Posted on 08/06/2005 9:39:34 PM PDT by beavus
Question: Hi, I was wondering about a bioethical issue that's really important today- abortion. Most of the debate about abortion revolves around when life begins, so I was wondering when most scientist's believe that life begins, since you obviously would know more about this subject. You don't have to give your moral beliefs or anything, but I would just like to know when you think that life begins... Thanks! =) Amit Srivastava
Answer 1: This is an important topic, but even (or especially) for a scientist you and I must realize that my "moral beliefs" will affect the kind of answer I give. Even the unfertilized egg and sperm are "alive" so in some sense life begins before fertilization! The fertilized egg is certainly alive, in that it can copy its genetic information (DNA) and it can divide into more and more cells. The more critical question, I think, is when that life becomes "human", and that is not a question that science will be able to answer. Human-ness is a religious, or moral, or philosophical question that is not likely to have a single agreed-upon answer. Steve J Triezenberg
Answer 2: I agree with Steve on both points. Life is continuous from one generation to the next. The real question is when does the developing human organism (embryo, fetus, infant, etc.) attain the basic rights of a person? These rights include the basic right to life. I also agree that this is a question of philosophy, not science. Brian Schwartz
Answer 3: I also agree on both points. It is part of the job of scientists to educate people that science will not be able to answer all of the great questions that plague us. Some of those questions, including the exact definition of life, will always have a philosophical or even religious component. Life itself may be easier to define than the issue of what is human. Will we someday perhaps not care about what is human, but rather be concerned with "sentience" or the realization that one is alive and unique with respect to others? Fascinating discussion! emayo
1. There are no sharp biological divisions. Life is a continuum.
2. "Life" and "human life" are ambiguous terms. More specifically the abortion issue is regarding rights. In particular rights (or lack thereof) to terminate a human pregnancy.
3. The debate cannot begin without an understanding of what rights are, how we can determine if a thing has rights, which rights, and why.
That's a 'nonquestion' to me. If a human sperm enters a human egg it creates a HUMAN!
Sounds a bit like my ruminations. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.
Life which doesn't depend upon the use of another person's body begins the day after you're born. The involuntary use of another person's body is normally called "slavery".
Most abortions should never happen. Nonetheless if I were a woman, there are two things I would never do, which are bearing a child for the benefit of a rapist, or knowingly bearing a genetically compromised child.
Particularly the idea of bearing children for rapists has to encourage them (the rapists). I'd figure I was helping to get other girls and women raped if I were to do that.
You: That's a 'nonquestion' to me. If a human sperm enters a human egg it creates a HUMAN!
That scientist's language was unfortunate, but so is yours. Sperm is both human and alive. An egg is as well. What the scientist should have said was, "The more critical question is when life attains rights." Then we would naturally focus on the more appropriate questions--what are rights, and how do we determine if a thing has them? One place to start to answer that question is to ask, "Why do I have rights, what are they, and how do I know I have them?"
Shout all you want. It doesn't make it true.
The fact that you're even unwilling to investigate and question weakens your position. You're refusing to even think.
Shame on you.
You begin with a false assumption.
The debate isn't about "life" but about where an individual life begins.
If we're going to take the "we're all just segments of a continuum" approach, then there are no individuals, per se, and thus no individual rights.
The debate cannot begin without an understanding of what rights are, how we can determine if a thing has rights, which rights, and why.
But if you begin with the presumption that life is a contimuum, you're denying that this is a discussion about individual lives, not "life". There is no "right" given to this ongoing "continuum" like it's one large organism.
I think it an error for a scientist, or current science to determine where life begins.
I also think it an error that a scientist, or current science to determine where human life begins.
These three guys work in the same abortion clinic.
Some focus on potential, some focus on sentience, some focus on viability, some focus on exiting the womb. There is no objective answer. There is only a priori values, and the ballot box. There is only that. The rest is noise.
Tomorrow.
Have you any studies that support the idea that rapists intend to get women pregnant as the prime motive--or even a secondary one--in performing a rape?
I've never heard "getting a woman pregnant" as the motive for a rape. I imagine it happens, that as one of the major reasons for getting an abortion after a rape is a motive I've never heard any other woman express.
Got a hot date. :)
Conception is the beginning of a human life. This is what I believe and if you don't like it, too bad. As for 'shame on you', I believe the shame goes to those who would end it.
I won't argue about this so save your breath.
Great Thread, I think I'll just kick back and watch.
Two problems with that view:
1. A child can be extracted prematurely, at varying degrees of risk, and be made independent of the mother.
2. No child is capable of sustaining itself immediately after birth. It remains dependent upon others, although not necessarily the mother.
It sounds like you might agree with one property of rights--that one individual's rights cannot interfere with another's (if a thing does conflict, then such a thing is not a right).
Still I wonder what a right is, and how we can examine a thing to determine if it has any.
Says who?
There is only a priori values, and the ballot box. There is only that. The rest is noise.
Or , in the case of your post here, pop psychology. ;) (only funnin')
Thinking is exactly what it is. By denigrating what is written and what I know to be true, I say shame on you. I have "thought" about this many times on what you may possibly call critical thinking. In the end it all comes down to morals. And that is real thinking. The morally unsound will use any excuse to give themselves a "right" and then there are those pascivists that allowing and enable them to do so.
When a pregnant woman's unborn child dies as the result of an attack on her, I think it's pretty common now in most states for the attacker to be charged with murder. There doesn't seem to be too much ambiguity about the human rights of the unborn in that situatiion.
Or...shudder...a proposition?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.