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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2014 14:01:49 GMT -6
Rubbish. Either a person has dignity or not. Your definition is purely utilitarian and relativistic. Not rubbish at all. The Church defines the point where humanity and human rights attach to the new being as the point of conception. FB defines it more or less as the point where a fetus becomes sensate. Each of these definitions is equally relativistic and both are very utilitarian. I can accept that you disagree with my phrase "the Church" defines... and would prefer "God" defines the point where humanity and human rights attach to the new being as the point of conception. OK, but discerning God's will in this matter is also relativistic (if I understand how you are using that term, as a synonym for "subjective") and not a point on which all Christians agree. Don't be misled into thinking that I am pro-abortion by the way. I'm merely pointing out that these are fundamentally religious/philosophical issues, not matters of science. any definition is going to be relativistic (subjective). Jim |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2014 14:08:19 GMT -6
Rubbish. Either a person has dignity or not. Your definition is purely utilitarian and relativistic. In what sense is a fetus (or a brain-dead adult) without any brain activity whatsoever a "person"? Honest question. In my view a brain dead person is not a person and has no claim to human rights. If we unplug him, no murder has occurred. Assuming God exists, then this person's soul is with God when his brain dies. My answer with respect to the fetus would be unsatisfying to you because it is based in faith and religion. Something like this: Assuming God exists and assuming God cares about us, then the fetus is full of human potential and it would be a sin to kill it and thwart God's plans. I certainly see your point though, from a scientific perspective. Here's my honest question: a fetus with no brain activity at all would be pretty young indeed. No? Would you support a law with health of the mother exceptions banning abortion when the fetus has demonstrable brain activity? Jim |
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Jan 3, 2014 16:40:12 GMT -6
Here's my honest question: a fetus with no brain activity at all would be pretty young indeed. No? Would you support a law with health of the mother exceptions banning abortion when the fetus has demonstrable brain activity? I would say that the presence of consciousness would give the fetus potential stake. There is a bit of a scientific leap from brain waves to consciousness. All we can say at this point is that where there are no brain waves, there cannot possibly be consciousness. Brain waves therefore define the earliest possible existence of consciousness although it is quite likely that perception (of pain, for example) follows at a later point. What this line if thinking offers is not a cut-and-dried solution in 2014, but rather the potential that an objective answer to the question of life is attainable in principle. Further, consideration of consciousness would allow potential ground for common goals between those pro-life and prochoice people who have the capacity to compromise. For example: 1. An end to silliness over Plan B and/or "abortifascient contraception". 2. A push for abortion decisions to happen prior to potential consciousness. As you already know, I don't think that abortion should be done flippantly or as a lazy substitute for proactive planning. I think that there will always be a metaphysical aspect to this debate, but that reasonable people can find points of agreement. Unreasonable people never will. |
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Post by malleodei on Jan 3, 2014 17:35:03 GMT -6
A fetus (or even a zygote for that matter) is a person because the fetus is a living entity that is growing to the point which culminates in delivery outside of the uterus. Everything is there to make the person the person. It is only in the transient state of development. You necissarily make a distinction between potential and actual in your definition. However, this is arbitrary, IMO, even if this is the current legal understanding. Just because it is used as a legal definition does not make it true.
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Post by malleodei on Jan 3, 2014 17:41:36 GMT -6
Rubbish. Either a person has dignity or not. Your definition is purely utilitarian and relativistic. Not rubbish at all. The Church defines the point where humanity and human rights attach to the new being as the point of conception. FB defines it more or less as the point where a fetus becomes sensate. Each of these definitions is equally relativistic and both are very utilitarian. I disagree. The Church defines conception as the beginning of personhood because it recognizes the inherent dignity of the person as an icon of the divine. The Church does not know when the newly created person is ensoulled. However, it is commonly accepted through the age that this occurs at conception. I realize that we are now at a time in history when the idea of a soul is no longer widely accepted. However, from the point of faith at least, this becomes very important. (It's not hard for everyone to know that I am stridently pro-life. However, in the case which is the subject of this thread, it seems reasonable that extraordinary measures not be sustained. My real issue in this story has been the rights of the family vs. the actions of the hospital in trying to force action. I do realize, though, the sad reality that there are economics that play into this as well.) |
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Post by malleodei on Jan 3, 2014 17:43:01 GMT -6
Would you support a law with health of the mother exceptions banning abortion when the fetus has demonstrable brain activity? Jim UGH! the health exception is so ambiguous as to be meaningless. |
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Post by malleodei on Jan 3, 2014 17:46:57 GMT -6
Further, consideration of consciousness would allow potential ground for common goals between those pro-life and prochoice people who have the capacity to compromise. For example: 1. An end to silliness over Plan B and/or "abortifascient contraception". 2. A push for abortion decisions to happen prior to potential consciousness. As you already know, I don't think that abortion should be done flippantly or as a lazy substitute for proactive planning. I think that there will always be a metaphysical aspect to this debate, but that reasonable people can find points of agreement. Unreasonable people never will. Right, so that leaves unconscious people in a limbo of sorts, when it comes to this nebulous definition of personhood. The sleeping person is unconscious. The person under general anesthesia is unconscious. Therefore, they have no personhood at those times.... Of course, this is a temporary condition, and the potential for them to gain consciousness is there. Which means that it leads to my contention about potentiality and the fetus. |
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Jan 3, 2014 17:50:04 GMT -6
How come neither of you responded to my previous thread about BibleGod 1.0 (OT edition) mandating abortion for unfaithful women?
Reference Numbers 5:11-30
11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her.
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Post by showmedot on Jan 4, 2014 11:41:19 GMT -6
Guess we'll see what happens now that the girl's family and the hospital have reached an agreement that a critical care team from elsewhere will prepare to transport whatever this is, a corpse or a living person as the family insists she is, one showing signs of recovery.
Where it is that will insert breathing and feeding tubes hasn't been announced, but since the family has collected over $30k in donations and has help from the foundation established by Terri Schiavo's parents, it appears they can do pretty much whatever without financial concerns.
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Jan 4, 2014 12:05:17 GMT -6
Guess we'll see what happens now that the girl's family and the hospital have reached an agreement that a critical care team from elsewhere will prepare to transport whatever this is, a corpse or a living person as the family insists she is, one showing signs of recovery. Where it is that will insert breathing and feeding tubes hasn't been announced, but since the family has collected over $30k in donations and has help from the foundation established by Terri Schiavo's parents, it appears they can do pretty much whatever without financial concerns. $30k will cover about one day of ICU care. |
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Post by showmedot on Jan 4, 2014 17:30:51 GMT -6
...since the family has collected over $30k in donations and has help from the foundation established by Terri Schiavo's parents, it appears they can do pretty much whatever without financial concerns. $30k will cover about one day of ICU care. Okay, that doesn't surprise me, not that I have any idea what the cost of ICU care would be. I would guess the Schiavo foundation has more resources than that. I guess, as I said, we'll see what happens: Is McMath dead, or as her mother insists, slowly recovering? |
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Post by Flitzerbiest on Jan 4, 2014 18:07:37 GMT -6
$30k will cover about one day of ICU care. Okay, that doesn't surprise me, not that I have any idea what the cost of ICU care would be. I would guess the Schiavo foundation has more resources than that. I guess, as I said, we'll see what happens: Is McMath dead, or as her mother insists, slowly recovering? Included in the brain death exam which she has had multiple times is monitoring to see if the most basic brain function of all--that of triggering a single breath--occurs over a 10-15 minute interval. She hasn't taken a single independent breath. WIthin one hour of removing the mechanical ventilator which is sustaining the function of her vital organs, those organs will all begin to fail from acidosis (build up of CO2 due to lack of breathing). Her heart will stop shortly after that. That it is beating at all now is a technical trick. She lacks even the brain function to breathe. She's dead. Period. No one who knows what the hell they are talking about doubts this; we are just revisiting the same ridiculous political/religious argument that has nothing to do with, and no actual interest in, the facts of the matter. |
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Post by showmedot on Jan 4, 2014 19:45:47 GMT -6
Umm...I don't actually think she's slowly recovering. I was just echoing her mother's claim, sadly bolstered by the Schiavo Foundation and reportedly encouraged by Schiavo's parents who appear to have learned nothing from the results of their unfortunate daughter's autopsy.
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Post by malleodei on Jan 4, 2014 20:16:39 GMT -6
How come neither of you responded to my previous thread about BibleGod 1.0 (OT edition) mandating abortion for unfaithful women? I'm not sure what this reference has to do with anything regarding this thread. I don't remember your previous post citing this thread. Maybe I missed it. Howie is our resident Hebrew Scriptures expert. I have no problems seeing this verse in context of the theological reflection of a people at that time. What that means is, I'm not a literalist, but see this in context of a people at a certain point in their developing understanding of God. |
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Post by malleodei on Jan 4, 2014 20:18:36 GMT -6
Guess we'll see what happens now that the girl's family and the hospital have reached an agreement that a critical care team from elsewhere will prepare to transport whatever this is, a corpse or a living person as the family insists she is, one showing signs of recovery. Where it is that will insert breathing and feeding tubes hasn't been announced, but since the family has collected over $30k in donations and has help from the foundation established by Terri Schiavo's parents, it appears they can do pretty much whatever without financial concerns. $30k will cover about one day of ICU care. Until BCBS applies their discount, which cuts it, at least if not more, in half. |
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