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.
Let everyone see that you REFUSE TO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS. You are an evasive dishonest individual. YOU CAN'T ANSWER MY QUESTIONS - by default, you lose the argument.
As far as your insipid question, can you read? Did you bother to read post 757 wherein I emphatically answered your facile challenge. You can respond directly to my response. I will reiterate ONE MORE TIME for the slow of learning:
None. (Can you read that answer Dr. Mengele?) First, you can't see an embryo with the naked eye so how do you stop it or even know it's coming in order to PURPOSEFULLY flush it? RESPOND TO THAT. Second and most importantly, it is not caused by an ACT OF THE HUMAN WILL as abortion is. RESPOND TO THAT. If I die of a heart attack, should they charge my wife with murder because she is there and could not stop it? RESPOND TO THAT. So far, you haven't responded directly to ANY of my points - you just myopically keep restating your same tired lame old pathetic arguments over and over.
Let's be clear. In your case, you advocate the PURPOSEFUL (your word, not mine) and WILLFUL stopping of the beating heart of a gestating infant and then butcher it alive! That is a callous and willful act. When does the being become a person? Answer the question!!! And you still haven't answered the question as to "what the creature is". What is it you are killing? You can't answer any questions because you are WRONG.
SO FAR YOU HAVE ANSWERED PRECISELY NONE OF THE QUESTIONS ASKED OF YOU. I will give you one more chance to answer than then I will ignore you for eternity. I don't have time to waste on the likes of you.
My faith is a reasoned and logical faith based on reality, but you're right...I don't care what you think of my faith.
That is why your religion emphasises 'faith' and 'belief', as there is no proof.
That's a laugh. What do you think atheism is? It's a BELIEF or FAITH that God doesn't exist. Here's a little exercise for you teacher: Draw a dot on a piece of paper (let the dot represent you); now draw a circle around the dot (let the area within the circle represent ALL of your knowledge of the universe and everything in it); let the area outside of the circle represent ALL of the knowledge you DON'T have. Let's be generous and say that you know .000000001% of all there is to be known (that is being generous). Now, is it possible that GOD could exist outside of your knowledge? Gotcha.
In fact, by killing the potential parents of a baby, you in fact kill the baby, as the sperm and egg are alive, and become integral parts new 'apple' on the 'tree of life'.
And you are a biology teacher? Maybe they should start teaching ethics with biology courses. Obviously, eggs and sperm do not contain the geneteic information that qualifies either of them as a human being. An embryo does. It has equal number of chromosomes from each father and mother, a unique DNA, and is irrefutably a unique individual human being.
I already have - numerous times. It seems you can't keep up. I should go find a more worthy opponent - you don't measure up.
Quite obviously, this isn't practicable. How do tell a clot from an embryo? Should a woman sift through her menses with a microscope every day of her period? What about the ones that all out after or before the period? Should she check her clothing every day, napkins, tissue, toilet - all with a microscope? How can she tell if it is still alive even if she does spot it (fat chance of that)? If the embryo does not attach, then it wasn't meant to be. God is in control of that. It is through no act of the woman's will or intent that the embryo does not implant itself (some methods of contraception excepted). But I don't believe in contraception either and I also believe it is immoral.
However, in your case a being with arms, lets, heart, brain is butchered in utero and sold off or discarded like chicken scraps! NOW ANSWER MY QUESTIONS OR GO AWAY. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE.
You do an amazing amount of self-contradiction with your clownish posts that seek to bait and dissemble, but there comes a point when you cause the opposite effect than what you wish to achieve. Absurdisms only function to make people think, to contemplate, when the tool is not over used. You've taken it to the degree of 'over-the-topism' and you only get read by the single person you post to with your baiting nya nya juvenality. Do stop trying to bait fellow freepers ... you have seen how easy it is to vex you with a single baiting, so try to be considerate of your fellow freepers.
If you lack the education to carry on a reasonable discussion, at least pay attention to the posts of others and enter into the discussion accordingly. The childish nya nya baiting makes you look much worse. Hocndoc and others have treated you with courtesy far beyond your due. Don't return such kindness with insulting, repetitious babble.
What if in fact the embryo is a unique, new individual human being? What if the first evidence of mitosis is shown to be irrefutable proof that a new individual human being is expressing its life?
Setting aside exceptions that cannot prove the norm, is the life of a human being in normal stasis to be so easily cast off for the utilitarian value to be derived from dissecting her/him for their body parts, just because it is possible to do so? Is there to no longer be any specialness to the individual human being?
Is cannibalizing other human beings to become acceptable to sustain lives deemed 'more worthy'? If the individual human embryo is an individual human being, is cannibalizing those individuals to now be acceptable? ... Can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the embryonic individual human life is not a human being at its earliest age in its individual lifetime? ... I can make a darn good case (scientific case) that the embryo, even in a petri dish, is an individual human being at its earliest age of its individual lifetime. Is that to be ignored merely because some have figured out a way to dissect those individuals for your medical benefit? Would you accept a cure for your diabetes if it meant killing and cannibalizing another born human being to cure you? How about a human being having reached only ther eighth month of life from conception? How about an individual human being who has reached only the fifth month from conception? Will you gladly accept the killing and cannibalizing of those five month olds in order to cure your diabetes?
Here's the URL, if you have problems with the link ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1676240.stm
If a fertilized embryo 'falls out' of a woman, it is dead or in it's death throes at the very least. Get a real argument. You are setting up a strawman with very little straw.
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