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.
You still don't get it, do you? Yes, and you would have lived successfully in Hitler's Germany if you "abided by the morals of that society." Thank God that Dietrich Bonhofer and others decided to DEFY those morals and do the RIGHT THING. Obviously, your moral system is illogical and anti-intuitive.
You are not following your own logic. You SAID that man invents morals (cultures) - you said it. Need I repost it? Again, and I repeat, there are only two possible SOURCES for morals - man (individual or society or govt.) OR God. There are no other choices. You choose man. You believe moral principles originate from men since you don't believe in God. And I showed that that system cannot possibly work in view of logic and human experience.
I am not a missionary, like you, bent on imposing my 'right' morals on everyone else. What is your right to impose your morals on me?
Is it wrong to impose my morals on you? Why is it wrong and who says so? You? What moral authority, other than yourself, do you base your claim that I don't have a right to impose my morals on you? I don't care about YOUR morals - I have my own. Furthermore, you don't think you are imposing YOUR morals about abortion on me? The hours you spend trying to force your view down my throat is prima facie evidence that you are doing what you accuse me of - forcing your morals on me. If it's wrong, don't do it! Hypocrisy.
Personally, I agree with most of your morals, and this is my society. And in fact, it is the society I have chosen to live in (me more than most - as I have lived in many different societies, and I could have stayed and lived comfortably in numbers of them). But this society is my society, and I don't want you changing it.
Baloney. We disagree on the most fundamental of moral issues - the value of human life. Society (your moral guide) is split down the middle on this. Which half of society is right? huh? Once again, your moral system is exposed as pitifully inadequate.
Every time you post about morals, you expose the inherent weaknesses in your logic. In effect, the foot is going deeper into your mouth with every post.
At this point, perhaps they don't 'want' to, but they purposely avoid seeing the results. It is like saying, you must not ever go into war, someone might get killed.
I think understand you: the uncertainty of war compared to the "uncertainty if we'd kill real persons" (with early embryo abortions").
"We can't escape having personal opinions, some less contradictory than others. I include us all in that category."
Some opinions reflect absolute reality, some don't. Their's don't and neither do yours. Right and wrong extend beyond the person.
I don't know what you mean by "absolute reality". Yes, right and wrong concern other people, if you mean that. If you mean people can escape having opinions, I disagree.
If you mean that while no one can escape having personal opinions, some can have opinions in agreement with the creator of the universe, I don't agree or disagree.
God is my source for moral absolutes - what's yours? The Supreme Court?
God may source all morals, including yours and mine.
I don't have moral absolutes in the sense that I can't conceive of ever changing my mind. I do have principles that I try to reconcile. The principles derive from many sources, I suppose, themselves possibly traceable to "God".
" I don't think they 'like killing unborn babies', but I haven't read each post."
Then why do they spend hours and hours defending the practice?
They don't defend killing babies, at least no one has at FR that I've ever read. But I assume by babies, they mean post birth humans. I don't think they (we) see any cruelty in destroying a zygote, since it feels no pain, has never dreamed, has no memory, and no consciousness.
With a later developed fetus, I find it hard to defend abortion, since I now empathize with the human. It has a face, seems to feel pain, dream, and have a "startle reflex" when the scisssors go in the back of the head. It seems cruel not to even anesthesize the "creature", and I'd find the mother guilty of murder if she killed the same human (now a baby) after having given birth. Location seems pretty weak.
But even here, "late-choicers" don't "like killing babies". They usually won't face the issue, because the conflict within their own morals makes them too uncomfortable.
They have corrupt hearts and minds. If morals are relative to each person, that is what you end up with - mere personal preference or taste.
I don't believe you really mean that as starkly as I could interpret that sentence. Taken literally, it would mean that no pro-choicer has ever died for a noble cause.
No way around it. If God is not the source of morals, then all is just an impersonal machine.
No, we still have persons - by definition not "impersonal"!
Another point, this time assuming a god: God, as the creator of all, could have sourced the morals of each person, intending seeming contradictions.
The God of the bible is the source of absolute right and wrong (moral absolutes are not made up on a whim, they flow directly from His Holy Character, they reflect His goodness and purity). Try reading the 10 commandments - the embodiment of moral absolutes. Murder is ALWAYS wrong. God is eternal and transcendant, and so is His character and moral fingerprints. Moral Laws are eternal because God is eternal; morals laws do not change because God doesn't change. You only have two logical choices - morals are either from God (absolute) or from man (relative to man's preferences) - that exhausts the choices. The I know you don't want to try to defend moral relativism - it's logically and practically indefensible.
I see murder as always wrong, but don't believe in a Christian or any other God. I wonder if you'd agree with me on this point: Morality has a deeper grounding in reality than most religions.
Cruelty and non-cruelty become equal, and it would then be as Marquis de Sade declared: "What is, is right."
Equal to a non-living 'machine universe', but not to (living) humans.
De Sade's remark seems to insinuate he has God's perspective, and I'll declare a bold atheism on that.
Right and wrong go together for me. I can't see the use of one without the other. So his remark seems unintelligible to me, unless he means that: (a) He believes in a God and (b) He knows God approves of all events.
I don't believe either point.
Stop trying to evade the problems with your system. I showed how pitifully inadequate your "cultural" system is and you haven't addressed those problems. Hitler was right in your system. If you can, show me how Hitler can be wrong using your cultural morality. You can't. I will not let you off the hook - you either tell me how Hitler could be wrong or we can all assume that you have no good response.
That's right. God or man. Name another possible source for morality besides those two. If you can't name it, it doesn't exist. Name another possibility. You haven't done so yet. In fact, in stating that morality is cultural, you are saying that man is the source. Human culture = man.
BTW, what morals existed before Moses went to the mountain and carved the 10 commandments?
Moral absolutes predate Moses becuase God predates Moses. Moral absolutes do not depend upon their inscription on stone tablets. Moral absolutes are discovered, not invented. Was murder wrong before the 10 commandments? Absolutely it was. And it is still wrong today. Why? is it wrong in EVERY CULTURE no matter what that culture believes?
You need to address the problems I raised with your moral system. Can't you defend your own moral system?
By the way, what punnishment do you suggest for manslaughter (according to your morals) of killing a single celled 'person'
It's a natural process controlled by God alone and no human control is possible and no human willfulness is involved, and I do not believe it is possible to save these embryos even if they could be found, which itself is in doubt. Let's be clear - you are the one who is willfully killing the unborn with a knife or suction or burning saline. What should the penalty be for 1st degree premeditated murder? You still can't tell me what the creature is and you can't give me any moral authority for claiming that it becomes a person at viability. You have no moral code but your own.
I most certainly do. I don't think there is anything noble about someone who favors killing the unborn. It's an egregious insidious evil. I don't know what you mean by "absolute reality". Yes, right and wrong concern other people, if you mean that. If you mean people can escape having opinions, I disagree.
That's not what I said. I said some things are wrong indpendent of human belief. That renders opinions moot. If I say abortion is wrong, I am not saying I don't like it, I am saying it is wrong period. Your relativistic parsing seems to imply that right and wrong are personal preference? Are they? The law of contradiction does not allow that conflicting moral opinions as to what is objectively right and wrong can be true. That is a LAW of logic. Argue with that.
If you mean that while no one can escape having personal opinions, some can have opinions in agreement with the creator of the universe, I don't agree or disagree.
What is the source of right and wrong? God or man? Has to be one or the other. Which?
God may source all morals, including yours and mine.
I have no idea what that means - too wishy washy. Morals flow directly from God and He sets the standard. The only alternative is moral relativism which is illogical and indefensible.
I don't have moral absolutes in the sense that I can't conceive of ever changing my mind. I do have principles that I try to reconcile. The principles derive from many sources, I suppose, themselves possibly traceable to "God".
Do you know what moral absolutism means? Absolute means universal, real, actually existing, transcendant, eternal, essential. That is the definition so please stick to it. By definition, that means that you can't decide what morals are absolute. Your opinion has no bearing on it whatsoever - you are not the center of the universe. Principles may derive from many sources but moral absolutes only derive from one source - God. Your only choice for the origins of morals are God or man (individual, culture, govt.). Which is it? It can't be both. Either the Lord is Lord or man is Lord. Which?
I don't believe you really mean that as starkly as I could interpret that sentence. Taken literally, it would mean that no pro-choicer has ever died for a noble cause.
Yes I do. There is nothing noble about a pro-choicer. The pro-choice woman plays God - if she decides that the being inside her is a person, then VOILA! - it becomes a person by magic, but if she decides it is just a blob of tissue and should be killed, then VOILA! it becomes a blob of tissue by magic. Let me tell you something. Whether or not the unborn is a person is not up to a human being to decide - it either is or isn't entitled to the unalienable right to life or it isn't. But humans do not have the moral authority to make it anything they want.
I see murder as always wrong, but don't believe in a Christian or any other God. I wonder if you'd agree with me on this point: Morality has a deeper grounding in reality than most religions.
Oh, so becuase YOU say so, then it's always wrong, or is that just your opinion. Hitler said killing jews was good. Was he right or wrong? On what authority was he right or wrong? Morality is real because God is real. Equal to a non-living 'machine universe', but not to (living) humans.
I can see you have never given any deep thought to this topic. If God doesn't exist, then you need to explain logically how man is anything more than an impersonal mass of atoms, or a machine, just like the rest of the universe. Can't be. There can be no intrinsic (look up the defintion) meaning or value without God.
De Sade's remark seems to insinuate he has God's perspective, and I'll declare a bold atheism on that.
No De SAde is declaring God doesn't exist, therefore, anything goes. By what authority can you tell him he is wrong if he wants to torture women? Yours? haha. He has his own idea of right and wrong, he doesn't care what YOU think. If man makes up his own morals, then no mans morals can be superior to any others - all are equal. Get it? Therefore, in such a case, those with the power to enforce their brand of morality will dictate what is right and wrong and you are left only with "might makes right."
Right and wrong go together for me. I can't see the use of one without the other. So his remark seems unintelligible to me, unless he means that: (a) He believes in a God and (b) He knows God approves of all events.
De Sade was an atheist and he reasoned atheism to its logical conclusion - namely, that if there is no God, there is no right and wrong. As for your (b), The 10 commandments prove that God does not approve of all events. "thou shalt not murder" does not leave room for all choices to be agreeable to God.
If God did not exist, then all things become possible. Indeed, if God doesn't exist, then Marquis de Sade was right when he said, "What is is right." Without God, cruelty and non-cruelty become equal becuase there can be no universal moral standard without God. Period.
You need more study on this topic. The logic is over your head.
Here is a philosophical problem for you to study and think about. Can the personal come from the impersonal? Can personality come from non-personality?
Well, thanks for the replies, but I don't care to continue when it gets to the insult stage.
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