I Finally Understand Why Abortion Can't Be Discussed Logically.

reply to post by Quadrivium


Oh man, that's exactly what the lecturer in the Yale University video was warning about! Shoddy science! Of course the book he was using for his lecture contained over 400 pages on the reproductive system, and you're Encyclopedia Britannica had a whole 3 paragraphs on the subject.

If you would have watched a little further in the lecture, you would understand that when a girl is born she already has all the eggs, gamete cells she ever will.

After a female egg is fertilized, the resulting one-celled organism becomes known as a zygote. Once this has occurred, the zygote begins a two-week period of rapid cell division and will eventually become an embryo. The zygote divides through a process known as mitosis, in which each cell doubles by dividing into two cells. This two-week stage is known as the germinal period of development and covers the time of conception to the implantation of the embryo in the uterus. psychology.about.com...

The egg, upon fertilization is transformed from a haploid cell, containing one set of chromosomes, to a diploid cell, now containing two. It isn't a new or different cell, it's the same cell that has been transformed, and so it deserved a new name, Zygote, to mark the distinction between the phases of the cell. That original cell, that was the egg, will now start to duplicate itself.

It's biology, not magic. There is nothing sacred or holy about this transition.

reply to post by charles1952

I AGREE WITH YOU! Unless of course, you consider the Creation event, or primordial ooze, or aliens, or a meteorite carrying life to earth, but I don't think that's what you mean.

I'm talking about evolution. Life is continuously evolving. Just like an egg evolves into a person. Life comes from life, it isn't created from non-life, at least not by us.

reply to post by windword

The egg, upon fertilization is transformed from a haploid cell, containing one set of chromosomes, to a diploid cell, now containing two. It isn't a new or different cell, it's the same cell that has been transformed, and so it deserved a new name, Zygote, to mark the distinction between the phases of the cell. That original cell, that was the egg, will now start to duplicate itself. 

So, you are claiming that after fertilization the egg is still just an egg?
That you were the egg before fertilization and you are still that same egg?
If this is what you are claiming as biology, I have nothing more to say to you.

Those of you who have a problem with 'potential human' please answer me:-



I have just killed a caterpillar !!

Or have I ? was it a caterpillar
or was it a 'potential' butterfly?
or was it a butterfly?


I have just killed a tadpole !!

Or have I ? was it a tadpole?
or was it a 'potential' frog?
or was it a frog?

InTheLight
reply to post by BubbaJoe

 

The real issue here is if the fetus has a soul that must be saved...if one belives that a soul is ever lasting and chooses, then there's your answer.

I am afraid many people don't believe in the soul, even though I love you pointing this out, one can use it to justify both positions on the abortion issue,



Or the argument that life, the breath of life is the soul, and that is provided by the mother through the umbilical cord.

I highly doubt that pro abortion activist would be able to preform one themselves.


And as I brought out the rib cage, I looked and I saw a tiny, beating heart. And when I found the head of the baby, I looked squarely in the face of another human being--a human being that I'd just killed. I turned to the scrub nurse and said, "I'm sorry." But I just knew that I couldn't be a part of abortion anymore.

Dr. Jarrett

Dr. Bernard Nathanson - New York City, New York

I am personally responsible for 75,000 abortions. This legitimizes my credentials to speak to you with some authority on the issue

Ask yourselves what makes these professionals change their mind?

Although I am not a formal religionist, I believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and shameful crime against humanity.

www.teenbreaks.com...

crime against humanity

The one thing every human being needs to be/stay alive is oxygen/air, even if it has to
be pumped into them via a mechanical machine


Simply put the difference between life and death is oxygen/air?


The foetus breathes via the host/mother? If the mother for any reason expires then so
does the 'unviable' foetus.


After 24 weeks gestation the mother is carrying a viable baby and if she then expires- medically the
now viable baby can be delivered and gasp for the one thing it needs to make it alive oxygen/air


So the human foetus has the 'potential' for life but is not alive till it takes its own first breath.

windword
reply to post by Quadrivium

 

If you would have watched a little further in the lecture, you would understand that when a girl is born she already has all the eggs, gamete cells she ever will.

Not to derail the thread or anything, but this has always blown my mind. Males constantly produce sperm, even when they're 100 years old. It's like women have an expire date or something. Which is sad, because IMO women are the pinnacle of creation.

reply to post by Quadrivium

So, you are claiming that after fertilization the egg is still just an egg?

What the heck does that mean?

Look, a chicken lays an egg. Either it is a fertilized egg, because of a rooster, or it's not. If it's not a fertilized egg, no chick will emerge.

Humans don't lay eggs. We have sex cells, called gametes, that are haploid, and are designed for transformation. The human female is born with all her eggs, "ova" already. A male begins to create sperm upon sexual maturity, and doesn't stop making them. A woman drops one. sometimes two, eggs a month, that are either fertilized, or they're not. The older she gets, the less viable they become.

The fertilization process happens within the female ova, but the outer shell stays intact as it begins it's descent down that fallopian tube. When that fertilized ova, now called a zygote, begins to duplicate itself, because it's been transformed to a diploid cell type, one could, i suppose, compare that to "hatching". However I'm not suggesting that mammals hatch.

But we are mammals, not birds, and the early process of reproduction has another critical stage, implantation. This is where 50% of all zygotes fail, under natural circumstances.

This is where the pro-life community goes wrong. Life doesn't begin at conception, and to delineate that event as some sacred, holy thing, that needs legal protection and that has rights that supercede the woman's, who is carrying that zygote, doesn't make sense.

This ideology sets a precedent that would eliminate a woman's legal right to use contraceptive measures that seek to prevent implantation. These methods of birth control, which includes the pill, IUD's the morning after pill, etc. are called abortionificiants.

That you were the egg before fertilization and you are still that same egg?

I have no idea what that means! You don't have a person if you never had an ova. Is a tree still the seed?

eletheia



Those of you who have a problem with 'potential human' please answer me:-



I have just killed a caterpillar !!

Or have I ? was it a caterpillar
or was it a 'potential' butterfly?
or was it a butterfly?


I have just killed a tadpole !!

Or have I ? was it a tadpole?
or was it a 'potential' frog?
or was it a frog?

It's not exactly the same, though it's an excellent quandary! A caterpillar/tadpole is the larval stage of its final form. A caterpillar is a moth/butterfly and a tadpole is a frog/toad. Mammals don't have a larval stage, we're just mammals.

Starred!

reply to post by charles1952


Thanks for your reply charles1952, and also thanks for starting this thread. There is one more thing I would like to point out in regards to abortion. It is having to do with your pineal gland, also known as the 'third eye.' If an abortion happens to a fetus, that fetus never is going to have their third eye activated by light. All abortions have this in common: they are denying light to the third eye. The pineal gland (the third eye) is partially composed of retina cells, so it has an ability to be 'activated' when light is seen. I can only assume that if you want to be a fully functional human or spiritual entity you must have the third eye activated.

This leads back to the idea of criminal intent. If you are aware that the pineal gland must first be activated by light you might be in a position to consciously deny that light to a baby. Again, the idea is that if you are aware that the baby's eyes must see the light in order for their pineal gland to be activated and you go ahead and deny access to that light, thereby keeping the third eye surpressed, there might be a case for criminal intent.

Although, I very much doubt the intent of most people going to get an abortion is criminal. Their intent probably has more to do with just not wanting to have a baby. So in most abortion scenarios it would be very hard to prove that there is criminal intent. But lets go back to that example I gave in the last reply. If a woman has had 10 abortions does that point to any evidence of criminal intent? My answer to that question is 'Yes.' Although, I think it would be very hard to prove that in court. But my point is that if you have had 10 abortions, and if abortion is murder, then maybe the person having all these abortions is really a seriel killer.

Or what if someone having an abortion actually believes it is murder, and does it strictly for that reason. If the woman knows that what she is doing is actually murder and still does it and gets away with it everytime, what difference is there between her and any other seriel killer?

reply to post by windword


I really wanted to avoid commenting to you because I see your cognitive dissonance so completely on display and I know you will not be able to see it. You are saying in one breath humans don't have eggs and in another breath they do. You are comparing how a bird reproduces as opposed to a human. Once an egg is fertilized it comes to life otherwise the cells would not divide and multiply!

Put any set of cells under a microscope and let any scientist look into it and as they move about and divide, the scientist will say it is alive. So, how is a human cell dividing and multiplying suddenly not life?

Obviously it is life, and then the question arises as to what is the moral truth to defending that life.

windword
reply to post by Quadrivium

 

So, you are claiming that after fertilization the egg is still just an egg?

What the heck does that mean?

Look, a chicken lays an egg. Either it is a fertilized egg, because of a rooster, or it's not. If it's not a fertilized egg, no chick will emerge.

Humans don't lay eggs. We have sex cells, called gametes, that are haploid, and are designed for transformation. The human female is born with all her eggs, "ova" already. A male begins to create sperm upon sexual maturity, and doesn't stop making them. A woman drops one. sometimes two, eggs a month, that are either fertilized, or they're not. The older she gets, the less viable they become.

The fertilization process happens within the female ova, but the outer shell stays intact as it begins it's descent down that fallopian tube. When that fertilized ova, now called a zygote, begins to duplicate itself, one could, i suppose compare that to "hatching". However I'm not suggesting that mammals hatch.

But we're are mammals, not birds, and the early process of reproduction has another critical stage, implantation. This is where 50% of all zygotes fail, under natural circumstances.

This is where the pro-life community goes wrong. Life doesn't begin at conception, and to delineate that event as some sacred, holy thing, that needs legal protection and that has rights that supercede the woman's, who is carrying that zygote, doesn't make sense.

This ideology sets a precedent that would eliminate a woman's legal right to use contraceptive measures that seek to prevent implantation. These methods of birth control, which includes the pill, IUD's the morning after pill, etc. are called abortionificiants.

That you were the egg before fertilization and you are still that same egg?

I have no idea what that means! You don't have a person if you never had an ova. Is a tree still the seed?

edit on 18-9-2013 by windword because: (no reason given)

Shesh, you have a short memory.
Earlier you said that YOU were in your mother before she was born.
Then you stated that an egg is still just an egg after fertilization it has just transformed (how is something that has transformed the same anyway?). Perhaps now you can see the confusion in my previous post.
This is the first post of yours that I actually, totally, and completely understand. Yet you still have it wrong.
A human life begins at conception.
Remember the link I provided earlier? The one you blew off as being just quotes from people about life starting at conception?
Perhaps you should have actually read it. Each of those "quotes" were from people or groups of researchers who know what they are talking about.
Each quote is followed by The persons or groups name and a page number of where the quote can be found.
Here is the link again if you want to educate yourself.

www.princeton.edu...

So far you have provided one video of a professor from yale for your argumentent and a music video by Meat Loaf.

reply to post by Quadrivium


What's really funny in a sick way is if the chicken were the last chicken on earth that had laid an egg and you deliberately destroyed the egg, then you know you would be arrested and jailed for such a wanton act of killing the last chicken on earth, and no amount of you splitting hairs saying it was not a chicken, but an egg would help you!

Their cognitive dissonance on this topic is amazing to observe.

eletheia



Those of you who have a problem with 'potential human' please answer me:-



I have just killed a caterpillar !!

Or have I ? was it a caterpillar
or was it a 'potential' butterfly?
or was it a butterfly?


I have just killed a tadpole !!

Or have I ? was it a tadpole?
or was it a 'potential' frog?
or was it a frog?

Wow you are just as confusing as Windword. First you post this wonderful post, then in your next post you totally contradict yourself.

So the human foetus has the 'potential' for life but is not alive till it takes its own first breath.

So by your own reasoning the catapiller and the tadpol are not alive until they take their first breath as a butterfly/moth and a frog!?!
Quad

eletheia


The one thing every human being needs to be/stay alive is oxygen/air, even if it has to
be pumped into them via a mechanical machine


Simply put the difference between life and death is oxygen/air?


The foetus breathes via the host/mother? If the mother for any reason expires then so
does the 'unviable' foetus.


After 24 weeks gestation the mother is carrying a viable baby and if she then expires- medically the
now viable baby can be delivered and gasp for the one thing it needs to make it alive oxygen/air


So the human foetus has the 'potential' for life but is not alive till it takes its own first breath.

Great information. I was totally unaware of how oxygen/air is one of the key steps to being a completely-born human being. It truly is one of the steps that signifies completedness of life. In my last post I also commented that seeing light is another such a step. Seeing light and the first breath are crucial steps to having a completed birth. If these things are not allowed to happen it could have a negative effect on the spiritual body.

Just my two cents.

reply to post by Quadrivium

The view that human life begins at conception is a favoured view of most of the pro-life camp. By it, they do not mean that the sperm and ova were not alive and only became so at conception, but rather that ‘human life’ – in the special sense of a person who deserves protection under the law – begins at conception. Unfortunately for them, this view is logically inconsistent with that pesky thing called reality. There is absolutely no sense in which life, whatever is meant by the term, could be said to commence during the process of conception. hplusbiopolitics.wordpress.com...

I started having a very cordial conversation with a couple of (very cute!) pro-lifers when one of them makes the astounding claim that “Every biologist would agree absolutely that life begins at conception”. I let it pass and then I call her on it after she says it a couple more times. Eventually she explains that she’s very confident in this statement because their ‘executive director” always says it, and claims that if someone proves him wrong he’ll eat the paper it’s written on.

Easy. I sent back a quick reply…I daresay that no competent biologist would take the position that these anti-choicers claim is universal among us.

Life does not begin at conception.

It’s an utterly nonsensical position to take. There is never a “dead” phase — life is continuous. Sperm are alive, eggs are alive; you could even make the argument that since two cells (gametes) enter, but only one cell (a zygote) leaves, fertilization ends a life. Not that I would make that particular claim myself, but it’s definitely true that life is more complicated than the simplistic ideologues of the anti-choice movement would make it.
scienceblogs.com...

Life itself is defined as an organism’s capacity for self-sustainment, with the singular alternative being nonexistence, which is also referred to as death. Considering this, it becomes very difficult to claim that an embryo or, in certain cases, fetus is truly alive. While both undeniably possess the potential for life, the equally undeniable fact is that potentials are not actualities.

communities.washingtontimes.com...

Having a lot of quotes from pro-life people pushing simplistic and intellectually dishonest opinions as facts, doesn't make it so.

Trying to delineate the event of conception as a sacred point in the creation of life is not realistic.

reply to post by UnifiedSerenity

You are saying in one breath humans don't have eggs and in another breath they do. You are comparing how a bird reproduces as opposed to a human. Once an egg is fertilized it comes to life otherwise the cells would not divide and multiply!

In animals, egg cells are also known as ova (singular ovum, from the Latin word ovum meaning egg or egg cell). The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal. In higher animals, ova are produced by female gonads (sexual glands) called ovaries and all of them are present at birth in mammals and mature via oogenesis.
en.wikipedia.org...

Put any set of cells under a microscope and let any scientist look into it and as they move about and divide, the scientist will say it is alive. So, how is a human cell dividing and multiplying suddenly not life?

An ova, a female mammal egg, is alive and doesn't move about, nor does it divide.

The egg cell is the female haploid reproductive cell (gamete) in oogamous organisms. The egg cell is typically not capable of active movement, and it is much larger than the motile sperm cells. When egg and sperm fuses, a diploid cell (the zygote) is formed, which will gradually grow into a new organism.
en.wikipedia.org...

windword
According to the US Constitution, inalienable rights are granted to "persons born". The right to NOT be pregnant is applicable upon sexual maturity.

Thats fine and all, but it simply doesnt address the questions I am asking, nor does it satisfy the questions the OP is asking.

We all know the laws around it, and yet there still seems to be grey areas of misunderstanding and disagreement.

What is a "persons born?" What defines when a person is born? And yet again, why is it the case? It would seem that it is a constantly shifting definition that is driven by the advancement of science and medicine. Meaning, it is something that can, and likely will, change over time. It seems the OP and I are quite aligned in trying to figure this out. Not some metaphorical examples, or analogies but actual quantifiable evidence. Data, things like that.

The right to "NOT be pregnant is applicable upon sexual maturity" seems like yet another "right" which is based on a constantly shifting foundation. What about those with disorders that do not allow sexual maturity? In exploring and curing such health problems, all of a sudden we have a new outlook on how this right applies in the real world.

I have yet to see either side make a case with actual evidence and data, just personal bias bolstered by bias confirmation in any place it can be found.

kaylaluv
Can't really argue that, can you. You're much better at this than I am (but I keep trying).

I am not here to argue, but to try to find out if Charles, the OP, is correct in his assertion that no logical discussion actually takes place on this topic (from either side, mind you).

According to the Constitution, a non-viable fetus does not have an inalienable right to life. Sounds pretty logical to me. It makes even more sense when you consider that even the Church agrees that it's okay to perform a medical procedure that will mean certain death to the fetus, in order to save the mother. Until the baby is born, the mother's needs come first. After the baby is born, their rights are equal.

Yet again, none of this answers any of the questions posed. It sounds logical because it supports your bias, and is accepted without further questioning. Logic based on statements that are not backed by data, quantified studies, or answers to bigger questions allows for a significant amount of subjectivity.

In this case, stating that a babies rights are equal when they are born also insinuates that all of us receive our rights at different periods of time. Lets say two women become pregnant at roughly the same time. One woman has complications later in the pregnancy and needs to deliver prematurely. The other carries their child until full term, and is a standard pregnancy. Does the prematurely born baby receive their inalienable rights before the child that is carried to full term? And the most important questions are "Why?'' and "What evidence and data is that determination founded upon?" Or is there a more standardized and conrete point at which we obtain such rights?

If a baby is imbued with their rights after birth, how will this definition change as science and medicine advances? Undoubtedly, babies will be successfully "born" earlier and earlier until we are able to create children without the use of a human womb at all. How would this affect the outlook on the topic of abortion?

ETA: I think I can sum up my standpoint in the following: When is there going to be objective reasons for when we receive our life-rights? Meaning, at what point will the outlook on this topic *not* be constantly changing due to advances in medicine. If we are there now, where is the data and studies that show exactly *when* a "something" becomes a person with inalienable rights, and just as importantly, why is it set at that moment exactly?

reply to post by Serdgiam

What is a "persons born?" What defines when a person is born?

Are you kidding me? Honestly, I don't get how you and Charles are so confused, other than the science and facts don't fit your inner moral guidelines.

A fertilized egg isn't a baby. It doesn't deserve rights that exceed those of it's mother. It gains limited rights after viability. After it's born, it gains citizen rights. I don't see how that's confusing.

As far a science moving the goal post of viability, as scientific procedures advance, the fetal age of viability changes.