mooeypoo

What mass=energy equivalence equation, Peron? If you mean E=mc^2, that's not a mass=energy equivalency, seeing as energy is not equal to the mass (as 'equivalency' would require), but equals to the mass TIMES LIGHTSPEED SQUARED. EDIT: It might be the use of = here that threw me off. In any case, most of Einstein's work was based on previous work, as is all of science really. Maxwell's equations, Lorentz' equations... that doesn't mean he plagiarized.. ~moo

I think I now understand your position better. I still disagree with you, but at least we reached a place where we can understand where we are coming from (I hope you understand my points, at least, as I understand yours). I think that we differ mostly on when a fertilized pack of cells is considered a person. It seems to me that you define it from the moment of fertilization. I don't. I define it from the moment it can be called sentient (new argument can start here,but it's definitely not in the first trimester). Whatever morality that follows stems out of that disagreement, which explains why you're against abortion in the first trimester, and I'm not. ~moo

Well, nothing is completely free, though.. there are always constraints. If you walk out of a third story building's window, you will fall to the ground. That's a constraint. You can choose to do it.. other than locked windows, nothing is stopping you.

That's not necessarily mutually exclusive.. you can have free will to act within a constricted set of rules.

The problem is not the conclusion, iNow, the problem is the attitude, and it's not just with religion, it's with everything. You can argue against people's beliefs, no one says you can't, it's just a matter of how you choose to do so. I believe Astrology is as bunk as you believe it to be; the rules of the forum state quite clearly that the limit is flaming and personal attacks, and lack of civility. If I argue nicely, I can make any point I want (and have others try to refute my points, of course). It's about being civil. I can make my points quite well without resorting to calling Astrology - or its believers - names, thankyouverymuch. I've been doing it since I graduated from kindergarten. ~moo

Heh, like "net force" ? Overall Good - Overall Bad = Good enough to be called good. Sure, why not, it's God we're talking about. Everything he does is *BIG*.

Exactly. Those were examples to show that we can't talk about "life" only, we need to talk about *human* life, which means that there's a need to show that the fertilized cells are not just life, but human life. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged There is such a decision, more or less, within the medical literature. The fetus is not considered human life until the second trimester; in countries where this debate is obsolete (in the many countries in Europe, for instance), abortion is legal up to the end of the second trimester. Third trimester abortions are no longer legal, and done only in special cases involving very specific health cases.

At the very least, respect the fact that abortion isn't like giving up a sexy handbag or buying a new car or a pair of shoes which might impact a woman's social stance. Whether a woman is pro life or pro choice, a pregnancy is a *MASSIVE* emotional, physiological and social impact, and an abortion is not something any woman go for with a smile on her face, whether she's "pro life" or "pro choice". Quite frankly, to suggest otherwise, regardless of opinion on either side, is offensive.

First off, not all bacteria are bad for us, and yet we kill them indiscriminately. same goes for "pests"; not all are bad, on the contrary, some are extremely good for our environment, we just don't LIKE having them around. Define "harmful". Physically? Emotionally? Deadly? How 'bad' should an entity be for its elimination to not be immoral? Unwanted pregnancies can destroy a woman's life, period. And i'm not going to get into the obvious horrible scenarios, like pregnancy following a rape or abuse. Unwanted pregnancy - ripped condom, problem with the pills, whatever it may be (doesn't hagve to be strictly irresponsibility of the woman), can DESTROY a woman's life. Is that not harmful enough for your definition? And if not, why not? what do you define as harmful, whats the criteria, then? It seems we kill "harmful" life arbitrarily (bacteria, pests) even when they're not REAAALLY harmful, and yet in these cases where the 9-month pregnancy and life-long result can be something that ruins a life, that's not harmful enough? sounds a bit inconsistent to me. It's not just their social life, my dear man. It's not to talk about this without having it grow inside you, but when you have a new entity growing in your own body, you need to want it. Imagine having a lump growing inside your intestines for 9 months, and then tell me it's just about "social life" impact. It's much more than social life impact, and I think there needs to be a bit more respect to women in that aspect. The suggestion that it's a petty demand to be able to control her own body (as if it's just for "the social aspect") is, quite frankly, demeaning. You think it's immoral? that's one thing, fine, argue it, debate it, but don't hint that this is a "social" matter as if women are beauty princesses, insisting on the control over their bodies because of social impact. It's physiological. It's emotional, and with due respect, it's a life-long obligation. If you think "real life" (unborn) is life, then you need to provide the logical explanation of that (which you didn't yet). But comparing the 'loss of that life' (still needs to prove it is comparable to anything) with the "social life" of the woman is offensive. The fact *YOU* are not going to have a baby grow inside your belly doesn't mean it's this simple obviously-beautiful awesome lovely thing to happen. If it's planned, fine. If it's not, it's MUCH more than the social aspect. I think we should have a bit more respect for women and their bodies than that. ~moo

Actually, the scientific method is meant to correct for human subjectivity. It's not quite 'limited by it', it's more 'aware of it, hence requesting for specific methodologies to avoid the trap'.

Then you *are* talking about a potential person. In that case, we've dealt with 'potential people' a lot in this thread, showing the argument to be inconsistent. You just present it in a different manner, but the argument is the same. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged waitforufo, stop moving the goal post. We've already established that "life" is not enough. We are terminating life all the time in the form of detergent (killing bacteria, which is absolutely alive) and pesticide, and we have no moral problem with it. It's not about life, then, it's about either 'human life', 'sentient life' or *SOMETHING MORE*. You seem to argue that point and then revert back to 'life' in the followup discussion. That's called moving the goal post, and it's a logical fallacy, and is making the debate pointless. For your argument that abortion is immoral, then, you need to explain the differences between the times such 'termination' is moral and times where it isn't, and show that the instance of abortion belongs to the immoral part. You can't just claim it and expect things to fit arbitrarily. Arguments need to be consistent. Again moving the goal post; we said we're not dealing with 'life' only. If we were, then cancer cells are alive too, under some definitions, and you would be immoral from using detergent, etc etc (I'm getting a bit tired of repeating this). The issue is about human life. A PERSON. If you claim that a person exists from the moment of conception -- a time where it's not yet decided whether the divided cell(s) will become ONE person or *TWO* persons (twins) or more, then *if* the cell eventually splits to be more than one person, these two entities now share a 'life'? a 'soul'? they are each a 'split person'? If being a person starts before the split of twins, then they are each half a person. Otherwise, the 'person' begins after they split, which is considerately later. That's the problem.

I'll gladly debate what a human being is, but I disagree that this is the definition we're lacking here. I think "sentient life" is what we're looking for, in my opinion, to be moral. But morality is subjective, and since unlike the topic of the current thread (which does, directly, affect my life as a woman, and the control I have [or not] over my own body), this disagreement will not affect mine or your life, and we can agree to disagree ~moo

Life isn't enough in this case, though. As I (and others) mentioned before, we're killing 'lesser' life forms ALL THE TIME, knowingly, by either spraying bug-spray, brushing our teeth or using detergent. All of the above are ending life. And yet, none of them are moral issues, are they? So in the case of abortion there's more than just 'life'. It's about either human life, or conscious life, or a potential life. All of these were shown to be inconsistent. So.. I'm waiting for a consistent argument, still. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I don't understand what a 'net loss of life' is, or how is it different from 'preventing copulation' in the means of ejaculating outside of a woman's vagina, hence preventing the sperm cells from forming a baby? Also, the statement that abortion does not save life is also inconsistent. If a woman was raped, aborting the baby can save her life psychologically. If you think that's not good enough, I challenge your moral statements. If a woman was I can't help but wonder if this statement would remain if the people who make this statements and seem to think that "pro choice" people think abortion is 'simple decision', or the 'quick decision', or think that carrying out a pregnancy and an unwanted child (for a variety of reasons) is 'better' for either the child *or the mother* -- I wonder if those statements would remain in the discussion if the people saying them were women. *again*: It's not about life, it's obviously about something 'more'. You are in need of defining this "more" so it includes early-stages pregnancy but DOES NOT include anything else we *do* kill, regularly, like bugs, bacteria and cancer cells. You didn't do that. You seem to claim that the bunch of cells are arbitrarily more important than a bunch of bacteria because it sounds better. We already went over the idea of these cells being a "potential person" (read up) and found it to be an inconsistent argument. We already went through the argument of these cells being alive (read up) and found that we kill, easily, all kinds of living creatures that aren't necessarily hurting us at all, all the time, and this argument is inconsistent. So, right now we should be waiting for this: what separates a fertilized cell from all those "life forms that it's okay to 'kill" that makes it immoral to stop its development? And then we can examine to see if it's a consistent argument. ~moo P.S: If abortion violates the scientific definitions because it terminates life, and you find that unethical, then you should be consistent and stop using detergent, brushing your teeth, taking showers, take any form of medication, or spray your house against bugs, as ALL of these terminate life. All of them.

This explanation isn't good neough. Notice: I'm not syaing your REASON isn't good enough (that would be an opinion), I am saying the REASONING you're giving is not good enough. IT's very simple: The comparison between me, a walking talking self-aware individual human being and a lump of cells that are not all the above is inconsistent. IF you believe I'm human, you need to first show that this lump of cells is EQUIVALENT TO ME, if you want to compare it to me. That is, saying you cnsider it a life because something completely different is a life is not a good logical argument. Second, it doesn't have to have a mother and a father. An embryo can be cloned, too, and grow inside a uterus. Is a cloned embryo not life? If not, are the only conditions for life for it to have parents? IF so, corcroaches fit this definition, which would make all of us murderers every time we stp on one. Consistency. It's nice that it "sounds like" to you, but it "sounds like not" to me. However, I seem to have a consistent set of rules that define what I see as life and what I don't. Those rules stay consistent no matter what example you give me, and I act on them and set my morality on them. You don't have a set of consistent rules so far. It doesn't mean my morality is superior, it just means my explanation is. And if that's so, then my morality has more basis. That's why I'm trying to figure out what you mean. So far, your claims are inconsistent; the fit 1 scenario but not the rest. If that's the case, then your morality is arbitrary; you go by what 'sounds right' instead of what might actually be right. Is that it? Fair enough, although if you consider life to begin in fertilization, you have to explain what happens to twins. Do they each share a split life? HOWEVER, that's not quite working though. You gave out examples where you PREVENTED a person from existing, and you asked if that's not murder. What I gave you are examples of the same issue. By ejaculating a man is *preventing* life from existing, because those sperm cells could have met a nice egg, fertilize it, and produce a lovely baby. Is that murder? I don't need to, those societies exist. See Saudi Arabia, with their uber-religious tendency to demean women; a woman can't leave the house wihtout a man, cannot walk in the street without a burka and god help her if she opens her mouth. And this is in the 21st century. Sadly, we all know how societies built on fallacious thinking LOOK LIKE. We sometimes fail to recognize the less extreme versions, though. If you don't have consistent rules to decide what is moral and what isn't, how can you tell?

Are we? Do you shave? Is that murder? I think it's QUITE obvious that human beings are much MORE than just a pack of cells. They have sentience, intelligence (most) emotion, they are autonomous. The pack of cells that make up a zygote *does not* have any of those things. Bad comparison. Your argument is STILL inconsistent. If a zygote is alive, then twins are each half-lives, and every month all the women in the world are responsible of mass murder. So now it's not human, it's pet? You still didn't answer me about the inconsistency of your claims. A pet is MORE than a bunch of cells too. It has sentience. The lump of cells in a woman's womb does NOT. It *will* (perhaps, maybe, if she's taking care of it well), but it doesn't yet in the beginning. In fact, without modern medicine, there's a chance it *won't* either. If you want to stop meddling with human reproduction, you need to *STOP * meddling with human reproduction. That means all hospitals, all contraception, anything and everything that is so-called "non natural". Take us back 500 years where a vast number of women died in childbirth and insane amt of babies died during birth and right after birth and during the pregnancy. You can't claim that interference in the process is immoral on its own unless the interference yields the results you're comfortable with. That's inconsistent.

I have a solution! Let's not do anything (abortion or otherwise) until we figure it out.. GThat would include not going to the hospital, not taking prenatal vitamins and not assisting women in birth. Good luck with that. You conveniently skipped my post. I raised some issues that explain why your statement is inconsistent. Can you please relate to it?

I'm not sure I understand your questions. If the pack of cells is not alive, and it's not sentient, then it's not human. It might be killing a "potential", but it's not killing a life, and it's not killing a human. It's not murder. When you kill off bacteria, you don't commit murder, do you? And bacteria *ARE* alive. Now, about "potential" for life: Are you supporting contraception? If you are, then by your own definition you are preventing the potential of life and are committing "murder". Did you ever, in your life, ejaculate not while having coitus? Then by your own logic, you destroyed potential life, and are responsible of murder. Did you ever use detergent? You actively kill life when you do. Did you ever step on an ant? did you ever kill a roach? Murder murder murder. So, unless you're willing to explain the difference between the above (specifically the first two) and a pack of divided cells that aren't *YET* alive, there seems to be no difference. If one's murder, the other one's murder too. Is that what you support? I'm not sure I understand your position on these issues, and i don't see how this logic holds in being consistent. ~moo

That's a good point. In Judaism, btw, things are a bit different. Judaism in general encourages more philosophy than many other religions. Obviously there are extremists who take the bible literally, but they are few - the general religion supports questioning the acts of God, up to a point. So it's true that they *stop* asking at some point, allowing for God's work to be "mysterious" and, by that, in my opinion, lacking to take the final step, but still, the questioning itself is a big part of the equation. Also, God is not viewed as what it seems Christianity describes him. God is vengeful, powerful (not necessarily *all* powerful, but as far as men go, can do anything), God changes his mind and God apologizes. So while doubting God is not acceptable, you can make your case to him and it is possible to change his mind (I need to look up the examples but there are a few in the bible). Half of the books that are supposed to "accompany" the bible are philosophizing about the stories, the laws and God's decisions. I like that in Judaism; I disagree with the final conclusion of many religious Jews about the existence of God, but all-in-all, I find that in general, I am having a much more interesting debates with religious Jews (again, I'm not talking about extremes) than with religious Christians (not extremists either). I asked a friend of mine - a preservant Jew - about the problem of evil, and he was totally unphased. It's not quite a problem for him (and his Rabbi, apparently, I asked him to check what he says). It seems they're not thinking of it as an issue much because God is not considered to be "all good". God's plan, eventually, is *for* the good of people, but that's not to say God's all good. Actually, he told me Cap'n should've added another 'issue' to his "example" list, namely the holocaust. That is a BIG BIG issue for Judaism, seeing as the biggest group to be suffering (among other groups) are the jewish people - men, women, children, elderly, pious jews and jews who converted to other religions - all were equally suffering. That's a big problem theologically for Judaism, but as far as I understand it, it's not because of the problem of evil. There is no problem of evil, really, in mainstream judaism, because unlike many christian streams, Judaism doesn't consider God to be *all good*. The plan, eventually, is striving towards goodness, and things might have some reasons we don't understand, but the reasons don't necessarily have to be good. And god is vengeful. And not very pleasant for the enemies. ~moo

Guys, please remember the rules of this forum. We are to be civil. We are not to be personal, and we are not to call one another's beliefs "nonsense". You can be critical of others beliefs and claims, but do so in a civil manner and with logical assertions. Since this forum is still in a testing stage, this is not a request. Please don't make us enforce the rules.

Yeah, I don't know if it's exactly the same,even for the idea that judaism is percieved by many people as an identity. I *consider* myself jewish, I celebrate the holidays (though I don't do the stuff for religious reason, but I do discuss the history, custom and importance for our family, culture, etc), I studied the OT, and I feel very strong about my feeling that I belong to the jewish nation. Actually, I'm a bit annoyed about the religious extremists who seem to 'hijack' judaism and try to present it as religion only, while claiming that *I* am jewish (even though I'm an atheist, I'm still jewish, unlike, usually, christians) just a very bad one in their eyes.

There's no meaning to this, waitforufo. I prevent a human life from becoming a person every time I take contraception or have my period, and a man prevents a human life form becoming a person every time he ejaculates, either intentionally for pleasure or unintentionally as a teenager. This is a goal post that might be stationary, but it's inconsistent. This type of goal post is, then, REQUIRED to be moved in order to preserve the consistency, which makes it either a very bad goal post, or makes you in need of explaining how it remains consistent. How do you know that? Are you sure? We intervene in pregnancies all the time with modern medicine, which is why in our current day and age most pregnancies actually do result in healthy babies. Count only 150 years backwards, when medicine was much less advanced, and the statistics are different. Count 500 years and it's even worse. "No intervention" goalpost will only be consistent (without being moved!) if there's REALLY no intervention. Not if you support just the intervention you like. Heh, of course it would, you are using inconsistent goal posts again, which results in moving them throughout the debate Simple, yes. Consistent? no. Valid? not so much. Let me ask you this, then: At which point does the pack of cells become "human life"? "Potential life" is inconsistent claim for reasons I explained in this post and others explained in other posts throughout this thread. And if you claim that it's human life from conception, you have a problem with twins, among other things. In short, you might have agreed with my statement about moving the goal post, but you just set it up to do it again. Twice.

Right, I think that some aspects of reality are subjective - like they way we perceive ourselves, for example. There are objective rules, though, that make our realities shared. Physics describes these objective rules, as does the rest of science. I guess psychology is more about the subjective reality.

It seems to me that there is a bit of a shift of the goal post here. On one hand, whenever a fertilized cell is extracted from a woman's womb it's concidered murder because it destroyed the "potential" to become human life. This, of course, ignores the fact that in early stages of the pregnancy about a million different things can happen to make this cell either not develop into a person, develop into more than one person, or develop into a badly-formed person. The only reason we see less and less of the latter is because of modern medicine and our ability o know what might harm pregnancies. So we're actively changing the "potential" of creating a malformed life (that nature intends, or, if you wish, God) by preventing the woman from doing some things during pregnancy, taking certain prenatal vitamins and care, etc. With that, there seems to be no "moral" problem. But when we start talking about removing that cell -- which has yet to develop to a person and only has a potential, one out of a few, to be a person (or not, or two persons or more, or malformed, etc) -- then it's immoral. Then the goalpost is suddenly about not changing the potential? A lump of cells is not a human being. Dolly the sheep was cloned from a lump of cells that were unfertilized. As a few already said in the thread, if you want to talk "potential" then we should oppose having our blood drawn, we should make sure our hair follicles are not forcefully extracted, we should be extremely careful not to spit anywhere and watch out from cuts and bruises, because with todays technology, *ALL* of our cells (live ones at least) have a potential to create life. In the above case, however, the goal post shifts to having almost no moral question, because..... what? because the statistics aren't high enough? because we're not used ot it? because it's not natural? If the argument stems out of cloning being not natural, then the problem is not just abortion, it's hospitalization and medicine in general, contraception is not "natural", abstinence is not "natural", and quite a lot of other things we do that *CAUSES* a baby to be born healthy. The goal post keeps shifting in this argument about morality. I think we should set it on one place, not let it move, and see if the arguments are consistent. ~moo

When it becomes sentient.

I agree with the above.