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]

631 - So, I guess we need to enact laws to perform immediate operations on all fertile women killed/dying, and search for a fertilized egg or fetus.

We have hundreds of thousands of 'people' dying in these dead women every year.

[XBob]

633 - "We can talk about death now, but that doesn't mean death existed when God was alone."

You can't even prove the existence of god, let alone that he was 'alone', so your analogy is inappropriate.

[exmarine]

ME: "What about that little creature-thing that was butchered by Dr. Mengele at the abortuary? What is that? Is it human? Yes or no?"

YOU: I don't know about that incident, but I do know, that as a small boy, in 1952, my Father and Mother took me to Dachau, just outside of Munich, (when you could still see the blood and ashes), and it was horrifying. I remember the blood trenches, the bullet holes in the walls where people were shot, the gas chambers, the ashes still in the ovens.

Just answer the question! What is that creature being butchered???

[Tailgunner Joe]

You said it. This freak is a psychopath who wants babies murdered because he thinks it will help him live longer.

[Tailgunner Joe]

You are really ignorant. You think a fetus is "a single cell" and you equate natural and unpreventable miscarriage with intentional abortion. You need to take a biology class.

[secretagent]

That is exactly what they are arguing.

Not sure. I haven't read the whole thread.

[XBob]

637 - "So what is the magical moment of the birth, in this case, that changes the status of the individual, from dehumanized, to humanized, and why?"

It seems to me that the born baby can breathe, umbicle cord or not.

However, you pose a good question. So, what is so magical about fertilization (where two previously existing lvining cells combine into one cell) to create 'new' life?

it seems to me that you are merely changing the form of previous living cells. No newly living thing is created, only differentiating into living in a new place.

Why should a zygote suddenly magically be living, and two gametes not be 'living'?

[mommadooo3]

Bob, I have stayed 'out' of this thread, reading on the sidelines. And I HAVE to say you're not that cold. FReep mail me if there's time for you.

[Tailgunner Joe]

You would know the answer if you had paid attention in school.

Gametes only have half the genetic material from the person who produces them. Humans have 46 chromosomes. A gamete has 23. When the gametes combine, a new human being is created. It's not "tissue", not an organ, not a parasite and not a tumor to be cut out. True, this new human being is "a clump of cells," but so are you.

There is nothing magical about any of this. You could learn this yourself but you are lost in fantasy land.

[MHGinTN]

You post with so many shortcomings, Bob. No one has asserted that the gametes are not living. They are alive as cells, sub-units of organs found in the bodies of the parents, the organismal parents of the newly conceived individual human being you characterize as a 'single cell'. Can the gamete form its own placental barrier and within that encapsulation build further organs and tissues that will function as an integrated whole later in that individual's lifetime begun at conception? No, the gametes are so very differentiated that they lack the capacity to become a new individual without combining with another gamete or the nuclear mass of another alive sub-unit of an organism.

When scientists at Roslin Institute in Scotland succeeded in cloning a sheep (a higher mammal), they took the nuclear mass out of a sheep ovum (sheep egg cell; female gamete from a living organism) and brought the nuclear mass of an alive cell taken from another organism together with the enucleated ovum then stimulated the combination to begin cell differentiation, the cell division that progresses from totipotent cell(s) to pluripotent cells to multipotent cells, and so on, with the new cells becoming more and more differentiated into the specific organs and tissues the alive sheep in embryo age of the sheep builds to have a body for functioning in the air world.

The first organ the new cloned embryo (Dolly-clone in her embryo age) built for her lifetime was her placental barrier/survival encapsulation. The technicians deciding which embryos to try and implant looked carefully to discover if the target embryos had built their beginning form of their placentas, because if the emebryos had yet to evidence their protective encapsulation, they would not survive the implantation process. That these embryos built first their placental organ evidences their vitality (they were alive members of the sheep species), their survival instinct, their need for outside life support to continue their lifetimes already existing.

You see, Bob, the placental cell barrier is constructed by the embryo, not the mother. That barrier acts to trick the mother's body into not rejecting the new 'different' individual life seeking life support. That organ constructed by the embryo acts to accomplish the tasks the later constructed form will need to survive in the air world, but while in the 'water world' the embryonic individaul being survives by drawing life support from the mother's body via the all-important organ that proves the embryonis individual is an integrated functioning whole organism.

[XBob]

649 - "If you think we get a "free republic" with more human government, you might want to think again."

bingo. These people want the government in your bedroom but not in their politics, except to enforce their religion.

[Tailgunner Joe]

In fact, I am almost sure these simple scientific facts have been explained to you previously on this thread, but you are not interested in reality, only in indulging your delusions.

[XBob]

652 - "You have no authority outside of yourself. I do."

So, exmarine - you believe the muslims are right, because they have the authority of allah and the authority of the koran. And they believe many of your beliefs are wrong.

I get it. Those in power have the authority, so might makes it right.

[XBob]

658 - "Hey, and you've got one worshipper at least, in XBob! He would toss a few alive babies on your firey idol, to appease your 'reproductive rites' because he isn't able to discern the aliveness of the unborn so they're fair game and you could probably enlist his worship, especially if you told him the toss would give him a shot at a cure for his diabetes."

You know, MHG, you often make me wish your mother had been on the pill, just to satisfy you and your beliefs.

[UnChained]

" excellent - these people are trying to confer 'personhood' on a 'non-person' or a 'not-yet-person'."

I'm afraid that you miss my point. We don't know what process in the human body makes personhood possible. While it would be error to confer personhood on a non-person, it would be a much more serious error to confer non-personhood on a person.

We should stop killing unborn humans until we can be certain that we aren't killing sentient beings. If sentience exists through the operation of some part of the human brain, we may find that it may come much earlier than we think. It is irresponsible and immoral to go on terminating pregnancies without being certain about this.

The unborn may be more alive in the sense of being sentient than you are.

[XBob]

So, I guess we better prohibit drilling and digging into the earth, as we might kill some people:

"My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, [and] curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."

Outstanding logic. Especially from an 'ex' marine.

Can I cite the Koran as reason/authority for killing you, as an infadel? The authority is there, is it not?

[XBob]

666 - "When persons like Semper, Hank, the programmer, or XBob set themselves up to be god,"

Wow - again - I am a god. Amazing. And you think you are better than your god, mutilating your body to suit your beliefs, and trying to force us to do the same.

My My My - the pot calling the kettle black.

[XBob]

667 - " I believe that the problem for the church is that most churches have abandoned the Word of God as the ultimate authority for moral law and, as a result, the moral relativism of the world has crept in. "

So now you are judging the church, and morals of other god believers.

Where does your authority for that come from?

[XBob]

668 - "Selah!"

It's salah - the muslim call to prayer. And they call for killing infadels like you.

[XBob]

674- "But I'm not asking you about zygotes, I'm asking you about the being that is butchered in the womb, say, at 5 months (not yet viable) and extracted in pieces (leg here, arm there, head there, torso there). What is that creature being butchered? Is it a frog? A bird? What is it? You tell me what it is."

well, I would call it a fetus, not a baby (which is born) and not a 'person'.

Now, just when did that fetus become a 'person'?

Remember, you are using the argument of the beard here.