Life Begins At Conception

[ArcadiaGP]

So you have fathered thousands of kids?

Can't wait to see the lewd spoof thread on this one.

"INGO, my wife and I just welcomed a child into this world!"

"Oh? That's wonderful! Is it a boy or a girl?"

"... Wayyy too early to tell."

 

[ljk]

Death penalty to all masturbaters.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Death penalty to all masturbaters.

The 7 people left will be very lonely.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Even in my lifetime....The "Killing Fields" of Cambodia to Rwanda.....American Indians perfected it....A loose translation of most of the tribal names means "the people" and in nearly all of their languages the word for "stranger" and "enemy" have the same meaning....Same everywhere...Look how the Japanese treated Koreans and the Chinese, in Germany the Jews, in the US us with the native population and our treatment of fellow human beings as chattel to be bought and sold..

No race of humanity has clean hands when it comes to this....

Very true oldpink...Sad...But true....

If there ever were clans of people who were of gentle good nature, always welcomed strangers, and shared with others, those clans were most likely wiped out by others who were more like...........................us.

 

[ljk]

The 7 people left will be very lonely.

and missing both hands.


this is probably the most pointless thread in a while.

 

[chipbennett]

Still don't understand the significance of what the OP found out.

If you believe life starts from a boner, or a kiss, or at birth, all fine, whatever floats your boat.

Move on.

Feel free to take your own advice. There are plenty of other threads for you to read, if this one doesn't suit you, or if you fail to understand it.

 

[chipbennett]

so this is an abortion thread?

I don't believe life starts at conception, rather at the time dad gets a boner.

Back up your "belief" with science. Go ahead; I'll wait.

 

[chipbennett]

Death penalty to all masturbaters.

Take a (high school) freshman biology class, if you don't understand the relationship between gametes, fertilization, conception, and a human organism.

 

[ljk]

you are posting a thread against abortion, why not just say it out loud.

 

[chipbennett]

and missing both hands.


this is probably the most pointless thread in a while.

And yet, you keep commenting in it.

 

[ljk]

Back up your "belief" with science. Go ahead; I'll wait.

No way, because "Belief" and "science" are like oil and water, they don't mix well.

 

[ljk]

And yet, you keep commenting in it.

'cause this is internet.

 

[hoosierdoc]

No way, because "Belief" and "science" are like oil and water, they don't mix well.

How does something divide and copy itself if not alive? One fertilized egg becomes trillions of cells in an organism rather quickly.

i have yet to see the rock on my front lawn do anything even close

If the fertilized egg is not alive, but it has metabolism and growth, that must be some sort of...miracle

 

[chocktaw2]

If it's growing, it's alive. Period

 

[oldpink]

'cause this is internet.

Yet you continue to sneer, *****, and hector.

 

[ljk]

What you just realized is not gonna change anybody's opinions.

 

[hoosierdoc]

What you just realized is not gonna change anybody's opinions.

are you trying to, or you are just causing a ruckus?

 

[ljk]

are you trying to, or you are just causing a ruckus?

trying to have a good time, pal.

 

[oldpink]

trying to have a good time, pal.

You must be a total gas at parties.

 

[Libertarian01]

Ok, let us try this from a different tack, since this whole life thing is getting in the way of the real issue.

"LIFE" has no moral value. By this I mean that just because something is "alive" doesn't grant it instant moral protection. If this were so, then we would all starve to death as all complex life feeds on the destruction of other life save at the most simple organisms. Deer eat plants, predators eat deer. If the sole variable worthy of moral protection was "life", then we'd all have to acknowledge we must stop eating meat, perhaps even plants too since they are alive. Perhaps we could find a way of waiting until the deer or cow died of natural causes...?

Clearly, most of you would poopoo this thought, and I wouldn't blame you for it. Yet, it gets us closer to the heart of the issue. It isn't just "life" it is, I would venture to guess, "human" life.

But if it is just life, then we have some more issues to cover.

Say, for sake of the discussion, I am driving down the road and have a bad car accident. Most of my head is torn from my body, where it rolls under an 18 wheeler and is squished. Some of my basic brain is intact, like the hypothalamus, the brain stem, and a few other simple parts. Yet the cerebral cortex is spread over a few hundred feet the the truck. Yet miracle of miracles, my accident occurs in the very near future right outside a hospital where they quickly hook me up and "Voila!" my body is still alive. Headless, but alive.

Now by all technical definitions my body is human! It has the required systems intact. It has the required DNA along with undamaged chromosomes. However you measure "human" life my decapitated yet living body meets that definition.

So, does my decapitated, living body have any moral protection? I would answer "NO."

I would put forward the idea that what gives us value in any sense of that word is our personhood which resides in one place, the human brain. It is our personality that makes us unique, and thus valuable. It is our distinctive brain activity that has our soul, our consciousness, and our value. Without this, we are only a mass of living tissue that cannot form a thought, a directed action, or be aware of anything. Without our brains we have no more value, morally speaking, than the burger we just ate.

Now, "life" is indeed a required state to have a personality, at least for now. Without life personhood cannot exist. So life is indeed important to the sustenance of the personhood, BUT IT IS NOT life that in and of itself has value. Life is the state of being required to carry the more important part of us. Our entire body is geared toward self-sustaining existence and produces almost everything to support the brain. This is where the confusion comes in as I see it. Life is the support system for the personality, and perhaps the soul, but life isn't the thing of value. That belongs to a unique personality.

So this leaves me in a very simple place in the abortion debate. As I do not believe as I stated above, that life has value, I only want to know one thing, "At what stage in the development of the fetus does enough neural tissue form to give it thought and personality?" It is at that stage that I will grant it value worthy of protection and not before.

Regards,

Doug