Posted on 11/08/2002 1:09:07 PM PST by Tomalak
I empathize with living humans (and to a lesser extent, animals) and I grieve for humans who die. Whether they have "souls" is only part of my concern. I believe they will be subordinated to machines, able to be killed by a software bug or a power failure. No human should ever be put in that position against their will.
many mutated sheep did result that were destroyed.
That is my greatest fear. I am horrified by rampant abortion, but I don't believe for a moment that I have a precise answer to any pregnant woman's moral dilemna. I would much prefer policies to eliminate the possibility of a pregnancy being "unwanted".
I don't think the name matters since my only point is that there is no "moment". A new human life takes some important steps during the fertilization process but there is no magic moment when it is instantly human. I haven't studied human embryo development, but there are obviously weeks involved in producing human qualities that I can empathize with and that are worthy of sympathy when the embryo dies. Those qualities aren't added linearly, I'm sure there are points where humanity is added in dramatic amounts. I can't define those exactly nor quantify the moral dilemna of abortion at those times, but I suspect abortion is turns increasingly tragic after the first few weeks.
You keep saying that the moment a separate, complete human life is formed is totally arbitrary without any backup at all. Why? Science is not on your side, and if the response to fallacy #3 does not convince you, I suggest you read the quotes in post 67.
The sperm and egg are human as soon as they are produced in the bodies of their owners. But neither is a complete human being until they come together and the egg is fertilised. I wish you would appreciate that this is not in scientific doubt. You can argue against many things about abortion, but not that the baby in the womb is alive, human and complete from the moment of conception.
I believe there are two parts to humanity: form and thought. Both will trigger my empathy, but thought is paramount. A human missing an arm is 100% human. A human missing a brain is no longer human. Number of cells starts to matter as human embryos become dramatically more human looking. But that also ties in with "thought" as that embryo starts to act human (feel pain, etc).
There are two questions to be asked. Is the baby alive and is it human? The answer to the first is self evident or we wouldn't be arguing over whether killing it is immoral. The answer to the second is just as evident.
You can argue that killing a human being for some greater good is okay I suppose but to argue that the baby is not human or not living is simply evidence of an advanced case of sophistry.
It is the science that scares me. There are test tubes containing humans as you define them. I feel no empathy whatsoever for those cells in those test tubes, and it's nice that women get have children that way. But the idea that the thing in the tube will take on human qualities is sickening and scary. I consider it to be slavery of the worst possible kind, human life subject to "scientific" caprice and machine failures, without any possibility of limits.
The key terms here are "I believe" - you want to ignore objective scientific knowledge and decide life and death questions based on your own valuations. THAT is enforcing your view on others - you want your own definition of human to trump scientific definitions in law, and if that means lots of deaths, so be it.
You so realise the brain grows very early in the pregnancy? Almost so early that a woman often doesn't know whether she is pregnant by then? So even if we were to accept what you say, it would still mean very few abortions for women who wanted them.
I only apply my built-in nonscientific test called empathy. I will never replace my empathy with a printout from a machine and you shouldn't either.
You keep talking about your own empathy and feelings. Do you understand that your empathy alone is never going to be any criterion for giving people basic civil rights? I may have little or no empathy for a Wiccan group who spend their days practising witchcraft, but that doesn't mean these people don't have freedom of religion. I may not like the idea of gays campaigning for same-sex marriage rights, but that doesn't mean they should be denied freedom of speech. Even if you can feel no empathy at all for tiny human beings, your empathy is ultimately irrelevant as to whether they have a right to life or not.
I am against abortion. I am also against a religiously based definition of life for three reasons. First, I use my emotion of empathy to help me make moral judgements and I empathize with human qualities, but not with single cells. Second, although I try to respect religion, I am not religious. Third, I think religious arguments polarize the political process and will marginalize our party.
You so realise the brain grows very early in the pregnancy?
I appreciate knowing this, that detail matters to me.
Giving these single cells legal status is irrelevant to the moral argument of whether they deserve protection. Law should always follow morality should it not?
The answer to is self evident or we wouldn't be arguing over whether killing it is immoral.
My moral judgements are limited to my empathy. For example when the sniper killed people in my area, I read all the articles that could about those people. While I read about other aspects of the case for other reasons, my moral outrage was triggered by my understanding of their lives. What really mattered was their humanity.
When I decide on the morality of abortion, I empathize with the humanity and grieve for the current loss of millions of babies. But when millions of fertilized eggs die when a freezer loses power, I don't care at all. It is difficult to come up with laws to reconcile those two extremes, but necessary. I'm only trying to contribute to a political debate, not to a woman deciding on abortion or someone else making moral choices.
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