Piano World Home Page Forums Restricted and Archives The Coffee Room Just some pictures of "uterine contents"

No, I don't Jeffboy. All that needs to be shown -- which science does -- is that this "human genetic material" is a human being, of a separate identity and substance than the mother.

You are the one who constantly evades the issue. Is the foetus, or is it not, a unique being of a human nature?

If it is, then abortion kills a human being. If it is not, then abortion is no more a moral issue than an elective liposuction.

That is what the debate is about.

That is what you and all proborts try to avoid with talk of "human genetic material" and "uterine contents"

That is what you do not have the courage to answer truthfully. Show me an accredited embryology textbook that describes the embryo as merely "human genetic material" or as merely "part of the mother".

This is not a religious position in any manner.

Ah. I get it. You believe the End justifies the Means.

I do not.

Protest is a form of attempting to persuade people that your position is correct. Protest is not what we see outside abortion clinics. What we see is the threat of violence to intimidate women. The purpose is to make them too afraid to do something that is perfectly legal, and that you have not bothered to convince them is immoral.

No, that isn't nice. Not by any definition. And if you support that, I guess you wouldn't have any problem with bombings or shootings either. After all, it's their fault for making you angry. What's the difference?

This is scary.

Tim:

Did I say any of the above? No.
Did I say I supported it? No.

Do I understand the anger of people who see others murdered by a billion dollar abortion while the government not only stands by, but actively rounded up protesters and prosecuted and jailed them under the RICO Act? Yes.

If you are incapable of understanding the differences between what you attribute and what I wrote, you are incapable of holding forth in a mutually respectful and stimulating conversation about a very important social and political problem that faces all of us.

Are you, or are you not, able to tell the difference between what I wrote and what you read into what I wrote?

As for the notion that "The Ends Justify the Means"-- I challenge you to go read Dr. Bernard Nathanson's Aborting America . Nathanson was the founder of NARAL, and instrumental in "selling" abortion to the American public through a strategic disinformation campaign and made up "polls" showing how American's favored abortion. All this to gain acceptance for an industry that profits from human sorrow and takes billions of dollars of blood money while knowingly killing human beings in the womb.

it: "All that needs to be shown -- which science does -- is that this "human genetic material" is a human being, of a separate identity and substance than the mother."

There you go again with non-scientific terms like "substance". And a 3 day-old conceptus does not have an "identity". Really now.

You need to argue, not just assume, that a potential person has the same moral rights as an actual person. You do not even try to argue this.

Our qualities of desire, self-awareness, capacity for interpersonal relations, feelings and so forth are what define moral personhood. (At any rate, you have given no alternative definition.) You simply assume that moral personhood is co-extensive with having certain genetic material. The cloning thought-experiment shows that this is not true, among other arguments. This is exactly what you need to argue, and not ignore your argumentative burden by tendentious definition.

Go ahead: prove that a potential person should have equal or greater rights than an actual person (the mother). Except for quasi-Aritotelean gobbledegook, you haven't even tried.

What we are seeing outside abortion clinics are nice people offering to do free sonograms for prospective mothers.

What's wrong with that?

You wont hear me say that.

Abortion is murder, and I think it will be very interesting when we look back upon this time and see the holocaust of humans that was once legal.

PS. Roe AND Wade are both strongly against abortion now.

Jeffrey:

I use substance in the sense of a physical material from which something is made -- as such has discrete existence. It certainly has "identity" or it would not be indentifiable. Both these terms are common parlance. Your linguistic cunningness might have worked on the undergrad students you taught, but it holds no sway with me.

I don't have to argue for moral personhood, we are talking about human beings. Even if we grant that personhood is a developmental process, at each stage of the development -- from zygote to adulthood -- the material is a human being. The fact that you cannot acknowledge this is the first instance I have ever encoutered of what is classically termed "invincible ignorance". Now I have a paradigm for that, and his name is Jeff.

I simply don't accept your grounds that moral personhood can be equated with rights -- in fact it is really only equated with responsibility. All human beings ought to have the same rights. Your refusal to acknowledge that the foetus is a human being does not change that fact.

It occurs to me that you are arguing an abstract idea -- of moral personhood. I am arguing a concrete thing -- a human being. This is why you and the proborts will never win -- ideologies and ideologues in the end never triumph over reality.

So much for your arbitrary definition of personhood. Others can create other definitions and do so quite easily. Why not genetic over emotional? Maybe cognitive is better than them both--Jeffery you are setting hoops on fire and expecting other to jump through them.

What we need to consider is what constitutes human life in it's broadest scope. And why not? What have we to loose? Anyone can define someone else out of humanity. All it takes it a bit of power.

Inclusive not exclusive might be the most prudent way.

it: "the material is a human being."

False, it is a potential "human being" (if you mean that phrase to imply a certain moral status). You are so blinded by your own doctrine, that you don't even seem to be able to read what is typed. You and 89 should get along well together.

There may be just no real definition for "potential."

It isn't a "nothing" and it isn't an "is".

It's "Limbo."

Every time I do the limbo, I fall flat on my glutei maximi.

The problem obviously is when the "being" can be called a human.

The child will NOT survive before and after labor (for at least a few years) if left completely alone...so why are pro-abortionists so scared to protect life at any stage? So that the life of the mother and father can be "easier"?

It seems common sense to protect the life of the "human" from conception until they can walk, eat, etc. on their own. No matter what the situation, murder (killing) is the WORST thing that can happen to someone on this earth as it is the most extreme and final action that can ever be applied in our mortal paradigm. I think everyone can agree on that.

Why chance murder when you can almost always avoid it. I say almost because I am firmly against abortion NO MATTER WHAT*.

*Except and ONLY except when at least 9 out of 10 doctors officially sign off saying the mother has a good chance of dying during labor...only then do I think abortion should be a remote option.

Simply your declaring it to be "potential" does not make it so. What else possibly can a human zygote/morula/blastocyst/foetus continue to develop into other than a born baby? Clearly it has individual being, clearly its nature is human.

Human being is not a moral category -- but nevertheless it is YOU who are refusing to acknowledge the preborn as an integral part of the human condition with the ideological belief that by refusing to acknowledge this thereby removes the moral problem of killing the innocent.

I suspect it is not invincible ignorance but entirely vincible obstinacy on your part. It took Nathanson a long time to come to terms with his participation in the murder of tens of millions, and I suspect it will for you as well.

Ectopic pregnancies are another instance where it is permissible to remove the conceptus in order to save the mother's life, even if the baby dies. The rare instance you describe is perhaps handled through a C-Section, depending on the vitality of the mother.

I agree...there are many options before resorting to abortion. Murder should always be a last resort, if at all.

Merc: "Jeffery you are setting hoops on fire and expecting other to jump through them.

What we need to consider is what constitutes human life in it's broadest scope. And why not? What have we to loose? Anyone can define someone else out of humanity. All it takes it a bit of power."

Why stop there? Why not declare that *all* life, human or not, is valuble and deserving of our moral consideration? I believe this is the Buddhist view. All sentient life is sacred. Are you or ivory vegetarians??

On what basis do you arbitrarily regard all human genetic material, regardless of consciousness etc., to be worthy of absolute moral value, and not other sentient or even animate life forms?

I suspect that the reason is that you and ivory think the human fetus has a soul from conception (regardless of how absurd that premise becomes). But now Ivory is backing away from that claim, and trying to stick to the scientific and logical facts, and on those grounds his preference for genetic human "life" and only genetic human life over all others can't be defended.

In short, he and you need some basis for distinguishing what DNA in tne universe has moral value and what does not. I put forward a rough view of moral personhood. Ivory has just stated over and over again that any human DNA has total value, but failed to explain why. Why not extend absolute moral value to all other animate life forms, as the Buddhists do? (Again, without making sectarian religious assumptions about a soul.)

No, you and ivory are going to have to jump through a few philosophical hoops to defend your view.

Jeffboy:

It is somewhat surrealistic having a conversation with someone who dismisses my arguments as Aristotelian gobbledegook, and then abuses metaphysical terms such as potentia to explain away the destruction of the human life.

The obvious parallel does occur to me than anyone who would allow such violence to be done to a human being probably has no problem doing violence to language, reason, or philosophy.

I do hold that the human foetus -- in fact the zygote -- has its own principle of animation and it own unique form, thus what is conventionally called soul. I have not backed away from this argument at all -- I am simply realizing that you are obstinate in refusing to discuss the question in these terms so there is no point pursuing it further with you.

I NEVER have stated that -- in fact the addressing of toe nail clipping and liposuction show quite the opposite. But your ideology must make straw men out of the other's arguments.

No hoops to jump through for us Jeffboy -- you're the one who has to do the danse macabre to justify the killing of innocent human life insatiably fed into the Magog of the billion dollar abortion industry.