My answer to your question is that it is the wrong question.

Oh, okay. Well then:
That is the wrong question.

It's very telling when you reply with these short, one line non answers.

Also, that's got to be the first time I've ever seen OrP use a swear word. He's fired up!

What is the justification for your action? The Americans justified sending small pox blankets to the Indians because Indians were savages that needed to be erradicated. The Nazi's justified gassing the Jews because the were subhuman. I buy my kids Nike shoes because my kids deserve to be happy.

If you kidnap a third world baby to make it your property that would be an attack against his/hers humanity. If you simply wanted the baby to have a better life that would not be an attack against his/her humanity. It would be an indication you value the health, happiness, and well being of the child.

I didn't kill any ethopians the last time I went on holiday. Part of being human is the right to persue happiness.

Why can't a fetus become life when it can first perceive its world in some small way? I submit to you to you that is far more reasonable position than conferring full human life on a single cell, or 8.

Two cells cannot perceive a damn thing, they are as good as automatons. Neither can 1000. It isn't until week 5 that the cells differentiate enough for the brain to start forming, the heart starts beating and electrical activity begins to be measured in the brain. The brain does not become viable and capable of perception until at least week 20.

Is that not far more reasonable than at conception? Is that not a clear, bright line, even if we can't determine it precisely? I googled it and others have the same view it seems. Example: The Ethical Brain excerpt from the NYT

Just take two weeks back from the point of the first possibility of consciousness (it appears to be very standard) and we are guaranteed to not have killed a human by any reasonable definition of the word.

I win this thread.

If it is not a human being before that inkling then what species is the parasite that is living inside the mother? If you say human then it is by definition a human being.

Now I can understand people arguing it is not a person, but it is a very difficult sell to claim the being in the uterus is not human.

While certainly preferable to the pro life approach, I think setting the point of gaining some level of rudimentary consciousness as the line of acceptability of abortion is still quite a bad way of thinking. Most animals we kill and eat almost certainly had awareness and consciousness, but we still don't really mind killing them (I think we should mind a bit more).

Just like to point out that the pro-life vs pro-choice dichotomy is a false one.
Like it or not, there is no "moment of conception" per se. The sperm cell is just as "alive" as you or I, but jizzing in a latex bag is not genocide. This is just a simple case of uneducated, uncritical, unsophisticated religious zealotry getting in the way of medicine and sceince. No change there though, I'm sure Gallileo would recognize the motives of many "pro-lifers".

If it's all about justification you can hardly lump all the pro choice crowd together. We aren't all relying on the same justification and your declaration that we think both the fetus and mother are humans but that the fetus is less important is not even close to a majority view.

So a sperm cell will one day become an adult by itself if left alone?

Just like a zygote.

Wrong. Try again.

Now you're moving the posts.

If sperm is released unto the outside world, it has no chance at life.

If a zygote is release unto the outside world, it has no chance at life.

If a sperm is properly cared for by a human, it has a chance at life.

If a zygote is properly cared for by a human, it has a chance at life.


Also, no pro-lifer answered my question about taking an egg and sperm out of a female just seconds before they were going to join together, and whether or not that's wrong.

I find it telling that a few of RGT's theistic regulars have found within themselves much more vigor and interest for this thread than than they have shown in actual RGT threads.

Huh? That has nothing to do with what I said. Just because it wont miraculously become an adult on its own doesnt mean its not alive;
a cell from a house plant is alive, but I've never seen one spontaneously change into a person.

And yet we don't value the life of the house plant the same as a human life, do we?

Human cells does not a human make, so killing the human cells in the woman's uterus is not the same as killing a human. Killing a human in the uterus is killing a human, but like cutting off your finger isn't murder (most of the time).

I've never seen a zygote spontaneously change into a person, and yet we don't value it the same as a human life, or, wait...

Exactly, so thats why you should be "pro-choice".
Until the embryo has reached a viable gestation period (which is shrinking all the time with medical advances) it should be the mothers choice if she wants an abortion.

And neither will a zygote or embryo. DUCY?

A sperm cell will become a zygote in the right environment, and die in the wrong environment. A zygote will become an embryo (let's skip some steps) in the right environment, and die in the wrong environment. An embryo will become a fetus in the right environment, and die in the wrong environment. A fetus will become a baby in the right environment, and die in the wrong environment. A baby will become a child in the right environment, and die in the wrong environment.

I think "child" pretty much represents the highest qualitative level in this chain. Most any environment that can support an adult can also support a child (though in most cases the child will bear an increased risk of mortality).

Every step down the chain involves an extra ingredient necessary for maturation:

A child needs food, water, air, shelter, stable temperature, and adequate stimulation available in its environment.
A baby needs all of the above, and a baby needs these resources delivered to it (it is not able to gather them from its own environment).
A fetus needs all of the above, needs its breathing done for it, and needs highly specific physical conditions resembling those of the womb.
An embryo needs all of the above, needs highly specific chemical conditions resembling those of the womb, and needs many organ systems to be externally supported.
A zygote doesn't breathe or have organ systems, otherwise it needs all of the above. A zygote also needs a complex series of signals, materials, and ready-made protein structures activating at the rights times and in the right places.
A sperm cell needs all of the above, plus an extra set of haploid genetic material.

There is no place on this chain that has fundamental significance. Nothing below the level of a child can survive "on its own" in any environment, everything from baby on down needs significant external support. That doesn't represent a legitimate logical basis for differentiation, unless we conclude that people don't have value until they're 2 years old. There are some potentially logical reasons to draw the line at conception (for example, valuing diploid DNA above haploid, though it seems silly to me). But the "by itself if left alone" approach doesn't fly at all.

Personally I think capacity for suffering is the human capacity that accords value to people, and neuroscience says the capacity for suffering is likely related to complex brain activity. Development of the frontal cortex, then, is probably the most rational "line" for me to draw if such a black-and-white approach needs to be taken.

Madnak, would yu agree that an embryo is a distinct organism?

I'm not interested in debating it with you, but I would be curious to know if you observed one in a petri dish would you consider it to be a distinct organism.

Trying to guilt trip much?

Not at all. I expect him to say it is a jumble of cells, yada....yada...yada, but not a distinct organism. I only put forth the image of the embryo in the petri dish to make it more difficult for him to go that route. I'm not going to debate him about whether an embryo is a distinct organism so I need to wrap my question up in a strong point.