This is hard for me because I have not been able to have a child and would like to adopt. I agree with the “my body my choice” movement, but imagine all of those people out there who couldn’t conceive and would love the child no matter where they came from. Part of me screams that if you don’t want to be a parent/ ruin your body, it should be your choice. However my heart cries at the same time in wanting those small babies and loving them.
As an EMT I can tell you that once the heart stops beating, people are considered dead and are then revived but restarting the heart. And even then most of the time, if the heart completely stops (flatline on monitor) there is little chance of revival. That’s why medical professionals do not shock a flatline. The heart is still beating when in Vfib, Afib, and sinus tach, which are shockable rhythms the patient is still considered to be alive. Working on these patients are referred to as getting a good rhythm back until the line goes flat in which cause they’re referred to as being revived. As for no brain activity, people are considered alive at that point yet and that is why family consent is needed to pull the plug. Because it is killing the patient. Whereas in a heart arrest, family consent isn’t needed because the patient is already gone
Pretty sure you're medically considered dead if your heart stops beating regardless.
Also it's not really emotionally manipulative to use a picture of a baby in the context of abortion. It's fairly relevant.
Not 100% sure of that. It is by nature emotionally manipulative. Sort of like how you aren’t usually shown adorable images of the loving family of animals you eat by the restaraunt, or how Nike or Victoria secret use images they know specifically will elicit an emotional response or feeling of connection. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong that the image isn’t RELEVENT, however it can be both relevent and emotionally manipulative. It may be relevent in an argument to bring up that your mother or father or person you don’t like would behave that way- but it is still emotionally manipulative. It may be relevent for a seminar on money to talk about money and show wealth, but it’s still a form of advertisement that reaches for your emotional triggers to bypass or prime your logical mind.
Well I guess I meant something like maliciously manipulative, or something, like, technically if you put cute animals in an advertisement for an animal hospital, that technically manipulating your emotions, but not necessarily in an objectionable way.
I appreciate the clarification, and agree that it isn’t inherently malicious- although, manipulation seldom is. Most often the manipulator isn’t trying to do harm, they are just trying to get what they want. On the one hand- there is a power that emotions have to reach us that facts can’t. On the other emotional manipulation is a form of coercion. It’s used to direct people to make the choice you want them to make. Using the fact that instinct and emotion often overpower logic or even reach into the subconcious and subversion to influence a choice instead of the merits of the argument. A particularly questionable decision in my book given that a great deal of the “choice v. Life” debate is science v. Emotion. Science has told us many things people didn’t or don’t want to believe. We all laugh at flat earthers for their steadfast refusal to believe what is scientific fact- but at least they use science or at least try to use pseudoscience to back their arguments. When one argues...
... against science using emotions, it’s less a case of flat earth v. sphere and more a case of forbidding someone to sail to the “edge of the world” because they may bring monsters back with them. So there are many arguments worth entertaining when it comes to abortion- pro and against- however the emotional argument isn’t an argument against emotions anymore than saying “seeing tattoos makes me uncomfortable” or “the holy books forbid this...” to argue against tattoos. A fetus becomes a baby. People know this. That is literally the point of abortion. To stop a fetus from becoming a baby. The contention isn’t wether a fetus becomes a baby but wether a fetus is or is not a sentient being or is or is not considered a human with the same rights as any other human- and ultimately wether it is or is not right to terminate a fetus.
It a biased image that is irrelevant. Show a coffin. Not all fetuses become babies even without abortion, but all things that live die. Or maybe a montage- a family enjoying their new baby, another grieving a still born, a single mother coming home from her 3rd job and having an emotional breakdown because her baby is crying again... balance it out a bit. Because you make ads for politicians and used cars, if you want people to value human life you dont hawk it using the same tactics that they use to guilt parents into buying a $2,000 stroller because “aren’t they worth it...?” That automatically implies a skewed agenda when you can’t speak straight and have to come at a person sideways and use guilt and biology to bend them to your will.
So, babies are unintentionally conceived by all ages of women in all circumstances of life. Many are conceived even when using contraceptives. Every female should have the right to terminate a pregnancy. Period. It is no one else's business or problem.
'Life', and being 'alive' are quite different I think. Like @mialinay says, anything can have 'life', like the humble see cucumber, it has no brain and breathes through its asshole, but can we really consider it 'alive'?
(I know it sounds wierd, but like, it can't think for itself and its actions are based entirely of a reactionary nerve impulses. It's like the difference between a computer controlled by a set of sensors, or a computer with an AI that uses sensors to make choices)
@guest, you should follow your own advice because your argument is also not correct and you are making what is by the same inmacuarcy an anti science argument. Life starts before conception. A sperm cell is alive, an egg is alive. Neither needs the other to be alive. All but the most orthodox or radical don’t seem to have much problem flushing either of those things alone down the toilet though. Life exists before conception- just not human life. A human egg is not a human- it is alive. It is a component, a related part or tissue of a human, just as a gal bladder, appendix, or tonsils are- until they are removed either because of necessity or to avoid future problems. So the argument of what is alive, or what is or is not tangentially related to human life is irrelevant. Scientifically there is nothing to make any life or form of life sacrosanct or superior to another. The closes science gets is acknowledging those creatures best adapted to their environments.....
.... ethics is a component of humanity we apply to sciences. The question of wether human life has some value beyond other life, the question of wether abortion is right or wrong- these are ethical arguments which we can use science to help us better understand. By examining our ethics as we apply them in similar situations we can determine if we hold a thing ethical independent of sentiment. So a fetus is alive. That is a scientific fact. So is a carrot, so is a cow. Have you eaten either lately? Have you perhaps even taken more than you needed- thrown some away? If so the ethics aren’t aligned there if one wants to argue against abortion unless one wants to argue that human life is superior innately- which science can’t help you with. Science knows not of souls or spirit, destiny or divine mandate. It would describe humans as any other creature- biological machines. So you can help guide your principals off science, and you can allow your principals to guide your application and...
... pursuit of science, but science doesn’t deal in ethics answers or deals in offering questions. The true scientist looks for answers by gathering and reviewing information as objectively a source possible. The human scientist then makes their own moral and practical judgments. Just as you would make your own judgments, each person must make their own. Unless you can find some way to scientifically prove that a fetus has brain functions that could be described as higher functioning than say a sea sponge or a rabbit- science is very clear that there is no equivalency in life, only a hierarchy of functionality. There aren’t ethical dinpema if a bacteria feels or thinks as a rat or a monkey in a lab. I wouldn’t just kill a bunny or a monkey, I wouldn’t want to experiment on one- but every time you clean the kitchen or wash your hands you kill millions of micro organisms. Do you shed tears for them? Vow to do better not to harm them in the future? Ever swat a fly? You might not kill...
Nice strawman. My post says nothing about the ethics of killing the unborn or whether it would even be considered killing. Once again broad scientific consensus states life starts at conception. This is unassailable scientific fact. Denying otherwise is anti science.
... a bunny or a rat in the lab or in cold blood- but would you set a trap if you had rats in your home? Would you kill gophers or rabbits eating your lawn or you garden? Even though you don’t need those plants to survive? So you can see that even that heirarchy of intellect and life doesn’t always hold true does it? We would execute or lock away a criminal- is their life suddenly worth less, or is it a matter of practicality? It’s a complex subject- I’m not saying this is my stance- I’m saying this is am objective collection of facts on the matter. So wether science says something is alive or not means jack shit unless you either treat all life equal, or have some scientific system to quantify the value of a life. No? Then leave science to informing ones decisions and not as dogma to prop up a belief. The science is largely irrelevant. One has a choice and may use whatever they want to make that decision- for themselves. Others are free to do the same.
just wanna applaud guest_ for writing this giant and eloquent essay on relevant matters and for, coincidentaly, believeing in similar stuff as i do. nicely put my man!
To other guest: Your post is correct... to a degree. As _guest said, all cellular organisms are "alive" in the sense that they perform biological functions immediately relevant to survival. Germ cells pre-conception are, therefore, alive. When a sperm and egg meet, there is no "end" or "restart" there. It is simply life, continued. This is unassailable scientific fact, that biologically speaking every last cell of the body is alive until deprived of the proteins and molecules required to maintain the varying biological functions.
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So then, your argument falls flat. Science does not support the idea that germ cells and zygote are "not alive" at any point in time. It does support that life is continued in a cyclical pattern, one uninterrupted for the past few thousand years.
And the science behind life is definitely important because the basis of many pro-choice arguments is that the “fetus” is not a live person and can be treated as a “clump of cells” or a parasite. The truth behind the matter is that you are correct that the “clump of cells” is alive, and due to the fact that at conception, the cells have 26 chromosomes of the identical structure to the human genome meaning it is a human clump of cells and that by reason means it is a human life. And by the common law of humanity, it is wrong to end a human life. @guest_ wrote a nice essay on how the science is irrelevant but science is the only true structure that can not be altered by mere opinion. And thus, by using science, one can provide evidence to show that a “fetus” is indeed a human life from conception and thus the only debate is whether it is acceptable to end a human life by the hand of man.
@ilikemoderation- science should certainly not be altered by opinion anyway, reality though rarely follows protocol. That said, you cite common law of humanity. Where is this law written? What makes it so common? Where might I find this law in a science textbook that doesn’t have “ethics” in the title? That was my point. As I said- my own opinions on the subject or ethics asides- in the same sentence you invoke scientific fact, and opinion based appeal to emotion- but you don’t relate the two. You are- as I say above- informing your moral stance based on science, which is not the same as science justifying a moral stance. Euthanasia is another similar subject- is it ever ok for a person to decide they want to die? Is it ever ok for them to decline care? Is it ever ok for a doctor to deny a treatment? Does your doctor become a murderer when they...
A parasite is still a living thing so we agree that it is indeed a living thing. It is as you call it a “human” parasite so we agree that it is indeed a human. So it can be reasoned that it is indeed a human life and thus still falls under the statute that you cannot end a human life prematurely by the hands of man.
... decalare that your heart was stopped and your brain deprived O2 for 15 minutes, and that you are brain dead, so to pull the plug? Is your family a den of murderers? You’ve been in a coma, unresponsive, you still have 26 chromosomes don’t you? Does your family have to pay to keep you on life support until they’ve sold all they own and are destitute because maybe you’ll come around? That’s a financial decision you know. Ending a life because you can’t or don’t want to bear the burden of paying for it? Or maybe it’s emotional? Maybe you just can’t handle them, maybe it weighs on your mental health and you just can’t do it so you pull the plug? How selfish is it? Are you a murderer for money- or for convenience if you do that? So my question. To you @ilikemoderation- is:
do you think families should have to shoulder the emotional and financial burden of keeping a loved one on life support as long as they biologically have life, as long as they have all 26 chromosomes?
My answer to @guest_ is this: no they shouldn’t be required to continue to sustain life. 1) in most cases, there has been a either a DNR option presented to the patient or a discussion between the patient and the family that says what they would want. in cases that this hasn’t occurred, it is a very grey area. But if the person has discussed or opted to receive no additional care you must follow their desires because it is their choice (which is key in this debate here because the baby did not make the choice). 2) in most cases, doctors do not discuss pulling the plug unless there is no brain activity. With the lack of brain activity, they have no functions that the brain would control and one of those functions is the acclimation and response to stimuli. This response to stimuli is a part of the definition of life and thus they biologically do not meet the criteria to be considered alive.
@ilikemoderation- Ok. So what if there is no previous discussion, or what if a John/Jane Doe with no one who knows them and can speak based on their wishes? A fetus can’t discuss its wishes because it has no wishes science knows of. The brain activity you speak of doesn’t exist in a fetus. Until about 7-8 weeks neither does a brain. At 6-7 weeks the structures that will become a brain start to form. There are no nerves, no spine, no capacity we would recognize for thought beyond the most basic electrical activity. With this rudimentary brain, no sensory organs, and no nerves- we can’t really say a fetus at this stage would respond to stimuli let alone process it at a level beyond an earth worm. And while you did your best to avoid answering the question you knew was being asked- we have at least established that under certain circumstances it is acceptable to take a human life- if we want to call our collection of cells that- you have established that if a patient were unable...
... to communicate, and had no medical directive, their next of kin would be allowed to make the decision to continue or terminate their life, and that their reasons for doing so, emotional or financial burden, a sincere belief that is what is best or would be wanted, a combination- are irellevent as they are the one qualified to speak for the person. Or do you propose the final decision should lie in the hands of a governing body? If an unconscious person were brought in, with no medical directive, and would require costly upkeep and attention for an extended an unknown period, but could be separated from life support- should anyone be forced to continue to support them against their wishes?
@guest_ I did not avoid the question asked. It is clearly marked at the beginning of my statement. Here it is again for you “no they shouldn’t be required to continue to sustain life”. You must have misinterpretated my points so let me reexplain them. A brain dead patient, that of which doctors state have little to no chance of returning consciousness, does not meet the criteria of life due to their lack of response to stimuli. This means that their nerves do not react to the changes done to them. This is why pupils fix and dilate and reflexes disappear. Now in a developing fetus, nerves are created and develop within the first month. The neural tube is completely formed by the end of the second month. This means it meets the criteria of life. Now, because it happened last time I will reiterate to ensure it is known. My answer to your questions is..
“no they shouldn’t be required to continue to sustain life“ because of the fundamental difference between these two instances. One has little to no chance of regaining these functions of stimuli response and the other will almost indefinitely develop these functions. One is ending a life prematurely by the hands of a human being and the other is allowing the process of death to complete after it has already been initiate by an another force. It’s not a matter of whether one should allow the end of life of a human being after an accident, it is the matter of whether one should end the life of a human being by its own hand and still feel morally correct.
And after I have stated my point let me ask you this question. If someone is in a coma and the doctors say, it is going to be expensive but the patient will for sure 100% awaken from the coma, is it morally correct for you to ask for the plug to be pulled from the machine, unltimately killing the patient.
@ilikemoderation- So your argument isn’t exactly about life- but possibility of life. As you say- both the fetus and the brain dead patient meet the same criteria for “life,” with the difference being what you gauge the probability of future status to be. In other words, what is being advocated is that we judge life not as it is, but weight it’s value on what we feel it’s potential is? To answer your question- Morality is contextual. In some instances I would say yes, in others no. In general I would not advocate pulling the plug on someone who would require long and expensive care but would surely recover with full faculties. However I also would not press anyone else into making that same judgment. As uncomfortable as it is- every life has a price tag. Many people love their pets as children, some would pay $10k for a surgery on their elderly dog that only had a few years left at best, some would let it die and pay their mortgage. Some take a $3 hamster to the vet and pay hundreds...
... or thousands in life time care, and some let it die or put it out of its misery and get another. Animal or human, as uncomfortable as it is- all life has a price, and each life is worth some thing different to different people. That price isn’t always money, or can be sacrifice or suffering, or any number of things- but there is something in life that most anyone would trade someone’s life for. So what can I say? If I had to foot the bill for my grandfather- who I love with all my heart, I would tell them pull the plug. He’s old and practical. He doesn’t have much life left and I’m sure he’d rather I take care of his children than him. If I had to foot the bill for my little brother, I would be more likely to do so. He’s young and would likely lead a long life. The investment may be more worth it to me. Morality guides my decisions but it does not make them. A person with no morals- who takes no stand for anything will fall for anything. A person who is rigid and refuses...
... any compromise will snap in a gentle wind. One who views the world in binary morality does not have an informed or realistic perception of the world. Children and the mentally affected see the world in good and evil because they lack the capacity to understand and process, to reconcile that few of anything outside deities and fictions is truly either, but instead possesses aspects of both. Of all the people I know who have had abortions, for health or other reasons, not a single one was unaffected. It didn’t matter if the embryo wasn’t viable or not- they still all felt some type of weight for the choice even decades later. They were faced with a decision and they weighed the facts and their own morals and made the decision they felt was best at the time. So your question sums it up well- whatever I think of the morality of that situation- I should still be allowed the choice, because there is a burden to carry there and it also isn’t morally right to force me to carry it...
... regardless of circumstances or my feelings. Because you are weighing two things we will label as morally questionable against each other- forcing me to carry the weight of another’s life on both sides. That is not a choice you can force, but that must be done willingly, because we can’t compare the unknown costs and burdens to an individual of raising a child or shouldering an open medical tab. And if you want to try and say that life trumps all- that preservation of a life has greater weight over quality of life, you stand on shakey ground. Around the world so many people die each day of poverty related causes while you and I sit in what to them would be luxury. “Developed world poor” is still often better than the well offhave it in underdeveloped areas. So our quality of life trumps their survival, but those morals suddenly come into play when we involve a fetus instead of a 3yo child?
That is the gray area. If we were to judge the world in good and bad, by and large we would be lumped into bad, we take more than anyone else and leave so many to suffer for it. So if we want to compare “lesser” evils, I would say that abortion and the statistically insignificant by comparison daily number of lives ended pales to compare to the deaths of neglect or selfishness that you and I are fully culpable in. By that same token I would say that the time spent advocating to save these fetuses could be better spent trying to save all the multitudes more children suffering and dying world wide from other preventable causes. So like most moral quandaries in a world of diverse individuals I say this- if you don’t like abortions, don’t have one. So long as pro abortion folks promise they won’t burst in and abort your fetus for you without asking, I think you can promise you won’t srop them from aborting their fetuses without needing to ask you.
I agree with you on most everything down to the last statement. The difference between you forcing me to have an abortion and me stoping you from having one is that by forcing me to have one you are encroaching on another human’s unalienable right to life. Whereas the latter of the examples is me preserving that human’s unalienable right to life.
(Edited to fix spelling of “Whereas”)
Ah. There’s that word agian. “Human.” There is a picture above of an adorable human child. I doubt anyone here is arguing that it should be a right to kill that baby However as we have already discussed- a fetus at a certain point ind evelipment is not human. It cannot feel, it doesn’t even have nerves. Whatever thought it is capable of is limited to an organ that is no more sophisticated or able than an animal, and likely less. It contains human genetic material. By that logic sperm and eggs do as well, as following the argument that because a fetus will likely become a human baby if no one intervened, then condoms and birth control would also be denying a human life. What you are saying is that because it can become a human, we should consider it a human. So then by what right do people get to stop conception, and rob a human of its future life? It’s very minority report isn’t it? Labeling the taking of a human life where a human does not exist yet? If I ask you to produce...
... the evidence of the crime what will you bring me? A prophylactic plucked from the garbage with an enthusiastic young man’s best swimmers, and a picture of that baby above labeled: “these would have been this probably”? In this world- is ever indescretion adultry, since had the relationship continues it could have led to marriage? A crime needs a victim. If a collection of cells is a victim we are all guilty of murder. Hell, if we can say that because in 3 months those cells will likely evolve into a higher lifeform- in a few billion years a micro organism or a dog may be a sentient higher life form. Have you ever imprisoned a dog or denied it it’s freedoms afforded a higher organism? Potential is just that- potential. What a thing may become is a consideration but it is not a sole factor. I may someday (unlikely) become a person who supports your views and you would think was right, does that mean today as we discuss this you should already treat me as though I’m right?...
... we may one day be relatives by marriage. In preparation of that, would you lend me some money we’re i on hard times, let me borrow your car perhaps or come stay in the guest room for a week, or come to the next family gathering? Or is that putting the cart before the horse? Today, as things stand, do you intend to behave in a way appropriate to the circumstances you find yourself in, and weigh optimism and future possibilities as just that, things which are not yet promised or come to pass, but which may- some more likely than others? If you are pretty sure you have that new job that pays 6x as much, should you sign on a new home you can’t afford right now- or should you pass or wait until you know what will happen? I lack clearvoyanve so I can only be mindful of the future, but must react to the present where it is pressing.
I’m sorry but there was no clarification that a fetus is not a human. I thought we clarified that it is a “clump of living cells” and has a genetic make up of a human by the 26 chromosomes. Similar to how the molecular makeup of aluminum is still aluminum no matter if it’s a can or a ball. Its still aluminum. So thus the life is a human life. From the point of the first cell division. This is the foundation of the belief and if you disagree with it then I will have to respectfully agree to disagree with you.
Interesting. I will leave the technical details alone, with the last question being- are the number of chromosomes then the final definition of what is human? Not scientifically they aren’t. Some people don’t have the “de facto” number themselves but are still human... but- I’m glad we finally agree. I don’t need or want to change how you feel about abortion. As I’ve said myself- these aren’t necessaruly my personal views but just an analysis. As you say- we may respectfully agree to disagree. That’s all it takes. I respect your stance and will not invite you to attend my abortion, or even perform it. You can respect mine and not involve me in your beliefs and allow me to mine. That was my only personal point of contention and it seems to have been resolved. So long as we can respectfully disagree and both go about our business, people can believe whatever they want. Well said @ilikemoderation.
Also it's not really emotionally manipulative to use a picture of a baby in the context of abortion. It's fairly relevant.
(I know it sounds wierd, but like, it can't think for itself and its actions are based entirely of a reactionary nerve impulses. It's like the difference between a computer controlled by a set of sensors, or a computer with an AI that uses sensors to make choices)
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So then, your argument falls flat. Science does not support the idea that germ cells and zygote are "not alive" at any point in time. It does support that life is continued in a cyclical pattern, one uninterrupted for the past few thousand years.
do you think families should have to shoulder the emotional and financial burden of keeping a loved one on life support as long as they biologically have life, as long as they have all 26 chromosomes?
y'all need to calm down and cheer up
(Edited to fix spelling of “Whereas”)