After birth abortion?

[Angrboda]

That's nothing more than a semantic argument, and doesn't address the substance of the argument.  Try actually addressing the argument rather than the expression of it.

What? My point was that my argument isn't that a human fetus is a "potential human" in the first place. That was a strawman you created. (I don't even know what that means, honestly. Either a particular organism is a human, or it isn't.)

My argument is that a human fetus IS a human being, just as much as a human infant, human toddler, human child, human teenager, human adult, etc... and so as a human, he/she has the same right to life as a human being in all other stages of life. That is my argument.

No, I explicitly said "potential human being just like a born child is." I qualified the sense in which I used the word human, and did not make a straw man argument. You on the other hand engaged in the fallacy of contextotomy, less formally known as quote mining, and stripped the word human of the context I explicitly provided. But even if I hadn't, the point of my argument was clear in that in ignoring the very real differences between the fetus and the newborn, pro-lifers are engaged in a fallacious and bankrupt argument. But by all means, continue trying to dick your way around the argument with irrelevant deflections and making dishonest misrepresentations of what I actually said if it makes you happy. The rest of us will simply look on and shake our heads at your pathetic display. And I will point out that you are simply doubling down and repeating the argument without bothering to either answer the objection, or even acknowledge it. If you're simply going to repeat empty slogans instead of actually answering my argument, then I don't see any point in your replying at all.

[Mister Agenda]

A human fetus is human. No "potential" necessary.

Human primarily in the sense that it is a multicelled organism with human DNA, to say it's a human being is to make a claim that can't really be supported, even by the most basic definition:

hu·man be·ing

noun

noun: human being; plural noun: human beings; noun: humanbeing; plural noun: humanbeings

a man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech, and upright stance.

A fetus is no more a child than an acorn is a sapling. It's something that may become a child under the right circumstances. It doesn't have any of the qualities that distinguish us from other animals except its DNA.

[vorlon13]

You have no concern at all that you are over ruling the Lord God Almighty on this subject ??

Genesis 2:7 New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,[a] and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

I don't think that this conflicts in the way that you think (or says what you think it says)!    However, I believe that an unborn baby is alive and that abortion is killing something.   Don't you?    I wouldn't have thought that this would controversial.

The fetus is UNENSOULED.

It is not a son of Adam, it does not participate in Original Sin, it does not need to believe in Jesus for Salvation because it has no immortal soul.

I'm not saying it isn't alive, but Scripture is clear, until the first success breath, it has no immortal soul.

A rose bush is alive, but has no immortal soul, same for a fungus or a mouse or a fish. I'm at a loss how someone in the religious orbit can be confused or willfully ignorant about this.

[Angrboda]

I don't think that this conflicts in the way that you think (or says what you think it says)!    However, I believe that an unborn baby is alive and that abortion is killing something.   Don't you?    I wouldn't have thought that this would controversial.

The fetus is UNENSOULED.

It is not a son of Adam, it does not participate in Original Sin, it does not need to believe in Jesus for Salvation because it has no immortal soul.

I'm not saying it isn't alive, but Scripture is clear, until the first success breath, it has no immortal soul.  

A rose bush is alive, but has no immortal soul, same for a fungus or a mouse or a fish.  I'm at a loss how someone in the religious orbit can be confused or willfully ignorant about this.

If I'm not mistaken, the idiom used in Genesis, "breath of life" (nismat hayyim) refers to the soul or spirit, what would later be termed pneuma in the New Testament Greek, rather than referring to a physical breath, so it would be wrong to infer that an unborn child is lacking this breath of life because one has not taken a physical breath. (Strictly speaking, the most commonly used word for soul in the Hebrew Old Testament is ruach, but it seems that in this case nismat hayyim is being used idiomatically to refer to the same thing. AFAIK, that's the way this passage has been traditionally interpreted.)

For example, in Genesis 2:7, it is said that God inspired into man the נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים (nishmat chayyim), or "breath of life" (A.V.).

Later on in Genesis 7:21-22, where the narrative is speaking about all those who died on the face of the earth in the flood (viz. "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man..."), regarding them it says, "...all in whose nostrils was the breath of life..." (A.V.). Here, the phrase "breath of life" is translated from the Hebrew phrase נִשְׁמַת־רוּחַ חַיִּים (nishmat ruach chayyim), which is like saying "the nishmah of the ruach chayyim."

~ Quora

[RoadRunner79]

I don't think that this conflicts in the way that you think (or says what you think it says)!    However, I believe that an unborn baby is alive and that abortion is killing something.   Don't you?    I wouldn't have thought that this would controversial.

The fetus is UNENSOULED.

It is not a son of Adam, it does not participate in Original Sin, it does not need to believe in Jesus for Salvation because it has no immortal soul.

I'm not saying it isn't alive, but Scripture is clear, until the first success breath, it has no immortal soul.

A rose bush is alive, but has no immortal soul, same for a fungus or a mouse or a fish. I'm at a loss how someone in the religious orbit can be confused or willfully ignorant about this.

Ok... but the scripture you quoted doesn’t say that at all. It says that God breathes Spirit into Adam, not that Adam breathed and became human.

You may also note that some of those organisms you mentioned also breath. So the question is where are you getting this, and why do you think I should believe it.

Jorm’s answer seems pretty good as well.

[Angrboda]

As to whether I'm making a straw man argument, I'll quote the following pro-life argument from the BBC web site.

Killing potential people is wrong

• it is wrong to destroy potential human life
  
• from conception onwards the foetus is a potential human being
  
• therefore it is wrong to destroy the foetus
  
• therefore abortion is always wrong

Killing beings with 'a future like ours' is wrong

• it is wrong to kill beings that would have a future like ours if they lived
  
• in most cases the foetus, if not aborted, would have a future like ours
  
• it is wrong to kill such a foetus
  
• therefore abortion is usually wrong

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/abortion/phi...tion.shtml

[Whateverist]

A human fetus is human. No "potential" necessary.

Kind of depends on how we're defining "human".  If we are distinguishing between fetuses it might be fine to say "oh that one, that one is human".  But if you placed a petri dish with a human fetus in it beside three full developed humans and asked how many humans were there, it would be sensible to say something like "three and one that was/is on its way to becoming one".  Semantics.

But hey, lets talk abortion and semantics all day long if that's what it takes to get some C_L attention around here.

[Catholic_Lady]

What? My point was that my argument isn't that a human fetus is a "potential human" in the first place. That was a strawman you created. (I don't even know what that means, honestly. Either a particular organism is a human, or it isn't.)

My argument is that a human fetus IS a human being, just as much as a human infant, human toddler, human child, human teenager, human adult, etc... and so as a human, he/she has the same right to life as a human being in all other stages of life. That is my argument.

No, I explicitly said "potential human being just like a born child is." I qualified the sense in which I used the word human, and did not make a straw man argument. You on the other hand engaged in the fallacy of contextotomy, less formally known as quote mining, and stripped the word human of the context I explicitly provided. But even if I hadn't, the point of my argument was clear in that in ignoring the very real differences between the fetus and the newborn, pro-lifers are engaged in a fallacious and bankrupt argument. But by all means, continue trying to dick your way around the argument with irrelevant deflections and making dishonest misrepresentations of what I actually said if it makes you happy. The rest of us will simply look on and shake our heads at your pathetic display. And I will point out that you are simply doubling down and repeating the argument without bothering to either answer the objection, or even acknowledge it. If you're simply going to repeat empty slogans instead of actually answering my argument, then I don't see any point in your replying at all.

Im still confused on your "potential" hangup, since my point was that it was never an argument that I used, nor one that most pro lifers use as far as I've seen, yet was being projected on to me. I'm pretty sure most of us will say an unborn baby has a right to live because he/she is human, not "potentially human". But whatever, if you want me to retract the strawman comment, so be it. Chalk it up to a misunderstanding on my part, of which I'm still confused about but willing to apologize and let go.

As for differences between an unborn baby and a new born baby, I never denied there were differences. You know who else has differences? Newborns and 30 year olds. Severely mentally impaired people and neurotypical people. This doesn't make one more human than the other. We are all human. Male or female, gay or straight, white or black, disabled or healthy, old or young, regardless of stage of life, etc, we are all human beings and as such have an inherent right to life. History is rampant with people trying to dehumanize other people in order to justify taking away their basic human rights. Slavery, the holocaust, and the killing off of the Indians were all excused by saying blacks/Jews/Indians were not quite human "enough". The abortion argument is the same, by saying that unborn babies aren't humans and so it is ok to take their life. A human fetus is simply a very young human, not some sort of non living non human species.

[Angrboda]

No, I explicitly said "potential human being just like a born child is."  I qualified the sense in which I used the word human, and did not make a straw man argument.  You on the other hand engaged in the fallacy of contextotomy, less formally known as quote mining, and stripped the word human of the context I explicitly provided.  But even if I hadn't, the point of my argument was clear in that in ignoring the very real differences between the fetus and the newborn, pro-lifers are engaged in a fallacious and bankrupt argument.  But by all means, continue trying to dick your way around the argument with irrelevant deflections and making dishonest misrepresentations of what I actually said if it makes you happy.  The rest of us will simply look on and shake our heads at your pathetic display.  And I will point out that you are simply doubling down and repeating the argument without bothering to either answer the objection, or even acknowledge it.  If you're simply going to repeat empty slogans instead of actually answering my argument, then I don't see any point in your replying at all.

Im still confused on your "potential" hangup, since my point was that it was never an argument that I used, nor one that most pro lifers use as far as I've seen, yet was being projected on to me. I'm pretty sure most of us will say an unborn baby has a right to live because he/she is human, not "potentially human". But whatever, if you want me to retract the strawman comment, so be it. Chalk it up to a misunderstanding on my part, of which I'm still confused about but willing to apologize and let go.

Exactly how was I projecting the argument onto you? You responded to my post, I wasn't responding to anything you said. As noted, your argument appears to be that I didn't express myself clearly, rather than that I was making an invalid criticism. If that was all you had to contribute, well, good on you. As pointed out, pro-lifers have expressed the claim I was criticizing using the same language I used, so your criticisms seem like little more than opportunistic deflection aimed at disarming the point rather than addressing it.

As for differences between an unborn baby and a new born baby, I never denied there were differences. You know who else has differences? Newborns and 30 year olds. Severely mentally impaired people and neurotypical people. This doesn't make one more human than the other. We are all human. Male or female, gay or straight, white or black, disabled or healthy, old or young, regardless of stage of life, etc, we are all human beings and as such have an inherent right to life. History is rampant with people trying to dehumanize other people in order to justify taking away their basic human rights. Slavery, the holocaust, and the killing off of the Indians were all excused by saying blacks/Jews/Indians were not quite human "enough". The abortion argument is the same, by saying that unborn babies aren't humans and so it is ok to take their life. A human fetus is simply a very young human, not some sort of non living non human species.

As to your further argument, you claim to be acknowledging those differences while in the same breath asserting that those differences are immaterial. That is nothing but the same argument I am criticizing in a different form. As my original parody pointed out, there are differences between being alive and dead, but if you argue that those differences are immaterial, then the logic leads you to the conclusion that killing innocent people is perfectly acceptable. Since it's not, there's something fundamentally wrong with simply saying that the differences are immaterial. You've yet to actually address my original point.

Furthermore, historically speaking, as the Supreme Court affirmed in its opinion, the right to life has not been extended to the unborn prior to anti-abortion movements of recent genesis. So you may want there to be a right to life for the unborn, but it has not been the position of society historically that they do have such a right. So you are effectively proposing that we extend rights to the fetus which they did not have before. The possession of human DNA on its own is not and has not been considered sufficient justification for the nuovo creation of those rights for the unborn. I'm relatively confident that people throughout history were not ignorant about exactly what was inside a pregnant woman's womb. So you need an actual ethical argument justifying extending these rights to the unborn, not simply your desire that they have such rights. Otherwise you're simply making a political argument, not a moral one.

[bennyboy]

I don't think that this conflicts in the way that you think (or says what you think it says)!    However, I believe that an unborn baby is alive and that abortion is killing something.   Don't you?    I wouldn't have thought that this would controversial.

Killing isn't intrinsically bad. Every time I make bread, I bring to an end the lives of maybe 20 billion yeast cells, probably about as many human beings as have ever lived.

I'd say in the end, NOTHING can be called intrinsically bad, nothing at all, not killing, not suffering, not anything. It is our response to things and to events which determine morality

I would suggest that if something is sufficiently developed to be given a name, and to be thought of as an organism worthy of a name, then this means we have a sufficient emotional attachment to the thing to feel its loss, and probably will want to protect it.

Cow XJ287, certified organic and parasite free? Hop on the bun, mother-fucker, it's your time to go. Bessie, the beloved milk cow who was so docile that your mother used to let you ride her around the back yard? No, Bessie, nooooooo. Daddy, you just CAN'T!

A zygote, nothing more than a bundle of cells? No. A zygote, prayed for daily by hopeful parents-to-be, named Sarah or John already and with a nursery lovingly arranged and waiting to be painted pink or blue? Kill it, and go to hell!

The problem quite obviously is the conceptual overlap. Some Catholics would say that God has a name waiting for a baby as soon as He puts a soul into it at conception, even if the mother hasn't identified that name yet. Some atheists would say-- no brain, no memories, no capacity for suffering, no problem at all. You might as well name a tumor.

I think the solution is not to make atheist mothers act according to Christian doctrine. Christians should have enough faith to say, "Kill them all, and let God sort them out." Surely, a truly good God will have a loving place reserved in his bosom for the many little Sarahs and Johnnies who are aborted each year, by far the majority of them due to a natural dysfunction in the combination of the DNA, in attachment to the wall of the uturus, and so on. How about worry less about the potential little people that might have come into being, and focus a LOT more effort on ending poverty for the little people who are already here. How about maybe throwing a couple prayers up to God that priests will stop raping thousands upon thousands of children each year?

As for "after birth abortion?" Ewwwwww!