Very Late Term Abortion V. Early Term

[Socrates]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1302652577' post='2227981']
You definitely didn't understand what I was saying. I'm not saying that the right to life depends on development, that's absurd, not sure how you got that from what I said. The questions were rhetorical, ok? I was making the point that no matter where a person is in their development, it is always gravely wrong to kill them, be it by abortion, euthanasia, etc. Going back to the point of this thread, i was arguing that an abortion would always be wrong, whether early or late, precisely because how developed a child is has no bearing on the fact that there a human being.
[/quote]
I'm agreeing with you, not arguing with you.


Sheesh.

[Amppax]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1302655146' post='2228001']
I'm agreeing with you, not arguing with you.


Sheesh.
[/quote]

Gotcha, sorry, I'm a little tired [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/blush.gif[/img]

[AudreyGrace]

it's as simple as this: all human life is of equal value under the eyes of God, no matter what stage of life- zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teen, young adult, elder. In the book of Jeremiah, God said "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." God knew us, created us out of His love, and thought us into existence. We were given a soul at conception. If not at conception, then before that. So, any intentional termination of life after conception is murder. Plain and simple. Early and late term abortions are of equal evil.

[thessalonian]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1302561256' post='2227601']
folks are welcome to prove how it's the same from conception. is a snowball a snowman? is a lego a lego man? the points aren't to say that the earliest cells are not human but to ask what distinguishes them such that they are human life, and not just cells. if there's ambiguity about how many snowballs make a snow man, or legos a lego man, it could be argued as analogous that it's ambiguous about how many cells must exist to constitute a human. yes, you can probably find all kinds of ways to reduce regular folks less and less from whole, and it mighte even be gray. but it being gray doesn't mean rash statements are made just to put the gray under a rug.
is there something special about the cells that distinguish it? i suppose there must be some chemicals going on, that are not present in normal cells, directing them to form a person? i dont know. even this basic info is never established in all the debates i've seen on the issue. but, in any case, what are the indicators that distinguish them early on?
how is the lego and snowball example disanalogous?
[/quote]

We're not talking about snowmen here. Sheesh! Human life has a soul at the moment of birth. That's a HUGE difference.

[Peter John]

[quote name='AudreyGrace' timestamp='1302659163' post='2228019']
it's as simple as this: all human life is of equal value under the eyes of God, no matter what stage of life- zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teen, young adult, elder. In the book of Jeremiah, God said "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." God knew us, created us out of His love, and thought us into existence. We were given a soul at conception. If not at conception, then before that. So, any intentional termination of life after conception is murder. Plain and simple. Early and late term abortions are of equal evil.
[/quote]

I agree we were given a soul at conception. I know esoterically that we have completely formed personalities at conception, even if our bodies have yet to develop the physical structure to express those personalities. Regarding the creation of our souls as independent entities prior to conception, i have to dispute that. If our souls existed prior to conception than abortion would not be as serious a matter. God could just relegate us to the next conceived embryo that happened along. Abortion might only be destroying a body, subjecting the point at which the soul enters the body to debate. In such a framework the argument the "breath of life" argument would likely prevail, that is that until one breathes their first actual breath they have not become completely human, or in other words the sould is not completely bonded with the body.. I will say no more than that as it is a vain distraction. Even before scriptural arguments, the Magisterium's position on abortion excludes consideration of individual autonomous existence prior to conception. The declarations of the Magisterioum narrows possible interpretatin of scripture and other bases of argument available.

[Peter John]

[quote name='thessalonian' timestamp='1302660656' post='2228024']
We're not talking about snowmen here. Sheesh! Human life has a soul at the moment of birth. That's a HUGE difference.
[/quote]

Only at the moment of birth?

[Winchester]

[quote name='Peter John' timestamp='1302582368' post='2227730']
An embryo is a complete human being. He or she is not yet capable of surviving independently, but is no less a complete person -- not just a part of a person. He or she has not yet developed a complete body, but is still a complete person. Is someone lacking arms or legs an incomplete person? Is someone with an undeveloped cerebrum an incomplete person?
[/quote]
I had a typo, hence the inconsistency with the rest of the argument in my saying an embryo is part of a person. It should have been "isn't".

[Peter John]

[quote name='Amppax' timestamp='1302605925' post='2227753']
To continue this argument, is a child an incomplete person? The embryo is merely a stage of human development. it's not as if a child could survive on its own either, is it ok to kill a child because you cannot take care of it? If you heard of someone who killed their five day old baby (after birth) you would view that as no less grave then killing a 3 year old child. It's the same with an abortion.
[/quote]
... and it has taken centuries of enlightenment for humans to reach this consideration. The Spartans could not tell if a baby would have disabilities before birth, so they performed their abortions retrocatively. Elizabethan woodcuts show nurses tossing babies back and forthe between buildings. Theoughout most of history -- and most cultures -- children have not really been considered human until they were responsible adults -- which until the 19th Century meant 14 or 15 at the oldest -- about a third of the way through their life expectancy.

In most of the societies from which our emerged women were properties of the men, as were children. The closest thing to a literal abortion law in the old testament (causing a traumatic miscarriage) was a property law. Fines were less serious if a woman lost a child than if she were rendered permanently infertile, or if she died.

I do not consider this a reference to what we should do now. I consider it a reflection on how much we have changed. I do not think academia gives Christianity enough credit for reversing the downward spiral in concern for the value of life that reached a peak in the values of ancient Rome.

[Peter John]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1302735583' post='2228428']
I had a typo, hence the inconsistency with the rest of the argument in my saying an embryo is part of a person. It should have been "isn't".
[/quote]
Believe it or not, I understood what you meant, though I considered your wording as a rhetorical device echoing the content to which you responded. I responded in agreement and was just rushing so I neglected to say "I agree".

[Peter John]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1302567118' post='2227639']
"in the case of identical twins. it seems weaker to say a person is splitting into two persons. are there two persons that are one and then split into two? no. there's, arguably, one, and then another comes from that. it just seems weak to say one person came from another person. more like groups of cells split from each other. also, the twins can then recombine. so a person is lost? a soul is lost?
[/quote]
This is a good point on which to consider a different way of looking at it. Bear with me, please, because I think you make some very reasonable arguments, and you may enjoy this exercise.


The problem is that science has no way to examine what personality may exist extant of the physical vehicles which enable its expression. Science concludes that the development of the brain represents the capacity of the personality because it can only study what manifests in physical being. Consider that a person -- subject to genetic limitations of the body -- directs many elements of the growth of the body (intentional or not) by diet and exercise. A function of will exists behind this.

Consider that many people are born with damaged parts of their brain, and some with even no higher functioning brain segments at all. This people manifest fractious or non-existent personalities. When they are resurrected they will have a perfect body. They will also, the scriptures tell us, rise in the state they have lived. Does this mean that someone who lived with an incomplete brain, never having developed a "personality" will never have one in eternity?

Consider instead the possibility that individual personalities are complete at conception, and the developing body follows the pattern created by the already existing will. If that is the case it means that when twins are conceived as one zygote there are already two personalities, and the body advances accordingly. Sometimes a developing embryo has some fault that keeps the wills shaping it from spliting it completely. and they end up as Siamese twins -- two specific individuals exist despite the fact that two distinct bodies have not been created -- or perhaps these two personalities are in such close attachment on their own that corporeal development models on this.

There is no way to test this scientifically, because a hypothesis has to be testable and falsifiable, and there is no way to do either.. There is no way to test it. There is only whether or not someone's own esoteric experience supports this percspective.

Just an idea to ponder I'm throwing out: It doesn't mean that the personality sdoes not change through learning and expereince, and it would in fact have to. Consider infants who die. Are their personalities in heaven and the resurrection only to be what they could express with infant bodies, or will they be more expressive following this life? In the latter case it means they already carry something into life with them more than what their neurons produce. Neurons as they grow become vehicles for expression of the personality directing them, just as muscle expresses the neurons.

I hope that made sense.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Peter John' timestamp='1302766130' post='2228592']
Believe it or not, I understood what you meant, though I considered your wording as a rhetorical device echoing the content to which you responded. I responded in agreement and was just rushing so I neglected to say "I agree".
[/quote]
I believe you. But only because your choice in avatars has been consistently brilliant.

[MagiDragon]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1302567118' post='2227639']
in the case of identical twins. it seems weaker to say a person is splitting into two persons. are there two persons that are one and then split into two? no. there's, arguably, one, and then another comes from that. it just seems weak to say one person came from another person. more like groups of cells split from each other. also, the twins can then recombine. so a person is lost? a soul is lost?
[/quote]

I've also thought about this question, and the easiest solution that I found was that of a flatworm. If you cut a flatworm in two, both halves will regenerate into a full flatworm. Does this mean that you didn't have a full flatworm in the first place? Of course not. Therefore, a human at conception is exactly that: a human. It doesn't have potential to develop into a human, it *is* a human.

Once twinning occurs, what happens? One becomes two, and God handles the soulification.

If one is absorbed by the other, what happens? One has died, the other continues on.

I really don't think this is all that difficult.

[dairygirl4u2c]

it's not complicated. but it's below the dignity of humans, as my first impression, to be one person, then two, then one like that.
course it's possible, sure.
the flatworms example doesn't really add anything new... we already knew there were two people, then one. 'people'. that flatworms do it too only shows that we aren't a fluke for it. if anything, it more shows that things like flatworms do it, and the earliest cells are more like flatworms, and less like actual people. just like all those embryo pictures where all the various ani9mals and lifeforms look the same earliest stages, like a sea horse.

[MagiDragon]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1303250198' post='2230325']
the flatworms example doesn't really add anything new... we already knew there were two people, then one. 'people'.
[/quote]

You missed my point, I meant to show you that there was 1 flatworm *before* there were 2. You wouldn't claim that the flatworm wasn't a flatworm because it *could* become more than 1. You would simply say "it is a flatworm." Similarly, even though twinning can occur, you wouldn't say "it may be several people." You would simply say "that's one human." It may become more than one human at some point, but that doesn't lessen its humanity *now.*

It is a human. It may become several humans, but it *is* one human.

[ardillacid]

[quote name='MagiDragon' timestamp='1303243945' post='2230293']
I've also thought about this question, and the easiest solution that I found was that of a flatworm. If you cut a flatworm in two, both halves will regenerate into a full flatworm. Does this mean that you didn't have a full flatworm in the first place? Of course not.
[/quote]
That is cool. Do you think you could source that, please?