I am a pro-life atheist

[Zen Badger]

The inconsistency I most notice with liberals is that they support abortion but oppose the death penalty. To her credit, Shell B is actually the anomaly on that issue, since she both supports abortion, and (to an extent) supports the death penalty. She's the only person I've come across who actually seems to care about being consistent; I wish there were more of you like that.

I support the death penalty, but not as a form of punishment.

Only as a way of solving an intractable problem.

Serial rapists, mass murderers, child molesters and the like.

Basically people who cannot or will not change their behaviour and will always be a physical threat to the community.

[Nine]

I'm Not entirely sure where i stand on this.. On the one side you have the extremes with rape and where mothers may die if they were to have a child. But at the same time I think people shouldn't ever use it as some birth control method because they couldn't be bothered to think of it at the time.

I'm not really sure where that puts me..

[Zen Badger]

I'm Not entirely sure where i stand on this.. On the one side you have the extremes with rape and where mothers may die if they were to have a child. But at the same time I think people shouldn't ever use it as some birth control method because they couldn't be bothered to think of it at the time.

I'm not really sure where that puts me..

In the same place as most intelligent people who realise that there are no easy answers for stuff like this.

[NoMoreFaith]

I certainly agree that if you do not want a baby, and you have taken all reasonable precautions against it, abortion should absolutely be allowed in the early stages of pregnancy.
If you are not responsible enough to take precautions, then you are not responsible enough to have sex.

If we accept that the first trimester human cells with the potential to be a fully sentient and conscious human being, we only back ourselves into a corner on moral issues imo.

Example 1:
Mary and Bob have been married 10 years, and desperately want to have a child. However, Mary suffers from an abnormal uterus, and the likelihood of bringing a child to full term is highly unlikely.
Mary and Bob wish to attempt to have a child together despite knowing the chances of miscarriage are highly likely.
Do we ban Mary & Bob from engaging in an activity that is highly likely to results in the death of a human being?

---------------------------------

The problem is language. The inability to properly define life, and the OP's is just one of many, makes discussion on the issue next to impossible.
Human Life or Human Being? Are they the same?

The OP makes a case for it being Living Embryonic Human Cells.. and nothing else. You have made the case that it is living human tissue.
The leap is Embryonic Human Cells = Human Being at ALL stages of development.

It depends entirely on objective facts about the biology of human development and what we mean by "Human Being" and picking one out as a start point for morality. In this instance, the Zygote.

However, you are defining life as the Zygote and failing to define the morality.
This is essential and completely ignored.

I don't see any reason to be swayed from pro-choice unless someone can prove that an abortion causes more harm than allowing an unwanted baby.

You have done a Zygote no HARM in abortion. There is no moral question there. The Zygote doesn't care either way.

But its a LIFE! So what. It has endured no suffering or harm.

Unless you are playing word games to cover up an objection to the abortion of POTENTIAL Personhood instead of an objection to Removal of Living Human Cells.

Therefore, it is a question of philosophical morality and not based around a questionable scientific definition.
Declaring "Removing Human Life is Murder" is a clear, simplistic, and borderline irrational response to the realities of the situation in my opinion.

QUICK EDIT RE DEATH PENALTY: The MORAL difference is clear as we are committing harm. The argument is on morality once again, not contradiction based on definitions of the word life.

[leo-rcc]

The inconsistency I most notice with liberals is that they support abortion but oppose the death penalty. To her credit, Shell B is actually the anomaly on that issue, since she both supports abortion, and (to an extent) supports the death penalty.

My opposition to the death penalty is only because of the failability of the justice system combined with the irreversable nature of the punishment. If there is no doubt of the guilt of a person, I have no problem with the death penalty. But you really need to be sure because once that decision is made, there is no turning back.

This is also true of abortions. I don't like abortions personally, but I can understand why a woman would choose to have one. But she'd better be absolutely certain of her choice, there is no turning back. It is her decision to make, no one else.

She's the only person I've come across who actually seems to care about being consistent; I wish there were more of you like that.

Condescending much?

[Nine]

If you are not responsible enough to take precautions, then you are not responsible enough to have sex.

The problem is language. The inability to properly define life, and the OP's is just one of many, makes discussion on the issue next to impossible.

Defiantly Definitely agree with the first.

And yes that's why I don't like debating using Philosophy I find it tends to use languages flaws to try to win..

[Tiberius]

I'll be condescending when I see people favour certain types of death penalty over others, especially when they defend murderers yet condemn innocents.

[Nine]

My opposition to the death penalty is only because of the failability of the justice system combined with the irreversable nature of the punishment. If there is no doubt of the guilt of a person, I have no problem with the death penalty. But you really need to be sure because once that decision is made, there is no turning back.

Agreed, Just look at all the people that get released years later after new evidence is found. And all the people that have been killed that were innocent.

[LastPoet]

To me, I don't support the death penalties for the same reasons leo pointed out, plus, I think as a punishment, its weak. I consider a lifetime in prison far worse of a punishment. Spending a lifetime confined, with liberties revoked, seems far more painfull to me than the easy way out of death.

[genkaus]

First there must be metabolism—a series of chemical reactions in support of life.Secondly there must be growth. Third there must be differentiation—different parts of the organism or even different organelles of a single cell must develop to perform specific functions. The fourth criteria is movement. This can be movement of the entire organism or movement of parts of the organism. The fifth criteria is responsiveness. This is not the same as consciousness. It means that the organism can detect changes in its environment and respond to these changes. Finally a living being must undergo reproduction. This can be the reproduction of the entire organism or of specific cells.Clearly, an embryo at conception meets all the objective scientific criteria of life.

As do all the other cells in human body. These cells too are alive and at that level, they are the same as an embryo at conception.

While the mother supports these functions with her womb, her body does not direct these functions. The embryo accomplishes these life functions independently. The only question to ask then is what kind of life is the embryo at conception. The only answer is human life. The genetic code is in place to define this life as fully human.

This is a fallacy of equivocation. If you take a lump of cells from your body (or consider an organ), it too is alive by objective scientific criterion and it too has genetic code in place that defines it as human. So, in that sense, they too are fully human. By this standard, anyone having a haircut is guilty of murder.

There is a distinction between biological human life (any cell that happens to have human DNA) and metaphysical human life (life of a human being). It is the latter which is the basis of human rights and an embryo does not qualify for those.

So now the question is does this vulnerable human life deserve protection. To declare any class of humans as unworthy of protection makes all humans vulnerable. It gives the powerful authority to destroy the weak.

Since an embryo is not a human, the question of if it deserves protection is moot. But, for this part of the argument, let's assume that an embryo is a sentient human being from the moment of conception to the birth.

The first part of your argument is that if a human is weak or vulnerable, he/she automatically deserves protection. The obvious corollary is that if a human is strong, then he/she has a responsibility to protect the weak. I reject this premise absolutely. Being worthy is not a granted quality, it is an earned one. If the weak individual encroaches upon the life of the strong, then the strong has every right to protect itself. If the weak exists independently of the strong, then the only responsibility the strong has is not to encroach upon the weak.

The second part of your argument is the following premise-conclusion pair:
Premise: A particular human (weak in this case) is unworthy of protection
Conclusion: Another human (strong) has the authority to destroy it.

That is an invalid conclusion, i.e. it does not follow from the premise. For example, suppose I were to discover a pot of gold which I did nothing to earn. A rational argument could be made that I do not deserve it. That does not mean that any other person automatically has the authority to take it away from me (unless it actually belonged to them).

Applying these argument to a "sentient embryo", we see that the only actions it is capable of are those of a parasite. It consumes a lot of resources that would otherwise be used to sustain the body and causes a host of health problems. The only conceivable reason a woman would be expected to continue supporting it is her desire to be a mother. Barring that desire, there is no rational reason as to why she shouldn't opt to get it out of her body.

Even if the embryo is one of the "weak humans", that is no justification to protect its encroachment on another person's body. Even if the mother does not have the right to terminate the life, she still has the right to have her body divested of it, even if the natural consequence of that is the embryo's death.

Coming back to the actual nature of pregnancy, it can be divided into three parts. The first from conception to the point where the fetus shows brain-activity. Next from that point to the time when it is viable. And third from viability to natural birth.

The woman has the right to opt out of the pregnancy throughout all three parts. In the first part, she has the option of both terminating the pregnancy as well as terminating the fetus. In the second part, she can only choose to have the baby out of her body. Whether it survives the outside world or not depends upon the level of medical care it is given. The third part would be the same except for the fact that the chances of baby's survival then would be much higher.