A very controversial topic that had been pervasive in the news lately is the morals and legality behind stem cell research and abortion. Many people feel that the act of abortion is the killing of a “life”, something with a soul as many christians say.
Now, many christians believe that with the unity of the sperm and egg, a soul is created. I geuss loosly you could say that the sperm and egg each equal “1/2 a soul” respectivly.
What happens with identicle twins then? Do they only recieve half a soul each? If the soul is created with the fertilization of this egg, does each embryo recieve half a soul when the egg undergoes mitosis and splits up and eventually seperates?
Now does that mean that all the twins in the world have half a soul. Logically this makes sense if you follow the logic that many “Uber-Christians” hold.
We all knew the olsen twins were going to hell but, what happens to the rest of the indenticle twins in the world?
A ridiculous argument must be responded to with a ridiculous argument:
Twins are proof that the soul must exist. If they were just machine like replicas there would never be the slightest difference between twins. Since there are small (if, insignificant) differences then there must be a soul for each. The fact that each individual of the twin set has a personality is proof! proof I tells ya, that god puts a soul in each twin.
To frame the matter in religious terms is to engage in sophistry, at the very least, regardless of perspective.
The matter simply isn’t religious – it’s humanistic.
DNA and life science via the scientific method have presented without rational conjecture to the contrary that a unique individual human being begins to live at the moment of conception.
Thus to kill a newly conceived individual human being, a person, premeditatively and not in self-defense, is murder in the foundational sociological sense.
Well thought out and presented. But it was religion that was being discussed as much as the perception of their said “logic” and its utilization in an “argument”.
I dont disagree that “life” begins at conception. From everystanding it does.
But does the “soul” form then (if you believe in souls)
and if so, technically dosent the identicle twin have half a soul.
What i was saying was that if somebody wants to turn the “soul” into a tangible, concrete object, then be prepared to except other theories based on the physical discription.
This makes me wonder if the reason people say life begins at conception (other than religious authority) is because of the ‘mathematics’ of it. It seems that once the sperm and egg fuse, you have one thing (the zygote) and anything subsequent is just nourishment and growth of the “one thing”. Successive modifications that do not change its essential ‘one-thingness’. Since it is ‘one thing’ which is only nourished and grown rather than changed in some ‘essential’ way, one might argue that its ‘essence’ remains the same from the start, that of a baby.
But biologically I don’t think an unfused sperm and egg are any more a ‘potential life’ than a fused sperm and egg are. In both cases you’ve got DNA floating around that could lead to the development of a baby; it’s just that in the unfused case the two pieces of DNA aren’t separated from each other by the membranes of the individual sperm and egg.
People just think conception is a big difference because the event of the two becoming one appeals to our mathematical instinct. But there’s nothing biologically tremendous happening there; all that happens is that a membrane which separates the two pieces of DNA dissolves.
Therefore a separated sperm and egg are just as much a potential life as a united sperm and egg. Conception does not really cause a new being to be created, only a modification of an existing configuration of matter. The real ‘big changes’ are the ones when the fetus starts to look and act like a baby, when it can live outside the mother, when it emerges into the outside world, etc. Not conception.
Jenny, I think the above is especially relevant to what you have argued here. Science does not ‘prove’ that a unique individual human being begins to live at the moment of conception; that ‘beginning’ is an arbitrary assignment by man based on his mathematical instinct, and the power of the ‘two becoming one’ event in his imagination.
On my campus the anti abortion gang comes up every so often, and they invariable bring 50 foot posts of aborted fetus’s. So next time they come up I’m going to find a 50 foot post of a mutilated baby.
If they ask me to take it down, they will be admitting a moral difference between a fetus and a baby, thus they will be refuting there position. If they don’t ask me to take it down they will be veiwed as ridiculous for allowing a 50 foot poster of a mutilated baby. Either way, they lose.
Indeed, if one wants to infuse a fantasy (religion’s “definition” of “soul”) into the matter, then only those who like to play with fantasy should probably participate.
The problem is that newly conceived human beings are the worse for such irrelevancies, for they are quite real.
Though I don’t believe in the religious presentation of “soul”, I do believe in the right to life of human beings from the moment of their creation: conception.
It is quite typically pro-abortionistly inexact and topically meaningless to say the “life” begins at conception.
The exact truth of the matter is that a unique individual human being begins to live that human being’s one and only life at the moment of conception.
A human being is a human being whether that person looks like you look or not.
DNA science has used the scientific method to present beyond rational conjecture that the newly conceived is a human being with complete and defining human DNA different from both the sperm (father) and the egg (mother) and that essentially no other person has that exact DNA configuration.
And life science has used the scientific method to present beyond rational conjecture that the entity formed at conception is both alive and singular, meeting all of the tests for both.
Pro-abortionists’ sophistries about “what is really a beginning” ( ) have no power to override scientifically presented reality.
I suggest you don’t quote my entire post in your reply, but use snippets of it that you intend to respond to. On the other hand, since you didn’t actually respond to my post but just reiterated in slightly expanded form what you said before, the quote function really had no use for you in this post.
How can science show that such-and-such is a human being when the meaning of ‘human being’ is philosophically under dispute? That meaning is the central subject of philosophical contention between pro-life and pro-choice folks. Pro-life people usually want to say that a particular DNA sequence encapsulated in a single cell can be identified with a human being. Pro-choice people think that to be a human being requires more than just a template encased in a single cell, that it requires the new life, to be fully human, have some (admittedly arbitrary) degree of developmental maturity or interaction with human society. Depending on which definition you start with, science either proves that human life begins at conception or it proves that human life begins at some later date. Actually I argue below that even if you start with the pro-lifer definition it doesn’t prove that ‘life’ begins at conception, because the definition of ‘life’ is also a relevant factor here.
Now consider the difference between the pre-conception and post-conception state of the living matter that is the basis for what will eventually become a fully-developed undisputably human being. Pre-conception, you have a sperm and an egg about to unite. Post-conception they are united.
Biologically, however, there is no great difference between the pre-conception and post-conception states. Before conception, there are two physical cell membranes (the sperm cell wall and the egg cell wall) separating the male and female contributions to the offspring DNA. After conception, the two DNA components are no longer separated and mingle in a single cell, the zygote. That’s all! The only difference conception makes, is the removal of the cell membrane barriers separating the DNA components! This event is no more momentous or defining of human life than the subsequent implantation of the cell, its division and organization into its various embryonic forms, etc. The complex of sperm-and-egg-about-to-unite is materially little different from the complex of sperm-and-egg-after-uniting, the zygote.
To apply this reasoning to your statement above, note that the sperm-and-egg-before-uniting have complete and defining DNA different from both the mother and father. No living person has the exact DNA configuration of this complex. The complex of sperm-and-egg-before-uniting could also be considered ‘alive’ in the sense that it will eventually result in a baby if everything goes right, just as a zygote will.
Now according to the traditional definition of biological life, you need a cell that can grow and reproduce on its own to have a living thing, and this definition the sperm-and-egg-before-uniting admittedly does not meet since it is two cells, incapable of reproducing unless they unite. But why should this biological definition of the word ‘life’ carry so much moral weight? You assign this reproducing cell the label ‘living’ and this complex of two nonreproducing cells the label ‘nonliving’ – what makes the first so morally different from the latter? Do you argue that this sole difference – the single cell’s ability to reproduce – is what makes it a moral subject, while the sperm-and-egg-before-uniting is not? Or does the ‘singularity’ of the zygote make it morally privileged?
I claim to the contrary that there is no reasonable argument to distinguish the event of conception morally; there is no reason that the zygote is a moral subject while the “pre-conceptate” (the sperm-and-egg-before-uniting) is not. Both will eventually be a baby, so there is no reasonable argument to endow the zygote with moral human-beingness and strip the pre-conceptate of moral human-beingness.
Now I know you will never admit that there is no such reasonable argument, because the entire pro-life stance depends on the illusion that science provides this argument. If the event of conception does not distinguish the pre- and post-conceptate morally, then contraception, which prevents the pre-conceptate from becoming a post-conceptate, is just as wrong as taking an abortifacient which prevents the post-conceptate from implanting, which is just as wrong as having a first-trimester abortion, which is just as wrong as late-trimester, etc etc. And if a man masturbates and ejaculates sperm he would have otherwise ejaculated into a woman and caused conception, that would also be wrong. The male and female bodies’ processes of eliminating old sex cells would also be ‘wrong’ processes; and it comes down to the old Monty Python song –
every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great; if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate!
CONCLUSION:
I can rest assured that you will dismiss this as ridiculous, and I will have done little to upset your religious – I mean your rational scientific – views. Of course a zygote is morally privileged over the pre-conceptate! After all, the zygote is one, while the pre-conceptate is two things. One thing is automatically morally protected (THE RULES state this very clearly) while two things are not. The one thing can reproduce on its own, which further protects it morally (again, cite THE RULES) while two things which separately cannot reproduce (but together can develop into a baby) are automatically not protected morally. One thing has no membrane separating its two DNA components, again priviliging it morally by THE RULES, while the other has the morally-debilitating cell membranes separating the components. You see, since it’s all based on THE RULES everything is quite rational and scientific.
So long as you’re nice and play by THE RULES, God – I mean THE RULES – won’t smite you, and you’ll be morally justified, right as rain. For man was made for morality, not morality for man – thus sayeth C. S. Lewis.
Last I looked, there were others reading this thread besides you.
My quote of your entire pro-abortionist’s sophistry was appropriate as my associated comment applied to it all.
I suggest you stop being so controlling about how I choose to post.
There is no dispute about what is and isn’t a human being – DNA and life science have ended that dispute.
Pro-abortionists would do well to accept the reality of it and not wax so obviously sophistrical under the pretentious guise of “philosophising”.
Irrelevant.
Appeal to "A"uthority is, traditionally illogical.
It doesn’t matter what “Scientists”, “Pro-lifers”, “Anti-abortionists”, “Pro-Choicers” (read: pro-abortionists), “Religious”, etc. say on the matter.
All that matters is what science via the scientific method has proven: that a unique individual human being begins to live at the moment of conception.
Reductively belittle and minimalize the life of the newly created unique individual human being all you wish, but you will not change the reality of that person’s existence.
Of course they do.
If they thought for a moment that the unique individual human being was being killed – murdered – during an abortion, that thought would eat at them miserably.
Thus they have to minimalizingly belittle the beginning of a person’s life – that beginning being at conception – so that they can commit abortion for non-self-defense reasons and not feel like the murderers they truly are.
So they employ arguments of sophistry wherein they use terms like “fully” human (whatever that means ) and “developmental maturity” or “interaction with human society” to rationalize a stage before which such murder is “okay”.
By the way, there is no such valid term as “pro-choice” in the matter. “Pro-choice” is the palatable euphemism for the reality of the perspective: pro-abortion. Pro-abortionists use the “pro-choice” divertive euphemism to hide from others and themselves the horror of their murderous position on the matter.
Wrong.
Science makes observations and comparisons, that’s all.
They don’t “start” with pre-conceptions, in this matter.
Science realized that a process was going on in the womb and observed it.
Science showed that human DNA and being life was present in the newly conceived.
The conclusion that such was the human being in its earliest moments of its life, a life that continues for 9 months in the womb and hopefully scores of years outside the womb, was really a fairly easy and accurate conclusion to make.
Only pro-abortionist sophisters still erroneously think it’s a matter of conjecture.
I’m sorry, Aporia, but from a scientific perspective there is no “debate” about what is or isn’t life.
Life science has a scientifically universally accepted set of criteria to determine if an entity is a singular living entity.
The newly conceived unique individual human being satisfies all of that criteria, and that has been known for many decades and is considered a given at this point.
That the newly conceived human being is alive, a singular living entity, is simply not a matter for rational conjecture.
Your minimalizing belittlement is in error.
A human being is a human being from the moment of conception.
There is no such state as “fully-developed” with regard to being a human being.
That pro-abortion sophisters “dispute” the realities of the matter is meaningless … with respect to reality.
True enough.
False by reason of sophistry.
After the sperm and egg unite they cease to be either.
They are then a conception, a unique individual human being.
All development states subsequently accurately applied have no further reference to either sperm or egg.
Wrong.
The sperm and egg each have half the chromosomes of the parent and neither sperm or egg is, from the scientific perspective, a human being.
But when conception occurs, the chromosomes of the sperm and egg combine to create a complete set of human being chromosomes in a living entity state that is a human being.
Big, big difference, Aporia.
Wrong.
As I pointed out above, the initial uniting we know as conception creates a unique human being entity that has more than “mingled” sperm and egg half-set DNA.
The DNA is now complete – a full 46 chromosomes in a singular living entity.
The fact that such occurs in the single cell before first division in the earliest moments of that person’s life means that whatever stage you use to discribe the newly conceived with reference to number of cells and substantive function – including zygote – you’re still referring to a human being.
We all start out at one cell that then divides into two … etc.
That “start out” single cell conceived is a human being.
You can over-analyze until the cows come home, Aporia, but you won’t change the reality that once conception is complete in the single cell before the first cell division, you have a unique individual living human being.
Being picky picky about the tiny moments of time the conception takes, when you consider the big picture of the topic of abortion, is really just pro-abortionists’ sophistry.
Wrong, with respect to relevant precision.
The sperm is a separate entity from the egg before uniting.
The egg is a separate entity from the sperm before uniting.
There is no such thing as “sperm-and-egg-before-uniting”.
In relevant addition, the DNA of both the sperm and egg is not complete, each containing only 23 chromosomes. When conception occurs the newly conceived single-cell human being contains the full defining completement of 46 human chromosomes.
That the DNA of the sperm and egg is “different” from the DNA of the father and mother respectively is a meaningless given in the matter.
Your “sperm-and-egg-before-uniting” is not a “complex”.
It’s merely a meaningless construction for use in your sophistry, completely irrelevant in the matter.
Again, pure sophistry.
Also, again, that something is “alive” is not at issue here.
We all know that the sperm and egg are living cells.
What is at issue here is if the entity that is alive is a human being.
We know, scientifically, that a sperm is not a human being.
We know, scientifically, that an egg is not a human being.
Your “eventually” sophistry is, again, merely that.
What is relevant is that the single-cell conception is a living human being.
That’s scientific reality, and not a matter for rational conjecture.
Today, we modern intelligent people appeal to science and the scientific method for presenting facts.
We don’t appeal to religion, and we don’t appeal to the polarized opposite in the matter: pro-abortionists’ sophistry, the kind that you are displaying in spades.
First of all, you are wrong again by means of both omission and stipulation.
There are several items in the criteria to classify an entity as being alive.
“A cell that can grow and reporduce on its own” is both lacking in a number of criteria and inexact with regard to determining if an entity is alive.
The rest of your statement here is mere irrelevant filler for the sophistry.
Well, to put the discussion back into its relevant context, if abortion is killing an entity, then, to be killed, that entity had to have been alive at the time.
Since human beings are alive at the time, the other thing to determine is that if the living entity being killed is a human being.
Since abortion, by definition, is the aborting of the life of the newly and subsequently conceived unique individual human being, then if the taking of that life was premeditated and for non-self-defense reasons, then that killing is a murder and murder is a very morally weighty subject.
Again, you make another pro-abortionists’ sophistry error.
Science has assigned the conception to be a singular living entity, not me.
And, science also has assigned the sperm and egg as being alive but not a singular living entity that a human being is.
Maybe it’s you, arguing amonst your self(s), that appears hung up on this “life” thing.
The issue does not hinge on when “life” to some degee begins or is.
The issue hinges on when a singular living entity that is a human being begins and is … and that “when” is at conception.
All references to your “complex” sophistry aside, the moral difference is that a sperm and an egg are not a singular living entity human being.
A single-celled conception is a singular living entity human being.
And thus, aborting that human being is killing that human being.
And doing so pre-meditatively for non-self-defense reasons satisfies the foundational sociological definition of murder.
That’s what makes the moral difference, Aporia.
Surely you can see that, right?
No, that’s your sophistrical imagination of my position on the matter.
I’ve already presented what truly makes the matter a moral subject: that abortion is always the killing of a unique individual human being.
Because the right to life applies to all human beings, no matter how old they are and at what stage of development (zygote, fetus, baby, child, teenager, young adult, etc.) a human being is thereby morally privileged with respect to that paramount right: the right to life.
You can “argue” all you wish.
But DNA and life science via the scientific method has decidedly defeated your argument.
There is a begining to a unique individual human being’s life, according to science: conception.
Thus, as I’ve explained above, morality with respect to that person’s life has then entered the picture at conception.
Being a human being, Aporia, is everything in the matter.
Irrelevant and immaterial.
“Becoming” a human being is irrelevant to the matter. Being a human being is what matters.
A sperm and egg before uniting isn’t a human being.
A conception is a human being.
Eventually becoming a baby, a baby being merely a stage in a human being’s development (that human being having been a human being long before the baby stage), is irrelevant to being a human being, and being a human being is all that morally matters in the matter.
Whether your argument was reasonable or not is irrelevant.
It was obviously erroneous, as I’ve pointed out. That’s all that matters for refuting it.
And the only person operating under illusion in this conversation is you, the illusion that a unique individual human being does “not” begin to live at the moment of conception.
I’m afraid, Aporia, that science is not illusion, and scientific fact is the single support for my argument.
Your argument is based solely on what you “wish” things were … so that you could rationalize your support for murderous abortion.
But, as DNA and life science presented long ago, it does distinguish between the two.
The latter is a unique living individual human being.
And thus the morality enters the matter there.
Again, you are in error.
There is no such “complex” as a “pre-conceptate” – keep in mind that such is a sophistrical concoction of your pro-abortionist’s mind.
Also, contraception can function not only to prevent a sperm and egg from uniting in conception, but also functions to prevent the newly conceived from attaching to the uterine wall – preventing impregnation – and thus, when it does, it functions as an abortificant.
True, only if not in self-defense of the mother’s very life.
And it is true also because in all of these cases a unique individual living human being is being killed premeditatively: murdered.
Wrong.
It is not morally wrong in the vein of this matter.
Such would not be the killing of a unique individual human being.
Remember, your sophistrical construct of “sperm-and-egg-before-uniting” is simply that: a non-entity fantasy you manufacture for the purpose of your sophistrical avoidance of the truth, that truth being that abortion kills a unique living individual human being, always.
When people construct sophistry as you have done here, that usually means they are emotionally vested in avoidance of the truth of the matter their sophistry is “designed” to protect them from.
You appear to miss the absurdity of your argument.
It has boiled down to a quote of Monty Python for you.
Obviously you are simply arguing erroneously within yourself.
Pretty much.
But you knew that would be the case.
Not because of anything about me or my position.
But because your argument is as obviously erroneous as saying the earth is flat or calling a cat a dog.
I submit that you need to make the matter erroneously about religion.
For you, the obvious irrelevancy of religion in the matter can be easily presented and, thus, you imagine “your” argument therefore “wins”.
Sadly, you miss the fact that disproving religion’s relevance does not prove your sophistry.
By the way, your implication that I am religious is false. I am of no religion – not Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., etc. – none at all.
But my perspective is indeed based upon the findings of the scientific method which no rational argument has yet to refute.
You may wish to keep that fact in mind.
Restating your sophistry was really unnecessary, as I’ve already refuted it.
But I do find it interesting, your repeated reference to “THE RULES”.
I’m beginning to think you have a problem with following morals and ethics of working and playing well with others in society.
Such is typically a liberal dysfunction, and I can’t help but wonder if you are a liberal (or a libertarian – same thing in this case).
Though conservatives have their dysfunctions (and, by the way, I’m not a conservative or any of the aforementioned), the one your presentation suggests is typical of liberal pro-abortionists.
Does that shoe fit?
And now that you’ve completely diverged from the topic at hand … and thereby revealed your real issues that are simply the issues of someone who has had run-ins with religion and religious people … I now know part of what motivates your presentation, which I’ll keep in mind for the next time … your motivation that has nothing to do with the facts of the particulars of the matter.
At what stage is it possible to diaper it? Meaning the fetus/zygote/embryo?
when can it suckle? when can it cry. when can it wiggle its toes and fingers? I suppose if you are against abortions, it would be all abortions correct? Abortions of all types correct? Life is life right? this should also mean that all egg/sperm connections are worth keeping right? Perhaps then we should keep all eggs and sperm? Lets keep them at your places OK. Cuz i really don’t have the room here and no air conditioning I presume all that raw protien would begin to smell a bit. I do want to keep my fridge for food, selfish I know, but, I found out I need to eat to survive.
what is the difference between a natural abortion and one you naturally need or one you want because you can’t afford to go through a pregnancy or care for a child. If you do a natural abortion without coathangers or medical aid, is it still wrong?
) have 
) and “developmental maturity” or “interaction with human society” to rationalize a stage before which such murder is “okay”. 
