Redstate

I don't mean to be glib, but while your excellent diary does present a rational and plausible set of facts with which to attempt to persuade pro-choice people to reconsider...

It seems to me there is a huge difference between the "life" in a blastocyst and in a fully formed fetus. I think the blastocyst has more in common, at that stage, with a tumor than with a person.

Please. I'm begging you. Could I copy and paste this post into an ad, credit it to the DNC, and pay for it to be prominently displayed along interstate highways in America? Would you and the DNC give me permission to do that?

More importantly, would Krempasky give me the money to pay for those ads? :-)

That is probably the most outrageous analogy ever used to justify treating a blastocyst as a clump of lifeless cells.  Just so you don't take too much credit, this is not the first place I've heard that.

A tumor consists of once-normal somatic cells (that is, cells of already-existing bodily tissue), induced by some genetic mutation to reproduce at an abnormal rate, mostly by means of shutting off contact inhibition (that being the signal by the proximity of adjacent cells to stop mitosis).

An embryo, or a blastocyst as it is called in the 4-8 cell stage, is a cluster of NORMAL DIPLOID HUMAN CELLS REPRODUCING MITOTICALLY AT A NORMAL RATE.  Tumor cells and blastocyst cells are both living tissue, to be sure, but this shatters the ludicrous argument that a tumor is somehow more human and less foreign than a developing embryo.

I don't have too much quibble with people who want to say "Government, stay out of my body!"  But I bristle when people want to change basic human biology to further their political agenda.

P.S.--dvdmsr!  Where were you when I had to read those tedious genetics textbooks?  I could have done better than a C in that class if only I had your concise post on hand!

I am not being combative or sarcastic or inflammatory in the least. I'm trying to have a decent discussion on this site, and flippant responses like that one are simply counterproductive.

But if you simply don't consider me worth taking seriously, I suppose I may eventually have to ignore you, since you can't seem to make yourself ignore ME.

And I'm attempting to highlight, in a somewhat less than sonorous way, the moral bankruptcy of any position that equates human embryos with cancerous tumors. That's something I think the American public needs to hear from the pro-choice side of the aisle.

If you're uncomfortable with me pointing out the obviously abhorrent nature of your position, feel free to ignore me. But I'm not going to let that kind of comment skate by.

My apologies. I can see clearly now your point. (Ack -- syntax meltdown!)

A group of 2 cells smaller than the period at the end of this sentence is not a person.  A 8 and 1/2 month old fetus clearly is.

Am I the only one that finds it ridiculous that neither party's platform will allow both previous sentences to be true?

to be the determining factor in personhood.

but you miss a central point: One party (Democrat) has as a matter of platform and policy stated that it does not believe citizens have a right to participate in that debate. EG, Roe v Wade takes that question out of the political arena and morphs it into the inappropriate context of constitutional rights.

I believe that the US, like most European countries, could come up with a workable compromise on this. The very nature of the question lends itself to a compromise solution.

But Roe radicalized the debate, and the Democrats are solely to blame for it.

The next time a friend or family member tells me they're pregnant I'll be sure to offer my condolences and recommend they look into chemotherapy or some other treatment to get rid of that nasty cancerous growth they're carrying around.

Oh, wait, no, I won't, because I don't share your viewpoint that a new human life is a tumor.  

Words fail me in trying to even respond to someone with such an outlook.

I think I'll just second MachoNachos's suggestion that the people who espouse this sort of equivalency should have their ideas broadcast loudly, clearly and frequently to the American people.

because the only difference between me and a zygote is that the zygote is alot smaller.

I'm all for compromise on the issue of abortion, but what we're talking about is what is considered valid human life.  Roe vs. Wade and other matters are debate points for a later thread.

Look, two cells smaller than the period at the end of a sentence are not going to attend Yale, work as an investment banker, and drive their kids to soccer practice.  But those two zygotic cells are only going to divide, grow, and differentiate into one thing...a human being that potentially could do any or all of those things.

I'm not the most conservative RedStater when it comes to the politics of abortion, stem cells, cloning, etc., but I know biology when I see it.  And that's what I'll stand up for.

with everything but the last sentence.  The debate would be plenty radicalized without Roe, and there's enough radicals on both sides to shoulder the blame for that.

Congress should legislate the extent to which it feels it should be involved in a woman's pregnancy, and I think that if it did we would eventually end up with some sort of reasonable compromise.

I think that you'd also be suprised how many conservative politicians are thankful for Roe, since it gives them political cover to be "pro-life" without having to actually take what would be controversial steps towards legislating that position.  It's an easy and consequence free way to give lip service to religious conservatives.

Is a zygote conscious?

Just a friendly tip: It would be helpful for all concerned if you were more consistent with hitting the "reply to this" button instead of the "post a comment" button, so we can see what you are responding to.

Otherwise, an outstanding point.

on abortion would be a healthy thing for the nation. I personally think the only valid reason to terminate a pregnancy is if the mother's life is in danger.  However, if the government banned more odious practices like partial-birth abortion, and pro-life groups were able to mount an effective campaign to dissuade women from getting abortions except in situations of threat to health, I would consider that a victory for the pro-life movement.

Because otherwise I slip in and out of personhood every day.

I think that the more honest assessment of your view is that there is a difference in development between a zygote and an adult human, but you instead chose to frame your point in terms of size (smaller than a period) - that's your choice.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that all these distinctions that you are forced to draw are completely arbitrary - whether you determine that it's consciousness, rational thought, self-sufficiency, whatever. I can admit that there are huge, gaping fundamental developmental differences between myself and my four year old son - that does not diminish from his humanity one whit.

Listen, I respect you a lot, so I'm gonna delete a lot of the snark I originally had in mind for this post.

But what you have to consider is that a logical consequence of the pro-life position is that abortion is the taking of a human life. When seen in that light, abortion in America has been responsible for at least 4 times as many deaths as the holocaust in Germany. So, for an exercise in seeing things from a consistent point of view, substitute the word "holocaust" for "abortion" in the first sentence of your above post and tell me if it sounds like a good idea to you.

And, FWIW, I think that this:

pro-life groups were able to mount an effective campaign to dissuade women from getting abortions except in situations of threat to health,

Sounds charming, but is an incredible pipe dream.

Sounds charming, but is an incredible pipe dream

Yes it is.  But ultimately, I do not believe the American people will accept it if the federal government, or the states, or whoever lays down abortion policy post-Roe v. Wade decides to ban all abortion or only allows abortion to save the life of the mother.  I am firmly against Roe v. Wade not only because abortion is evil, but because it takes the decision out of the democratic process.  Put it back in the democratic process, and I believe compromise is inevitable.

After a political compromise, would I then go out and encourage women to have abortions? Of course not.  Would I still write against it as the evil it is, and attempt to persuade people that getting an abortion is not the solution unless you're about to die?  Of course I would.  The fact is, both of us are moral idealists with impossible pipe-dreams.  That's OK.  The wonderful think about conservativism is that it doesn't rely on the government to enforce everything.  We as individuals count for more.  

Quite honestly, I don't see why you had such a strong objection to my comment.

I agree with this, and unlike ChiMod, including the last sentence.

Liberals may not have been responsible for Roe v. Wade at first, but they are wholly responsible for its continuation.  Their willingness to filibuster any judicial nominee who they even suspect would not uphold it prevents sensible judges from being seated on the SC, and leaves us with the likes of Kennedy and Souter.

Compromise on abortion would be a healthy thing for this nation.

So, what, we only allow the legal murder of 500,000 unborn a year, for the sake of (ahem) a healthier country? What about 200,000? What about 100,000?

I hear what you're saying about politics and all that, but I just frankly can't believe that compromise is a worthwhile endgame when it comes to abortion.

In a parallel situation, we'll never completely eliminate murder in the United States - does that mean we shouldn't try? Does that mean that we need to affect a compromise on the murder issue? Never would you find a sane person advocating such a thing. Which is why I couldn't figure out why you would advocate its equivalent in the abortion debate.

Please watch your use of the S-word.

and leaves us with the likes of Kennedy and Souter

                                            ^^^^^^

Regards.

It appears that a different font is used during the posting of comments, and how they are viewed when the actual post is saved. Put those little carrot marks under "Souter" and you have my original intent.

And yes, I'll take my own warning for profanity now.

OK, I see the problem now.  When I said compromise would be a healthy thing for the nation, I meant a little spirit of cooperation might bring the partisan rancor down a notch or two so we can actually have a debate on this issue.  Most people do not want abortion on demand, which is as odious to me as it is to you.  And I certainly don't think the inevitable compromise our politicians will work out should end grassroots efforts to stop women from aborting their children.  

To put it another way, my hope is that a political compromise would lower the temperature a little bit, give protesters and pro-life activists some more credibility (being politically recognized through restrictions on abortion would go a long way to giving pro-life activists some more clout).  However, if none of that happens, at least I think it will allow the pro-life movement to turn from campaigning for government restrictions to focusing more on women themselves and education against abortion and that sort of thing.  But we are not in disagreement that abortion is evil.  I hope I haven't misunderstood your objections in any way.

but that doesn't make it necessarily a false one.  There's an arbitrary and indeterminate number of grains of sand you'd have to add to a molehill in order to make it a mountain.  That doesn't mean there's no difference between the two.

And as hard as it is for me or anyone to define consciousness in this sense, I think you know I didn't mean simply awake.  I assume that you would say that humans (even sleeping ones) inherently have a level of consciousness (or immediate capacity for consciousness) that you would not find in a nightcrawler.  And a nightcrawler may have some higher level of consciousness when compared to a rock.  I'm not sure where a single human cell fits into things, but I'm instinctively hesitant to put it on equal footing with myself (my own intellectual limitation notwithstanding).  

And it is a developmental issue in this sense, but I would say that it should really be a developmental issue-- there is something human about me and you and your four year old son and even a third trimester fetus that is lacking in a blastocyte.  Brain waves, a beating heart, it comes back to an arbitrary distinction and some shades of grey toward the end of the 1st trimester.  But again, because there are infinite shades between what we call black, grey and white-- and because it might be tough to tell where one ends and the other begins-- it doesn't mean there is no distinction to be made.

were the size no bigger than this period.

I agree that a zygote has potential to eventually become a human being.  So do a sperm and egg the instant before they unite.  So do any of thousands of sperm and eggs while still in separate bodies.

We shouldn't protect everything that has the potential for personhood-- but we should begin protecting a fetus once it has become a human person.  Which, incidentally is a philisophical not biological question.

Unless you are willing to concede that someone has a valid argument when they say that since I have developed the ability to read and write, whereas my four year old son has not, I am more human than he is. Whenever you draw one arbitrary distinction between two humans at different points of their development, you are forced to accept someone else's, since by the definition of the word "arbitrary", yours is no better than his.

I'll agree that there are fundamental differences between myself and an embryo. There are fundamental differences between myself and my wife, for goodness' sake, and they certainly comprise a mountain.

I won't agree that I'm human and the embryo is not.

You've just pushed me off the fence of the ESS issue into being firmly against. I mean, I reasoned myself into it, but thanks for being the catalyst. I was getting tired of being squishy.

I am NOT saying they are equivalent, though the warped response to what I said is nothing if not predictable.

I said a blastocyst has more in common with a tumor than a fully formed fetus. And that is absolutely true. At the stage of a blastocyst, only the truly staunch can say it's a human being with a straight face. It's a clump of cells with the POTENTIAL to become a human being. Sometimes it actually turns out to BE a tumor.

But this is pointless. We stand where we stand and never the 'twain shall meet..,

I think the blastocyst has more in common, at that stage, with a tumor than with a person.

And I'm just fine with broadcasting that message all day long - a human embryo has more in common with a cancerous tumor than it does a... well, a human being.

I'm baffled that you'd literally make a mountain out of a molehill by denying the existence of what must be an arbitrary point at which they are separated.  If we threw out every arbitrary convention and equated those things separated by them, then your son would be able to go out and buy a beer at your local bar tonight.

We set up these arbitrary cut-offs not out of pure whim, but because there is no clear cut point of differentiation.  We don't think that someone who is 21 is inherently much more mature than someone who is 20 1/2.  But it's fallacious to use that logic to regress the legal drinking age all the way down to 4.  You can pick a few grains of sand off a mountain and it is still a mountain.  But you cannot pick millions of grains off, until you're left with a mere pile of dirt, and still seriously claim to be looking at a mountain.

Where do we draw the line at when cells become a person?  I would say it is hitched to that nebulous idea of consciousness, and unfortunately I can't determine the day or hour that it is achieved by the fetus.  Hopefully someday we will have a better standard.  But you seem to be saying that since your four year old is conscious, and he's much younger than you, then a group of cells are conscious because they're only a few years younger still than him.  It's not an argument that should pass with someone as smart as you appear to be.

A blastocyst. Unless I am gravely mistaken, the blastocyst comes before the embryo...

If you want to email me I'd definetly continue the discussion. Let me know, I'll let you have the last word of open debate.

I think our discussion is 100 per cent germane to the discussion point of the thread - namely, is an embryo a person.

"We set up these arbitrary cut-offs not out of pure whim, but because there is no clear cut point of differentiation. "

I think the lack of a clear cut differentiation is one reason those of us who are pro life view the embryo as human and something that shouldn't be regarded as a potential experiment specimen.

We do know some facts-every human being alive today, at some point was an embryo.

The embryos have value in scientific research, precisely because they are human.

The main debate seems to focus on whether or not they are deemed human enough to have any protection at all, but once you start choosing where the line is to be drawn, it all becomes pretty subjective.

But I think you're pressing analogies that really don't fit. We're not discussing arbitrary in the sense of legislation or even really philosophical concepts. What we're discussing is abritrary in the sense of essence.

For instance, the question we are debating is not analogous to whether a certain amount of dirt is either a mountain or just a molehill, but whether a mountain and a molehill are both dirt, or if only the mountain qualifies. I'd grant both your analogies if we were having a debate over a concept of quality, such as adulthood - at what age does a person become an adult? But in a debate over essence, abitrariness really has no place.

Thanks for the tip.  I KNOW to click "reply to this", but sometimes in my zeal to post I forget, or I think I've posted in time to apear in order, sometimes I just don't think, etc.  I'm working on it.  (See, I did it this time).

The term "blastocyst" refers to a specific stage of the embryo, that being very early when it consists of 4 to 8 (or is it 16?) identical, non-differentiated cells.

Honestly, my only concern here is that science is bandied about accurately regardless of anyone's political agenda.

But dictionary.com defines blastocyst thusly:

The modified blastula stage of mammalian embryos, consisting of the inner cell mass and a thin trophoblast layer enclosing the blastocoel.

To which I say, "What the heck is a blastula?" Dictionary.com responds:

An early embryonic form produced by cleavage of a fertilized ovum and consisting of a spherical layer of cells surrounding a fluid-filled cavity.

QED, it is an embryo.

The mountain v. molehill analogy really is one of essence, in the Platonic sense of "mountain-ness" vs. "molehill-ness".  We'd both agree that an adult human and an embryo (or gamete or zygote, we've been pretty loose with our terminology) are both made of complex proteins, just as both mtn. and molehill are made of dirt.

There's another analogy that I think work better with the discussion.  Imagine an evil mad scientist (is there any other kind?) who decides to take apart an adult human cell by cell.  For the first few million, it would remain alot like an adult human.  But after billions and billions and billions of cells, it would end up a gruesome and miniscule mess of blood and tissue.  If he were to stop there, would we consider the remains to have a human essence?  

We started out with what we would both agree was a human, and we ended up with something we would both agree (I'm guessing) was not human.  Somewhere in between, it lost it's essence of personhood.  How do we decide what that point is?  Any answer we give, the scientist can say "Well, certainly taking one more cell away and it won't make a difference".  

There is a caveat here though.  As I said earlier, I think an embryo or fetus achieves personhood when it gains consciousness. If the addition or subtraction of one cell causes a person to gain or lose "consciousness", then that is the critical moment.  But again, consciousness is a mushy term, and we can't determine a set of scientific criteria for it yet.  So for now, I think we must make our best guess and establish an arbitrary cut-off within a certain range of fetal brain development.  Hopefully someday there will be a test to determine whether a being is or is not conscious, and it is at that point that the whole abortion issue will be much less uncomfortable for  me.  Until then, I don't see any other alternative to an essentially arbitrary differentiation (within the limits of a few weeks or months).

when comparing humans to, say, anything else.

We'd both agree that an adult human and an embryo (or gamete or zygote, we've been pretty loose with our terminology) are both made of complex proteins

I think if we're being honest, we'd both agree to a lot more than that - namely, that they are both imprinted with a unique human genetic code.

There's another analogy that I think work better with the discussion.  Imagine an evil mad scientist (is there any other kind?) who decides to take apart an adult human cell by cell.  For the first few million, it would remain alot like an adult human.  But after billions and billions and billions of cells, it would end up a gruesome and miniscule mess of blood and tissue.  If he were to stop there, would we consider the remains to have a human essence?

Well, I don't know. Is a dead human still a human?

And this is where the analogy really falls apart for anyone who is a believer in the human soul - because while a dead flower simply decomposes and eventually again becomes soil, human beings are unique in all the universe in that they retain their essential humanity even when divested of their physical habitat.

And so, of course, the question becomes, when is a human being given a soul? You have decided, in arbitrary fashion, that it is at the point when consciousness occurs - but can you make a convincing argument that it does not occur with the first heartbeat?

In fact, I consider that the only tenable solution is that this occurs when the egg and sperm cease to be the cells of two separate humans, and the embryo begins the process of replicating itself as a unique, separate, and individual human - because that is, in essence, when a new human is created. The rest is just development.

 Somebody made a philosophical point. A child in a fire next to a refrigerator full of frozen embryos. You can only save one, the fridge or the child. Which do you save? I'm betting that most Americans grab the kid, even though the correct response from the most extreme pro-lifers would be to grab the fridge, which has many more lives in it than the one kid.

 Everything I've ever talked to the 'silent majority' on abortion about reaches pretty much the same conclusions.

 - Nobody should be forced to carry a baby if it's going to kill them.

 - Nobody should be forced to carry a baby if they've been raped.

 - Nobody really likes abortions.

 There's plenty of room there for a reasonable compromise on abortion if people are willing to compromise. Shame on the extremists on both sides who keep this battle going.

Hi  dvdmsr

There is this old saying, "It's folly to be sane when the world goes mad". But it's important to be sane. Thanks for reminding us that everytime we abort an unborn baby we kill a life. You don't have a right to kill just because you were irresponsible in sex.

Arnab

all humans at some point were embryos consisting of just a few cells-every single human went through that stage of development.  Your scientist in reverse isn't something every human goes through in the development proccess.

"Somebody made a philosophical point. A child in a fire next to a refrigerator full of frozen embryos. You can only save one, the fridge or the child. Which do you save? I'm betting that most Americans grab the kid, even though the correct response from the most extreme pro-lifers would be to grab the fridge, which has many more lives in it than the one kid."

Is a silly argument.

There are 30 people in a burning building, but you only have time to save 5, does that mean the other 25 weren't human?

Fridges are flippin' heavy, and besides which are generally incapable of any independent locomotion. The reason most people wouldn't choose the fridge is because they realize if they tried that, there would be a dead child, a bunch of dead embryos, and a dead adult with a hernia.

corrected.

You're right, the question is not whether a dead human is still a human.  The question is at what point a human loses its personhood, or soul if you prefer, on its road to death.  If it is when the heart stops beating, then shouldn't we say it gains its essence when the heart starts beating?

Your answer to when the adult experimentee loses its human essence or personhood should be your answer to when an group of embyronic cells gains that same essence or personhood.  If a heartbeat is a neccesary condition for a soul at a person's death, why wouldn't it be a neccesary condition when a person is "created"?

I'm not saying that consciousness is the absolute standard for what constitues personhood.  It's my standard, although I realize it's certainly possible to have a different one.  Whatever standard you use though, if logically consistent, should be equally applicable to both when personhood is formed in the womb and when it is taken away in the mad scientist analogy.

The fridge could be a cooler.  You have plenty of time to save one or the other, just not time for both.  So do you save the life of the child, or the cooler full of embryos?  You can say that they are all people, that just means you should save the cooler and regretably must let the child die.

There's a similar point that could be made that's a little less outrageous.  About 2 out of every 3 fertilized eggs fail to attach themselves to the uterine wall, and are expelled during menstruation.  Assuming that a fertilized egg has full rights of personhood, when a woman passes this menstrual fluid she is actually giving birth.

We don't let women give birth to live children and then dispose of them or allow them to die through neglect.  If these fertilized eggs are in fact human persons, then what steps should be taken to prevent their death?  Someone who believes these cells to be unequivically human must believe that a woman who flushes a fertilized egg down the toilet along with her menstrual fluid is guilty of murder.  Just as if she had done the same to a newborn infant.

Is this something you advocate?

Every human was once a twinkle in his or her parents' eye.  Does that mean we should protect sperm and egg as human beings?

The White House was once a pile of brick and cement.  Indeed so was every important govt building.  Should we have set up a 24 hour guard around the materials?

"We shouldn't protect everything that has the potential for personhood-- but we should begin protecting a fetus once it has become a human person."

This begs the question what is a human being? Am I a human being?  I'm still growing and developing, so am I but a potential human being too?  IMO if we want to create a fair definition of human being, then we must ask ourselves the following question: What do all human beings currently recognized under the law have in common?

I've stated what I believe we all have in common, and biology supports this assertion.  So whom should we protect as a human being?  Biology suggests a human being is any organism that contains within the nucleus of its cell or cells DNA that taken in its entirety is consistent with other human beings but not another species, and has the inherent properties that allow him or her to functions as other human beings generally do at that stage of human development.  

And no human started out as a twinkle in their parents eye, but we all started our development as soon as the sperm and egg met, and those cells started to divide.

It is the fact that those cells are human, that they are wanted for scientific research.  

you miss the point that those fertilized eggs fail by a natural proccess.  Scientific research (and abortion) is not natural, it is human caused.

Nobody should be forced to carry a baby if it's going to kill them.

I move in very pro-life circles and I am as yet unaware of anyone who believes that pregnancies that would prove lethal to the mother should not be terminated. Even if she is carrying quintuplets and all of them have to go to keep her alive.

In fact, should the pregnancy promise to be harmful to the woman's future health or fertility, practically everyone I know who is pro-life would not object to a termination.

Somebody made a philosophical point. A child in a fire next to a refrigerator full of frozen embryos. You can only save one, the fridge or the child. Which do you save? I'm betting that most Americans grab the kid, even though the correct response from the most extreme pro-lifers would be to grab the fridge, which has many more lives in it than the one kid.

This relates to the case I mentioned above, where a woman is carrying otherwise healthy quintuplets but would die if she carried the pregnancy to term. Islamically (and even the most moderate of us Muslims tend to be very conservative), the recommended course of action would be an abortion not because the children are not alive or worth less, but because the loss of a life that has already created solid links in the world would cause more disruption in the world.

It's a bad situation that one has to make the best of. The happily pregnant woman who has to abort a child for her own life or health suffers greatly. But then again, hard cases make for bad law.

The Right really has no objection to terminations in the case when the pregnancy would prove harmful to the mother if she were to carry it to term. Health and life exemptions really have no enemies.  What we object to is when health is expanded in meaning to also include mental/financial/lifestyle "health".

Nobody should be forced to carry a baby if they've been raped.

This is actually the far more common position on the Right. In fact, I dare say that a far higher percentage of strongly pro-life people believe this than the percentage of strongly pro-choice people oppose partial birth abortions.

Now here's a scenario for you:

Assume in a few years time, Doctors and medical researchers develop incubator technology to the point that a 12 week old fetus can be brought to term with a 90% chance of survival. Assume also that methods and/or technology have advanced enough to enable the evacuation of a womb without harming the fetus or the mother and this is no more harmful than a termination.

Now imagine a scenario where a doctor performs such an evacuation when a woman comes to him for an abortion at 17 months. He places the child in an incubator and it develops normally and he carries it home after the remaining 19 months. Two years pass, the doctor has a beautiful little daughter, and somehow, the mother discovers what happened and takes the doctor to court.

She charges him with a breach of contract. His reply is that he terminated the pregnancy as she requested. In other words; is an abortion simply the termination of a pregnancy or must it also include the termination of the fetus? What do you think?

I don't know that that's necessarily what defines death - just because that's what is most frequently checked for in determining whether someone actually is dead. In point of fact, you can be alive for an extremely short amount of time if you heart isn't beating.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is, the lack of heartbeat isn't really the definitive thing that makes a person dead, even though when a person dies, their heart always stops beating. For instance, a person always stops breathing when they die - is it the case that breathing is the determining factor of life (this is the position of the pro-choice extremist)? For that matter, dead people generally don't walk anymore either, is walking the determining factor of life?

I think, from a biological standpoint, that when discussing whether a particular entity is alive or dead, the determination is made when the entity stops regenerating itself through cell meiosis (or mitosis, whatever, XSpyder will correct me on this point I'm sure), and begins the process of decay. After all, not all living organisms breathe/have heartbeats/are conscious in the way we define it. I think further that's what the point of the original post was.

(1) All living things share the following characteristics:

a. Living things are organized; their parts are specialized for special functions.

b. Living things take materials and energy from the environment; they need an outside source of nutrients to thrive.

c. Living things are homeostatic; internally they stay just about the same despite changes in the external environment.

d. Living things respond to stimuli; they react to internal and external events.

e. Living things reproduce; they produce offspring that resembles themselves.

f. Living things grow and develop; during their lives they change - most multi cellular organisms undergo various stages from fertilization to death.

g. Living things are adapted; they have modifications that make them suited to a particular way of life.

Did you mean months or weeks in your "for instance?"

 I think the doctor is an immoral so and so, that's what I think. If you don't think of it as a human at 17 weeks, he'd be guilty of fraud. If you DO think of it as a human at 17 weeks, then he's guilty of kidnapping at the very least.

 Now, as to the nuts and bolts of your scenario, if we get medical technology that refined, the debate is going to tilt your way anyhow. It seems unlikely to me, however - medical studies of preemies I've seen suggest that 22-23 weeks is about as early as you can get. The organs just aren't developed enough to withstand the shock of birth earlier than that.

 The debate to me (as Doverspa has pointed out elsewhere) is at what point do you make the cutoff? In the days before Baby Doe, a 22 week old wouldn't be saved, probably wouldn't even be intubated, might have been intubated long enough for the doctor to declare the fetus probably wouldn't survive, and they'd extubate. Now, we have about a 50-50 chance of that baby making it's first birthday, provided someone can handle the crushing medical bills.

 Now, as to one of your comments.

What we object to is when health is expanded in meaning to also include mental/financial/lifestyle "health".

 Well, in two of the three, you have to consider 'health'. We don't normally as a society allow the mentally handicapped to raise their own children, and we also consider who qualifies for medical care by the amount of money they have. As far as 'lifestyle' goes, I submit that forcing a child to undergo life with parents clearly unready or unable to shoulder the burden isn't good either. I don't trust the adoption route, either, as long as psychos like the couple in Florida or the drug dealers in Utah can get their hands on one or multiple adoptees.

"- Nobody should be forced to carry a baby if they've been raped."

I disagree for the reasons I stated in this earlier post:

A woman's right to choose, ends at the nose of another person's conception. As yet, (to our knowledge) no unborn child has ever asked to be placed into his or her mother's womb.  Circumstances beyond the child's control have placed him or her in a potentially perilous predicament, and only in cases like rape does the mother escape her share of the responsibility for this pregnancy.  In such cases, the decision to reproduce is stolen from her by the perpetrator of the rape, and not the child who is conceived.  For anyone like me, who believes that unborn children are human beings from the moment they are conceived, abortion in these cases of rape is no longer a question of reproductive choice, but a question of equity.  Why should any innocent human being have to be punished because someone else committed a crime?  True it is not fair that the raped mother be forced to carry and deliver the child for a crime she did not commit, but when a child is conceived as a result of a rape, there are two victims of that crime not one.  I believe we should punish the criminal not the victims, but in such cases (of abortion) it is impossible to avoid not causing a loss to at least one of the victims.

In these cases, we must ask ourselves one simple question:  Which is the greater loss, the one incurred by the mother who loses her dignity and freedom because she is unwillingly forced to carry and deliver a child that is the product of a rape, or the one incurred by the child who is forced to lose his or her life?  This mother may be forced to pay a high emotional toll that may haunt her for the rest of her life, but this would be likely true whether the child is aborted or not. She also stands to lose freedom, but her loss of freedom is limited at least to the length of the pregnancy if she chooses adoption for her child.  Lastly, she would have to bear a heightened risk against her life during this pregnancy and delivery, but this is a risk equally shared by her unborn child.  On the contrary, this child stands to lose his or her life absolutely (in what is often an a very brutal death to say the least), and with it a lifetime of freedom.  The mother would still have her life, and with it the possibility for a better tomorrow, whereas the child would have none.  Clearly the cost to the child is greater.  So I make no exceptions for rape when it comes treating unborn human beings equally under the law.

"In fact, should the pregnancy promise to be harmful to the woman's future health or fertility, practically everyone I know who is pro-life would not object to a termination."

You don't know me, but I consider myself pro-life, and I make no exception for cases in which the child she is currently carrying places a woman's future fertility at risk.  This to me sound so absurd; let her kill an existing child so she can possibly have another in the future. And what do you mean future health? Does this mean that because she may experience depression, stress, or anxiety in the future this then is justification enough to kill another human being?

for your encouraging words.

....wasn't addressed. No one disputes the human-ness in genetic terms of a fetus.  It's personhood that is at issue.  And personhood entails at least the potential for consciousness.  Until a certain minimal amount of brain development (exact amount very much open to debate and scientific inquiry - but clearly not there during the first trimester and probably well into the second) has occurred there's simply no way a fetus can be viewed as a person.  (At least rationally and objectively...religious views are another matter.)  

  Why do pro-life people have such a hard time grasping or acknowledging this basic concept? It's the same test we use for "personhood" at the END of life - once you're completely brain dead you're no longer considered to have personhood, though you're clearly still human according to the biology textbooks.  The answer, of course, is that they ignore the concept because it conflicts with their view of personhood - which in the vast majority of cases comes solely from religion, not from science.

While I am not opposed to abortion, where the mother's actual life is at stake, I would be opposed to abortion to protect her fertility (unless you mean something like a tubal pregnancy, but in that case her life/future fertility are both at stake, since leaving a tube to rupture can result in serious infection/death-my own grandmother died from a tubal pregnancy).

b. Tests of consciousness and cognitive ability are not valid measures for determining whether an organism is living or not, nor are they valid measures for determining whether an organism is a human being or not.

But note it was just thrown out as a given with absolutely no supporting argument. And, again, note that it contradicts the fact that tests for the potential for conscuiousness or certain cognitive abilities are widely accepted as valid measures for answering exactly the same question at the other end of the life process.

How do they fail?

Apparently, as Macho has been pointing out to me, you don't need brain activity, or a heart beat, or a circulatory/respiratory system to be a living human child.  By this standard the fertilized egg is in fact living when it is expelled from the woman's body, since it will continue to divide.  It has certainly not failed yet by any standard for personhood you've given.  It will only really die when it runs out of nutrients-- basically it will starve to death.

So how 'bout it?  When do we line up menstruating women at the courthouse for murdering babies?

You're raising the same issues I am, but you're refusing to answer the question.  I've already told you what my standard for personhood is.  You have not told me yours.

I hope it's not cell division-- which makes an OK biological definition of life, but a lousy philisophical definition of personhood.  The mad scientist could widdle a person down to a kidney that would continue to divide as long as it was placed in some kind of nutrient tub (much like a womb).  Is that kidney a person?  Would we really call it a life?

All all these neccesary conditions for life? Sufficient conditions?  Is a sterile person still alive even though they fail "e"?  And isn't "f" kind of begging the question? What if someone in a vegetative state was unable to respond to stimuli.

IN the case you are using, nobody is purposefully or willfully ending or using human life.  

If a child dies of natural causes, nobody suggests charing the parents with murder, but if the mother smothers her child, she certainly should be charged.

"What if someone in a vegetative state was unable to respond to stimuli. "

They are considered to be no longer people and we starve them to death.

"And personhood entails at least the potential for consciousness."

First unborn human beings are discussed in terms of their potential, and now you want us to believe they lack the potential for consciousness.  Are you even following along?  And since when has consciousness become the legal standard for personhood?  Is a corporation conscious?  No it is not, and yet through the enactment of legislation certain organizations become legal persons.

than a mother who gives birth to a fully developed infant and then simply walks away.  It's a crime to give birth to a fully grown infant and just walk away and let it starve to death.  It's called negligent homicide.  A mother doesn't have to smother an infant in order to kill it.  Is starving to death due to neglect a "natural cause"?

Walking away from a newborn, is a purposeful act, it is neglect by choice.  A fertilized egg that fails to implant, doesn't fail because or due to any action of the mother, it just fails to implant.  

I don't think it's possible to formulate an internally consistent position about abortion that simultaneously holds that it is 1) murder, and 2) acceptable in the cases of rape or incest.  To allow abortion under these circumstances necessarily means either that abortion is bad, but not as bad as murder, or that rape or incest is worse than murder.  Otherwise it doesn't make sense.

Having said that, I think that it makes sense to view unintended pregnancies that result from rape or incest with more compassion than I usually hear.  I was pro-choice for a very long time.  It was because I didn't think that embryos/fetuses were human, not because I thought that rape or incest was a lesser evil than murder.  Hearing pro-life folks (largely men) say that even women who were raped or girls who were impregnated by family members should be forced to endure a pregnancy after a trauma that few people (no men) experience made me very upset.  (I'm not saying that boys and men aren't victims of abuse and even rape, just that they cannot become pregnant as a result.)

This is a big deal.  I don't know whether you're a man or a woman, but if I had to guess from the demographics around here I would say you're probably a man.  If I were a person in the process of formulating my ideas about the morality of abortion, I would be a lot more likely to give your input weight if there were some acknowledgement that 1) no one asks to be raped--especially by a family member, 2) the circumstances surrounding pregnancies conceived by rape or incest are tragedies indeed, and 3) that these women and girls deserve every kind of support that we can provide them in order that the pregnancies not exacerbate the trauma any more than necessary.

But you clearly don't get it yet.  According to your standard, the fertilized egg is still alive even if it doesn't attach to the uterine wall, right?  So whether the mother likes it or not, she gives birth when the developing zygote leaves her body.  Let's assume she did know that her menstrual fluid happened to contain a fertilized egg and she disposed of it anyway.  It's neglect by choice in that case right?  Should we charge her with negligent homicide?

She could have kept it artificially reproducing, and at that point it's no different than any of the stem cells you are fighting so hard to protect.  Either it only becomes a life sometime after it implants, or it is still a life if/when it fails to.

Is that you are ignoring logic.

It is a life, and if it doesn't implant and doesn't develop further that doesn't make it any less of a life, it just expires at that point.  But the fertilized egg doesn't fail to implant based on any willful choice of the mother, there for she isn't morally accountable for what happened.

You are somehow wanting to hold the mother morally accountable for something that is beyond her control.

Experimenting on embryos and abortion are done by willful acts-the life is destroyed on purpose for a purpose (either to experiment with, or to make sure it doesn't grow any further).  There is moral accountability for those things.

The fertilized egg is a life until it dies-the difference is whether it dies because somebody purposefully willed it to (therefore they are morally accountable for that) or died because it just did-in that case the life would just be lost-but lost through a natural proccess without any intervention from humans seeking to play God.

is that you have no idea about the science involved.

A "life" that does not attach to the uterine wall does not stop developing.  It continues to develop, just as it would if it had implanted.  It leaves the mother's body, and then because it is denied adequate nutrition, it eventually runs out of fuel for cell division.  In this sense it could be literally hours or days before the fertilized egg actually "dies".

It's out of the mother's control when the fertilized egg leaves her body.  Sometimes it does so before it attaches to the uterine wall.  Sometimes it does so  a few weeks premature.  Sometimes it does so as a  fully developed infant.  Regardless of when it happens, if it really is a life at all stages, then the mother's responsibilities should be the same at every point.

If it fails to implant (or in the case of an egg that does implant, but then for some reason stops growing, or doesn't develop as it should-ie blighted ovum) those things are beyond the mothers control.

If the egg doesn't implant, and she passes it out of her system, it isn't like she is capable of putting it back in to make it implant.  Or if she has a miscarriage, it isn't like she is able to do something to make it stop, or to change things.

Sometimes things don't go right, but they failed to do so naturally, not out of any willful action on the part of the mother.

Stem cell research involves a willful action on the part of those involved, abortion involves a willful action on the part of those involved.

An egg that fails to implant, and passes along somewhere, just doesn't implant.  

The consciousness and cognitive ability of an ameoba certainly does not rise to the level of most adult or even 1 year-old human beings, but are we to believe they not living?  All living things respond to stimuli, even the human zygote which indicates a certain level of consciousness. Why not make this our standard for personhood.  I doubt you will accept this because it of course would not serve what I suspect is your underliying motive, which is to be able to conveniently disregard the rights of certain unborn human beings for your own selfish desires or those of others.

If we are to design a test of consciousness or cognitive ability to determine personhood, then it must not exclude any human being who is currently recognized and protected as a person. You must define your terms (variables.  What is consciousness and cognitive ability?  

Shall we give people an I.Q. test and exclude those who fail to get a 60 from being a person?  These human beings are not currently excluded as such, nor do we permit discrimination against them to rise to the killing them without just cause.  What about newborns, or those in commas or sleeping? Let's give them all the same test we give everone else and see who is a person.

"And, again, note that it contradicts the fact that tests for the potential for conscuiousness or certain cognitive abilities are widely accepted as valid measures for answering exactly the same question at the other end of the life process."

Tests for existing abilities and "potential" abilities are two different things, and on that note most all human zygotes have the potential to on day be as cognizant as you or I, unless they are prevented from doing this, but who among us would not cease to be cognizant if something really heavy was dropped on us.

So unless you can come up with something different to say, then this is the last time I will repeat myself here.

Unnourished, a fully developed baby can only survive for a few days before it dies.  Similarly, a fertilized egg that fails to implant will "survive" outside the mother's womb for a period of time without nutrition.  It is possible to insert the egg back into the mother's body if that's how you decide to nourish it-- that's how in vitro fertilization works.  You could also nourish it in other ways that would keep it dividing and developing.

If a fully developed baby is as much as a person as a fertilized egg, than you can't say it's merely unfortunate happenstance when one is starved outside the womb and a crime when the other is starved outside the womb.  It would be technically possible to "save" the egg, so why don't we try?

The answer that you're avoiding is that we don't consider this egg to be a person-- it merely has the potential to become a person.

my comment acknowledged at least the first two of your concerns, and nothing in my comment could be construed to advocate that any human being suffering unjustly would not have my support.

"Unnourished, a fully developed baby can only survive for a few days before it dies."

Agreed-but what makes it wrong is the reason it is denied the nourishment.

"Similarly, a fertilized egg that fails to implant will "survive" outside the mother's womb for a period of time without nutrition."

Agreed.  But neither of these points speak to personhood.  If I am denied nourishment, I die too, and the fact that I am denied nourishment does not make me less human.

"It is possible to insert the egg back into the mother's body if that's how you decide to nourish it-- that's how in vitro fertilization works. "

Agreed, but then the egg was purposefully fertilized outside the womb, in order to implant in a womb of somebody who wants to have a baby.  

If the egg is fertilized inside my body (or another woman's body) at that point I am pretty unaware of the fact that this has happened.  And if the egg fails to implant, I am also unaware of this.  I didn't do anything to fertilize the said egg in my body, or outside it, and once it fails to implant and heads to wherever outside my body, it is going to be pretty much impossible for me to find the egg anyway.  But the fact is that, I have no knowledge of the fertilized egg in my body, but the lack of that knowledge does not make the egg any more or less human or any more or less alive.

"You could also nourish it in other ways that would keep it dividing and developing."

Agreed, but that division and development means it is a life.  

"If a fully developed baby is as much as a person as a fertilized egg, than you can't say it's merely unfortunate happenstance when one is starved outside the womb and a crime when the other is starved outside the womb."

Um yes you can.  What makes it morally wrong is the intent.  If a egg is inside my body, fails to implant and leaves my body, I never intended or did anything to make it happen.  If I create life outside my body, then hand them over to a scientist to destroy in their search for science, I have done a purposeful act to destroy it.

The action or lack of action on my part doesn't make the embryo less alive or less a person, but the action or lack of action makes me morally accountable.

"It would be technically possible to "save" the egg, so why don't we try?"

Outside the body-we do IVF, and in case you missed it there are people out there who adopt them, and implant them, and have babies from them-Bush had a press conference with several parents who adopted embryos.

Inside the body-well it is pretty much impossible to tell an egg has been fertilized (and having been pregnant four times I can say that for a fact), much less if it failed to implant.  The embryo was still a life, but it essentially experienced the embryos version of a natural disaster.

"The answer that you're avoiding is that we don't consider this egg to be a person-- it merely has the potential to become a person."

The answer you are avoiding is that it is infact a human, and that every human at some point was in that same stage of development, and the reason you want to avoid that answer is because you want to kill them and use them for science.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought you didn't care about these things.  In fact, your reasoning and passion on behalf of truly innocent people leads me to believe that you are a compassionate person.  I was just trying to make a point about emphasis, and how things may be perceived by people who are either pro-choice or on the fence.  

"Blastocyst--A preimplantation embryo of about 150 cells. The blastocyst consists of a sphere made up of an outer layer of cells (the trophectoderm), a fluid-filled cavity (the blastocoel), and a cluster of cells on the interior (the inner cell mass)."

A handy source of definitions in this debate.

http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/glossary.asp

but in the interests of science education and perhaps to help you out at vet school.  There is a lot of similarity between the functional capabilities of tumor cells and very early embryonic cells.  A tumor cell does not gain any new abilities that no other cells ever had, it merely activates some abilities that certain cells had at some point during the course of development and most somatic cells have turned off.

Her statement is not ignorant if we are talking about biology.  It is however misplaced in the context of a veiled discussion about abortion as this appears to be.  

Click here for an example.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&am
p;list_uids=10797946&dopt=Abstract

Click on Related links in the upper right hand corner to find similar work.  Or put in your own search terms to see that this is true.

....I think that the SC's determination that viability is the key consideration makes a lot of sense presently.  (I'm not an attorny 'though I play one on the 'net.)  The only problem with that argument is that abortion becomes increasingly difficult to defend as medical science has greater advances with saving premature embryos.

I think that the whole trimester argument that many states have come to use (e.g., 1st trimester abortions have no restictions, etc.) were designed to capture this viability argument.  This made a lot of sense in the early 70s when fetuses (typically) didn't serve exiting the womb during the 2nd trimester.  (I'm not a gynecologist, either, but I play one on the 'net.)

More importantly, I think that the stem cell argument needs to be TOTALLY removed from any discussion of abortion.  Abortion is a medical procedure that (in the most conservative sense) should be left to the care of a woman, her conscience and God, and her physician.  Government should have no role in a physician's office (among other private spheres).  Stem cell research, on the other hand, is about a research procedure that has the promise to aid and prolong the lives of people with a wide variety of medical disorders.  Stem cell research is in NO WAY a medical procedure.

There was a case I saw in England where a woman was assured of going blind if she carried the baby to term (She did carry it to term). I've read of other cases where a pregnancy would have resulted in massive internal injuries, which could have resulted in the mother becoming something of an invalid. Ectopic pregnancies fall into this category though they tend to kill rather than just disable or compromise.

Others involved pregnancies that for some strange reason, would badly damage the womb and practically render the woman infertile, even though both child and mother would definitely (as definite as one can be in medicine) survive the birth.

I am not a doctor but I am operating on what little knowledge I have on this. In all the cases I mentioned above, would you disapprove of a termination?

NOTE: I was careful to point out that I am very much against the redefinition of "health" to include, mental/financial/professional/etc. health.

and it's tailored to accomodate your point of view quite well.  But the problem is that comprehensively, it does not give us neccesary conditions for personhood (biological identity is trivial-- No one is arguing that the embryo is a donkey embryo rather than a human embryo).

If someone cannot reproduce, they are certainly still a human person.  Theoretically a human adult could live (maybe not for long) without his or her cells dividing or continuing to grow.  I would say it's possible to still be considered a human person without responding to one's environment.

So the point is that these standards as a whole cannot be seen a neccesary conditions for personhood.  And once you start saying that you only need to meet some of the conditions to qualify, then you're left with the ridiculous position that a kidney in some protein rich solution is equivalent to you or me (It can undergo cellular reproduction, react to its environment, etc.).

If you don't think of it as a human at 17 weeks, he'd be guilty of fraud.

Why? Must an abortion involve the termination of the life of the fetus (we obviously agree it's alive) as well as the pregnancy? What if, in the course of performing an abortion in which the fetus is killed prior to its removal from the womb, the woman goes into labor (before the doctor kills the fetus) and the child is delivered alive?

NOTE: This happens ... it is the reason the Born Alive Infants Act was passed.

Should the doctor kill it? Why not? After all, if it was legal to kill it just twenty minutes ago why is it illegal now that it's out? Location? After all, it is not human (at 17 weeks) is it? Can the woman sue him for incompetence?

If you DO think of it as a human at 17 weeks, then he's guilty of kidnapping at the very least

But it is then murder if he kills it. Provided that the conditions I stipulated exist, the location of the child is the only thing that separates what he does from murder.

...if your goal is to actually do anything other than rationalize your own pre-existing beliefs with detailed lists of pre-screened factoids.

The consciousness and cognitive ability of an ameoba certainly does not rise to the level of most adult or even 1 year-old human beings, but are we to believe they not living?  All living things respond to stimuli, even the human zygote which indicates a certain level of consciousness.

My computer responds to stimuli, as does my car. That does NOT indicate a certain level of consciousness.  

Why not make this our standard for personhood.  I doubt you will accept this because it of course would not serve what I suspect is your underliying motive, which is to be able to conveniently disregard the rights of certain unborn human beings for your own selfish desires or those of others.

Nice - I disagree with you therefore I have nefarious underlying motives.  

No, I don't accept this because I don't see the value of classifying my computer, my car, my dog or an amoeba as meeting the standard for personhood. Or, more accurately, because I don't see the value of having a standard of ersonhood that lets all those things in. No evil plot required.

If we are to design a test of consciousness or cognitive ability to determine personhood, then it must not exclude any human being who is currently recognized and protected as a person.

Yes.  And I did so. In fact, using basically the same criteria we currently use for recognizing and protecting "personhood" in all other cases (that of meeting a certain brain activity level that is a minimum hardware requirement for consciousness) is EXACTLY what I proposed.  YOU are the one proposing inconsistent criteria.

You must define your terms (variables.  What is consciousness and cognitive ability?  

Shall we give people an I.Q. test and exclude those who fail to get a 60 from being a person?  These human beings are not currently excluded as such, nor do we permit discrimination against them to rise to the killing them without just cause.  What about newborns, or those in commas or sleeping? Let's give them all the same test we give everone else and see who is a person.

Again, nice.  Construct your own strawman that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what I wrote and then accuse me of wanting to kill low-IQ kids and babies in the sleep.  

"And, again, note that it contradicts the fact that tests for the potential for conscuiousness or certain cognitive abilities are widely accepted as valid measures for answering exactly the same question at the other end of the life process."

Tests for existing abilities and "potential" abilities are two different things,

Exactly.  Thus the stupidity of your nefarious strawman above.  So you're conceding I'm innocent on charges of wanting to kill low-IQ people?

and on that note most all human zygotes have the potential to on day be as cognizant as you or I, unless they are prevented from doing this, but who among us would not cease to be cognizant if something really heavy was dropped on us.

You are confusing "future potentiality" with "potential".  If I completely remove the engine from my car it does not then possess the "potential" to run.  It retains the "future potentiality" to run - if I put the engine back in.  

Similiarly, a fetus does not the potential for consciousness before a certain minimum level of brain development has occurred (it's the car with no engine). Without that current potential it lacks personhood, just as the engine-less car lacks, er, runninghood.

The fact that it has "future potentiality" to gain consciousness at some point in the future (if lots of things are provided to it and lots of things go right) is irrelevant to it's current personhood in exactly the same way that the possibility that I might one day re-install an engine is irrelevant to the current running ability of my engine-less car.

You will choose not to engage this argument because, as you put it, "would not serve what I suspect is your underliying motive, which is to be able to conveniently disregard the rights of certain ...human beings"  but let's be clear here....

.....This is not an abstract , unsubstantiated concept I'm pulling out of my rear. It is EXACTLY the same fundamental concept we currently use to define seperate personhood and non-personhood at the end of life.

..that you misunderstood what I wrote. Perhaps I was unclear..hopefully my last post cleared it up.

How do you define birth?  

It seems like when a living human being leaves its mother's womb, that is by definition giving birth.  If the fertilized egg is a living human being, then as soon as it leaves the woman's body, she has given birth to it.  You could call it an unintended accident, but it doesn't change the fact that a living human being, the same as you and me, is now outside the mother's womb.

Most women don't intend to have premature births.  It possible for babies to be born months premature and still grow up to to adult human beings.  Almost 100% of the time, the mother didn't really intend to give birth then, and it was her body's natural reaction that prompted the living human being to exit her womb.  Should she be able to discard the baby and let it starve?  Would it just be another unintended consequence that the mother had no responsibility towards?

If so, that's pretty twisted.  If not, where do you draw the line?  

What if the woman's body prompts the embryo to detach from the uterus after only a few weeks of development?  It wouldn't look like anything more than a pea sized cell mass.  But according to your standards it should be no different than a premature baby.  

Should she rush the undifferentiated cells to the hospital, and keep them "developing" in a petri dish?  Maybe try to reinsert them into her womb?  What if her body rejects the cells again?  Should an undifferentiated embryo be put up for adoption?

The key point here is that by your standards of what contitutes a person, a rejected embryo is still alive when it leaves the mother's womb, and therefore she has given birth to a living human being. It is just 50+ weeks premature.

that if you can substitute "embryo" for "human being" without a change in meaning, and you define birth as the act of a living human exiting the womb, then over 2/3 of all pregnancies end in a post-natal starvation of the baby.  Intended or not.

Speaking biologically, the way a fertilized egg attaches itself, the way the placenta invades the uterine lining, and the way the embryo enables its own growth despite its foreignness is not too different from a tumor.  BIOLOGICALLY.  As in a proven FACT, not some game of gotcha moral equivalence nonsense.  See the link provided in a lower thread in this diary to see a scientific paper on the subject.  BTW there is such a thin line between dividing blastocyst and a tumor that in rare cases the embryo BECOMES a malignant tumor.  It's called gestational trophoblastic disease.

kills perhaps hundreds of thousands of zygotes every year.  Why is the full brunt of social conservatives not unleashed upon IVF clinics?

Should the doctor kill it? Why not? After all, if it was legal to kill it just twenty minutes ago why is it illegal now that it's out? Location? After all, it is not human (at 17 weeks) is it? Can the woman sue him for incompetence?

 Baby Doe was not 17 weeks. Baby Doe was 23 weeks. Had Baby Doe been 17 weeks at birth, Baby Doe would have died.

 I'll direct you to the testimony from the BAIA.

 http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju73696.000/hju73696_0.HTM

Ms. HART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you and the others who have worked to bring this bill before us.

    As obviously one of the sponsors of the legislation, I recognize the need for it and I am pleased to see Ms. Stanek sticking it out with us to make sure that that happens.

    I have a question, actually. I'm not sure if it was asked since I was out of the room. But, Dr. Bowes, I happen to be a liberal arts college graduate, so my friends are either physicians or attorneys. I am the latter. Not being a physician, I would like you to describe for me how a decision is made upon the birth of a premature infant who's on that cusp, of how and when you provide care.

    Dr. BOWES. Well, in most cases, there are a number of things you can assess about an infant when it is born, and there has been quite a debate in neonatal circles and obstetrical circles about how to do the immediate assessment and how to behave in that setting when the baby--immediately after the baby is born, and it has--although there is not complete agreement on it, there is general agreement that you ought to provide resuscitation for the infant if there is any doubt, and then make a decision at a later time if that resuscitation is being successful and the infant will survive.

    Now, at 20 weeks gestation, survival just does not occur, so it's--if we know for sure that the baby is 20 weeks gestation and, say, weighs 250 grams, the likelihood of survival is essentially zero, so you would not resuscitate that infant, you would not put it through--even though it might show the signs of life.

    At 23 weeks or 24 weeks gestation, then applying those methods of resuscitation would allow those babies who are going to survive to show their colors in the next two or 3 days. Those who will not survive, the resuscitative efforts will eventually show themselves, and that eventually is usually in a few hours, to not be successful.

    So you don't make the decision instantaneously, and I think that's the point I was trying to make. The infant is alive, it deserves that resuscitation, and then the decision is made later.

 So, it's clear according to the act. They would intubate, the doctor would determine it wouldn't survive, and then they would extubate.

 Now, if your argument is that science gets to the point where 12 weeks and they can save it, the doctors will have that knowledge to hand and can make that determination. After all, it is better in my view for a doctor to determine that than it is for a politician, no matter how skilled of a diagnosis Bill Frist can give via videotape.

in rare cases the embryo BECOMES a malignant tumor

This makes sense, because there are things walking around out there with arms and legs which, despite their outward appearance, are basically tumors. I knew there had to be some explanation.

Gestational trophoblastic disease is not funny, my friend, and neither are jokes about cancer.

Roe v Wade Majority Justices

Justce Blackmun - Nominated by Nixon

Chief Justice Burger - Nominated by Ike

Justice Douglas - FDR

Justice Potter - Ike

Justice Marshall - LBJ

Justice Powell - Nixon

Justice Brennan - Ike

Casey Majority Justices

Blackmun - ""

Justice Souter - GHW Bush

Justice Kennedy - Reagan

Justice Stevens - Ford

Justice O'Connor - Reagan

Nine of the eleven SC Justices that have ruled in the majority have been GOP nominees.  

Clearly, the GOP is committed to appointing pro-choice jurists and the Dems are committed to appointing originalists.

Jeeze

Government should have no role in a physician's office (among other private spheres).

Do you really mean that? For example, do you agree that:

1. Government should not fund medical research.
   
   
2. Government should not engage in safety testing of drugs.
   
   
3. Government should not license and certify physicians.

etc, etc, etc...

First: I'm sorry I misspoke.  My statement, "Why not make this our standard for personhood" in regards to my statement about the ability to react to stimuli was supposed to be, "Why not make this our standard for consciousness."

My standard for determining which living organism is a human being is as follows:

Any organism that contains within the nucleus of its cell or cells DNA that taken in its entirety is consistent with other human beings but not another species, and has the inherent properties that allow him or her to functions as other human beings generally do at that stage of human development.

If unborn human zygotes and the like are human beings as I assert, this doesn't necessarily automatically make them persons under the law, but it does add weight to the argument that they ought to be recognized and protected as such.

Second: Talk about straw man arguments, what rear end did you pull potential vs. future potentiality from?  

A car does not start up and move forward on its own whether it has an engine or not unless certain things are done to it.  (Aren't you splitting hairs about just how much has to be done prior, by creating a distinction between potential and future potentiality?) The same is true of a human sperm or egg; certain things need to be done.  A human zygote on the other hand, will begin to divide, grow, develop, react to stimuli, and metabolize on its own whether he or she is in a Petri dish or in a woman's fallopian tubes.  But of course in a human zygote's natural environment (in side a woman) he or she will then find (stumble into) (How lucky... kind of like how I fell into my current source of bread without which I might be unconscious) a source of blood, and continue to develop to the point that in almost all cases he or she develops even brain waves.

Third: Consciousness or "potential consciousness" (even by your definition) is not a standard for personhood under American law.  You need only to be sued by a corporation to understand this fact.  The case of corporations also illustrates the fact that not all legal persons need to be alive in order to be recognized and protected as such.  

For me tests are only valid if they actually measure what they are intended to measure.  The presence of brain waves may be a valid test of consciousness, but they are not a valid test of whether an organism is alive, or else all amoebas would be deemed dead by this test.  Tests of consciousness or "potential consciousness" may or may not be a valid test of whether certain human beings are alive, but they are definitely not valid tests of whether all (i.e. certain unborn) human beings are alive.  Thus I suggest using more than one test to verify life or death.

Forth: Accuse you of wanting to kill low-IQ kids?  Please, I'd sooner accuse you of paranoia or projection (strawman).

Fifth: Why not use my standard for determining which living organism is a human being, and which is not, which of course leads us to the determination that human zygotes are human beings?  And then why not provide legal recognition and protection to all human beings when we have valid and reliable evidence of their individual existence?  I'm sorry, but I can't help but suspect anyone of selfish motives, who answers these questions with anything less than, "we should within reason," not because they disagree with me, but because of their reasons why we should not do these things.

There was a case I saw in England where a woman was assured of going blind if she carried the baby to term (She did carry it to term). I've read of other cases where a pregnancy would have resulted in massive internal injuries, which could have resulted in the mother becoming something of an invalid. Ectopic pregnancies fall into this category though they tend to kill rather than just disable or compromise.

To be clear I'm not advocating here that abortion be banned, but only that unborn human beings should be recognized and protected as person under the law. As such, criminal or civil action could be initiated against a woman or the doctor after an abortion. But remember not all homicides are necessarily crimes, and so following existing guidelines a judge or jury would have to decide if the above circumstances rise to the level of murder or manslaughter, or if these were justifiable homicides due to self-defense or insanity. Also, the various State legislatures would probably create additional guidelines or immunities that would guide prosecutors, judges, or juries away from prosecuting or convicting in certain cases like the ones you sighted above.

Although IMO the threat of blindness is no defense for homicide, but I'm no lawyer; just a citizen hoping the legislature that my State elected can have the opportunity to rule on these matters.

Your list is very detailed and it's tailored to accomodate your point of view quite well.  But the problem is that comprehensively, it does not give us neccesary conditions for personhood

If you actually read it, you'd know it was not intented as some proof of personhood. Read it again, and you will see that the words person or personhood are not even mentioned.

If someone cannot reproduce, they are certainly still a human person.  Theoretically a human adult could live (maybe not for long) without his or her cells dividing or continuing to grow.  I would say it's possible to still be considered a human person without responding to one's environment.

Was this supposed to be a response my diary or someone elses?

So the point is that these standards as a whole cannot be seen a neccesary conditions for personhood.

This was not my point. Try reading the title of my diary and Title 1, Chapter 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Code, and you will discover, that first, my intent was to support the assertion that a human zygote is a human being (there beit an unborn human being), and a living one at that. Second, you will discover that even if this is true, it does not necessarily equate to being defined as a person under the law.  At best its simply adds weight to the argument that they ought to be recognized and protected as such.

And once you start saying that you only need to meet some of the conditions to qualify, then you're left with the ridiculous position that a kidney in some protein rich solution is equivalent to you or me (It can undergo cellular reproduction, react to its environment, etc.).

This is just ridiculous.  Look as I have said before in this thread, my standard  for whether an organism is a human being is as follows:

Any organism that contains within the nucleus of its cell or cells DNA that taken in its entirety is consistent with other human beings but not another species, and has the inherent properties that allow him or her to functions as other human beings generally do at that stage of human development.

Proof of life at the cellular level (BTW a zygote is a cell)involves normal cellular activity as noted in my diary, but biologist recognize that there are always exceptions to general rules (i.e. sterile organisms, etc.).

A human kidney or even a single human kidney cell can be kept alive outside the body, but neither have the inherent properties that allow it to function as other human beings do at the various stages of human development. Thus neither are human beings regardless of the DNA in their nuclei.  

Hopefully this helps clear up the cobwebs of what you wanted to see and believe about my diary, and that clouded your comprehension of what I actually wrote.

 

Fifth: Why not use my standard for determining which living organism is a human being, and which is not, which of course leads us to the determination that human zygotes are human beings?  And then why not provide legal recognition and protection to all human beings when we have valid and reliable evidence of their individual existence?  

Because:

  a) I don't think "human being" is the relevant issue. I think "person" is. The one is strictly a genetic question. The other goes beyond into what it is that makes us creatures endowed with rights.

  b) Because your standard clearly conflicts with the already generally accepted view of what constitutes a legally protected "person" with a right to life at the END of the human being lifespan.

  c) I don't think you've answered the question yet that was raised elsewhere in this thread regarding whether the laundry list of conditions that compromise your standard had to all be satisfied simultaneously or if the satisfaction of any one was enough. Perhaps you did answer and I just missed it.  But without that answer your standard remains undefined despite all the details.  And I think either answer presents your standard with major difficulties.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but suspect anyone of selfish motives, who answers these questions with anything less than, "we should within reason," not because they disagree with me, but because of their reasons why we should not do these things.

But I have laid out exactly why I disagree with you.  It's ok though - deep down I suspect the only reason you can answer these questions the way you want them answered is because of your own beliefs. So let's call it even - neither of us can quite believe tyhe other is seeking a truth.

(And parenthetically - while it was a very clever argument, and I applaud your ingenuity in making it,  I think the corporations as persons argument is a red herring. Mainly because corporations aren't subject to biological death - which is what we're discussing, after all. But also because I tthink the USSC decision tha gave corporations personhood out of whole cloth ranks right up there with Dred Scott and Bush v. Gore as the most horrible examples of lawless judicial activism at the Supreme Court level in our history)

scope of practice, and within the standard of care of that speciality, is NOT the government's bizness.  That's what I suggested, genius.  OR, would you rather a Big Brother who intervenes in all aspects of our lives?  Should we just say that Communism won the Cold War after all?