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> an embryo is not a person > but embryos aren't in that grey area, not even close. You're begging the question. You haven't provided any reasons or arguments

> an embryo is not a person > but embryos aren't in that grey area, not even close. You're begging the question. You haven't provided any reasons or arguments for your position. You've merely re-asserted it. It's akin to saying "It's true that x, because it's true that x". How is my judgement that an embryo is innocent arbitrary? What crime has the embryo committed? What did it do to warrant being killed? The trouble with your position is that you have to make an arbitrary judgement. You have to arbitrarily judge the fetus to be a person at some point. Is it at 12 weeks, 6 days, 32 weeks? The day before it is born? When, exactly? What criteria are you using for making that judgement? Why not the day before? Why not a day later? My position doesn't require making an arbitrary judgement, or answering any of those silly questions. It requires making an intuitive, simple, straightforward observation: from the very moment that the sperm and the ovum meet and the genetic material between the two is exchanged (i.e., the egg is fertilized), a new human life is formed, with its own ends and identity. If nature takes its course, the person either dies naturally and the mother miscarries, or the embryo continues to develop and is subsequently born. Further, I'm not just designating "any human cells" as innocent. I can't just designate "any human cells" and make them develop in the way that an embryo or a fetus develop. I'm talking about a specific group of spells, easily identifiable as distinct from the cells of the mother, that act in unison and coordination with one another through pregnancy to further develop the human being that has been there from the very beginning. If that is an arbitrary grouping of human cells, then I don't see how the same point can't be made to you, or to me (simply being an arbitrary collection of human cells), but everyone would recognize that this (you are an arbitrary collection of human cells, in contrast to a fully-fledged human 'life') would be absurd. In addition, you seem to be implying that we need to use different definitions of murder in different contexts, but I don't see that's the case. How isn't the definition I provided inclusive of every instance of murder?

RobertoG 9y ago
Something that deeply bother me about the "pro-life" stance is its hypocrisy. They put advertisements about "protecting life" and use "life" and "humanity" all the time in their discourse, but that have nothing to do with what they think. What they think, normally, is in the line of "in the moment of the conception an immaterial entity take hold in the zygote". For some reason, they refuse to discuss that. They believe in an immaterial soul but they hide their real beliefs in their discussion of the issue. Of course, I don't know if this is so in your specific case, but I know other cases where it is.
- vkou 9y ago
  > For some reason, they refuse to discuss that. That's because neither our legal, nor medical frameworks recognize an immaterial soul. They would lose that debate.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
a new human life is formed, with its own ends and identity. And completely dependent upon the mother whose body it is parasitically feeding off of and canabalizing. The problem with pro lifers is that they completely dismiss the lives of adult women as being less valuable and less important than a single celled organism incapable of surviving on its own. If you don't want to talk about souls or spirituality, you are saying the rights of a blob of cells supersedes that of a grown woman. I find this monstrous.
- ksk 9y ago
  >you are saying the rights of a blob of cells supersedes that of a grown woman. There are many ways to philosophically argue against a 'life begins at fertilization' position. I don't know why you feel the need to assume things that were not said.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    To me, this is not a philosophical argument. That is the de facto outcome of such a position. If you call it murder to end a pregnancy at any stage, as the GP does, then women are hostages of a life not yet able to survive on its own.
    - ksk 9y ago
      >To me, this is not a philosophical argument. Why? Determining what is and isn't life is based on human reasoning, judgement, and morality. Have you found an alternate approach that was somehow missed by everyone else? :) >If you call it murder to end a pregnancy at any stage, as the GP does, then women are hostages of a life not yet able to survive on its own. Perhaps you missed the stem cell therapy treatment context that was being discussed. We're only talking about embryos, not pregnancy.
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        Is there some new fangled means for embryos to grow into babies that don't involve a human womb?

RobertoG 9y ago

Something that deeply bother me about the "pro-life" stance is its hypocrisy. They put advertisements about "protecting life" and use "life" and "humanity" all the time in their discourse, but that have nothing to do with what they think. What they think, normally, is in the line of "in the moment of the conception an immaterial entity take hold in the zygote". For some reason, they refuse to discuss that. They believe in an immaterial soul but they hide their real beliefs in their discussion of the issue. Of course, I don't know if this is so in your specific case, but I know other cases where it is.

vkou 9y ago
> For some reason, they refuse to discuss that. That's because neither our legal, nor medical frameworks recognize an immaterial soul. They would lose that debate.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

a new human life is formed, with its own ends and identity. And completely dependent upon the mother whose body it is parasitically feeding off of and canabalizing. The problem with pro lifers is that they completely dismiss the lives of adult women as being less valuable and less important than a single celled organism incapable of surviving on its own. If you don't want to talk about souls or spirituality, you are saying the rights of a blob of cells supersedes that of a grown woman. I find this monstrous.

ksk 9y ago
>you are saying the rights of a blob of cells supersedes that of a grown woman. There are many ways to philosophically argue against a 'life begins at fertilization' position. I don't know why you feel the need to assume things that were not said.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  To me, this is not a philosophical argument. That is the de facto outcome of such a position. If you call it murder to end a pregnancy at any stage, as the GP does, then women are hostages of a life not yet able to survive on its own.
  - ksk 9y ago
    >To me, this is not a philosophical argument. Why? Determining what is and isn't life is based on human reasoning, judgement, and morality. Have you found an alternate approach that was somehow missed by everyone else? :) >If you call it murder to end a pregnancy at any stage, as the GP does, then women are hostages of a life not yet able to survive on its own. Perhaps you missed the stem cell therapy treatment context that was being discussed. We're only talking about embryos, not pregnancy.
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Is there some new fangled means for embryos to grow into babies that don't involve a human womb?