Personhood starts at conception (4 Viewers)

[bshoc]

How is it measurable and verifiable?

Modern technology allows us to determine whether an embryo exists or not?

 

[Kwayera]

Is there a fertilized egg or isn't there?

Most of arguments about 25 weeks, 26 weeks etc. are really unconvincing. They all seem like arbitrary cut offs. I suppose supporters of "choice" would find less public support if they didn't compromise on only allowing abortions up until a certain point.

I was more asking about the measurability/quantifiability of "personhood".

 

[Tully B.]

My opinion = John Oliver's (mostly).
I do hate the names that either side of the debate have come up with.
Pro-life and pro-choice really doesn't summarize it well enough.
Who isn't both "pro-life" and "pro-choice", in their own sense? There's no use in giving a cause a title other than some sort of long-ass acronym that actually deals with the issues.
But, if I had to choose, I would grudgingly call my self "pro-choice".

 

[katie tully]

wats going on in this thread

 

[axlenatore]

wait wait so by this, when it is a single cell it is considers a person/human

i was taught humans are multicellular, they lied to me

 

[axlenatore]

For the record I'm not pro choice. I'm pro killing babies.

i thought you were pro making babies.....if she is on the pill

 

[SashatheMan]

Quite. Abortion would be pretty fantastic if there was some accurate way of pinpointing when something was or was not a human. There is not. It is therefore not safe to actively terminate a pregnancy at any point throughout the pregnancy. I think this law is good. ^_^

But that is not an easy option. Abortions are seen as necessary by many people in certain circumstances. I do think that everything should be done to avoid abortions due to unwanted pregnancy (ie prevention) but deformities, pregnancy due to rape, incest, octuplets , extreme young age, those are all very complex issues and not everyone can go through with them without destroying the mothers life in the process.

So someone deciding that conception is a good point to rule the line at, is naive and ignorant to say the least.

 

[Iron]

Rubbish. Why is the life diminished because of the circumstances in which it was created? It's irrelevant to the debate

 

[banco55]

But that is not an easy option. Abortions are seen as necessary by many people in certain circumstances. I do think that everything should be done to avoid abortions due to unwanted pregnancy (ie prevention) but deformities, pregnancy due to rape, incest, octuplets , extreme young age, those are all very complex issues and not everyone can go through with them without destroying the mothers life in the process.

So someone deciding that conception is a good point to rule the line at, is naive and ignorant to say the least.

I think you'd find the number of pregnancies that are aborted due to " rape, incest, octuplets , extreme young age" to be a very small proportion of all abortions performed annually in Australia.

 

[SashatheMan]

I think you'd find the number of pregnancies that are aborted due to " rape, incest, octuplets , extreme young age" to be a very small proportion of all abortions performed annually in Australia.

you left out deformities. Also i do think that young age pregnancies are not that rare. If you are in high school and get pregnant, you have a small chance of living a comfortable life after that , unless your parents are already loaded with cash and will support the girl.

 

[banco55]

you left out deformities. Also i do think that young age pregnancies are not that rare. If you are in high school and get pregnant, you have a small chance of living a comfortable life after that , unless your parents are already loaded with cash and will support the girl.

Perhaps naively when he referred to "young age" pregnancies I imagined he was referring to 12 or 13 year olds getting knocked up. Pregnant 16 year olds could do something really crazy like adopt the baby out rather then aborting it. There's no shortage of good adoptive parents in Australia. Why do you think there are so man overseas adoptions? Because Australian women abort unwanted pregrancies at very high rates.

 

[Silver Persian]

What makes a life valuable?

 

[SashatheMan]

Rubbish. Why is the life diminished because of the circumstances in which it was created? It's irrelevant to the debate

No, i am not arguing that life is diminished due to those circumstances. i do not hold to the premise that life starts at conception, i am agnostic in that regard.
What i am saying is that no one is certain when life begins. It's subjective, even from a religious point of view it can be subjective. If you read about the Jewish view on life it's not at conception, and even if you take the bible it doesn't say life begins at conception, and as i gave examples before why couldn't it be that life starts when the heart makes the first beat or blood first starts circulating the body?
This cannot be a dogmatic issue, so all parties have to compromise, you cannot disallow a woman with complications not to carry out an abortion because you think it's the best place to draw the line. There needs to be a period where abortions in some circumstances should be allowed.
But at the same time abortions due to laziness strongly discouraged.

 

[moll.]

wait wait so by this, when it is a single cell it is considers a person/human

i was taught humans are multicellular, they lied to me

A conceived child is when the sperm enters and fertilises the egg. Now do the quick math on that sentence and add up the number of cells. Here I'll do it for you:
1 + 1 = 2 > 1
Therefore a zygote (a just conceived fetus in early stages) is still multicellular.


You are lose!
Pleez try agains.

 

[Iron]

Again, this is not to the point. If we agree that a life begins at conception, then the circumstances surrounding that conceived life, or the physical quality of the life itself, are not issues.

If you dont agree that life begins at conception, why debate these circumstances at all? Surely youre just having some personal surgery done and nothing else needs to be considered
...unless, of course, you believe that it actually IS a life youre dealing with

To say that a pregnancy should be terminated because of an illness is to say that all ill people should be euthanized

 

[Kwayera]

I think you'd find the number of pregnancies that are aborted due to " rape, incest, octuplets , extreme young age" to be a very small proportion of all abortions performed annually in Australia.

[citation needed]

 

[moll.]

What makes a life valuable?

Scarcity.
Everyone will eventually end up owning their very own copy of death. But to own this, they have to trade in their copy of life. Of course, this is a mandatory system with no refunds given (except one notable case nearly 2,000 years ago), so the value of life is measured by the fact that ownership of it is temporary, and that most people fight tooth and claw to keep their copy as long as possible.
It's just simple supply and demand forces, really.

 

[Kwayera]

Again, this is not to the point. If we agree that a life begins at conception

I don't think that anyone disagrees with that. Life is life. I think the distinction we're trying to make is when "personhood", to use the phrase of the ND bill, begins, if ever.

 

[Iron]

I think plenty of people disagree that life begins at conception

Personhood just appears to be a more legislatively convenient term for life

 

[Silver Persian]

Scarcity.
Everyone will eventually end up owning their very own copy of death. But to own this, they have to trade in their copy of life. Of course, this is a mandatory system with no refunds given (except one notable case nearly 2,000 years ago), so the value of life is measured by the fact that ownership of it is temporary, and that most people fight tooth and claw to keep their copy as long as possible.
It's just simple supply and demand forces, really.

So the consumerfoetus has no knowledge of his/her life and therefore does not demand it.

yay.

/thread