Posted on 11/09/2001 10:54:51 AM PST by Asmodeus
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:49:31 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
November 9, 2001 Anthrax Threats Mass Mailed to Abortion Clinics By MEGAN GARVEY, TIMES STAFF WRITER Security: More than 200 facilities receive FedEx packages, while more are intercepted en route to West Coast.
WASHINGTON -- FedEx packages containing a white powder and the threat: "This contains anthrax. You're going to die," arrived Thursday morning at more than 200 abortion clinics in the Midwest and along the East Coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
\ I guess you embrace the no-soul theory as well.
Sending or threatening to send anthrax spores to any person or organization is wrong on all counts and should be punished severely. But this anthrax crap could just as easily be the work of an anti-God squad trying to discredit the pro-life contingent. That would fit right in with the pro-abortion squad's other deceptive, cynical, death-justifying propaganda practices.
Yes I have justified…..your not reading everything are you? LOL you make all these claims and provide no proof. I provide proof and you won’t look at it. Sperm and Egg are a part of a person, that is a fact. Fertilized Sperm and Egg are a Persom….please read before you make statements.
I don't participate in this violence, but it is my right not to object. In fact, I cheer it on!
The question as to when a human person begins is a philosophical question — not a scientific question. I will not go into great detail here,39 but "personhood" begins when the human being begins — at fertilization. But since many of the current popular "personhood" claims in bioethics are also based on mythological science, it would be useful to just look very briefly at these philosophical (or sometimes, theological) arguments simply for scientific accuracy as well.
Philosophically, virtually any claim for so-called "delayed personhood" — that is, "personhood" does not start until some point after fertilization — involves the theoretical disaster of accepting that the idea or concept of a mind/body split has any correlate or reflects the real world. Historically this problem was simply the consequence of wrong-headed thinking about reality, and was/is totally indefensible. It was abandoned with great embarrassment after Plato's time (even by Plato himself in his Parmenides!), but unfortunately resurfaces from time to time, e.g., as with Descartes in his Meditations, and now again with contemporary bioethics.40 And as in the question of when a human being begins, if the science used to ground these philosophical "personhood" arguments is incorrect, the conclusions of these arguments (which are based on that incorrect science) are also incorrect and invalid.
Fact 12: The particular argument in Myth 12 is also made by McCormick and Grobstein (and their numerous followers). It is based on their biological claim that the "pre-embryo" is not a developmental individual, and therefore not a person, until after 14 days when twinning can no longer take place. However, it has already been scientifically demonstrated here that there is no such thing as a "pre-embryo," and that in fact the embryo begins as a "developmental individual" at fertilization. Furthermore, twinning can take place after 14 days. Thus simply on the level of science, the philosophical claim of "personhood" advanced by these bioethicists is invalid and indefensible.
Fact 13: Such claims are all pure mental speculation, the product of imposing philosophical (or theological) concepts on the scientific data, and have no scientific evidence to back them up. As the well-known neurological researcher D. Gareth Jones has succinctly put it, the parallelism between "brain death" and "brain birth" is scientifically invalid. "Brain death" is the gradual or rapid cessation of the functions of a brain. "Brain birth" is the very gradual acquisition of the functions of a developing neural system. This developing neural system is not a brain. He questions, in fact, the entire assumption and asks what neurological reasons there might be for concluding that an incapacity for consciousness becomes a capacity for consciousness once this point is passed. Jones continues that the alleged symmetry is not as strong as is sometimes assumed, and that it has yet to be provided with a firm biological base.41
Myth 14: "A 'person' is defined in terms of the active exercising of 'rational attributes' (e.g., thinking, willing, choosing, self-consciousness, relating to the world around one, etc.), and/or the active exercising of 'sentience' (e.g., the feeling of pain and pleasure)."
Fact 14: Again, these are philosophical terms or concepts, which have been illegitimately imposed on the scientific data. The scientific fact is that the brain, which is supposed to be the physiological support for both "rational attributes" and "sentience," is not actually completely developed until young adulthood. Quoting Moore:
"Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth) periods, birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment. Development does not stop at birth. Important changes, in addition to growth, occur after birth (e.g., development of teeth and female breasts). The brain triples in weight between birth and 16 years; most developmental changes are completed by the age of 25."42 (Emphasis added.)
One should also consider simply the logical — and very real — consequences if a "person" is defined only in terms of the actual exercising of "rational attributes" or of "sentience." What would this mean for the following list of adult human beings with diminished "rational attributes": e.g., the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, the depressed elderly, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients, drug addicts, alcoholics — and for those with diminished "sentience," e.g., the comatose, patients in a "vegetative state," paraplegics, and other paralyzed and disabled patients, diabetics or other patients with nerve or brain damage, etc.? Would they then be considered as only human beings but not also as human persons? Would that mean that they would not have the same ethical and legal rights and protections as those adult human beings who are considered as persons? Is there really such a "split" between a human being and a human person?
In fact, this is the position of bioethics writers such as the Australian animal rights philosopher Peter Singer,43 the recently appointed Director of the Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Singer argues that the higher primates, e.g., dogs, pigs, apes, monkeys, are persons — but that some human beings, e.g., even normal human infants, and disabled human adults, are not persons. Fellow bioethicist Norman Fost actually considers "cognitively impaired" adult human beings as "brain dead." Philosopher/bioethicist R.G. Frey has also published that many of the adult human beings on the above list are not "persons," and suggests that they be substituted for the higher primates who are "persons" in purely destructive experimental research.44 The list goes on.
IV. Conclusions
Ideas do have concrete consequences — not only in one's personal life, but also in the formulation of public policies. And once a definition is accepted in one public policy, the logical extensions of it can then be applied, invalidly, in many other policies, even if they are not dealing with the same exact issue — as happens frequently in bioethics. Thus, the definitions of "human being" and of "person" that have been concretized in the abortion debates have been transferred to several other areas, e.g., human embryo research, cloning, stem cell research, the formation of chimeras, the use of abortifacients — even to the issues of brain death, brain birth, organ transplantation, the removal of food and hydration, and research with the mentally ill or the disabled. But neither private choices nor public policies should ever incorporate unsound or inaccurate science. What I have tried to indicate is that in these current discussions, individual choices and public policies have been based on "scientific" myth, rather than on objective scientific facts.
Yes your right it is an unproven philosophical assumption…. based on your unproven philosophical assumption. You make claims you cannot prove; I am left with working inside your self impose unproven philosophical assumptions. Stay within the facts and you won’t get into trouble. Not your own personnel beliefs on Re-incarnation and philosophical platitudes.
Human life began thousands of years ago and has been a continuum ever since. If you do not accept that as having been proved then you really are out there in deep fantasyland
That is funny. You side step the questions completely, then make accusations you can’t prove. You are a joke and I believe your fellows would be ashamed of your representations of their views.
You still haven't explained why you would assume fertilized eggs have a right to life but unfertilized eggs and sperm cells do not. By your analysis, a fertilized egg which will later produce identical twins has less of a right to life than a non-twin. (Keep in mind that when a fertilized egg divides into two identical twins, the single zygote "ceases to exist" as such and two "new human being(s are) produced".)
Yes I have, you have not read what I have said. I cover those exact scenarios and questions. BTW- there are no “fertilized eggs” Once fertilized it is no longer an egg. If you had read you would have known that. Any credible scientist would tell you the same. Of course you get your info from Bioethics don’t you. Funny how often they turn out wrong. You might be hearing from the same ones who said that blacks were sub-human and that brain surgery was un-ethical – both assumptions (like yours) were unfounded and used for the personnel gain of a few. Or maybe the ones who believe Apes are more “person” than retards?
Studies have found that small children can recite knowledge (i.e. memories) which would only be known by a person who died while the child was in the womb shortly before birth, which suggests that people have reincarnated souls. Proof for the existence of souls is also suggested by research showing that there is a certain predictable small loss of weight (about 1/2 ounce) at the time of death.
Show us the studies, from credible Scientist. Lets not forget that a fetus can recognize that voice of its mother and father. That suggests that he/she is aware in the womb, LONG BEFORE IT IS born.
I have no problem with you participating in your religious beliefs or with you believing whatever you like. I do take offence of your presenting it as fact without providing any material or backing. Then you have the nerve to question my intentions and my intelligence and then place guilt of crime on my head. Our camp has provided real information; you have provided insults and your own statements. I am sorry, but just because you say it is true does not make it so.
But hey...look what I found:
"I guess Harry won the debate among intelligent voters without even being allowed on stage." (Quoth the ravinson!)
Hey...look what ELSE I found:
"I believe abortion is wrong...Until science can demonstrate otherwise, I must assume that life begins at conception. Thus I believe abortion is wrong -- very wrong." (Quoth Harry Browne.)
Boy, that Harry Browne must be one ignorant, emotional sumbitch to take a stance like this, eh, ravin? Wow...better find out what he means by "wrong"...you just might have supported a Thought Terrorist!
I'd really be interested in finding out why Harry Browne thinks abortion is "wrong", wouldn't you?
At least...if you're ready to get all extreme on those of us who believe abortion is the taking of human life by equating us to those who are sending threatening letters Planned Parenthood...you should at least be willing to make certain you didn't support someone who just might be, to you, an "aider and comforter" of "abortion clinic attackers".
Why don't you ask him?
BTW...who you gonna vote for in 2004 if Mr. Browne runs and it turns out that the reason Harry Browne thinks abortion is "wrong" doesn't meet your standards of basic intelligence in the "science" of the "choice" movement?
**nudge**
HORSE HOCKEY!! I believe abortion is murder, but because I vehemently disagree with those who do not believe that way does not mean I give 'aid and comfort' to the wingnuts who want to bomb clinics or kill abortionists!
The clinics have parlayed a VERY FEW incidents into major national stories to portray themselves as so very put upon by the few who are willing to stand publicly in front of clinics witnessing for life. If you go back and look at many of the bombings and fires in the 80's you'll see most were done for the insurance money because the clinics were in financial trouble. But somehow that discovery never quite makes it to the front pages.
But do not EVER lump me in with the murderers who do not believe that the life of the abortionist is as precious to God as the life of the baby being killed.
Lets not forget that a fetus can recognize that voice of its mother and father.
So can a pet dog, but that doesn't prove that Spot is a person.
Please read (all of) the info provided you at the other end of the links on Post 87.
I'm not going to sift through a pile of stuff to try to figure out what you think supports your bogus arguments. If you can't extract anything from your sources that supports your views, that's your problem.
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