When Does Life End?

Ice Dancer said:
You are clueless. The absence of detectable brain activity in a zygote earlier than 3 weeks is not an indicator of no brain activity only of our inability to detect it. The fetus has exactly the right amount of function at each stage of its developement.
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Again, are you arguing the brain is present at conception?

At conception, you have life. This isn't up for debate. Don't confuse personhood, consciousness, etc, for life. It distracts from the main issue and makes you look dishonest. SAY personhood. SAY consciousness. Don't say life.
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You are confusing a definition as fact. And there is far from any consensus on the definition. Many avoid defining it at all.

Further, you ignore the widely accepted definitions concerning the end of life. Those have also changed in the last several decades.

I am going to continue use the word life. You can continue to use whatever word you like and go fuck yourself.
 
RStringfield said:
Again, are you arguing the brain is present at conception?

You are confusing a definition as fact. And there is far from any consensus on the definition. Many avoid defining it at all.
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"In biology, the science of living organisms, "life" is the condition which distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity and the continual change preceding death.["

"

  1. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
  2. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
  3. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
  4. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
  5. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis.
  6. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms."
Why is this so hard for you to understand? Don't be obtuse. A zygote is life. If you want to argue if it's significant life, or a person, or if it has individual rights, this is acceptable. Otherwise you sound like an idiot.

I don't understand how reasonable intelligent people still are clueless regarding what life is. It's not that hard to understand.
 
RStringfield said:
Again, are you arguing the brain is present at conception?



You are confusing a definition as fact. And there is far from any consensus on the definition. Many avoid defining it at all.

Further, you ignore the widely accepted definitions concerning the end of life. Those have also changed in the last several decades.

I am going to continue use the word life. You can continue to use whatever word you like and go fuck yourself.
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Yes, the brain is present at conception in its earliest material form. Uninterrupted it will continue to develope. At 3 weeks cellular brain activity can be detected. At 5 weeks gestation the tripartite brain is formed.

I have ignored nothing about definitions regarding death. YOU have attempted to equate a developing fetal brain with a fully developed dead brain. They are not equal to the the question you posed. In fact the question you posed is too stupid for a rational argument to take place especially in light of how married you are to your own ignorance!
 
3XO3NDO said:
Why is this so hard for you to understand? Don't be obtuse. A zygote is life. If you want to argue if it's significant life, or a person, or if it has individual rights, this is acceptable. Otherwise you sound like an idiot.

I don't understand how reasonable intelligent people still are clueless regarding what life is. It's not that hard to understand.
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I state that you are confusing a possible scientific definition of life with being a scientific fact, and what do you do? You post a definition. Dumbass.

The definition does not state that a zygote is alive, but could be used to argue that a zygote is alive, just as it could be used to argue fire is alive. Fire grows, moves, metabolizes (consumes, transforms, and excretes matter,) reproduces, and responds to stimuli (e.g., wind).
 
it's a scientifically accepted fact rstring. Also your defination of fire would not change the fact of a zygote being alive.
 
Ice Dancer said:
Yes, the brain is present at conception in its earliest material form.
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LOL, okay. Is it present before conception?

Your argument here is ridiculous. It is not present in any form except in the instructions on how to build the brain. A brain no more exist in the fertilized egg than it does in any genetic material containing DNA.
 
3XO3NDO said:
it's a scientifically accepted fact rstring. Also your defination of fire would not change the fact of a zygote being alive.
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You posted a definition, dumbfuck. It is not scientific fact. All science can do is tell us whether the zygote meets the definition.

The fact that fire might meet the definition shows the definition is limited. We do not consider fire to be alive in the sense that animals or plants are alive.
 
RStringfield said:
LOL, okay. Is it present before conception?
Your argument here is ridiculous. It is not present in any form except in the instructions on how to build the brain. A brain no more exist in the fertilized egg than it does in any genetic material containing DNA.
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1. Of course there is no brain BEFORE conception...you just keep creating more absurdity. You need to divorce your poorly thought out question quickly.

2. That's idiotic! The unique material for each human being to fully develope is present once conception takes place. If you slice off a piece of your finger and shove it up a vagina it will NEVER form a brain. It will never have its own central nervous system etc. Even your brain was a specific group of cells with unique DNA material at your earliest devlopement and would never have developed into anything but a brain.
 
and zygote meets every scientifically accepted "definition" of life. Your argument is bordering on dixie saying "evolution is just a theory"

Talk to any biologist and they will say it's life.

Also your fire example misses a lot of key points, life isn't just about aquiring matter, it doesn't sexually or asexually reproduce, etc... it's a pretty bad example, but even if we were to stipulate that it were life, that does not subtract anything from saying a zygote is alive
 
RStringfield said:
Obviously, circular.

A zygote is alive because it has the necessary information to build a brain.
Any genetic material having sufficient human DNA has the necessary information to build a brain.
But, unlike dna, a zygote is alive.

Obviously, the information to build a brain is no longer the standard and all you are left with is "a zygote is alive because a zygote is alive."
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Actually, its alive because it respires.
 
"zygote" is a stage of human development. It is really no different than "adolescent." Why do you guys keep doing this? Do you think it sounds less like a human being if you call it "zygote" or something else? Yeah, it's a strange looking word... maybe that will help make my case that it's not a human life? I suppose this tactic works with imbeciles like Apple and Jarhead, huh?

Three questions:
1. If it is not human, what kind of living organism is it?
2. If it is not living, why would it need to be terminated?
3. If it is a living human organism, why are we debating it?
 
Ice Dancer said:
1. Of course there is no brain BEFORE conception...you just keep creating more absurdity. You need to divorce your poorly thought out question quickly.
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So at the exact moment of conception the brain appears? Can you explain how that happens?

Ice Dancer said:
2. That's idiotic! The unique material for each human being to fully develope is present once conception takes place. If you slice off a piece of your finger and shove it up a vagina it will NEVER form a brain. It will never have its own central nervous system etc. Even your brain was a specific group of cells with unique DNA material at your earliest devlopement and would never have developed into anything but a brain.
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Wrong. Read up on cloning, specifically Dolly.

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/cloning.shtml#whatis

Dolly's success is truly remarkable because it proved that the genetic material from a specialized adult cell, such as an udder cell programmed to express only those genes needed by udder cells, could be reprogrammed to generate an entire new organism.
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bravo said:
The exact moment of death is almost impossible to determine...scientifically....

The exact moment of life beginning is relatively easy to determine....it IS the moment the sperm and the egg join....from then on it is only a matter of growing, developing, and maturing until old age and death of the body....
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Over 50% of fertilized eggs last a day or less and are then spontaneously aborted. If life is considered "a matter of growing, developing, and maturing" and less than 50% of fertilized eggs do that then it's neither logical nor sensible to say fertilized cells, in general, are a life.
 
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.
 
apple0154 said:
Over 50% of fertilized eggs last a day or less and are then spontaneously aborted. If life is considered "a matter of growing, developing, and maturing" and less than 50% of fertilized eggs do that then it's neither logical nor sensible to say fertilized cells, in general, are a life.
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If something is living and it dies, it is illogical to claim it was not living.
 
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