|
Users viewing this topic:
none
|
|
Login  | |
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/18/2009 10:20:13 PM
|
|
|
todd_t
Posts: 1758
Joined: 6/21/2006
From: The North Woods
Status: offline
|
quote:
One of the reasons for this todd is that fetuses aren't particularly capable of exercizing the vast majority of typical civil rights (speech, lawful assembly, a legal defense, voting, etc), but then again neither are most children up to a certain age - and yet as you note, we ascribe to them, at least in the case of homicide, the most essential right, which is the right to life - and the fact that you do not note the apparent and obvious contradiction in the law surprises me.
In this specific case, at an embryonic stage, clumps of cells have no legal "right" to life.
quote:
Well I actually agree that Christians have been slow on the uptake with regards to IVF and stem cell research, in part because they are rather recent techonologies, and in part because they are often cast as 'live giving' technologies...
Not yet. Stems still need a lot of research as to their capability.
quote:
glossing over the amount of life that is intentionally destroyed in both processes.
There's something you are forgetting, Jack.
In the lab, embryonic stems are created by the egg in question being given a mild electrical pulse to "trick" it into beginning the process of cell division.
A human sperm cell is never introduced. Therefore, the embryos in question can never develop into a fully-formed human being.
< Message edited by todd_t -- 3/18/2009 10:29:26 PM >
_____________________________
Hail Cthulhu
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/18/2009 10:38:08 PM
|
|
|
relady
Posts: 636
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Greater St. Louis Metro
Status: offline
|
quote:
But if you accept my qualification, you're forced to accept the personhood of an embryo. No I'm not. A thing without the capability of thinking or feeling simply does not qualify as a person, human person, personhood, or whatever other semantic game you want to play with the words. A 5-day old embryo simply is not the same as me and does not have the same rights as me, nor should it. And embryo does not contain personhood.
quote:
In the lab, embryonic stems are created by the egg in question being given a mild electrical pulse to "trick" it into beginning the process of cell division.
A human sperm cell is never introduced. Therefore, the embryos in question can never develop into a fully-formed human being. I did not know this. Just more proof (for me) that they aren't people, persons, human beings, or whatever word someone wants to use to describe them in order to make it sound like they are something they aren't.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/18/2009 10:54:51 PM
|
|
|
Jhud
Posts: 3567
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Lake Wobegon
Status: offline
|
You know the whole stem cell thing is getting a little passe'; I mean the deal is done and Obama set the standard promising that we will "harness the power of science to achieve our goals - to preserve our environment and protect our national security; to create the jobs of the future, and live longer, healthier lives." - and so of course those scientists and bioethicists are promoting the next logical step:
Professor Richard Gardner of Oxford University, a renowned expert on human reproduction and an advisor to Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, recently raised the prospect of using organs from aborted fetuses for transplantation into adults. This possibility offers the potential to save or improve the lives of the hundreds of thousands of patients in desperate need of such organs throughout the world, especially the more than 70,000 in the United States waiting for kidneys. While such procedures have never been attempted in humans, research on mice has demonstrated that fetal kidneys develop quickly inside adult animals -- and according to Gardner, fetal-to-adult transplantation is "probably a more realistic technique in dealing with the shortage of kidney donors than others." If aborted fetuses do prove a useful source of organs for transplant, and there is hope to believe that they might, our society may soon have to grapple with the possibility of yet another controversial and startling -- yet potentially beneficial -- phenomenon: a legal market in fetal tissue and organs.
Oh, there may be a few little sticky issues:
Of course, those who believe that life begins at conception will never find such a market desirable. But for those of us, myself included, who sincerely believe that human life begins far later in the growth process, I believe that we have a moral duty to women to give due consideration to the legalization of such a fetal-organ trade. Society should not curtail a woman's economic liberty without a compelling reason any more than it should curtail her reproductive liberty.
But this after all the future we are talking about.
_____________________________
Jack
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
- C.S. Lewis
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/18/2009 10:58:22 PM
|
|
|
solo_soprano23
Posts: 2333
Joined: 4/27/2005
From: I'm a Southern girl
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: todd_t
quote:
One of the reasons for this todd is that fetuses aren't particularly capable of exercizing the vast majority of typical civil rights (speech, lawful assembly, a legal defense, voting, etc), but then again neither are most children up to a certain age - and yet as you note, we ascribe to them, at least in the case of homicide, the most essential right, which is the right to life - and the fact that you do not note the apparent and obvious contradiction in the law surprises me.
In this specific case, at an embryonic stage, clumps of cells have no legal "right" to life.
quote:
Well I actually agree that Christians have been slow on the uptake with regards to IVF and stem cell research, in part because they are rather recent techonologies, and in part because they are often cast as 'live giving' technologies...
Not yet. Stems still need a lot of research as to their capability.
quote:
glossing over the amount of life that is intentionally destroyed in both processes.
There's something you are forgetting, Jack.
In the lab, embryonic stems are created by the egg in question being given a mild electrical pulse to "trick" it into beginning the process of cell division.
A human sperm cell is never introduced. Therefore, the embryos in question can never develop into a fully-formed human being.
They can create lines both ways. Which way are they using/going to use now? Or does it depend?
_____________________________
For God, For Learning, Forever.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/18/2009 11:49:35 PM
|
|
|
Jhud
Posts: 3567
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Lake Wobegon
Status: offline
|
quote:
There's something you are forgetting, Jack.
In the lab, embryonic stems are created by the egg in question being given a mild electrical pulse to "trick" it into beginning the process of cell division.
A human sperm cell is never introduced. Therefore, the embryos in question can never develop into a fully-formed human being.
You do realize what you are incompletely describing is exactly the process used for cloning, right?
_____________________________
Jack
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
- C.S. Lewis
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/19/2009 10:23:21 AM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
No I'm not. A thing without the capability of thinking or feeling simply does not qualify as a person, human person, personhood, or whatever other semantic game you want to play with the words. A 5-day old embryo simply is not the same as me and does not have the same rights as me, nor should it. And embryo does not contain personhood.
First of all, you haven't even argued for your criterion. When I challenged your criterion you didn't want to defend it (because you knew you couldn't) and so you switched to the offensive asking me to defend my view. Now that I have done that and you've seen that you can't defeat it, you want to go back to dogmatically asserting your position, which you haven't argued for.
Anyone can read our interchange and see that what I've said is true.
A person in a coma doesn't have the (functional) capacity of thinking or feeling. (If you take another sense of "capacity" such as "potential" then the embryo obviously does have these "capacities" and so does the person in coma.) So, by your logic, coma victims aren't persons. So why don't we just start harvesting their organs? Furthermore, I can suggest a possible world where we have the technology to put people into a state of supsended animation and then take them out of that state. According to you, once we put them in a suspended state, they aren't persons and once we take them out they are persons. It's also not clear how a sleeping "person" is still a "person" under your view. They certainly don't have the (functional) capacity to think or feel in the same way an awake person does. Are sleeping humans less person? Are they person at all?
Like I said, if you deny my criterion you get caught in absurdities. I also said that if you accept my criterion then you have to say an embryo is a person (to be logically consistent)... of course, to this you have simply replied "No I'm not." Honestly, Relady, I ask you to honestly assess: Is this how a non-myopic person argues? Do they just make contradictions ("No I'm not") and then go back to their dogmatic assertions?
It's extremely clear to me and to anyone else who understands the debate at this point that you either (A) have no idea about what you're arguing and the implicaitons involved or (B) are just hoping to cover your bad argument with dogmatic contradiction.
Whether you're doing (A) or (B), you need to be rebuked for the way you are handling this important issue. You're promoting what (for sake of arugment) "may" be the murder of a person and yet you clearly don't have any warrant for your support of that murder. How are you any different than the Christians that supported Hitler's mudering of Jews? Even if you were right, it's clear at the point that you don't know why.
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/19/2009 9:25:59 PM
|
|
|
todd_t
Posts: 1758
Joined: 6/21/2006
From: The North Woods
Status: offline
|
quote:
You do realize what you are incompletely describing is exactly the process used for cloning, right?
No, I'm not.
I repeat: fully-formed humans can not be created or cloned in a lab via the process I described. The genetic information required is incomplete.
Although it is my hope that one day via cloning technology that healthy human organs can perhaps be regenerated using stems - organs which can be used to save lives of people who would otherwise have to wait on a donor list.
But I think that's a long way off.
_____________________________
Hail Cthulhu
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/19/2009 10:35:51 PM
|
|
|
lightshineon
Posts: 1379
Joined: 4/11/2005
Status: offline
|
I just feel that, all this science is to big for me. I do know that there is right in God's eyes and wrong. This is not a right thing IMHO to do, in God's eyes. It just reeks of abuse, fraud, and using someone else for selfish desires. I know that Jesus himself will judge us all one day, and I will have things to account for, and people defending this worldwide, and in the gov need to make sure that this is ok. This has never been proven to work, and it just seems why do it?
_____________________________
Remember, whenever you have pearls, there are always plenty of pigs nearby who would be glad to step on them.
F.T., 2007
Be sure you vote for those, whose views you want your children to emulate.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 2:20:55 AM
|
|
|
relady
Posts: 636
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Greater St. Louis Metro
Status: offline
|
quote:
Now that I have done that and you've seen that you can't defeat it, you want to go back to dogmatically asserting your position, which you haven't argued for. What is it exactly that you want me to prove? That something that doesn't have a heart, brain or nervous system isn't a person? Or that it can't think, feel or be self aware at that point? You've changed your arugment and definitions so many times I can't even keep up, nor do I have the time or inclination to try. YOu have not proven your assertion, which you made first. I have nothing to prove. You do. And I think taking this fruitless discussion an further would be an exercise in futility. I don't appreciate being insulted and condescended to so I think we are done. My "belief" is that a 5- day old embryo is not a human being or person. Period. Science backs me up. If something cannot think or feel, and is simply a few cells, it may contain the potential for becoming a sentient being but it certainly is not such as yet. I feel the same way about using such embryos for stem cell research as I would feel about using plants.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 9:29:02 AM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
What is it exactly that you want me to prove? That something that doesn't have a heart, brain or nervous system isn't a person?
Yes. That is what you need to prove. I don't know why you think you can just assume your definition of person and then get away with it. I mentioned several posts ago that I could prove the absurdity of your method of argument by assuming my own definition of person and then asking you to prove the contrary. Since you obviously don't get it, here it is: this is my two-legged person criterion:
Anything that doesn't have two legs isn't a person. Prove me wrong.
Or I can destroy your second sentence this way: God is a person. God doesn't have a heart, brain, or nervous system. Ergo, your contention that an embryo isn't a person because it doesn't have a heart, brain, or nervous system is ridiculous.
quote:
Or that it can't think, feel or be self aware at that point?
When you sleep you are not self aware. Ergo, when you sleep "you" are not a person. Since you believe it is okay to kill things that are not persons for research purposes, I can kill you in your sleep for research purposes.
quote:
You've changed your arugment and definitions so many times I can't even keep up, nor do I have the time or inclination to try.
It only looks that way to you because you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about... and apparently you also don't have any idea how to assess a logical argument, or you would have walked away a long time ago. You are the one who is term switching, as I proved in post 312:
quote:
*you* keep switching from "person" to "human." For example, in your first post (248 on page 10), your focus was on the embryo not being a person and "ensouled." In your second post (287 on page), your focus was on the embryo not being a person AND you switched to talking abou the embryo not being a human. I tried to clear this up by talking about human persons (subjects that are both human and person). But you muddied the waters again by just using the term "human" in your fourth post (to me, 300 on page 12). So you made it ambiguous as to whether you meant human persons, which is what I was talking about, humans but not persons, or just persons. Now here in your 5th post, you are just using the term "human" again.
If you think I'm the one changing definitions and arguments, then demonstrate it the way I did in the quote immediately above. Note that I don't make such assertions without backing them up.
quote:
YOu have not proven your assertion, which you made first. I have nothing to prove.
Actually, you jumped into the conversation with these assertions: "Caring about 5 day old embryos that cannot think, feel, or breathe more than humans that are persons without a doubt is just a little disingenouous...I'm fairly certain it happens after there is something to ensoul, say a brain, heart or nervous system."
And you have the audacity to try and shift the burden of proof to me? That's like me walking into the room and saying "I'm fairly certain that a body isn't ensouled till it has two legs." and then later claiming "I have nothing to prove! You have to prove something without two legs is a person!"
quote:
And I think taking this fruitless discussion an further would be an exercise in futility.
Exactly, because your argument has been decimated. It would take a miracle for you to get it off the ground at this point. The only thing you can do at this point is try to save face with cheap rhetorical tactics like you're doing in your latest post.... but it's not going to work.
quote:
I don't appreciate being insulted and condescended to so I think we are done.
I don't appreciate your support of murdering babies with pseudo-rationality and then calling those who would expose that pseudo-rationality as "myopic."
I tried to take it easy on you at first, but when I see someone abandon logic for empty rhetoric so they can save face rather than save lives...
quote:
My "belief" is that a 5- day old embryo is not a human being or person. Period. Science backs me up.
You either didn't go back and do the suggested reading, or you did and are hoping you can just ignore it and other people who read this will believe you. Sorry, but I don't let people off the hook that easy:
quote:
"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]
"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. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[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]
"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]
"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Müller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12}]
"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]
"[A]nimal biologists use the term embryo to describe the single cell stage, the two-cell stage, and all subsequent stages up until a time when recognizable humanlike limbs and facial features begin to appear between six to eight weeks after fertilization....
"[A] number of specialists working in the field of human reproduction have suggested that we stop using the word embryo to describe the developing entity that exists for the first two weeks after fertilization. In its place, they proposed the term pre-embryo....
"I'll let you in on a secret. The term pre-embryo has been embraced wholeheartedly by IVF practitioners for reasons that are political, not scientific. The new term is used to provide the illusion that there is something profoundly different between what we nonmedical biologists still call a six-day-old embryo and what we and everyone else call a sixteen-day-old embryo.
"The term pre-embryo is useful in the political arena -- where decisions are made about whether to allow early embryo (now called pre-embryo) experimentation -- as well as in the confines of a doctor's office, where it can be used to allay moral concerns that might be expressed by IVF patients. 'Don't worry,' a doctor might say, 'it's only pre-embryos that we're manipulating or freezing. They won't turn into real human embryos until after we've put them back into your body.'"
[Silver, Lee M. Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World. New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 39]
So if you think science proves that an embryo is not a human being, please show me those studies. I'm sure the news that the offspring of humans is non-human will be amazing news to biologists... Did you know that Solo_Soprano23? Monkeys have monkeys, frogs have frogs, acorn trees have acorn trees, and humans have ...? non-humans? (Hey, whatever you have to do to save face and support the murder of humans, right?)
Oh, also, if you could provide the scientific studies that prove an embryo isn't a person, that would be great too. Tell you what, if you can give just 1 scientific proof that an embryo isn't a person I'll admit I was wrong and apologize for everything I said. (The fact that you would even make such a claim proves you have no idea what you're talking about.)
quote:
If something cannot think or feel, and is simply a few cells, it may contain the potential for becoming a sentient being but it certainly is not such as yet.
Reductio ad absurdum: When you sleep, you may contain the potential for becoming a sentient being, but you certainly are not "such as yet." (Not sure what "such as yet" means.) When you lapse into coma, you may contain the potential for becoming a sentient being, but you certainly are not "such as yet."
I argued that personhood is contingent upon a thing being of a certain nature (and thereby having a certain potential) but you have denied this and said that personhood is contingent upon a thing functioning in a certain way... In my view, personhood is an essential trait of the subject in question. In your view, personhood is accidental. In my view, the reason you have the potential for rationality, love, hate, murder, is *because* you are a person. In your view, the reason you have the potential for rationality, love, hate, murder, is because ... ?? Whatever it is, it can't be because you are human or because you are a person.
Trouble is, "persons" aren't always, rational or loving or whatever other quality you want to tack on. So in your view, personhood is, like I said, an accidental trait that is gained and lost on a constant basis. In my view, a person can be rational or non-rational. In your view, it's not even clear that some essential thing exists that can be person or non-person. Apparently, you have nothing with an essential nature that can ground other accidental qualities like "loving" or "person."
quote:
I feel the same way about using such embryos for stem cell research as I would feel about using plants.
I feel the same way about using such non-two legged persons for research as I would feel about using you while "you" sleep.
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 10:14:25 AM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
As I was making breakfast my 5 year old nephew showed me a broken watch and said "what is this?" I said "a watch" but it immediately occured to me that, given your understanding of how things are defined, I could have said "I don't know, but if it worked it would be a watch." This is why I said several times that my position is prima facie valid. We don't usually define things merely by their function but by their intention or potential by design.
When you go to Macy's and look at the jewelry counter it doesn't say "Potential watches" it just says "watches". But why? If what Relady and the other pro-ESCR people have to say is prima facie true, then wouldn't it be wrong to call them "watches" since they aren't actually telling time yet? If I jammed it under my door would someone walk by and think "That's a nice looking doorstop" or would they think "why has he jammed that watch under the door?"?
If I started throwing coffee beans into my ceiling fan could I call it be a blender? Would someone walk by and say, "That must be one of those new coffee blenders I heard about Williams and Sonoma" or would they think "why is he throwing coffee beans into his fan?"? So if you're going to say that a subject isn't a person or human just because it isn't functioning in a certain way, you're going to have to provide a pretty good argument.
So far, the best you guys have done is an attempted proof by contradiction that ended up self-destructing and Relady's dogmatic assertions that end up proving too much (God and sleepy bojos aren't persons).
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 10:44:02 AM
|
|
|
Peter_Gunn
Posts: 809
Joined: 6/12/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Credo_ut_Intelligam
So far, the best you guys have done is an attempted proof by contradiction that ended up self-destructing and Relady's dogmatic assertions that end up proving too much (God and sleepy bojos aren't persons).
You'll never get any real answers, much less any proof, from the people that support this stuff...as well as the abortion supporters. If you're lucky, you'll get "opinions". Most of the time, they just ignore you. Logic goes over their heads...and the scripture is simply ignored. They use the lame line "the Bible is silent on that." I personally believe they've either been deceived by the enemy or they don't belong to God. (Sorry...that's just my opinion. See? We all have our opinions.)
Good luck with this. I'm watching to see if it works any better for you than it has for me. 
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 12:54:47 PM
|
|
|
solo_soprano23
Posts: 2333
Joined: 4/27/2005
From: I'm a Southern girl
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: relady
quote:
Now that I have done that and you've seen that you can't defeat it, you want to go back to dogmatically asserting your position, which you haven't argued for. What is it exactly that you want me to prove? That something that doesn't have a heart, brain or nervous system isn't a person? Or that it can't think, feel or be self aware at that point? You've changed your arugment and definitions so many times I can't even keep up, nor do I have the time or inclination to try. YOu have not proven your assertion, which you made first. I have nothing to prove. You do. And I think taking this fruitless discussion an further would be an exercise in futility. I don't appreciate being insulted and condescended to so I think we are done. My "belief" is that a 5- day old embryo is not a human being or person. Period. Science backs me up. If something cannot think or feel, and is simply a few cells, it may contain the potential for becoming a sentient being but it certainly is not such as yet. I feel the same way about using such embryos for stem cell research as I would feel about using plants.
I'm pretty sure you know what's going on here. :)
They just take what they can't do, and turn it around on others. They can't prove when a soul has entered or departed a body, but they won't admit that. They put up a bunch of talk, say it proves this or that, then tell us we can't prove it and proceed to act like they can think and no one else has that ability in the universe :). (NO ONE can PROVE it, on EITHER side-- talk til you're blue in the face.) I just say it's one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, but no one knows until we can ask God personally. I do understand erring on the side of caution, BECAUSE we DON'T know, and that's actually the belief behind personhood=conception to many.
I don't see the need for anyone to get nasty with other people because you and the person disagree though. <shrugs>
_____________________________
For God, For Learning, Forever.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 2:58:02 PM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
I have given a definition of a person and then proved that humans are persons by that definition. If I haven't proved my case or you disagree with my definition, then show how my proof fails or show how my definition is in fault.
But just asserting I haven't proved anything isn't going to get you anywhere. I can just assert that I have proved something. You, Solo_Soprano, haven't interacted with any of the arguments I leveled against your comments or any of the arguments I have set forth on my own side, so you least of all have room to talk. If you think Relady's assertion can be backed by an argument then why don't YOU argue her case for her (since she obviously won't or can't do it herself). If you think my arguments against Relady's assertions have failed, then why don't YOU show how they have failed? Why doesn't Relady show how they fail instead of just reasserting herself?
You claimed your position was informed by or grounded in the Bible, and I challenged you to show me that biblical case: you completely ignored the challenge.
You claimed a human is a person when it is "ensouled" and I challenged you to provide some criterion of how you know this: you ccompletely ignored the challenge.
I gave you a reductio ad absurdum as a defeater to your claim that no one can know when a human is a person (how do I know you're a person): you completely ignored this.
I gave an open challenge for anyone to prove that an embryo is not a person. Blessedinnyc was the only one brave enough to try, and he failed. Relady hasn't done anything more than assert her conclusion. When I challenged it, she ignored the challenges and asked me to show my view. When I showed my view, she just went back to asserting her conclusion.
After I presented my case, I gave an open challenge for anyone to defeat it. No one has attempted it, though Relady has reasserted her concluison.
When this thread was still young, you guys weren't doing anything more than attacking straw-men caricatures of anti-ESCR people and committing the tu-quoque fallacy.
Never in my life have I seen Christians act in such a manner toward any issue, let alone an important one. Your failure to interact with this issue on a rational level, your mockery, and your level of dogmatism are very strange to say the least. If atheists were as stubborn as you people, I dare say we would never see another convert to Christianity.
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 3:27:55 PM
|
|
|
Peter_Gunn
Posts: 809
Joined: 6/12/2008
Status: offline
|
Well said, Credo.
What makes me angry and want "to get nasty with other people" (sic) is when people that claim to be Christians support the tricks and traps of Satan. I know the moderators don't like that kind of talk, but it's the saddest and most infuritating thing in the world to me.
I can imagine (in a very small way) how Jesus must have felt when he cleansed the temple. How sad...how tragic...for the culture to infiltrate His church...and be welcomed! And we know they called Him all sorts of names!
So, we're in the best sort of company, Credo! 
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 3:37:26 PM
|
|
|
relady
Posts: 636
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Greater St. Louis Metro
Status: offline
|
quote:
I'm pretty sure you know what's going on here. :) I do indeed. I cannot any more empirically "prove" my assertion than the other side can actually "prove" theirs. But after doing a bit of research, I'm pretty sure a 5-day old embryo doesn't have a soul yet, not to mention personality, brain, heart, lungs, the ability to think or feel. It's not something that can be debated by the rules of debate and either won or lost by either side.
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 4:05:49 PM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you The Back Peddle:
quote:
I'm fairly certain it happens after there is something to ensoul [post 248]
quote:
Just more proof (for me) that they aren't people [post 327]
quote:
Science backs me up. [post 334]
quote:
I cannot any more empirically "prove" my assertion than the other side can actually "prove" theirs. [post 341]
Need I say more?
Well, yes... after admitting that she can't prove her position (empirically? how about logically?) she states there is research that I would assume supports her belief. Well, what is this research? Where is it? It's just double speak: I can't warrant my belief but I have some warrant for my belief. This way she has her bases covered. She can avoid demonstrating the truth of her claims while claiming they are based on some sort of evidence.
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 4:58:07 PM
|
|
|
Ross.Lang
Posts: 472
Joined: 1/28/2009
Status: offline
|
I'm kind of puzzled by everything that's been said here. What is it that makes an embryo different than either an egg or sperm separately, or something else that needs the rest of the body to stay alive, like a hand or foot?
-Ross
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 5:00:35 PM
|
|
|
Jhud
Posts: 3567
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Lake Wobegon
Status: offline
|
quote:
They just take what they can't do, and turn it around on others. They can't prove when a soul has entered or departed a body, but they won't admit that. They put up a bunch of talk, say it proves this or that, then tell us we can't prove it and proceed to act like they can think and no one else has that ability in the universe :). (NO ONE can PROVE it, on EITHER side-- talk til you're blue in the face.) I just say it's one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, but no one knows until we can ask God personally. I do understand erring on the side of caution, BECAUSE we DON'T know, and that's actually the belief behind personhood=conception to many.
I have said this like fifty times, but I will try one more time and hope it sticks - but I will put it in as plain a language as I can this time.
If you don't know when a human becomes a person, and there is any possibility that the human in question is a person, then you must err on the side of caution, not indifference - and the fact that everyone on the pro-stem cell/abortion side of the equation admits they don't know when this happens means they are admitting they could be advocating murder, end of story.
_____________________________
Jack
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
- C.S. Lewis
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 5:10:49 PM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ross.Lang
What is it that makes an embryo different than either an egg or sperm separately, or something else that needs the rest of the body to stay alive, like a hand or foot?
Read up on it. You could start with the quotes I provided above. For example, this one: "...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).
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 5:11:15 PM
|
|
|
Jhud
Posts: 3567
Joined: 4/11/2005
From: Lake Wobegon
Status: offline
|
quote:
I'm kind of puzzled by everything that's been said here. What is it that makes an embryo different than either an egg or sperm separately, or something else that needs the rest of the body to stay alive, like a hand or foot?
Well last I checked, several things separate an embryo fron an egg and a sperm. Mitosis, 23 chromosomes, differentiated cells, being a step in the process in the development of human life, etc.
_____________________________
Jack
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
- C.S. Lewis
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 7:25:38 PM
|
|
|
todd_t
Posts: 1758
Joined: 6/21/2006
From: The North Woods
Status: offline
|
quote:
Mitosis, 23 chromosomes, differentiated cells, being a step in the process in the development of human life, etc.
A step, yes, but extraction of stems can (once again) be done on embryos which can never fully develop into a fully-formed human.
A semi-related question, Jack: considering how many people die each year awaiting organs on donor lists, could you morally support the use of cloning were it used to create healthy new livers, kidneys, colon linings, heart tissue, et al (organs only, not whole bodies), and save lives?
quote:
If you don't know when a human becomes a person, and there is any possibility that the human in question is a person, then you must err on the side of caution, not indifference - and the fact that everyone on the pro-stem cell/abortion side of the equation admits they don't know when this happens means they are admitting they could be advocating murder, end of story.
Well, considering that a sperm is not needed to create a basic embryo for stem extraction, it's not murder at all. It's using basic biological components in an effort to perhaps one day treat diseases and conditions which are currently untreatable.
_____________________________
Hail Cthulhu
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 7:26:23 PM
|
|
|
Ross.Lang
Posts: 472
Joined: 1/28/2009
Status: offline
|
No, but I mean, embryos undergo cellular division and have 50% different chromosomal material than the parent. Sperm also has 50% different chromosomal material than the parent (in this case, 50% less). Also, if you cut them off from the body, they shrivel and die, just like an embryo would. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand why sexual intercourse is too big a barrier to cross when considering what is and is not a future legal person in the USA (so sperm and eggs aren't future persons that should be protected), but hundreds of thousands of calories, about 400 gallons of water, and extensive bodily matrices, the slightest alteration to which would cause the instant death of the embryo, is not seen to be too large a gap in determining that something is a future legal person. I can turn a potential sperm into a potential person with my spouse in about 20 minutes, but it takes 9 months and a ton of resources to turn the potential of an embryo into a newborn.
It seems that the groundwork for a genetically distinct human being is formed at conception. That's fine, but it also seems to me that for someone to be a separate legal human being, the diet of a separate human being shouldn't mater. However, this is not the case. Dieting to lose weight, exercise, failure to increase calories and water intake, and failure to take prenatal vitamins on the part of the mother can all result in the new person's death. How can these perfectly legal activities result in the death of a person if that person is completely distinct from the mother? I mean, abortion is wrong, but what if a woman fasted during pregnancy, certainly resulting in the death of her unborn child? How can you say that's murder? No person I know would be killed by the fasting of another person, and if you tried to say in court that your wife was killed because your next door neighbor was being unhealthy (or too healthy), it would never hold up. Isn't death in the case of fasting just the working out of a separate embryonic potentiality, the potential of the embryo to be non-viable under certain conditions? If the mother can't afford food, and the baby is still-born, isn't that just as valid a potential for the embryo as if it lived (valid as in possible, not moral)? I think we need to consider a special category for the unborn, as distinct but also joined to the mother, and in dire need of her. I value life, but the entire line of reasoning behind the "potential legal person" argument makes it deliberately difficult to get the informed public behind my point of view. Yes, the genetic ground work is there, yes it develops sensory organs very early, but until you can sustain your own life apart from a 100% controlled homeostatic environment, you're not on the same level as a functional adult human being. This is why its legal in this country to have an abortion, and why it's legal to pull the plug on someone who is brain dead, but it's not legal to starve your child to death, and not legal to help someone commit suicide. If we want to get our point across (and have consistent and just law), we need to stop offending the logic of pro-choice people by saying that something you can mouth pipette into a 1mm glass rod must be viewed as indistinguishable from a 20 year old man or woman. All that's needed to foster incredulity is a connection to Wikipedia and eyes. Human beings define our own legal reality. Can't we love the unborn as they are, without trying to pound them into a definition they clearly don't fit? Can't a person still be a person as a lesser member of the body of Christ, without trying to pretend that the foot (or embryo) can say to the head (or mother), "I don't need you!" Isn't loving the helpless, the less in every possible way, what Christianity is about?
-Ross
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/20/2009 9:08:00 PM
|
|
|
Credo_ut_Intelligam
Posts: 326
Joined: 3/8/2008
Status: offline
|
quote:
No, but I mean, embryos undergo cellular division and have 50% different chromosomal material than the parent. Sperm also has 50% different chromosomal material than the parent (in this case, 50% less).
If that's how you want to play it then we can find analogies for anything. You are like a monkey in that you have two eyes, two ears, two legs, etc... In fact, I could build a very strong argument that you have more in common with a monkey than a zygote has in common with a sperm.
quote:
Also, if you cut them off from the body, they shrivel and die, just like an embryo would.
If I toss you into the sun, you shrivel and die, just like a monkey would.
quote:
I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand why sexual intercourse is too big a barrier to cross when considering what is and is not a future legal person in the USA (so sperm and eggs aren't future persons that should be protected), but hundreds of thousands of calories, about 400 gallons of water, and extensive bodily matrices, the slightest alteration to which would cause the instant death of the embryo, is not seen to be too large a gap in determining that something is a future legal person.
I'm not sure I understand you here. Could you restate this?
quote:
I can turn a potential sperm into a potential person with my spouse in about 20 minutes, but it takes 9 months and a ton of resources to turn the potential of an embryo into a newborn.
A potential sperm can't turn into anything but an actual sperm, which then has the potential, when united with an egg, to cause a new human to come into existence. An embryo is a human with all the potentialities that other humans have.
quote:
It seems that the groundwork for a genetically distinct human being is formed at conception.
Actually, a distinct human being is formed at conception not the "groundwork for..." An embryo has it's own complete human genome, is a unified organism, and directs itself... as I've pointed out before. There is nothing left for it to do but continue to develop, just like a 5 year old boy continues to develop.
quote:
That's fine, but it also seems to me that for someone to be a separate legal human being, the diet of a separate human being shouldn't mater.
I'm actually glad to see the viability argument... I was wondering when someone would bring it up and this other stuff was just getting boring. I'll get to it in a minute.
quote:
How can these perfectly legal activities result in the death of a person if that person is completely distinct from the mother?
There are not legal activities *as such*. The situation strongly dictates the legality. For example, I could try to make something sound absurd by saying "how could driving my car, a perfectly legal activity, be considered wrong?" Well, that depends. Was I driving drunk? Was I driving on the sidewalk?
quote:
I mean, abortion is wrong, but what if a woman fasted during pregnancy, certainly resulting in the death of her unborn child?
Like I said, depends on the situation. Did the woman fast in order to cause the death of the child? Did she know she was pregnant? Was her fast voluntary? And we could add in even more complex variables. For example, sex is an act that everyone knows is designed (in part, at least) for the production of offspring. So if a woman is going to fast for 40 days she should be responsible and consider whether she might be or become pregnant from having sex.
All of this raises interesting questions of the parent's level of moral culpability, but it says nothing about whether the embryo is a person with a right to life.
quote:
How can you say that's murder?
That depends... if she did it with the intent to kill her child, that seems to be a clear case of murder. If she didn't know she was pregnant, it's not clear. Maybe in the latter case it isn't murder, but, again, irrelevant to embryo's status as a person with a right to life. Let's say some terrorist plants a bomb in your computer and he plants the bomb's triggering mechanism in my computer, unbeknownst to us. The trigger is such that when I turn on my computer while you are sitting at your computer, it blows up, killing you. In this case, a perfectly legal and normal action (me turning on my computer) results in your death. Yet how can you say I murdered you? I don't think you can. But this doesn't prove you aren't a person with the same right to life as any other person.
quote:
No person I know would be killed by the fasting of another person, and if you tried to say in court that your wife was killed because your next door neighbor was being unhealthy (or too healthy), it would never hold up.
This is question begging. An 8 month old fetus can be killed by another person fasting. Are you saying an 8 month old fetus isn't a person *because* it can be killed in this manner? That's not a very good argument.
quote:
Isn't death in the case of fasting just the working out of a separate embryonic potentiality, the potential of the embryo to be non-viable under certain conditions?
Well, of course, any living thing has the potential to become a non-living thing. You have the potential to be non-viable under certain conditions too. For example, if I threw you to the moon without a spacesuit. I don't see how this relates to your personhood or moral rights.
quote:
I think we need to consider a special category for the unborn, as distinct but also joined to the mother, and in dire need of her.
I don't see how anything you've said supports this conclusion. I've demonstrated that you are viable too, just in different ways than an embryo or fetus. An embryo needs another person to live until about 22 weeks after birth: the mother. After that it, and everyone else, requires other persons and things to live. Since you are viable just like a fetus, maybe we need a special category for you.
quote:
I value life, but the entire line of reasoning behind the "potential legal person" argument makes it deliberately difficult to get the informed public behind my point of view.
I don't know what you're talking about here. I haven't said anything about embryos or fetuses being "potential legal persons." They are persons who have natural potentialities as such, and as such *should* be protected under law. Perhaps though you are referring to something Jack said.
quote:
until you can sustain your own life apart from a 100% controlled homeostatic environment, you're not on the same level as a functional adult human being.
Well this is what you need to argue for, but I don't see that you've done it. I agree that you are not on the same *developmental* level as an adult human being... but so what? Neither is a 7 year old... neither is a 14 year old. I don't see the logical connection between your level of development and your right to life. You'll have to walk me through it.
quote:
we need to stop offending the logic of pro-choice people by saying that something you can mouth pipette into a 1mm glass rod must be viewed as indistinguishable from a 20 year old man or woman.
What does the subject's size have to do with it? Is it inconceivable that Tom Thumb is a person in your worldview? What about, midgets? Are they less person or do they have less rights to life? Right now, you're offending my logic, because your point about it having different rights based on it's *size* seems completely irrational to me.
quote:
All that's needed to foster incredulity is a connection to Wikipedia and eyes.
All that's needed to shrug off that incredulity is a brain and some logic 101.
quote:
Can't we love the unborn as they are, without trying to pound them into a definition they clearly don't fit?
And what definition would that be?
Now as far as the viability argument goes, it is usually used by pro-choicers to say that a human isn't a person because it isn't viable. The problems with this are the same as what Relady was trying to argue: it grounds personhood in an accidental property. In this case, the environment. Personhood needs to be an essential property. You'll wind up with all sorts of problems if you make it accidental. My having two eyes is accidental. If you take one away, it would seem odd to say anything about me has essentially changed. I still have my identity. But if you take way my personhood, "I" have essentially changed. My identity has changed. So any argument, such as the viability argument, which defines personhood in terms of accidental properties isn't going to work. Reductio ad absurdum, infants aren't viable (ceteris paribus) till about 22 weeks. Yet I don't know anyone who would have their logic offended by saying that a 21 week old infant is a human person with all the rights to life of other persons.
Ceteris paribus, a person has rights because he or she is a person, not because it has certain functional capacities or because it can live under certain conditions. If you want to use the viability argument to say that some persons have less rights than other persons, then your going to have to come up with a pretty good argument. If I stick a retarded person and Robinson Caruso in a jungle, I'm pretty sure the retarded person will be a lot less viable than Caruso... but I don't see why anyone should accept the claim that he therefore has less right to life.
_____________________________
"My whole hope is in thy exceeding great mercy--and that alone. Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt." - Augustine
|
|
|
|
|
RE: Obama to reverse restrictions on stem cell work - 3/21/2009 12:22:25 AM
|
|
|
Ross.Lang
Posts: 472
Joined: 1/28/2009
Status: offline
|
I think part of your problem is that you don't realize to what a great degree life itself is an accidental property. What makes something alive? That it moves? So does a car. That it circulates fluid in such a way as to engender continued operation? So does a car. That it communicates in specific ways based on its experience? So does a car (engine codes). Does it need to reproduce itself? So does a computer virus. None of these things are alive, yet when we look at something, we have no problem cutting through the accidental properties to say that something is alive or not alive, a human or not a human. The same is true with people. Part of what you're struggling against here is that nobody who sees this:
Embryo
Thinks this:
Human
no matter how hard they try. It's possible to make a moral comparison, but it strains against the same inexplicable logic that instantly recognizes 2000 pounds of Detroit steel as dead but 2000 pounds of elephant as alive. Up close, one is identifiable, based on eons of genetic predisposition, as a legal member of the species while the other looks, frankly, like a small blob of snot, or waterborne detritus. Not only that, but no matter how many lines are drawn between open air and hard vacuum, they're not the same. The embryo is an appendage of the mother, in the same way that her foot is. Any attempt to define it otherwise runs into an ontological problem: it is the height of contradiction to say that an embryo is a separate human being but also that a mother's regulation of her own homeostasis (note that a mother's fasting, if she continues to feed her newborn, will not kill the newborn, but her own fasting, without regard for the presence or absence of the embryo, will kill the embryo) is prevented by law because she carries an embryo. The government cannot force a woman to eat, and if she does not eat, they cannot charge her with the death of her embryo, anymore than they can the breaking of her bones or the loss of her limbs. This is because the embryo is part of the same closed-circuit biological system as a mother, and therefore neither really a person, nor really human. Its an embryo, and it needs to be loved and cared for as such, not by trying to pretend its something else.
-Ross
|
|
|
|
 New Messages |
 No New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/ New Messages |
 Hot Topic w/o New Messages |
 Locked w/ New Messages |
 Locked w/o New Messages |
|
 Post New Thread
Reply to Message
Post New Poll
Submit Vote
Delete My Own Post
Delete My Own Thread
Rate Posts |
|
|
Forum Tools
Printable Version
