Something for you to think about

[x1Predator]

Can the girl like, hear, or see for that matter? because if she cant then what does it matter what the world thinks of her. But if she can, then if I were her mom I probably wouldve turned to Euthanasia out of mercy when I saw her. But that's just me..... "

Edited August 6, 2006 by x1Predator

[WinterSun]

Can the girl like, hear, or see for that matter? because if she cant then what does it matter what the world thinks of her. But if she can, then if I were her mom I probably wouldve had an abortion out of mercy when I saw her. But that's just me..... "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Generally speaking, abortion happens before birth. "Euthanasia" is the term you're thinking of. Otherwise, I agree. Death would be a kindness.

[x1Predator]

Can the girl like, hear, or see for that matter? because if she cant then what does it matter what the world thinks of her. But if she can, then if I were her mom I probably wouldve had an abortion out of mercy when I saw her. But that's just me..... "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Generally speaking, abortion happens before birth. "Euthanasia" is the term you're thinking of. Otherwise, I agree. Death would be a kindness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

fixed

[Krookie]

...what'd you fix?

[julianw]

Is masterbation bad, as it wastes a whole lot of potential lives?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Masterbation is bad because when the habits are abused it could be harmful to your sexual relationship with your spouse.

 

As Azakon pointed out, we each has to draw the line for our own moral convictions and I simply choose the point when the egg and the sperm are combined in unity where the individual's potential future becomes whole. I hope that is clear enough.

[Cantousent]

We should probably avoid taking an argument and trivializing it by pushing it to extremes beyond the original intent. Equating a fetus with masturbation isn't just unseemly, it's also a poor argument.

 

However, if your argument, alan, is that we need to draw the line somewhere, as Azarkon and Julian say, then I agree. That's self evident. The question is where to put the line, not whether or not we need one.

[Pidesco]

We should probably avoid taking an argument and trivializing it by pushing it to extremes beyond the original intent.  Equating a fetus with masturbation isn't just unseemly, it's also a poor argument.

 

However, if your argument, alan, is that we need to draw the line somewhere, as Azarkon and Julian say, then I agree.  That's self evident.  The question is where to put the line, not whether or not we need one.

 

You either put it at the moment of conception or not at all. I think.

[WITHTEETH]

We should probably avoid taking an argument and trivializing it by pushing it to extremes beyond the original intent.  Equating a fetus with masturbation isn't just unseemly, it's also a poor argument.

 

However, if your argument, alan, is that we need to draw the line somewhere, as Azarkon and Julian say, then I agree.  That's self evident.  The question is where to put the line, not whether or not we need one.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You either put it at the moment of conception or not at all. I think.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Pidesco, can you explain why at conception clearly, and can you use evidence to please? here are a couple developmental stages to look at.

 

-The nervous system starts to develop by the 14thday of pregnancy.

 

-The brainstem,midbrain, and forebrain are developed by the 8thweek of pregnancy.

 

The potential arguement seems like that person is just happy that it wasn't him/her, or that it could be our next Einstien. Nonexistance is nothing to fear, because its nothing to us. There is no sensation, no pain or suffering, so why protect potential so strongly? Remember what it was like before you were born? No, exactly.

 

Potential life is just that,"potential". we always have the potential to allow life. I choose to put the existing over potential life. Potential is just an idea, its metaphysical. Staying in the realm of reality when choosing whether an existing life is important enough.

 

Stemcell for instance, our most promising medical study is in jeopardy due to this "potential" arguement, thus putting it ahead of the already existing life.

[Pidesco]

Because the embryo is a living being right from the start, regardless of the development of the nervous system. As such, if you were to draw a line regarding abortion, it should be at the moment of conception.

 

 

I'm in favour of abortion, by the way.

Edited August 6, 2006 by Pidesco

[SteveThaiBinh]

I believe abortions have to, by law, be performed before the second trimester begins, right?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It varies by country, I think. Not sure when it is in the US, though.

 

A year or so ago, the newspapers in Britain published photographs of a developing foetus just before our 'cut-off point' for abortions (24 weeks). The photos showed the foetus more developed than many people had thought, and it led to some discussion in the newspapers and elsewhere about whether the cut-off point should be moved back - to 20 or 21 weeks into the pregnancy. No change in the law has come of it, though.

 

I don't see how a line can be drawn on any scientific basis. Development is gradual and continuous, and any line has to be artificial. Nevertheless we do need one. We don't want to see abortions at 32 weeks where the baby might well survive if it were delivered, and to ban abortion entirely represents an intolerable restriction of the rights of the woman by government. We need the line, but the line is wherever we choose to put it, and has no greater legitimacy or basis in science than that.

 

On the issue of euthanasia, I don't know whether the concept yet exists in US (federal or state) law. If this little girl's parents decided to go that route, they would surely be prosecuted for murder, but rightly so? After all, it's not even 'assisted suicide', as a child can hardly give informed consent.

[alanschu]

If it's just being affected by the mother's physiology, the brain of the fetus is still reacting in some way to the surroundings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

No it's not. It's reacting to the mother's physiology. You could have a mother that doesn't give a crap about a potentially stressful situation, and one that becomes a basketcase. In both cases the "surroundings" are exactly the same, but the effect on the fetus is very different.

 

The "brain" isn't reacting to anything. It's just being fed whatever the mother feeds it.

[Tigranes]

I'm not sure how great an idea it is to say "its okay / its not killing as long as they are not human yet". Let's say science derives a widely accepted date for when the mushy stuff becomes definable as 'human'; is it then alright / not murder to destroy that inhuman, yet living, thing that would have become human without interference? Just because it's not human, its future as a human can be taken away without remorse? One could argue that it's exactly the same as the decision to wear a condom or not have sex, though - and whether science can work out a definitive 'point' in which the fetus/embryo becomes human will have no bearing on this matter.

 

Of course, I find all this entirely irrelevant as relating to the girl in question. I think somebody said she won't ever have a 'real' life, being either sheltered or without necessary faculties.. the life 'we' lead and the way / standard of life we see as acceptable are not universal standards, but merely social and epistemological. It would be extremely cruel and narrow-minded to say that just because she cannot have a life that seems 'acceptable' as life to us she should be 'put out of her misery'. The true misery would be if she and the people around her cannot discover a life unique to her existence that will bring a degree of happiness.

[Pidesco]

If it's just being affected by the mother's physiology, the brain of the fetus is still reacting in some way to the surroundings.

 

 

No it's not. It's reacting to the mother's physiology. You could have a mother that doesn't give a crap about a potentially stressful situation, and one that becomes a basketcase. In both cases the "surroundings" are exactly the same, but the effect on the fetus is very different.

 

The "brain" isn't reacting to anything. It's just being fed whatever the mother feeds it.

 

The mother is part of the surroundings, even if she affects the fetus in a more direct way than usual. And it's not just a question of the immediate reaction of the fetus. It's about how it affects the baby's growth in the long run.

Edited August 6, 2006 by Pidesco

[alanschu]

Just like the Mozart babies.

 

I give up.

[Pidesco]

Are you talking about the Mozart effect?

[Judge Hades]

Until a human being becomes self aware, sentient it is nothing but another animal on this earth. A potential unfulfilled is a potential that is irrelevant. In the development and growth cycle of a human being self awareness and sentience does not occur til around 2 to 3 years old, basicly when the human being can form its first memory. Think back to your earliest memory and well, that is when you became self aware for the most part.

 

This might sound a bit callous but til that point happens a human child is no more sentient than any other primate. Sure you can train it to respond to stimuli but you can also train a monkey or dog to respond to stimuli as well. That doesn't mean they are sentient beings.

 

Placing bans on stem cell research through the use of embryos is downright stupid. There are a great number of diseases that could be cured or their progress stopped if such research was allowed. Banning such research to "save the children" or use some atiquated morality from a religion whose starters thought the world was flat is simply condemning the lives of those who have the ailments that could be cured from such studies prolonged agonies.

 

Hell, full stemcell research would allow human cloning which could help those like this child to have a full productive life. Clone the necessary material and sugically implant them. Who knows what can be accomplished if the scientific research can be done without the interference of backward thinking people like President George W. Bush.

[Blank]

Until a human being becomes self aware, sentient it is nothing but another animal on this earth.  A potential unfulfilled is a potential that is irrelevant.  In the development and growth cycle of a human being self awareness and sentience does not occur til around 2 to 3 years old

 

This might sound a bit callous but til that point happens a human child is no more sentient than any other primate.  Sure you can train it to respond to stimuli but you can also train a monkey or dog to respond to stimuli as well.  That doesn't mean they are sentient beings.

 

Hell, full stemcell research would allow human cloning which could help those like this child to have a full productive life.  Clone the necessary  material and sugically implant them.  Who knows what can be accomplished if the scientific research can be done without the interference of backward thinking people like President George W. Bush.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You almost convinced me with that. But then I think about what a "soul" is (since I'm religious and all). And since I don't have an exact definition, I think about how people would react if I went around killing 1 year-olds saying "Don't worry, they aren't sentient life yet." And I realize maybe there is something more to it than sentience.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Blank

[Judge Hades]

In my belief, if you can call it that, a soul is the sentient mind without physical ties. A soul is the collective memory and experiences a sentient gains over the course of his or her life and when the physical body dies that sentience is released to go where ever or be dispersed into nothingness.

[Blank]

I almost agree with that too. The difference is that you believe the soul starts at that sentient state, while I believe it starts at inception. (I forget a lot of my childhood, does that mean I wasn't sentient until now?) Certain stimuli to 1 year-olds can change the child's reaction to certain things later in their life. Were they not aware of those things while they still weren't "sentient"?

 

I believe the way I do because this kind of thing looks God-ordained in the bible. For example:

Psalm 139:13

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.

 

God also formed that disheveled girl in the other thread. He has a plan for her life. I'm just saying what I believe.

 

1 Cor. 1: 27-29

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.

Edited August 7, 2006 by Blank

[Judge Hades]

Even a dog is aware of food or a toy, but that does not make it self aware. Can it look at a mirror and realize the image he sees is not another dog but himself? Just because you learned to catch a ball at 1 year old does not make you self aware.

 

As for quoting scripture my view of the bible is that it is a well written mythology. It is the written record of events that happened thousands of years in the biased view of a patriarchal monotheistic culture which uses mythic and the supernatural to explain what was unexplainable given the technologies that existed at the time.

[alanschu]

Dogs are incapable of recognizing that a dog inside of a mirror isn't another dog?

[Judge Hades]

You write that as a statement but end it with a question mark, Alanschu. Every dog that I have come across have acted that its mirror image is another dog instead of being itself.

[alanschu]

I've seen dogs that have reacted to their reflection like they do to other dogs, and others that don't.

[Judge Hades]

Hmmm... Interesting.

[alanschu]

Something for you to think about.