Abortion Issue Hits The work Scene

[LittleLes]

[quote name='guardsman' date='May 27 2005, 11:37 PM'] I'm a member of both of those groups. Abortion is definitely killing an innocent child. [/quote]
This would be the case once ensoulment has occurred, but not before.

Before ensoulment, there is no "person" to kill.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Jake Huether' date='May 27 2005, 04:48 PM']

I think you are arguing for the sake of wanting to be right, not necessarily for the sake of learning what is right.

God bless. [/quote]
Yes. I think in forming moral decisions one should alway try to be right, not simply follow "the party line" which frequently is wrong.

And if there is positive doubt that an embryo is ensouled, and if a person's life was dependent upon receiving fetal stem cells, who would have the greater right to the stem cells, the fetus only possibly but not probably ensouled, or the adult person who is certainly ensouled?

[LittleLes]

[quote name='KizlarAgha' date='May 28 2005, 05:42 PM'] The difference is that one implantation is invasive, and the other implantation is not.  In vitro fertilization is of course unnatural, so it doesn't count. [/quote]
So you don't consider the sexual act invasive, eh!


And in vitro fertilization doesn't count, since it is "unnatural.' I know some persons who have been conceived in this way. I think they believe they are ensouled.

Edited May 29, 2005 by LittleLes

[LittleLes]

[quote name='bookwyrm' date='May 28 2005, 08:20 PM'] Little Les, I must say that I find it amusing how you try to use scientific terminology and fall flat on your face. Most of your arguments about cloning or primates are not related to the subject. So focus, please. Quit trying to confuse the poor people and argue coherently. [/quote]
Hi Book,

The original question was if abortion is killing in all cases.

Clearly, all forms of conception are material to the issue.

Also, please evidence your assertion that "I fall flat on my foce." It sounds like you ralize that you have no valid counterargument to mine and so are lapsing into ad hominems. This is very common with apologists. -_-

[Aloysius]

ensoulment occurs at fertilization, even if it is in vitro. this is because in the natural order of things, fertilization forms something that will naturally grow into a human being. when it is made unnaturally in an area where it will not become a human being it is still ensouled.

an embryo in its natural state and place will be man, and as such is to be considered man already. your delayed ensoulment can only hold water if you also hold the Aristotelian view that we begin as plants, develope into animals, and then become humans. and regardless, it is considered a sexual sin in the Catholic Moral system throughout all of Catholic history.

we consider an embryo, no matter where it is created, to be rightly ordered in the design of life to have been created in the woman where it will become man. as such the embryo is considered a potential man.

[CatholicCid]

Face*

Also, just from looking at your post, why do you try and entwine fact and opinion together? You present it alright as fact, then lace it with your opinions. I could understand it if you clearly seperated the two as half this stuff is opinion.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='KizlarAgha' date='May 26 2005, 09:45 PM'] Not at all the case. You have to hijack another cell for your "somatic" to even work. You cannot take the skin cell and put it in a uterus and have it do anything. You have to take the ovum. So all you're really doing is creating a fertilized egg cell by bypassing the fertilization. You need the egg cell.

Besides which, doing this with a human is far easier said than done. To my knowledge, no such clone has ever been brought to term. We don't even know what the side-effects might be. [/quote]
At present, we need only the egg cell from which nuclear genetic material has been removed (but it is questionable if it has to be a human egg cell) for nourishment of the genome. In the future there may be alternatives.

However, if one tries to argue, as the prolife folks like to, that once one has a genome, one has a human being, any complete human genome which has reproductive potential is a person. Realistically, one has only a cell which has the potential to become a human being.

But human cells grown and subdividing in a tissue culture have the same genome as the zygote. So to be consistent, the prolife folks would have to claim these too are human beings.

[Aloysius]

no, they claim the zygote as a whole is a human being.

you seem to avoid me at every turn. Are you dropping your Augustine/Jerome/Aquinas argument as it has been discredited? Or are you adopting the Aristotelian view that we are plants in the beginning of life? And contrary to your statements, the Church has always considered abortion sinful, simply sometimes classifying it as a sexual sin rather than murder. Modern science has discredited the Aristotelian view that we begin as plants and as such the Church has condemned abortion as always and everywhere murder.

it's about natural potential for life. when something exists that would, in its natural state and place, become a human being, it is thusly human already.

[CatholicCid]

They are parts of one aren't they?

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='May 27 2005, 11:05 PM']

a skin cell if left in its natural state will not become a man

an embryo if left in its natural state will become a man

not only is the genome there, but the instructions for how it should grow into that person is there. [/quote]
No, neither a skin cell nor an embryo left in their "natural state" will grow and develop. For example, in the case of in vitro fertilization, implantation must take place withing a relatively short period of time.

Yes, both genomes contain "instructions" regarding growth and development and cell specialization (eventual development into specific tissues as needed).

As one writer put it, "What is a stem cell, and why is there such a fuss about it? A stem cell is nothing more or less than one of the 16 cells of a blastula. What is a blastula? A blastula is the first organization of cells after the zygote (the fertilized egg) starts to divide. The zygote itself is amazing in that it is ‘totipotential,’ that is, although it is but a single cell, it can grow and develop into a complex human being, in about nine months. When it divides into two, there is nothing remarkable about it, and when the two divide into four, again nothing. When each of these four cells divide you get eight, and when those eight divide, you get 16.

Edited May 29, 2005 by LittleLes

[Aloysius]

notice how far back into my posts you delve to find the place I forgot an important phrase of my argument. That was two days ago. Notice my more recent clarifications, "if left in its natural state and place"

an embryo left in its natural state and place will become man.

[Aloysius]

correct, a stem cell is not a person. duh. the fuss about embryonic stem cells is that to get one you must destroy an embryo, which many believe to be a human person.

we look at the zygote as a whole as it divides and thus grows. the whole thing is the human. within it is all the power and all the material and all the instructions to divide and grow into a human being, and thus it has human potential and by Turtullian's definition is thus human already.

The 16 cells individually are human cells. The 16 cells as a whole contain the "totipotential" and as such are a human person.

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='May 27 2005, 05:01 PM']

it is only once all the needed parts are put together that there is a real potential.  when an egg is fertilized, it holds the information from both the egg and the sperm, all the information is there, and only then can it be applied "he who will be man is man already"

[/quote]
Yes. And all the "information" is there in both the zygote, the fertilized cell containing the complete human genome, as well as the somatic cell nucleus (tissue cell) containing the complete human genome. Only time and nutrients are needed for eventual development into a human being.

But the original quesition was at which point in their development a person exists. Not a potential person.

Edited May 29, 2005 by LittleLes

[Aloysius]

we will go nowhere if you do not deal with me in the present and not in the past.

the fertilized egg at that point is the complete person. when it developes and grows, all the cells as a whole that came out of that fertilized eggs are the complete person. each individual cell does not hold the natural potential to become a human being, only an embryo holds the natural potential as an individual cell to become a human being. once the zygote begins to divide, all the cells are viewed as a whole as they come from the same original sell and as a whole hold your "totipotential"

[LittleLes]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='May 29 2005, 03:03 AM'] we will go nowhere if you do not deal with me in the present and not in the past.

the fertilized egg at that point is the complete person. when it developes and grows, all the cells as a whole that came out of that fertilized eggs are the complete person. each individual cell does not hold the natural potential to become a human being, only an embryo holds the natural potential as an individual cell to become a human being. once the zygote begins to divide, all the cells are viewed as a whole as they come from the same original sell and as a whole hold your "totipotential" [/quote]
No, you are in error. Each somatic cell (tissue cell) does hold the potential to become another complete person via cloning. This, from the human genome project on reproductive cloning:

"Reproductive cloning is a technology used to generate an animal that has the same nuclear DNA as another currently or previously existing animal. Dolly was created by reproductive cloning technology. In a process called "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT), scientists transfer genetic material from the nucleus of a donor adult cell to an egg whose nucleus, and thus its genetic material, has been removed. The reconstructed egg containing the DNA from a donor cell must be treated with chemicals or electric current in order to stimulate cell division. Once the cloned embryo reaches a suitable stage, it is transferred to the uterus of a female host where it continues to develop until birth. "

The fertilized egg is not a complete person. It is at best a potential person. It requires nutrients and time for differentiation, and ultimately the infusion of a rational soul.

What part of this are you challenging?