RE: Why I Am Pro-Life
July 22, 2013 at 5:17 am
(This post was last modified: July 22, 2013 at 5:38 am by Creed of Heresy.)
Around and around the argument goes...
Where it stops, only atheismo knows!
Human life processes begin at the moment of contraception, as biological studies agree.
However, the human brain is where that which makes a person a "person," as in, with a "person"ality, is located. No brain, no personality. Technically you could grow a human fetus without a brain if you somehow become that good of a genetic engineer. It could grow to an adult, if you found some way to sustain its life processes with machinery. But here's the thing; it's not really a person. Yes, it's a human. But it's not a person. It has no personality. It does nothing. It exists. It has no means of deciding. It is an animal, and in some senses it's not even THAT, because it doesn't have emotions or feelings or anything because it is a husk. This is the same quandary that comes up in the case of "human vegetables": "Keep her alive!" says one group, "let her die with some dignity!" says another. The former are idiots because there is no point keeping a human who is not a person alive; you're not keeping the brain alive, the brain is DEAD, all you are doing is keeping the organs going, and for what purpose?? Who they were no longer exists. It's dead. Nothing more than a shell; a metaphorical factory working at nominal capacity producing abso-fucking-lutely nothing whatsoever. It is a person in the same way a seashell is whatever species once inhabited it, just more complex but nevertheless devoid of that which made them who they were. On the flip side, if you could somehow devise a way to transplant a human brain into an entirely prosthetic body, like a cyborg, with its adrenal glands still functioning, you'd still have a person. You couldn't exactly call them "human," because they'd be more machine than human, but you'd have a person nevertheless, and you would not have that if you removed a different part of the human anatomy to put into said robot. The tin man with a heart is still a tin man, but the tin man with a brain is suddenly a person who has a much more efficient body.
What is more important? A human? Or a person?
A fetus has no personality. It has not developed one, because it has no brain, and the parts of the brain that do develop do not undertake personalities until well into pregnancy, I believe the third trimester is when the frontal lobe begins to develop, unless I am mistaken? Someone correct me if I am wrong. But a fetus is not a "person." Yes, it's a human, in the loosest sense of the word, but it has no capacity for thought. It has no emotions, no personality, no means to sustain itself. I don't believe in a soul in the metaphysical sense but if I were to use the word "soul" as a simile to that which is the essential part of personhood, then it has none for the first 7 months of its development. It is, until that point, a husk, an empty vessel, and not yet filled. Terminating it before that time does not mean you a terminating a person, it means you are terminating a husk.
My point being, pro-lifers are running around trying to protect non-persons, under the mistaken belief they are saving people. There is no ethical quandary, unless you think that the brain is NOT the epicenter of the human experience.
And in which case you think that, please study the rudimentary basics of neurology, and get back at me.
All an abortion is is terminating a POTENTIAL person. In which case you also need to outlaw jerking off and ovulation because each egg and each sperm is, if put in the right situation, potential human life.
Tl;dr: Yes, human "life" begins at birth, but human experience/personhood does not begin for over half a year after conception. Even then it's rudimentary at best but I'm not going to muddy the waters, here, I'm going to go to the absolute most base forms of each: Life, and personality.
Now, let's see if anyone can answer my points maturely and with a level head.
Where it stops, only atheismo knows!
Human life processes begin at the moment of contraception, as biological studies agree.
However, the human brain is where that which makes a person a "person," as in, with a "person"ality, is located. No brain, no personality. Technically you could grow a human fetus without a brain if you somehow become that good of a genetic engineer. It could grow to an adult, if you found some way to sustain its life processes with machinery. But here's the thing; it's not really a person. Yes, it's a human. But it's not a person. It has no personality. It does nothing. It exists. It has no means of deciding. It is an animal, and in some senses it's not even THAT, because it doesn't have emotions or feelings or anything because it is a husk. This is the same quandary that comes up in the case of "human vegetables": "Keep her alive!" says one group, "let her die with some dignity!" says another. The former are idiots because there is no point keeping a human who is not a person alive; you're not keeping the brain alive, the brain is DEAD, all you are doing is keeping the organs going, and for what purpose?? Who they were no longer exists. It's dead. Nothing more than a shell; a metaphorical factory working at nominal capacity producing abso-fucking-lutely nothing whatsoever. It is a person in the same way a seashell is whatever species once inhabited it, just more complex but nevertheless devoid of that which made them who they were. On the flip side, if you could somehow devise a way to transplant a human brain into an entirely prosthetic body, like a cyborg, with its adrenal glands still functioning, you'd still have a person. You couldn't exactly call them "human," because they'd be more machine than human, but you'd have a person nevertheless, and you would not have that if you removed a different part of the human anatomy to put into said robot. The tin man with a heart is still a tin man, but the tin man with a brain is suddenly a person who has a much more efficient body.
What is more important? A human? Or a person?
A fetus has no personality. It has not developed one, because it has no brain, and the parts of the brain that do develop do not undertake personalities until well into pregnancy, I believe the third trimester is when the frontal lobe begins to develop, unless I am mistaken? Someone correct me if I am wrong. But a fetus is not a "person." Yes, it's a human, in the loosest sense of the word, but it has no capacity for thought. It has no emotions, no personality, no means to sustain itself. I don't believe in a soul in the metaphysical sense but if I were to use the word "soul" as a simile to that which is the essential part of personhood, then it has none for the first 7 months of its development. It is, until that point, a husk, an empty vessel, and not yet filled. Terminating it before that time does not mean you a terminating a person, it means you are terminating a husk.
My point being, pro-lifers are running around trying to protect non-persons, under the mistaken belief they are saving people. There is no ethical quandary, unless you think that the brain is NOT the epicenter of the human experience.
And in which case you think that, please study the rudimentary basics of neurology, and get back at me.
All an abortion is is terminating a POTENTIAL person. In which case you also need to outlaw jerking off and ovulation because each egg and each sperm is, if put in the right situation, potential human life.
Tl;dr: Yes, human "life" begins at birth, but human experience/personhood does not begin for over half a year after conception. Even then it's rudimentary at best but I'm not going to muddy the waters, here, I'm going to go to the absolute most base forms of each: Life, and personality.
Now, let's see if anyone can answer my points maturely and with a level head.
