Zygote V. Baby

[Aloysius]

[quote name='StThomasMore' post='1281316' date='May 25 2007, 04:05 PM']It would be incorrect to state that all persons are men because there are three divine Persons (one of which is also a Man) and a host of angelic persons.[/quote]
this comes from the linguistic politically correct engineering that confused the terminology there... it happens when the elites of society think they can just replace "man" with "person" and have no consequences... there are tremendous consequences and a distinction has to be made.

a man is the union between body and soul. it has ultimate "personhood" but need not have the capability of displaying that personhood in order to be a man.
a person is a unique personality; could be the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, could be the Angels, could be men, could be fictional charecters actually...

[Socrates]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1280944' date='May 24 2007, 09:06 PM']But these dairygirl threads are predictable as clockwork - expect next a tirade against that idiot Socrates for his "status-quo conservatism." [/quote]


[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1281077' date='May 24 2007, 11:39 PM']your prob is that everything you can possibly be conservative without infringing on the CC (tho some questionable areas i think you do) you are that. if conservatism is right, then you're good. what are the odds a political platform of today has embraced the perfect political thought? not very good theoretically speaking. yet there you go embracing it all. most people do not embrace status quo of either side, but are more moderate... they reflect reality.[/quote]
Like I said, predictable as clockwork . . .


And this "status quo conservative" line is just nonsensical contradictory blather.

If I were all about preserving the status quo, I would be defending Roe v. Wade and the "right" to an abortion, rather than attacking it, and saying it should be overturned. After all, Roe v. Wade is the current legal status quo . . .

And conservatism is not a political platform, btw.

. . . Gosh!

[Socrates]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1281238' date='May 25 2007, 11:18 AM']zygotes are human life. as that article suggests, that's different possibly than from human personhood.

it's also important to distinguish between personhood in terms of soul and personhood interms of a being. my main argument is that personhood in terms of being, the early cells could be likened to blocks. if you havea snowball, is that a snowman? at what point exactly does the snowman begin if you build snowball by snowball?

as per personhoold interms of soul. i don't claim to know when the personhood starts. i don't have to, as i'm not claiming to know. all i'm claiming to do is cast doubt on when it does. we have evidence that zygotes branch off into twins that says that personhood defined as souls anyway are not ensouled at first, though they might be and then another added at the split, or something. there's evidnce that we might assume God wouldn't allow half the conceived to die, as half the fertilized eggs do not become implanted but die. (i do realize allowing to die naturally and abortin aredifferent, but that's beside the point)
i would say that at the point the baby could typically survive is a good indicator of soul. i know it's uncertain.. what a bout a second earlier/ a second before thta/ etc etc. maybe it varies.

whatever the case, for either scenario, just asking teh question and not being able to get an answer isn't answering it for your position. it's not a logical necessity that it's what you say, as a sould could come later, or it could just be akin to blocks at first.
also, if the personhood was so clear from conception, the CC would define without ambiguity in speech.

what's ironic is that everything i'm arguing is completely in line with CC teaching. though i'm stressing the limits of the teaching more than most catholis would.[/quote]
There is nothing ambiguous in Catholic teaching regarding the sanctity of innocent human life, nor about the wrongness of willfully taking it - in any stage of development. The Catholic Church clearly and unambiguously teaches that abortion is wrong at any stage.

Edited May 26, 2007 by Socrates

[track2004]

Anyone celebrate the day of their kid's conception rather than the day (s)he was born? (caveat: anyone not from China.)

[mortify]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1280460' date='May 24 2007, 10:57 AM']"Whether or not abortion should be legal turns on the answer to the question of whether and at what point a fetus is a person. This is a question that cannot be answered logically or empirically. The concept of personhood is neither logical nor empirical: It is essentially a religious, or quasi-religious idea, based on one's fundamental (and therefore unverifiable) assumptions about the nature of the world." Paul Campos, professor of law at the University of Colorado. (2002)[/quote]

Are we to believe a fetus is [i]just[/i] an ordinary extension of the mother, like the rest of her flesh and therefore she can do whatever she wants with [i]it[/i]? Even if we go back to the very beginning of our existence, that of zygote, where sperm and egg unite thereby creating a unique genetic code containing all the information for a unique person distinct from the mother, we are dealing with an existence separate from the mother's. The Zygote is not like an ordinary cell, if a woman plucks the cell off her finger tip it does not affect the existence of another individual, yet destroying the zygote most certainly will. Since our existence begins at the stage of a zygote, we are dealing with the existence of a person *separate* and *distinct* from the mother, and therefore she has no right to snuff that life out. Everyone has the right to live, no one has the right to take it away from us, no woman has the right to willfully end the existence of another person.

That professor can go snuff himself

[Didymus]

[quote name='track2004' post='1281472' date='May 25 2007, 11:05 PM']Anyone celebrate the day of their kid's conception rather than the day (s)he was born? (caveat: anyone not from China.)[/quote]

no, but the celebration of birthdays go far back before we knew much of anything that went on during the early stages of pregnancy. That's really not a relative argument.

[Didymus]

[quote name='jckinsman' post='1281113' date='May 25 2007, 02:04 AM']If you can convince people its not a person,you can feel free to do what you want with it. And the tiny snowball rolls down the big snowy hill. Ask yourself very carefully,why this is so important to prove your point if abortion isn't involved? What in the world would be the purpose for this question anyway? I do not care what political veiws you may have, It IS a baby...... but if you are looking for an excuse to justify abortion,count me out![/quote]

I think most of this is an invasion of the Godly by those trying to push humanist doctrine. Countless doctors, scientists, and professors are firmly holding on to these denials meant to push others from God. And they're trying to do it on God's own field - trying to scientifically prove irrationality using God's ordered creation.

Edited May 26, 2007 by Didymus

[doe-jo]

i just listened to this audio this morning.. pretty good and interesting.. check it out if u havent heard it..

[url="http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/download/mp3/was_hitler_right.mp3"]http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/downl...itler_right.mp3[/url]

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='mortify' post='1281473' date='May 26 2007, 04:10 AM']Are we to believe a fetus is [i]just[/i] an ordinary extension of the mother, like the rest of her flesh and therefore she can do whatever she wants with [i]it[/i]? Even if we go back to the very beginning of our existence, that of zygote, where sperm and egg unite thereby creating a unique genetic code containing all the information for a unique person distinct from the mother, we are dealing with an existence separate from the mother's. The Zygote is not like an ordinary cell, if a woman plucks the cell off her finger tip it does not affect the existence of another individual, yet destroying the zygote most certainly will. Since our existence begins at the stage of a zygote, we are dealing with the existence of a person *separate* and *distinct* from the mother, and therefore she has no right to snuff that life out. Everyone has the right to live, no one has the right to take it away from us, no woman has the right to willfully end the existence of another person.

That professor can go snuff himself [/quote]

Couldn't have said it better. Thanks.

Edited May 26, 2007 by Archaeology cat

[dairygirl4u2c]

i notice no one has attacked the block analogy. you claim it's a human person without question, but have not addressed that critical issue.

another issue i thought of, though i'm not sure of the scientific soundness, just a theory. if the early cells are like regular stem cells but with an enzyme or something causing to grow into a person, i would imagine most here would say removing those enzymes then is surely murder, like removing a heart from a regular person.
but then, start thinking about the adding and subtracting of the enzymes. what if you added it back in again, and it started growing again? did you just recreate the life? then go back and forth, killing and creating, apparently...
of course, assuming it's that simple....
the point being that it's so flimsy the life death situation that it's almost surely not personhood if it can be like that.

the more i think of the possibilities, the more i think it makes more sense that personhood doesn't come till later. a good time might be whenever the fetus starts moving out of its own volition. but really, i have no idea if it's a person or not. and i don't think anyone can claim to know, and that's the point of this thread.

also, if you read that quoted text it has teh pope's words, he seems to allow the possibility it's not a person. he could be saying that it's only allowing a theoretical possibility "even if" type thing, but it don't look like it.

[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