Why abortion is wrong.

By natural person, I mean a natural person. Not a company or limited liability partnership (which is a legal person). An individual. A human being.

I have studied how the brain develops in an embyro you don't need to teach my it in 'the most basic term'. There is an obvious difference between your friend who was technically brain dead for 15 minutes and a cadaver where the brain has died on a cellular level.

It seems like you think belonging to our species is all that is required to belong to humanity,

the argument that a dead person is a person actually goes strongly against you, if all that matters is we share DNA not any form of intelligence or life then there isn't really anything that makes life sacred, who cares then if we kill an embryo because all that matters is it still shares our DNA, it's life added no value to it according to that argument.

I said its an opinion followed by it is because I was talking about two separate things, retread whati wrote ffs. Of course we are the same species, but I don't give something value purely because we share DNA. DNA isn't some holy thing. I was attacking the website because you used it as a source, that isn't ad hominum, you chose to cite a very obviously biased website full of bull****, had I said you were wrong purely based on who you are that would be ad hominum.

You keep going back to the ****ing nazis as if this was the same situation, proving you have already made up your mind that it is. Yes human being is subjective, as evidenced throughout history by countless groups oppressing others based on the mentality they were lesser beings. I obviously don't support that in any way shape or form because I believe all one needs to be a person is a mind and so the nazis killing millions of minds was obviously one of the greatest crimes in history. If you went and asked the nazis though many of them would probably see very little wrong with what they were doing, because it is subjective, that is what subjective means, even if you disagree with someone that doesn't stop it being subjective.

My position is that the rights of a fully formed human being superseded the rights of a partially formed human being, my position is that the central characteristic that defines human beings as opposed to homo sapiens is our minds.

I believe that there is a need for a separate human being on top of homosapien because otherwise you are unable to tell the difference between a life that has meaning and a life that has less or no meaning. an example being in cases where the forebrain is destroyed but the cerebellum preserved which leaves a 'human' that has no consciousness and will never have a consciousness, or in cases where a person is being kept alive by machines alone and their mind is gone. I am not arguing that these examples have no value and we could do whatever we like to them, I am saying they have less value because they are less of a person or less of a human being.

The blueprint analogy does not end where you want it to end, and trying to confuse it by throwing in different types of blueprints and saying look see because on blueprint is a hotel and the other Is a house that proves the blueprint has the same rights as the house. A blueprint for a house is still not a house,a blueprint for a hotel is still not a hotel. DNA in an embyro that could one day become a person, is not a person. It might be a hotel blueprint and the hotel might be a hotel hotel, but unless you believe the only value we have as human beings comes from our DNA then arguing that they are the same thing is pure nonsense.

The whole argument comes down to terminology. Human, human being, individual...

Let me ask you a question. Are Siamese twins two individuals or the same individual? Two human beings or one human being

This is I think the most important part of my post; the rest will just be chasing arguments in circles.

Yes, because you hear people saying "look at that canine being" or "look at that feline being" or "look at that bovine being".

"Human being" has special significance, meaning a biologically human who is an individual, as opposed to isolated human biological material.

No, it means that in your mindset for the discussion, you are not going to be able to understand certain things. Nothing about you personally, but the mindset you have in this particular context is limiting.

Everyone who has been born is a human individual by default. It is those who have not who we are debating.

I don't know what this is supposed to mean.

Congratulations. Once again you pass the prize for reducing human complexity down to cold biology!

A family that wants to abort them.
And, again, disabled people are born and clearly individuals. There's no slippery joe here

We disagree there. I think you we're human before you we're a person. I think being biologically human is irrelevant. If a chimpanzee manages to learn English and integrated into society, I'd consider it more of a "human being" than an embryo.

You seem to be mixing up "having life experiences" with "experiencing life". Everybody born experiences life except brain dead people, and we regularly remove feeding tubes to end the lives of such people.

Really? Breathing? You are clutching at straws.

Again, an embryo is not a human being but is human. It is not an individual since it is not a human being as in ENGLISH definition.

Two individuals.

in order to be human biologically, you must have human dna. if you do not, then you are not human. plain and simple.

oh...because I'm stupid?

and yet, that chimpanzee would still be a chimpanzee, why? dna.
the term person is dependent on being human and yet you disregard that?

does not matter. they are still a human being and a person.

a human is a human being.

Ok, but they share the same DNA and the same body. What makes them individual people?

____________________________________

I'll respond w/ a more ... well with an actual answer/response. but I must ask...
whats up with the line?

Brain starts to shut down after 10-15 seconds of no oxygen. the cells start to become damaged and die soon after that.


Humanity =
The human race; human beings collectively.
The fact or condition of being human; human nature

if some how being apart of the human species does not qualify a person as being a part of the human race...there is something wrong in such a statement.
there may be more to humanity, but it requires one to be human from the start.

it makes everyone equal. no one is ahead or above anyone else. there is no Aryan or superior race. no quality above others.

you are not a person because of your intelligence, otherwise it may be argued that someone is not a person because of their lack of intelligence. that is not equality.

the special part about life, however - is existence.

Ad hominem = Attacking an opponent's motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain.
you attacked the character of the scientist(s)/people who posted the topics on the web page. since then you have not mentioned how embryology may suggest that the embryo is not human.


1. "human being" being subjective would mean that I as well as you would be correct. Likewise you just stated that the nazi's are correct and justified in killing Jews. that's pretty jacked up.
subjective=Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.
opposing definitions of the phrase "human being" can not be correct. it is only based on science. nothing in science has ever declared or expresses that we are humans because of our minds.

2. History shows that people have ignored science and made up their own 'evidence' in order to do as they please.

Human beings are homo sapiens. the word human is synonyms with homo sapien.


they are still a human being though. you can not be less of something you already are. it is biologically impossible.



Where are you getting this from? I never said a blueprint is a building, nor have I said dna is a person. I said dna makes a you human and therefore you are human. you are human only because of dna

what do you set as value?

First off again, I a am aware the cells begin to die after an acute lack of oxygen, however please tell me you see the difference between your friend who is still alive but was temporarily dead and a corpse whose brain has been dead long enough that even if somehow you were able to start up the rest of the body the mind would be gone.

I didn't say the nazis were correct or justified I said that it is subjective, because as proven by this thread different people think different things are acceptable. I obviously think it was wrong, a whole branch of my family died in the holocaust, I do not however think there is an objective right or wrong, as proven by history individuals and society to a large part decide what is right and wrong, you just need to look at any of the things that were thought ok to do and are now considered evil or wrong

I think before we go any further we need to stop and discuss terminology. Yes human DNA is all you really need to be a part of you species. However when talking about the collection of emotions, memories, the mind, etc the name I chose to give all that extra stuff is human being or personhood. If you want to give it another name say so, I'm not particularly bothered as long as we agree on the terminology, because I place very little value on something purely because it shares the majority of my genome, it is the extra stuff that makes that thing a 'person' that I value. So for clarity's sake I don't really care if something shares most of my genome, monkeys share almost as much of it, in fact and mamal shares most of it, and you have to go quite a way away from homo sapiens before you find species that are that different genetically. DNA is just a sequence of base pairs arranged in triplets. We can even map out the genome and print it out on paper. If you think all that a person is can be printed out on paper then you and I have a fundamental disagreement, I think what is important if the extra stuff the mind and personality that make a human a person, or whatever term you decide you want to use

a "human being" is not the same as being "human". One is biological. One is social, or some other word, but it is more than biological.

Ok, but they share the same DNA and the same body. What makes them individual people?

In the case of conjoined twins, a woman only produces a single egg, which does not fully separate after fertilization. The developing embryo starts to split into identical twins during the first few weeks after conception, but stops before the process is complete. The partially separated egg develops into a conjoined fetus.

That is true, but not everything that has human DNA is a human being. It is "human", but not "a human being". Is a severed finger a human being?

If you aren't willing to look at your own point of view, this isn't going to go anywhere. You posted that disabled people would be considered less than a human being in my point of view, and I agreed.

refute

two individuals because they are two organisms.

http://www.umm.edu/conjoined_twins/facts.htm

"being" in its terms, describes an organism. the finger, like other parts of the body, is a part of a human organism which is a human being.

then a person in a wheel chair is less than human. that is what you just admitted to. want to point that out.

ha

I only consider the difference in sense of just died, vs dead for some time.
what happened to my friend is a rarity. normally, no one is "brought back" after that time frame, or at least that which I have heard of.

a human is a person is a human being (who all have personhood). that is how I use the terms for it is in accordance to their definitions.

here is the issue. animals have emotions, they have a sense of personality to them, they have intelligence.

elephants appear to mourn their dead within a family. they will walk in a line and smell/rub the recently dead wit their trunks (unless being hunted of coarse).
some apes can learn to communicate with humans through sign language.
many animals have their own communication patterns.
many animals have better memories than some humans.
bees, wolves, and many more animals have social characteristics to them and live in a social environment.

these things in humans are characteristics. they may describe who a person is and how they act, but it does not make them a person. Our social behavior is unique to our species because of how we develop.

if not, then how might things that transcend species give a special uniqueness or description that (in its definition) is applied and can only apply to one species?

They are from the same fertilised egg, which you consider to be an individual from conception. How does one individual (your fertilised egg) become two individuals? From a biological point of view, one individual cannot morph into two individuals. By your criteria, they have identical DNA in the same shared body, making them the same individual. What discriminates them as two individuals?

In the case of conjoined twins, a woman only produces a single egg, which does not fully separate after fertilization. The developing embryo starts to split into identical twins during the first few weeks after conception, but stops before the process is complete. The partially separated egg develops into a conjoined fetus.

Yes, such that an embryo, like a human finger, is human biological tissue, but has not ever been a human being.

Obviously, I was referring to the braindead people we were discussing.

You posted that disabled people would be considered less than a human being in my point of view, and I agreed.

What, do you think that's a funny word?

Your friend was not dead. You cannot die and come back to life; if that is the case, you weren't dead, because that's the definition of death. Clinical diagnoses used are not "death" but the best way we have to diagnose death

Those things can transcend species.

An ape speaking with sign language is more of a human being than an embryo. The ape is not human, while the embryo is, but the embryo is not a human being, while the ape is.

really?
So what you have is a condition in which one fertilized cell becomes two organism. in humans we call them identical twins.
http://www.baby2see.com/multiples/twins.html
this happens. it does not change two individuals into 1 simply because they are conjoined.

However, you can have chimerism.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_strange-but-true-one-person-born-with-two-sets-of-dna-a-chim_10364937.bc

so if a person is not breathing, have no heart beat, no brain activity, and are legally dead - but you say is not dead. what do you consider dead then?
exactly, so how do they declare you to being a person if an animal, that is not a person, can do the same thing?

do you ever consider what you type before hitting "submit"?
you just contradicted yourself.

the bigger issue is:
in order to be a "human being" you must be human.

an embryo is human, but not a human being because.........................
why?

And you can surely see your dilemma here. You claim that the embryo is an individual on the basis of having different biology to the mother. But the Siamese twins share exactly the same biology. They come from the same cell and are therefore, by your definition, the same individual. However, you also say that they are not the same individual. Which statement do you retract, please?

(The same could be said to a certain extent by your logic about identical twins.)

That isn't what happens when people are legally dead. It is brainstem death where the cortex is not connected to the peripheral nervous system. The brain is still potentially active in this situation.

I think you realize that there is a big difference between being a person and being an animal that can say some things. We have fluent and complex language and emotions, friendships, advanced higher intelligence. You are being deliberately obtuse to protect your point of view.

Ad hominem arguments are for the weak.

You can say that all you like. It doesn't make it true!
Because more than simple biology determines what is important in a human being.

For example, the embryo when put in a social situation....