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.

[XBob]

182 - "just as an apple is a part of an apple tree, is it an organism?

No.

And no one claims a sperm or unfertiized egg is an organism.

===
So then, is an apple seed an organism?

And are the sperm and egg alive?

[XBob]

organ - merriam webster 2 a : a differentiated structure (as a heart, kidney, leaf, or stem) consisting of cells and tissues and performing some specific function in an organism b : bodily parts performing a function or cooperating in an activity

[XBob]

185 - LOL - Great Point:

"Just out of curiosity, do you think birth has any purpose at all? If the uborn are babies before they are born, why do they need to be born?"

Why even progress beyond the embryo stage?

Why graduate from school?

In fact, why do anything - if it doesn't matter.

[hocndoc]

I don't have any discomfort with the idea that it should be illegal to canabalise some human lives for other human lives.


Where is the protection for anyone if some humans can decide that other humans are spare parts or slave labor or not deserving of protection and the government works to aide and protect the killers and slavers rather than the victims? Legitimate governments serve only to protect rights of all, not only those who are in power or in the majority or who have matured enough.

(BTW, the only successful animal experiments with cloned stem cells - from somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT - were in treating diabetic mice. The stem cells were not "embryonic" stem cells, however. The cloned embryos were implanted into a host mother, the embryo allowed to grow to maturity, and then killed in order to harvest the desired - adult - stem cells. For all that work, the researchers would have done better to find ways to use the patient's own adult stem cells, don't you agree?)

[hocndoc]

The embryo meets the definition of organism that you quote.

[hocndoc]

There's no such thing as a symbiotic parasite, which is an oxymoron.
An embryo is functioning as a whole in an organized manner to sustain its life and development, exactly as it should. The embryos of mammals are not parasites (parasites can't be members of the same species) and they are not a part of their mothers. They are within their mothers and the pregnancy is mutually beneficial in the normal course, so the mother and the child are symbiotes.

[hocndoc]

The seeds of the apple are organisms.

Did you take a look at either of these references?
http://www.l4l.org/library/mythfact.html
http://unbornperson.com/section_2.htm
http://unbornperson.com/section_3.htm

[hocndoc]

"" That's right. There is no such thing as a "right to have," or a right that makes a claim on anyone else's life. Rights pertain only to choice. There is only a right to do, and then, only if what you do does not threaten or use force against any other individual.""


Yes, rights are actually "negative" because, as you said, no one has a right to cause anyone else to act against his will or give up any life, liberty or property except when life itself (some say liberty) is endangered.

Frederick Bastiat, Locke, Jefferson all wrote about the matter of rights. Jefferson said it most succinctly, to the effect that government may only act to protect rights and punish those who infringe on them.

In the case of pregnancy, the two rights in question are the right to life of both the mother and the child and the right to liberty of the mother. Elective, intentional abortions are actions to kill another human being.

You defined "rights" in your post #158 as:
"" 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.""

By this definition, you are denying the right to life and liberty to anyone not "capable of making choice." That makes it open season on many people who are protected under current laws.

And that is why logic leads to the postition that all humans - not just those that meet some criteria chosen by men - have equal rights that may not be infringed by others.

[syriacus]

Mama - you have a strange god who kills 40% of all humans beings (your definition of a fertilized egg) before they even get to be a fetus. What a cruel god you have.

100% of humans die eventually.

Put the blame where it belongs...on Adam and Eve and Satan.

[cgk]

bumpity...

[hocndoc]

What do you mean by "purpose" of birth?

Birth is a stage of the life cycle of humans and all mammals, like growth, eating, sleeping. If nothing else, there's no room in there after awhile, the placenta ages and cannot support the nutritional and metabolic needs of the child.

Humans are born at a much younger stage of brain and neuromuscular development than most mammals,otherwise gestation *would* last until he or she could stand and walk or crawl to find food. But, the head of a 2 year old would be large for a human female pelvis to pass if she hopes to walk up right again.
(and it's hard for him to talk with amniotic fluid in his mouth, much less learn to type on a computer. )

[MHGinTN]

but by that thinking, how can you say that you and your parent are not the same individual, when that unbroken continuum connects you? posted by jethropalerobber To ask such a question in honesty you must either not understand the difference in organ and organism, or you refuse to acknowledge the individual human being at some point along the continuum as you move back toward the conception of the new organism so that you can make the transition from that individual to the two separate organ sub-units that conceived the new individual. Which is your situation? And may I ask, if to extend your life of wonder you must resort to cannibalism, are you willing?

[MHGinTN]

No

[syriacus]

How many souls are given at conception?

Perhaps, as the conceptus is beginning to divide into two or more separate humans it receives a second soul or more.

My guess is that you would like a "scientific answer," but science is only beginning to learn about the time period very shortly after conception.

Your destiny, from day one { Embryos differentiate early, aren't blobs} Nature ^ | 8 July 2002 | Helen Pearson

Our body plan is being defined in the first few hours of life.

Your world was shaped in the first 24 hours after conception. Where your head and feet would sprout, and which side would form your back and which your belly, were being defined in the minutes and hours after sperm and egg united.

Just five years ago, this statement would have been heresy. Mammalian embryos were thought to spend their first few days as a featureless orb of cells. Only later, at about the time of implantation into the wall of the uterus, were cells thought to acquire distinct 'fates' determining their positions in the future body.

[snip]

What is clear is that developmental biologists will no longer dismiss early mammalian embryos as featureless bundles of cells - and that leaves them with some work to do. "I believe in the new philosophy," says Tom Fleming, a developmental biologist at the University of Southampton, UK, "but there's a lot of detail yet to be understood."

[tallhappy]

Bob hasn't reads the essay where the fact of the placenta, constructed by the embryo not the woman's body

The argument about scuba gear is rather ludicrous. But, if he wants to stick by it, the embryo would fufil his criteria better than he would. After all, the scuba person does not make their own tank and compress their own air etc...They can't make their equipment on their own.

[tallhappy]

Yes, insult insult.

You cannot argue coherently, though.

[hocndoc]

Actually, you've given the definition of citizen, not person. The law recognizes non-citizens as persons (and even corporations.).
The result of the poor logic and wording of Roe v. Wade is that such confusion arises.

Here's a discussion about the human being and personhood:

http://unbornperson.com/section_4.htm

(also see Note 1, at the bottom of the reference)

In our civil law, one requisite for citizenship is birth. The placing of this condition is not to be construed as an attempt to deny personhood to the unborn of human parentage. Rather it seems to be a consequence of the need for legal evidence to uphold the existence of any given person as a countable member of the citizenry. This would be the same as saying that being born under certain conditions, such as from parents who are citizens, is a legal basis for becoming a citizen.

If our civil law would have attempted to distinguish between persons who are citizens and persons "in utero," there could have been a practical reason for such a distinction. By the nature of the case, the unborn person cannot participate in many of the activities for which the government must legislate. Even more pressing is the legal problem of establishing the existence of human beings before they are born, especially in early stages of their gestation. In days of less sophisticated embryology, the very sure evidence of birth could easily be used to establish the existence of a person whose privileges and obligations of citizenship might legally be established. The more delicate criterion of physical movement within the womb, known as quickening, was sometimes used for legal purposes, but not for establishing citizenship. (4)

The Dred Scott decision (7) is an example of the dangers and difficulties involved in government's attempt to decide the relationship between citizenship and personhood, even for persons already born. The Supreme Court's hearing, on October 11, 1972, relative to the constitutionality of the abortion laws of Texas and Georgia, is the first instance in which the Court had faced the issue of whether or not an unborn of human parentage is a constitutionally legal person. (Prior to this time, personhood had been taken for granted, with property rights and claims for damage being accredited to the unborn.)

Roe v.Wade decided against legal personhood for the unborn, due to the oversight of our Founding Fathers to have explicitly mentioned the unborn in the Bill of Rights. The competency of their decision does not extend itself to a denial of the personhood of the unborn. The Court admitted this lack of competency. (In defense of our Founding Fathers, at a time when human beings were the fledgling nation's greatest natural resource, they could never have imagined that citizens would one day demand legal sanction for killing their own offspring.)

In reference to this case, previously heard in October of 1971, an "amicus" brief, submitted by Dr. Joseph Witherspoon, S.J.D., Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin, admirably demonstrates the intent of the Founding Fathers and offers many consequent legal precedents to the effect that the unborn of human parentage are legal persons and are included, implicitly, in our Bill of Rights. In the same hearing another "amicus" brief was accepted by the Court, on behalf of some two-hundred and fifty medical doctors, formulated by Mr. Dennis Horan, "et al," attorneys, to uphold the humanity, even from conception, of the unborn of human parentage. (8)

[syriacus]

Thank you for the ping, MHGinTN.

This certainly is a "lively" thread. : )

[DoughtyOne]

To: DoughtyOne

I don't have any discomfort with the idea that it should be illegal to canabalise some human lives for other human lives.

If you have no discomfort stating that you don't mind condemning a person like Ronald Reagan to a slow process that will see him lose his mind and spend a decade or more in a world without communication or recognition, it's okay with me.  I would.  And if you would like to state that using using human embryo cells to cure him would be wrong, it's okay with me.  I wouldn't.

Where is the protection for anyone if some humans can decide that other humans are spare parts or slave labor or not deserving of protection and the government works to aide and protect the killers and slavers rather than the victims? Legitimate governments serve only to protect rights of all, not only those who are in power or in the majority or who have matured enough.

If you wish to state that human embryo cells rank equally with a fully grown man, it's okay with me.  I wouldn't.  Your side loves to throw around the canabalism/spare parts/slave labor/or not deserving of protection/killers and slavers words and phrases around.  All it does is make you look juvenile.

(BTW, the only successful animal experiments with cloned stem cells - from somatic cell nuclear transfer or SCNT - were in treating diabetic mice. The stem cells were not "embryonic" stem cells, however. The cloned embryos were implanted into a host mother, the embryo allowed to grow to maturity, and then killed in order to harvest the desired - adult - stem cells. For all that work, the researchers would have done better to find ways to use the patient's own adult stem cells, don't you agree?)

Well if I harbored your beliefs about life being life I sure wouldn't.  "...and then killed in order to..."  After all your colorful commentary, you don't see a conflict here?  What happened to your canabalism/spare parts/slave labor/or not deserving of protection/killers and slavers talk?

Yes I would rather see a patient's own adult stem cells used.

224 posted on 06/19/2003 4:05 PM PDT by hocndoc (Choice is the # 1 killer in the US.)

[MHGinTN]

You wrote, "If you wish to state that human embryo cells rank equally with a fully grown man, it's okay with me." Do you mean to focus our attention upon the cells that are part of the organism called an embryo or were you referring to the whole individual human organism called emrbyo?