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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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so what? It's a human being. That's what. And generally, we respect the life of human beings.
Look how he tries to install rules to protect his dishonesty from criticism! Brilliant!
@Nyarlathotep
it's the Breezy 'rules of engagement that apparently we should all apply...but only on his terms...because you know umm...yep Pious Fraud.
I stand by my response, irrespective of who agrees. Not that it should be a particularly difficult concept to grasp.
"Secondly, my claim is that the baby is not the mother's body; "
It's not a baby.
"Secondly, my claim is that the baby is not the mother's body; dependence on the mother doesn't alter that."
It's part of the mothers body, entirely dependant on it.
"The baby's blood gets oxygen and nutrients through the placenta."
So directly from the mothers blood then.
"Like healthy cells, cancer cells cannot live without oxygen and nutrients. So they send out signals, called angiogenic factors, that encourage new blood vessels to grow into the tumour. This is called angiogenesis. Without a blood supply, a tumour can't grow much bigger than a pin head."
Surely you can see why all that is true, and doesn't affect my statement.
Surely you can see that your rank dishonesty in mis-identifying a blastocysts or foetus as a baby or child, then ignoring every post that highlights the fundamental differences is not debate. Why would anyone care what you profess to think about abortion when you are that dishonest and ignore everything anyone says you don't like and don't have answers for.
As of course you do in every single thread you post in.
Mis-identifying lol.
Well there you go, deflection and rank dishonesty, you're not here for debate or discussion wheezy.
A blastocyst and a foetus are neither a baby or a child, until you can muster the integrity to acknowledge that nothing you say about abortion matters. This is the fundamental problem of substituting reason and facts with archaic superstition.
Duplicate post deleted.
@ JoC and Breezy
Just answer the question. Who should control the woman's (host) body if not her?
1.You have said that control of her destiny should be subjugated to the embryo within her.
2.Who makes decisions on its behalf?
3.Who will take responsibility for the welfare of the host as her rights are now subject to the well being of the embryo?
4.If the father is a rapist or here own father why do they have the right to consultation as you say in your later posts Breezy?
5.If not why not and who decides?
Real world solutions according to your position not "in an ideal world" answer.
Well said, and for those who are actually interested in honest debate on the topic of abortion here is some research to consider.
Countries where abortion is illegal have slightly higher abortion rates than countries where the procedures are legal, the research found
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/...
----------------------------
Abortion rates highest in nations that ban practice
https://www.scidev.net/global/systems/news/abortion-rates-highest-develo...
------------------------------------
ROME, Oct. 11 — A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.
Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said.
“We now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where laws are very restrictive,” Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the W.H.O. Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said in a telephone interview. “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.”
But the legal status of abortion did greatly affect the dangers involved, the researchers said. “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner,” Dr. Van Look said. “And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html
******The data also suggested that the best way to reduce abortion rates was not to make abortion illegal but to make contraception more widely available, said Sharon Camp, chief executive of the Guttmacher Institute.*****
The wealth of information that comes out of the study provides some striking lessons, the researchers said. In Uganda, where abortion is illegal and sex education programs focus only on abstinence, the estimated abortion rate was 54 per 1,000 women in 2003, more than twice the rate in the United States, 21 per 1,000 in that year. The lowest rate, 12 per 1,000, was in Western Europe, with legal abortion and widely available contraception.
The Bush administration’s multibillion-dollar campaign against H.I.V./AIDS in Africa has directed money to programs that promote abstinence before marriage, and to condoms only as a last resort. It has prohibited the use of American money to support overseas family planning groups that provide abortions or promote abortion as a method of family planning.
There are critics of course, unsurprisingly, but the facts are fairly compelling...but then facts generally are.
Wish every "pro-lifer" would read and understand this stuff before harassing women on one of the most difficult days of their lives.
For many women, it’s just not that difficult.
@CyberLN
Good to hear. For the small sample of women I personally knew that went through the process it was a very tough day for them.
A parasite coming into the body is also a distinct genetic being and has its own blood supply.
We have one person, and an insentient blastocyst. Whose opinion should we consider other than the mother's where her interests are in not taking her pregnancy to full term?
Should we afford rights to an insentient blastocyst to use a woman's body against her will? We wouldn't do that for a fully formed child so why would we do it for an insentient lump of cells?
Wouldn’t you agree though that that “insentient lump of cells” is a human being in its earliest stage of development? I agree the woman should have the right to her own body. But never to hurt another human being.
"Wouldn’t you agree though that that “insentient lump of cells” is a human being in its earliest stage of development?"
No, since it is in no way comparable to a human, do you think humans are insentient, can't feel pain, and can't experience emotional trauma? To ignore these differences is simply dishonest. Or perhaps you think they have no relevance to the morality of allowing an abortion? In which case I'd ask why you want afford the right to foetus to use a woman's body against her will, when we wouldn't afford such a right to fully formed human, even an adult one.
" I agree the woman should have the right to her own body. But never to hurt another human being."
Hurt how? How exactly does one hurt an insentient blastocyst that can feel no pain, and experience no emotional trauma?
Would you consider then born humans who can't feel pain, who are insentient or can't experience emotional trauma, not human beings? There are people who can't feel pain. It's a rare case indeed among born humans but if you say the ability to feel pain is what makes a human a human, then you'll have to deal with this group of people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_insensitivity_to_pain
@JoC
I personally agree that the insentient lump of cells is the potential to be a human being at one of the earliest stages of development.
But unfortunately for pro-lifers that like to pick the fertilized ovum, that is not "the beginning." Just a signficant point along a long cycle. Even then, the window for "new life via paired dna point, that point can be as long as 4 days after fertilization of the ovum., If you consider twins. There is no magical "conception" point that happens instantly or even near instantly. (Completion of the meiosis cycle is up to 12 hours.)
"Life is a continuum. Gametes (sperm and oocyte) link generations."
Science says it is a cycle, so beyond that it is simply everyone's opinion on a start point. The decision then falls to the mothers opinion and her situation.
I think we can all agree however once the baby reaches viability and the mother's right to decide what goes on in her own body is no longer a factor and the developing baby's rights take over.
"I personally agree that the insentient lump of cells is the potential to be a human being at one of the earliest stages of development."
- Does it have the potential to become anything else? Like a monkey?
You say at the point to viability, the mother's right to decide what goes on in her own body is no longer the factor. Why would you say that? I agree with you though that a person's rights end when another person's rights begin. My only contention is that science has determined this question already. A new human life starts at fertilization. Please refer me to a scientific journal if I'm wrong on this point. And just because it doesn't look like a human being doesn't mean it isn't one. We've gone down that path before and ended up with slavery.
Since new life begins at fertilization, its life should then be held to be equal to that of its mother. If there are cases where the mother's life is in danger (really, both of their lives are in danger at this point), the only real solution is to try and save both. One of them may die (usually the baby) but we should never directly kill the baby/embryo/fetus.
JoC, you wrote, “I'm saying that at the precise moment of conception, we have two individual people who need care and attention - the mother and the baby.”
At the moment of conception, those cells are not a baby and the womb owner is not a mother.
What's a baby to you? If you say baby as a stage of development, then I agree with you. But at the moment of conception we have a distinct human being from its mother - a human being in its earliest stages of development.
I disgree though, the "womb owner" is a mother. When else would you call her a mother?
It’s my understanding that that medical definition is that it is a fetus from about eight weeks after conception until birth. Prior to that it is known as a blastocyst and then an embryo. Personally, I wouldn’t refer to a fetus as a baby until it is viable - can live outside the womb.
I view being a mother as an active, rather than passive thing. There are women who have given birth who are absolutely NOT mothers, just as there are women who don’t even own wombs who are.
I kinda like your definition of mother as it reminds me of a quote about fatherhood but might I tweak it a bit?
The quote I'm refering to is, "Anyone can be a father but not everyone can be a dad."
So I say motherhood is a passive thing, as is fatherhood. Being a mom, would entail an active choice, as is being a dad.
Going back to not referring to a fetus as a baby, why wouldn't you. Would you at least recognize even the blastocyst as the child of the mother and the father?
You do know you can Googje word definitions don't you?
Blastocyst.
noun
a mammalian blastula in which some differentiation of cells has occurred
noun
EMBRYOLOGY
Blastula
Noun
an animal embryo at the early stage of development when it is a hollow ball of cells
_______________
Now one more time sincee JoC has inexplicably missed this. The reason it's incorrect to describe a blastula as a child or baby is because that unlike children and babies it's unable to feel pain, experience emotion, is not sentient and so can't store or recall memories develop attachments etc etc..
This has been pointed out enough now to make your question moot. Would you call a child an adult or an adult a child when discussing the differences between adulthood and childhood?
Yet people insist on dishonestly referring to a blastocyst or a foetus as child or baby?
Do you think sentience and the ability to experience physical and emotional pain are remotely salient in defining a human being? A rock is not a human is it? Can a rock experience pain or emotional trauma, is it sentient? Now more importantly and to show how intransigent and purely dogma based the religious positions that are being expressed here are, if science showed objective evidence that a foetus was sentient, could feel pain, and experience emotional trauma as fully formed HUMANS can do, I'd have no recourse but to re-evaluate the morality of terminating a pregnancy, what fact or facts would make you change your position?
"I say it’s a human being during one of the earliest parts of development, which is scientifically accurate."
Rubbish, and it's not even linguistically correct.
Human
adjective
1. relating to or characteristic of humankind.
So characteristics like being sentient, experiencing pain, experiencing emotions, the ability to store and recall memories etc etc, now does a blastocyst have any of those characteristics? Please list the human characteristics a blastocyst has?
In my opinion, an embryo is not a human person yet, as a fertilized egg is not a chicken (yet) or a bunch of seeds a wood. An embryo does not have sensations or sentience as it does not have a nervous system and a brain. An embryo is not an independent socialized organism, something that is necessary to be a full human being. An embryo is part of the mother body in the best of cases or it can be considered a parasite in the worst case as it uses the resources of the mother body to survive. Giving all this, the mother should be able to refuse to share her resources with the embryo and will not be killing a human person but an embryo.
Once this is clear one can understand that the origin of that anti-abortion position comes from thinking that there is something outside sentience and biology that makes us human, and that ‘essence’, is what is called a ‘soul’’ even though they avoid that word as much as they can in an argument. A soul is a religious concept because it existence is based on faith, it cannot be proved objectively.
On the other and more matter of fact hand, there are stages of development in humans and we all agree they do not have the same rights. A toddler cannot go by her/ himself to school no matter how much he/ she might want to. One parent has to take him. The toddler cannot choose what religion to joint to, what to eat or where to live among many other things. A person younger than 18 cannot give consent for sex, and his/her parents decide where he/she studies, where he lives, and many other things. A person younger than 21 cannot decide to drink alcohol. It is easy to see that the younger a human is, the less rights he has and the more parents decide for him. Why is that? Because we all recognize that before 21, a human is not ready to make some decisions and parents are trusted to take the best decisions for them. A pre-person like an embryo simply fits into this scale. It is not fit to make decisions even about their own life and the mother is the one who should decide to carry the pregnancy to the end based of her and the pre-human best interests. (Bringing an unwanted child to the world to be rejected, to suffer and maybe be mistreated is worse than aborting, for both the fetus and the family in my opinion)
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