Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I was not talking about personhood, I was talking about the beginning of human life.
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
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Overturning Roe V Wade
- Thread starter SomeRandom
- Start date
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
I expect abortion rights to dominate this election cycle and more to come thereafter until the safe, legal abortion returns to America. This is a horrible ruling from the Court, but it will be a gift that gives until it is reversed, which will happen when Congress enacts that legislation. The Republicans have handed one of their most successful wedge issues of the last several decades to the Democrats. Whereas it used to be useful to the Republicans to get anti-abortion people to the polls that wouldn't vote otherwise, now those people can stay home as the Democratic voters mobilize and get out to vote.
The voters will likely be trying to give the government the power to overrule the Republicans, which has the potential to save American democracy simply by giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a greater advantage in the House not vulnerable to the vagaries of a single election cycle. From there, the Republicans can be excluded from governance in every other area, their anti-American objections being as irrelevant as those of Putin and the Taliban. Theocracy is anti-American, but not anti-Republican.
I think that the Republicans have underestimated the support for abortion rights that exists in their voter base. Christian women are getting most of the abortions in America. They may take a pro-abortion stance in church, but when they vote, they'll vote to keep that option open. I expect a bloodbath for the Republicans at the polls this November. As long as abortion is recriminalized, who is going to vote for them but the Handmaid's Tale Republicans who actually support this ban? As you suggested, the Democrats know exactly how to exploit this, beginning with forcing congressional Republicans to make a suicide vote.
Add that to all of the other campaigning advantages they have acquired due to the Big Lie and the insurrection. Every Republican candidate can be asked whether they feel that the election was stolen, another no-win situation for them that will cost votes however they answer. Ask them how they feel about the insurrection, and whether Trump should go to prison if it can be shown in court that he committed high crimes. How do these Republican candidates feel about the party doing nothing about Cawthorne, Gaetz, and Greene - do they stand by them, and if not, why didn't they speak up.
Watch as the Republicans try in vain to keep changing the topic from the loss of reproductive freedoms to anything else. Right now, they want to deflect from the ruling to its leak. They will continually try to make the debate about immigration and inflation, but I suspect that it can always be redirected to abortion. The Democrats can keep the electorate continually outraged as the Republicans are wont to do. I suspect that that will be the game plan, and I expect it to lead to the loss of a lot of red seats in both houses of Congress. If the gains aren't enough in 2022 and the ban remains intact, then run it through again in 2024. By then, people will know stories of back alley abortions and women and their doctors being arrested, which ought to motivate even more conservative voting for Democrats.
And it's not just the Republicans that will take a huge PR hit for this. The church will be perceived as meddlesome, inappropriate, and needing corralling by many more people than before.
Let's see if this is a correct read on the mood of the nation and how it is likely to respond or not.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I know what it does not lead to, as I explained. That is what you do not like.
Taking a human life before it has a chance to develop is not the same as ending a human life that has no chance to continue. There is no valid comparison.
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
Americans seem to be totally messed up over the issue of abortion.
I suspect that they will eventually grow up. But not likely any time soon.
I suspect that they will eventually grow up. But not likely any time soon.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
And you are back to your equivocation fallacy.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, but I have no problem killing a biological human as you use the terms, because it is not the same as a person to me. So you don't win by pointing to science and the beginning of human life.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I said: Taking a human life before it has a chance to develop is not the same as ending a human life that has no chance to continue. There is no valid comparison.
The fallacy does not apply because there is nothing ambiguous about what I said.
The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one portion of the argument and then another meaning in another portion of the argument.
Equivocation
In logic, equivocation ('calling two different things by the same name') is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses within an argument.[1][2]
It is a type of ambiguity that stems from a phrase having two or more distinct meanings, not from the grammar or structure of the sentence.[1]
Equivocation - Wikipedia
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
You are trying to use two different definitions of "human". Once again, you are the one supporting taking away the rights of a pregnant woman, That puts the burden of proof upon you. A potential human life is not a human life.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
But I do have a problem killing a biological human, because I believe that biological human is a soul and a soul is a person. The fact that the personality has not developed yet is a moot point. Since the soul comes into being at the time of conception killing that soul is akin to killing a person.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, I am only using one definition of human life, the scientific one, which happens to concur with what I believe human life is according to my religious beliefs.
What is aborted is not a potential human life, it is a human life.
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications). Moreover, it is entirely independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos. Indeed, this definition does not directly address the central ethical question surrounding the embryo: What value ought society place on human life at the earliest stages of development? A neutral examination of the evidence merely establishes the onset of a new human life at a scientifically well-defined “moment of conception,” a conclusion that unequivocally indicates that human embryos from the one-cell stage forward are indeed living individuals of the human species; i.e., human beings.
I am not trying to take away a woman's right to choose, only the government can do that. I just have a personal opinion as we all do.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
It goes on when does life begin. Much like death, there is no clear answer and science does not give us a definitive answer.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
There is a clear answer as to when life begins.
A neutral examination of the evidence merely establishes the onset of a new human life at a scientifically well-defined “moment of conception,” a conclusion that unequivocally indicates that human embryos from the one-cell stage forward are indeed living individuals of the human species; i.e., human beings.
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
There is also a clear answer as to when death occurs.
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.[1] Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death.[2] The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death. Death is an inevitable, universal process that eventually occurs in all organisms.
Death - Wikipedia
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, when you call it "human life" is when you are using your equivocation fallacy. Others are using that term in another way and you are trying to play games so that only your preferred definition is used. Terms and words often have more than one meaning. When one pretends that there is only one in a debate that is an equivocation fallacy.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Here is you claim: ...the scientific one, which happens to concur with what I believe human life is according to my religious beliefs.
Here is the quote again.
"...
Moreover, it is entirely independent of any specific ethical, moral, political, or religious view of human life or of human embryos. Indeed, this definition does not directly address the central ethical question surrounding the embryo: What value ought society place on human life at the earliest stages of development?
..."
If I were your teacher and I had to grade you for your reasoning, you would get a F. You contradict the text you quote, because the science doesn't not concur with your view, because you believe in a soul and a certain ethics in regards to abortion. The science says nothing about that one way or another.
I won't let you continue to play the conflating of 2 different meanings into one. Stop doing that.
Human in science is not the same as human in your religion. Stop doing that.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
You are committing the Obfuscation Fallacy by deliberately clouding the message in order to avoid answering the difficult question as to when human life begins.
Again, the definition of when human life begins is not MY definition, it is a scientific one.
"The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications)."
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, I am rejecting the "message" because it is based upon a false premise. If your argument is valid find another way to present it.
Here is the good news. The fact that you used an equivocation fallacy does not make you automatically wrong. It only makes that particular argument worthless. It proves nothing either way. So if you are trying to find a way to make a point find another way to present it. If you can't then it is rather likely that you are wrong.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Yeah, but that is not the same as a human with a soul. That is yours and not science.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
When human life begins is exactly the same in science as it is in my religion.
The conclusion that human life begins at sperm-egg fusion is uncontested, objective, based on the universally accepted scientific method of distinguishing different cell types from each other and on ample scientific evidence (thousands of independent, peer-reviewed publications).
A Scientific View of When Life Begins
Each individual life begins when the soul associates itself with the embryo at the time of conception. But the association is not material; the soul does not enter or leave the body and does not occupy physical space. Bahá’u’lláh uses the metaphor of the sun to explain the relationship between the soul and the body: “The soul of man is the sun by which his body is illumined, and from which it draweth its sustenance, and should be so regarded.”[4]
The Rational Soul | The Human Soul | The Life of the Spirit | What Bahá’ís Believe
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
smh
Still trying to use an equivocation argument. Drop it. You can do better than this.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
It does not matter if the human has a soul. This is about when human life begins. Whether the human has a soul is irrelevant to this debate.
#537 Trailblazer
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
The bold is not science.