subbie - When Does Personhood Begin?

[_Gadianton]

There positions were wrought with presuppositions for how others might define "life" - a lame pre-emptive strike as it were. Point being, the thread is not about life except inasmuch as you wanted to make "personhood" equal to it with regards to my statement.

No, you asked a question:

Why not be consistent, contrary to current Democrat/Lib hair fires, and either believe in a right to life or not?

I'm open to believing in a "right to life" but I can't believe in it unless I know what it is. Can you tell us what life is and what a "right to life" is? Then I can answer the question.

[_subgenius]

No, you asked a question:

...

I'm open to believing in a "right to life" but I can't believe in it unless I know what it is. Can you tell us what life is and what a "right to life" is? Then I can answer the question.

you're on the wrong thread my friend...visit the OP and then note my first post...only 1 question there...and it remains unanswered...yet, somehow the meaning intended by the OP and the explanation of its premise is my responsibility.
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[_honorentheos]

No, you asked a question:

...

I'm open to believing in a "right to life" but I can't believe in it unless I know what it is. Can you tell us what life is and what a "right to life" is? Then I can answer the question.

you're on the wrong thread my friend...visit the opening post and then note my first post...only 1 question there...and it remains unanswered...yet, somehow the meaning intended by the opening post and the explanation of its premise is my responsibility.
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Gad quoted the main question in your post in this thread which was, "Why not be consistent, contrary to current Democrat/Lib hair fires, and either believe in a right to life or not?"

And it's been answered by stating unambiguously no one believes in a universal right to life, and your posts include an implication of an inserted "human" in front of "life" so you need to move to the next step in the discussion instead of pretending you've given the only answer necessary. Otherwise, you are asking why no one believes your wet dreams aren't murder or your eating carrots is wrongfully terminating "life". Now Gad has asked you to define what you mean by a "right to life" because you seem to think this answers the question in the OP. Remember the OP and how it briefly but fairly concisely pointed out why referencing life alone is inadequate? Here it is again, just cuz:

As one tries to examine the question of when human life begins, one is forced to focus on the human side of that equation more so than the life side.

With that in mind, some questions:

Do you believe that personhood begins at conception?

What qualities do you believe qualify as necessary to have personhood?

Put more simply since then in the thread, the question is simply "What traits are necessary for something to be recognized as a human being?" The question you attempted to use as the answer doesn't begin to clarify what you think these traits are. So, at this point you still need to answer the OP.

Here's the simple version of the question again: What traits are necessary for something to be recognized as a human being?

[_Gadianton]

you're on the wrong thread my friend...visit the opening post and then note my first post...only 1 question there...and it remains unanswered...yet, somehow the meaning intended by the opening post and the explanation of its premise is my responsibility.
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No, the question I quoted is the very first one you ask on the very thread you are linking to. Why not tell us what life and "right to life" are so I can answer the question?

I know why you refuse to acknowledge your own question that you yourself are directly linking to right now.

[_canpakes]

1. Some folks can hold two seemingly opposing ideals within their mind at the same time, and navigate between them more successfully than others.

Yes, cognitive dissonance or ambivalence - you decide because i alreadynoted my view on the matter (but thanks for the dissection)....and, additionally, clearly my use of "passive-aggressive" recognizes as much.

Your view is that you find abortion personally objectionable, therefore want to outlaw it for anyone. Others also find it objectionable, and vow not to have an abortion themselves, yet do not feel the need to legislate that choice out of existence for everyone else.

The concept is simple, and doesn't rely on cognitive dissonance, or ambivalence.

An example would be your own choice of faith ... which, clearly, some folks find totally disgusting and/or objectionable. So we could either recognize your (subs) ability to choose that faith for yourself, regardless of if others would choose the same, or we could simply legislate the LDS Church out of existence. Using your own criteria, how should we proceed?

2. One can be ‘pro-life’ for the purposes of their own self while maintaining the belief that others should choose for themselves - notwithstanding that they might not accept the definitional conditions that you want to prescribe for them.

Again, that was abundantly clear and yet does not influence or modify my original statement for "inability".

The only obvious 'inability' in this thread is your own inability to state or determine why you believe as you do, or what criteria it is based off of. You can take a stab at that anytime you want to. Lots of space on the bandwidth, again... go for it.

3. Conjecture about how another might respond is not the same as speaking for them.

Well, if you say so....but if in your mind and heart you were thinking "she can speak foe herself", why would you offer up an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information (a.k.a. conjecture)?

Because I have the free will and choice to do so. Note that I didn't force Jersey Girl to accept my words as her own. This difference is painfully obvious to adept users of the language; this difference between conjecture and speaking for another should be obvious to you by now.

In any event, at least Jersey Girl has the huevos to type out her position,

Good for her and thank you for the unsolicited endorsement.

Your welcome. Anytime you'd like to display some huevos yourself on the subject, just go on ahead and do so.

regardless of how flawed you found it,

Oh, was she offering it up for a validation? (in lieu of these huevos)...or are criticisms not allowed when people interject their opinion on matters?

Feel free to criticize. It helps to have a foundation on which you construct your criticism, though, which you seem unable to present.

as opposed to yourself simply remaining vague about your own

Apart from the irony here ya black pot, my "remaining vague" is clearly contradicted by my first post on this thread.

You did nothing other than remain vague in your first post. If you feel otherwise, repeat that portion of the post that explains your position regarding 'personhood', or whenever 'life begins', or whatever. All you did was punt. Typical, for you.

while accusing her of oppressing you by keeping you from being able to impose your own choice upon her.

Well, that is a horrible re-phrasing of what i typed...i simply noted the glaring contradiction in her assertion of how things "should be"...but then you have already explained how she surely can two seemingly opposing ideals within [her] mind at the same time...so that must be it.

You merely exposed your own confusion while unsuccessfully attempting a weak rebuttal. Nice try, but there's no meat in your comeback... not even milk.

[_honorentheos]

I'll dumb it down even further for subbie so he can do the only thing he appears capable of doing. That being saying, "No it's not." But maybe we'll be surprised.

In answer to your question, what it personhood?, the overly simply but apparently necessary response is, "The traits a person believes are necessary for an entity to be recognized as a person."

But since subbie is subbie, you continue to claim this hasn't been answered yet so you refuse to accept that answer and recognize that it requires a person to determine those traits for themselves. There isn't an objective, universally accepted definition for what those traits are. So you want someone to tell you what those traits are to then say, "Nope". I'll give you a chance to do so in a very simple way, just so that it's clear what you are doing.

To be recognized as a human being, an entity must first have a unique individual identity. This identity must extend beyond DNA since twins who share the same DNA experience different things, do not share a viewpoint, will almost certainly experience different birth and death timelines, and pass on their genes to different entities who will have their own identities that were not derived directly from both twins. Another trait is the ability to metabolize and convert matter into energy outside of the direct assistance of another biological organism. I.e. - exist and live outside of the womb. Until an entity is capable of living outside of the womb of its mother, allowing for the assistance of medical technology to make that possible, the rights of that entity cannot Trump those of the living entity with its own unique identity that is its mother. A third trait is the capacity for developing consciousness even if such consciousness is not fully realized yet. Cells are not persons. A corpse once was but is no longer one with the same rights as a living person.

Based on this, I believe there is a point in the developmental process where an unborn child inherits rights that should preclude the option of abortion except in extreme cases that involve ethical dilemmas similar to other ethical dilemmas when the taking of human life is necessary so how and when to do so must become a consideration. It isn't at conception, and it is many weeks before normal natural birth.

Based on this, I don't imagine there is any inconsistency in my views on the legality of abortion as legally defined in the US and the concern over the Trump administration's practice of separating children from their parents who arrive seeking asylum.

[_Jersey Girl]

Others also find it objectionable, and vow not to have an abortion themselves, yet do not feel the need to legislate that choice out of existence for everyone else.

Yeah exactly.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I mean, is abortion immoral?

https://www.newstimes.com/opinion/artic ... 828459.php

In 2010, 131 million babies were born on earth. If the natural abortion rate is 90 percent, it means there were almost 250 million spontaneous abortions in 2010, or five times as many induced abortions.

I suppose one could argue humans shouldn't have the right to govern their own bodies, but I'd argue that nature itself demonstrates it has no regard for the sanctity of human life at any stage.

A woman's life is in jeopardy from the moment of implantation. She is subject to a variety of ailments, including heart and vascular diseases (hypertension, heart disease) thrombotic complications, metabolic disorders (diabetes, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, obesity), neurological diseases (epilepsy, migraine, disturbances of cerebral circulation), renal diseases, rheumatic disorders, psychiatric problems, bronchial asthma, and cancer.

Women are the immediate victims of nature's reality when an egg is fertilized. If I'm being honest I'd argue the pro-life movement's focus is on the wrong "person." Care for the woman and her body like her life depends on it and you might have lower natural abortion rates since THAT is where 90% of them are occurring.

But we're not going to do that, are we?

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

Death is natural. The vast majority of people die due to reasons other than being intentionally killed by another person. Cancer, heart disease, accident - it's all death simply being visited upon a person. Nature cares not for the sanctity of human life. The mortality rate is 100%.

Yet, if murder were legal, the fact that people die overwhelming to other reasons probably wouldn't stop me from working really hard to make murder illegal. The existence of cancer would not be a good argument against the value of making murder a criminal offense. Stopping people from intentionally harming others is the thing the law is best suited to handle. The fact that there are other sources of death that are more common wouldn't preclude us from also caring about those or require us to exclusively care about those. Otherwise, you run the danger of using the ever-terrible argument that a person is only allowed to care and make efforts towards the worst possible thing at any given point in time.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I'd love to pretend EA's point had some sort of relevancy to my post, but alas it just seems like a convoluted attempt at contrariness. We have vast institutions and systems in place to deter death and pacify mankind. We, in fact, treat man, institutionally, to make him civil. I would argue that if abortion we're such a horrifying offense to our sensibilities then we'd commit massive resources to deter it in an attempt to eradicate it, much like we're doing with both cancer and murder. Stopping procedural abortion wouldn't stem the tide of naturally occurring abortions, which ought to be as offensive as medically induced one's.

It's a transparent attempt by those on the Right (mostly I'm sure) to assign morality to something inherently amoral. Why? Who knows. I suspect at it's core it's an attempt to exert control over others due to a fundamental sense of insecurity brought about by existential dread.

- Doc