The beginnings of life, embyro = cancer?

[bankside]

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.



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

I bet you were an argumentative bastard, as a single cell. It wasn't until you hit 8 - 16 cells that you started to mellow out.

 

[FirmaFan]

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.

Your logic is flawed.

You know a developing embryo with distinct DNA can develop without a brain, right? It's called anencephaly. This brain doesn't function as an adult brain functions, this brain simply isn't there. DNA does NOT evidence brain development...it can, in some cases, evident the exact opposite. This condition can be detected while the embryo is still developing. In cases like this, the necessity for a woman's right to choose is made abundantly clear. Must we force a woman to carry to term an embryo with this condition? Should it not happen to spontaneously abort (it usually does), this fetus has a 100 percent mortality at 2 - 3 days after gestation. Most die within a few hours. There are some who would rather avoid this outcome, and understandably so.

 

[kallipolis]

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.



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

There is no argument that the zygote is human life. The two competing lobbies accept that the zygote is human life. The courts accept that the zygote is human life.

I repeat that the argument arises between the two lobbies when determining when human life becomes a human person.

At your conception you began the journey of your life time which has brought you to where you are at this present moment without interruption.

 

[kallipolis]

Your logic is flawed.

You know a developing embryo with distinct DNA can develop without a brain, right? It's called anencephaly. This brain doesn't function as an adult brain functions, this brain simply isn't there. DNA does NOT evidence brain development...it can, in some cases, evident the exact opposite. This condition can be detected while the embryo is still developing. .

Anencephaly is the absence of a large part of the brain and the skull. Symptoms: Absence of the skull; Absence of the brain (cerebral hemispheres and cerebellum); Facial feature abnormalities; Heart defects.

It is a very rare condition. I am focusing on the norm, not on the abnormal.

What's your point?

DNA:

Deoxyribonucleic acid, a self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is...
the fundamental and distinctive characteristics of someone or something, esp. when regarded as unchangeable.

These chromosomes also include the blue print for the brain.

 

[PolterGUYst]

The connection being made is that there is a mass of cells growing inside your own body. If you don't want that mass of cells to continue to grow inside your body, why should you be forced to let it continue to live inside of you? How exactly does something have the right to grow inside your body if you don't want it there? That's the question being asked.

 

[Kulindahr]

Science determines what is human life, not what is a human person.
. . . .
Science has yet to determine when a zygote becomes sentient, or turned on as you prefer to characterise.

You just contradicted yourself -- sentient = person.

And we know it doesn't happen before eighty days, because that's about when the brain is complete.

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.

Birds show emotion -- so emotion isn't an indicator of sentience. Kittens respond to music, soothing sound and touch -- so those aren't signs, either.

What we know about personhood is that thinking being have complex brain waves. Those show up as the brain is finishing its development.

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

You keep making assertions without providing the least foundation for them.

 

[bankside]

Anencephaly is the absence of a large part of the brain and the skull. Symptoms: Absence of the skull; Absence of the brain (cerebral hemispheres and cerebellum); Facial feature abnormalities; Heart defects.

It is a very rare condition. I am focusing on the norm, not on the abnormal.

What's your point?

DNA:

Deoxyribonucleic acid, a self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is...
the fundamental and distinctive characteristics of someone or something, esp. when regarded as unchangeable.

These chromosomes also include the blue print for the brain.

Focusing on the norm? It is normal for every human fœtus to pass through a stage where the brain and skull are absent. The example of anencephaly is relevant, given that we all spend time that way. The only rarity is when the condition persists.

 

[kallipolis]

The connection being made is that there is a mass of cells growing inside your own body. If you don't want that mass of cells to continue to grow inside your body, why should you be forced to let it continue to live inside of you? How exactly does something have the right to grow inside your body if you don't want it there? That's the question being asked.

Let's be much clearer. Those cells is human life. We are discussing the destruction of human life. Is that sufficiently clear? Or, should we relegate the early, or primitive stages of human life to the trash can to satisfy your simplistic characterisation of human life?

 

[kallipolis]

You keep making assertions without providing the least foundation for them.

Are you attempting to suggest that the zygote is not human life when your courts have decided that the zygote is human life, and that the two competing lobbies also accept that the zygote is human life.

You are well aware that the dividing issue is that of whether the zygote is a human person.

 

[PolterGUYst]

Whether you define it as human or non-human is your business. You still have failed to answer why anything should have the right to grow inside of your body unless you want it there.

 

[Kulindahr]

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?

So the brain is developing? What does that have to do with a person, except to say there isn't one yet?

And your fallacious challenge has been dealt with twice already.

 

[kallipolis]

Focusing on the norm? It is normal for every human fœtus to pass through a stage where the brain and skull are absent. The example of anencephaly is relevant, given that we all spend time that way. The only rarity is when the condition persists.

The brain is not absent when it is growing even though its presence is not measurable by medical science.

A rare condition is not relevant for it speaks to an exceptional failure in the normal development of the zygote.

Are we to assume that an exceptionally rare condition invalidates the development of the brain in the vast majority of zygotes growing normally?

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

Fascinating thought experiment.

What f the contention were that the genetic information must be assembled in an actual cell?

 

[Kulindahr]

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.

My right little finger is "human life". That doesn't make it a person.


When I write a computer program, the code slowly develops. But it isn't a program until I complete it -- then one moment there's no program, the next moment there is.

So you cutesy illustration fails. Essentially you're arguing that development equals completion.

 

[FirmaFan]

The brain is not absent when it is growing even though its presence is not measurable by medical science.

A single celled zygote does not have a brain, measurable or unmeasurable by medical science.

A rare condition is not relevant for it speaks to an exceptional failure in the normal development of the zygote.

And speaks to the necessity for a woman's right to abort.

Are we to assume that an exceptionally rare condition invalidates the development of the brain in the vast majority of zygotes growing normally?

It invalidates your statement that the presence of DNA means the presence of a developing brain.

 

[kallipolis]

So the brain is developing? What does that have to do with a person, except to say there isn't one yet?

And your fallacious challenge has been dealt with twice already.

The developing brain is evidence that a brain exists even though medical science cannot measure its activity until its further development.

Excepting very rare conditions (already referred too) the brain is present, and is developing. The developed adult human being is evidence that there is a beginning to the process of the development of human life, and that process begins with conception.To believe otherwise would be to imagine that the brain suddenly appears out of thin air.

I focus on the topic not on personal innuendo. Others are also trying.

 

[Rolyo85]

Whether you define it as human or non-human is your business. You still have failed to answer why anything should have the right to grow inside of your body unless you want it there.

I would like to see answers of that as well. Cause that's what it really boils down to for me.

 

[kallipolis]

A zygote does not have a brain, measurable or unmeasurable by medical science.

Most certainly a zygote has a brain even though its activity is not measurable by medical science until its further development. To believe otherwise is to imagine that the brain suddenly implants - by an external source - itself into the fetus at some future stage in the development of the fetus.

 

[Stardreamer]

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.

Hmmm from as much as I understand the science involved you would have a lesbian dying of something resembling cancer.