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"when human life begins" is easy. Biology, the science, makes it clear that such cells are alive. That definition of alive is the only one that can matter to t

"when human life begins" is easy. Biology, the science, makes it clear that such cells are alive. That definition of alive is the only one that can matter to thinking, non-superstitious people. There are no souls or spirits. Furthermore, the science of genetics makes it quite clear that we won't do a DNA test and discover that the fetus is a wombat, or a giraffe, or a sea urchin. It would test as Homo sapiens, which is the definition of human. It's objectively the truth.

akvadrako 4y ago
We kill living human cells all the time without issue. Besides, science cannot provide definitions. There is no hypothesis to test that disproves "an organism is alive when it can X and Y".
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
  How many of those cells have you killed that were physiologically whole, were arranged in a shape of having two arms, two legs, two eyes, and every major organ but especially a brain? How many were complete organisms? > There is no hypothesis to test that disproves "an organism is alive when it can X and Y". 1. Metabolize 2. Homeostasis 3. Responds to stimuli 4. Growth 5. Reproduction Never learned the list in school? It often includes "composed of cells", but that one might not make sense for xenobiology. There are people who only believe in science, I guess, when it gives them the answers they were hoping for anyway.
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    > 1. Metabolize 2. Homeostasis 3. Responds to stimuli 4. Growth 5. Reproduction That's a definition, but how do you prove scientifically it's the right one? The question doesn't even make sense. > Never learned the list in school? Being taught in school doesn't make something science.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    So if physiological wholeness is a criterion, that gives license to both abort before physiological wholeness occurs (so no issue with Plan b and similar treatments) and to abort right up to the moment of birth for any fetus with imperfections past a certain criteria (to be clarified later), right?
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
      > that gives license to both abort before physiological wholeness occurs (so no issue with Plan b and similar treatments) I've never had an issue with that. > and to abort right up to the moment of birth for any fetus with imperfections past a certain criteria (to be clarified later), right? To be documented and assessed by a pathologist at another location, with charges to be filed against the abortionist and woman if it turns out the kid wasn't anacephalic? Sure, why not? I have principles. I'm willing to abide them. You just have outcomes you want to see occur though. I doubt compromise is possible.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        What does anacephalic have to do with it? I believe you said "two arms, two legs, two eyes, and every major organ." No eyes? Out. Missing arm? Out. Club foot? Out. Right?
lazyasciiart 4y ago
So would a puddle of fresh blood. Should we ban cleaning that up now?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
  Red blood cells don't even have nuclei if what I've been taught is true. Just what do you think you'd be testing? Are you saying that some random leukocyte that wandered into the wrong capillary is a living human? The fetus is physiologically whole and complete. Two arms, two legs, a brain. Two eyes, every major organ.
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    No, you are. Are you adding criteria to your previous facile entry that "it is obvious that human cells are human life duh"? Are you saying that a fetus is the beginning of a human life when it is physiologically whole and complete? When does that happen, do you know? It's certainly not at conception. What if it doesn't happen - is a missing eye relevant to whether there's a human life?
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
      There are people who claim they're not alive. So I pointed out how it's unequivocally alive. There are those who claim it's not human, so I pointed out how it's unambiguously human. You introduced new absurdities, acting as if it was some sort of gotcha. If you or I looked at a fetus, we'd see that it didn't bear any resemblance, superficial or profound, to a puddle of blood, and that it bore a striking resemblance to adult humans. That I have to walk people through these things is absurd. At first, I couldn't believe that everyone is so stupid. But then in some subversion of Hanlon's razor, I realized that none of you are stupid. Everyone's just evil. Quite frankly, I want abortion to remain legal. I can't wait for those who believe it to finish their self-genocide. No one who could ever contemplate it is anyone I want to see pass on their genes or their attitudes/ideas. I'd happily have abortions be free and pay for it with my taxes.
skissane 4y ago
> Biology, the science, makes it clear that such cells are alive. In 1951, a 31 year old African-American woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer. A tissue sample of her cancer was cultured in a laboratory, and that cell line survives to this day, having been adopted by numerous research labs worldwide. Those cells are alive, and they have human DNA (albeit with an abnormal number of chromosomes). Is that human life? Does it have the same moral status as a zygote/embryo/foetus/baby? I think your approach to this issue is completely wrong. Science can’t (in itself) answer moral questions. It can provide us with facts which can be combined with moral principles to produce moral conclusions, but it can’t tell us what are the right moral principles. I know people on all sides of the abortion debate like to claim that science is on their side, but I think they are all making a grave error, in failing to appreciate that moral questions are inherently beyond the power of science to answer.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
  > Is that human life? Are you planning on aborting it? Like, so that it could be a relevant example? In law, it isn't necessary to be able to determine if that is a human life to be able to determine that the fetuses that are commonly aborted are human life. Argument by corner cases just isn't very strong, unless those corner cases actually shed light on the problem at hand. > Does it have the same moral status as a zygote/embryo/foetus/baby? Books could be written on the immorality of the HL cell line. They have, I believe. An exhaustive listing of each sort of immorality/amorality likely exceeds the maximum post size on this forum. > I think your approach to this issue is completely wrong. If you did think it wrong, you'd have chuckled and not bothered to answer. Maybe you'd have reported it or something like that for being stupid gibberish. What you actually think is that my approach is alarming. You know what you want the conclusion to be, and anything that leads to another conclusion and isn't immediately and obviously stupid... that's potentially dangerous. > Science can’t (in itself) answer moral questions. I The moral question has been answered for a long time. Even if we just want to do recent history, it's been settled since Nuremberg. Don't kill humans. Don't murder humans. But, murderers like to make excuses. "That one over there isn't human!" Science is very good at answering taxonomic classification questions though. And, not so surprisingly, every time someone claims "that one isn't human", it turns out it actually was. > I know people on all sides of the abortion debate like to claim that science is on their side, No, sometime decades ago, the left (Democrats, whatever) staked it as their territory. And either the right didn't want to stake a counterclaim to it, or thought it a losing proposition and never tried. If you have some evidence that both do, I'd be curious to see it. Certainly there can't be alot, I'd estimate it has to be at least a 100:1 ratio (for me to personally not notice). Wouldn't ask just to dispute it, keep in mind. Truly curious on this count.

akvadrako 4y ago

We kill living human cells all the time without issue. Besides, science cannot provide definitions. There is no hypothesis to test that disproves "an organism is alive when it can X and Y".

NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
How many of those cells have you killed that were physiologically whole, were arranged in a shape of having two arms, two legs, two eyes, and every major organ but especially a brain? How many were complete organisms? > There is no hypothesis to test that disproves "an organism is alive when it can X and Y". 1. Metabolize 2. Homeostasis 3. Responds to stimuli 4. Growth 5. Reproduction Never learned the list in school? It often includes "composed of cells", but that one might not make sense for xenobiology. There are people who only believe in science, I guess, when it gives them the answers they were hoping for anyway.
- akvadrako 4y ago
  > 1. Metabolize 2. Homeostasis 3. Responds to stimuli 4. Growth 5. Reproduction That's a definition, but how do you prove scientifically it's the right one? The question doesn't even make sense. > Never learned the list in school? Being taught in school doesn't make something science.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  So if physiological wholeness is a criterion, that gives license to both abort before physiological wholeness occurs (so no issue with Plan b and similar treatments) and to abort right up to the moment of birth for any fetus with imperfections past a certain criteria (to be clarified later), right?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
    > that gives license to both abort before physiological wholeness occurs (so no issue with Plan b and similar treatments) I've never had an issue with that. > and to abort right up to the moment of birth for any fetus with imperfections past a certain criteria (to be clarified later), right? To be documented and assessed by a pathologist at another location, with charges to be filed against the abortionist and woman if it turns out the kid wasn't anacephalic? Sure, why not? I have principles. I'm willing to abide them. You just have outcomes you want to see occur though. I doubt compromise is possible.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      What does anacephalic have to do with it? I believe you said "two arms, two legs, two eyes, and every major organ." No eyes? Out. Missing arm? Out. Club foot? Out. Right?

lazyasciiart 4y ago

So would a puddle of fresh blood. Should we ban cleaning that up now?

NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
Red blood cells don't even have nuclei if what I've been taught is true. Just what do you think you'd be testing? Are you saying that some random leukocyte that wandered into the wrong capillary is a living human? The fetus is physiologically whole and complete. Two arms, two legs, a brain. Two eyes, every major organ.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  No, you are. Are you adding criteria to your previous facile entry that "it is obvious that human cells are human life duh"? Are you saying that a fetus is the beginning of a human life when it is physiologically whole and complete? When does that happen, do you know? It's certainly not at conception. What if it doesn't happen - is a missing eye relevant to whether there's a human life?
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
    There are people who claim they're not alive. So I pointed out how it's unequivocally alive. There are those who claim it's not human, so I pointed out how it's unambiguously human. You introduced new absurdities, acting as if it was some sort of gotcha. If you or I looked at a fetus, we'd see that it didn't bear any resemblance, superficial or profound, to a puddle of blood, and that it bore a striking resemblance to adult humans. That I have to walk people through these things is absurd. At first, I couldn't believe that everyone is so stupid. But then in some subversion of Hanlon's razor, I realized that none of you are stupid. Everyone's just evil. Quite frankly, I want abortion to remain legal. I can't wait for those who believe it to finish their self-genocide. No one who could ever contemplate it is anyone I want to see pass on their genes or their attitudes/ideas. I'd happily have abortions be free and pay for it with my taxes.

skissane 4y ago

> Biology, the science, makes it clear that such cells are alive. In 1951, a 31 year old African-American woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer. A tissue sample of her cancer was cultured in a laboratory, and that cell line survives to this day, having been adopted by numerous research labs worldwide. Those cells are alive, and they have human DNA (albeit with an abnormal number of chromosomes). Is that human life? Does it have the same moral status as a zygote/embryo/foetus/baby? I think your approach to this issue is completely wrong. Science can’t (in itself) answer moral questions. It can provide us with facts which can be combined with moral principles to produce moral conclusions, but it can’t tell us what are the right moral principles. I know people on all sides of the abortion debate like to claim that science is on their side, but I think they are all making a grave error, in failing to appreciate that moral questions are inherently beyond the power of science to answer.

NoMoreNicksLeft 4y ago
> Is that human life? Are you planning on aborting it? Like, so that it could be a relevant example? In law, it isn't necessary to be able to determine if that is a human life to be able to determine that the fetuses that are commonly aborted are human life. Argument by corner cases just isn't very strong, unless those corner cases actually shed light on the problem at hand. > Does it have the same moral status as a zygote/embryo/foetus/baby? Books could be written on the immorality of the HL cell line. They have, I believe. An exhaustive listing of each sort of immorality/amorality likely exceeds the maximum post size on this forum. > I think your approach to this issue is completely wrong. If you did think it wrong, you'd have chuckled and not bothered to answer. Maybe you'd have reported it or something like that for being stupid gibberish. What you actually think is that my approach is alarming. You know what you want the conclusion to be, and anything that leads to another conclusion and isn't immediately and obviously stupid... that's potentially dangerous. > Science can’t (in itself) answer moral questions. I The moral question has been answered for a long time. Even if we just want to do recent history, it's been settled since Nuremberg. Don't kill humans. Don't murder humans. But, murderers like to make excuses. "That one over there isn't human!" Science is very good at answering taxonomic classification questions though. And, not so surprisingly, every time someone claims "that one isn't human", it turns out it actually was. > I know people on all sides of the abortion debate like to claim that science is on their side, No, sometime decades ago, the left (Democrats, whatever) staked it as their territory. And either the right didn't want to stake a counterclaim to it, or thought it a losing proposition and never tried. If you have some evidence that both do, I'd be curious to see it. Certainly there can't be alot, I'd estimate it has to be at least a 100:1 ratio (for me to personally not notice). Wouldn't ask just to dispute it, keep in mind. Truly curious on this count.