Question for the atheist converts

[_The Dude]

2. It seems clear to me that what matters is the structure and meaning of those brain waves. Are they random? Do they indicate the existence of plans, hopes, fears, an inchoate mental language?

If we could graph the structure and meaning of brain waves on a Y axis, I would expect them to grow very gradually over a period of months. Even then, what is the most a fetus can comprehend? What kind of plans, hopes and fears can it possibly experience? It has no context until birth, and even then, babies are kind of stupid... it's kind of scary to define humans this way. Erring on the side of caution forces you to value potential for plans, hopes and fears.

I think if we're talking about humans we have to say a human-like nervous system is enough to value it as human. Sorry I'm not a human brainologist, but I know there are brain structures that other animals don't have. Cerebral cortex? I have to look it up. Anyway, once a human fetus has this we ought not abort it unless the mother's life is in grave danger. At that point, no free pass for rape and incest, in my opinion.

At the other end of the graph, I would think the brain waves drop off precipitously when a person dies -- kind of the opposite of gradual embryonic development.

[_Blixa]

Anybody else bridle at the term "atheist convert"? Yeah I know that in the most literalist of dictionary definitions a "convert" is one who has converted "especially from one religion or belief to another," still it carries such religious connotations as to make me look twice.

(maybe I've just been reading too many papers where students pick words seemingly at random from dictionaries and thesauri without any sense of nuance, context or usage.)

[_The Dude]

Anybody else bridle at the term "atheist convert"? Yeah I know that in the most literalist of dictionary definitions a "convert" is one who has converted "especially from one religion or belief to another," still it carries such religious connotations as to make me look twice.

I know what you mean. At first glance I thought it was asking for atheists who coverted to Mormonism and not the other way around.

[_Tarski]

2. It seems clear to me that what matters is the structure and meaning of those brain waves. Are they random? Do they indicate the existence of plans, hopes, fears, an inchoate mental language?

If we could graph the structure and meaning of brain waves on a Y axis, I would expect them to grow very gradually over a period of months. Even then, what is the most a fetus can comprehend? What kind of plans, hopes and fears can it possibly experience? It has no context until birth, and even then, babies are kind of stupid... it's kind of scary to define humans this way. Erring on the side of caution forces you to value potential for plans, hopes and fears.

I agree with erring on the side of caution. Potential for plans hopes and fears is something to think about but you just know someone is going to say that a fertilized egg has such potential.

Another thing to consider is this. What would the woman's intuition tell her if she hadn't already been indoctrinated by patriarchal religions? You know, wisdom of the body and all.
I don't feel comfortable telling women what is right or wrong on this, or where the cut-off time should be. What would happen if a woman was allowed to weigh her situation and put everything in the balance? Would she really choose evil if men, law, and religion didn't step in? Doesn't she know when she has a real baby in her? .....maybe

[_dartagnan]

"He was drop dead gorgeous. I found myself drawn to him, and the next thing I knew we were in bed.

Now I'm pregnant and want an abortion. After all, a woman should have control over her body."

[_Tarski]

"He was drop dead gorgeous. I found myself drawn to him, and the next thing I knew we were in bed.

Now I'm pregnant and want an abortion. After all, a woman should have control over her body."

and your point is?

[_John Larsen]

"He was drop dead gorgeous. I found myself drawn to him, and the next thing I knew we were in bed.

Now I'm pregnant and want an abortion. After all, a woman should have control over her body."

Sometimes it happens that way. But it is always much more complex then you have represented it.

[_dartagnan]

Most abortions are not life threatening, are not a result of rape or incest. Most abortions are a result of irresponsible people. I have little sympathy for them. They willingly have their moment of joy at the expensive of a life.

They are in every sense of the term, murderers.

Just because you cannot talk with the fetuses or measure their brainwaves to the satisfaction of atheist skeptics, doesn't change the fact that abortion is murder. How do you know that a baby isn't a human in the womb? For that matter, how do you know it is a human being right when it leaves the womb? Because it cries? Opens its eyes? I don't remember being conscious of anything during my first year, so maybe I wasn't human then. When does it become murder?

Why are criminals who are convicted of for killing a pregnant woman, charged with two murders, when the same legal system grants a doctor to do it? Roe/Wade was riding the wave of civil rights uproar; it had to have happened then or else it never would have happened.

Come to think of it, maybe we should just kill off hospital patients who no longer show signs of consciousness or life beyond a brain wave. Or kids born blind, deaf and dumb too. Heck, in what sense are they humans? They just live in a world of darkness like any vegetable. I mean, science can't show otherwise so they must not be alive - at least no more alive than bacteria.

[Non-functional image pre-emptively deleted by Shades]

Anything look human here?

[Non-functional image pre-emptively deleted by Shades]

Good thing God doesn't exist, huh?

[_beastie]

Dart - do you support abortion in the cases of rape and incest?

[_Moniker]

I couldn't help myself! Abortions are more often sought from those with lower economic status -- don't want poor women getting abortions then help them with birth control. Married women have abortions. Also -- ding ding ding -- Protestants make up the highest percentage of those that have abortions.

Facts are a funny thing. :)

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3422602.html

Poverty. Women with incomes below 200% of poverty made up 30% of all women of reproductive age, but accounted for 57% of all women having abortions in 2000: Twenty-seven percent of abortions were obtained by women living below the poverty line, and another 31% by women with incomes of 100-199% of poverty. The concentration of economically disadvantaged women among those having abortions was greater in 2000 than in 1994, when 50% of women obtaining abortions had incomes of less than 200% of poverty.

Religious affiliation. The majority of women older than 17 who obtained an abortion reported a religious affiliation. The highest proportion (43%) identified themselves as Protestant. Twenty-seven percent of women having an abortion identified themselves as Catholic, and 8% as a member of another religion; 22% reported no religious affiliation. Thirteen percent identified themselves as "born-again" or evangelical, three-fourths of whom were Protestant (not shown).