As has been stated by several other frequent posters on the boards, the abotion/sex topics are all over the place. I'd like to create this thread to allow for a place for the frequent debaters on the topic to say exactly at what point and why they think a fetus becomes a person.
The other topics are for debate, this one can be for you to state what you think and why, to give an anchor point for your arguments in the various other threads. It's not nessecary to go debate here, just state your veiws.
quote man, i just wrote a 10 paragraph response to your request for an explanation and you're just going to give up!?! what are you trying to do, give me wrist cramps?
ummm well u told me to learn more b4 i open my mouth. arent u happy that i give up so u dont have to listen to my "stupidity" anymore?
man, i just wrote a 10 paragraph response to your request for an explanation and you're just going to give up!?! what are you trying to do, give me wrist cramps?
yes, dr. strangelove, "personhood" was what i originally wrote. i was only using the word "life" (wrongly, i suppose) in an attempt to simplify my previous post. regardless, i am in complete agreement with you - it is that conferring of "personhood" that is the crux of the matter - at what point should the rights of a fetus be recognized as paramount to those of a mother?
again, a fetus in the 3rd trimester can survive out of the womb - however, it often requires medical care (respirators, steroid injections for sulfactant production in the lungs); the vast majority of babies born from weeks 24-30 would never survive if nature took its course. the question then arises - what happens when science is capable of keeping an 18 week baby alive? 10 weeks? a zygote?
the abortion issue will just continue to get murkier as medicine progresses.
kg- the debate isn't so much as to when life begins as it is to when "personhood" begins. Science basically says that life starts at conception, when the two different DNA patterns combine to form a new reproducing zygote, which will eventually develop into a full human. It's not really my position that personhood begins at the moment, however i wish there was some way we could get around quashing unique human genetic code. In any case, my previous point was that it is basically ludicrous to say that a fetus in the final two or three months is not a person. It is fully capable of living outside the womb, and is therefore equal to a newborn. The fact that it is inside or outside the mother at this point is irrelevent. My big beef with abortion (aside from the wanton nature of the majority of abortions) is the late term stuff. Partial birth abortion and the like. I'd like for someone to come up with a logical reason explaining why a perfectly viable 8 month old fetus should be a candidate for abortion? Just because some people don't see it as a "person" that late in the game doesn't change the fact that it is almost identical to what is traditionally classified as a person.
ok, dr. strangelove was saying that aborting an embryo/fetus/baby/whatever-you-want-to-call-it was similar to one-half of a siamese twin killing the other half to make his/her life easier.
i was saying that i didn't think that the 2 could be viewed in the same way. everyone would agree that the siamese twin case would be murder. why? because (just about) everyone recognizes that a set of siamese twins consists of 2 people. so if there is no disagreement about the defintion of life here (because everyone agrees that there are 2 lives at stake), we wouldn't accept the killing of one for the convenience of the other.
abortion, on the other hand, does not involve a definition of life that everyone agrees on. instead, you have some people claiming that life doesn't being until the baby exists outside of the mother, and you have some people claiming that life begins at concecption, and then more people claiming that life may begin somewhere in between.
since we can't agree upon when life begins in this situation, it's not like the siamese twin situation where everyone agreed that there were 2 lives at stake. therefore, i don't think we can argue about one situation and carry over the argument into the other situation.
it's as if we were talking about abortion and killing bacteria. the two situations aren't really similar enough to use one conclusion for the other situation. sure, both involve killing organisms. but, whereas everyone agrees that killing bacteria is ok (well, just about everyone), many people do not agree with killing a fetus.
you can't say that since killing bacteria is ok killing a fetus is ok - because that argument assumes that everyone has agreed that bacteria and a fetus are equal from a moral standpoint. obviously that hasn't been agreed upon.
so i was saying that the relationship between a fetus and the mother, and the 2 siamese twins, are two very different relationships. we can't come up with an answer to one and carry it over to the other situation and expect others to accept it.
A fetus is definately human. No matter what scientific name you give it, it is still a tiny human in the first stages of development. Simply because an unborn baby is co-dependent on its mother doesnt make it any less a person.
the minute the sperm and egg meet. They become one, and that one is the begining of a human life. You're really nine months old when you come into this world, so you're borne in that instant.
it's an interesting point, especially as medicine progresses to make life possible for fetuses outside of the womb at earlier times. it is a difficult definition of life.
however, i don't think that the siamese twin scenario is too similar. everyone universally agrees that a person is afforded all of the rights of "personhood" at the lastest following birth/parturition. such a procedure, done at the convenience of the other twin, would be looked upon as murder. with abortion, given the lack of consensus about the moment of "personhood", doesn't have as clearly defined moral parameters and thus raises different issues (for me at least).
quote: I consider it a baby or human when it stops sucking the life out of the mother
Question: In the latter stages of pregnacy, when the child is nearly fully formed and is able to exist outside the womb, is it not human? The only real important difference is that it is still in the womb. Is it right to kill a fetus in the 7th, 8th or 9th months of development? Similar scenerio: Siamese twins, one is feeding off the other, however they both live reletively confortably and there is minimal danger. The dominant one (ie. the feeder, not the feedee) becomes frustrated with thier twin, and decides to kill them to end the discomfort and odd lifestyle that comes along with being conjoined twins. Is it murder in this situation? And if not, why?
hmm well i still think its a human...lol theres some other board where ppl were calling the fetus a person and then everyone got mad... i guess theres basically no name that anyone will agree on...pro choice or pro life..
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