128 replies to this topic

[Alakhriveion]

Alak, if two people decide not to have sex, they are not destroying any life that might have potentially resulted from this union. However, if they DO, and the woman conceives, she already has the beginnings of life within her. If she acts to destroy the fetus after this point, she is not merely thwarting potential life: she is actively destroying real life. For lack of a better definition, I am saying that life begins at the very point where, if you did nothing to stop it, a baby would eventually be born. This happens at the moment of conception.

"nothing to stop it" also means nothing to aid it. If I take it out and play with it, and that "kills" it, it's not an animal, it is effectively an organ. The fact that it COULD become life means little, an egg (not really a sperm) could as well, but menstruation is still very legal.

[SteveT]

All quotes by Alak

First, the destruction of potential life is not the destruction of life- if teacher gives me a bad grade, ˆ can't sue them for the money I could have made as a lawyer if I'd passed.

Bad example. Teachers don't give bad grades. Students earn them. Unless you're an art major or something where grading is completely subjective.

Having different DNA doesn't make something alive, either, and even if it did, there is NO independant DNA in the embryos extracted to stem cells.

Does make something human, though. And a seperate person, not an expendable organ of the mother.

Now, I won't deny that life begins at some fetal point, but it's the development of a brain. If you aren't a vegetarian, you've got no right to complain about the destruction of a thing that can't think.

That of course, is a matter of opinion. And I don't see why vegetarians get special privileges. They make it their business to eat things that objectively cannot think.

If I take it out and play with it, and that "kills" it, it's not an animal, it is effectively an organ.

Kinda like how if you put a kitten in a vat of liquid nitrogen and it freezes to death, it's not an animal?

[Alakhriveion]

All quotes by Alak



Bad example.  Teachers don't give bad grades.  Students earn them.  Unless you're an art major or something where grading is completely subjective.



Does make something human, though.  And a seperate person, not an expendable organ of the mother.



That of course, is a matter of opinion.  And I don't see why vegetarians get special privileges.  They make it their business to eat things that objectively cannot think.



Kinda like how if you put a kitten in a vat of liquid nitrogen and it freezes to death, it's not an animal?

First one: Not the point, but OK.


Second: No it doesn't. A corpse isn't a human, but it has DNA.

Third: It's only a matter of opinion if you believe in a soul, which I can't speak for. The simple solution for that is for you to reject stem-cell therapies for yourself, not deny others them.

Fourth: The vat isn't a natural environment. The room I have the fetus in presumably is.

[SteveT]

A corpse isn't a human

Not a live one, but a human nonetheless.

It's only a matter of opinion if you believe in a soul, which I can't speak for.

Who was the one who empiracally proved that life began with brain development, pray tell?

The vat isn't a natural environment. The room I have the fetus in presumably is.

So it's a room that perfectly simulates a woman's womb? 'Cause that's the natural environment of a fetus.

[Alakhriveion]

Not a live one, but a human nonetheless.

So, if it's dead, I murdered it?

Who was the one who empiracally proved that life began with brain development, pray tell?

Federal circuit court. Brain activity=murderability.

So it's a room that perfectly simulates a woman's womb? 'Cause that's the natural environment of a fetus.

In that case, a woman's womb must be your natural environment, too- you're human, and so, you're arguing, is the fetus. But if the fetus CAN'T survive outside the womb, and you CAN, there's a difference, nyet?

[Hero of Winds]

All legislation is based on someone's personal beliefs.

That's what I've always thought. Seperation of church and state is a nice idea, but isn't 100% possible. Meaning, it's impossible for someone's personal beliefs not to conflict with the decisions they make.

[SteveT]

So, if it's dead, I murdered it?

Obviously. Just ask my friend, Mr. Non-Sequitur.

Federal circuit court. Brain activity=murderability.

Those law degrees require a TON of biology courses, let me tell you.

In that case, a woman's womb must be your natural environment, too- you're human, and so, you're arguing, is the fetus. But if the fetus CAN'T survive outside the womb, and you CAN, there's a difference, nyet?

Arright, so you're arguing that if someone is a certain stage in his development where he requires certain conditions to live, he was never alive in teh first place? I'd stay out of retirement homes, if I were you. The guy on the dialosis machine might take things the wrong way.

[lord-of-shadow]

Southpawlink...

However, two people have said that they're using embryos that would be thrown away, discarded, anyways. In that case, I don't understand why it's an issue at all. The embryo dies either way.

Is that information wrong? Did you not read that part of my post?

Oh, and nice to see you... how long have you been at LA?

[Alakhriveion]

Arright, so you're arguing that if someone is a certain stage in his development where he requires certain conditions to live, he was never alive in teh first place? I'd stay out of retirement homes, if I were you. The guy on the dialosis machine might take things the wrong way.

Way to take one possible criteria and make it global. If they have no brain activity, I don't think they're taking anything the wrong way. If they do, then they met a criteria, and they're alive.

Those law degrees require a TON of biology courses, let me tell you.

Yeah, and knowing how unpopular an issue like abortion is, I can tell you, no biologists or doctors testyfied. In fact, they'd just never had it presented to them, so they'd never have discussed it in such a way that the information could have been relayed to the judges.

Obviously. Just ask my friend, Mr. Non-Sequitur.

You said that if something has DNA, it's human, and can be killed. Outside of a few bad movies, I've never seen a dead man die again.

[SteveT]

1. Again, your opinion.
2. That's an issue of when people start having legal rights. Plus, unless the biologists spent four years relaying information to the justices, I do not trust their judgement on scientific subjects.
3. Hadn't actually gotten to that logical step yet. However, I've never seen a dead man with actively reproducing cells.

[Dryth]

All legislation is based on someone's personal beliefs.

While, if we break it all down, everything falls back on belief, the US administration long ago set about attempting to remove belief from legislation. This was done by establishing expert bodies, acting upon their expertise rather than their specific beliefs.

Exactly. I'm tired of people saying that Bush shouldn't let his beliefs get in the way of his decisions. When you elect someone, you elect their whole person. If I were in a position in which I had the power to do the right thing and stop people from sinning or stop some great evil, it would be horrible not to stop it just because someone else disagrees.

Belief has a time and a place. Few professionals in modern society are free to let their personal beliefs interfere with their roles. If we accept that the role of President is one to be held by a professional, we shouldn't simply accept their beliefs applied to their job because they were elected; if I choose my doctor, does that give him free leave to deny me blood transfusions on his own system of beliefs?

The President's job, ultimately and arguably, is to serve the people. If it can be argued that his beliefs act against the beliefs of a significant portion of his people, then we need to seriously consider whether his specific beliefs are interfering with his professional role.

President Bush calls civilian deaths in Iraq unavoidable collateral damage. President Bush calls the use of "dead" embryos murder. It's a double-standard that trivializes human life. I'd venture that such belief does significantly interfere with his role as President.


Regarding stem cell research generally, virtually all of the embryonic stem cells currently used in research are retrieved from embryos that are already "dead." Most of the cell lines are pre-2001... though more recently, Bush has replaced pro-stem-cell research advocates on the Council on Bioethics with known opponents to all forms of stem-cell research.

[Alakhriveion]

1. So? Yours is an even more emotionally-based opinion, I haven't attacked it for that.
2. What's alive and what isn't has been discussed and tested for a while now, actually. Since the dawn of language comes to mind.
3. I've never seen a fetus functioning outside the womb, either.

[SteveT]

1. Explain.
2. Yes, and you think lawyers can end that debate?
3. By that logic, we may as well feel free to kill anyone under the age of three, because they're so dependent on their mothers and/or a surrogate.

[Dryth]

3. By that logic, we may as well feel free to kill anyone under the age of three, because they're so dependent on their mothers and/or a surrogate.

Then technically a balloon is alive.

Though if we break down both analogies, they're rather false, and insulting, non?

[Alakhriveion]

1.  Explain.
2.  Yes, and you think lawyers can end that debate?
3.  By that logic, we may as well feel free to kill anyone under the age of three, because they're so dependent on their mothers and/or a surrogate.

1. Stalemate, neither of us can go beyond opinion.
2. I think lawyers can argue it, philosophers can care about it, biologists can study it, and nothing short of the heat death of the universe can end it. See above. The question is how it plays legally, so lawyers are what matter here.
3. No. I can take a two-year-old away from their mother and take it for a walk or whatever. If a fetus is "alive," it "dies" the instant it's disconected. Not very Independant-life-form-ish.

[SteveT]

I think I missed a logical step on the balloon thing, Dryth. I consider something to be alive if has reproducing cells, processes chemicals to extract energy, has a distinct set of DNA matching the chromosome number of a particular species, etc. Balloons fail on a few of those.

Getting back on topic though, I see no issues with Umbellical Cord or adult stem cells. The frozen embryos thing seems reasonable, although morally questionable. We have yet to solve the question of the legal rights of the fetus, however.

Alak,

2. The question is how it plays legally, so lawyers are what matter here.

Yes, but lawyers are still not entirely qualified to say what's alive and what's not.

3. That is correct. The same goes for people in comas, dialysis machines, oxygen tanks, etc, etc. Being independent is not a prerequisite to being alive, it's a requirement to staying alive when not under certain conditions. The difference, of course is that pregnancy is a natural process for propogating a species. How does a clump of human cells magically leap from inanimate to animate based soley on their number and structure?

[Dryth]

I think I missed a logical step on the balloon thing, Dryth.

Getting back on topic though...

And I think you missed the point of my flawed balloon analogy, SteveT.

If you aren't going to take your own fallacious analogies seriously, don't expect anyone else to. Critically consider the differences between an embryo and a three-year-old. It's a fallacious analogy, and I've seen you throw it about before.

If you're going to use such false analogies, I assume it's fair game for me to do the same?

[Alakhriveion]

2. Lawyers ARE qualifyed to debate the legality of it, given information provided by other fields.

3. I simply said that something that can fend for itself is alive, and that a fetus doesn't meet that requirement. I didn't say it was a fundamental criterion. If it could think, which persons on mechanical support can, then consideration of it's self-sufficiency is irrelevant. Second, it's not the number, it's the type- the presence of an intellegent brain makes it murderable. Mind you, that includes more than humans, or their fetuses.

[SteveT]

Dryth-

Yes, I suppose so.

My point was that you can't define life by the ability to function completely on ones own. Alak is treating the fetus like an organ or a parasite, and inhuman. It's common practice to dehumanize something you dont' want to feel guilty about killing, but that's not the point.

It cannon be an organ because although it grew inside her body, it does not share the mother's DNA. You could consider it a parasite, but that implies its a different species, which it clearly is not. The only choice left is to consider it a highly undeveloped human dependent on the mother for sustitance and life. It remains that way for a while, long after birth. Now, then comes the question of when life begins. If you define life by brain activity, you exclude every life form but mammals. This, then, cannot be the definition, since it contradicts all previous biological science.

Alak,
2. How are they qualified to say if you can kill something if they aren't qualified to say if they're alive? All you can say is that they're qualified whether the law can treat them as if they're alive. Those are not the same things.

3. I addressed that. Sentience is not synonomous with life. If independence is not a fundamental criterion, then it's completely irrelevant on a discussion of whether the baby is alive.

[Alakhriveion]

2. They're qualifyed to discuss the legality of something undergoing this same debate we're having right now in the educated community.
3. Sentience and murder are related. Life and murder are related. Sentience and Life are, yes, unrelated, but that's not the issue.

[SteveT]

2. That much is true. They can say what has rights, but not what's objectively alive.
3. I'm glad you agree that it's not the issue.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

What is going on here?

A few weeks ago when I started the topic, "What is life?", you refuse to debate on what is alive and what is not. Yet a few posts up, you're doing just that and on something that is blatantly alive (according to the criteria most of you set out in my Life Topic).

Let me state when the best time to extract Embryonic Stem (ES) cells are. It is when the fertilised egg has reached the blastocyst stage. As a blastocyst it is a ball of cells with no neurons, no blood vessels, no heart cells, no nothing. Just ES Cells, a few cells that will eventually form the placenta and a few cells that will form the cells in the genitalia.

If you shred this blastocyst apart, you will not cause it pain. It has no nerves. It is only alive in the sense that your individual white blood cells are alive.

Now, here is the thing.

SteveT, I remember, argued that since the fetus has a different genome from the mother, it is a separate living organism.

Need I point out to you the existence of chimeras? These are people who have mosaicism - the definition of which is having patches of cells that are genetically different from the rest. A study that was reported in the magazine, NewScientist in the past four years (can't remember which issue it was, I'm afraid) suggested that the number of chimeras is higher than originally thought due to the fact that some mosaicism is found in internal areas or is expressed elsewhere where it doesn't prove much of a problem.

So, according to that particular argument of yours, chimeras are two people.

My point was that you can't define life by the ability to function completely on ones own. Alak is treating the fetus like an organ or a parasite, and inhuman. It's common practice to dehumanize something you dont' want to feel guilty about killing, but that's not the point.

Though I'm not liking Alak's entire argument, he was right to do so. To the mother's immune system the fetus is not an organ, but a foreign object. It is technically a parasite, as it is genetically foreign to the mother and feeds off nutrients from the mother.

If a large number of the wrong immune cells or antibodies got through to the infant, as in the case of Rhesus negative women bearing Rhesus positive children (as explained in the following source: http://www.netdoctor.../100003104.html).

Now, when thinking about extracting ES cells from potential human beings, you must remember this one point, spontaneous abortions.

It is estimated that up to 50% of all fertilized eggs die and are lost (aborted) spontaneously, usually before the woman knows she is pregnant. Among known pregnancies, the rate of spontaneous abortion is approximately 10% and usually occurs between the 7th and 12th weeks of pregnancy.


Source: http://www.nlm.nih.g...icle/001488.htm

So, it would seem that there is a 50-50 chance that the blastocyst you are destroying would have survived anyway. Okay, so most spontaneous abortions are due to genetic faults (and we wouldn't want the genetically faulty ES cells) so the chance is actually less than 50-50, but what is most? They don't say. Added on to the fact that htere is a 10% chance of late spontaneous abortions and you end up with the fact that only 40% of pregnacies get carried through in the first place.

With such a low success rate, the chances of you taking a blastocyst and extracting the ES cells and that particular blastocyst being one of the 40% to survive to become a human being... well, you get the idea.

And let's not forget that 40% includes those who are successfully born and will die within a few weeks, months or in the case of people who suffer from such diseases like Epidermolysis Bullosa, will live with a terribly debilitating disease that makes them wish they were never born in the first place.

[SteveT]

Need I point out to you the existence of chimeras?...So, according to that particular argument of yours, chimeras are two people.

Only if the chimera cells will, if the "host" is kind enough not to kill them, develop into a full human.

It is technically a parasite, as it is genetically foreign to the mother and feeds off nutrients from the mother.

The difference is, of course, you don't go out of your way to get fleas. Just like you don't rub your head against a flea-ridden dog unless you've accepted the possibility of fleas, it's stupid to have sex unless you've accepted the possiblity of getting pregnant. Yes, rape does happen, but that's the minority. Unless you're talking to an uber-feminist, but let's not get into that. The point is, it's not quite a parasite because it's wanted. Plus, parasite implies it's a different species. Actually, I think that's part of the definition. Again, you're dehumanizing to justify killing.

Now, when thinking about extracting ES cells from potential human beings, you must remember this one point, spontaneous abortions.

So what are you saying? Since there's a significant chance it'll die anyway, we may as well help it along?

[Alakhriveion]

The difference is, of course, you don't go out of your way to get fleas. Just like you don't rub your head against a flea-ridden dog unless you've accepted the possibility of fleas, it's stupid to have sex unless you've accepted the possiblity of getting pregnant. Yes, rape does happen, but that's the minority. Unless you're talking to an uber-feminist, but let's not get into that. The point is, it's not quite a parasite because it's wanted. Plus, parasite implies it's a different species. Actually, I think that's part of the definition. Again, you're dehumanizing to justify killing.

We're talking about stem-cell extractions, dammit. No sex involved.

[SteveT]

That all depends on where the cells are being extracted from.