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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Science and abortion

In all of our public disputes concerning science, there is no instance more glaring of one faction flat-out falsifying the established facts of empirical science, than that of the pro-choice faction, which must deny the fact that embryos and fetuses are emphatically members of the human species. To conceal this denial of science, pro-choicers continue busily developing a bunch of wooly claptrap known as “personhood” theory. What this theory amounts to is a fraud: we don’t like the plain facts of human embryology, so it becomes convenient to introduce some supererogatory theorizing. The charlatanry issues in bootless distinctions such as that between a “human” and a “person.” Let it be noted clearly that science knows no such distinction. Science is very admirably innocent of these rationalizations.

Again, for clarity’s sake: no global warming “denier,” no brassbound boondocks legislator cursing evolution as a theory from the pit of hell, no scouter of the wisdom of scientific birth control made “free” by public subsidy, can come close to the anti-science ideology of supporter of legal abortion.

I propose a simple principle here: no pro-choicer may so much as mention, in the usual method of belittling conservatives, anything about empirical science, who has declined to confront his faction’s anti-science position on human embryology. If you're ever involved in a conversation where someone tosses out typical cant along these lines, call them out on it.

Comments (115)

Oh, for... this is just a complete misunderstanding of how science works. It's true that embryology doesn't say that an embryo isn't a person. It also doesn't say that an embryo is a person. Science can't address the issue at all, because it isn't a scientific question. Embryology can tell you when a new DNA combination is formed, but it can't say whether a new DNA combination alone confers the rights of a person. Contrariwise, it can tell you when the brain starts to develop, but it can't tell you whether a brain is necessary to have rights.

That, in fact, is a good mirror-image analogy. Suppose embryology advanced to the point where we understood the beginnings of consciousness far better than we do today. Some pro-choicer might come along and say: "Hah, we know for a fact that consciousness doesn't exist before day X of the pregnancy! Anybody who wants to ban abortions before then is an ignorant know-nothing!" Your reaction, I imagine, would be something along the lines of, "Well, no, I don't believe that consciousness has anything to do with whether or not the embryo has rights."

This is the same thing, only backwards.

It's true that embryology doesn't say that an embryo isn't a person.

Okay, replace "embryo" with "human", since biology DOES prove that. Then write it:

"It's true embryology doesn't say that a human is a person."

...Well no, it doesn't, but it tells us that an embryo is a human. Humans are people. Denying that an embryo is a human in order to then say that, therefore, it's not a person is just blatantly ignoring biology.

You either need to say that not all humans are people or you need to fool yourself into thinking that an embryo isn't a human. Paul is just saying that you can't have it both ways.

No, because the word "human," like many other words, can mean different things in different contexts. Intelligent aliens, for instance, would be "human" as the term is used in moral philosophy, but not as it's used in biology.

This is actually a well-known logical fallacy, called amphibology or equivocation. The classic example of amphibology is "A dry crust of bread is better than nothing. Nothing is better than a big juicy steak. Therefore, a dry crust of bread is better than a big juicy steak". It rests on the fact that the word "nothing" means something different in the first sentence than in the second. There is no particular reason why the term "human" should mean the same thing to a biologist that it does to a philosopher. This sort of term double meaning can cause problems even between different branches of science. To an astrophysicist, oxygen is a metal, but to a chemist it isn't. To an engineer, iron is a plastic, but that's not how the word is used in normal conversation.

There is no particular reason why the term "human" should mean the same thing to a biologist that it does to a philosopher.

Well it should if they're both "human." Unless you want to treat one or both as less than such. Which is all right with me. Peter Singer, for example, is a doubtful case.

My terms are scientific and I am emphatically NOT introducing any lame-brain personhood theory. Repeat, I reject personhood theories.

But my appeal is to the whole man, in his integrity, who reasoning rightly can observe, not least from the facts of biological science, that the unborn are members of our species, homo sapiens.

There is no necessity for qualification of this fact. I am under no obligation to introduce philosophical reasoning to show what is self-evident.

RFLaum has supplied the superadded theology or moral philosophy, by talking vaguely about personhood (a secondary concept, not a category evident from biological fact) and consciousness.

Suppose embryology advanced to the point where we understood the beginnings of consciousness far better than we do today.

We understand the origins of human life quite well, and need no advance to know when integral and individual members of appear in the world.

Now, it is true that I regard the principle of political equality to require that lawful protection against arbitrary injury or death extends to the whole of humankind. The whole dilemma for the pro-choicer may be obviated by a confession that being pro-choice means being against political equality. Many a pr-choicer who has taken that route.

But RFLaum probably really thinks he's a believer in equality; and the purpose of the smuggled premise (the false distinction between "human" and "person") is to shield from logical scrutiny, his clinging to the importance for social policy of a liberal abortion regime. His philosophy (such as it is) lies in complete subjugation to the political faction to whom he gives tithe.

"To an astrophysicist, oxygen is a metal, but to a chemist it isn't."

The astrophysicist is an idiot. The word, metal, has an established meaning across the sciences. If it did not interdisciplinary cooperation would be greatly impeded. Metals have 4 properties:

1. The are lustrous
2. They conduct heat
3. They induct electricity
4. They are malleable.

Oxygen has none of these properties. Astrophysicists call anything except hydrogen and helium a metal because they are lazy and it is an in-house, therefor, local, terminology. Let them try to publish a paper using this idea and they will be laughed out of the broader scientific community. Further, since hydrogen conducts electricity, but helium does not, their distinction is further foolerized because the two elements which they classify as non-metals do not even have similar properties.

From both a scientific and philosophical point of view, a human and embryo share a lot more common properties than hydrogen and helium or oxygen and iron. Personhood is an ad hoc addition, a useless extra classifier to a perfectly consistent set of attributes, By that logic, how can both a red-haired and brunette person both be persons? There is no equivocation in the use of the word human being done, here. Your example uses extrinsic attributes - origin of discourse domain, not intrinsic attributes. An embryo is a human at time t - epsilon. That is all.

The Chicken

No, because the word "human," like many other words, can mean different things in different contexts. Intelligent aliens, for instance, would be "human" as the term is used in moral philosophy, but not as it's used in biology.

Er, no, they wouldn't. They would be "intelligent aliens", not humans.

You're sneaking a personhood theory but renaming "personhood" "humanhood". But that's classic begging the question. The entire point here is that there IS no "personhood" or "philosophical human". There are only humans. You can't have it both ways.

MarcAnthony's last comment at 9:25 is particularly excellent. He caught the term-grabbing.

I said this in the other thread but my wife spends a considerable amount of time arguing with the pro-choicers. It’s common for them to refer to the baby as “the parasite” and “the tumor.” Very scientific.

In fact, I'm not saying that embryos aren't morally human; this is an issue on which I'm undecided. I'm just saying that, if I did say so, it wouldn't be unscientific. I used to be a very absolutist pro-choicer, but more recently swung a bit to the right (this swing was produced by -- I swear I'm not making this up -- an argument over a Sailor Moon fanfiction). Then I swung a bit back to the left, and I've been wobbling ever since. I do think that a fetus should be considered -- I know you don't like this term -- a person, I'm just undecided on embryos.

However, I do like to argue, so let me argue some more.

Just because something is said by a scientist doesn't make it a scientific claim. Is the flesh of a pregnancy part of a separate individual, or is it part of the mother? Biologists have adopted the convention that what makes it a different individual is the new DNA sequence, but that's fundamentally a judgment call. One could just as easily go to the opposite extreme and say that it shouldn't be considered a different member of the species until it was physically separated. Such a claim wouldn't be scientifically wrong, because this is a mereological rather than a scientific issue.

Let me just quickly mention two tangents here.
1. I think that by putting this in terms of a "right to life," you guys are making a tactical mistake. It implicitly accepts a rights-based paradigm of morality, which is therefore a consent-based paradigm of morality, and that has moral implications I don't think you'd like. For instance, a mentally competent adult can choose whether or not to exercise a given right. So a "right to life" claim implies that mentally competent adults have a right to terminate their own lives.
2. If we did meet intelligent aliens, would they have rights?

I'm just saying that, if I did say so, it wouldn't be unscientific.

The argument here is against a certain type of pro-choice argument, namely, that all humans are worthy of life but embryos aren't human.

This is, scientifically, false. It's proven.

Now if a pro-choicer tried the personhood argument that's totally bogus for a whole host of reasons recapped on this blog ad nauseum, but we're not addressing that here.

Let me just quickly mention two tangents here. 1. I think that by putting this in terms of a "right to life," you guys are making a tactical mistake. It implicitly accepts a rights-based paradigm of morality, which is therefore a consent-based paradigm of morality, and that has moral implications I don't think you'd like. For instance, a mentally competent adult can choose whether or not to exercise a given right. So a "right to life" claim implies that mentally competent adults have a right to terminate their own lives. 2. If we did meet intelligent aliens, would they have rights?

1) You're defining rights differently then we are, clearly. If you want to call it something different, I guess you can go for it as long as you agree with us on principle. But I'm not buying that pro-choicers don't know what we mean.

2) Who cares? We're discussing the rights of humans with rights. "Intelligent aliens" brings up a lot of philosophical questions not relevant to the discussion.

The Colorado legislature is poised to pass a bill that criminalizes unlawful termination of a pregnancy. The bill was prompted by two recent tragedies where pregnant women lost their unborn babies in traffic accidents. "This bill addresses a need in criminal law, but in a way that protects women's reproductive freedoms, said Rep. Mike Foote, Democrat from Lafeyette, a co-sponsor of the bill. According to a Denver Post article, language was inserted pointing out it should not be construed to support "personhood" and specifically excluded actions taken by women regarding their pregnancies and health care professionals serving their patients.

Why does the Colorado legislature use "termination of a pregnancy"? It is a convoluted, contorted way to avoid saying the killing of an unborn baby human being, of course. As you say, it is an attempt to obscure their denial of the scientific fact that a fetus is a human being.

The argument here is against a certain type of pro-choice argument, namely, that all humans are worthy of life but embryos aren't human.

This is, scientifically, false. It's proven.

Look, no matter how many times you say that, it isn't true. Humanity -- and, more to the point, individuality -- is not something measurable. Biologists have adopted the convention that something is a distinct member of the species when its DNA forms (and I guess there's probably some sort of special case exception to handle identical twins) but that's purely a social convention, not a scientific fact. A good analogy here would be the term "continent". I imagine geographers probably have a set definition of how large a landmass has to be before it's considered a continent, but that's fundamentally an arbitrary, manmade classification. Similarly, physicists have a strict definition of what bands of the visible spectrum are considered red, orange, etc. But again, these terms are applied after the fact, not reflections of some underlying fundamental difference.

1) You're defining rights differently then we are, clearly. If you want to call it something different, I guess you can go for it as long as you agree with us on principle. But I'm not buying that pro-choicers don't know what we mean.

Sure, everyone knows what you mean. My point is a purely practical one: that the phrase is going to be turned against you at some point. A system in which morality is determined entirely by whether or not it violates people's rights is necessarily going to be one in which consent is the sole criterion of the good. Now, there's no reason that you can't say, "It's immoral to violate people's rights and in addition these other things are also immoral." But by making "right to life" so central to your argument against abortion, you're saying that killing is only immoral if it violates someone's rights. What you really mean as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) is that my life is sort of on loan to me from God, and therefore killing myself would violate God's rights to my life. Putting the argument in terms of my rights is going to come back to bite you.

Biologists have adopted the convention that what makes it a different individual is the new DNA sequence, but that's fundamentally a judgment call.

This is anti-scientific claptrap. And I'm being polite. I wrote a different word and deleted it. It is not a mere _convention_ that the embryo is a different individual of the species. The embryo has its own intrinsic developmental arc, a result of its intrinsic biological nature, which, if all goes normally, will culminate in a developed organism that all the clever sophists in the world will recognize as Johnny or Jenny. But it was already *that organism* even when not yet developed. The embryo may be male while the mother is female, and this is possible only because the embryo, whether male or female, is a different organism from the mother. It is _utterly scientifically bogus_ to say that the embryo is part of the mother. Hence, it isn't a mere convention to say that it is not part of the mother.

Really, RFlaum, if you want to label established facts of biological science as mere "convention," go right ahead; but whatever you do subsequent to that, do not pretend to tell us you're a man who takes his bearings from the empiricism of science. We who are pro-life do that; you who are pro-choice introduce a secondary conceptual framework.

In other words, being pro-life means embracing what human embryology shows us; while being pro-choice means rejecting what it shows us. Clear enough?

RFlaum is attempting to counter scientific fact with mere opinion. He has a lot to learn. For starters I would suggest he obtain a prism and observe the distinct colours it refracts. He will find no requirement for 'strict definitions'. The consequent study of quantum theory should come much later.

This is anti-scientific claptrap. And I'm being polite.

I have nothing to add to this.

For starters I would suggest he obtain a prism and observe the distinct colours it refracts. He will find no requirement for 'strict definitions'.

Okay, this is one area where you're not going to be able to compete with me. My degree is in physics, and while it's only a BA, this is introductory material.

To a physicist, "red" is defined as that portion of the spectrum with wavelengths between 620 and 740 nm. There's nothing magic about the number 620, but it marks the border between red and orange because... red is defined to have a wavelength longer than 620 nm. Similar deal here.

The embryo has its own intrinsic developmental arc, a result of its intrinsic biological nature, which, if all goes normally, will culminate in a developed organism that all the clever sophists in the world will recognize as Johnny or Jenny.

This is true. It is also irrelevant. A severed starfish arm can grow into a new starfish, but before it is severed, it's still part of the starfish.

The embryo may be male while the mother is female, and this is possible only because the embryo, whether male or female, is a different organism from the mother.

That doesn't follow at all. It's certainly true that an embryo may have male DNA and therefore physical differences from a female one, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're separate beings. It's entirely coherent to say that biochemical/genetic differences make things separate. It's also entirely coherent to say they don't. No conceivable amount of knowledge about the physical processes involved can decide that question, because it's purely a matter of opinion. You're just defining separateness to mean genetic distinctiveness, so your position is tautologically true by that definition. Someone who took the other extreme could define separateness to mean physical disconnection, and their position would be tautologically true under that definition.

RFlaum, human beings are not starfish, and I have a newsflash for you: Actual parts of human beings do not magically turn into new human beings. The comparison is mere scientific obscurantism: An attempt to obscure the fact that the embryo is an organism in itself, that it is _complete_ in itself and develops naturally into an older human being. In fact, that it is a member of the species homo sapiens.

Seriously, you are saying that it is not true that a human embryo is a member of the species homo sapiens? Is it also not true that a dog embryo is a young member of the species canis lupus familiaris?

I've noticed before, however, that physicists don't do biology very well. I once saw a physicist imply that the development of life was like the development of clouds. Ummm.

If it were really so hard/arbitrary as your obscurantism implies to identify a member of a species, a lot of science would be impossible. How would we even know how to diagnose and dispose of particular IVF embryos (which is ethical if embryos are not members of the human species) if we didn't know in some non-conventional, significant fashion that *that embryo* was otherwise going to grow into an older member of the species, that *same* member, only older, with the phenotype we don't want?

This kind of extreme conventionalism is profoundly anti-scientific, and nowhere more so than in biology.

Moreover, while the embryo or fetus is inside its mother's body, it does not behave as a part of a whole, as a part of the mother does. It does not contribute to her metabolism nor interact with her other organs in such a way as to permit or improve her needed life functions. Rather, it makes use of her life functions for its own needs. In other words, it acts biologically as a separate organism, not as part of her.

Has anybody else noticed that this entire debate could just as easily be framed between adult human beings?

"20 year olds are only humans because biology defines them to be so. If biologists decided to change their definition then they would no longer be biologically human, but perhaps philosophically human."

Sorry, but as much as you try and dodge it you're pulling out the bogus "personhood" argument, and it doesn't work any better now than it ever has before.

Sure, if all definition is arbitary, we could say that the newborn is still "part of the mother" if it is breastfeeding, because it isn't "completely physically separated." We could say that babies that can't survive on their own but are still physically dependent aren't "true organisms." We can _say_ anything, and apparently, according to RF, it's all arbitrary, so who cares?

But if we care about facts rather than making stuff up, the fact is that the embryo from the time of conception is a different, separate organism from the mother just as much as the later fetus *which is the same organism* and the later baby *which is the same organism* and the five-year-old *which is the same organism*.

RFlaum's rhetorical trick is just the old modernist relativism schtick: it's all relative, baby, depends on arbitrary choices of perspective.

One could use the very same trick to claim that there is no such thing as oxygen that is distinctly different from everything else; or that there is no true whale, only variations and degrees of animal differences, or that there is no such thing as a star, only purely arbitrarily named conglomerations of atomic particles.

News flash: Democritus tried the same thing 2500 years ago. He was wrong then, and it's no better now.

Science proceeds by making statements about things. Those things it talks about are distinct in the statements, or it could not proceed. Things like "human", which is a term as well known to science as to the rest of us.

Oh, and I missed this in the shuffle:


What you really mean as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) is that my life is sort of on loan to me from God, and therefore killing myself would violate God's rights to my life

That is incorrect, in that that is not the reasoning I am using, although I believe it to be true. As toward an explanation, you also said this:

But by making "right to life" so central to your argument against abortion, you're saying that killing is only immoral if it violates someone's rights

This is correct. I DO, in fact, think a right to life can be forfeited. I support capital punishment (at least in principle...in practice I have some reservations but this is a position that I'm still evolving and it is neither here nor there at the moment). And I don't think that war is in principle immoral.

But the type of killing-the murder-committed in abortion is evil. Plain evil. It is the intentional killing of the innocent.

And embryos are humans.

Calling silver "Ag" on the periodic table is a convention. Placing a spectrum on a horizontal plane with the visible portion in the middle and the red portion on the right is a convention.

It is not a convention, in the same sense, to call a human embryo a unique human life, that is, a unique member of the human species, though it is obviously a convention from the extremely uninteresting standpoint of phonetics. To equivocate on these two senses of the word convention is to engage in the same post-modernist gobbledygook that feminists use to claim that there are five human sexes (no matter what biologists may have decided to "say" on the subject). Reality is not "all text," and even the claim that it is constitutes a (bad) philosophical argument, not a scientific one.

Your use of the light spectrum is also an obviously bad analogy, and even reveals the weakness of your position. Of course the division of the spectrum at 620 nm is arbitrary from a purely scientific view, just as identifying membership in the human species from some magic threshold like achieving consciousness or being physically outside the womb is completely arbitrary from a scientific point of view.

The better comparison to your view of human embryos would be to say that, "We only call electromagnetic wave-particles at a wavelengths of 620 nm 'light' by convention. We might just as well have called it magnetism, or ether, or anything else. But we have this arbitrary convention to call it 'light,' just like all the other things that go by the name 'light.' These labels, they're all arbitrary, man. Pretty deep, huh?"

Which would, of course, be ridiculous. There's nothing arbitrary about calling such wave-particles "light," and there's nothing arbitrary about calling a human embryo "human." Not, that is, from the standpoint of science, which was the whole point of the original blog post, right?

"Your use of the light spectrum is also an obviously bad analogy, and even reveals the weakness of your position. Of course the division of the spectrum at 620 nm is arbitrary from a purely scientific view, just as identifying membership in the human species from some magic threshold like achieving consciousness or being physically outside the womb is completely arbitrary from a scientific point of view. "

Utilitarians do not do this: they do not "identify membership in the human species from some magic threshold like achieving consciousness or being physically outside the womb; they believe membership in the human species is irrelevant.


I intend to participate in this discussion. I want to write a paper for abortion for my friends (and a large section of it is largely a defense of Singer's position from a secular perspective), and essentially, the bulk of it would largely be comments posted on this blog.

The discussion here is concerned with the arguments that many pro-abortion people often do make, not the ones that other pro-abortion people don't make. But thank you for sharing.

It is pretty easy for one to attack weak arguments. Singer is quite strong.

It is pretty easy for one to attack weak arguments. Singer is quite strong.

You should probably discuss him on a thread about Singer. I have many things to say about Singer, none of them particularly complimentary, but I'll hold my tongue until, if any of our blogmasters ever want to do this, a thread is set up concerning Singer. Until then, let's stay on topic.

Singer's arguments are relevant in this discussion.

But my main point is not about Singer; it is to argue against this portrayal that pro-choicers cannot understand defined terms (or adhere with their own define terms and often change definitions at their convenience) or that they have to rely on equivocation to make their arguments.

I offered Singer (he is among my favorite secular philosophers) as an example of a competent philosopher who does not need to obfuscate terms in his arguments because he uses clearly defined terms and does not contradict the conventional understanding of development (that he certainly acknowledges the unborn are humans).

But my main point is not about Singer; it is to argue against this portrayal that pro-choicers cannot understand defined terms (or adhere with their own define terms and often change definitions at their convenience) or that they have to rely on equivocation to make their arguments.

This particular thread is about a particular type of pro-choice argument. And believe me, it's no strawman; I've heard the "it's not human" argument used all the time. Not on the internet, but in normal conversation. "It's not a human, it's only a fetus/zygote" is a common one.

Singer makes a personhood argument. I think it has a lot of holes, but it's not the argument being discussed in this thread.

And if Singer doesn't deny that they're humans I'd like to see him refer to fetuses as humans when he makes his arguments as well. But no; then you're bringing in a "loaded term".

Black_Rose, I refer you to this remark by MarcAnthony at the top of the thread:

You either need to say that not all humans are people or you need to fool yourself into thinking that an embryo isn't a human.

I understand that you want to talk about the first kind of argument, but this thread is explicitly about the second kind. Your complaint is frivolous. The OP was explicit in detailing the precise kind of pro-choice argument at which he was directing his scorn, and the fact that there are men like Singer who positively embrace the concept of "humans who are not persons" is no mystery to the people who write on this blog. I encourage you to look around here and you'll see that's the case. There was a recent discussion which, if memory serves, explored the observable reality that the error to which the OP refers is so deeply untenable that a Peter Singer was bound to come along.

Anyway, if this is true...

Singer's arguments are relevant in this discussion.

...then just make that relevant argument, please. You're beginning to remind me of the fellow who called in to Catholic Answers Live, ostensibly to challenge Ed Feser's arguments against the New Atheists, and spent almost the entire half hour complaining that Richard Dawkins was a much smarter and happier person than Feser had suggested in his opening remarks. (Link to that legendarily unfruitful exchange here, if you don't mind visiting the Pit of Despair and having half an hour of your life sucked away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USUlfbn-spE)

Sage, awesome Princess Bride allusion. Cha-ching!

Black Rose, the only way in which what I perceive to be your own position, related to what "secular" arguments can and cannot show, would be relevant to the main post here would be if we went back to some of your comments on another thread where you argued for the rationality (from a secular perspective) of what you called "nominalism" vis a vis biological species.

Now, not wanting to put words into your mouth, but what one _could_ mean by such nominalism would be something like, "There really is no such thing, in any objective sense, as being a biological human being, because we must just define a biological human being in a nominal and arbitrary fashion."

You seemed on the other thread to be (possibly) considering going in that direction (or counseling a secular thinker to go in that direction) by your discussion of the whole Darwinian story of human evolution, with the argument being that homo sapiens developed gradually as a species, therefore...? Well, it was unclear therefore what, precisely, but apparently something like "therefore, there can be no real essence to being a human being which is related to the biological DNA of homo sapiens, since the latter developed gradually through various other evolutionary species." A sorites argument. I don't think that follows, though, since biologically, now, we _do_ know perfectly well how to identify a human being, and there is no epistemic ambiguity as to who is and who is not a human being. Therefore, there is no reason to take the sorites argument from the (alleged) history of the human race to cast doubt on the actual existence of a biological natural kind _now_ which is the human species.

Science has no answer and can have no answer to the status of the parasitic (as they call it) human being.
So one can be fully scientific and still be pro-choice.
For they do not regard a fetus as 'innocent' unless and until the mother affirms it.
But this parasitic thing is probably bad science but in accord with DNA-centric view of life and living beings in which DNA alone is the core and essence of life and the flesh merely a resource that DNA constructs and exploits.

So one can be fully scientific and still be pro-choice.

Supposing one is prepared to admit that a certain definite class of human being may be lawfully treated as the property of another, stronger and more interested class of human being.

I never said otherwise, Gian (and I note that here again you only bestir yourself to comment in order to demoralize pro-lifers or encourage their opponents).

What I said was that one cannot be fully scientific and deny that embryos and fetuses are members of the human species.

Meanwhile, the following jumble of a sentence is so wrong it doesn't even rise to the dignity of ignorance:

But this parasitic thing is probably bad science but in accord with DNA-centric view of life and living beings in which DNA alone is the core and essence of life and the flesh merely a resource that DNA constructs and exploits.

A truly DNA-centric view of life cannot possibly equivocate on the question of whether the unborn are humans. Sheesh.

I propose a simple principle here: no pro-choicer may so much as mention, in the usual method of belittling conservatives, anything about empirical science, who has declined to confront his faction’s anti-science position on human embryology.

It looks to me like what you wrote demands that pro-choicers who don't equivocate on the fetus being a member of the human species have to confront any pro-choicers who do equivocate in order to avoid being labelled anti-science. Because you all have called out evolution and global warming deniers as charlatans how many times?

It looks to me like what you wrote demands that pro-choicers who don't equivocate on the fetus being a member of the human species have to confront any pro-choicers who do equivocate in order to avoid being labelled anti-science.

And it looks to me like you're cramming words in his mouth in order to conjure up something that looks like a point worth making.

the principle of political equality to require that lawful protection against arbitrary injury or death extends to the whole of humankind.

So strangers have right to life only when they have political equality. But having political equality means having political rights and thus they are not really strangers but full citizens. Ergo, you have a world state.

Why this unnecessary intrusion of political equality?. What has political equality to do with right to life. There was no political equality anywhere before the French Revolution and yet people were not getting arbitrarily murdered. It is in the name of political equality that they have murdered millions.

Mr Cella,
Is the anti-abortion argument based upon the distinctive DNA of the fetus?. Then I ask, what is having a distinct DNA to do with anything?
Am I defined by my DNA?
When before 1953, people were able to know that abortion was wrong then why do you bring in DNA?

Because, having read Dawkins, I can say that they have counter-arguments. They have worked out theories of competition between maternal and child DNA for the exploitation of maternal resources. So already this unique human situation calls for a different treatment. Didn't pre-Roe laws treat abortion not as a first-degree murder?

So, biologically speaking, the mother and fetus are in conflict, a deadly conflict, in fact, in the language of Dawkins. Sometimes, the maternal genes terminate pregnancy altogether. So if the life is to be reduced to DNA, what is the difference between genes terminating it or the mind (which is also a product of genes).

Ensoulment is different and makes a DNA combination to be a person. Now the Church has declared that ensoulment takes place at conception and that is all the argument one needs.

Is the anti-abortion argument based upon the distinctive DNA of the fetus?. Then I ask, what is having a distinct DNA to do with anything? Am I defined by my DNA?

Word. It's all, like, relative, man. NOTHING is real. There's no way to figure out, like, what ANYTHINGH is, man. We're all, like, just the daydreams of some greater spirit.

Rock on, fellow thing-that-we-can't-actually-know-is-a-person-or-not-since-biology-doesn't-matter man.

Gian, your odd preoccupations are not mine own.

Either you are simply too dense to grasp the idea of confining an argument to the terms laid out by your opponent, in order to show that even reasoning from his own premises we can see his folly; or you are well aware of the rhetorical concession but prefer to heckle me anyway.

The Church, as I understand it, does not teach dogmatically on the biological development of human life; nor does it teach dogmatically on ensoulment. The Church holds that proper reasoning from empirical facts of science will confirm the Christian understanding of the creature man, his nature and destiny. There are some thinkers in the Church who have (wisely, in my mind) suggested that a strict division of body and soul, or "human DNA combination" and "person," is pernicious thinking. The human biological entity is simply the material instantiation of the immortal soul. The two are one. The image of God in man. The Church (again wisely) has never embraced a fully Greek notion of immortal souls as disembodied spirits that can go in and out of the human body under various conditions.

So I'm calling BS on this stuff: "Ensoulment is different and makes a DNA combination to be a person."

Maternal DNA terminates pregnancies? Who knew? If this means "sometimes women have miscarriages," it hardly shows a "deadly competition" between the "child's DNA" and the mother's.

As for whether prior to the discovery of genetics we knew that the newly conceived child was indeed a human being, I would say without blushing that, for the stages of the child's development during the first few weeks, modern science *has indeed* given us additional information about the organismal nature of the embryo. But this is not something to be ashamed about or to make us pro-lifers say that we must appeal to strictly religious arguments. What it means, rather, is that now *more than ever* we have scientific evidence on our side, clarifying matters. I've pointed out in an earlier post that the scientific silliness by some pro-choicers who say that "an egg turns into a fetus" is trying to take us to a level of ignorance prior to various scientific discoveries where we are simply watching what looks like an egg magically "turn into" a fetus.

It's unclear as to why Gian thinks that the fact that we used to have less scientific knowledge than we now have means that at all times and in all places, including now, scientific arguments are off-limits to pro-lifers. He certainly has provided no good argument to that effect.

The Church, as I understand it, does not teach dogmatically on the biological development of human life; nor does it teach dogmatically on ensoulment

Correct: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19741118_declaration-abortion_en.html (my emphasis)

19. This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent for two reasons: (1) supposing a belated animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed, (2) on the other hand, it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul.

"It's unclear as to why Gian thinks that the fact that we used to have less scientific knowledge than we now have means that at all times and in all places, including now, scientific arguments are off-limits to pro-lifers."

Gian can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that's what he's saying. His argument seems to be that since modern science rejects metaphysics its arguments about life, conception, etc., cannot be the slam-dunks it thinks they are. Mr. Cella is correct in stating that this does not prevent we pro-lifers from pointing out the inconsistency in the so-called scientific view itself. But as Gian implies, those holding the scientific view may in fact be blind to this incoherence because of their rejection of metaphysics.

Pro-lifers can certainly use strictly scientific arguments against the pro-choice view, but we also should be aware that these aren't slam-dunks for us either (although as Mr. Cella says, they definitely go far enough at very least to enable us to demonstrate that the materialist view so often presented is radically inconsistent.)

From what I can see, the point that Gian is making is a variant of Dostoevsky's "no-God-everything-permitted" argument applied to a specific practice.

...although as Mr. Cella says, they definitely go far enough at very least to enable us to demonstrate that the materialist view so often presented is radically inconsistent.

Once again though, with all of these diversions, that is the only point this post was making anyway. That if you're trying to say that the fetus is not human, you're wrong.

NM, if you put together the basic scientific fact that the new human being, from conception onward, is indeed an individual member of the human race, our fellow man, then all that is needed in addition is an ethical and moral truth that a great many people would say that they share--namely, that one's moral worth as a human being is not determined by one's size, looks, location, or abilities. Certainly we are increasingly bedeviled (I use the word deliberately) by blatant and ruthless ethicists who deny this moral truth. They deny it for born people as well. And it's also true that even the man on the street often has incompatible views rolling about in his head. But at least at most times, most Western people would still assent to the value of all men regardless of disability or age, etc.

I think that this is _why_ so much scientific obscurantism takes place. The bioethicists know that it's still, even now, going to be much harder to sell their pro-death agenda for the unborn child if they acknowledge that it is indeed an unborn child. Dehumanization thus precedes killability.

Frankly, even those people (I've argued with several of them) who have turned themselves into philosophers and thus maunder about personhood theory usually find it useful, perhaps to calm their own consciences, to engage in _some_ scientific obfuscation. This most often is used at the earliest points of life, where, for example, they will refer to the newly conceived embryo as a "biological precursor" of the baby and try to class it (unscientifically) with the unfertilized egg or the sperm cell. Or they will say that there is no "essence" of the human race and thereby imply that it is in some sense arbitrary to say that the embryo is a human being. There are all kinds of dodges, and many of them act as a kind of "second string to the bow" even for those who, backed up against a wall, would also tell you, "Yes, many innocent human beings are perfectly killable for various utilitarian reasons."

I would add, by the way, that if one is a Catholic one really doesn't have the option of saying that the wrongness of abortion is a purely religious proposition, supportable only religiously. The Catholic Church now teaches, as far as I know (see, e.g., Evangelium Vitae), that this truth is also available to the natural light and hence to all men of good will. That confidence in the natural light is inconvenient for some "more Catholic than the Pope" types who prefer (for reasons that remain somewhat obscure to me) to insist that all these things are matters of faith and unavailable to the natural man. But Catholic teaching isn't on their side in that approach to life issues.

One more, similar, point: There is a lot of discomfort even among some pro-choice philosophers with applying the term "human being" to the unborn child. I don't have the chapter and verse in front of me, but I recall several years ago reading a book on religion in the public square by extremely eminent (Christian!) philosopher Robert Audi. In one footnote, by my recollection, he implies that it is illicit and not scientific for pro-lifers to refer to the unborn child as a human being. He says that it is "religious or philosophical." It was a little odd that the term "philosophical" should be used to deprecate the legitimate relevance of a proposition to public policy, but in any event, the statement that the unborn child is a human being is no more "philosophical" than the statement that you and I are human beings, or the statement that a puppy is a member of the species canis lupus familiaris. It is in fact, contra Audi's implication, a scientific statement.

But there's just somethin' about that phrase "human being." Maybe, just maybe, it's the fact that people know at some level that there is something highly morally problematic about saying, "It's perfectly morally fine to kill young human beings if we find them inconvenient."

And it looks to me like you're cramming words in his mouth in order to conjure up something that looks like a point worth making.

Right, direct quoting and reasonable inference is off limits. Any other restrictions I should be aware of?

Rock on, fellow thing-that-we-can't-actually-know-is-a-person-or-not-since-biology-doesn't-matter man.

Okay, that made me laugh.

There is a lot of discomfort even among some pro-choice philosophers with applying the term "human being" to the unborn child.

If it will make you feel better (probably not) I'll start using the term "human fetus" rather than fetus simply, so that there is no mistaking I consider him or her to be a human being.

Lydia,
The inviolability of a day-old embryo is affirmed by the Catholic Church only. The natural light wavers and it could be maintained that apparent natural light here depends quite a lot on the Catholic dogma.

The natural light wavers and it could be maintained that apparent natural light here depends quite a lot on the Catholic dogma.

I say the same thing about 20 year olds all the time. I guess when you put a blindfold on it is going to be a lot harder to see the natural light.

Okay, that made me laugh.

I like to think that I occasionally contribute something productive.

Terms are employed in science for particular purposes. Thus if one says "human", another can say equally scientifically "human embryo" (with perhaps an emphasis on the second word).
The term "species" is too a term of convenience only, as illustrated in the example of ring species: the breed A interbreeds with breed B that interbreeds with yet another breed C but A and C do not interbreed. Do A and C to be defined as belonging to a species or not?

Facts are merely details useful to a purpose. That sun rises in east is a fact. That sun is stationary and earth goes round it is also a fact. That sun rushes around the galaxy is another fact. As CS Lewis wrote in The Discarded Image, the scientific facts are answers to the queries we put to the Nature--the facts depend upon the questions and the kind of questions we choose to put to the Nature.

Gian, argue with your church. Argue with JPII. He argued for the wrong of destroying the human being from conception and did not make arguments purely from authority: "The Church teaches this." He addressed his natural law arguments to all men of good will.

And I don't just say "human." I say "human being." That's the one that annoys them. And is also scientifically true.

And you can talk about ring species until you are blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that, whaddaya know, there *is right now no ambiguity* about what organisms are and are not members of the human species. The newly conceived unborn child isn't a member of an ambiguous, in-between species. Let's start with what we know, not invent ambiguities where they don't exist.

Y'know, Gian, you do no service to the Good, or to God, or to anyone, by undermining the natural light on this issue, by arguing on the side of the enemies of life to the effect that they have no natural access to the truth.

Lydia,

I actually argued with a Sister (I am not going to give the Order), and her argument was not to contest whether the unborn are "persons" or "human beings", but to argue the potential implications of personhood theory such as eugenic killing of the developmentally disabled, infanticide, and euthanasia. It seems that at least under the context of abortion that utilitarianism provides a coherent framework that permits the termination of human life, but it is the other instances when this utilitarian framework also justifies killing of human life that utilitarian theory becomes dyspeptic to most people.

Clarification:

I do not think utilitarianism necessarily justifies policies such as the "eugenic killing of the developmentally disabled, infanticide, and euthanasia", but the utilitarian framework can be easily modified to support them.

Personhood theory does indeed pose grave dangers for those who are disabled, etc. But one place that can begin is in proposing that unborn children are killable because of their lack of present, individual capacities. Philosophers have long understood that personhood theory is, precisely, an alternative to the idea that all men are of value. Instead, the view is that only individual people are of value, and only some of the time, and that their value can come and go as they gain or lose whatever arbitrarily designated set of present-tense capacities have been deemed to confer that elusive quality of "personhood" upon them. The dangers for the disabled are self-evident. But so, too, are the dangers for the unborn, because they too are human beings who are deemed killable, and are killed, every day, because they aren't valuable enough to the Powers that Be and to those who ought most to love and protect them.

So the Sister was right if she was arguing these dangers. But hopefully, she also understood that the plight of the unborn is part of the same deadly package deal. Obviously, if the unborn child were not a human being, that would not be the case. But he is, so it is.

The oh-so-coherent and "utilitarian framework" may be "easily modified," but the hard heart of man is not easily modified. You are by these abstractions just granting to interested parties a legal power to dispose of classes of human beings estimated (by the party in strength and power, of course) to be inconvenient. I am sorry to have to expose to your gentle mind, Black Rose, to the reality that if you tell people it's okay to put down the voiceless and nameless, people will put down many of them.

It's remarkable that those who casually tell us about the coherence of a theory by which certain categories of men are made disposable, might elsewhere boast of their commitment to empiricism. They crown credulity with aching hearts. It gets back to my main point: which is that I'm instantly suspicious of any pro-choicer's grasp of science.

Reagan's hearty aphorism that he never met a supporter of abortion who hadn't been born: that great quip still rings with the power of the bare facts of biology, when they are presented to open minds. The science of biology, among other many other of the great traditions of man, reveals that all human life is precious.

For that matter, with a little ingenuity one could make up a coherent, murderous ideology according to which everyone shorter than 5 feet tall was an instance of "life unworthy of life." And so what?

That's the one that annoys them. And is also scientifically true.

So it is unfair to add a precise description and call them a human fetus, but it is more scientific to call them a human being rather than only a human because "being" describes what exactly?

For that matter, with a little ingenuity one could make up a coherent, murderous ideology according to which everyone shorter than 5 feet tall was an instance of "life unworthy of life."

Randy Newman wrote a satirical song about that but most people realized it was satire. Unfortunately some members of the Maryland legislature did not realize this and tried to censor it.

Black_Rose, the fact that there are other versions of arguments against killing various innocent humans besides the one that applies to all innocent humans doesn't imply anything about the argument that applies to all innocent human beings. There are lots of valid reasons why it is bad to kill the president, besides the utilitarian ones like staying out of jail, for example. And there are lots of valid reasons to worship God, besides the one about avoiding Hell.

So it is unfair to add a precise description and call them a human fetus, but it is more scientific to call them a human being rather than only a human because "being" describes what exactly?

Well, Step2, suppose that the word "neonate" had been used for, oh, forty years or so as a distancing term to describe a class of people deemed killable at will by their parents. Suppose that those who tried to protect the newborns, and who referred to a newborn child as a human being, as a baby, and so forth, had been smugly corrected by people pretending to be somehow super-scientific telling them that they shouldn't say those things but should instead say "neonate." Suppose that many members of that same infanticidal group of people, arguing for the killability of newborn infants, actually outright denied the plain scientific fact that the newborn infant was a human being, stating that to call it one was to make a "religious or philosophical" statement which could not be determined by science.

Now, in that historical and sociological context, suppose you were to ask me, "Why is it unfair to add a precise description and to refer to a three-day-old as a human neonate? Why is it more scientific to call it a human being than just a human or a human neonate? After all, to what does the word 'being' refer, anyway?"

I ought not have to spell out the answer to those questions.

I was just saying that the Sister's argument is quite strong because it assumes the validity of Singer's conclusion that it is acceptable to kill the unborn since they are not "persons". She then argues against utilitarian ethics because of its other consequences, not necessarily the permissibility of abortion.

It is more powerful than simply asserting that the unborn are persons.

Lydia, I understand your opposition to distancing terms (although some of that likely circles back to our disputes about science in general), what I don't understand is why you think human being is a better description or more scientific than just human. If you were talking about another species, does the word combo canine being provide any more information than just canine? If it does, I don't know what that information is supposed to be.

It is more powerful than simply asserting that the unborn are persons.Admitting, even for the sake of argument, Singer's conclusion is ground I, personally, am not willing to give up-I'll let everybody else speak for themselves.

Part of the problem with asserting that the unborn are persons is the admission of a utilitarian ethical system. The system itself is dangerous and morally reprehensible, easily twisted to evil purposes, and I'm not interested in giving the utilitarian footing to argue against us on those grounds.

I will never win an argument about utilitarianism against a real utilitarian. I have such a strong bias against it (what I believe to be a well-founded bias but a bias nonetheless) that any argument I give on those grounds will be flawed, and a real utilitarian would wipe the floor with me.

And that's fine by me. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law I'm not going to grant to the Nazis that Jews aren't persons before arguing that we shouldn't kill them. Believing they're not persons is part of the problem-maybe the root of it.

Gaah, I somehow accidentally blockquoted my entire paragraph. Well, you should all be smart enough to figure out what I quoted and what I didn't at any rate.

I consider myself a biological nominalist, but as I pointed out earlier to poses challenges since, under nominalism, there is no concrete, objective criterion to declare when a developing human becomes a “person”. Similarly, I retort to biological essentialist the question of what defines the human essence. What genotypic or phenotypic characteristics define a member of the human species? Since the evolution of the lineage that led to contemporary Homo sapiens was a continuous process, when exactly does a Homo erectus acquire a human essence? I am only posing this question to challenge biological essentialists, not as a spiritual question to perplex the religious about ensoulment.

One could use the very same trick to claim that there is no such thing as oxygen that is distinctly different from everything else; or that there is no true whale, only variations and degrees of animal differences, or that there is no such thing as a star, only purely arbitrarily named conglomerations of atomic particles

To a methodological nominalist, labels, terms, or definitions do not describe a particular, universal essence, but instead serve as instruments to assist one in describing observable reality to others clearly through the medium of language. These labels do not assume an absolute definition, but their utility corresponds to the extent that it can describe reality in a manner consistent with our sensual perceptions and intuitive understanding of language. For instance, consider the definition of a “star”; in vernacular language, a star, in the astronomical context, is a far-away astronomical object that emits light. In its casual usage, one can correctly say that they see “stars” while gazing into a cloudless night sky, as the usage of “star” is appropriate here as “star” accurate describes what the observer sees with his/her sight. Indeed, one does not any scientific understanding on the nature of “stars” in order to fully appreciate this colloquial meaning of the term “star”.

It is indeed inane exercise for someone to use reductionist or skeptical thinking to deny the existence of stars. (“Skepticism” here is a philosophy that argues that because of the unreliability of human senses and reason, one can attain knowledge, trust his/her experiences, and conclusively establish casual relationships.) One would be correct when stating that stars are merely a system of atomic particles that generate light, which a minute portion of the emitted light can be detected by human sensory organs on Earth. One can further dissect the physical processes by describing the phenomenon of star formation and luminosity in scientific terms.

(RFlaum, a person who is educated in physics while my degree was in molecular biology, can correct me if I made an error here.)

For instance, when a large mass of interstellar gas and dust accrete through mutual gravitational attractions, it begins to heat up as demanded by the virial theorem. The virial theorem states that the kinetic energy of a system of particles is one-half of the gravitational potential energy of the system. As gravitation potential energy is negative (since an object at infinity is defined by convention to have zero potential energy, and loses potential energy as it gravitates towards a massive object), when the absolute term of the gravitational potential energy increases, the kinetic energy of the particles increase in tandem. As the kinetic energy of the system corresponds to the average temperature of the system, the gravitational attraction increases the temperature of the interstellar gas. This increased temperature prevents gravitational collapse as the gas exerts pressure equal to the gravitational force of the stem, thus the system is at hydrostatic equilibrium. Moreover, this increased temperature enables the atoms to undergo nuclear transformation, since the increased kinetic energy allows the atoms to get into close proximity, in the range of femtometers (10-15) for nuclear reactions. Because nuclei are positively charged, and therefore, electromagnetically repulsive, the nuclei need to overcome this energetic (Coulumb) barrier. However, the processes of classical physics would not suffice to surmount the Coulomb barrier as the thermal energy of the nuclei is still too low, and quantum tunneling is necessary to bring two nuclei together. (The Sun has a core temperature of 15 million Kelvin and this allows two protons to fuse, although an addition step is required that is mediated by the weak nuclear force that converts a proton into a neutron.) The fusion of two protons produces deuterium and that can subsequently react further to produce helium-4. Other stars can fuse and produce high elements up to iron, but these fusion reactions requires higher temperatures since the reactants have greater positive change and hence electromagnetic repulsion.

The resulting nuclear fusion in the core generates energy (from the mass-energy difference of the reactants and the products) and is eventually radiated away for the star (or “system of atomic particles”) as photons. Through nuclear fusion, stars emit power -- termed “luminosity” quantified in SI units as watts, which is energy per unit time. According to the Stefan-Boltzmann law, since the star acts as a “black body”, this luminosity is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature (in Kelvin) and proportional to the surface area of the star. Due to the large surface area of stars (for example the Sun has a radius of 109x that of the Earth, and correspondingly by simply squaring 109, a surface area 11,990x the Earth’s), they have high luminosity. But due to this high luminosity, a massive star would rapidly lose energy and cool off if nuclear fusion did not generate the lost energy. For instance, a white dwarf that possess the volume of the Earth can maintain a surface temperature of 6000 K, approximately the surface temperature of the Sun, for hundreds of millions of years, while an object the size of the sun would take a few hundred thousand years.

The elaboration above was intended to explain a star and its physical processes through reductionist scientific principles; this was not to explain away sophistically the term “star”. The preceding description does not require one to amend the vernacular definition of “star” as it simply describes the origin of the star’s luminosity that enable human eyes to observe these celestial objects from light years away. In a sense, “star” is a just trivial term that implicitly references the complex and aggregate electromagnetic, gravitational, and (weak and strong) nuclear interactions of an immense number of individual atoms that can be considered a holistic, collective macroscopic phenomenon that can be seen by human observers. But by illustrating the relevant physical processes, it should be apparent that there is no “essence” of a star, just physical processes and matter. Nevertheless, “star” is such a simple and useful term to abandon. Definitions are just labels; they do not imply the existence of any essence.

Similarly, the term “human” or “human species” is just a scientific label, as opposed to a value-laden term “human being”, to simply denote an organism that is a member of the species Homo sapiens.

Black_Rose, my earlier response to your supposed challenge of "biological nominalism" was quite serious. I'll say it in a slightly different way here. First of all, it would of course be false that the supposed evolutionary history of the race means that you have no way of telling when an unborn child is a member of the human species. That there is _now_ a species of homo sapiens is an undeniable scientific fact, and when a new member of that species comes into existence is also such a fact. The claim that there used to be other species that were somewhat similar or that we don't know when the first truly sapient homo-type species came into existence doesn't change those facts.

Start with what you know _now_, not with what you claim to know about the long-distant past. That is precisely what you are not doing. You seem to think that the history you believe concerning the origins of the human race means that you don't know _now_ what the human species is, what its members are, or what its natural capacities and traits are. But you do know those things. You cannot actually construct an argument from the alleged history you cite to the conclusion that "we don't know when the developing human becomes a person." Why think a thing like that? How, in fact, does it follow from your evolutionary history that all human beings from their beginning are _not_ persons? It simply doesn't.

Your final line admits that the resistance to using the phrase "human being" is caused by exactly what I said it was caused by. But, of course, by that criterion we _all_ should be called "humans" and never "human beings." After all, if the phrase is "value-laden" and that is the problem, what makes you so sure that _you_ have value? Or that Peter Singer does? We're all just humans. Or perhaps humanoids. No need to pick out the unborn human beings, specifically, for the distancing term.

By the way, if you're saying that the Sister was _not_ ready to assert that the unborn child is a person, then she was wrong. Arguing against utilitarianism *only insofar as* it has bad consequences for other groups while leaving it up in the air, and implying that it is rational to leave it up in the air, as to whether the unborn are killable is a misguided approach.

Step2, the answer is that "human being" applied _across the board_ to the unborn and the born acknowledges them all _definitely_ to be members of the human race. That is something that pro-choicers try to deny, many times in many ways. It is convenient for them to call the unborn something *else* with the pretense that doing so is more scientific or objective. It is not the case that the unborn child is a "human" or a "fetus" while I am a "human being" if that implies some scientific difference between us as regards our both being fellow members of the human race. Insisting on the term "human being" challenges such dehumanizing assumptions and calls out the pretense of _scientifically_ separating the unborn from the rest of us.

Step2, two more answers to your questions: The term "canine being" simply doesn't exist in normal English parlance. The term "human being," on the other hand, is an extremely common parallel term to "dog" or "cat." The stubborn refusal to apply it to the unborn child is a deliberate, artificial attempt to pretend that the unborn are not really fellow members of the human race. Second, one form of sophistry on the pro-choice side (I've seen it often) is to say that the embryo is "human" only in the same sense that heart or skin cells are human. The phrase "human being" counteracts this by emphasizing the scientific facts that from conception the new member of the human race is a complete, developing organism different from either parent, not merely a "clump of cells" or a "part of the mother."

Ah, so 'being' is an implied reference to human essence, now it makes sense. The thing is, once you've accepted the framework of essence/soul/mind you are back in the argumentative territory of personhood theory. Personally(!), I don't think other persons are obligated to accept the notion that 'being' implies anything else. Human and human being should be perfectly equivalent and interchangeable.

I don't know what I said that you took to imply that it is a reference to a human essence. Certainly it should be a reference to the fact that the unborn are biologically human just like we are. Rhetorically, the two terms are not equivalent and interchangeable. If they were, there wouldn't be so much resistance on the pro-choice side to using "human being" or so much pretense that it is unscientific to do so.

By the way, if you're saying that the Sister was _not_ ready to assert that the unborn child is a person, then she was wrong.

She probably realized that the utilitarian argument against the personhood of the fetus (using utilitarian assumptions) was so strong that it would tactically unproductive to argue against someone using utilitarianism assumptions, but it would be better to explore where those assumptions would lead us. It was an attack on utilitarian ethics by demonstrating where those assumptions would lead us.

The argument was brief though.

===
My arguments above were incomplete; my previous post primarily used stars as an example to illustrate that essences are not implied by scientific terms (such as human) and their use are labels to describe reality. I still have more to say, and I am going to Mass soon. Maybe I'll met my friends and we can hang out for today.

By brief, meant she only had about five minutes before she left.

I don't quite understand how a "utilitarian assumption" leads us to the non-personhood of the fetus, much less by a "strong argument." Utilitarianism has to do with things like bringing about the greatest happiness for the greatest number, etc. In itself it doesn't say whom we should include in the "number" in question, whether "speciesism" is true or false, and so forth. Personhood theory is its own thing. In fact, a form of personhood theory would be compatible with a non-utilitarian, deontological ethics, oddly enough. (It would just have the wrong deontological premises.)


The Sister might have been arguing that personhood theory is wrong for other reasons while merely momentarily setting aside the personhood of the unborn. There is nothing wrong with doing that, of course, as long as one isn't actually saying, "Yes, you do have a strong argument that the unborn child is not a person," or something of that kind.

"
The Sister might have been arguing that personhood theory is wrong for other reasons while merely momentarily setting aside the personhood of the unborn. There is nothing wrong with doing that, of course, as long as one isn't actually saying, "Yes, you do have a strong argument that the unborn child is not a person," or something of that kind."

I don't see what is wrong with admitting that utilitarian arguments can be strong. It is just like a Dodger fan admitting that he likes to watch Tim Lincecum (of the dreaded Giants) pitch (when he was good).

Generally, a strong argument lays a claim upon our belief. We should accept evidence. If the argument that the unborn child is not a person were strong, this would mean that we had good reason to believe that the unborn child is not a person. You may, again, simply be talking about coherence or consistency. But a) as I said, there is nothing about utilitarianism per se that tells us "x is not a person," and b) consistency can merely be trivial, if not insane, therefore not meriting the name of a "strong argument," as in my example above of defining everyone shorter than five feet tall as a "non-person" and then making sure all one's other claims and beliefs are consistent with that proposition.

I don't know what I said that you took to imply that it is a reference to a human essence.

You suggested it by your reaction to the way many pro-choicers were treating it. The rhetorical misuse of the phrase probably does trace back to the pro-choice side, but that is not a rabbit hole I have any interest in chasing down.

If they were, there wouldn't be so much resistance on the pro-choice side to using "human being" or so much pretense that it is unscientific to do so.

Under personhood theory there are of course human beings who aren't persons, but it is blatantly false to claim they aren't human beings since that is the basis for making the distinction.

Under personhood theory there are of course human beings who aren't persons, but it is blatantly false to claim they aren't human beings since that is the basis for making the distinction.

The point we're making exactly.

The single cell at conception, according to biologists, is not classified as Homo sapiens. This is simply because it lacks the necessary traits required for membership in that club.

What is the significant difference between the single cell at conception, and any other human cell such that one should be classified as equal to a living human and the other not ?

The only significant difference is that the program codes "create a human" in the DNA of the zygote are activated. If all goes well this cell will create a human. This does not mean that this cell in of itself is a living human. This difference only represents the potential for the creation of a human.

Every other human cell has these program codes. They just are not activated.

The only significant difference is that the program codes "create a human" in the DNA of the zygote are activated

Funny, that's also the difference with me. I'm just further along in the process, I guess.

Anyway, your claim is, to use a more polite term, poppycock. Maybe they don't classify it as "homo sapiens". But they do say things like this:


"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm (Gr. zyg tos, yoked together), represents the beginning of a human being.
Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p. 1

"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29.
"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual." [Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]


http://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html


You are falling into the same trap as many. Note that all your quotes are from "embryology" which is not Biology.

Embryologists are not subject matter experts. Not that they can't be, but being embryologists certainly does not qualify them as such.

Regardless, none of your quotes support the claim that a zygote is a human being? (even if the sources were experts it would not matter)

1) A heart begins with one heart cell. This does not make it a human heart. A human can be said to begin with a single human cell, this does not make that cell a human

2) A single human cell is generally not considered an "organism" except in some very loose and broad definitions. http://en.allexperts.com/q/Biology-664/Classification-Homo-Sapien-cells.htm

Notice this person is a PH.D Biologist - and claims that no Biologists take seriously the claim that a single human cell is "a human".

Even if we do consider the cell a human organism. This does not make it a human. If we did make this claim then every human cell would have to be classified as a human and this is ridiculous.

3) Same rational as (1) .. The start of a process to create a human is not a human. A new, genetically distinct human cell is not a human. It is a single celled eukaryote.

You should try an objective site - something other than Princeton. Notice that none of the posts actually contain "the why"

A sound and valid argument contains a premise (The single cell at conception is a human) followed by the rational that backs up that conclusion.

None of the quotes you give even state this premise never mind give rational that backs up such a conclusion.

Calling something "human" (descriptive adjective) does not make it "a human" (noun)

Every human cell is "human" and the sperm and egg are both alive an human.

You claim to be "further along in the process" but in reality you have not even addressed the question as to what the significant difference between a zygote and other human cells that somehow makes this single human cell a human.

Yeah, thanks for telling us that calling something human does not make it a human. It is you who need to do your research. Get back to me when you actually know beans about embryology. Otherwise, you're just wasting time.

Lydia said it all.

All Lydia did was go on an ad hom attack. She did not address a single one of my points nor did she state why she figures embryologists are subject matter experts.

The sad thing is that I did not claim that embryologists could not be subject matter experts. If they take the proper biology classes of course they could become experts.

The other sad thing is that Lydia completely missed the fact that I clearly pointed out that even if we take the posted Authors as experts (despite the fact that there is no evidence that they are) ... there is nothing stated in the posts that supports the premise that a zygote qualifies as a living human.

Since Lydia did not attempt to counter any of my comments. What exactly is the point of your agreement Marc other than to chime in on a personal attack ?

Address a single one of your points? Such as, "Gee, we have _no_ way to tell that an embryo is a human being"? Yeah, that's a "point" one needs to "address" in the same sense as, "Gee, we have _no_ way of telling that water is H20. C'mon, c'mon, address my point!" What you have said is transparently scientifically false. Actually, yes, science _does_ have ways of telling what is an embryo and what is a cell that is simply part of another biological entity. It's not my responsibility to do your research for you. Do your own research.

First off, I a talking about the single cell at conception. Technically, an embryo is the result of the first cell division and can refer to the entity until roughly 8 weeks after fertilization.

As a Chemist working in the field of applied microbiology I can tell you that there are many ways to distinguish water from other substances. If you would like me to list a few I would be happy to do so.

There are many criteria for determination of what is a living human. The term human being can be obfuscative because it does not necessarily refer to "a human" although it can be used that way.

A living human for example has significant brain function. This is why there is a raging debate around the 20-24 week period. Obviously a single human cell does not have this.

Taxonomy gives a whole list of traits required for an organism to be classified as Homo sapiens. We can go into this if you like but clearly the single cell at conception does not have enough of these traits for membership in the club.

I posted a link giving commentary from a PH.D Biologist which clearly contradicts your claim and also states that no serious Biologist believes that the single cell at conception is a human.

You so far have come up with nothing in support of your claim and it is not up to me to go out and find support for your claim.

It is you that is making the claim that the single cell at conception is a living human. All I am asking is for you to provide your rational for that claim.

How is the single cell at conception significantly different from any other human cell such that one qualifies as a living human and the others do not ?

How is the single cell at conception significantly different from any other human cell such that one qualifies as a living human and the others do not ?

Gee, I can't imagine. It's a mystery why all my single skin cells don't just spontaneously develop into babies, millions and millions of spontaneously developing babies, all over my body. After all, every skin cell contains a full set of DNA. It must be something to do with Pyramid Power. Surely there couldn't be any sort of real, scientifically knowable underlying structure that causes some "single cells" to be capable of developing into fetuses and neonates while other single cells don't? Nah, couldn't be. That would be too logical.

We know why some cells do different things than others. I mentioned why the zygote is different in an earlier post:

The only significant difference is that the program codes "create a human" in the DNA of the zygote are activated. If all goes well this cell will create a human. This does not mean that this cell in of itself is a living human. This difference only represents the potential for the creation of a human.

Perhaps you do not take this topic seriously but there is no need for snarky sarchasm.

If you want to claim that this difference puts this single cell on par with a living human then state how you come to this conclusion.

Yes, that very small difference, that very small significant difference, that the program codes for "develop into this same biological organism at a later stage" are activated.

I do indeed take this topic seriously. You are the one who appears not to do so. Simply saying that one isn't "a human being" until one has a well-developed brain has all the virtue of theft over honest toil. You can look at a human embryo when it has, say, a beating heart and hands and feet but the brain isn't developed, and you can tell that it is a younger human organism. There is no non-arbitrary marker going backwards for "becomes an organism of the species homo sapiens" between birth and (moving backwards) conception. That is a biological matter.

I do not claim that this difference "puts this single cell on a par with a living human being." I claim that this means that the conceived zygote _is_ a living human being. This conclusion is supported by the arbitrariness of picking a later point of _development_ of a particular biological entity, whose internal structure has been directing its development all along, and dubbing this point in development a change in the nature of the entity.

These should be basic biological points.

People act like "small differences" aren't significant. The amount of sperm that needs to reach a mother's egg to impregnate it is incredibly miniscule. It's still a pretty massive difference (Wasn't there a feminist article covered on here that did, in fact, try to make the point that the sperm was a barely significant factor in human development?).

Yep. And by a scientist, too, who must have known better. Scientists are as capable as anyone of engaging in scientific obfuscation where ideology is involved.


I do indeed take this topic seriously. You are the one who appears not to do so. Simply saying that one isn't "a human being" until one has a well-developed brain has all the virtue of theft over honest toil.

What are you talking about "well developed brain". A zygote does not have a brain period ? Nor is this the only trait required for something to be a human.

If you do not like how Taxonomy defines a human this is fine. I have listed a few traits that I think are required and given sound reasons to back up how I came to that conclusion. This does not mean I am right, but at least I have listed something.

The problem with your argument have not made one. You have not listed how you think a human should be defined ( a list of traits required) and certainly you have not given any reasoning that backs up your conclusion.

I do not claim that this difference "puts this single cell on a par with a living human being." I claim that this means that the conceived zygote _is_ a living human being. This conclusion is supported by the arbitrariness of picking a later point of _development_ of a particular biological entity, whose internal structure has been directing its development all along, and dubbing this point in development a change in the nature of the entity.

OK - so your claim is "The zygote is a living human" Great

Unfortunately your support for this claim is fallacy and just false. Why your argument is fallacy is because the fact you do not know that something isn't a human does not make that thing a human.

I can state "you can not prove that the planet orbiting around the nearest star is not made of green cheese" This does not mean that this planet is made of green cheese.

This is akin to stating "the entity is a human now because at some point in the future, assuming all goes well, it will become a human.

Your argument, even if it was based on truth, would still be fallacy.

Point 2: Your argument is not based on truth. There are many benchmarks for determination of what is human that are not "arbitrary". Your statement that there are no non arbitrary benchmarks is patently false.

For example: Having a brain is not arbitrary. You either have one or you do not.

If you want to believe that an entity without a brain is a living human, you are welcome to that belief. Every science ranging from Biology to Medicine disagrees with you on this point, but go ahead.

People act like "small differences" aren't significant. The amount of sperm that needs to reach a mother's egg to impregnate it is incredibly miniscule. It's still a pretty massive difference (Wasn't there a feminist article covered on here that did, in fact, try to make the point that the sperm was a barely significant factor in human development?).

I clearly stated that there was a significant difference between the single cell at conception and every other human cell.

Why are you being so disingenuous in pretending that I did not? Is this the "Gosh.. I do not have an argument of my own so I am going to make up false things about someone who disagrees with me ploy?

Demonizing your opponent may make you feel better, but it is not a valid argument in support of your premise.

Are you in such denial that you have to start making stuff up to make yourself feel better ?

1) I posted the question "what is the significant difference between the single cell at conception and every other human cell"
2) I answered this question " Program codes for "create a human", activated in the DNA of the cell.

3) Question: Why does having these program codes activated make this entity a living human.

I have yet to receive a answer to this question that does not contain logical fallacy and falsehood as shown in the above post.

Sorry for being a bit terse with you but if you are going to put words in other peoples mouths it should be expected.

If you do not have an answer for (3) I can provide one.

The possession of a _developed_ brain is arbitrary vis a vis membership in a species. That the brain _will_ develop is given by the nature of the entity from an earlier point in its development--by its programming. This is not the case with a skin cell.

My argument was not that if we don't know that something is not human, it is therefore human. Indeed, you must be an extremely poor reader if you thought that that was my argument. Rather, my argument is that the line from zygote to morula to fetus to newborn is merely the developmental arc of the same biological entity and that it is argumentatively arbitrary to pick a point in the development of that entity to define the existence of the entity. The biological entity--the member of the species homo sapiens--has been there all along. It has simply been unfolding its development. The term "zygote" is merely a reference to the earliest stage in its development.

The practice of pre-implantation diagnosis in IVF supports this point, by the way, as I pointed out upthread. It is because lab workers are able to identify a) that they have in fact successfully created a human embryo in the lab and b) that this _particular_ human embryo has a particular set of features that will, if it is allowed to develop, result in some undesired set of phenotypical features (such as a given disease) that they are able to pick out certain embryos for destruction rather than implantation. If the earliest embryo were not the _same_ entity as the later, developed embryo, fetus, and child, it would make no sense and would not be possible to say, "We won't implant this one, because it is male, and the parents want a female" or "We won't implant this one, because it would develop cystic fibrosis," and so forth.

Your behavior is quite trollish, and I'm disinclined to waste much more time on you. You are not reading well and you are not arguing well. You really need to give it a rest.

The possession of a _developed_ brain is arbitrary vis a vis membership in a species. That the brain _will_ develop is given by the nature of the entity from an earlier point in its development--by its programming. This is not the case with a skin cell

This is the potential argument. The fact that something may come to existence at some point in time in the future does not mean that it exists in the present.

My argument was not that if we don't know that something is not human, it is therefore human. Indeed, you must be an extremely poor reader if you thought that that was my argument

That was exactly your argument and I explained why.

Rather, my argument is that the line from zygote to morula to fetus to newborn is merely the developmental arc of the same biological entity and that it is argumentatively arbitrary to pick a point in the development of that entity to define the existence of the entity
.

You make two separate claims here. What you do not do is make an argument for either.

An argument consists of a claim or premise followed by rational as to how that conclusion was arrived at.

Your first claim is that zygote is the same biological entity as a human. (no need to put the term "developmental arc") That one thing develops into another does not necessarily mean they are the same entity (unless of course you can provide evidence that the two are the same entity and you have not done so)


Your second claim is that it is arbitrary to pick a point in the development of that entity to define the existence of the entity.

1) This claim does not contain a statement that defines how this claim relates to the topic and the fact of the matter is there are many definitions of what a human is that are not arbitrary.

What I think you are trying to say is that " during all phases of the development of a human, a living human exists"

Sperm and egg are a phase that is part of the development of a human but a human does not exist during this phase of development.

Second, (as stated earlier), there are points during the development process of a human that are not arbitrary and I gave an example previously. ( Some aspects of development can not be pinpointed exactly such as when the fetus can experience the sensation of pain but this does not make it completely arbitrary, it is only arbitrary within a certain time period generally given as 20 to 24 weeks and it varies depending on the fetus) What is completely not arbitrary is fact that there is no possibility for the fetus to feel pain at 10 weeks and it is simply ridiculous to suggest that a zygote feels pain.

Third, you have not provided any evidence that supports your claim that at all phases of the development of a human, a living human exists.

A single heart cell is not a heart and a single human cell is not a human (or at least you have provided no evidence to the contrary)

The fact that laboratory technicians are able to identify a human embryo does not make that embryo a living human.

Sperm and egg are a phase that is part of the development of a human but a human does not exist during this phase of development.

No, sigh, that is scientific obscurantism _again_. The sperm and egg do not _develop_ into a human organism. They are combined, at which point the sperm and egg literally cease to exist and a new biological entity comes into existence. This is biology. (Though why one should take seriously someone who thinks that embryology is not a type of biological science is beyond me.)

You also cannot feel pain when you are anesthetized.

The ability to feel pain does not make you a member of the species homo sapiens. That would be an extremely strange idea of membership. As witness the fact that a human being could in theory be unable to feel pain but be breathing and metabolizing. (Now watch, you're gonna say, "But embryos don't have lungs.")

The fact that laboratory technicians are able to identify a human embryo does not make that embryo a living human.

It's a living canine, perhaps? It is a young organism of the species homo sapiens. That's why they can even talk about it as a particular human individual with certain properties which only complete individuals have (such as being a male rather than a female).

Logicisgood has set a new record here, perhaps, of plain pulverizing anti-science commentary. The dogmatism is rivaled only by the obscurantism. It's a marvel to behold, but it is draining useful resources.

Were Logicisgood a human being before me in personal conversation, carrying on it like manner, I would know instantly and forever that he or she is completely untrustworthy, on any matter of science or empirical knowledge, to craft arguments in the public square touching on important policy. I would of course keep a polite silence, in the former case of conversation; but no credential on the wall, no PhD document, could ever induce me to trust again.

But Logicisgood is a trollish internet commenter. Therefore Logicisgood will cease and desist all further defense of this line of stupidity, or face immediate banning. He/she is exactly like a 5th grade teacher piously telling her students, before the dissection, "Now boys and girls, remember: we aren't sure if this preserved creature really is actually a pig. We can't really tell for sure. In fact, none of you should be so presumptuous as to call it a 'pig.'"

Teachers like that should be fired. And since our commenter has adopted a pugnaciously pedantic handle for commenting here, we are firing him or her from an pedantic talk on the subject of science.

I don't feel like warming up in the bullpen and relieving him.

Paul - Since you have not made one argument to back up your claims against me, nor have you refuted any of my arguments .. there is nothing to respond to here.

Perhaps you might get things on the right track giving a valid argument for why you figure a single human cell should be classified as a living human.

It's a living canine, perhaps? It is a young organism of the species homo sapiens. That's why they can even talk about it as a particular human individual with certain properties which only complete individuals have (such as being a male rather than a female

No Lydia a single human cell is not a living canine. This however, does not make it a living human.

Stating "its a young organism", although only and organism by a really broad definition, does not make that organism a living human.

Why is it so difficult to state the why/because? rather than continuing to restate your premise thinking that this is somehow support for your premise.

The single cell at conception is a living human because ... (fill in the blank por favor, without restating your premise)

Dear Logicisgood,

The problem with your position, as I see it, is that the question of asking when something becomes human is not, fundamentally, a physical question, but a metaphysical question. I define a human being as a particular combination of matter and soul, not merely matter. Since it is beyond the capacity of science to observe the soul, it is impossible for science to precisely define when something becomes that particular combination of matter and soul that defines a human beings. There have been various attempts at defining the time of ensoulment and they all have their problems. Given that science cannot observe ensoulment, since this is a supernatural act, one must begin the discussion, properly, in the realm of metaphysics and ontology, not science.

What is certain, is that it is evil to unjustly kill a human being. Given that we cannot know when the physical matter becomes a human being, the rational person, in an attempt to minimize any possible evil, will choose not to kill the zygote, on the possibility that it may be, in fact, a human being.

It is not necessary to specify when something becomes human (for all we know, it could happen at different times for different individuals) in order to make the reasonable and logical decision that, in order to minimize the possibility of evil, one must assume for the purposes of action, that a zygote is a human being.

If you do not believe in God or the soul, then we have to back up the discussion to a different starting point, but, regardless of the physical stages of development of the matter within the womb, if one operates on the principle of minimizing evil, then, one has to assume that the only logical way to do so, given the limitations of physical observations, is to leave the zygote alone and the question of its humanity undefined.

Otherwise, you wind up assuming any arbitrary physical criteria that just happens to be convenient for you as a means of defining when something becomes human. That is a prescription for disaster. Simply put, the question of when something becomes human is a question not suitable to be answered by humans. Ir is a metalogical question. Neither you nor I can say when something becomes human in any real sense, since a functioning brain is not a sine qua non for being human, nor is a beating heart, since I can imagine cases where a human being has neither. One might ask the question: how much DNA can one systematically replace until something is not human, but, again, this is a question we cannot know the answer to, since we cannot know the exact moment when it stopped being human and started being something else, especially if that something else just happens to have human-like responses.

So, one may define legal criteria for determining when something is human, but these are poor attempts at best and hubris, at worst.

Thus, your question:

"The single cell at conception is a living human because..."

Is really ill-posed. It is sufficient that there might be the possibility that it is human to cause one to act rationally and therefore, correctly towards it and leave the bigger questions to God.

The Chicken

The single cell at conception is a living human because ...

Here's Lydia's word-for-word, exact argument:


...my argument is that the line from zygote to morula to fetus to newborn is merely the developmental arc of the same biological entity and that it is argumentatively arbitrary to pick a point in the development of that entity to define the existence of the entity. The biological entity--the member of the species homo sapiens--has been there all along. It has simply been unfolding its development. The term "zygote" is merely a reference to the earliest stage in its development.

Perhaps you might get things on the right track giving a valid argument for why you figure a single human cell should be classified as a living human.

Because a human embryo (not any "single human cell") is an organism that is a member of the species homo sapiens. Which is the scientific definition of human being.

I thank MarcAnthony for his very precise illustration of Logicisgood's miserable departure of logic in constantly demanding answers for questions already answered.

Marc - I already commented Lydia's comments. All she does is restate her premise a few times.

It is logical fallacy to claim " A zygote is a living human because its a living human" ... an argument contains the why .. the reasoning that supports the conclusion.

Paul - You stating "an embryo is a member of the species Homo sapiens" does not make it so.

Here are the comments from a PH.D Biologist and prof at the University of Miami on the issue.

I don't know any biologist who would classify a single cell from a Homo sapiens as a Homo sapiens. Even a zygote, which may have the *potential* to become a Homo sapiens, but is not an organism by any stretch of the imagination, is not considered an individual Homo sapiens by any members of the scientific community that I know.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Biology-664/Classification-Homo-Sapien-cells.htm

If you read further in her comments she explains "the why", the reasoning behind her claim.

If you read up on Taxonomy (how one slots organisms into different genus and species) you will find that a zygote does not even come close to being a Homo sapiens.

No, the term "human" has been clearly defined here (and it is reasonably acceptable definition even among pro-choice secularists), and zygote falls within the scope of that definition.

Anti pro-life arguments can be (super) effective, but the stratagem of denying that that a zygote (and any other subsequent developmental stages) is not a human being seems to be rather tenuous argument, conflicting with our observations and common sense.

Chicken ! Good stuff. There are some very interesting questions you raise and good points made.

I had not intended coming at this debate from a religious perspective but since debating science is futile .. why not !

Regardless of belief in God, I do not know that one has to necessarily believe in ensoulment.

I believe in God and even have what I think is a fairly solid proof of God, I also believe in a soul of sorts, but I think to say that the soul exist at conception is a stretch.

For example: After the first mitotic division we have two genetic clones of the zygote called daughter cells. Do we not have two souls ? If separated each of these two cells can go on to individually create a new human.

Theoretically we could carry this process on further and create hundreds of new humans from the initial zygote.

So what happens here ? Does God watch over each cell as it splits off and send down a soul ?

If this is true then God can just as easily not send a soul into the zygote that is going to be destroyed.

Also 70% of zygotes never make it. This means that for every one soul that makes it two do not. Obviously God planned things this way so how much value does God place on the whole process ? Obviously not much.

If we go into the OT - we also find that God does not seem to have much concern for these new souls.

In Numbers the penalty for a wife that is suspected of adultery is to giver her potion that causes an abortion. This is a law given to Israel by God.

God also commands the Israelites to kill all women in some towns that have "known a man". Obviously some of these women would be pregnant. How much concern is God showing for the innocent soul that supposedly exists.


My take on God and I think the take of Jesus as well, is that God cares more about our thoughts than our physical bodies.

Jesus states - it is not what goes into ones mouth that makes one unclean, but what comes out.

The other argument I have against your position is that you seem to be saying. "since we do not really know we should default to the possibility that the zygote has a soul"

While it is fine for someone to have this as a personal belief I have a problem with forcing this belief on others by making laws against abortion in the early stages of pregnancy.

How do we value "I don't know" against the value of the rights of the Woman guaranteed in the bill of rights ?

If you do not believe in God or the soul, then we have to back up the discussion to a different starting point, but, regardless of the physical stages of development of the matter within the womb, if one operates on the principle of minimizing evil, then, one has to assume that the only logical way to do so, given the limitations of physical observations, is to leave the zygote alone and the question of its humanity undefined.

I do believe in God but this is an interesting argument from a secular perspective.

I do not think that the limitations on physical observation are great enough to warrant claiming that killing a zygote is necessarily evil.

We know a great deal about the zygote but in reality we should not even be talking about this single human cell. The difference between the zygote and every other human cell is of course in the DNA.

The DNA is what we are really discussing here. It is the DNA that controls the activity of the cell. It is the DNA that is directing the show.

Every cell in a human has the same DNA. The difference in the cell at conception - and about the first 200 cells after - is that the program codes on the DNA for "creation of a human" are turned on.

The question we are really asking here is "is it evil to terminate this program that is in the process of creating a human"

Clearly there is the potential for a human to be created.

Chances are about 70% that this potential will not be realized. If spread out over the entire population (not sure of the exact numbers here but it would not be that difficult to estimate) abortion raises the odds that this potential will not be realized to what 70.1 % ? over the entire population ?


If we follow this argument further in stating that we should maximize this potential for creation of humans because doing anything else is evil, where does this lead ?

We now have the technology to create multiple humans our of the single human cell at conception. Are we then obligated to intervene and create as many humans as possible ?

Should all women be forced to take fertility drugs to maximize the potential number of children. Not doing so would decrease the potential number of humans which is evil right ?

Should we be trying to collect and store every female's eggs every month because each is a potential human ? Doing so would minimize evil would it not ?

We can not say categorically that killing life is evil. Humans must kill life in order to survive. This is the way we are created.

We can not really say that killing "human life" is evil either because we have no regard for human cells which are human life, as are egg and sperm.

Evil is taking the life of a living human.

We kill living entities that are far more sentient than the zygote and eat them as food.

If you, or any other person, sits down and make a list about what they value about your humanity you will quickly find that almost all the things on that list require sentience.

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to experience

Is there really any point to human life without sentience ? If what we value about our humanity is dependent on sentience .. what is the value of a zygotes humanity or "potential sentience in the future"

At the time of conception that cow you ate last night for dinner had far more sentience than the zygote.

No, the term "human" has been clearly defined here (and it is reasonably acceptable definition even among pro-choice secularists), and zygote falls within the scope of that definition

The term human is a descriptive adjective. "a human" is a noun.

Of course the zygote is human. So is every other human cell.

If you wish to claim that the zygote is classified as a living human, or a human then you need to qualify that claim.

I have posted links with a subject matter expert ( = relevant field of biology and not embryology) claiming that the zygote is not a Homo sapien and goes on to explain why. I can give numerous other links giving similar info.

If you have relevant evidence to the contrary I would be interested in hearing it.

All she does is restate her premise a few times.

What? Lydia is saying that a zygote is merely a point on the developmental arc of the same biological entity, and that applying more value to any point on this arc over another point is arbitrary.

I don't see any logical issues with this argument. It seems pretty much ironclad to me.

Let's look at it this way. Forget about whether or not a biologist classifies a zygote as a homo sapiens (who cares, anyway?). The question is, is a zygote an earlier developmental stage of a human?

I'm not asking if it IS a human. I'm not sneaking any philosophical assumptions in there. All I'm asking is whether or not that zygote will, if all goes well, develop into a homo sapiens. Is it biologically, to use your wording, programmed to become a homo sapiens?

If the answer to this question is yes, and we all know it is, then us pro-lifers have known exactly what we were talking about this entire time, and that is why this is time-wasting.

We didn't need the biology lesson, thanks.


The term "develop" does not really apply to the zygote in the way you are using it. A child for example develops as a function of cell division. The child does not spit it two to create a new entity through asexual reproduction.

The zygote does.

We also have the problem of the single cell producing multiple humans. You can not say that the zygote was the same organism as more than one human.

Regardless - the real flaw in your logic is the claim that because A develops into B, that A and B are the same.

Just because (B) happens to be Homo sapiens does not make (A) Homo sapiens

That a human being begins as a zygote, does not make a zygote a human being.

This almost nothing to do with biology and everything to do with Logic and Philosophy


Marc: I will go further although I have already stated this.

The fallacy you are committing is called a non sequitur (It does not follow)

It does not follow that because A develops into B that A = B.

Proof: A human heart cell develops into a human heart, but a human heart cell is not a heart.

I didn't make an argument. I'm pointing out that the zygote is going to develop, grow, divide, whatever you want to call it, into what you would consider a human. A fact you've apparently admitted.

So the zygote is the same distinct biological entity as a mature human, just at an earlier stage of development.

The term "develop" does not really apply to the zygote in the way you are using it. A child for example develops as a function of cell division.

Actually, a newly conceived human embryo _does_ develop as a result of cell division, very much in the same sense that the later embryo, the fetus, and the newborn child do. For example, the newborn child's brain continues to grow and his immature macula completes its development, allowing him to see more sharply. The inherent programming is simply unfolded.

The child does not spit it two to create a new entity through asexual reproduction.

I assume that this is the twinning argument. Actually, most embryos do not twin. In any event, to say that because twinning _could_ occur so that a second member of the human species would (in that case) come into existence, the newly conceived embryo is not such a member is an extremely poor argument. It simply does not follow.

When I spoke of development, I meant exactly what I said. The developed existence of the human brain, for example, which L.i.G. places such stock in, is simply an outworking of what is already present in the single, new embryo at conception.

The bizarre idea that a rabbit specialist (yes, she is) who happens to have a PhD in Science (whoo-hoo) is somehow a _better_ source than embryologists on the issues at hand (which concern, precisely, human embryology) is not even worth addressing.

I haven't time to discuss the nonsense that women are guaranteed the right to abort their unborn children in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights? Our commentator doesn't even know where the Roe court claimed to have found the aura!

In any event, as our commentator has refused to cease and desist but rather has continued to waste resources (despite having been answered repeatedly and even seriously) in the fashion that our editor asked him not to do, we will be putting a stop to that now.

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