Baby lives 45 minutes after legal abortion in UK

Wompa1 wrote: »

Unless it should be considered against the law which could be possible in the case of a late term abortion. Frankly speaking, I dont care much either way. The Planet is over populated as it is. An ex girlfriend of mine had a big group of Friends WHO would go for the morning after pill and give her address and found that funny...I dont like the fact that these measures can be exploited by brats like that but oh well. Irish society had taken a big slide in recent years anyway

You would rather they procreate?

Do a belief that life begins at conception and a pro-choice stance have to be mutually incompatible?

I'm pro-choice but I also believe that life begins at conception. It's quite undeveloped of course, but human life it is. I think if we somehow had never come up with the concept, we'd never be splitting hairs about when exactly human life begins. Sure, there's a big difference between a person at one week and at twenty-eight weeks, but I don't we need to look for a cut-off point between non-human life and human life.

I believe that abortion, including late-term abortions in exceptional circumstances, should be available to all women.
I think that rather than trying to argue whether either a child or a clump of cells is aborted, we should acknowledge that a life is ended, but still justify it, by weighing up the rights of the foetus/embryo/clump of cells and its experience of life to date, with the rights and experience of life of the mother.
What's being ended is an undeveloped life with no real experience of any substance, and ideally, little or no awareness or sensitivity.
We weigh this up against the mother's right not to have the child for whatever reasons such as not being able to provide a strong environment for it, the situation of conception, health risks to one or both, her suitability as a mother etc, and I think few people would argue against ending the brief, undeveloped, inexperienced life.

I think many pro-choice people don't talk in such terms as it seems to be straying towards moral relativism and it's based upon weighing up the rights of one person against another, which doesn't sit too well with many people's consciences. Therefore people make as many arguments as possible for why the aborted foetus isn't really a life, as that makes the issue more black and white, which is also how our brains tend to work. We instinctively tend to see things, initially at least, as either right or wrong.
But the world isn't based on such binary oppositions, and it presents us with more complex issues like this which we tend to try to see as right or wrong.

But I think the pro-choice side would be more persuasive overall if more people were to say "Look, we don't have to keep coming up with arguments for why it's not really a life that's being ended. Abortion does involve ending a life, which isn't ideal, but it's an underdeveloped one with no real experience, and the mother's rights trump those of the child at that stage. Now you could argue that the rights of a mother trump a five-year old, for example, but that's why most countries that legalise abortion also have an upper limit that stops the abortion of more developed foetuses/children, except in certain cases where the life of one or both is threatened, for example."

I'm sure there are some holes in my argument that some better-informed, or at least less-tired people can point out, but I still think that a more nuanced, honest approach similar to the above would be beneficial to pro-choice believers overall and make them more convincing.

philologos wrote: »

Seachmall: Yes, it is a human life. It's formed of human ova and sperm. I've asked you repeatedly as to how it isn't human.

I'm asking specifically about the biological term.

• All humans are animals.
• All animals are organisms.

Therefore,

• All humans are organisms.

Do you agree with that deduction?

I've answered this very question multiple times on this thread already if you search back. It is you who has not answered me yet.

I'm assuming your question that I haven't answered is "How can life formed of a human sperm and a human ova be anything but human?"

I haven't addressed it because A) my point about it not being human in the biological sense nullifies the question and it's not up to me to disprove your claim of it being human (it's up to you to prove it).

philologos wrote: »

Seachmall: Yes, it is a human life. It's formed of human ova and sperm. I've asked you repeatedly as to how it isn't human.

It's not a human. It's a template for forming a human. Hence it can be used to create one human, two humans, even multiple humans. The same template exists in every cell of your body yet we don't go shouting "murderer" every time someone cuts their fingernails or exfoliates or whatever.

philologos wrote: »

What is manifest is that the embryo is a life. Dead things don't grow, dead things don't develop in the same way as an embryo does.

What is manifest is that the embryo as an individual person is biologically unique from its parent and from any other.

Unless we're willing to change the whole definition of life for the sake of this argument, it's pretty clear at least to me that this understanding you present is mistaken.

The embryo is not an individual person; that's not a position or an argument, that's basic logic. Given any sensible definition of "individual" (based as it is on the idea of being indivisible), something that can still end up becoming two or more human beings is logically incapable of being a human being itself. Given that a single embryo can split and subsequently become two lives, only two options are possible:

1. People born of the same embryo - monozygotic siblings - are less than a whole individual person and only add up to one person.

2. Whatever it is that defines a life as something separate to a living collection of cells is not present at the moment of conception.

I literally cannot see a way around this that doesn't involve an appeal to time travel. Either a person is formed at the moment of conception and therefore identical twins are one half of a person each, or identical twins are separate and whole human beings and therefore whatever it is that defines them as separate and whole human beings was not present when the implanted embryo split in two.

philologos wrote: »

If you find biological reality to be absurd, that is your choice, not mine.

Says the man rejecting biological fact...

Jesus Christ, this frustrating.

philologos wrote: »

Seachmall: I know, it is frustrating. It's not just frustrating but tragic, how people choose to deny the truth to justify abortion.

Now I know you're trolling.

Back against the wall; begin the troll.