"Nobody questions that it is life. My problem is, is it human life?"
I'll give that 4 stars for the stupidest question today. What life would you suggest? Bumblebee, Aardvark, Dragon?
Cauliflower?
"Nobody questions that it is life. My problem is, is it human life?"
I'll give that 4 stars for the stupidest question today. What life would you suggest? Bumblebee, Aardvark, Dragon?
Nobody questions that it is life. My problem is, is it human life?
It's definitely biologic material, with metabolic activity. It grows. It develops tissues. It develops organs. It's not inert. It has bio-energetic demands. It carries genetic information from a maternal and paternal progenitor. More importantly the maternal body is tuned to provide the basics that all life require, to the developing embryo. Biochemical pathways have evolved different forms of haemoglobin so that oxygen will be carried across the maternal/natal barrier.Also, how do we know that life begins at conception?
And? How does this relate to the living human in the womb?Normally we as a society are not against taking life. We take life routinely, when we slaughter meat animals, we hunt or fish etc. Why, even picking spinach or coriander on the farm is taking life. Each stem of spinach or coriander is one life. Eat an average serving of spinach and you had to destroy perhaps 10 or 12 lives for that.
As you can see by the list I gave above, it's not at all an arbitrary definition. It's religious to claim that there is no good reason in the face of ample evidence provided by science to the contrary.So I am willing to concede that it indeed is life. My problem is why define arbitrarily that life (that too human life) begins at conception? How do we know? The fact is, we don’t that is a religious belief.
But I refuse to take your word, or that of the Pope or Pat Robertson that it is human life, same as a fully developed human being.
According to the nucleic acid it carries it is human. As to the fact that it's alive, see below.
It's definitely biologic material, with metabolic activity. It grows. It develops tissues. It develops organs. It's not inert. It has bio-energetic demands. It carries genetic information from a maternal and paternal progenitor. More importantly the maternal body is tuned to provide the basics that all life require, to the developing embryo. Biochemical pathways have evolved different forms of haemoglobin so that oxygen will be carried across the maternal/natal barrier.
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See how the oxygen dissociates from maternal haemoglobin compared to the fetus? The mother's haemoglobin has a lower affinity for oxygen. If this wasn't so, the maternal haemoglobin would not give up the oxygen which passes over to the developing fetus.
That is clearly biochemistry. Obviously a living thing.
Take your pick. None of those characteristics are found amongst something that is not living.
And? How does this relate to the living human in the womb?
As you can see by the list I gave above, it's not at all an arbitrary definition. It's religious to claim that there is no good reason in the face of ample evidence provided by science to the contrary.
Straw man. Nobody contends that it is the same as an adult. Just as nobody contends that an infant is.
A cancer tumour displays all these properties.
How is a cancer tumour different from a fetus in the early stages?
Just because something has human DNA, human nucleic acids does not make it human.
If you want to show reverence to the fetus from the moment of conception, want to treat the fetus as something holy, something sacred, should we then not show the same regard for the cancer tumour?
That is just what many prolifers contend.
Nope. Doesn't form organs or tissues. Is not a distinct new assortment of nucleic acid.
You are simply giving differences between a fetus and a tumour. But why should that make a fetus human at conception?The growth of a fetus has limits. The growth of a cancerous tumor does not. Cancer cells are abnormal, they have normal pathways turned off, or attenuated. A fetus doesn't grow because a suppression gene is turned off by a mutation.
I don't know. That is my whole point. But we don't know that it is human, unless we accept somebody's arbitrary definition of what a human is.What does it make it?
I'm not showing reverence. I'm just poking holes in your one-sided portrayal of what we understand about biology and human life.
Citation please. I'm not going to take your word that anyone believes that a fetus is exactly the same as an adult. If they do, then they are as wrong about the biology as you are.
And how does that make the fetus human at conception?
You are simply giving differences between a fetus and a tumour. But why should that make a fetus human at conception?
I don't know. That is my whole point. But we don't know that it is human, unless we accept somebody's arbitrary definition of what a human is.
I did not say an adult. If you read my post fully you will find that what I am saying is that prolifers regard a fetus same as a new born baby.
havin fun ron?
I'll restate.......with how "adamant" sjp is with his contention that a human fetus(baby) is not human, I will lay odds that his wife and kid are baby killing, murderous abortion doctors..... that is MY OPINION.
Are you kidding me? If it doesn't satisfy you that it's a human, then what do I call you? You have all of these characteristics. The only difference is that you've already gone through that stage of your life, and the fetus is in the process of completing it.
You're getting into a farcical area of nonsense here if you can't agree to those terms.
Why wouldn't it? It has the full chromosome number, and it is doing the same as every human before it, developing. Can you cite any evidence which would disqualify it as a living thing? As a member of Homo sapiens?
Arbitrary is something that someone decides on his own, with no backing from science, judiciary, legislature etc. Your definition of what constitutes a human being (that it has human DNA) is not accepted by anybody except the prolifers.Please define your use of the word arbitrary. A human has fairly distinct characteristics. A living thing has fairly distinct characteristics. Put them together and you get a live human. Of course there are disagreements, but we can evaluate the validity of these arguments.
It's not rocket science Joseph.
Actually, No. I'm not having fun. You've swallowed hook, line, & sinker. This Thread
is 9 pages long (at about maybe 25 posts per page?) & your post is currently
#174.
If I have to keep coming back to this Thread, over & over for reported posts, I'll
have to shut it down so that I can keep up...and it might take me a few days to
get around to going through this Thread...at least until after Easter anyway.
Well, you said fully developed. I didn't actually think that to you a fully developed human can be a new born and an adult...
Nobody is getting into farcical nonsense, Tonington. You are making up the rules ...blah-blah-blah... isn’t. It has the same DNA as an oak sapling, and it has potential to develop into an oak sapling. Fetus and a newborn babe are similar.