Zygote V. Baby

[Aloysius]

here's the problem: you have not philosophicaly established a difference between "personhood" and "unique human life"

your entire argument hinges upon heretical dualism which is not only repugnant to true Christian thought, it is philosophically unsound. There is asolutely no evidence that there is any difference between "being physically alive" and "having a soul". define your terms: what is a soul except the unique individual principal of life for a living being? what is "personhood" if not the state of being a unique life form? what is "humanity" if not having unique human DNA?

if there is a "soul" which is not established by the evidence of something being alvie, what basis do you have to say there is a soul? if something is alive, it has a soul. if something is uniquely alive, it has a unique soul. if smoething is alive and human, then it has a human soul. if so, then it has 'personhod'. all of the definitions you are working with assume some type of "ghost-in-the-machine" as if you could seperate "being unique, alive, and human" from "having a human soul". the two statements are SYNONYMOUS; and they are also synonymous with "being a unique human person".

furthermore, your last statements about killling and bringing back to life are scientifically flawed. embryos are fragile and therefore I'm pretty sure what you described would destroy the embryo and make it no longer living and unale to be repard; but assuming you could do as you describd: if you destroy one it is murder, if you do not it is not murder. if you take away enzymes only to be able to put them back, it's no diferent than depriving a child of for some time. you can either destroy the embryo or not; it's only death if the embryo is destroyed. it's pretty clear cut that an embryo is either alive or dead.

[dairygirl4u2c]

good points.

i think as for the last points about enzymes. it does seem like it'd be alive or dead. now, what if you were to take stem cell from my spine and give it the necessary enzymes then take the enzymes away. every time i do that, i've killed a person. my only point being that it seems so cheap. now, i admit that's not much of an argument, and all of the stem cells i've started growing only to stop i've arguably killed.
intuitively it don't seem like it, but more like i've killed some cells from my spine that were starting to grow into someone, like blocks. but i'll leave it at that and move on to the real substance of your other point.

i agree i should have and need to define the terms better. if i define it as moving, then you'll point out someone who's not moving etc is still a person. there may be other arguments and definitions other than mine but all i need to prove one definition that makes sense, then that leaves my argument in good shape that we don't know when personhood begins. if i can't prove one good point, then perha[s we shouldn't assume the possibilty we don't know
.
my argument then will be you are a person if your body functions by your either conscious or unconscious volition.

now, people who are vegetables but their mind supports teir body, they are unconscious volition. people's bodies who are supported by machines completely are not people. i do know that dead bodies have been supported by machiens. that only means our bodies are machinery. if you were to stop it, then you haven't killed it.
now, i do realize that a lot of times the person who is medically dead comes back to life, but i think that's beside the point occurance (often by the intervention of God, I suppose). (unless you can show how the dead back to life is relevant. it seems there's something to this, but i can't put my finger on it)

Edited May 29, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

stem cells from your spine are human and alive, but they have [b]your[/b] distinct DNA; ergo, are part of you. destroying them would be killing parts of you; but since it does no damage to you as a whole, it is not killing a human person; just a part of a human person.

an embryo has unique DNA, and therefore destroying it is not destroying part of the mother, but a wholly unique human lifeform.

not even getting into the end of life issues you brought up (I would say someone kept alive by machines is still a person, but if those machines are extra-ordinary it is morally permissable to remove them because that's not a direct killing, that's just stopping keeping them alive through extraordinary means) an embryo functions by its own unconscious volition. other than the nutrition it receives from the mother, it is a fully self-sustaining human lifeform. and where you get your nutrition from is certainly not a factor is whether you are a person; you get your nutrition from your mother well into your first years of life outside the womb.

do you admit what I said about "having a human soul" being equivalent to being human and being alive? or do you still propose some sort of ghost to be infused into an empty shell at some time (which would be foreign to Catholic thought on the matter, talk of ensoulment always centered around when it was physically both human and alive, they just thought it turned human at a different time; we now know through DNA that it is always human)? If so, then do you now distinguish "personhood" from "having a soul"? This all eventually gets ridiculous philosophically; the only sound system is one which uses as criteria for being a human person is

#1 it is alive
#2 it is human
#3 it is unique

you do realize that every charecteristic of this unique baby is already present in the DNA, right? its sex, its eyecolor, its haircolor, et cetera... it's all already there and unique.

anyway, I suppose you add #4 as being "its body functions by its own volition". now, I don't really agree with that philosophically, and think it unfounded, but I will say that an embryo functions by its own volition. in the same way any cell functions by its own volition; the difference? this cell also holds all three other charecteristics I have described.

[dairygirl4u2c]

Yes, then, my fourth criteria to yours is volition.

I don't see how you're not killing the cells from my spine that were growing into a person. If you make a clone, and he's walking down the street, and I shoot him and kill him, isn't that killing a person? Just because he has the same DNA as me doesn't make him less of a person. So I don't think unique DNA is the defining factor.

I don't see how you are saying the machinery of a person who's body is not supporting them either consiciously or subconsicously is a person. I was reading an article about a guy who died, and the medics kept his body functioning to later harness his organs. His family was freaked out because they told them the guy was really dead but only being supported by machines. To be clear, are you saying that guy was living?
I guess by your criteria of DNA, then he is a living person. I would use this as an analogy that DNA is not the deciding factor, but apparently you would say he's a person. kinda ironic.

I'm talking about end of life issues, because if we create criteria, obviously they will always be open to attack by applying them to other situations.

I guess I was confounding my arguments by talking abotu ensoulment. Ensouldment could occur when a baby is two, but that doens't mean we shouldn't save its life before that. I withdraw that argument.


Is a person who just died by medical conditions but not being supported by life, but whos cells are still functioning as the body is shutting down a person? I think technically you'd have to add another criteria being the cells must be sustaining, to that effect. Otherwise, I could squash the person who's dead and the cells are coming to an end, and end their unique DNA, and, I'd think, I haven't killed that "person".

NOTE: I just got a random idea of a chicken running around with its head cut off. That's an actually occurance for about thirty seconds. I think it's just reflexes, but it's an interesting idea I haven't put much thought into.

[dairygirl4u2c]

oh yeah. in regards to your idea that the fetus is subconsicously moving. i dont' see how you are saying that. it seems like when it's a few cells, it's the just the instructions of DNA and enzymes etc that make it live, not its subconscious.

now, the subconscious might be making it work. whether it's that or the instructions etc are really beyond our knowledge. but that's sort of my point. it makes more sense to say it's instructions and subconscious comes later, to me anyway. if they were to show that it can't be instructions etc but proved it had to be a subconscious of sorts, I guess I would be proven wrong. I think if they were to prove that, Iwould give up my position! when the subconsicous comes in relation to the conscious is an interesting question. i assume it's after or at the same time as the first conscious volitional movement of the fetus, but i can't be certain.
again, proving my point of uncertainty.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i'm not sure, as i h aven't thought it through much, but given the clone analogy and such, it seems taking the DNA factor away and adding the volitional factor might be the most accurate...
i don't see why the DNA factor needs to remain.

and something I am troubled with in regards to my position. what abvout lesser life forms? an ameoba might not have volition, but it still seems like you're "killing" the ameoba beyond just a lump of cells. maybe they do have subconsciousness though. i would imagine they do, much like deer and elepants probably do too. but i am assuming the ameoba's have it, because otherwise it's i don't know if i could define with anything that makes sense.

these types of conversations makes me think there's a big joke to this life. when you really think about it. probably life is more than we realize and it just seems like a joke. anyways.

Edited May 29, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

I think if you changed your argument, you'd have a much better argument.

There's independant DNA in terms of a set that does not exist from a host, like a new baby, and there's independant that exists from a host, like a clone. I think you should allow indpeendant like a clone, that way a clone walking down the street can't be shot. It's independant in the sense that it's not part of another organism.
I think then you'd have to admit that it seems a cell from my spine growing into a baby is a new life.

I think you then have to add another prongto the criteria for person, that is, tht its self creating. A person being sustained by machines for organs is not self sustaining. (a fetus isn't self sustaining in the sense of it needs the mother, but it is in the sense that matters, the sense that it's expanding itself without any other forces making it)

I don't think that proves that the fetus is a person though, because I think you could legitimately question whether concisou or subconscious volition needs added.

I can't think of any analogies that would prove or disprove these stances, other than fundamental value judgments.

[mortify]

You guys are losing me here, even if we say a fetus is not a person because it's not conscious (or whatever else you want to say) the purpose behind abortion it is to prevent that person from ever being born, from ever existing. How can you not see the evil in that? There would have been millions of people alive today had their mother's not willingly ended their existence, an existence which everyone is entitled to.

[Didymus]

I think the bottom line, Dairygirl, is this: a continued cultural acceptance of contraception only leads to a society that openly accepts abortion. You cannot have one without eventually accepting another.

That a human person's life and being begins at conception (which it does) is irrelevant to this: 1)Life is sacred, regardless of when someone believes it begins, they ought to believe it is sacred. 2)The marital act thus is just as sacred as the natural result, which is human life, because it is as far back as we can trace the source for that sacred life.
Therefore, even if you 'draw the line' of life's beginning at different stages, the period of the child's growth just prior to that specific 'drawn line' is just as sacred as the 'moment' when the life 'begins.' There really shouldn't be an argument over this if everyone accepts the sacredness of life, and you don't even have to be Christian to believe that.

[Socrates]

From conception the embryo is 1) alive 2) a separate life from the mother 3) a human being.

It sounds like Dairygirl is advocating the Peter Singer utilitarian philosophy of personhood, in which human beings are only considered "persons" with a right to life if they have certain mental abilities, and claims that the fact that a life is human in itself has no moral value. Singer advocates killing young (already born) infants for this reason, claiming they are not yet mentally developed enough to deserve "personhood."
However, once human life is no longer considered to have intrinsic value, and "personhood" is determined by others based on mental ability, "personhood" then becomes ultimately arbitrary - the definition of "personhood" becomes whatever judges or "experts" decide it to be.
Shades of Auschwitz.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Socrates

[dairygirl4u2c]

i think it's human life from conception.
i think it's wrong to have abortion at any stage.
my only point is to point out that it seems like whether it's a person from the beginning is uncertain.


[quote]From conception the embryo is 1) alive 2) a separate life from the mother 3) a human being.

It sounds like Dairygirl is advocating the Peter Singer utilitarian philosophy of personhood, in which human beings are only considered "persons" with a right to life if they have certain mental abilities, and claims that the fact that a life is human in itself has no moral value. Singer advocates killing young (already born) infants for this reason, claiming they are not yet mentally developed enough to deserve "personhood."
However, once human life is no longer considered to have intrinsic value, and "personhood" is determined by others based on mental ability, "personhood" then becomes ultimately arbitrary - the definition of "personhood" becomes whatever judges or "experts" decide it to be.
Shades of Auschwitz.[/quote]

actually, that was the argument i was trying to separate myself from.
as opposed to that argument, my argument is that a newborn baby moves with its own volition, regardless of its consciousness of itself. "conscious or subconscious volition" when the fetus starts moving seems like a legitimate point to say when a person begins.
actually, i'm not really sure whe na person begins, and that's the point of my thread.
you can always argue the block analogy. a baby seems to be a completed set. cells seem to be, arguably, blocks being added to form the completed person. when a baby grows, the set is simply expanding. that's the face value of the argument. i couldn't argue if you said the baby was not a completed set, but i think the person saying that is the one getting absurd.
a snowball isn't a snowman but eventually it is a snowman. at what point? it's fuzzy. and that's my point.

[Didymus]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1284011' date='May 29 2007, 11:06 PM']i think it's human life from conception.
i think it's wrong to have abortion at any stage.
my only point is to point out that it seems like whether it's a person from the beginning is uncertain.[/quote]

and half of my point was to show that it doesn't matter whether some consider life certain at certain stages, but that one need respect life 'potential' because it is just as sacred as when the life 'really begins.' (the quotes because this is what some people would believe, but i also believe it's human life at conception; just as human and as unique as I)

[Sirklawd]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1284011' date='May 29 2007, 10:06 PM']i think it's human life from conception.
i think it's wrong to have abortion at any stage.
my only point is to point out that it seems like whether it's a person from the beginning is uncertain.[/quote]

Human life does not officially become anything at a certain stage. There is no build-up. Human life is a spectrum. All our cells at one point are gone and replaced in another point, and all these cells are constantly changing on top of that. There is no point where we can point and go PERSON, because what we just pointed at has already changed. Similar to how in time, we cant say "this is the present". It's already gone.

What you need to question is why such "intelligent" people would leave the debate up to the definition of such a slippery word as "person" even when they themselves admit that it's slippery. The truth is there is no such thing as person. There is individual human life - which has been stated many times already.

Human life begins at conception with 1 unique human cell, very quickly that life is composed of two cells then 4 then 394892048239048290483902842390482 cells at birth and a million more at age 22 and so on. This process keeps going until that one fateful day where it stops.

If you are going to base life on such an arbitrary condition as motorskills than why not declare all paralyzed people as dead. Or how bout if you cant thro a baseball, you are dead. Or ride a bike. Or speak, Or see, Or think at a 10th grade level. These are obviously silly arguements. As a society we have the intelligence and technical know-how to understand when life begins. Heck we have medical procedures based upon the fact that it is a seperate human individual inside the mother.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]If you are going to base life on such an arbitrary condition as motorskills than why not declare all paralyzed people as dead. Or how bout if you cant thro a baseball, you are dead. Or ride a bike. Or speak, Or see, Or think at a 10th grade level. These are obviously silly arguements. As a society we have the intelligence and technical know-how to understand when life begins. Heck we have medical procedures based upon the fact that it is a seperate human individual inside the mother.[/quote]paralyzed people still maintain their bodily function by their own bodily volition, consciously or not. they do not need help at all, not that some help means you're not a person. i am saying when a baby moves because that's when there's a good indicator of personhood. there could be a subconsicous sustaining the fetus before that, but it's not certain. i have never heard of a baby that is living that does not move at all. paralyzation comes after the first movement, and we can know they are sustianing themselves at least subconsciously.

I notice you did not address the block analogy.
If I have a sand castle, and i start chipping away dirt, when is it no longer a sandcastle? or, if i start building it up bit by bit, when is it a sand castle? a piece of sand is not a sand castle.

[quote]Similar to how in time, we cant say "this is the present". It's already gone.[/quote]

but that doesn't mean we can't know the present is passing. just like we can't pin point a point in math.. that doesn't mean the point doesn't exist. there's a definitive point when the baby moves of its own volition. i've heard 12-14 weeks. that's not exact, but we can know it doesn't happen in a week and we know it exists.

Edited May 30, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Socrates]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1284011' date='May 29 2007, 10:06 PM']i think it's human life from conception.
i think it's wrong to have abortion at any stage.
my only point is to point out that it seems like whether it's a person from the beginning is uncertain.
actually, that was the argument i was trying to separate myself from.
as opposed to that argument, my argument is that a newborn baby moves with its own volition, regardless of its consciousness of itself. "conscious or subconscious volition" when the fetus starts moving seems like a legitimate point to say when a person begins.
actually, i'm not really sure whe na person begins, and that's the point of my thread.
you can always argue the block analogy. a baby seems to be a completed set. cells seem to be, arguably, blocks being added to form the completed person. when a baby grows, the set is simply expanding. that's the face value of the argument. i couldn't argue if you said the baby was not a completed set, but i think the person saying that is the one getting absurd.
a snowball isn't a snowman but eventually it is a snowman. at what point? it's fuzzy. and that's my point.[/quote]
A fetus/embryo begins moving its body when its muscles become sufficiently physically developed for movement - it has nothing to do with the sudden implantation of soul. Prior to this, the embryo is not some dead, inert piece of matter, but is by every biological definition a living organism, with all the processes of life (grows, takes in nourishment, etc).

[url="http://www.prolife.com/FETALDEV.html"]See "Facts of Fetal Development" here.[/url]

The snowman and block analogies is a poor one. First of all a snowman is not a seperate entity from the snow, but is simply a large mass of snow. A human being is more than a large mass of organic matter, but is a distinct biological and personal entity, or substance. Philosophically, there's a huge difference.
And after conception, the embryo/fetus is not "built" from the outside by assembling seperate parts together from elsewhere, but grows of its own. The sperm and egg cells might be considered "building blocks, " but not the embryo itself after conception. It is a unified, being, not one of seperate parts.