When Does Life End?

Damocles said:
Man, you have to spin hard to get here from there...

Dude, the unique DNA only notes that it is a distinct different organism than the mother, not a "part" of her It doesn't mean it is alive, (although the DNA would make it a human residual body) any more than your DNA (which still exists) does after you die, it just means you were separate from your parents as your DNA was different (barring incest).
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Damo, you are not reading. I did not say that the distinct dna makes it alive. Of course, that is ridiculous. I said it was an argument for it being an individual human.
 
bravo said:
Of course its human...what the hell else could it be....a reptile ? a chicken ?
Viability is necessary to classify it as alive....
If its not viable, its dead....a moot point...

Abortion has nothing to do with science...
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That is not what you previously said. That is why I asked pointedly if it was human.

A sperm penetrates an egg, starting a process (fertilization)
A viable zygote is formed (capable of living, developing, etc.)

At the moment in time that the zygote becomes viable, a human being is created and grows, develops, matures and dies....
 
Damocles said:
There is no scientific basis to argue that a viable zygote is anything other than human life separate from, though reliant on, the mother.
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When did I argue otherwise? I have repeated over over and again, that is fine in the context of science. If we are talking about what the legal and/or medical definition should be then it does not work. The legal definition of human life must include all those nasty subjective things which you mention because THAT IS WHAT WE MEAN BY HUMAN LIFE IN THE LEGAL AND/OR MEDICAL CONTEXTS.

And it may not have dawned on you Damo, but basing your scientific definition on "viability" makes it pretty subjective. Viability is a word with a lot of play and is probably just as difficult to define as life itself.
 
RStringfield said:
When did I argue otherwise? I have repeated over over and again, that is fine in the context of science. If we are talking about what the legal and/or medical definition should be then it does not work. The legal definition of human life must include all those nasty subjective things which you mention because THAT IS WHAT WE MEAN BY HUMAN LIFE IN THE LEGAL AND/OR MEDICAL CONTEXTS.

And it may not have dawned on you Damo, but basing your scientific definition on "viability" makes it pretty subjective. Viability is a word with a lot of play and is probably just as difficult to define as life itself.
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"life" by definition is indeed "alive"...

I understand what everybody is talking about, but we are once again being subjected to the part we agree on without regard to your actual argument. When do they gain their "personhood"?.. this is the question we should be discussing, not zygotes' viability or cars going to the fricking store.

I'd really like to actually progress this beyond the first thirty seconds of life and get to the part where we are scraping an actual living thing from the uterine wall for Jeebus' sake...
 
Damocles said:
"life" by definition is indeed "alive"...
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That's useful. According to you, not if it is not "viable."

Damocles said:
I understand what everybody is talking about, but we are once again being subjected to the part we agree on without regard to your actual argument. When do they gain their "personhood"?.. this is the question we should be discussing, not zygotes' viability or cars going to the fricking store.

I'd really like to actually progress this beyond the first thirty seconds of life and get to the part where we are scraping an actual living thing from the uterine wall for Jeebus' sake...
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I agree. But, we are not going to get to that by bringing up your red herring. We were discussing that to some degree before.
 
apple0154 said:
If one is not sure what it is and it's growing inside their body why shouldn't they have the right to remove it? Let's not forget over 50% of fertilized eggs spontaneously abort. What ever is responsible for such a design (God or nature) I think it's obvious the word "sanctity" doesn't apply in this case.

That's the thing about all this "uniqueness" and "specialness" and "sanctity of life" talk. It's difficult to associate "special" to some thing where over half are being continually discarded. Furthermore, while some are expelled from the body others are absorbed. The average woman must be a "Sybil" with God knows how many souls living inside her.
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I see you've found a new broken record to play!! :good4u:

Apple said:
50%.....skip, 50%....skip, 50%.....skip, 50%....skip, 50%.....skip, 50%....skip
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:palm:
 
bravo said:
Of course its human...what the hell else could it be....a reptile ? a chicken ?
Viability is necessary to classify it as alive....
If its not viable, its dead....a moot point...

Abortion has nothing to do with science...
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It's not a reptile, chicken or a human being. As for "If its not viable, its dead....a moot point..." Not so. Something that is not viable may live a period of time, however, it is not carrying on the processes of life which is a requirement of an organism.

The point being is the newly formed zygote a complete functioning organism which then acquires an illness or malfunctions or is the newly formed zygote inherently deficient in a critical component necessary to carry on the processes of life?
 
apple0154 said:
The point being is the newly formed zygote a complete functioning organism which then acquires an illness or malfunctions or is the newly formed zygote inherently deficient in a critical component necessary to carry on the processes of life?
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lol....you just destroyed your entire argument with one slip of the tongue......obviously, if it isn't already life it wouldn't be "carrying it on" it would be trying to get there.....
 
Damocles said:
"life" by definition is indeed "alive"...

I understand what everybody is talking about, but we are once again being subjected to the part we agree on without regard to your actual argument. When do they gain their "personhood"?.. this is the question we should be discussing, not zygotes' viability or cars going to the fricking store.

I'd really like to actually progress this beyond the first thirty seconds of life and get to the part where we are scraping an actual living thing from the uterine wall for Jeebus' sake...
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If we're talking about "personhood" then it's at birth.

The one fundamental concept our society is built on is we are each individuals. We can not use another living person's body to support us. We are all responsible for our individual actions.

If the unborn are considered "persons" then the woman loses the most fundamental rights to her body including what she can digest, be it food or drugs, to what exercises and physical activities she may participate in.

Then there's the "problem pregnancies" which, in the vast majority of cases, is another term for a woman's faulty body and the widely accepted practice is to kill the innocent unborn person so as the woman with the faulty body may live. Does one not see the danger in classifying something that is unborn as a human being while sanctioning it's murder so that another human being with a defective body may live? Do we need any more lessons on what happens when society places different values on certain groups of human beings?

The absurdity of claiming an unborn is a person is obvious at first glance and the further it's thought through the more preposterous and dangerous it becomes. The most fundamental rights of both individuals become non-existent. Laws and conventions governing every one of us do not apply to either one of them.

We're not looking at a slippery slope. We're looking at a free fall.
 
apple0154 said:
It's not a reptile, chicken or a human being. As for "If its not viable, its dead....a moot point..." Not so. Something that is not viable may live a period of time, however, it is not carrying on the processes of life which is a requirement of an organism.

The point being is the newly formed zygote a complete functioning organism which then acquires an illness or malfunctions or is the newly formed zygote inherently deficient in a critical component necessary to carry on the processes of life?
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Parasitic species are not independant, but they're human beings.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
lol....you just destroyed your entire argument with one slip of the tongue......obviously, if it isn't already life it wouldn't be "carrying it on" it would be trying to get there.....
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It wasn't a slip of the tongue. It was a slip in your comprehension. As I stated earlier is it a case of an organism being stricken with an illness or malfunction OR is it a case of it never becoming an organism.

Do try to follow along.
 
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