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

ivory,
Just a question to see if solidifying one part of the debate actually changes anyone's stance.

As I said it seems people are debating solely for the debate.

Certainly life is conceived at conception, nobody's really arguing that are they? I mean, two living cells unite, and begin combining and splitting genetic information almost instantly. That hardly would be observed as something *not* alive.
I guess the question is one of "personhood" as some have said.

Again, I only bring it up to ask if we agreed on that, if anyone's view would change. I would guess not.
Many would argue against a blastocyst being a life before implantation simply because of the large percentage that never implant.
That is not my argument however.

I'm in favor of everyone being entitled to their own opinion on this subject. There is only one opinion that matters to me though, and I will leave it at that.

Thanks, Matt, gosh I hadn't realized my opinions were so dear to you. I'm flattered and humbled.

Actually, I think he was talking about me. :p :p :p

well I know he wasn't talking about me and my opinion!

ivory, KB, etc.: Do you really hold that a few cells joined together right after conception, have the same moral status as a feeling, self-aware, thinking, reasoning, caring adult woman? If all abortion is murder, that must be your view. This devalues the moral status of women, to that of a few cells.

Also, several posters have made the straw man argument that women who abort are selfish. Statistics please. This is just malicious slandering of the other side. The primary reason women abort, is because it is not the best time in their lives to have a child. They then have another child at a better time. It's called Planned Parenthood, remember???

Finally, no one took up the challenge to say what was special about "human" life, versus all life (as the Buddhists hold). Near as I can tell, the anti-abortion argument on this thread boils down to: the fetus is "human" and "life" and so it is (almost) always wrong to abort. But if the words "human" and "life" are to be used so broadly, why do they have such strong moral import? Why doesn't this apply to all living things?

I can repeat the words "animal" and "alive" very loudly over and over again with lots of insults as well, to prove the Buddhist view. That would be an argument just as good (or in fact just as bad) as those who oppose abortion rights on this thread.

Again, moral concern applies properly only to persons, as I defined it above. This is no more or less arbitrary, than limiting moral concern only to human genetic "life". The anti-abortion rights side seems to think that by repeating the words "human" and "life" often enough, and then slandering the motives of the pro-abortion-rights side, they win. This is not true - they still need a theory of why their defined class of "humans" is of absolute moral value. Their theory has the odd implication that a few cells joined together, that much more often than not will naturally abort anyway, is of equal or greater moral importance than a reasoning, loving, conscious, self-aware, socially interactive adult.

What about BEFORE conception?

Every egg and sperm sacred too.

Right?

Why draw some abritrary line AT conception?

Who makes this stuff up?

Sorry, I didn't get to the specifics of the differences between human and animal life fast enough--maybe that's OK, I might not have had a good answer.

But the point is--arbitrary is arbitrary. You call it, you have power and you can easily destroy anything that is "other" than what you specify. That's what's been the order of things since time began. Jeffery, on other threads you blame the Catholic Church for questionable attitudes about Jews. But maybe at the time Jews weren't defined as full human beings. Their definition--their time. According to your "the times and the mores" define what's right and what's wrong attitude--they were perfectly fine. Can you really question them?

We need a categorical definition of what is and what isn't human. And it needs to be all inclusive. As science advances, and mechanized warfare advances, we need a unilateral definition of who we are. Otherwise nothing else matters.

The only way the word human has absolute moral value is if it includes EVERYTHING human especially everything questionably human--because history has shown us that the "questionable humans" are often the most human of us all.

Jeffery, Kenny, if a pregnant woman came up to you (this is hypothetical of course) her weeks-old "thing" out of her womb and asked you to crush "it's" head...would you have a problem?

If you hesitate in the slightest, perhaps you could see the breathing, yawning, heart-beating child as more than "cells". I dont have a problem crushing a spider if I see one or cutting off dead cells (fingernails, etc.), so I highly doubt you could kill the growing human without a second thought. And that second thought tells you exactly what we are facing here.

Let's stop the holocaust of humans NOW.

(did anyone get that pun? )

Insightful question.

I LOVE this place.

Have you, by any remote chance, ever gotten any PMs from other Christians asking you to leave?

Have you, by any remote chance, ever answered my questions?

Would I squish the head of a baby?

Ummm . . .
Uhhhh. . . .
That's a tough one.
A serious question worthy of extensive reflection if I've ever heard one.
I really have to think about it.
Let me check my gay manual and get back to you.

And whom are you quoting?

This is great.
Just great.

May I have another?

Jeffrey said:
Please, are we really arguing about other forms of life here or human life?
Certainly even you draw lines between botanical, animal and human life do you not?
Do you pay the same attention to a squirrel running across the street without its parents as you do a small child?
Do you propose we outlaw leather and beef trades to uphold the sanctity of life?
It's fine if you do, but I haven't gotten the impression yet that you held all life in such regard, the way Buddhists do. Wait... they eat vegetables don't they??

Kenny asked
who makes this stuff up?

Kenny, I don't think it's totally arbitrary. To say so demonstrates lack of an understanding of what happens when those two single cells merge. Clearly there is a difference in these two cells at the instant the sperm breaks through the outside of the egg, and a process begins that is truly remarkable. Neither of these two cells can accomplish anything like this on their own, and aren't even "potential" life by themselves.
At 10 days there is a nervous system developing around an unprotected spinal cord and brain stem. 10 days.
I think it's clear something begins at conception... so don't make it seem as though we've just pulled this random point in time out of thin air to help us in our religious domination of the planet (BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Kenny said:
Wait, it's a baby now? 89th called it a thing? When did this arbitrary thing become a human?

I squish the heads of ants when in the wilderness.... they taste like lemon (great seasoning by the way)

"great seasoning by the way"

Oh, and Kenny, you didn't answer my question.

Rather you STILL didn't answer my question.

Lemme know when you are done checking your homomanual (like that word?).

I understand.
When two cells merge, two cells have merged.
Before they have merged they have not merged.
After they have merged, they have merged.

Again I ask, what about BEFORE they have merged?
Oh, don't roll your eyes.

Seriously.
No outcry for billions of murdered eggs every 28 days or the killed sperm?
Those were people too, with heartbeats and little cute fingers to tug at your heart.
Well, at least they are the DNA instructions for little fingernails.
What?
DNA instructions don't tug at your heart?

Isn't the line you draw at conception also arbitrary?

What's the diff?
And who are you to draw the line?
Perhaps God wants EVERY egg to have a chance.

More moral relativism?

Only if I get to keep the spinal column. Then I would collect more and save them, so that I could serve them up like spaghetti.

(Hey, an absurd hypothetical question deserves an equally absurd hypothetical answer.)

An apt definition of what a monster would do.