David, I answered your OP in the last post quite thoroughly, and you ignored my response.  Then I asked you for a response, and you ignored me again.  Furthermore, you really went over the line in your treatment of Dannyboy, whose behavior was quite reasonable.  What is the point in even trying to discuss anything with you?  I won't repeat my previous response, since you ignored it twice, even though I did waste a good deal of my time in trying to satisfy your challenge.  As far as I'm concerned, this discussion is finished.

Thanks, sntjohnny.  I was surprised that he was able to delete the thread, let alone individual posts to it, but I figured that you might have changed the rules since you set up the user-moderated section.  If David wants that kind of control in his threads, he should post there.  I did spend quite some time crafting a reply to Kreeft's argument that was based on his definitions of "person" and "human being" that David agreed to, and I wanted to see his response.  Instead, he ignored my post and then deleted the thread.  That makes me not want to bother trying to discuss anything with him in the future.

-_-' Killed the entire thread? That's... um... overkill. And I really think you shouldn't have done it. If he really deserved to be kicked out of the topic, you should have asked a mod to step in.

As a matter of interest, did Dannyboy say anything worth forcing him out for? I didn't see anything. He seemed reasonable, whether or not he was right. But I don't think I read his early posts. I don't mean to offend, but David, you seemed to be the least intellectually honest person in there...

I'm still waiting for an answer to my statement that you had basically answered me by saying, "I believe there is an objective right to life because there is an objective right to life. Stupid." Don't think you can flee the question by deleting it!

I see some problems with this quadrilemma from a legal perspective.

1.  It is a person and we know it.

This one seems easy: if you know it's person, and you kill it anyway, it's murder, right?  Except there may be justifying circumstances to take into account.  One can kill someone one knows is a person in self-defense, for example.  So, there is the life of the mother exception.  Judith Jarvis Thomson has also developed an argument for a rape exception with her "famous violinist" analogy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinist_(Thought_Experiment)

Thomson's argument might be invoked under the "necessity" defense, which involves a balancing of interests.  For the Texas necessity defense provison, see: http://tlo2.tlc.state.tx.us/statutes/docs/PE/content/htm/pe.002.00.000009.00.htm#9.22.00

2.  It is a person and we don't know it.
3.  It is not a person and we don't know it.

There is a big problem here with what you mean by "not knowing" something.  Suppose we revise your quadrilemma to say this:

1. My computer is a person and I know it.
2. My computer is a person and I don't know it.
3. My computer is not a person and I don't know it.
4. My computer is not a person and I know it.

Does this say anything about the morality of my trashing my computer?

There are at least three types of "not knowing" in criminal law:

1. recklessness: e.g. I don't know that it's a person, but I am aware of a significant risk that it is a person

2. criminal negligence (yes, there is civil negligence -- I am going to oversimplify here): e.g. There is a significant risk that it is a person, and I am not aware of that risk, but I should be

3. innocence: e.g. any risk that it is a person is not so apparent that I should be aware of it.

So, (3) could be true with my computer: let's suppose it really is a person and I am just ignorant of that fact, but my ignorance is perfectly innocent.

We could also postulate Joe Schmoe for the situation in which the computer is not a person.  Joe doesn't know much about computers, so he doesn't know that a computer is not a person but he doesn't know that it is a person and nothing has suggested to him that it is a person.

End Bringer,

Pro-abortionists often try to cloud the issue with questions as we've seen: What is a human being? Which is in no small way like asking what is a dog? Or what is a cat? If they don't know, then they are essentially going about with the attitude to kill something without the faintest clue of what it is.

It is a relevant question, for those of us who lack the comforting certainties of faith.  Yes, we're all pretty sure we know what a cat is, but would we consider a feline embryo at two-days gestation to be a cat?  That would be a little odd.  Your logic manages to prove that a caterpillar is a butterfly, an acorn is an oak tree, and a tadpole is a frog.  i think we could agree that in all these cases there is a relationship, but not that the two are one and the same.  Many people may feel the same about the humanity of embryos.

However the issue of humanness is an arguement that has long been over. It is an irrefutable fact that a human is created from the moment of conception. Terms like 'fetus' and such only refer to a human's age from the point of conception. Of course as I said in the other thread, pro-abortionists simply don't care that the debate is over.

If the debate is over, what are you doing here?  Your performance to date has involved invoking your own personal certainties on the issue, padded out by cheap emotional appeals to slippery slopes leading to the holocaust.  i keep expecting you to throw in the Beethoven fallacy for good measure.  Forgive me if i'm not convinced.

David,

It seems to me that if one doesn't consider these as a possibility then that would be question begging.  Surely you agree that these are possibilities?

The problem is the way you approach the question.  In the same way as if i ask "When did you stop beating your wife?", there are assumptions contained within the quadrillema, and that is what you specifically fail to address.  Your assumption is that all embryos/foetuses are at the same level of personhood.  You need to support this assumption with something a little stronger than 'it is an irrefutable fact...'.

Yeah, every biology textbook before '73  taught that life begins at conception.  It does.

How is that relevant?  If you or i become brain-dead then our physical 'life' will continue, but little of our 'personhood' would remain.  You are confusing (or deliberately equivocating) the term 'life' with 'humanity'.

One does not become a human gradually, either.  If that were true, then it would follow that it is not so bad to kill a child than to kill a teenager, since the teenager has all of its biological systems in place.  But everybody knows that it is just as bad to kill a child as a teenager.

That does not follow.  The lack of a change in status in one part of a continuum does not rule out the possibility of change in other parts.  You might as well say "One does not acquire the right to vote gradually because everybody knows that a forty-year old is entitled to vote in just the same way as a fifty-year old".

So one must become a person suddenly.  At birth?  The scissors that cut the umbilical make you a person?  Obviously ludicrous.

i agree that it would be nice if there was a single moment when one 'became a person', but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is one.  i suspect that it is not unlike asking 'when does a work of art become a work of art?'.  Is it with the final brush-stroke?  That can't be right, otherwise unfinished paintings by great artists would not be worth so much money.  At what point then?

Again, i think you are acting like the issue is simple when it is anything but.

At viability?  Technology makes you a person?  In the african jungle you are not a person but in the occident you are?

It is not technology that makes you a person if we consider the issue of viability, because the medical advances of the last twenty-five years have noticably failed to lower the limit of viability.  There is a point at which a baby born will probably survive, and before which it will almost definitely not survive, that's all.  The science is irrefutable.  

Bullcrap.  You become a person when you get your genetic code.  Conception.  Sure, an embryo does not have a brain.  But it's doing something that only a human can do:  growing a human brain.

You are forced to invoke the Potential argument here, because at a few days gestation there is essentially no difference between an embryo and any other tiny clump of cells in the body.  The only difference you can invoke to make it a person when the rest are not is what it could become.  Now i am actually sympathetic to that argument (in fact i tried to raise it in the other, now-demolished, thread, only to have scorn poured on it from the lofty altitudes of End Bringer's high-horse), but the problem with it is that there are numerous pre-conditions necessary for an embryo to become a baby, and only one additional pre-condition necessary for an ovum to become one (i.e. a spermatazoa).  You need to make the case for why that single pre-condition is more important than all the others.

At the bottom of it is this:  Pro abortionists don't care.  They just don't care.

Insults and cheap emotional appeals are always the sign of a good argument.

Both of you are being deceptive (intentionally or not) in your arguments.  That an embryo is biologically human does not necessarily entail that it has human rights (unless my big toe can claim them also).  The law of identity (however much you embelish it) cannot speak on that subject.

So a cat embryo is a cat, fine.  However i'm thinking that even the most committed animal rights activist would not bother to argue against scientific experiments carried out on cat embryos.  Could it be that just because two things are related in some way we don't necessarily have to treat them exactly the same?  Just try to climb an acorn and you'll see.

Children dont have the same rights as adults - is this another slippery slope to the holocaust, or is this appropriate?  You say that Things don't change from one essential thing to another, but that does not mean that at every point on the continuum of a thing's existence we have to treat it the same.  At one point in my existence i was an embryo, later a foetus, a baby, a child, a teenager and now an adult.  Later i will be an old man, then a corpse, possibly a skeleton, and just possibly in the distant future i will be a fossil.  According to you, i remain the same essential thing, but unless you claim that i deserve the same rights and treatment throughout the process then i really dont see what your point is.

A foetus is human tissue, just like i am, and just like my dead body will be.  If you have further arguments to show why human rights should be extended to the former but not the later, please share them.

The fact that you concede that an embryo is human confirms that the debate about humanness is over.

Only in a very unimportant way.  i have said that an embryo is 'human tissue', just as i am and just as my big toe is and just as my dead body will be.  If your ability to block out data contradictory to your belief system is great enough to allow you to use those words to claim a victory then good luck to you.

Saying it's human but doesn't mean it has human rights is like saying a black man may be human but that doesn't mean he's afforded human rights.

Oh no, he's equating me with racists again, i guess i should give up.  

Semantically it may be like saying that, but semantically it is also like saying that my big toe is human but that doesn't mean it's entitled to human rights.

"So a cat embryo is a cat, fine.  However i'm thinking that even the most committed animal rights activist would not bother to argue against scientific experiments carried out on cat embryos."

Gee, could that be because animals don't have the same rights as human because they're...oh I don't know....not human.

Missed the point somewhat.  People object to experiments being done on cats, because they feel that animals have some rights.  They do not generally feel that those rights apply to embryonic animals.  Why?

Human rights are equal and remain the same all across the board with the only condition being that it is human. You've conceded that an embryo is human. Now you're only left trying to throw up smoke with these gradualistic arguements that have no solid grasp on when a thing is a thing.

Yes, a thing is a thing.  Well done.  But just because a thing is a thing does not necessarily entail that we treat it the same throughout the entire period of its existence.  This is not a gradualistic argument, this is just a fact.  Throw an acorn, climb an oak tree.

Are you going to say black men don't have the same rights as whites now and should be treated differently? Jews don't have the same rights as Caucasians?

i can't fully express my contempt for the way you are conducting yourself in this debate.  i have already told you that your frequent cheap resort to playing the holocaust card or the race card is offensive and personally insulting, yet you continue to do it.  i have not said anything which would lead a reasonable person to the conclusion you draw here, so i must assume that you are either fundamentally unreasonable, or that you are simply grasping hold of whatever weapon is closest to hand.

The parallels are so clear you should be ashamed of yourself.

Fortunately your opinion has no power to shame me.

I've repeatedly said that a thing remains itself till it's destroyed.

Oh, how exactly is my five minutes dead body 'destroyed'?  Most of my cells wont even have stopped functioning by that point.  This is the sticking point, of course.  To explain how my dead body (which could still, at this point, be sustained by machines) is not 'human' without also excluding embryos you will probably have to invoke 'potential', which is a concept you have summarily dismissed as being entirely without merit in this debate.  Go to it.

The condition for a human right is If. It's. Human. The entire basis of the pro-life position is that it has met this condition. If it's not human then these rights obviously don't apply. But you have conceded as much, so the debate on this matter is over.

This debate's been over so many times i'm surprised it's still going on.  And you are misrepresenting me on the matter of humaness, as i suspect you are aware.  Admit it, if you like.  It's only your integrity at stake after all.

I would think it self-evident that the issue to the right to life is a little mute for a corpse.

By your stated standards, i disagree.  A corpse has not been destroyed, it still has it's genetic code, it is a continuation of the thing which you claim has inalienable human rights from the moment it first appears, yet somehow you think that it doesn't deserve them.  Sure it cannot sustain it's bodily processes without assistance, but neither can an embryo.  Double standards?

Perhaps it has not escaped your notice that i make a distinction between something being 'human' and 'a human being'.  A forensic pathologist digs up a small bone in the back garden of a known serial killer, and immediately asks the question "Is it human?".  She is not asking whether this fragment of a skeleton is an individual being worthy of personhood, but whether it came from a human or an animal.  It is in this sense that i readily concede that an embryo is human ('biologically human', 'human tissue', whatever), a quality it shares with me, a shard of bone in the serial killer's back garden, and (yes) my big toe.  Got it?

This meaning of the word 'human' does not necessarily convey any rights, does it.  So for you to accuse me of holding beliefs likely to trigger genocide or slavery on the basis of this statement is jumping the gun somewhat, although clearly a useful debating tool.  The Bible's entire lack of condemnation for slavery (something i would consider a fair bit more important than proclamations about shellfish or obeying your parents) is a side topic, and perhaps best left for another thread.

So, what you are left with is whether an embryo is worthy of human rights.  You invoke the 'Law of Identity' in an attempt to prove that it is (actually you don't attempt to prove it, you just state that it has been proved), but that alone wont fly, which is what i have been trying to get across to you.  The law of identity just says that a thing is what it is, and cannot be X and not-X at the same time.  It does not say anything about how we have to treat said thing.

What has been missing from your formula is what you finally admitted in the above post:

Actually there is the matter that a dead body does not have a soul, while a living being does.

Thought so.  And an embryo has one too, according to you.  Unfortunately, demonstrating whether or not an embryo has a soul is even harder than demonstrating whether they feel pain, since it is by no means certain that adult humans have one.

However I realize to an atheist this is not the most convincing point, though I've also raised the issue that under atheism you don't really have grounds not to be killed, raped, and eaten anyway.

Congratulations on fleetingly seeing the other person's point of view, even if you're compelled to tar it with your own prejudices.  My continued failure to kill, rape and eat my fellow human beings is an enduring mystery.

However, i suspect that your failure to advance the 'soul' argument before now has not been due to consideration of my beliefs (your record on this forum wouldn't really support that conclusion), but because you know that it is very difficult to find support, other than blind faith, for the concept.  Instead you have groped around for proxy arguments for the idea that humanity resides in a newly-formed cluster of cells without identity, personality, thoughts or feelings or the ability to survive independently.

Your absolutist views are the stumbling block here i suppose, because you can't conceive of humanity as an emergent property.  i see potential in embryos and foetuses, but that's all.  That potential makes me uneasy about abortion except for non-trivial reasons, but not sufficiently that i would vote to override a woman's right to control her own body when the foetus is still at the non-viable stage.

Following your example of name-calling in this debate, i should really be denouncing you as a vicious mysogynist bigot.  Your continued reference to 'slippery slopes' is ironic given that, as a religious fundamentalist, you embody a tradition which has stood against every social advance and civil rights movement in history.  The slippery slope from your position leads right back to KKK lynchings, the enforced servitude of women and the rabid pronouncements of the Ayatollahs, so if i was conducting myself by your example i might mention the blatant hypocracy of you telling me that i should 'learn from history'.  However, i'm pleased to say that i'm above that.  

You say an embryo is human tissue the same way you are and somehow the same way as a toe is. Alright, you seem to think this doesn't mean one can't do whatever with an embryo or a toe as the former can be aborted and the latter can me removed. Then to be consistent what makes you think one isn't justified in 'aborting/removing' you?

The law, primarily.  Beyond that, i see humanity as an emergent characteristic, as i said - something which all adult humans have, which babies are developing, and which an embryo does not have.  In this regard, i think the law is about right.

I think the matter of being dead is self-evident that a living thing is destroyed.

If you believe in a soul, sure.  Otherwise you would have a hard time explaining what the difference was in a way which did not also include embryos (unless you concede the 'potential' argument).

The fact that it's a corpse self-evidently says a living thing has been destroyed, otherwise your above description makes a comma patient the same thing as a corpse.

That depends on the cause of the coma.  If the patient is brain-dead then there is no possibility of them ever regaining consciousness and personhood, and yes, in that situation i would say that there is no ethical difference between them and a corpse.  That's the point when a 'comma' patient becomes a full-stop.

The only important difference in that situation is in the way we care for the family.

Perhaps it has not escaped your notice that i make a distinction between something being 'human' and 'a human being'.  A forensic pathologist digs up a small bone in the back garden of a known serial killer, and immediately asks the question "Is it human?".  She is not asking whether this fragment of a skeleton is an individual being worthy of personhood, but whether it came from a human or an animal.  It is in this sense that i readily concede that an embryo is human ('biologically human', 'human tissue', whatever), a quality it shares with me, a shard of bone in the serial killer's back garden, and (yes) my big toe.  Got it?

Alright you have made your position more clear. Unfortunately your flat out wrong, as in this circumstance and in the matter of a toe what you are dealing with is a part from a human being while an embryo and yourself (this is where you are the one being deceptive) is a human being. You being a human being that is made up of many cells and an embryo being a human being that is made up of one cell. This is a biological fact and is confirmed by the law of identity (which you've only given a terse denial) and the law of Biogenisis (which you haven't even addressed).

This meaning of the word 'human' does not necessarily convey any rights, does it.  So for you to accuse me of holding beliefs likely to trigger genocide or slavery on the basis of this statement is jumping the gun somewhat, although clearly a useful debating tool.  The Bible's entire lack of condemnation for slavery (something i would consider a fair bit more important than proclamations about shellfish or obeying your parents) is a side topic, and perhaps best left for another thread.

*snort* As you seem to be equivocating "human" in this matter the connection that your arguement is another step towards genocide is apt. You specificly may be trying to make a distinction, but that doesn't mean someone 10 years from now will.

And though it's best left for another topic your approach to the Bible's regard to slavery is very humurous given how the Bible gives very specific guidelines to how slavery should be conducted. Those guidelines making slaves and slave owners more reminiscent to employees and employers. The Bible's lack of condemnation stemming from the fact that it recognized that slaves were human beings and thus should be afforded the same basic rights as slave owners. How remarkably similar to the issue of abortion.

So, what you are left with is whether an embryo is worthy of human rights.  You invoke the 'Law of Identity' in an attempt to prove that it is (actually you don't attempt to prove it, you just state that it has been proved), but that alone wont fly, which is what i have been trying to get across to you.  The law of identity just says that a thing is what it is, and cannot be X and not-X at the same time.  It does not say anything about how we have to treat said thing.

Law of Identity says you are human DB, but under this kind of arguement it doesn't say how one has to treat you. Of course that's never been the point of the law of Identity or the law of Biogenisis. This thinly veiled strawman of yours only shows that if you claim abortion is a complex subject it's only because you're making it more complicated than it is in order to get your way. The point of the Law of Identity and the law of Biogenisis is to show what an embryo is. That is all.

The matter in which one should treat said thing is a matter that is covered under inalienable human rights. This is what I've constantly have been hammering at you in this entire thread, which you have avoided addressing (one can assume intentionally). If it's human it is afforded these rights automaticly, and it is illegal and immoral to deny them to a human being.

The treatment under issue: Inalienable Huamn Rights.

The standard: If it's human.

Abortion couldn't be any simpler DB. Frankly the fact that a human being is so small and fragile at this stage of growth one can make the arguement that we should treat the embryo with more care and reverence than one does an adult human being. So this attempt to throw up smoke of yours fails utterly.

Thought so.  And an embryo has one too, according to you.  Unfortunately, demonstrating whether or not an embryo has a soul is even harder than demonstrating whether they feel pain, since it is by no means certain that adult humans have one.

As I openly pointed out that this point isn't very convincing to an atheist I think the hint of smugness in your tone is a little unwarranted given how you don't have a clue as to my reasoning behind it.

Congratulations on fleetingly seeing the other person's point of view, even if you're compelled to tar it with your own prejudices.  My continued failure to kill, rape and eat my fellow human beings is an enduring mystery.

No it's more that if someone were to kill, rape, and eat a love one of yours, it would be your demand for justice and retribution that would be a mystery.

However, i suspect that your failure to advance the 'soul' argument before now has not been due to consideration of my beliefs (your record on this forum wouldn't really support that conclusion), but because you know that it is very difficult to find support, other than blind faith, for the concept.  Instead you have groped around for proxy arguments for the idea that humanity resides in a newly-formed cluster of cells without identity, personality, thoughts or feelings or the ability to survive independently.

Your presumption brings a smirk to my face. Especially since I'm not advancing the issue of the soul even now. Why? Because the fact that all you have done is throw up such rebuttals to the effect of "No it doesn't.", "The law of thermodynamics doen't say how we should treat each other.", and "Well a dead corpse is the same as a living being." leads me to believe that I simply don't need to DB.

Your absolutist views are the stumbling block here i suppose, because you can't conceive of humanity as an emergent property.  i see potential in embryos and foetuses, but that's all.  That potential makes me uneasy about abortion except for non-trivial reasons, but not sufficiently that i would vote to override a woman's right to control her own body when the foetus is still at the non-viable stage.

I don't conceive a human as an emmergent property simply for the reason I've made clear: this gradualistic arguement has no clear fix on when a thing is a thing. You say potential, but I've yet to hear even once where you say that potential is met. Where's the line? Why is it there and not somewhere else? You've given some hints as to identity, personality, or the ability to survive independently, but of course under such a standard one doesn't become a human being till he's argueably 18 or 21 and if you fall asleep I guess somehow you're not human anymore. Slippery slope DB.

Following your example of name-calling in this debate, i should really be denouncing you as a vicious mysogynist bigot.  Your continued reference to 'slippery slopes' is ironic given that, as a religious fundamentalist, you embody a tradition which has stood against every social advance and civil rights movement in history.

Hahahahahahahahahaha. Oh DB. I can't tell you the amount of ignorance you have to have in order to make such a statement. I guess someone forgot to point this out to Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Or that apparently those who appealed to Higher Law in order to change or out right break government law not one Christian or theist has been amoung them. So I will repeat myself: Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

The slippery slope from your position leads right back to KKK lynchings, the enforced servitude of women and the rabid pronouncements of the Ayatollahs, so if i was conducting myself by your example i might mention the blatant hypocracy of you telling me that i should 'learn from history'.  However, i'm pleased to say that i'm above that.  

Actually this convinces me more than ever that you need a history book, since your generalizations show you don't have a clue. Nor apparently do you even have a clue as to the position in which I am advocating since in being human from the moment of conception they are afforded the same inalienable human rights all across the board till death. It's very consistent. Very simple. Very easy. And as you've shown logic, common sense, and reason can go out the window to a pro-abortionists.

The law, primarily.  Beyond that, i see humanity as an emergent characteristic, as i said - something which all adult humans have, which babies are developing, and which an embryo does not have.  In this regard, i think the law is about right.

*snicker* The law. Riiiiiight. Government laws never change. Of course one need only point out the fact that embryos are developing the same as babies, and this development doesn't stop even into adult hood. Nor does it say anything for those whose medical condition may have them not fullfill one of these arbitrary characteristics. With such a slippery slope, I see no reason why one need put any stock on what you see or think.

If you believe in a soul, sure.  Otherwise you would have a hard time explaining what the difference was in a way which did not also include embryos (unless you concede the 'potential' argument).

No, because in being dead it's self-evident that a life is destroyed. An embryo being living making all the difference on this matter. And as I've said in the matter of humanness there is no 'potential' to be had. It's already human. Frankly it illustrates how pro-abortionists have to change the rules in order to get their way, since under more reasonable and consistent standards they can't win.

But if you think there is no distinction between a dead body and a living being, then tell me what all the fuss is about in trying to stop someone dieing? Does no one tell doctors that just because a patient's heart has stopped that nothing has changed as most of his cells are still functioning?

That depends on the cause of the coma.  If the patient is brain-dead then there is no possibility of them ever regaining consciousness and personhood, and yes, in that situation i would say that there is no ethical difference between them and a corpse.  That's the point when a 'comma' patient becomes a full-stop.

In other words that's when a comma patient is dead, even though it has it's genetic code, it's a continuation of a human being, displays as much conciousness and person-hood as someone who is asleep or rendered unconcious, and though machines can keep the bodily processes functioning, it's about the same as an adult with a defibrillator. This particular brand of dirt has been most amusing DB, but unfortunately it simply shows how you're grasping. Being dead self-evidently places a corpse as different from a living embryo as being dead means a life has been destroyed. Otherwise by your standard a corpse and a person unconcious is essentially the same thing.