<p>Is abortion what happens when the stork drops the baby while in the air?</p>
<p>I was waiting for you to get to that. I was being careful on this one. So, when did I explicitly state that a human embryo wasn’t human? </p>
<p>“human beings are born” true</p>
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<p>Agreed.</p>
<p>I never contested the humanity of an embryo/fetus. And I still stand by “mother’s life, mother’s rights”</p>
<p>Ah, so you don’t believe in human rights, then. Not much to say about that, since it’s already interfered with reasoning with other posters so far.</p>
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<p>He was funny? He did spectacularly little in his 7 years in office. The guy just wanted to be loved. Which is presumably why he was so sexually aggressive.</p>
<p>It was funny to hear him talk about serious political issues.</p>
<p>(I am apparently voice-ist.)</p>
<p>So is it ironic that his daughters became Trojans?</p>
<p>see what i did thar?</p>
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<p>These truths are self-evident.</p>
<p>Billy, as far as I see it the flaw in your argument is that when we agree that “the intentional and unjust killing of a human life” equates to murder, implied by the phrase “human life” is a being that is fully formed as a human. A fetus, on the other hand, while possessing the DNA of a human and on track to grow into a human, does not yet fit what is meant by “human life.” Of course, this is looking more at a philosophical definition of “human life” than a scientific one; scientifically, the fetus is human and alive, and therefore a “human life.” But from a philosophical standpoint, can we really call it human, a person?</p>
<p>Furthermore, I always felt that even if we consider abortion murder, it is still justified where the woman’s life is at risk. Call me crazy, but a fetus which has but a rudimentary level of consciousness has far less to lose than a woman who has spent years on this earth building relationships and affecting people. You’re going to value the life of a FETUS over that of, say, a single mother who already has two kids? You have two choices, abort or don’t abort. Not aborting the fetus is tantamount to killing the mother, since that is the consequence of not aborting in this particular scenario. We necessarily have to value one “life” above the other–why not value higher the life whose loss will be more keenly felt?</p>
<p>Lets not try fitting square pegs into round holes here.</p>
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<p>then what’s a human form? BTW, the disagreement here is over what counts as humanity. Without an agreed upon definition of humanity it’s hard to say that either side’s argument is really flawed.</p>
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<p>You haven’t given any reason why not.</p>
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<p>What if the diagonal of the peg is smaller than the diameter of the hole?</p>
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<p>It’s not. I say so.</p>
<p>I am in strong agreement with quomodo. The thing about arguments, I think, especially long ones, is that they can obscure the fundamental things they hinge on (which is in yours what is meant by human life).</p>
<p>I am very attracted to the position that if one cannot sufficiently express their desire to live, their value of life, then it is no more murder to kill them than it is murder to kill a chicken. Of course I’ve said this somewhere already, and, my god, I can’t believe I’m saying it again. And of course also there are certain exceptions, qualifications, etc. The picture isn’t as simple as the one you present - that all life has the same worth (and maybe that’s why it’s not as attractive).</p>
<p>We should maybe bring up the old thread on this or not discuss this at all (I don’t want to mindlessly go through the same motions as before). At any rate, I will not be the one to find that thread.</p>
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<p>You might want to re-express this, lest I feel free to kill my neighbors while they sleep.</p>
<p>I sleep with my eyes half open!</p>
<p>Half open eyes don’t express a will to live.</p>
<p>That is why I qualify the statement, you know. But hitlers policy, for example, I forget the name of it, but where the disabled were evaluated and potentially killed, I don’t find that too extreme. </p>
<p>For me it all comes back to suffering. I would be completely fine with dying if it was a random thing that happened instantly - anyone would, of course. They wouldn’t know what happened. There would be no suffering. For things that are not conscious, not self aware, I do not think there can be suffering. Even this is a bit of a contentious statement at the moment though. </p>
<p>Anyways to maybe clarify: The most obvious and simplistic test would be this - ask a person if they want to live or not; if they can’t say they want to live, then it’s ok to kill them.</p>
<p>(you would make sure they were awake of course, that they were in their most conscious frame of mind, whatever that is). I don’t even want to go into it though.</p>
<p>Half open eyes don’t express a will to live. </p>
<p>-refrains from making asian joke-</p>
<p>I too refrained from making an Asian joke. I think there’s a temporary moratorium on white people making asian jokes at UCLA.</p>
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<p>Well, determining whether someone’s in their most conscious frame of mind could still be nontrivial. And “most conscious frame of mind” is still somewhat ambiguous.</p>