When Is Human Life A Human Being?

http://www.freebritannia.co.uk ^ | 6/16/2003 | Marvin Galloway

[MHGinTN]

In a recent article for First Things, Maureen L. Condic, PhD, Assistant professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, presents a convincing argument for meaning of the death protocol (used when organ harvesting is anticipated) to also be used when contemplating prenatal life. She has stated accurately that, “… the loss of integrated bodily function, not the loss of higher mental ability, is the defining legal characteristic of death.”

...

To paraphrase Dr. Condic’s assertion: to be alive as an ORGANISM, the organism is functioning as an integrated whole, rather than life being defined solely from an organ, a form within the organism. …

In order to accurately apply the meaning of the death protocol offered in Dr. Condic’s article, we will have to show how an embryo is more than a mere collection of cells. We will have to show how the embryo is in fact a functioning, integrated whole human organism. If the embryo can be defined on this basis, the definition of an alive, individual human being would fit, and the human being should be protected from exploitation and euthanasia.

What is the focus of the transition from embryo age to fetal age are the organs of the fetus. It is generally held that the organs are all in place when the individual life is redefined as a fetus. The gestational process during the fetal age is a process of the already constructed organs growing larger and more functional for survival. But during the fetal age, the not yet fully functional organs are not the sole sustainer of the individual life. The placenta is still drawing nourishment from the woman’s body and protecting the individual from being rejected as foreign tissue. If we are to apply the notion of a functioning integrated whole to define individual aliveness, the organs necessary for survival must all be included. Since the primitive brain stem and other organs such as primitive lungs, to be relied upon at a later age in the individual’s lifetime, are not yet fully functional, some other organ will have to be responsible for the functioning whole.

[Jackie222]

Hank - be careful. You have not done your research. The unborn are not potential humans they are humans. May I ask you a question? If you were to come to believe that the unborn are human beings would you then say that abortions are murder? That would not be a religious idea......it would be a scientific fact.

Many people that do not have any religious views have looked at both sides of the argument and chosen to believe what they found to be true. Would you be willing to watch a partial-birth abortion? Just before the baby is born it is killed. Would you be able to watch that and come away with the same views that you just stated?

[ROCKLOBSTER]

For all you athiests and murder-borts out there, let's take God and "souls" out of the debate.

When Is Human Life A Human Being?

The answer is, when it has its own DNA identity, and is related to the DNA of the TWO parents.

[Diamond]

a toddler is not a teenager, nor is a toddler a parent,

A baby is a potential toddler.

A fetus is a potential baby.

A zygote is a potential fetus.

Have fun building your oak desk from an acorn.

I have never heard a mother refer to her prenatal child as "my fetus". Most women I know who are pregnant with child speak English, not Latin, and without exception refer to their child as "my baby", even among those mothers who are hiring an abortionist to kill the baby.

Regarding your use of the word "potential", the following is one of the best statements I have seen on the subject:
"POTENTIALITIES (CAPABILITIES) ARE LIMITED TO THE KIND OF THING TO WHICH THEY BELONG. A turnip could never have the capability of reasoning, simply because its parents are never able to bestow such an ability upon their offspring. And they can't bestow it, because they don't possess it themselves. The only abilities possessed by turnips is to do turnip-things. The capability to perform uniquely human actions, such as reasoning, whether at this moment, or only years from now, demands a human subject as its possessor. If the offspring of human parentage, at any time, even in the zygote-stage, possesses the "potentiality to act as a human being," he or she is already a human being. Nothing else could possess that capability. As for the "potentiality to be a human" it would be a contradiction of terms, since the potential and the actual cannot exist simultaneously in anything."

Cordially,

[Diamond]

The unborn are not human beings, they are potential human beings.

See #143. It refutes your assertion.

Cordially,

[conservonator]

In the real world, if it isn't breathing on it's own, it isn't human.

So, in the "real world" someone on a ventilator has lost his or her standing as human?

[Colofornian]

A human being begins at birth. That is why a persons age is measured from that date, not the date of conception. The unborn are not human beings, they are potential human beings.The notion that the unborn are already human beings is a religious notion, whether a person who has swallowed it is religious or not.

So, Hank, when surgeons go in (as they've been doing since the 80s) & open up a pregnant lady & open up her amniotic sac in order to get to Jr. to repair a hold in his diaphragm (& then they close her back up), that's not really a human, personal male diaphragm Doc is working on...instead that's just some surgeon practicing some silly religious notion, eh?

[Colofornian]

The issue is actually this: should a government force some people's religious beliefs down the throats of those who do not hold those same beliefs?

'Tis against the law to steal. Thou shalt not steal/covet thy neighbor's property...(The 10 Commandments). There ya have it XBob, the government forcing some people's religious beliefs down the throats of those of us who don't hold them. If I had it my way, why I'd come and steal everything you own...But these puritannical religious guys in blue keep me in check.

[MHGinTN]

You wrote, "I concede that a fertilized cell outside the body could be termed a life, a human embryo." That you have chosen to place the truth in doubt (with the qualifier 'could') shows a desire to fashion reality to what you want it to be rather than what it is. If the gametes are human the embryo is a human embryo. That is uncontrovertable scientific fact. It is also a fact that while still in a petri dish, the embryo is building its placental barrier for survival. The placenta is the first organ for survival that the newly conceived individual builds and it is cast off at birth. The woman builds none of the organs of the individual within her body. That someday embryos will not even be placed in a human body from conception to 40 weeks gestational age argues for a better perspective on what it means to be an alive integrated whole human organism, a human being.
"I see this as competing concerns." [The 'competing concerns' arise from purposed action by older alive individuals that place the younger individual human lives in jeopardy. It is tantamount to a murderer placing a loaded .45 in a toddler's hands, then shooting the toddler as a threat to the murderer's life and being acquitted of charges even though the toddler has no notion of how to chamber a round from the clip and there is none in the chamber. Purposely causing the endangerment is hardly as neutral a situation as you have tried to mischaracterize it, albeit innocently.] "On the one hand we have the faintest spark of life." [Actually, the first cell is the most potent cell of your entire life, having the capacity to differentiate into the trillions of cells you now possess, so it is hardly the 'faintest spark'.] "On the other hand we have living humans who are incapacitated for a decade or more from Parkinsons and other diseases." [Congratulations, by parsing truth to 'insignificant enough', diluting clear facts to fit your world-view, you've arrived at rationalizing cannibalism. And that's the deepest problem with starting your mental journey by denegrating clear truth upon which further truths are founded. The apologists for our American abortion holocaust do it every day; the researchers wanting to kill and exploit embryos for their stem cells do it too; the people wanting America to embrace cloning individual human embryonic beings so their stem cells (and other parts of a fetal nature, when the evil is accpeted sufficiently to slide harvesting from cloned fetuses onto your plate) may be exploited also.

"In my heart of hearts, in a perfect world, I don't think God would want us to fertilize and manipulate human cells outside a mother (host). My friend, this is no perfect world." So, you would acknowledge you are about to endorse what is against God's plan, then you slap the old boy in the face and assert your right to be in rebellion to that recognized plan because those around you are in rebellion already. Well, you're in large company ... that's the state of most every human being who is in rebellion to God's still small voice. Why not try instead to find a way to accomplish the goals without purposely making the world imperfect in the fashion you know to be wrong? You wouldn't be making the world perfect, you would just be avoiding helping to make it more imperfect. Think about it, you've tried to authorize rebellion against what God's Spirit tells you, simply because you've recognized the utilitarian value of the wrong actions in satisfying your selfish motivations.

"Where we disagree is the manipulation of fertilized and splitting cells outside the human body." Those dividing cells outside the human host are doing exactly what is required for the organismal individual human being to survive in its environment. The embryo is alive (cell division), the embryo is building its means to survive (the placental encapsulation) and the embryo as a member of the human species and alive is a human being, albeit no bigger than the period at the end of the last sentence! By dehumanizing the individual human beings you deem of utilitarian value because their body parts may be taken and used to perhaps cure older individual human beings, you dehumanize the species and the members of the species ... with 'cannibalization of mere commodities'.

Please, read the essay linked in post #1 from which the excerpts are posted in the thread start.

[hocndoc]

Your discomfort should tell you something about your position.

I'm not talking perfect or souls or ideals, but reality and facts about taxonomy, purposeful actions and the consequences of those actions.

If you manipulate human DNA to create living tissue that is desirable because that tissue is human, developing in a human way and living, there shouldn't be any doubt about what you're doing and causing to be. If the embryo can be implanted in a woman's uterus (the big bugaboo that seems to frighten the AMA and Senator Hatch) and grow as any naturally occuring embryo, any doubt is more artificial than the "creation" of the embryo itself.

If anything, purposeful creation of a vulnerable human life outside the body carries added responsibility if you do believe that no one should be allowed to harm other humans that are not a danger to them. The technology necessary is very sophistocated and there is no room for doubt as to the fact that the actions are intentional. The duty of anyone who acts in this way is to protect and nourish the human until he can take care of himself or until someone else is willing to take responsibility. In the tradition of common law, where the person who dug the hole is responsible for anyone who fell into the hole, the new life may be due extra compensation for being placed in harms way (college education and the financing of a fancy wedding, perhaps).

[hocndoc]

I was reporting what I heard pro-abortion men and women say, and speaking of science. You answered with a complete non-sequitor, ""A human being begins at birth,"" and attempt to turn the conversation into a religious discussion. As a physician, I prefer to use science and facts as my criteria for defining the human species.


The species, genera, family, etc. of embryonic life is no mystery and there is no magickal transformation at birth. Any criteria other than taxonomy for defining the is not science, and enters the realm of personal beliefs, prejudice and bias. Such discrimination is poor grounds for deciding law.

Echoes of the Dred Scott decision:

http://www.tourolaw.edu/patch/Scott/



"" 4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a 'citizen' within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its 'people or citizens.' Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being 'citizens' within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.
6. The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race, treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves.
7. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.
8. A State, by its laws passed since the adoption of the Constitution, may put a foreigner or any other description of persons upon a footing with its own citizens, as to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by them within its dominion and by its laws. But that will not make him a citizen of the United States, nor entitle him to sue in its courts, nor to any of the privileges and immunities of a citizen in another State.
9. The change in public opinion and feeling in relation to the African race, which has taken place since the adoption of the Constitution, cannot change its construction and meaning, and it must be construed and administered now according to its true meaning and intention when it was formed and adopted.
10. The plaintiff having admitted, by his demurrer to the plea in abatement, that his ancestors were imported from Africa and sold as slaves, he is not a citizen of the State of Missouri according to the Constitution of the United States, and was not entitled to sue in that character in the Circuit Court.
11. This being the case, the judgment of the court below, in favor of the plaintiff on the plea in abatement, was erroneous. ""

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[hocndoc]

That's a concise statement of facts.

Here's more:
http://unbornperson.com/section_2.htm
""But IS THE GENETIC CODE A COMPLETE EXPLANATION or is it merely as far as the biologist can go? In other words, is a cause of the specificity of each genetic code required? Just as the members of a given species may have some individually different characteristics which they inherited from their parents, should there not be an explanation for that part of their genetic codes which they have in common, that is, as individuals of the same species?

Aristotle, the "Father of Biology," speaking not as a biologist but as a philosopher, seems to have posited such a cause. This he called the organism's nature. He defined nature as the source or cause of motion and of rest in those things which have a specific end and a spontaneous tendency to attain it.
TO DETERMINE THE SPECIFIC NATURE OF A GIVEN ORGANISM, the philosopher observes its behavior, using the axiom: "A thing is as it acts." In this way he groups and separates organisms according to their natures. The biologist uses a similar procedure in classifying individual organisms into the classical groupings of his own science: kingdom, phylum, etc. Despite the many difficulties in the sciences of classification, for example, the problem of judging which structures and functions should serve as the basis of grouping and separating, the biologist does not hesitate to assume that there is a causative factor underlying the pattern of characteristics which he finds in each organism, that which the philosopher calls the "nature" of the thing.""

---

" THE TEST OF PERSONHOOD IS NOT WHETHER A HUMAN INDIVIDUAL HAS EVER EXERCISED DELIBERATE CHOICE OR IS CURRENTLY IN THE ACT OF DELIBERATING, BUT WHETHER HE OR SHE BELONGS, IN VIRTUE OF HIS OR HER NATURE, TO THAT SPECIES WHOSE MEMBERS ARE CAPABLE OF SUCH EXERCISE."" (Capitals are the author's)

[cinFLA]

Only a self-serving buffoon could pretend to know the mind and spirit of God and make a moral judgement on His will.

A lot of religious people should really look in the mirror, then.

[XBob]

127- "Life is eternal to believers in God, it never ends, it just changes."

Very interesting. Actually, that is pretty much like i believe, life is like an apple tree, and one branch of the tree has human 'apples'. And each 'apple' is the fruit of polinization of a male and female blossom, and creates the potential for another tree, related to the old tree, which has some of the same 'life' force matter as it's parent trees.

As you say, 'life' is eternal, as long as a 'tree' lives, you, haven't killed 'life'.

You can't grow a new apple tree with a pollinated blossom, but you can grow a new tree from a 'ripe' apple.

[XBob]

127- "Life is eternal to believers in God, it never ends, it just changes."

'Life is eternal ' - where do the 'souls' stay before a human is born and after he dies?

[XBob]

147 - " If I had it my way, why I'd come and steal everything you own...But these puritannical religious guys in blue keep me in check."

I Thank your God that someone keeps you in check. Now who polices the police, to keep them in check, and not throw everyone in jail?

[Hank Kerchief]

I prefer to use science and facts as my criteria for defining the human species.

Morality and politics are philosophical, not scientific. Science can tell us what is, and how to do things. It cannot tell us what we ought to do.

The murderer who is executed belongs to the human species. It is not an organism's biolgical species that determines the moral principles related to it.

Laws and morality pertain only to rational/volitional beings. Man is defined as the rational animal.

Rights pertain only to beings capable of making choice.

Those who want to replace moral principles with so-called "science" are neither scientific or moral.

Hank

[Van Jenerette]

If there is no such thing as a human SOUL - there can be no such thing as RIGHTS from 'natures GOD.'

Either natures GOD extends these 'rights' with the soul - as the founders wrote upon creation, or all 'rights' or lack of rights are merely defined by other men.

We cannot have it both ways.

[hocndoc]

You weren't writing about rights, you said that human beings begin life at birth. That is, indeed discussing what human beings *are*.

However, if you believe that

" Laws and morality pertain only to rational/volitional beings. Man is defined as the rational animal.

Rights pertain only to beings capable of making choice,"

then you deny rights to infants after birth and anyone who is delirious and all the ranges of permanent and temporary mental impairment, such as stroke victims and some of those Parkinson's patients we keep hearing about.