The beginnings of life, embyro = cancer?

[FirmaFan]

Do you need me to tell you what human life is?

You've already told me what YOU define human life to be.

There is no dispute between the pro choice, and pro life lobbies that a zygote is human life. Stardreamer confirms that the courts also recognise a zygote as human life.

A zygote is a single cell with a full set of chromosomes. I will agree that it is living, I will also agree that it has the potential to develop into a fully formed human being, but to call it a "human life" isn't a reasonable assertion.

As I have already stated the dispute is over the term human person, for the pro choice lobby argue that despite recognising the zygote is human life, it is not a human person by reason of its primitive development.

Here lies the chasm between the two competing groups.

Again, a gross oversimplification of the pro-choice position. Several times now it has been mentioned in this thread the inclusion of the consideration of women's rights and privileges with regard to her own body, yet such topics are suspiciously absent from what you claim the pro-choice position to be all about.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's an issue of one life or two. The woman, as a responsible parent of a six-month old, will clearly be obliged to use her arms to pick up the child and tend to its needs. She has no choice over the use of her own body. If we establish that there is at some point a human being in utero then there is every reason to oblige her to use her uterus to care for the child just as we would oblige her to use her arms six months later. If she never picked up the child and never fed it because of a sense of personal autonomy and a right to not use her own body, we'd charge her with neglect or murder.

So, the question of when humanity inures in the sperm/ovum/embryo/fœtus/neonate is of critical importance, and the answer has varied from one century to another and one society to another.

I think we can now be guided by what science has revealed about consciousness and the potential for consciousness, so it's not really irrelevant to dwell in this "academic stuff."

Superb exposition.

 

[Ambrocious]

Cancer kills and embryo's produce life. Simple argument is now over.

A mindset is learned over a period of time. It is now normal to see people equivalating cancer to a human embryo because self hatred and ignorance is for some ghastly reason...trendy.

No matter how many times I hear "Humans are bad for the planet, we all need to die" I simply understand that WE CAN CHANGE how we make this planet and know know that it DOESN'T require us dying to make it better either.

 

[Kulindahr]

You mean this one?

"The issue here is whether this potential life is an argument enough to deny a woman the right over her own body."


Absolutely not. I can kind of see curtailing abortion rights in the 3rd trimester, because at that point the fetus could potentially survive outside the womb, but the right to having an abortion for any reason until at LEAST the end of the 2nd trimester must be protected.

So you're happy with murdering entities which show complex dream states, the ability to appreciate music, and more?

That's barbaric. Once complex brain waves are present, that entity is a person. There's no right to terminate the life of a person.

 

[kallipolis]

Of course it must rest on science -- would you rather use voodoo?

And your comparison is barely relevant: a system being idle isn't at all comparable to not having been turned on. You'd have a parallel if instead of "unconscious" you said "with a dead brain".

Legal determinations do not rest on science for they represent an attempt to reach a compromise between competing arguments, with the result that neither the pro choice, or the pro life lobbies are entirely satisfied with the legal ruling on the human person.

Science determines what is human life, not what is a human person.

On the matter of the zygote being human life there is no disagreement for the courts have concluded that a zygote is human life.

Science has yet to determine when a zygote becomes sentient, or turned on as you prefer to characterise.

By sentient I mean feeling emotion etc. If we accept that it also means to perceive as an adult would then it is apparent that the fetus does not perceive in the same manner as an adult as far as we can currently determine. The fetus responds to music, soothing sounds and touch. The fetus responds to an upset mother. Thus there is present in the early development of the baby a measurable level of sentient response.

Under United States law after how many weeks is the baby determined to be a human person?

 

[kallipolis]

A zygote is a single cell with a full set of chromosomes. I will agree that it is living, I will also agree that it has the potential to develop into a fully formed human being, but to call it a "human life" isn't a reasonable assertion.


.

A zygote is human life.

Human life develops throughout its life's journey until its death.

The human person we are at our conception, birth, teen years, middle age and advanced years reflects that process of development of the human being.

 

[Kulindahr]

But if she never wanted to be pregnant in the first place, I'd say that it's more immoral to encroach upon her right to autonomy than it is to allow her to abort, especially early on in the pregnancy. And parents who don't want to take care of their children are always free to give them up for adoption. Attempting to force children upon someone who doesn't want them does no one any good.

Up until those brainwaves blossom, go for it. IIRC, it happens around 80 -- 100 days.

 

[frankfrank]

A tumor is not even a parasite, at least that is a distinct life.

I think that one part of the definition of a PARASITE, is that it must be a different species than the host, which a foetus clearly is not.

 

[Kulindahr]

As usual you are arguing against the things you would have found it convenient for me to have said.

Nice way to put it.

 

[frankfrank]

An adult who cannot recover consciousness, due to brain absence for example, is not a human despite our ability to inflate the lungs with machines and keep the heart regulated with the appropriate chemicals or electrical stimulation.

If homo sapiens = human being (and absolutely synonymous, one is not a subset of the other), wouldn't this mean that the large organism hooked up to life support would also have to stop being homo sapiens? I think that scientists would disagree.

 

[Kulindahr]

You wrote them. Take responsibility for your words. I merely respond to your words.

No. His point is correct: you're responding to things he hasn't said.

 

[Kulindahr]

The baby has a distinct DNA different from its mother, and its father evidencing its status as an individual human person.

The baby after its birth still remains dependent upon its parents for all its needs to survive.

Not at all. We know a person because of things like language skills. Language skills require a functional brain. There's no functional brain on a human level until roughly three months.

No brain, no thoughts; no thoughts, no human being.

Biological facts of life state so. Logic states so when asking what the growing life in the mother's womb was before the vertebrae appears.

Logic says there's no person present until there's a full brain for a person's mind to function in.

 

[bankside]

If homo sapiens = human being (and absolutely synonymous, one is not a subset of the other), wouldn't this mean that the large organism hooked up to life support would also have to stop being homo sapiens? I think that scientists would disagree.

It is useful to begin with obscure theoretical situations and then work back to something that would apply to everyday life. (i.e., something you could then make a law about).

Suppose a person is hanging on to the edge of a volcanic caldera by one arm. A rock dislodges from higher up the wall of the caldera, smashes down severing the arm, and sending the person plunging to his easily avoidable death, which occurs by complete annihilation in a sea of lava. Vulcanologists take a lot of silly romanticised risks when they could just send robots.

Anyway, when we find the arm, we would say "this is the arm of a dead homo sapiens" and not "this is a homo sapiens."

My point is to establish that by removing a sufficient percentage of the physical body, a former person is no longer a homo sapiens - no longer a human being. Yes, it is human tissue, but not in sufficient quantity or of sufficient integral configuration with other human tissue to actually constitute a human being.

I contend that the central feature required for humanity is a brain capable of functioning beyond a certain minimum threshold - a level I inexpertly and amateurishly call "consciousness." I'm sure a neurobiologist could persuade me to select a more precise word, but that wouldn't really change the thrust of my argument.

It is the brain and its activity that matters. You can remove any other part of the body, replace it or omit it, and you would continue to have not only an example of homo sapiens, but indeed the same homo sapiens. Put an end to the brain and it's game over. Or, in the case of a zygote, game never begun.

 

[kallipolis]

If homo sapiens = human being (and absolutely synonymous, one is not a subset of the other), wouldn't this mean that the large organism hooked up to life support would also have to stop being homo sapiens? I think that scientists would disagree.

I, also would disagree.Thus, agreeing with your observation.

 

[Kulindahr]

There is a point where something becomes distinct and cannot be subdivided further without losing that distinctness. In science I can point to an atom and say that is an oxygen atom, because the atom is the smallest distinct construction of an element. I cannot point to an electron and say that is an oxygen electron. A fertilized egg cell is the smallest point of distinction in a life form at which you can say that is a unique Homo Sapien. But just as one atom does not make an atmosphere, one cell does not make a sentient being.

That's a very interesting comparison. I think I like it.

 

[Kulindahr]

As I have already stated the dispute is over the term human person, for the pro choice lobby argue that despite recognising the zygote is human life, it is not a human person by reason of its primitive development.

I'm not pro choice; I despise the concept of abortion. But I am pro-science, so I ask, "Scientifically, what makes a person?" The primary characteristic is a mind. A mind requires a brain. Ergo, we know there's a person when there's a brain, and that goes with brainwaves.

 

[kallipolis]

Not at all. We know a person because of things like language skills. Language skills require a functional brain. There's no functional brain on a human level until roughly three months.

No brain, no thoughts; no thoughts, no human being.



Logic says there's no person present until there's a full brain for a person's mind to function in.

Logic states that the presence of the baby's distinct DNA evidences that the brain is developing, even though the brain is not functioning as an adult brain functions.

That all the jig saw pieces of human life are in place informs us that the baby is as much human life, as the adult human person who is lying comatose in a hospital bed.

Or, are you suggesting that a comatose adult is not a human being?

 

[FirmaFan]

A zygote is human life.

Yes, you keep saying that, and you also keep saying that there is no argument about this. The first is your opinion. The latter is simply untrue.

Human life develops throughout its life's journey until its death.

The human person we are at our conception, birth, teen years, middle age and advanced years reflects that process of development of the human being.

Makes me wonder what kind of person I was when I consisted of just a single cell at conception.

 

[bankside]

So we now have machines that can not only read genetic sequences but also knit the base pairs together into functioning genes like somebody's grandma on a Saturday afternoon. Row after row, until enough squares are formed to make a whole quilt, or in this case, an entire germ line genome.

What if I take the memory stick from my machine and plug it into the sequencer of a nearby lesbian, copying my DNA sequence onto her hard drive?

We arrive at a situation where the full unique and heretofore unknown genetic sequence has been assembled which, if we set the lesbian's machine to "write" instead of "read," will result in a viable genetic sequence that can give rise to a unique human being. If we turn the sequencer on, that is. And if we don't erase the hard drive.

If the act of assembling the genetic code is sufficient to establish a new human identity worthy of legal protection, then clearly formatting the hard drive would constitute an illegal abortion.

 

[kallipolis]

I'm not pro choice; I despise the concept of abortion. But I am pro-science, so I ask, "Scientifically, what makes a person?" The primary characteristic is a mind. A mind requires a brain. Ergo, we know there's a person when there's a brain, and that goes with brainwaves.

That the baby's brain is in a process of development, and will continue to develop - yet, not measurable by medical science - is proof that the baby is human life.

To believe otherwise is to imagine that the baby's brain suddenly materialises out of thin air at some later stage in its development.