The Glade 4.0

Excellent way to avoid the core of the discussion, does it often work for you? Perhaps she should clarify if she was talking about a human zygote (if she was the separate part is inherent in relation to the mother).

So are you going to use the correct word now?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

So if you know what everyone is getting at, Elm, why not address the substance of their points instead of fixating on the wording?

Also:

boobies

Because correct word usage is fundamental to a conversation and I believe many of the people making the statements don't understand what they are saying - they are speaking from an emotional position not a rational one.

Once we get them to move to correct usage we can then and only then examine the real argument and start to delve into their emotional support and deconstruct it.

I really don't know what they are getting at when they choose to use wrong wording time and time again after it being explained, shown, and detailed how it is wrong. Such repetition of incorrect usage indicates there is an emotional need for the ego to use such words so we must open that to self-criticism and correction before any discussion can bare fruitful results.

Make sense?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I appreciate the response, but I think that's a dodge. Both you and your interlocutors know that (i) the issue being debated is whether or not it's proper for abortion to be legal; (ii) you think it's wrong because you believe the characteristics present at conception (basically life and human DNA) are all that are required for rights to attach; and (iii) they believe additional characteristics are required which are not present until later stages of development, possibly up to and including birth. So you have all the common understanding necessary for a discussion of the issue. The substantive debate turns on whether the particular characteristics you each believe are required for rights to attach are valid, not whether you call the thing possessing those characteristics a "human being," a "person," or a "snarfblat wizzlebaum."

Elmo,
Yes, we're talking about human zygotes. Please justify how a zygote is a separate life form from its host? I'm having a hard time understanding how you justify something as a separate organism when it is still being nourished and controlled by its host. Until it turns into an embryo and starts forming its own systems and brain matter, how is it any different than any other cell in the human body?

Should any drawn blood of mine have natural rights? They are living cells with DNA, after all.

My point is that the zygote cannot differentiate itself from its host until it reaches a certain stage of development. Until at least the embryonic point, it's just a reaction between cells.

The debate cannot be substantive until the existing emotional defense is breached at least in part RD.

Getting a person to admit they are wrong on a small issue such as word usage (relatively easy to do, as I posted definition) tends to get those defense mechanisms to retract thus having the person become open-minded and ready to consider other things within the scope of the discussion that they may change their position on.

Since we've had many discussion on this topic previously and since such incorrect word usage persists it shows that the opposition is not open-minded and not willing to yet incorporate facts that disagree with their initial position.

Of course I also find it personally offensive when people strawman my positions so I try to choose my wording carefully and it would only be courteous to return this consideration. The words of my opponents are the only things I can really examine without putting myself into their head and attempting to determine "what they really mean".

No dodge, just planning and courtesy.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Other than, left to it's own devices it'll start forming it's own systems and brain, etc, right? 'Cause in that, it's pretty unique...

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In time, this too shall pass.

" Please justify how a zygote is a separate life form from its host? I'm having a hard time understanding how you justify something as a separate organism when it is still being nourished and controlled by its host."

First off a zygote isn't controlled by its host. It is nourished but if you had a tapeworm I doubt you would consider yourself brothers with other tapeworms simply because you nourished it.

Blood is not the whole of a human, your make a distributive fallacy such that any aspect of the whole is reflected in the individual parts. Akin to saying you cannot live in a house made of bricks because one cannot live in a brick.

It is different because at that point that cell is the entire body of a new organism (shown both by new DNA and that it is impossible to create by mother alone). Now unless you posses very powerful and mystical regenerative powers or your cells undergo a deliberate action in order to change their natural course none of your other cells will create a separate organism but instead even if fed will reproduce 50-x where x is how many times they have divided before and then die and thats if and only if they reproduce at all.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

A post made in haste. I concede, can't even continue that line of thought even if I were trolling.

My stance remains unchanged, though. I can't bring myself to care about it any more than I do bacteria.

Elmo & Taskiss,

I agree, a zygote can become a human being. It is unique in this.

Is it a human being, though? Or is it an object that can become a human being? If the former, then why, and why is that "conclusive"? If the latter, then why should an object that could become a human being have the same rights as that human being?

Furthermore, it is clear that a zygote needs input to continue to develop into a full grown human. So does an unfertilized egg. What is concretely different about an unfertilized egg, which needs sperm to continue and a fertilized egg that needs other input to continue?

For clarity, I'm not arguing the opposite point. I'm trying to illustrate to Elmo that his "opinion" is not fact, despite his claims.

I can only offer opinion ...

I don't think so. I'm most inclined to use a judgement of morality on when a person begins and a clump of cells ends.

If pressed for some measurable moment in time where I think a person exists, it would be the beginning of brain activity.

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In time, this too shall pass.

This is a very good point, but one that, I believe, misses the more egregious problem with Aizle's argument. That is, any definition which cannot be determined except by trial and error on a case-by-case basis fails, inherently, as a bright-line definition.

That is to say, the only way to determine if an abortion is legal is to pull the fetus out of the mother and see if it survives. If it does, congratulations, you didn't commit murder. If you *don't* do this, you're now open to reasonable doubt, and can (and should!) be convicted of murder. Good luck convincing a doctor to do this under such a law.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

So we could still safely abort Elmo?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Don't get me started.

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In time, this too shall pass.

I don't think us dudes should get much of a voice in the abortion topics. All we are doing amounts to the same as when we whack off. The woman does all the work......carrying the baby, eating for two, prenatal stuffs, giving birth, etc.

When men can carry and give birth and deal with the whole process, we can tell women what they can and can't do with reguards to baby making.....

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Cop out.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Give birth Emoturd, and then get back to me....

Its stating that only those who may be subject to a thing can comment on the morality of a thing. Only those likely to be murdered can comment on the morality of murder? Only those likely to be raped can comment on rape? It also assumes women can reason morality better than men when of course that ability is not delineated by sex.

All it does, aside from insult an entire sex, is to excuse yourself from thinking about it. So as I said, cop out.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Wait.....are you just espousing your moral beliefs, or you arguing for law?

You certainly have the right to the first. Opine away........it's the second that I think is better left to those that law actually affects.

As for your argument.....You as a male are capable of being murdered or murdering. You are capable of being raped or raping. You as a male are not capable of carrying or giving birth.

Then admit you can't make a compelling argument for the point at which life begins. That being the case, there is no real way to determine whether or not abortion constitutes the destruction of a life or not and the associated acts relevant to that determination (homicide, manslaughter etc.)

All the discussion in the interim is useless. So go ahead and just dismiss whatever you want to be "riled".

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

We are, however, just as capable of losing a child. We are also just as capable of raising that child.

Okay, been a few days since this topic was on my mind......so I may be confused......but not sure how this pertains to my argument with Emo.

I've stated in the past that I don't have enough detailed knowledge (or to be perfectly honest, interest to get it) to make an exact determination. I also submit that the important question isn't where "life" begins, but the point at which a fetus becomes it's own being. I don't think you'll get any argument from anyone that a zygote is living tissue. All I really know is that religion should NOT be the tool that's used to determine it.

I'm basically fine with the abortion laws as they are now, with some exceptions here and there.

That's not very useful, unless you intended to argue in support of infanticide later in the thread.

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Why?

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