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.

[r9etb]

I refuse to continue with this dumb argument. Go soak your head in a bucket, for about 30 minutes.

Unfortunately for you, this is a better argument than the stupid one you tried to foist on us before.

[Nix 2]

It was thought that at conception, the child's sex was determined by the XY chromosomes since the embryo begins growing the inner organs that could develop into a male or female, and to some extent that is true since the outer appearance is female, while the inner construct is set up to become either male or female.
However, at seven weeks after conception, there is a process called *wolfen* that has all but been erased from common literature as per the wishes of the pro-abort crowd. Far from *proving* that fetuses are not small humans, it actually proves that they are.
The process involves the measured release of testosterone from the development of gonads which begins the process of final development into a male or female. Without this release of testostorone, all children would be born both male and female, but that makes them no less human.
In theory, if the fetus does not receive enough testosterone to complete the entire process from female to male, it is possible it might account for the erroneous conclusion that all gay males are results of this unfinished process. In fact, there might be some, but by no means all.
By the same calculation, a little more testosterone, but still not enough, you have androgenous men...the so-called sensitive guys who make better mothers than some mothers, but who wouldn't dream of entering into a gay relationship with another male. (They say that Jesus was androgenous which accounted for his myriad of friendships with both sexes, that has caused some gay whacko to conclude that Jesus was gay.) BS.
Too much testosterone and you have unusually high criminal behaviour among males. The *gorilla* factor, also known as *extra Y.*
Just enough, and you have your regular football watching, beer drinking, usual guy whose biggest worry is they just can't understand women no matter what...and think they can only REALLY relate to other guys, but who would punch your lights out if one dared question their straightness.
Then there are the other implications. A baby who was supposed to be female and stay female might receive testosterone in an amount that causes her to become both, a hermaphrodite. Not such a cool thing, but still human and nothing else. Usually at some point, they decide to have the underdeveloped male genitalia removed, or the extremely undersized vagina surgically closed. Some parents choose to have it done at birth, sometimes choosing very wrongly.
Females not receiving enough testosterone tend to lose psychologically and are nearly perpetual little girls who need *taken care of*. They cling to their mothers unnaturally. They are still human beings.
Females receiving a little more than enough tend to remain small breasted, might have unaturally thick body hair, a slight mustache, tend to tomboyishness and athletics, but they remain straight...and human.
Females receiving too much tend to be mannish and choose the gay lifestyle rather than being born to it. In this society, a mannish appearing or acting female is automatically placed in that catagory. Guys in high school don't date them. Girls tend to shy away from them. By the time they reach college age, they are quite convinced they have no choice, so it becomes a psychological problem that sometimes gets solved should they seek help. But most don't and do hate men because men chose cuties instead of them, so they blame them for forcing them into this twilight lifestyle.
All the genes and chromosomes do is decide your pigment, hair color, eye color, height, intelligence potential, potential for diseases or immunities inherited from the parents, potential talents, maybe acne and other such things, and what your POTENTIAL sex will be. There can be many unforeseen outcomes. That is why no one has found an effective way to guarantee the gender of your child no matter what the father's contribution.
In any of these cases, nothing CAN be born but humans from humans. Girls AND boys.

[Nix 2]

You are guilty of murder at ANY stage after conception no matter how much or how hard you try to rationalize it. It's purely and simply murder. Once the egg and sperm are joined, that's it. Doesn't matter how many sperm you flush down the toilet since it never came close to penetrating the egg. What kind of stupid arguments are you listing here that haven't already been answered so you change the words and ask again? You are running out of ammo.

BTW, which of these babies do YOU think should have been aborted? One? Two? All? Yourself maybe, or don't you count? If your mama was of a mind to disallow the inconvenience of pregnancy, you wouldn't be here giving anybody a hard time.
My, my. Aren't you the lucky one though.

[Hank Kerchief]

Perhaps, since we who believe in abortion are a majority ...

Perhaps I need to make something clear, which I am reluctant to do, because I enjoy the fact that people presume to judge what others believe, based only on what they believe.

I do not believe abortion is either a good or moral choice. I believe a woman who chooses to abort suffers because of that choice. The right solution is for people to be totally responsible for their choices, which usually means, the woman never should have become pregnant in the first place. Since a woman considering an abortion, with some obvious exceptions, have already demonstrated a reluctance to make responsible choices, it is unlikely she will take responsibility for the unborn.

Here are some of what is wrong with all that leads and follows an abortion: abortion is an attempt to reverse or cancel the consequences of one's chosen action; any action engaged in without reqard to consequences is immoral, even if the consequences are good; neither sex or any other desired pleasure is an excuse to not think; you cannot do wrong and get away with it; if you are not sure it is right, it is wrong; abortion does not cancel an unwanted consequence, it adds another wrong choice and self-destructive consequence to those one is already carrying.

I regard all arguments based on the "welfare" of the unborn as specious and those who make them do care at all about the unborn. A quick painless death is to be preferred to a life of torment and suffering, especially when the choice is not in one's own hands. This does not justify abortion, but does eliminate one of the nonsensical arguments against it, so the truth can be more plainly explicated.

But abortion is extremely controversial, and its moral status extremely ambiguous. It is also a matter that lies totally outside the jurisdiction of legitimate government.

My argument all along is only that governments are created by adult human beings to protect the rights of adult human beings to live freely, by their own moral choices, which includes, whether or not to have an abortion. When government begins using force to make decisions for individuals regarding their own bodies and family, (as they do now with compulsary education), that government is tyrannical and enimical to all justice, morality, and the human requirement for liberty.

The anti-abortion people do more to promote abortion then pro-abortion people do, by making it a religious issue, by changing the meaning of words (like calling abortion murder), and by appealling to emotions and feeling, instead of sound reason and moral principles.

Here is a another simple principle. I should never support any law to prevent anyone from doing anything, if that thing, however much or often it is done, can never be a direct threat to me, my property, or my family. When someone does something I would not do, or I do not like, or I personally believe is immoral, that does not give me a right to use force to make them conform to my convictions and preferances. That is what is wrong with the entire anti-abortion movement. They ought to oppose abortion but what they do has the opposite affect, because what they really want to do is interefer in the lives of others. Essentially, they are intruders and meddlers in others affairs, a moral evil with far more devastating consequences than abortion.

I certainly don't want more laws to solve any problem. Less law is always better.

Hank

[Semper]

...why do rights change at birth, rather than at 20 weeks or 15 weeks, or 7?

Birth is the most significant event in the human experience. It involves the transition from total dependence upon and existence within the mother to the adapting to a new environment. Of course rights would change here. Rights change at many different points in our experience. Up to age 18, parents are legally responsible for the actions of their children. In most states in this country, you don't have the right to drive a car until age 16; you can't enter into a legal contract until age 18 and you can't drink alcohol until age 21 (it IS still legal for a pregnant woman to drink alcohol and thereby negatively impact her pregnancy). It seems logical that you would want to pass laws forbidding that as well as other detrimental actions like smoking during pregnancy.

Again, since we know that over 1000 people a day die prematurely due to smoking related illnesses, why not make that illegal? And since we know that thousands die unnecessarily due to automobile accidents, why not require more mass transit? The more freedom taken from individuals the more lives we save.

The reason that there will always be opposition to your approach is because you are not just for "life" you are for "life in accordance with your particular beliefs". You seem to believe that life is totally determined by physical human conception and development. But, everyone does not share that belief. Some believe that life is inevitable, eternal, spiritual and beyond temporary human actions. What is important is the freedom to figure out what that really means. In other words, your religious interpretation of what life really is, when and how it begins, is different than others. Why should your religious belief determine reproductive decisions for another's family? Would you let someone else do that for your family?

[XBob]

523 - you believe: "You are guilty of murder at ANY stage after conception no matter how much or how hard you try to rationalize it. It's purely and simply murder. Once the egg and sperm are joined, that's it. "

Now, if you read my/the previous posts, you would find that about 40% of fertilized eggs fail to 'implant', and are swept away with the monthly menses.

How many 'people' have you/your wife 'murdered'?

You better start screening every menses, and re-implanting all fertilized eggs. We have the technology.

Or is that too much trouble?

[Mad Dawgg]

I have been all over the place on the abortion issue moving from the its a woman's body argument when I was much younger to the Life is life is life postition I hold now.

My views evolved as I have studied life. I read, discussed and watched my own child grow and finally arrived at my conclusions through logic.

Very simple really if you think about it long enough.

Let us remove all religious beliefs and liberal ranting about women's rights and you can easily strip it down to logic.

Women produce "A" for reproduction and Men produce "B" for the same purpose! Mix the two together in the proper enviroment and you get "C" life.

Any purposeful meddling with that life, after A and B are mixed, to stop the process from proceeding is in essence killing life!

And if you are true to yourself, there is no argument in the world to deny the fact that any form of killing a fetus is in fact ending life. For to leave a fetus to its purpose will eventually allow it to turn into a baby, unless disease or injury intervenes.

[Semper]

We must understand what being is, what brain structure does it occur in and exactly how it works.

Do you ever wonder in what part of a computer's structure intelligence occurs? In other words, since intelligence is not actually in the physical structure of a computer but in its programming which is not physical and exists in the mind of the programmer, is it not possible that brains (and bodies, etc) are likewise just mechanisms by which intelligence and being are manifested?

[Semper]

Folks like you want abortion legal and easy to obtain

You make a big and incorrect ASSUMPTION there. I do not want abortion easy to obtain. Marriage, divorce and abortion are much too easy to obtain in this society. I think abortion is a very serious decision which is wrong most of the time and it is certainly being abused at present. I also do not think the push to make abortion illegal is helping this situation. Any time you try to take away freedom from people, they focus more on that than the wisdom of the action you are trying to prevent.

You also took my remark about clinton wrong. Relating me to clinton in any way is a major insult especially since I spent over 20 years in the Marine Corps and fought in Vietnam (another "baby killer" situation). I could have taken that personally and attacked back but I took it lightly and tried for some humor which obviously went by you.

One more comment on the "debate". You are applying an absolute principle to a relative situation. Every day decisions are made which result in premature human death - some may be justified and some may not. To inflict your absolute religious based judgement on everyone - especially the woman and family which must deal directly with that determination - is a recipe for a dictatorship of the self-proclaimed righteous. The result will not be what you really want.

[MHGinTN]

To inflict your absolute religious based judgement on everyone - especially the woman and family which must deal directly with that determination ... Semper Nice try little nettle, but I don't debate these issues from a religious perspective ... but then, since you pop off from your specious preconceived notions, it isn't likely that you've noticed the thousands of posts I've made that apply to the biological truths not the religious perspectives.

For the FR reader, I'll offer this to you, Semper: if you come across a cocoon with an alive caterpillar inside and you crush the cocoon killing the caterpillar, have you ended the life of a butterfly? Your dissembling answer should be interesting.

[Semper]

there is no argument in the world to deny the fact that any form of killing a fetus is in fact ending life.

How do we know for sure when life begins or ends or even if it does begin or end? Maybe life is eternal and human experience is one of its worst forms. If an all powerful God has created life how can puny little humans actually end life. Humans only determine how life will be manifested in this human experience. I choose to believe there is much more to life than what now appears to humans.

Regarding reproduction, do you favor requiring the birth of severely defective humans which will require extensive life support systems? Do you favor requiring births which will risk the life of the mother? Do you favor requiring births which will risk the dissability of the mother? Do you favor having the state make these decisions rather than the woman and family directly involved? Do you favor requiring births in such number as to cause disruption to a society?

For to leave a fetus to its purpose will eventually allow it to turn into a baby, unless disease or injury intervenes.

To leave sperm and egg to their purpose will eventually result in a baby also. Sperm and eggs are living cells. Contraception kills this life. But this is not "human" life as it has no self-awareness or consciousness. A fetus also has no self-awareness or consciousness. To many people, human life starts when a baby is born and starts to experience the world of human beings. All life is not defined by or confined to the human world.

[Mad Dawgg]

"To leave sperm and egg to their purpose will eventually result in a baby also."

Wrong! And I can prove it!

[Tailgunner Joe]

Why, because I am trying to hold youall to your beliefs, which you are trying to imose on me?

I tried to tell you before, it doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter if you think the moon is made of cheese. You can believe in any sick genocidal delusion you want to.

The "right" to kill your unborn child is based on a deception, a falsehood, namely that the child is not a life or that it is not a separate organism from the mother.

This is a lie you have chosen to believe in because it rationalizes your crime. It gives you an excuse and allows you to think you've done nothing wrong.

Science shows that life begins at conception. The fetus has different DNA from the mother, and is therefore a separate being.

The right to life movement has nothing to do with imposing our beliefs on you. We don't care what you think. You are delusional. We care about protecting the lives of innocent babies.

You care about making sure innocent babies continue to be murdered because you falsely believe you stand to gain something from the continued slaughter. You have been taken in by the merchants of death who gain much from selling lies and murder to desperate irrational women. You will gain nothing by repeating their lies and you will lose everything.

[Semper]

I don't debate these issues from a religious perspective ... apply to the biological truths not the religious perspectives.

How you interpret relative "biological truths" (which are based upon incomplete information - there is always more to learn) is based upon your absolute religious philosophy. You have made an absolute moral (religious) judgement that all abortion is murder.

For the FR reader, I'll offer this to you, Semper: if you come across a cocoon with an alive caterpillar inside and you crush the cocoon killing the caterpillar, have you ended the life of a butterfly? Your dissembling answer should be interesting.

Killing a caterpillar is not ending the life of a butterfly because the life of the butterfly has not started. It can't be a caterpillar and a butterfly at the same time; just as you can't have a fetus and a baby at the same time - one preceeds the other.

[RayBob]

My wife had a miscarraige last week. She was 10.5 weeks pregnant. We learned thru an ultrasound (diagnostic to determine if she was miscarrying) that the baby stopped developing at 6 weeks. It took her body 4 weeks to determine that the baby was dead.

There are those who would say that at 6 weeks, it was just a lump of tissue, but to me and my wife, we lost a baby, our child, not a lump of tissue.

There are those who nonchalantly refer to the "embryo" or "fetus", but he or she is a baby... life begins with conception...if the child is born too soon, death may result, but that does not mean that there was not life.

I mourn the death of my baby...the loss of what may have been. I mourn the loss of getting to know my child...to see him or her take those first steps...to hear the first words... the fact that my baby died at 6 weeks of development as opposed to six weeks outside the womb does not make the loss any easier.

Those who want to rationalize the killing of the unborn will go to any legnths to dehumanize the unborn as mere cells, or lumps of undeveloped tissue. The fact remains that even conception is a miracle...it is a shame that so many are willing to throw such a miracle away.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Is murder a religious crime?

Should we not have laws against murder because "thou shall not kill" is one of the ten commandments?

Some believe that life is inevitable, eternal, spiritual and beyond temporary human actions.

It sounds like you are the one who is being guided by religious beliefs.

In other words, your religious interpretation of what life really is, when and how it begins, is different than others. Why should your religious belief determine reproductive decisions for another's family?

It matters who's right. In some parts of the world it's okay to burn your wife to death for commiting adultery. In the USA, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are. You can't end the life of another person because of what you believe.

[syriacus]

Then god didn't bring life either. As, the only way for there to be death is for there first to be life.

How about using the opposite terms of existence and nonexistence?

God existed before He created man. There was no death when He was the only Being in existence.

Would you say an "existing" Supreme Being was "alive"?

Or should words like living, live, alive, etc., be given to only created beings?

[hocndoc]

Very, very good post, ohiopyle.

[hocndoc]

Which anti-abortion law are you concerned about? I testified in favor of several pro-life laws this spring. But, you should know that all those laws have either passed or failed, by now, since the last day of the Legislative session was June 3.

No one is trying to kill you. According to the Declaration of Independence and tradition in this country, you and all humans have the right not to be purposefully killed - the right not to have someone else try to kill you - if you aren't a danger to someone else, but you don't have the right to take the life of another human being, even if you need a heart, kidney or liver transplant.

Humans may not act to kill a human unless that human is acting to endanger a human life.
The embryonic human is not endangering your life.
You may not act to kill the embryonic human.

[exmarine]

Killing a caterpillar is not ending the life of a butterfly because the life of the butterfly has not started. It can't be a caterpillar and a butterfly at the same time; just as you can't have a fetus and a baby at the same time - one preceeds the other.

At 16 weeks, the being in the womb has arms, legs, a beating heart, and a brain. Are you going to tell me that this being is just a "thing"? My eyes tell me differently! My eyes must be lying eh? Moreover, science confirms it is a unique "human being" - the DNA proves it. What precisely is the difference between a human being and a person in this case? The will of the mother! If the mother decides that the being inside her is a person, then VOILA! it magically becomes a person; on the other hand, if she decides it is just a blob or fetus, then voila! - it becomes a blob! That sounds logical and sane (/sarcasm off)...