Thread: Abortion: split from stem cell research

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

As soon as I come to a definitive, unquestionable and demopstrably 100% correct answer to when life begins, I'll be sure to let you all know!

at conception. a fetus is alive, demonstrably via scientific reasoning. (eg it is made of living cells, even if there are only a few dozen of them, it's still technically life.)

now, whether it is viable or valuable, that's another discussion, but it's definitely alive.

Originally Posted by jockeys

at conception. a fetus is alive, demonstrably via scientific reasoning. (eg it is made of living cells, even if there are only a few dozen of them, it's still technically life.)

now, whether it is viable or valuable, that's another discussion, but it's definitely alive.

Just for argument's sake, I'll disagree. Just because something is made up of living tissue...does that mean it "has" life? I hold it does not necessarily mean any such thing.

Maybe we should split the thread - new title: "The Meaning of Life - Solved on SRP"

Originally Posted by jockeys

at conception. a fetus is alive, demonstrably via scientific reasoning. (eg it is made of living cells, even if there are only a few dozen of them, it's still technically life.)

now, whether it is viable or valuable, that's another discussion, but it's definitely alive.

Exactly!

Originally Posted by smokelaw1

Just for argument's sake, I'll disagree. Just because something is made up of living tissue...does that mean it "has" life? I hold it does not necessarily mean any such thing.

I'll explain why Jockeys is right.

Take a sperm, or an egg, it is living but it does not "have life so to speak. Now combine the two, something interesting happens, you get a completely unique set of DNA, one that has never been seen before, and it begins to duplicate itself, producing more and more cells, and more and more DNA, until eventually following the instructions coded on that very first piece of DNA we have a complete human body.

The sperm and the egg live but the combination of the two is very completely, uniquely, amazingly alive and it begins to do what it and its replicents will do for the next eighty years or so, build and maintain a human being.

the sperm and the egg were both living cells, too. but we really don't care about them, they get killed by the millions and it's not a big deal. mosquitos are alive as well. i'm not saying a fetus is valuable, but it is most definitely alive.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Can someone give a real example of a situation where a mother's life is actually endangered (not just inconvienienced) by a pregnancy?

See link below for a medical condition caused by pregnancy and requiring immediate delivery of the fetus. Yes - I personally know a woman who went through this and barely survived herself.

Eclampsia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eclampsia is fairly rare but certainly can't be ignored when considering exceptions to restrictive anti-abortion laws. Surely it makes no sense to have a law which kills the mother when the fetus has no chance to survive upon her death.

Lou

Pregnancy is by definition a life-threatening condition.

j

There are also many conditions that aren't relate to the pregnancy that make treatment difficult to impossible if the woman is pregnant such as infections, and cancer. These if left untreated could put the woman's life endanger.

I'm not a fan of rabid feminist, just as I'm not a fan of any other radical zealotry, but they made one statement that I do have to agree with.

"If men could get pregnant there wouldn't be any debate about abortion".

Men would be getting them because it interferes with dear hunting season, their fishing trip, that job promotion, you name it.

Originally Posted by Hutch

I'm not a fan of rabid feminist, just as I'm not a fan of any other radical zealotry, but they made one statement that I do have to agree with.

"If men could get pregnant there wouldn't be any debate about abortion".

Men would be getting them because it interferes with dear hunting season, their fishing trip, that job promotion, you name it.

The one I heard was, "If men could get pregnant, abortion wouldn't be illegal; it would be a sacrament."

j