Trudy
New Member
Posts: 348
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Post by Trudy on May 28, 2021 23:45:52 GMT -5
I'm sure wars have been started over this question so I'm going to practice being Switzerland.
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Life
May 29, 2021 8:51:57 GMT -5
Libby likes this
Post by Kim on May 29, 2021 8:51:57 GMT -5
So far no-one has created any issues but I am watching and I know my "partners in crime" are watching just as closely.
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Rosie
Teen Member
Step out of the sun if you keep getting burned
Posts: 8,018
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Life
May 29, 2021 10:03:38 GMT -5
Post by Rosie on May 29, 2021 10:03:38 GMT -5
I don't think were going to fight here ok? Something I think that isn't about what Tati asked is maybe if we don't think abortion is ok then shouldn't we be working to make it so people don't got to feel like there is no other real choice? Like make sure nobody goes hungry or has to get sick but not be able to go to the doctor. You know change things like that before we go saying abortion is bad cause if we don't make sure that a baby is took care of then aren't we sort of guilty of it happening to?
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Life
May 29, 2021 17:01:25 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 29, 2021 17:01:25 GMT -5
By life you mean "human" life, I take it? Well, as a good Catholic I will support your teacher: Human life starts at conception. Why is that? You're referring to a "clump of cells". These cells are dividing and thereby proliferating. As movement and procreation is a characteristic property of life you cannot possibly deny even the smallest morula the attribute "alive". And as far as I can ascertain, no one contests that. And if you were to contend that it isn't life you would run into a bunch of logical conclusions that shouldn't be drawn light-heartedly. Now the question remains if this life is not adventitious to the human body it is growing in, but is in fact "human". At first blush it would be folly to discern anything human in it, for obvious reasons: No head, no feet, no hands, not even the organs our species preens itself on like the brain. But this superficial impression, however, is deceiving. On a sub-molecular level the genetic code will always reveal that the cells are in fact appertaining to our species. So even the clump of cells is in a biological sense part of the homo sapiens species. Furthermore, life is not only a state of momentary being, but also describes a span in time. Therefore I would argue that life is "potential". If it is potential, the status of the morula can be gauged by what it is able to develop into, which is in most cases a human being like you and I. As this development is continuous and without any intermediary facilitations, the clump of cells at the very beginning and the human being at the end of this process are one and the same. If the latter is human the former must be human too. In other words: Postnatal extra-uterine existence is no more human life than prenatal uterine existence. Those are good points so maybe the question, when does life being isn't the correct question at all. Maybe we should judge this by when a life becomes sentinent? Plants are alive but we don't hesitate to kill weeds in order for the better plants to thrive or to make footpath. How is that clump of cells different from a young plant or a weed? Excellent! Rephrasing questions is pivotal in getting better answers. And your questions are very smart. I read your cascade of questions thus and I hope my interpretation is correct: How would a clump of human cells be different from a young plant or a weed, if solely "being alive" already meant to ascribe something an ethically considerable value? Therefore you adduce "sentience" as a property of some lifeforms that allows us to determine in a manner of speaking the "quality" of this life. Only if life were sentient, one could complete your argument, this life could be regarded as considerable enough to talk about it in a discussion such as this. As the human morula isn't sentient, it wouldn't be different from a plant which is equally not sentient. (And believe it or not, this used to be Christian theology and doctrine in the Aristotelian tradition until St. Thomas Aquinas! No kidding.) If this is the argument, it's very clever. For if one holds that "life is life", it is hard to rebut. The argument can only work out, though, if one doesn't give any credit to that insentient "clump of cells" being clearly and demonstrably a potential member of the human species. The plant doesn't have the chance of ever growing sentient, while the morula's whole raison d'ĂȘtre is to grow first sentient and then conscious. At this point problems of severe moral implications would arise concerning (born) persons, who fall behind this threshold of life. There are extreme cases of persons who are alive, but not in fact sentient. Sometimes they recuperate, sometimes they don't. But either way, one wouldn't, I'd surmise, abrogate their personhood while they're not sentient (or would one? it's not like one couldn't intelligently militate in favor of it). So this can only pan out if being human (in the broadest sense) has no general value in itself, independent of higher biological functions like sentience or consciousness. Although there are indeed learned people who would argue just that, like for example your Australian compatriot Peter Singer who even wrote an infamous and controversial yet intelligent book about it that I had to read in school to "study the enemy" or something like that.
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Life
May 29, 2021 18:50:34 GMT -5
Post by Tatiana on May 29, 2021 18:50:34 GMT -5
I think I might agree with Peter Singer. That will make my mum wish for a speedy death because she has no use for him at all. I suppose it's true that life would begin with that clump of cells because even a parasite as Scarlette called it, is a lifeform. I like that word personhood. If we give that clump of cells the same value as we do an actual viable fetus then wouldn't it follow that we would have to value sperm or an egg because of it's potential to be life? Should it become as important as the life that is sentinent? If we value everything the same then don't we run a risk of valuing nothing?
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Post by Jennifer on May 29, 2021 19:46:30 GMT -5
I called it a parasite, not Scarlette.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Life
May 30, 2021 16:50:47 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on May 30, 2021 16:50:47 GMT -5
I think I might agree with Peter Singer. That will make my mum wish for a speedy death because she has no use for him at all. I suppose it's true that life would begin with that clump of cells because even a parasite as Scarlette called it, is a lifeform. I like that word personhood. If we give that clump of cells the same value as we do an actual viable fetus then wouldn't it follow that we would have to value sperm or an egg because of it's potential to be life? Should it become as important as the life that is sentinent? If we value everything the same then don't we run a risk of valuing nothing? Well, then Mr Singer has one smart young lady more in his ranks. I agree with your mom, I really don't like his ideas either, although sometimes he was treated outright unfairly, especially in this country. Now you've trespassed into the realm of the ethics. "Person" and "Personhood", which defines the status of a being as a person, are ultimately ethical concepts, for they entail a notion of (human) dignity. Ethics, as you may have learned in school, are different from mere morals in that they reflect on the morality of moral behavior. This means they try to understand what is morally right or wrong in a systematic way, whilst morals are merely a set of beliefs that draw on feelings, authorities or other institutions that are deemed morally relevant. So an ethical argument can be judged by its consistency. While the sperm or the ovum do have a potential for life in the broadest sense, they can't produce life unless they combine to form a single cell. On their own they don't evolve into life. So the conclusion that they'd have to be valued the same as the morula is not necessarily to be drawn. But you're right in that in a strict reading of Catholic dogmatic precepts they would have the same value for this very reason. Brass tacks: You like the word personhood you say, which is an ethical concept as we've seen, and you implicitly attribute it to the sentient viable fetus. This means that you also imply that a certain quality is needed before human life is endowed with unalienable moral rights. If you posit that this quality be sentience, there is no reason why other sentient species like animals shouldn't be endowed with the same rights as humans. Few people will go so far, not even Mr Singer. So if sentience conferred personhood to a being, your dog would end up being a person, becoming a citizen and voting for Scott Morrison. And what about born people who in extreme cases aren't sentient? Now you are in the middle of the problem of gradation. If the mere fact that a life is human isn't enough, you're forced to push the line farther and farther. For what is it that makes a human "person" unique and unparalleled in the animal kingdom? To Mr Singer the answer is clear: being a moral being. We said "person" is an ethical concept. So only someone who is capable of ethical/moral behavior can be a person. This entails consciousness, self-awareness, and the ability to express oneself. To Mr Singer as a utilitarian ethicist this means a being who is able to have preferences and express these preferences and act on them in a moral sense. So anyone who isn't capable of that, in his opinion lacks personhood. The consequences of this stance are evident: A fetus cannot be a person. But there are also a lot of born people who wouldn't be considered persons in this sense, like newborns or certain mentally disabled people. That's what Singer is infamous for. Some would say that's immoral, but it most certainly isn't unethical!
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Life
May 30, 2021 18:58:29 GMT -5
Post by charity on May 30, 2021 18:58:29 GMT -5
Isn't the difference between a dog and a human is the human was made in the image of God but the dog wasn't?
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