A Conception's Right To Life

[Lagboltz]

I suggest that you check the laws regarding the census and the deceased, death certificates, removal from the census, citizenship status, etc. before you pose that question and subject yourself to further embarassment. You are correct that the courts would throw them out but you have neglected to consider the grounds, laws, and precedents upon which they may be thrown out.
You seem to have a very basic misunderstanding about the nature of our legal system. Let me explain briefly to you. A right can be denied to an indivual or a group of individuals if duely legislated law exists that explicitly enumerates which right is to be denied, from whom it is to be denied, and for what reason it is to be denied. For example, we have a right to bear arms but law has been duely legislated that denies that right to minors because they are not yet of the age of responsibility and describes when they will aquire the right. No such law exists denying unborn human beings their right to live for any reason at all and the right to live being the most fundamental of all rights, it is quesstionable that such law could pass a constitutionality test as dependence is not a valid reason to kill.

There are hosts of laws dealing with the dead.

Exactly. Laws outside the 14th amendment concerning census determine the restrictions. Amendment 2 of the constitution itself applies to persons but does not forbid minors to bear arms. Here you are saying that there are different degrees of persons for which the constitution applies. This certainly makes sense. However in post # 141 you emphatically claim the opposite.

Post # 141:
The logic in introducing degree into the definition of person rather than kind is simply flawed. Our rights are founded on the kind of being that we are, not the degree to which we achieve our potential.

You are now contradicting yourself. It is very obvious that every amendment of the constitution does not apply to every kind of person. In some cases the restrictions are spelled out, and in others they are not. As you say, it is law outside the constitution that sometimes provides the restrictions.

When it comes to Roe v. Wade, that is a ruling outside the constitution that provides restrictions on how Amendment 14 is interpreted and is no different in principle than the restrictions on Amendment 2.

Your attempt to eliminate all restrictions on how persons are defined, is not a viable way to proceed. You need to do that in order to promote your argument about abortion rights, yet you back away from it when it doesn't suit you.

And again, your attempt to analogize the dead to the living highlights the inherent weakness of your argument.

My analogizing the dead to the living highlights the inherent weakness of your argument.

 

[Lagboltz]

there is no reason to think that including a zygote as a human is overly universal. There is no quality that a zygote lacks that some other person does not also lack.

A zygote has no nervous system. But that is a poisonous statement with some on this board.

Do either of us have any illusions that the law will be decided on common sense rather than on the political climate at the time? Whichever way it goes the other side will continue to fight the result. unless we find a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies rather than to deal with them after they are already underway.

That begs the question. Just what is common sense? Should laws be founded strictly on ideology even though it causes hardships for a large segment of the population?

 

[Dr.Who]

A zygote has no nervous system. But that is a poisonous statement with some on this board.

I stand corrected. I should have stuck with fetus or embryo as I have said before. My bad.

The zygote when it is still an actual glob of cells (a term that is often misused and applied when it is no longer true) does not have a nervous system. About the time (day 7 to day 16) it is called a gastrula it develops one. Early enough that if this were the criteria used to determine personhood virtually all abortions would cease. Would you recommend using the development of a nervous system as the criteria for personhood?

 

[Lagboltz]

Would you recommend using the development of a nervous system as the criteria for personhood?

No. I agree with the current abortion rulings. I was more interested in the abstract ideological arguments that killing an unborn at any stage was murder. I wanted to establish a clear point that wasn't muddied by how many cells it takes to consider it murder. I was being very conservatively ideological.

 

[palerider]

Exactly. Laws outside the 14th amendment concerning census determine the restrictions. Amendment 2 of the constitution itself applies to persons but does not forbid minors to bear arms. Here you are saying that there are different degrees of persons for which the constitution applies. This certainly makes sense. However in post # 141 you emphatically claim the opposite.

I don't know whether you are being obtuse or if you really aren't very bright. I am not, nor have I suggested that there are different degrees of persons or personhood as such a suggestion would be plain stupid. A child is as much a person as me and a child is entitled to the same basic rights as me. The fact that a legislated law restricts a right until such time as the child is old enough to accept the responsibility that goes with the right in no way makes the child less of a person than me, it is just an indication that the child is less mature. it simply is not possible to become more of or less of a person as person is simply what you are.

You are now contradicting yourself. It is very obvious that every amendment of the constitution does not apply to every kind of person. In some cases the restrictions are spelled out, and in others they are not. As you say, it is law outside the constitution that sometimes provides the restrictions.

Sorry, I never contradict myself. Your error is based on your own logical fallacy simply begging the question and assuming that I have said that personhood is a matter of degree and not kind. You are attacking a strawman of your own making. Exercising rights has nothing to do with personhood. Do feel free to show me law that states that one must exercise certain, or any rights in order to be a person.

When it comes to Roe v. Wade, that is a ruling outside the constitution that provides restrictions on how Amendment 14 is interpreted and is no different in principle than the restrictions on Amendment 2.

The roe ruling was based on an assumption that unborns were not human beings but only potential human beings. Clearly the assumption was wrong and justice Blackmun, in his majority decision stated clearly that should the question of personhood of the unborn ever be answered, that roe would collapse. That question has been answered both legally and scientifically.

Your attempt to eliminate all restrictions on how persons are defined, is not a viable way to proceed. You need to do that in order to promote your argument about abortion rights, yet you back away from it when it doesn't suit you.

I have not backed away from anything. You have erected and attacked some strawmen that bear little resemblence to my argument but I have not backed away from any part of my argument as it all remains entirely unscathed.

My analogizing the dead to the living highlights the inherent weakness of your argument.

Your analogies have failed. Unless of course you care to show that it is indeed legal to count the dead in the census or allow the dead to vote.

 

[palerider]

A zygote has no nervous system. But that is a poisonous statement with some on this board.

All you need to do is prove that a functioning nervous system that early in development is what is required for a human being to be a human being. As I said, you could just as easily argue that toddlers aren't human beings because they aren't yet mature enough to have permanant teeth.

That begs the question. Just what is common sense? Should laws be founded strictly on ideology even though it causes hardships for a large segment of the population?

It is you who is arguing ideology. My argument is based on fact and you are suggesting that fact should be irrelavent to forming law. If one discounts fact, what is left but ideology?

 

[palerider]

No. I agree with the current abortion rulings. I was more interested in the abstract ideological arguments that killing an unborn at any stage was murder. I wanted to establish a clear point that wasn't muddied by how many cells it takes to consider it murder. I was being very conservatively ideological.

The current abortion rulings assume that unborns are not human beings. Cleary that is a baseless assumption and you can offer nothing credible in the way of support for your postion. Clearly, at any stage of development, and unborn is a human being. Murder being one human being killing another with intent, exactly how do you escape the deliberate killing of an unborn at any stage of development being murder?

 

[samsara15]

According to you, an adult female human being has less rights to her own body than a zygote that does not yet have a nervous system and cannot form a single thought.

 

[The Scotsman]

Sam I think that is what this whole debate is essentially about - the absolute determination of individuals or groups of individuals to control the implications of sex and sexual activity without right or recourse back to the individual concerned.

 

[samsara15]

Yes, Scotsman, and in which case, as in most cases where humans have differing opinions, it behooves us to try to find some sort of reasoned middle ground between individual rights and the rights of the state, preferably without doing too much bodily harm to each other.

And your logo is totally right, we are all a little bit full of bull.

 

[Chip]

The fact that someone (most people by the way) don't agree with you doesn't mean any of those things.

Erroneous, meaningless and illogical.

The relevant fact is that over 50% of the population agrees that a person, a human being, begins to live at the moment of conception. These numbers have increased this decade.

That is the only poll fact relevant to this thread.

It means that we are definitely moving in the direction of legislating the right to life of pre-natals.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

There are extreme, obvious and abundant differences between a fertilized egg and a child at childbirth... or even a fetus for that matter.

Irrelevant.

Ageism and classism are not justification for murder by abortion.

Only a moral relatavist utilitarian pro-abortionist would ever think that the same unjustified ageism and classism that would never allow murder of post-natals would heinously somehow be okay as an excuse to murder pre-natals.

And, by the way, there is no such thing as a "fertilized egg". Once the fertilization process happens, both sperm and egg disappear, so what's left can't be a fertilzied "egg", because the egg has disappeared. What remains is a conception, a new human being.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

This is why there are the many documented & different medical (scientific ) stages of development that if nothing natural or imposed goes wrong "could" eventually create a child.

Irrelevant and meaningless.

Your ageistic classism sophistry is meaningless.

An embryo, zygote, fetus, child, teenager, adult, etc., all are age-descriptions of people, human beings.

You attempt to conjure up legitimate excuses for murderous abortion.

But there are no excuses for murder, ever.

The only thing that's relevant here is that a person, a unique individual human being begins to live at the moment of conception, and any excusive attempt to justify murdering that person simply fails.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

There of course would be nothing "accidental" about it in your Clinic Creeper Gestapo world!

Irrelevant ad hominem, erroneous.

You unjustifiably deride me because I attempt to prevent murderous abortion.

You unjustifiably deride me because I attempt to prevent murder.

You unjustifiably deride me because I tell women it is wrong to murder their offspring.

That makes you an accessory to murder.

Think about it.

Indeed, usually when the pro-abortionist resorts to name-calling, he has long ago lost the argument, permanently.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

When you are FORCED TO PARTICIPATE against your will in an action that ends up killing you... that's a clear definition of murder.

Inaccurate stipulation of the situation. Thus, erroneous.

When a woman is unaware that the delivery of her offspring is about to kill her, when she doesn't think her life is in danger, when no one else does either, then, if she dies in childbirth, there was both no intent and no attempt to kill her.

You obviously lack an understanding of what the sociological behavior of murder is. Murder is unjustifiably killing someone with the intent to do so, usually premdeditated.

In the example I gave, it is obvious murder does not fit.

On the other hand, you are arguing that she should be allowed to kill her offspring before giving birth, deliberately, with intent -- that's the definition of murder, Top Gun.

Every pro-abortionist who passes this way will read how error-based your representation of the pro-abortionist perspective was.

They will not be happy.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

There is nothing a "conception" in the Constitution. The words, all men are created equal... and endowed by their creator are speaking of discrimination as is pertain to different types of people at the beginning of Gods time. The word conception is never spoken anywhere... however the words BORN IN are.

Erroneous. Irrelevant. Meaningless.

There you go again, creating sophistry on the fly, complete with non-existent "born in" reference.

The Constitution does not rightly present when a person, human being, begins to live. Our historic documents only state that we are endowed by our creator with the right to life. That endowment doesn't happen at the time we reach "men"-hood, Top Gun ... it happens long before, to everyone, at the moment of their conception.

Indeed, it is science that rightly presents when a human being begins to live and all our documents are then retroactively applied to that beginning ...

... And that beginning is at the moment of conception ...

... So thus the newly conceived are endowed with the right to life at that time, and we are honor bound by our documents to respect the newly conceived's right to life.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

There's no disputing that a fertilized egg

Erroneous.

There's no such legitimate thing as a "fertilized egg", as I've told you soooo many times.

You really need to re-read the opening post. It will present to you how a sperm and egg unite to thereby lose their "egg" and "sperm" status, to become at that time a conception, a new human being, a person.

The term "fertilized egg" is merely a euphemism for a conception.

And a conception is the term for a person, a unique individual human being, at the earliest moments of that person's life.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

 

[Chip]

is living human cells splitting and dividing...

Inaccurate minimization.

Though a person grows from conception by splitting and dividing that person's cells, that person is a human being from conception on forward.

It is right and proper in this discussion not to minimize that fact.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

but that is not a complete person.

Erroneous.

There is no such differentiation as "complete" used by science to classify whether an entity is a human being.

Science presents clearly that a human being begins to live at the moment of conception.

Once again, you repeat ad nauseum your attempt to justify murderous abortion via the ageism-classist "complete" sophistry.

Your "complete" sophistry is rejected by science itself.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

If is were it would not require life support from another just to survive.

Irrelevant.

A person is a person, a unique individual human being, from the moment of conception -- so says science.

That person is a person no matter where that person lives and no matter how that person sustains that person's life in that person's environment.

So says science.

Here you attempt to use the "life support" sophistry to justify murdering that person.

The "life support" sophistry is just another spin of the "parasite" sophistry.

All are false-based, irrational and erroneous.

Your attempt to belittle the newly conceived person so that you can justify murdering that person is horrifically heinous.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

This is why "viability" is the recognized legal standard.

Erroneous.

There is no "the standard".

When murderers have killed pregnant women, thus killing their offspring as well, the count of murder-one for killing that offspring is still applied with conviction regardless of viability.

Indeed, there are people serving time for murder right now for having murdered unviable people.

And remember, earlier you argued against a woman being forced to give birth when that birth was imminent, when that person's offspring was viable, saying it was better to murder that offspring than to force the woman to give birth even though there was no known threat to the mother's life.

You pro-abortionists don't really care about viability at all -- you're just, once again, trying to apply a version of the ageism-classist sophistry to irrationally justify murderous abortion on demand.

Again, you have rationally failed.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

Not! You are so far out in Clinic Creeper land

Erroneous. Unwarranted assumption.

Once again, the pro-abortionist commits ad hominem, which the pro-abortionist does because the pro-abortionist has no rational scientific argument in response to the opening post.

Court jester cheerleading may be fun for you, Top Gun ... but you're embarrassing yourself thereby in this debate.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

you haven't even let your mind tune into current political events. Our new President just signed his first order on abortion and that was to open up funding for those who offer abortion counseling and abortion.

Erroneous. Irrelevant.

BHO's horrific behavior in promoting murderous abortion does not change the fact that polls show that a continually growing majority recognize that a person, a unique individual human being, begins to live at the moment of conception.

He thereby behaves as if he could care less that the growing majority of American's perspective on the matter thererby makes him out of step with reality and the progressive mainstream.

That's a fact -- that's the fact in this matter.

And the growing majority recognize the truth of this fact even without the benefit of reading the opening post in this thread.

Just wait until more people read the science of the matter.

Then in no time the majority will be in the 90th percentile.

Roe v. Wade will most certainly fall -- it's inevitible.

And no amount of your court jester cheerleading will change the obviously inevitible.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

Your position has long ago drowned my friend... and now the dept of the water is rising almost daily!

Erroneous.

Your projection is topically irrelevant.

But you would still do well to recognize how your own statement here applies only to you ... so that you'll stop irreparably harming more women with murderous abortion.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

 

[Chip]

Here are some polls I have pulled up:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abopoll05.htm

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abopollover.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_States

I see no single digit approval. Stricter limits, perhaps.

Irrelevant. Meaningless.

The only poll matter that's even slightly topically relevant is the poll of how many people believe that a person, a unique individual human being, begins to live at the moment of conception.

Polls show that figure to be over 50% ... and rising.

Any other poll matter is likely presented by the pro-abortionist for purposes of divertive digresssion from the fact that the pro-abortionist advocates murderous abortion.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

 

[Chip]

Using the very statitistics you quote, only 11 per cent favor totally banning abortions.

Erroneous interpretation. Meaningless digression.

The only thing that matters is that every abortion kills a human being.

The only thing that matters is putting an end to murderous abortion.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

In any case, legal abortion is the law of the land, as Top Gun has pointed out,

Meaningless. Irrelevant.

At one time slave-holding was the law of the land.

But we know what happened to that law.

Just because there is an egregious heinous interpretation on court record, does not mean it will always be so.

As we progress, we move more and more in the true pro-life direction.

Science has spoken that a person, a unique individual human being, begins to live at the moment of conception.

A growing majority accepts the truth of it.

That you revel in the fact that murderous abortion is tolerated does not speak well of your character. Such reveling offends the majority of people, accellerating their efforts to put an end to murderous abortion.

It's, obviously, only a matter of a short time before Roe v Wade is thereby reversed.

Tick tock.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

in spite of many years of vigorous anti-abortion proselytizing.

Meaningless. Irrelevant. Erroneous use of terms.

In spite of many years of vigorous anti-slave-holding arguments put forth by truly humane and progressive people, slave-holding continued ... until enough people were so opposed to it that it came to its inevitable end ...

... Just like murderous abortion and Roe v Wade will come to an inevitable end.

It's ... inevitable.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

Your 'scientific case' you claim to have presented is only your own opinions and boilerplate, common knowledge, so there is no presentation to refute. Nothing in, nothing out.

Translation: "I, Samsara15, have got nothing scientific with which to refute the clear-cut accurate scientific presentation of the opening post in this thread that makes it unconjecturably clear that a person, a unique individual human being, begins to live at the moment of conception.".

You can deny, ignore, even lie, Samsara15.

But that won't change the truth ... nor will it keep the truth from one day putting an end to murderous abortion.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.

 

[Chip]

Do you recall being a zygote? Do you remember the moment of fertilization? Can you cite anyone who does? Do you even have any memories of being a fetus? Lots of people claim to recall past lives, but I can't recall a single memory before about age four. Howver, a newborn does have facial expressions, soon learns to recognize faces and to smile, and have a recognizeable personality.

Irrelevant. Meaningless.

Here the pro-abortionist attempts to concoct another sophistry to rationalize murderous abortion.

But that sophistry never really gets off the ground.

Again, if you have a clear accurate on-point scientifically formulated refutation to the opening post, then please post it.