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.

[Semper]

believers who think abortion is okay.

What religion thinks abortion is ok?

Just to make it clear, I don't think abortion is "ok". It is most often the wrong decision and it is done way too often for the wrong reasons. But it is not up to me or you or the government to decide reproductive matters for other people.

[Semper]

A fetus, a baby, a toddler, a teen, and an adult are all different stages of the same human being.

But there is a great difference between a fetus and the others. A baby, toddler, teen and adult are autonomous beings, breathing air, feeding on their own, being aware of their surroundings and making decisions(in varying degrees) - a fetus does none of that. The clearest difference is that a fetus can do nothing without its mother and all other stages mentioned can - to varying degrees - function as human beings. To put a zygote or fetus in the same status as babies, toddlers, teens and adults is just not accurate.

[MHGinTN]

You continue to assert false notions: "That is not grounds for the state to take over individual reproductive decisions." and then ... "But it is not up to me or you or the government to decide reproductive matters for other people."

Once a new individual human being is conceived, your false assertion that killing that individual is a 'reproductive right', a 'reproductive decision', tells us a lot about you and your ilk. Your ghoulish duplicity is instructive on a forum such as FR. By exposing your transactional dehumanization of the womb-bound, the reader gets a clearer picture of just how inhumane you and your abortion defending ghoulish ilk have become.

Though you would have us believe you're so concerned with reproductive rights. KILLING ALIVE HUMAN BEINGS THAT YOU OR SOMEONE LIKE YOU DEEMS INCONVENIENT IS NOT 'REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS'. The right to not conceive an individual alive other human being IS a reproductive right, BUT ONCE THE SECOND INDIVIDUAL EXISTS, IT IS NOT A 'REPRODUCTIVE RIGHT' WHEN YOU SLAUGHTER THAT INDIVIDUAL VIA A PAID SERIAL KILLER. There is NOTHING reproductive about it! But please, continue to assert that ghoulish notion, because it is so transparent and so sleazy as to be one of the best ways for those undecided on these issues to fully understand just how inhumane you and your ilk have become.

And now you and your fellow transactionalists want to conceive new individuals and dissect their embryonic bodies for their body parts, to sustain older individuals you and your ilk deem more worthy of LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Such are the modern cannibals you have chosen to be a part of, to support.

[hocndoc]

Yes, Semper, growth is a normal state of the healthy human, from fertilization to natural death, both physical and mental. The self does not change kind, type or species with growth and development.

[hocndoc]

The embryo and fetus need less effort on the mother's part to "feed" than the infant does. Even a breast feeding mother has to pick up and postition the child (not to mention take care of the diapers).
And, by your definition, none of the people dependent on IV's and feeding tubes are persons.

In the case of the infant and small child (and all the people on IV's and feeding tubes), someone else can kill them by neglect: just don't feed them, they'll die. In the case of and elective abortion on the prenatal human, someone must purposefully and intentionally act to kill.

[Hank Kerchief]

Hank,
You said
"" 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.""
I wonder how many don't care about slavery, rape, child abuse because no one in their family is affected?

Read carefully. I said can never be a direct threat, not probably won't. Someone could make me or one of mine a salve, someone could rape one of my loved ones, someone could abuse one of my children or grandchildren. No one can force any of us to have an abortion, or harm us by abortion. (It's sort of too late for that, if you get my drift.)

This principle would be consistant with supporting clone and kill research, though. Unless it's your twin brother created and killed.

Cloning does not produce siblings. There is nothing morally wrong with cloning. (Are you familiar with fibroid tumors and teratomas? Seems nature does some cloning all the time.)

Hank

[MHGinTN]

You asserted (incorrectly, deceitfully in fact), "There is nothing morally wrong with cloning. (Are you familiar with fibroid tumors and teratomas? Seems nature does some cloning all the time.) Hank, even you, with your ghoulish perspective must realize that you've tried to foist a deceit here! Is a teratoma an individual human being, of seperate DNA or able to reproduce a full human organism even if allowed to grow for years? No. A teratoma is limited growth, not totipotent or even pluripotent, but an embryo when mitosis begins IS totipotent. This one was so clintonesque as to be insulting toward the readers at FR. I'm astonished that you would try such a deceit. ... Perhaps you actually don't know what cloning really is? I shall prefer to believe that of you, rather than believe you would stoop so low as to try this deceit to 'win at any cost' the duplicitous, utilitarian point of view you hold so tenaciously to.

[hocndoc]

Fibromas and Teratomas are germ cell tumors, not at all comparable to new human beings. Never organized into more than one cell line, and in the case of fibromas, only muscle and blood vessels.
Cloning creates a near-identical twin of the donor of the DNA. With the same sort of development the donor.

[XBob]

533 - i am tired of your nasty crap, murderer.

How many fertilized eggs have you your women murdered by flushing them?

[XBob]

536 - "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."

so, then, having an abortion in the US is not ending the life of another 'person'.

Glad you finally admit it.

[MHGinTN]

Bob, there comes a point when you are no longer amusing. You're reaching that point where your nya nya baiting is making you such a pathetic sight that it is difficult for readers to even try and grasp the false premises you wish to sling. Try to be a bit more adult, if you're going to continue your 'over-the-topisms' game.

[Tailgunner Joe]

The Supreme Court decided that unborn babies aren't persons. They were wrong. This has been scientifically proven since then.

Only gullible women and immoral bloodsuckers like you continue to push this political fiction. You will be seen to be as reprehensible as the nazis in hindsight when morality wins out over the culture of death you embrace.

[XBob]

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

I would have to say that you better ask a 'gnostic', who 'knows'. I don't. I am an 'agnostic'.

However, I would say that if something is 'alive' it must be capable of 'dying', as 'life' is a comparative term, as compared to 'death'. Just as there can be no light without comparative darkness.

[XBob]

I explained it as best I could in 428.

Human life didn't start with a fertilized egg. It started before that.

Youall are trying to redefine a fertilized egg as a person. It is not a person.

Would you want your egg to be tasked with operating on you?

How many of your fertilized eggs have you destroyed? You keep failing to answer this question.

[XBob]

541 - "They've just decided that the unborn human child is inconvenient or could be more useful and valuable to them if he or she is killed. They don't see the risk to their own lives and rights when they discriminate between those humans who are human enough to have the right not to be killed and those they deem not human enough."

Just as you have not taken the trouble to save the 'lives' of your fertilized eggs. Where is the difference? Are your fertilized eggs not worth the trouble to save?

[XBob]

544 - "I think that seeking out every sloughed-off fertilized egg would be ludicrous. "

You don't want to take the trouble, to save what you define as a human being, by screning the menses for fertilized eggs?

It's toooooooo much trouble.

Better tell all those firemen, all those policemen, all those coastguardsmen, all those life guards, all the military - not to bother going to such extreme effort to save peoples lives, even to the extent of risking and sacrificing their own lives. It's toooooo much trouble.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Would you want your egg to be tasked with operating on you?

I wouldn't want an imbecile to operate on me either, but I don't claim that imbeciles aren't human and can be killed with impunity.

[XBob]

So, you don't think you should have to save your own 'children'?

Amazing, yet you wish the rest of us to save our 'children'.

[XBob]

549 - "Fertilized eggs that die, do so because it is natural for them to do it."

So, you think the Bishop in Arizona, has a right to drive away from the accident, and leave the man he hit to die in the street.

Start applying your logic across the board.

Do away with all good samartin laws, and all laws against leaving the scene of an accident.

[XBob]

549 - "BTW, Do you believe in any natural events?"

Sure. I also used to life guard. I guess I was wrong, according to you, as it would be 'natural' for people to drown.