The reason religion is so powerful

[John 6IX Breezy]

 It's absurd to think that a cheek cell becomes a human being as soon as we can competenly clone a person from one.

Respectfully, that's an argument from personal incredulity. That said, I have used the word organism rather than being whenever possible, or have otherwise used them synonymously. And personally, your use of human being sounds more like spirituality than philosophy—a soul for atheists. But I'll stick with the word organism to avoid confusion

[Mister Agenda]

 It's absurd to think that a cheek cell becomes a human being as soon as we can competenly clone a person from one.

Respectfully, that's an argument from personal incredulity.  That said, I have used the word organism rather than being whenever possible, or have otherwise used them synonymously. And personally, your use of human being sounds more like spirituality than philosophy—a soul for atheists. But I'll stick with the word organism to avoid confusion.

Something can be true and still be absurd to claim. So you're saying that it's reasonable to consider a cheek cell is a person if you can generate a viable clone from it, and the only thing actually needed for something to actually be a human person is that it be a genetically human potentially viable cell.

If you're sticking with the word organism, on what do you base the idea that a pregnant woman should ever be forced to give birth if she's not willing?

[John 6IX Breezy]

So you're saying that it's reasonable to consider a cheek cell is a person if you can generate a viable clone from it, and the only thing actually needed for something to actually be a human person is that it be a genetically human potentially viable cell.

If the cells from your cheeks can be transformed into totipotent stem cells (and have whatever other zygote-like qualities are necessary), then yes, without question that is the beginning of a new organism. Its analogous to the hydra, in which any cell in its body is totipotent and can produce a new hydra organism.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Right; there's a worrisome catchphrase in moral psychology: Moral intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.

This behavior has been exemplified by the thread. People are willing to rationalize all sorts of peculiar views in order to bring embryology into harmony with their moral intuitions about abortion.

Science, which does it's best to carve nature at her joints, ought to inform our moral views on the subject, not the other way around. I stand by that.

How can science inform an intuition? That seems like an obvious stolen concept where you're trying to apply reasoning after the fact after asserting you can't reason after the fact.

Most scientific hypothesises start as intuitions.

[Pat Mustard]

Shouldn't you be dealing with the absolute crimes of your own community before you move onto the imagined crimes outside it?

Do you eat donuts inside out or outside in?

Hi coward, nice to see that you're too afraid to answer questions posed to you.

[Mister Agenda]

So you're saying that it's reasonable to consider a cheek cell is a person if you can generate a viable clone from it, and the only thing actually needed for something to actually be a human person is that it be a genetically human potentially viable cell.

If the cells from your cheeks can be transformed into totipotent stem cells (and have whatever other zygote-like qualities are necessary), then yes, without question that is the beginning of a new organism. Its analogous to the hydra, in which any cell in its body is totipotent and can produce a new hydra organism.

Granting that, I still don't see how it gets us to forcing women to bear children against their will. No one is arguing that a fertilized egg isn't biologically human with the potential to eventually develop into a person, the argument is that there is no evidence that it is a person. An acorn is biologically an oak, but an acorn is not an oak tree. A bird egg is not a bird. How is an embryo a baby?

That is, we all agree that an acorn is potentially an oak tree, but I think we all also agree that it's not actually an oak tree.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If the cells from your cheeks can be transformed into totipotent stem cells (and have whatever other zygote-like qualities are necessary), then yes, without question that is the beginning of a new organism. Its analogous to the hydra, in which any cell in its body is totipotent and can produce a new hydra organism.

Granting that, I still don't see how it gets us to forcing women to bear children against their will. No one is arguing that a fertilized egg isn't biologically human with the potential to eventually develop into a person, the argument is that there is no evidence that it is a person. An acorn is biologically an oak, but an acorn is not an oak tree. A bird egg is not a bird. How is an embryo a baby?

Aren't you raising the bar? If human rights are grounded in one's humanity, then one must simply be human to have them. If instead personhood is the criteria for having human rights then there is a subset of humans that do not actually have human rights.

[HappySkeptic]

Aren't you raising the bar? If human rights are grounded in one's humanity, then one must simply be human to have them. If instead personhood is the criteria for having human rights then there is a subset of humans that do not actually have human rights.

And this is the category error I was complaining about earlier.  You use the word "human" to switch categories.

Human rights is about persons, not eggs or zygotes.

No, an fertilized egg with human DNA has no more rights than a fertilized egg of salamander DNA.  It also does not possess a soul, and will not go to egg-heaven if it dies.

[John 6IX Breezy]

No one is arguing that a fertilized egg isn't biologically human with the potential to eventually develop into a person, the argument is that there is no evidence that it is a person.

Personhood appears to be a legal term. You don't find evidence of personhood, you have to legally describe it. Perhaps no different from legal adulthood being 18+.

In biology, human is the category—that's our species. And embryo, fetus, infant, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, late adulthood—these are all our developmental stages. That's all there is to it.

[brewer]

No one is arguing that a fertilized egg isn't biologically human with the potential to eventually develop into a person, the argument is that there is no evidence that it is a person.

Personhood appears to be a legal term. You don't find evidence of personhood, you have to legally describe it. Perhaps no different from legal adulthood being 18+.

In biology, human is the category—that's our species. And embryo, fetus, infant, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, late adulthood—these are all our developmental stages. That's all there is to it.

And the embryos that don't implant and get flushed, what human rights should they have?