Religion Discussion

[Mulu]

Women don't get abortions out of concern for planetary population.

That part is true. Your links, OTOH, were total garbage.

Making abortion available is a policy, and like any policy multiple issues should be considered, including health, welfare, overpopulation, etc.

Come on Mulu, you're smarter than that. A zygote clearly is a human, far more than a stem cell.
/
but the genetic instructions are present for all that this tiny woman will ever become.

Those same genetic instructions are present in a stem cell too. After all, stem cells "make" ova and sperm. In fact, a stem cell satisfies all of your copied and pasted standards for life, other than uniqueness, and a twin zygote wouldn't satisfy that either. With applied technology, you can make a human from a stem cell, and since you were using applied technology in your arguments regarding viability you can't ignore the technology.

It is absurd to conclude that a single cell is a human, and it is that absurdity that the entire anti-abortion movement hinges on. Anyone not fooled by that absurdity will never accept your arguments.

A single ethic always applies: "No one has the right to choose to do what is wrong." - President Abraham Lincoln

Tell that to the anti-abortionists who bombed the clinics. Besides, you first have to decide what is wrong. Cell sloughing doesn't normally trigger an ethical response.

Here's an interesting vignette: Since anti-abortionists are usually against cloning as well, what would you suggest be done if a woman impregnated herself with a clone of herself? Would you want that embryo aborted as some sort of affront to god? What if she impregnated herself with six clones of herself?

[Mayhem]

This coming week, my wife will be going to the funeral of a baby girl, barely over a year, who was born with a genetic condition that meant she was never going to survive much longer than this.

This baby has spent much of its short life with needles in its arms and legs, and tubes down its throat. Her short life has been 99% suffering. Her parents have lived with the knowledge that she could die from a seizure at any moment in her short life.

The medical intervention meant nothing, and could affect no improvement, something that we have all known from day 1. Despite the best care available, this little girl literally starved to death, and died in her mothers arms.

One day, it will be possible to test for this condition in the womb. An abortion at that stage would mean the baby would not have to endure a year of pain and suffering.

Better to kill than care for?

That's a very sad story. I look at it as an abortion would mean the baby girl wouldn't have had a year of being loved by her parents. A year without the parents being able to pour their love into their daughter.

That's an astonishingly selfish attitude.

"Hey, she may have been in constant pain for every day of her life, but at least WE got to love her for a year."

You might believe that feeling better about yourself is an excellent reason to submit a child to what amounts to a year of unecessary torture, but I strongly disagree.

[Vaelahr]

Come on Mulu, you're smarter than that. A zygote clearly is a human, far more than a stem cell.
/
but the genetic instructions are present for all that this tiny woman will ever become.

Those same genetic instructions are present in a stem cell too. After all, stem cells "make" ova and sperm. In fact, a stem cell satisfies all of your copied and pasted standards for life, other than uniqueness, and a twin zygote wouldn't satisfy that either.

I suppose we should be specific about which kind of stem cell. A zygote is a human being. An adult stem cell (or multipotent stem cell) is simply a human cell. A zygote is itself a stem cell - a totipotent stem cell. Embryonic stem cells are called pluripotent stem cells. Multipotent and pluripotent stem cells have their own limitations and potentialism. They have genetic information but not the genetic instructions of a zygote. The zygote - the totipotent stem cell - is a living human at its youngest, genetically complete, needing only time to develop and mature.

It is absurd to conclude that a single cell is a human

Saying it doesn't make it so. You can't tell science what it isn't.

A single ethic always applies: "No one has the right to choose to do what is wrong." - President Abraham Lincoln

Tell that to the anti-abortionists who bombed the clinics.

I would.

Here's an interesting vignette: Since anti-abortionists are usually against cloning as well, what would you suggest be done if a woman impregnated herself with a clone of herself? Would you want that embryo aborted as some sort of affront to god? What if she impregnated herself with six clones of herself?

[Mulu]

They have genetic information but not the genetic instructions of a zygote.
/
The zygote - the totipotent stem cell - is a living human at its youngest, genetically complete, needing only time to develop and mature.

You know, copying and pasting from scientifically illiterate authors writing anti-abortion literature isn't going to win you any arguments. The zygote is not the only totipotent stem cell. Cells remain totipotent throughout the first few divisions.

In fact, here's another one for you, if you take an embryo at the 8 cell stage, and separate out all 8 cells and let them develop, you end up with 8 embryos, as each cell is totipotent. By your logic, failing to separate out those cells is tantamount to killing 7 children, as each totipotent cell is a human being.

This is why the scientifically illiterate should not argue scientific principles. They have no idea what they are talking about. And what happens when we gain the technology to induce totipotency in a pluripotent cell? It's coming. In fact, that's how it happens in the first place naturally. Totipotency comes from the ovum, which forms in the ovaries, which develop from pluripotent stem cells in the endoderm. From pluripotency, totipotency.

[Vaelahr]

They have genetic information but not the genetic instructions of a zygote.
/
The zygote - the totipotent stem cell - is a living human at its youngest, genetically complete, needing only time to develop and mature.

You know, copying and pasting from scientifically illiterate authors writing anti-abortion literature isn't going to win you any arguments. The zygote is not the only totipotent stem cell. Cells remain totipotent throughout the first few divisions.

In fact, here's another one for you, if you take an embryo at the 8 cell stage, and separate out all 8 cells and let them develop, you end up with 8 embryos, as each cell is totipotent. By your logic, failing to separate out those cells is tantamount to killing 7 children, as each totipotent cell is a human being.

This is why the scientifically illiterate should not argue scientific principles. They have no idea what they are talking about.

You fail Mulu. You're wrong on where I get my data from. You're an arguementative goose lawyer. If you'd be honest, you'd agree with the very simple biological truth that a human's life begins at conception.

[zicada]

Do we really wanna discuss who fails here sir ?

[Lusipher]

Do you want to let both sides debate the discussion or only one side you want to hear, Zic?

[Mulu]

I don't know that there is much debate left, I proved him wrong on totipotency and his assumptions. *shrugs*

You can have whatever opinions you want, but the facts are the facts. If you have to lie about the facts to prove your point, you don't have one.

[FanaticusIncendi]

Bringing a child into this world is arguably a cruel act in itself, often motivated by personal selfishness that the parent isnt even aware of.

A big +1 to that.



OT, all knowledge is good. Teaching about religion is fine, just don't preach it. However I personally would rather focus on getting kids to graduate high school with a degree of literacy that enables them to function in college rather than worry over whether or not they're getting any religion theory in their lives.

[HATEFACE]

You both fail.

[Zelknolf]

However I personally would rather focus on getting kids to graduate high school with a degree of literacy that enables them to function in college rather than worry over whether or not they're getting any religion theory in their lives.

Wait, the Govenator's policies involve underfunded schools and poor performance from schools in California? I never would've guessed!

srsly, though, one of the few things that NCLB legislation is doing well is increasing functional academic literacy. Still sucks that almost no real learning is happening til college or til job training, but at least the backpedaling is only to the start of the subject matter, instead of to learning how to read complex argument.

[HATEFACE]

However I personally would rather focus on getting kids to graduate high school with a degree of literacy that enables them to function in college rather than worry over whether or not they're getting any religion theory in their lives.

Wait, the Govenator's policies involve underfunded schools and poor performance from schools in California? I never would've guessed!

srsly, though, one of the few things that NCLB legislation is doing well is increasing functional academic literacy. Still sucks that almost no real learning is happening til college or til job training, but at least the backpedaling is only to the start of the subject matter, instead of to learning how to read complex argument.

I r reed gud.

[zicada]

I for one just don't understand why everyone doesn't agree with me on all things related to politics and religion. I mean, I'm obviously right, always.

So in conclusion, you are all wrong if you disagree with me, and that means you fail.

Thank you.

[Zelknolf]

I for one just don't understand why everyone doesn't agree with me on all things related to politics and religion. I mean, I'm obviously right, always.

So in conclusion, you are all wrong if you disagree with me, and that means you fail.

Thank you.

That's all well and good, but know that the next time uber-Christians come a knockin' on your door looking for converts and saying they have "good news," they don't.

Jesus doesn't love you.

[Vaelahr]

I don't know that there is much debate left, I proved him wrong on totipotency and his assumptions. *shrugs*

Mulu, you're a hoot.

You can have whatever opinions you want, but the facts are the facts. If you have to lie about the facts to prove your point, you don't have one.

Indeed....

I am a scientist, a human embryologist. I have spent a career in a "publish or perish" profession using a great deal of that time writing grants, hoping to get some funded to keep a research program going, as well as teaching, mostly medical students. But in 1989 I came to the conclusion that the science of Human Embryology was being rewritten according to political correctness. It was then that I decided to try to correct the revisions.

Abortion, partial birth abortion, in-vitro fertilization, human fetal research, human embryo research, cloning and stem cell research are all core issues of Human Embryology. Yet, in all of the Supreme Court cases since 1973 and at all of the Congressional hearings on these issues, no human embryologist has been called as a witness and no reference to Human Embryology has ever been made. Further, among the NIH Human Embryo Research Advisory Panel, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and President Bush's Council on Bioethics, no human embryologist was appointed as a member, nor called as a witness.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote in the Roe v. Wade decision: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins." Blackmun smeared the distinction between the biological (or embryological) meaning with the legal meaning, and conflated the two into his declaration. His inference was that he was talking about biological life without specifically stating so.

From this source followed a science of Human Embryology that has been parsed and perverted, revised and redefined, changed and corrupted. The media have especially ignored Human Embryology in their many articles on the core issues. The media have preferentially published a distortion of this science while totally ignoring the many references available for factual information. The impact of this on public policy has been staggering.

Every one of the core issues is ultimately distilled down to the question of "When Does Human Life Begin?"

The answer is there in the textbooks of Human Embryology, that "human life" begins at fertilization, or conception, which is the same as fertilization. It has always been there, at least for 100 years. Yet this simple fact, without referencing Human Embryology, has been parsed and corrupted into questioning whether life even exists at that time, and to redefining "conception" to mean "implantation," just to give two examples.

Every human embryologist, worldwide, states that the life of the new individual human being begins at fertilization (conception). Yet, never does one see in the media, nor in the Councils identified above, such a reference, even though it is there in virtually every textbook. We exist as a continuum of human life, which begins at fertilization and continues until death, whenever that may be.

Every Human Embryology textbook, and every human embryologist, not only identifies the continuum of human life, but describes it in detail; which is to say: At any point in time, during the continuum of life, there exists a whole, integrated human being! This is because over time, from the one-celled embryo to a 100-year-old senior, all of the characteristics of life change, albeit at different rates at different times: size, form, content, function, appearance, etc. Actually, the terminology of Human Embryology is important only in the taxonomic sense. It enables human embryologists to talk to one another. This terminology does not compromise nor change the continuum of human life.

Some falsely claim that "marker events" occur during development that change the moral value of the embryonic human being. But so-called "marker events" occur all throughout life. To devalue the human being by such a false declaration is strictly arbitrary and not based on any science.

The continuum of human life was understood in generic terms even by the ancients. This is why it is dogma in Human Embryology that the fetus is a second patient, and why that dogma is an imperative in clinical medicine.

American Bioethics Advisory Commission (ABAC) QUARTERLY, Fall 2002

But I'm sure you'll dismiss him and all other human embryologists as "scientifically illiterate". Why they have to be! They don't support your side of a "debate" on a D&D message board.