When Does Life End?

Southern Man said:
A zygote is a developing child. *shrug*
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Then you must argue that the mother has no right to "kill" it. But maybe you are being overly literal. I said "same legal rights" so I will rephrase. To limit the mothers rights in anyway in order to protect the "rights" of the zygote at the point of fertilization is ridiculously extreme.
 
Socrtease said:
I have come to the conclusion that the prolife crowd thoroughly rejects Decartes. I think, therefore I am, is dead in right wing politics, which explains the worship of Palin.
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It is impossible for a conservative to maintain an existentialist outlook when we have the contradictory evidence of the continued existence of liberals....
 
RStringfield said:
Then you must argue that the mother has no right to "kill" it. But maybe you are being overly literal. I said "same legal rights" so I will rephrase. To limit the mothers rights in anyway in order to protect the "rights" of the zygote at the point of fertilization is ridiculously extreme.
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If that's the adjectives that you use to describe that position, which would you use to describe the far Left as I described it earlier?
 
RStringfield said:
If that is true (which is not of much importance to me since I am not a Democrat), it seems no more extreme than saying the zygote has the same legal rights as the mother.
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I am not uncomfortable with saying that the unborn should have the same legal rights as the mother.....
 
RStringfield said:
I think it may be more illuminating to the abortion debate to consider when life ends than begins.

A person lacking brain activity is considered dead. There is no measurable brain activity until 20 weeks. How can human life have begun when it is legally dead?
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A question... Is there no brain activity until 20 weeks? Or is it that we don't have the technology at this time to detect it?

Also... a person that is 'brain dead' is DEAD. They can only survive by machines. They will no longer develop on their own.

Whereas a child in the embryonic and fetal stages of development WILL continue to develop. Therein lies the difference.

Interesting question though.
 
Superfreak said:
A question... Is there no brain activity until 20 weeks? Or is it that we don't have the technology at this time to detect it?

Also... a person that is 'brain dead' is DEAD. They can only survive by machines. They will no longer develop on their own.
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And the zygote cannot survive or develop on their own.
 
USFREEDOM911 said:
Neither can a 1 day old, or a 1 week old, or a 1 month old, or a 1 year old, etc.
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Sure they can. We are not talking about being able to survive for weeks on your own. If you took a guy off life support no one would say if he does not get up and get a sandwich on his own, he is dead.
 
Socrtease said:
This really is about person-hood and not life. I am pro-choice and I KNOW that mechanistic human life begins at the point of conception. The question is, when does that mechanistic life become an individual worthy of protection from abortion. The western world is for the most part Cartesian, Je pense, donc je suis. Most pro-lifers want a world that says "I will someday think, therefore I am now." Some pro-choices believe that until feet out, the mother can do with their child, and at some point a child is what it is, she can do what she wants. The truth is, the lionshare of abortions in this country are performed before 9 weeks. All but 1% are performed within 20 weeks of conception. That does not make good press for the Pro-life crowd so they try like hell to equate the aborted fetus with a three year old child, on an emotional level. In contrast, the pro-choice crowd tries to make it seem like all that is happening is the elimination of a few cells. That's not true either, because I have heard my childrens heart beats at the first doctors appointment all three times. Abortion should be the last worst choice a woman has to make. It should not be done lightly, and I personally think that if a woman has more than 2 abortions in her life for anything other than real medical reasons, they should cut her tubes while they are there. Abortion is NOT birth control. The truth is, countries, including ours, have made abortion illegal. The cost has been great. Romania had a HUGE number of orphans which were in the custody of the state. The orphanages were shit holes, and the children were mistreated. This country dealt with the cost of poor women getting back alley abortions and then having to get medical care on the state's dime for complications arising from it. I also KNOW that if abortion were illegal now, and the government could somehow enforce the law, as soon as the states had to start taking care of children given up at birth by the bio-mom, there would be an outcry at the expense of that. Not all those 1.3 million children which would ultimately be born would be adopted. Couple that with the increase in child abuse, neglect, and crime committed by kids that would not have otherwise been with us, the unintended consequences would be costly. Both sides of this issue have unrealistic attitudes about it. Neither side really sees the full cost of their beliefs. The system is not perfect now, but until we are a society that is willing to care for unwanted children in much larger numbers than we do now, there is no other solution.
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Agreed. The issue is when should the unborn child be entitled to basic human rights protections.
 
RStringfield said:
Sure they can. We are not talking about being able to survive for weeks on your own. If you took a guy off life support no one would say if he does not get up and get a sandwich on his own, he is dead.
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That's BS; because the older a child gets, the stronger and more viable it is.

Using the idea that a zygot isn't viable and is therefore not alive, is a strawman; because we could then take newborns and leave them alone, exposed to the elements for 1 or 2 days, and those that live we can then say they were viable.
 
RStringfield said:
And the zygote cannot survive or develop on their own.
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the DIFFERENCE is that the ZYGOTE CAN continue to develop. The brain dead individual will NEVER again have brain function. Never. The Zygote WILL.

the brain does not just pop into existence at 20 weeks. It is at 20 weeks that WE are able to DETECT the activity. You can go off on a tangent about fully functioning brain etc... but that doesn't change the fact that the unique life began at conception. Arguing that the zygote is DEAD until brain activity can be detected is simply absurd.
 
Socrtease said:
I have come to the conclusion that the prolife crowd thoroughly rejects Decartes. I think, therefore I am, is dead in right wing politics, which explains the worship of Palin.
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Please. The only person "rejecting" this is Apple and he's for abortions up to the second of birth.
 
Superfreak said:
the DIFFERENCE is that the ZYGOTE CAN continue to develop. The brain dead individual will NEVER again have brain function. Never. The Zygote WILL.
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It might continue to develop and it might begin to function in a meaningful way.

Superfreak said:
the brain does not just pop into existence at 20 weeks. It is at 20 weeks that WE are able to DETECT the activity. You can go off on a tangent about fully functioning brain etc... but that doesn't change the fact that the unique life began at conception. Arguing that the zygote is DEAD until brain activity can be detected is simply absurd.
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That's pretty much what the life begins at conception crowd here are reduced to because they are now defining conception based on viability.
 
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