Posted on 06/18/2003 3:25:36 PM PDT by 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.
Umbilical cord moves oxygen through the mothers blood to the fetus. Were you breathing oxygen 1 minute before your delivery from your mother womb? By your words, a human is not a human until they are breathing on their own, is that correct? Not picking at you, just asking for clarification.
Let me address the second part of your answer, since I am not an expert on Heaven and Hell;
2. Is there self-awareness of the human embryo at one week along? No.
3. Is there a sensation of pain associated with termination at that stage? No.
3. Would I approve of these human embryos advancing beyond one week outside the human female body? No.
4. Do I think God would damn those who were trying to help others by manipulating very young human embryos? I don't that's a given at all.
5. Should I approve of limited scientific research on the less than week old human embryo? I believe so.
6. Should we use this research to try to cure Parkinsons and other diseases in adults and children? I believe so.
If you will bear with a qualification of my previous thought experiment; suppose you were there in 1953, sometime around Christmas, when I began to exist. If the technology had been available, and I had begun my existence 7 days previously, would you approve if some scientist, knowing that it would kill me, removed me from my mother and used my body cells for scientific research? Further, do you believe that such an action would not only have been permissible, but should have been considered a moral obligation for those contemplating the act because they had a duty to try to cure Parkinsons and other diseases in adults and [other] children?
Cordially,
Whether or not a fireman will rush into a building to save it? What about whether the police can charge you with its murder for killing the mother carrying it?
More to the point, are we going to wait for a cop or a fireman to tell us what we already know without being told, or are we going to stand up like free men and admit the truth?
Abortion is murder, and no Clinton-esque word parsing will change that.
;-/
hint: when it promotes abortion.
i don't but it's not important to my question.
...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.
i read this part twice but i'm still not sure what you mean. i was responding to your suggestion that the neonate is the same individual as the zygote because they are part of the same continuum, and therefore should be treated the same.
my reply was to suggest that there is no break in that continuum when it ties back to the parent, only a branch. when viewed outside of time, all off humanity is a single individual - a great tree. can this individual be faulted for cutting off its own limb?
furthermore, that same continuum you mentioned links the neonate to its future death, at which point no rights are gauranteed. should we treat the neonate the same as we would its future dead self on this account?
if to extend your life of wonder you must resort to cannibalism, are you willing?
i don't understand your question. can you put in plainly?
How people like firemen behave reflects how people feel in the real world, as opposed to the theoretical world we are talking in now.
Until abortion became an issue 30 years ago, how many people had a funeral for a miscarriage in the 4th month?
An infinitessimal percentage.
Why? Because while they would say that the fetus was a human being when discussing it theoretically, in the real world when they had to deal with one, they knew it wasn't a person.
Would birth certificates or death certificates be required?
Today, those people might have a funeral as a political statement, but again, that is theory, not reality.
So9
That's what happens when an ecclesiastical body embraces paganistic theories like those from Aristotle instead of looking to the Word of God. Aquinas made it worse by trying to reconcile Christianity with Aristotle - can't be done.
As I have said, God didn't bring death or illness into the world.
God's gotten life right 100% of the time. However, the first humans misused their God-given free will and brought death and illness into the world.
Of course, if God hadn't given Adam and Eve free will, they could not have made such a bad choice.
Maybe they would have lived forever if they didn't have free will. Then again, life would be less enjoyable if we were essentially brainwashed into acting good.
My theory is that when Adam and Eve "ate the apple" they mutated their DNA. That could explain the longer lifespans of the earlier humans mentioned in the Bible.
Human DNA gradually became more corrupted in succeeding generations, leading to more frailty and earlier deaths.
i'm sure you can answer this one on your own.
...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?
Strong's 1025
brephos {bref'-os} of uncertain affin.; TDNT - 5:636,759; n n AV - babe 5, child 1, infant 1, young child 1; 8 1) an unborn child, embryo, a foetus 2) a new-born child, an infant, a babe
The same word is used for children in various stages of development, including prenatal. So your question regarding the purpose of birth, and I say this sincerely, is literally unintelligable to me. It seems to me like asking, why do I "need" to grow older? I don't "need" to, obviously, but would that fact justify denying my humanity, or killing me?
Cordially,
So persons with low IQs have no rights?
LOL.
Thank you for the handy links. I have read the thread, and I posed my thought experiment questions because I was seeking further clarification of your position, particularly as to how it would have worked out with someone I value; namely; me, myself, and I:^)
It seems to me from your response, though, that you are unwilling to directly come out and say for the purposes of my thought experiment that if it's 1953 then it's ok if I'm delibertately taken out of my mother and killed for science. But if your principle is interpreted consistently, and if I'm interpreting your links and posts correctly, if I'm younger than eight days after I begin to exist, then it's ok by you that I be killed and my cells harvested from some or any scientific experiment. Is this correct? Please correct me if this is not the logical conclusion of your stated values above. If this indeed is your view, though, then bless your heart, DoughtyOne, but does my life mean that little to you?
Cordially,
Do you believe in the death penalty for premeditated murder?
Do you really think a person who fertilizes a human egg outside of a woman's body and allows it to die a week later should get the death penalty?
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