A Call for Consistency

[rogue06]

It's a liberal term so I used it on purpose. But the facts are that biology has said that a new human organism or any animal begins after successful fertilization. There are no more conditions put upon the organism to be considered an individual organism separate from his parents in identity. Not, environment, not heartbeat, not brainwaves, not toes or hair or talking or anything like that. Even if the organism only lasts for 2 minutes, for those 2 minutes it was a separate and complete organism. a being. and in the case of humans, a human being.

I agree that the same folks who smugly describe themselves as being "the party of science" quickly throw science right out the window the moment it comes into conflict with their ideology -- whether it be about when life begins or what sex/gender someone is.

[carpedm9587]

It strikes me, as I review this thread, that I have been incredibly sloppy with language, largely adding to the confusion. So I am going to try to sum up my position, and see if it takes us anywhere.

Firstm I have been sloppily moving back and forth between "human life" and "human being." I need tobe more consistent with my language. To be "human life" a thing must a) possess human DNA, and b) be living. If you lop off a thumb, the cells in that thumb continue to function for some period of time. Look under a microscope and you will find living, functioning cells. Get the person into surgery fast enough, and that thumb can even be re-attached. It is, by all definitions I know, "human life." It is NOT, however, a human being. To be a human being requires something more than just DNA and functioning cells.

Some people say it requires a positive EEG - signs of brain activity. Some say a positive EKG - signs of a heartbeat. Some say it requires both. Indeed, medically, the loss of a heartbeat AND brain activity is the criteria used to declare someone dead - no longer a person. So they argue that these criteria used at the end of life should likewise be used at the start.

I do not accept that, because at the start of life the human person has something the dead or dying person does not - potentiality. So I look for the thing that will define the beginning of a human person, without creating odd moral conflicts. What I have arrived at is implantation. Before the cells of the zygote (blastocyst) are implanted, a high percentage simply do not implant, many continue to split, creating more than one "person," but implantation appears to be the moment when the new human life is on a sustainable path to individuality, so it is where I plant my flag of "personhood."

Sparko objects that this is not "scientific," and I am coming to believe he means I cannot "prove" it scientifically. I have been using the term "scientific" to mean that my position is rooted in a scientific understanding of human gestation. I can no more prove when a human person begins scientifically than he can. I can prove if a thing is human - and if it is living - but whether or not it is a human being - and individual - a person - that is not solely in the realm of science. Science can inform it - but it is also a philosophical question. It is not subject to scientific proofs.

My reasons for including implantation (or its equivalent, sometime in the future) is reasoned, I have explained the purpose - so it is not arbitrary. It may not be a criteria others include, which is their decision. I think that leads to odd moral positions - but others obviously see it differently.

Hopefully, that provides a little bit of clarification. And I own responsibility for sloppy use of language. Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa - as my latin professor would have said.

[Adrift]

I don't think I'm alone in stating that I've never ever heard anyone say that they thought one's thumb was a human life. If I saw a freshly shorn thumb in my driveway, the last thing I'd think is "oh my gosh, someone lost a human life!" I'd think "where's the human life that lost this thumb!"

Often when we hear of atrocities of one sort or another, we refer to those who died as "lives". When we read in the paper that 50 lives were lost during some terrible tragedy we're counting the living person themselves, not bits of body parts that were scattered after the event that might be quickly sown back onto their hosts. I think most people would see a human life as a human being that's living (when they're not using the two phrases synonymously, which does happen). When we see a body at a funeral, we no longer think of that body as a human life. We think of them in the past tense, "they had such a marvelous life", but that body is still a human being, they're just a dead human being.

It seems to me that a lot of discussions with you lately is a lot of talking past one another because of your very...unique...way of using certain words ("slavery", "everyone", "innocent", "truth", "objective/subjective", "human lives/human beings"). And I'm not just referring to how Christians or some Right-Wingers might use those words, but how any native English speaker would use those words. Even when you use dictionaries in attempts to show that you're using the word correctly, you seem to do things like use the wrong definition based on the context you're using, or you'll put too much weight on a strict dictionary definition when the word in it's everyday usage isn't exactly used in the strict ways the Oxford dictionary might define it (and in those cases, knowing the colloquial sense of the word, or perhaps using encyclopedias would be more helpful). Watching you hash it out with a few posters on this forum since you're return, I'm kinda reminded of how Christians often talk past Mormons. Mormons use all sorts of Christian lingo that looks like it might mean the same thing, but when you really start pushing, you realize that they're using the same words in radically different ways. Ways that often times completely contradict the Christian meaning of the word or phrase.

[Roy]

Right because biology and embryology textbooks don't count.

Of course they count. But you said you had biology papers. They aren't biology papers. It's not my fault that you don't know the difference.

Oh, and you are ignoring the fact that all but a couple of those extracted quotes don't say anything about human beings at all, and not a single one supports your pro-life apologetic that "They are not a human being. Until fertilized. Then it becomes a complete human organism. A human being."

The point is that biology can describe the process, but cannot say at what point the developing zygote/embryo/foetus/baby becomes worthy of consideration and legal protection as a person. Biology, like all science describes what is; it does not proscribe behaviour. Insisting fertilisation is final arbiter as if no-one who disagrees with you knows anything about it is futile, and linking to quote-mine sites is worse.

Incidentally, this: "It is a biological fact known since we discovered DNA" is wrong. The roles of DNA in genetics and fertilisation weren't known until decades after DNA was first discovered.

You're also not taking into account the existence of identical twins, where two people result from a single fertilisation event. Simple-minded insistence that science says humans begin at fertilisation merely highlights your own ignorance.

Show me something that says a new organism's life does NOT begin with fertilization.

Since you're quoting pro-life Christian sites, you really ought to be aware of their counterpart. Don't make the mistake of thinking I agree with it.

[carpedm9587]

I don't think I'm alone in stating that I've never ever heard anyone say that they thought one's thumb was a human life. If I saw a freshly shorn thumb in my driveway, the last thing I'd think is "oh my gosh, someone lost a human life!" I'd think "where's the human life that lost this thumb!"

Often when we hear of atrocities of one sort or another, we refer to those who died as "lives". When we read in the paper that 50 lives were lost during some terrible tragedy we're counting the living person themselves, not bits of body parts that were scattered after the event that might be quickly sown back onto their hosts. I think most people would see a human life as a human being that's living (when they're not using the two phrases synonymously, which does happen). When we see a body at a funeral, we no longer think of that body as a human life. We think of them in the past tense, "they had such a marvelous life", but that body is still a human being, they're just a dead human being.

The difference is in the "a." The shorn thumb is indeed human life (it is comprised of living cells and has human DNA) - it is not A human life, which is how many people say "human being." Same with "lives." The term "life" is used in different ways, which is what I think is leading us to talk past one another.

It seems to me that a lot of discussions with you lately is a lot of talking past one another because of your very...unique...way of using certain words ("slavery", "everyone", "innocent", "truth", "objective/subjective", "human lives/human beings"). And I'm not just referring to how Christians or some Right-Wingers might use those words, but how any native English speaker would use those words. Even when you use dictionaries in attempts to show that you're using the word correctly, you seem to do things like use the wrong definition based on the context you're using, or you'll put too much weight on a strict dictionary definition when the word in it's everyday usage isn't exactly used in the strict ways the Oxford dictionary might define it (and in those cases, knowing the colloquial sense of the word, or perhaps using encyclopedias would be more helpful). Watching you hash it out with a few posters on this forum since you're return, I'm kinda reminded of how Christians often talk past Mormons. Mormons use all sorts of Christian lingo that looks like it might mean the same thing, but when you really start pushing, you realize that they're using the same words in radically different ways. Ways that often times completely contradict the Christian meaning of the word or phrase.

I have no idea how to respond to this one. Perhaps the problem is not so much that I am not using words the way that other people use them, but that I am calling out things as they are, and people do not like it. No one likes to hear that they are advocating for a form of slavery, so better to attack the use of the word than to actually look at what is being said - that abortion prohibitions mean a woman is being told what she may or may not do with her own body for nine months by the state. You can dodge and spin in any direction you wish, and refuse to look at it, but that does not change the fact that abortion prohibitions do exactly that.

I could point out similar things with the other words you listed, but I think that would simply get us into more "parsing of the language." Language is malleable - that is the entire problem with the originalist argument for the Constitution, or the fundamentalist reading of the Bible or the Quran. Words are an attempt to capture reality in symbols. It will always be an inexact science. I am less concerned with the specific word being used than I am with the reality it represents.

[Adrift]

The difference is in the "a." The shorn thumb is indeed human life (it is comprised of living cells and has human DNA) - it is not A human life, which is how many people say "human being." Same with "lives." The term "life" is used in different ways, which is what I think is leading us to talk past one another.

Hmm. I don't know. Still sounds wrong to my ears.

I have no idea how to respond to this one. Perhaps the problem is not so much that I am not using words the way that other people use them, but that I am calling out things as they are, and people do not like it. No one likes to hear that they are advocating for a form of slavery, so better to attack the use of the word than to actually look at what is being said - that abortion prohibitions mean a woman is being told what she may or may not do with her own body for nine months by the state. You can dodge and spin in any direction you wish, and refuse to look at it, but that does not change the fact that abortion prohibitions do exactly that.

Mmm, No. That's not it. It's pretty much what I said in the previous post.

I could point out similar things with the other words you listed, but I think that would simply get us into more "parsing of the language." Language is malleable - that is the entire problem with the originalist argument for the Constitution, or the fundamentalist reading of the Bible or the Quran. Words are an attempt to capture reality in symbols. It will always be an inexact science. I am less concerned with the specific word being used than I am with the reality it represents.

Sure, but you really do use certain words in a very quirky and unusual way. That's not something I'm just imagining. It looks like others agree. If you're using words in an idiosyncratic way from how everyone else uses words, then talking past one another is inevitable. Words do matter, especially on a format where that's all we have to express ourselves.

[EvoUK]

I don't think I'm alone in stating that I've never ever heard anyone say that they thought one's thumb was a human life. If I saw a freshly shorn thumb in my driveway, the last thing I'd think is "oh my gosh, someone lost a human life!" I'd think "where's the human life that lost this thumb!"

[Sparko]

Of course they count. But you said you had biology papers. They aren't biology papers. It's not my fault that you don't know the difference.

Lordy, you and your damn nitpicking.

[Adrift]

You've heard carpedm's thumb example before? Do you remember where?

[EvoUK]

You've heard carpedm's thumb example before? Do you remember where?

[Sparko]

A cell in a thumb (a somatic cell) and a fertilized egg are fundamentally different in nature. A somatic cell is differentiated and doesn't have the intrinsic ability to grow into an adult human being (or even a fetus). A zygote does. It is an undifferentiated cell with the ability to differentiate into various organs and tissues and and grow into a fetus then an adult. In fact, cloning is the process of taking the DNA from a somatic cell and inserting it into a hollowed out egg in order to make it undifferentiated and allow it to become a zygote. At which time you have a new human life, a new human organism and a new human being.

[Adrift]

Can you maybe link to an example where you've seen the same argument in one of its various forms? Maybe carpedm is just not explaining it in a way that I'm familiar with.

[carpedm9587]

Hmm. I don't know. Still sounds wrong to my ears.

That's not much of an argument, Adrift. That it "sounds wrong to your ears" doesn't make the position wrong.

Mmm, No. That's not it. It's pretty much what I said in the previous post.

Sure, but you really do use certain words in a very quirky and unusual way. That's not something I'm just imagining. It looks like others agree. If you're using words in an idiosyncratic way from how everyone else uses words, then talking past one another is inevitable. Words do matter, especially on a format where that's all we have to express ourselves.

Yes - the people who agree all have something in common: they disagree with the position I'm taking. It is actually fairly easy to attack the "words," Adrift, which is what is happening here. It is harder to attack the position. So everyone is focused on the word "slavery" and I am having to explain why I use it, meanwhile, no one needs to spend any time looking at the fact that anti-abortion laws have the state telling a woman what she may or may not do with her own body for a period up to 9 months. The discussion on "words" is a sidetrack to the main point: what the words represent. If you don't like "slavery," as I have said, feel free to substitute, "servitude," "state control," or "duck soup" if you prefer. It does not change the underlying reality that the words are attempting to represent.

[carpedm9587]

[carpedm9587]

A cell in a thumb (a somatic cell) and a fertilized egg are fundamentally different in nature. A somatic cell is differentiated and doesn't have the intrinsic ability to grow into an adult human being (or even a fetus). A zygote does. It is an undifferentiated cell with the ability to differentiate into various organs and tissues and and grow into a fetus then an adult. In fact, cloning is the process of taking the DNA from a somatic cell and inserting it into a hollowed out egg in order to make it undifferentiated and allow it to become a zygote. At which time you have a new human life, a new human organism and a new human being.

And yet, it cannot do any of that without the proper context. Unless someone physically takes action to provide that context, then the process of "reproduction" is not complete. That is the crux of my point.