a chimera, or anything else that you want to use in order to dehumanize a human. If then "appropriate" (interesting choice of words) biochemical pathways would include all stages of human development. So, when and how are we humans? “First dentistry was painless, then bicycles were chainless, and carriages were horseless, and many laws enforceless. Next cookery was fireless, telegraphy was wireless, cigars were nicotineless, and coffee caffeineless. Soon oranges were seedless, the putting green was weedless, the college boy was hatless, the proper diet -- fatless. New motor roads are dustless, the latest steel is rustless, our tennis courts are sodless, our new religion -- Godless” -Arthur Guiterman
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LinearAq Member (Idle past 4676 days) Posts: 598 From: Pocomoke City, MD Joined: |
So that means that someone who doesn't want a child shouldn't have sex at all, and a woman should certainly wear a chastity belt at all times in case of rape, since there isn't a birth control method in the world that prevents contraception 100%, including sterilization.
Well, you've won me over. Of course women should be able to do what they wish with their bodies no matter what the consequences. Prostitution should be legalized and if minors want to be prostitutes that's ok too. Their parents shouldn't have any say on that. It's their body. Who are we to tell them what to do with it?
No married people who don't want any children should ever have intercourse. Not even once, not even if they are both sterilized. All married people who don't want any more children should never have intercourse ever again, not even if they are both sterilized. It is not a coincidence that abortion is severely restricted or outright banned in religious patriarchal countries where women do not have much personal or political power. The urge to control women's uteruses goes hand in hand with controlling everything else about them. Since you seem to be putting forth the idea that the restriction of reproductive rights has led to subjugation of women in these countries, perhaps you could detail the causal links for we stupid people in the peanut gallery.
If it is that way now, today, in many places, and used to be that way nearly everywhere not that long ago, what makes you think that it can't ever go back to being that way if we are not diligent in preserving our rights to bodily autonomy? Here is a link to a map which shows the abortion rights status of various places around the globe. If you click on the "for a printable version of this poster, click here", you will be able to blow up the image to read it. Notice the general trend; countries with the most restrictive abortion laws also have the most patriarchal societies. Religious dictatorships are common, too. It is terribly complacent and naieve of you to think that we can't go back. I mean, didn't everyone think that there was no way that we in the US would lose the right to habeas corpus? We have lost that right, however and lots of others, thanks to the NeoCons. It isn't a matter of "making abortion illegal on day and enslaving all the women the next". It is the slow erosion of our individual autonomy and civil rights, including reproductive rights, that we allow, step by step, out of fear. Fear of terrorists, fear of people who are different, fear of women having control of their own bodies. That fear, if we allow ourselves to give in to it, will enable the religious Authoritarians to gain more and more power in our government. Who would have thought it would be so easy? It is terribly complacent and naieve of you to think that we can't lose our society. I mean, didn't everyone think that there was no way that we in the US would openly support pornography on television? We have lost that fight, however and lots of others, thanks to the Liberals. It isn't a matter of "making abortion legal on day and degrading all the women the next". It is the slow erosion of our decency and civility, including respect for human life, that we allow, step by step, out of our own lust. Lust for money, lust for sex, lust for other peoples things. That lust, if we allow ourselves to give in to it, will enable indecency and irresponsibility to gain more and more power in our country. Who would have thought it would be so easy? I knew I recognized your argument somewhere!
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LinearAq Member (Idle past 4676 days) Posts: 598 From: Pocomoke City, MD Joined: |
LinearAq writes:
Not just skin cells. Any cell. Because any cell contains the full complement of DNA. Any of your somatic cells has the same potential to become a zygote as an egg fetilized by a sperm. What keeps the uterine wall cells from becoming babies? "Turning on" a somatic cell, however, requires intervention in the lab.
Is that how multiples occur...through a uterine wall cell being somehow converted into a baby? No. A somatic cell would produce a clone. Multiples happen in the first 3 weeks as the conceptus divides.
Maybe a hormone imbalance from the implantation of the original zygote? No. A zygote does not implant fully into the uterine wall, which is why there is a 30-60% spontaneous abortion rate. Linear, a zygote is not a "human". The lump of cells doesn't even get around to "deciding" what is embryo and what is not-embryo (aka placenta) until the primitive streak forms in the third week.
You know, I have been trying to make my best argument for the "personhood" of a zygote. I did not insult anyone from either side while enduring the veiled insults at my intelligence, the motives of conservatives in general and anti abortionists in particular. I realized from the beginning that my position was tenuous at best. I accept that I may have to concede my original point. Even Bush's Bioethics Committee admitted that much. They drew the line (14 days) based on five principles: individuality, organization, implantation, neural development, and utility. Let me repeat that: even the stooges that Bush hired to bolster his pro-life agenda agreed that a zygote is not a "human". You're on the wrong side of this argument, Linear. Now it's my turn. I believe that fertilization is not the best point to establish personhood. You have already stated that birth is that point. So, what makes a 7-month old fetus not a person. Why is it different enough from a child to not deserve any rights?
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Er, how is this an answer to what I wrote? You said:
quote: And what I wrote:
So that means that someone who doesn't want a child shouldn't have sex at all, and a woman should certainly wear a chastity belt at all times in case of rape, since there isn't a birth control method in the world that prevents contraception 100%, including sterilization. No married people who don't want any children should ever have intercourse. Not even once, not even if they are both sterilized. All married people who don't want any more children should never have intercourse ever again, not even if they are both sterilized. ...is simply the logical consequence of your statement above. No contraceptive method except complete abstention is 100% sure to prevent pregnancy. If abortion becomes illegal, complete abstention from intercourse is the only for-sure method anyone can use to avoid pregnancy, including married couples who never want to get pregnant, or who have had children and don't want any more. If you don't like that outcome of your position, I am certainly not to blame.
quote: It isn't a linear thing. Controlling what happens inside women's fertility has long been a big part of patriarchy, particularly the religious kind, and is a natural offshoot of what women have generally been seen as in such cultures. Historically, women were little more than breeding stock and servants; property, chattel, the spoils of war, etc. That sort of treatment of women is in evidence all throughout the Bible and the Koran. And, surprise surprise, it is generally in countries in which women do not have access to abortion, they don't have access to contraception, either. In these cultures, women are considered to be nothing without a man, either a father, brother, or husband. Their importance is a function of whatever male she is associated with and how many sons she can produce. This general attitude has long been a part of religious patriarchy. Is this really the first you are hearing of this?
quote: Oh please. Abortion makes society better. You not being legitimized by a religious government to be able to dictate what happens inside my uterus makes society better. Freedom of choice makes society better. Women's reproductive rights and control over her own body are directly linked to women having political and social power. As they gain the former, they gain the latter. And as they lose the former, the lose the latter. If you don't think so, then why don't you send all of your female relatives over to Iran, or Laos, or Haiti or Oman and all the other countries which ban abortion and see how much they like being a woman there.
quote: Don't like what's on TV? Turn it off. Nobody's forcing you to watch anything, or even have a TV in your house.
quote: Huh? How does having an abortion degrade women??
quote: Oh, so the downfall of society is the fault of abortion rights? Funny, I seem to recall that the vast majority of the countries on that map I linked to that were the most prosperous, peaceful, had the best gender equity and were the nicest to live in were also the ones that had legalized abortion. The ones which banned all abortion or severely restricted it tended to have a lot of war, were run by dictatorships, often radical religious ones, and in many of them women have to wear burkhas and can't walk by themselves in public, let alone drive a car or own property or be educated. So please, Linear, try to tell me again how letting the religious moralists constantly look up my skirt to make sure I haven't had an abortion is going to make our society better, hmmm?
quote: Yes, you religious people do hate anything that carries the barest hint of pleasure, particularly if it might be sexual. Of course, so many of your male leaders end up having meth-fueled gay sex with prostitutes, or offering to blow undercover police officers in park restrooms that I just wonder at your motivations. Edited by nator, : No reason given. Edited by nator, : No reason given.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2642 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
I take it you don't deal with sarcasm very often. Given what I've read on this forum, I make no assumptions about what my opponent does or does not know.
You have already stated that birth is that point. No, I haven't.
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molbiogirl Member (Idle past 2642 days) Posts: 1909 From: MO Joined: |
Juggs, you haven't taken the time to carefully read my last post. There are several errors in your reply.
Now you are saying that the difference is between undifferntiated (sic) cells versus differentiated ones. No, I am not.
Then you would think that a fetus after its 12th week of gestation is a human being... Yet, you don't. I have said nothing about a 12 week old fetus.
You are acting as if they are mating goats with humans. That isn't close to what they are doing. You didn't read that list too closely. Take another look.
What? Absolutely not! When a new human begins, i.e., a child, is through the process of fertilization. A sperm is not a child. An ovum is not child. A somatic cell is not a child. Any undifferentiated cell in the body is not a child. I know. So what? DNA is DNA is DNA is DNA. How does that effect the argument? Your argument has been that the conceptus has the POTENTIAL to become a human therefore it is a human. Furthermore, you have chosen the presence of DNA as the hallmark of that POTENTIAL. Each of your somatic cells has a full complement of DNA and has the POTENTIAL to become a zygote. That's a fact. You are the one drawing the line at DNA, not me.
For the sake of your own posterity, I want you to tell me when someone is allowed to be called a human, fitted with all the inalienable rights vested to a human. When an integrated neural pathway is present, at week 8.
When the process of fertilization begins, that is the nano-second that a new life begins. Its really, really very simple. You need to crack open a biology textbook. Syngamy, the fusion of both haploid genomes into one diploid genome, takes place at hour 20.
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