Ireland legalizes the killing of the unborn

[lilpixieofterror]

MM, it's basic biology that cells are alive. It's like first year of high-school stuff. The fact you didn't know that says you're not worth interacting with on the issue. And then you try and attack the random source I linked to that pointed out this basic biology to you, it's just sad. I don't really understand why, as such a stupid and ignorant person, you go on these crusades on issues from anti-abortion to YEC to anti-global warming to try and convince others of your idiocy. Why don't you educate yourself instead? Go to ItunesU or Youtube and watch a 100-level lecture series on these topics, and instead of spouting drivel in these forums, actually learn something.

[lilpixieofterror]

You can not convince me that you are genuinely this ignorant. Skin cells are not life-forms, and I'm certain you know it.

[firstfloor]

Obvious troll is obvious.

[Tassman]

But because their morality is arbitrary they don't see the presence or absence of a brain as relevant. Abortion's just bad because they think God thinks it's bad, nothing to do with brains.

It's even more than God "just not liking it". The invisible elephant in the room which is rarely publicly acknowledged, is ensoulment. I.e. the moment at which a human being gains a soul, believed by this lot to be the moment of conception. So, given this belief, of course an abortion is out of the question even for an embryo no more than a clump of cells with no brain.

[Starlight]

It's even more than God "just not liking it". The invisible elephant in the room which is rarely publicly acknowledged, is ensoulment. I.e. the moment at which a human being gains a soul, believed by this lot to be the moment of conception.

Well Sparko has acknowledged this. But the anti-abortion movement does seem to mostly exist at the intersection of religious beliefs about ensoulment (a la Sparko) and utter ignorance about biology (a la MM), usually both at once.

Personally, when I was a Christian, my thought process was "God knows the future, he wouldn't stick a soul into a fetus he knew wasn't even going to survive until to birth, or at the very least he's smart enough to wait to see if it survives a decent amount of time before sticking the soul in, either way abortion isn't an issue". And a lot of Jewish views of ensoulment have it happening a lot later than conception.

So, given this belief, of course an abortion is out of the question even for an embryo no more than a clump of cells with no brain.

Gotta protect all teh cellz!

~lightbulb~ That must have been why Samson lost his strength when his hair was cut - God was angry at the loss of hair cells!

[Tassman]

Well Sparko has acknowledged this. But the anti-abortion movement does seem to mostly exist at the intersection of religious beliefs about ensoulment (a la Sparko) and utter ignorance about biology (a la MM), usually both at once.

Personally, when I was a Christian, my thought process was "God knows the future, he wouldn't stick a soul into a fetus he knew wasn't even going to survive until to birth, or at the very least he's smart enough to wait to see if it survives a decent amount of time before sticking the soul in, either way abortion isn't an issue". And a lot of Jewish views of ensoulment have it happening a lot later than conception.

Yes, at birth as it's laid out right there in Genesis:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Gen 2:7

Gotta protect all teh cellz!

~lightbulb~ That must have been why Samson lost his strength when his hair was cut - God was angry at the loss of hair cells!

LOL You're a bad boy!

[Roy]

That was bad logic, even for you. A sperm can't reproduce more sperm at all. The only thing it can do is combine with an egg and create an entirely new organism.

...which can produce more sperm.

Humans produce sperm/ova which produce humans which produce sperm/ova which produce humans which produce sperm/ova which produce humans ad infinitum.

It's a cycle, and like all cycles, can be examined starting from any point on the cycle, e.g. a human is a sperm's way of producing more sperm. Depending on what criteria you use to split the continuum of humans from pre-humans,* there may or may not have been human sperm before adult humans.

*assuming you don't think there were no pre-humans

[Roy]

Roy is equivocating. They are living cells, but they do not meet the scientific definition of life/life-form/organism because they are not self-sustaining.

You still haven't cited a source for this "scientific definition" - probably because it exists only in your imagination. Much like your ignorant claim that sperm cells don't metabolise.

[Roy]

One thing I was reading was that 73% of women who chose to get abortions do so at least partially for financial reasons. That would be something to look into if one seeks to reduce the rate of abortions.

In the UK, parents get state funding for child support. Does the US have something similar?

[Starlight]

In the UK, parents get state funding for child support. Does the US have something similar?

The US is pretty much the only country in the world that doesn't have paid parental leave by law (some employers offer it). I don't think the US generally has government-provided child support payments... to them "child support" refers to the father making payments. Though they do have the "Head Start" program which gives support to low-income families with pre-school kids. But they don't seem to have nearly as much support for families with children in general as the UK or NZ does. Yet again, the "US pro-family" right does not appear to actually support policies that benefit families, unlike the left.

And yeah, the lack of financial support for families in the US probably motivates quite a few people to seek abortions who otherwise wouldn't have. But the US right doesn't even seem to be interested in easy policy methods to reduce abortion rates like good sex education (they seem to prefer abstinence-only education even though it leads to more abortions), and the making of contraception easily available.

[Roy]

How is a fetus self-sustaining? Isn't it completely dependent on the mother?

Only in the sense that you or I are completely dependent on our environment to survive.

I mean "self-sustaining" in the sense that the organism can metabolize nutrients and use them for development and survival. Things like skin cells and spermatozoa do no have this ability and therefore do not meet the scientific definition of "life".

That's not the "scientific" definition of life, it's the "Mountain-Man-personal" definition of life, based on a total misunderstanding of metabolism. It leads to the insane consequence that reptile/bird eggs, hibernating bats/bears/snakes, nesting penguins, pre-implantation fertilised ova, sleeping humans, plant seeds, insect pupae and adult mayflies are not alive.

[Roy]

And yet you're the one who stupidly claimed that skin cells are an organism...

No, he said that they had human DNA (and implied they met the scientific definition of life and were innocent). He did not say skin cells were an organism.

Either you don't understand simple English or you're trying to lie your way out of your morass of incompetence.

[Roy]

A skin cell is a skin cell. It doesn't grow, it doesn't organize, it doesn't adapt, it doesn't self-sustain, it doesn't metabolize, it doesn't respond to stimuli.
...
You claim to have a science degree, so what am I to conclude?

That he knows more about science than you do, is more likely to be correct than you are, and is less likely to spout ignorant bollocks like the above.

It's been a while since I changed my signature.

[Starlight]

Either you don't understand simple English or you're trying to lie your way out of your morass of incompetence.

I think with MM it's a both-and situation rather than an either-or one.

[Roy]

He does.