Is the Fetus a Separate Human?

[jhodgeiii]

Wickwoman, earlier you said:

I would venture to say that a human fetus is a part of the human being's body in which it lives until it is born at which point it is a separate human being.
To which I responded:

Fact is that it IS a separate human being from conception, but it is not separated from its mom until birth. Courts use DNA to narrow cases of crimes and paternity down to an individual. If you were to extract DNA from one part of a woman's body to another part, you will find matching DNA. Contrastly, if you were to extract DNA from the embryo and compare it to the DNA of a part of the mom, you will find that they don't match. Conclusion: they are two separate and distinct human lives.
Then oddly, you replied:
They are not separate. One of them is living inside the other.
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I think the context of your top quote is implying that "separate" means distinct, but your last quote here, in response to my answer, implies "separate" as meaning apart. Which "separate" is the one you find the most critical to the abortion issue?

[tseeker]

Let me guess.

The one that allows me to do what I want with no consequences? (to me)

[wholearmor]

If the mother and baby are not separate human beings before the baby is born, why can a live baby be taken from a dead mother?

[tseeker]

Stop it wholearmour. You're confusing the baby killers with facts.

[wholearmor]

Originally posted by tseeker

Stop it wholearmour. You're confusing the baby killers with facts.

Yep...there I go again. :doh:

[billwald]

"Fact is that it IS a separate human being from conception"

Then the majority of people in the next world were never born. (Spontaneous plus intentional abortions).

1. What determines the personality of a person who was never born?

2. Does a person who was never born need to be "born again?"

[cur_deus_homo]

Originally posted by tseeker

Stop it wholearmour. You're confusing the baby killers with facts.

More confusing than the "facts" for people who support the rights of all to abort on demand is the basic moral assumption that killing a perfectly innocent member of the human species is wrong. Why are they "confused" that this assumption should not apply to the baby before it gets beyond the vaginal canal? The only thing they have to fall back on is their appeal to personal autonomy as an absolute right that even trumps what seems to me a most basic assumption about moral conduct, namely that we should not be permitted to kill innocent humans (at least not without due process of law).

[philosophizer]

Originally posted by Wickwoman
I would venture to say that a human fetus is a part of the human being's body in which it lives until it is born at which point it is a separate human being.

Are conjoined twins one or two people?

[Zakath]

For those who believe that a fertilized egg is a human being, I have some questions that modern science is wrestling with...

What about stem cell cultures? Do they qualify as human since they could, with a bit of help, grow into full organisms?

If so, then what about differentiated tissue cultures? With a bit of tweaking, some of them can produce stem cells which can be grown into complete organisms. Would such organisms be human?

If so, then what about cloned humans? Using the technique where the nuclear material of an egg is replaced with another nucleus, but with a diploid complement of chromosomes... Is that human? If so, when?

If so, then what about genetic implantation where genes from other species are introduced to the genome? How much human DNA is needed to constitute a human? 100%? 80%? 51%? or does some other lower level of human genetic material qualify an organism as human?

I am curious about your thoughts on these questions. :think:

[cur_deus_homo]

Your questions are important, but I am afraid they lead us down the primrose path of justifying the manufacture of members of the human species only to destroy them. The hope is that such a process will yield "beneficial" scientific results that will, in turn, we hope, yield health and happiness (for those rich few who can afford it). What path am I talking about? The one we're one right now. The one paved with millions of aborted babies and the vile, erroneus logic that we can somehow define away a human being as non-human and then let (or even encourage) people to make the lawful decision to kill that human because it's not really human.

[PureX]

Originally posted by jhodgeiii

Wickwoman, earlier you said:

To which I responded:

Then oddly, you replied:

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I think the context of your top quote is implying that "separate" means distinct, but your last quote here, in response to my answer, implies "separate" as meaning apart. Which "separate" is the one you find the most critical to the abortion issue? Legally, the fetus is considered to be a part of the mother's body until such time as it is able to survive unaided outside of the womb. This point has been determined to be between the 22nd and the 24th week of developement. So legally, this is when the developing fetus becomes an "independant" human being, and is no longer a part of the mother's body even though s/he is still within the mother's body.

[PureX]

Originally posted by philosophizer

Are conjoined twins one or two people? They are both.

[Greywolf]

Originally posted by PureX
Legally, the fetus is considered to be a part of the mother's body until such time as it is able to survive unaided outside of the womb. This point has been determined to be between the 22nd and the 24th week of developement. So legally, this is when the developing fetus becomes an "independant" human being, and is no longer a part of the mother's body even though s/he is still within the mother's body.

Is that a federal law?

[Aussie Thinker]

Purex nailed down what the law says but it is REALLY hard to say a 15-20 week old foetus is not human.

I know they are emotive but if you ever see pictures of an aborted baby they are sickening. Small ripped apart humans.

My own (purely arbitrary) take on it is a pile of cells (conception) is NOT human but not very long after that they ARE human (at the time most abortions occur)

I am strongly anti-abortion as SOOO many other alternatives are available. Proper contraception/morning after pills and just a modicum of care should make abortion completely unnecessary !

[philosophizer]

Originally posted by PureX

They are both. :doh:

[PureX]

Originally posted by Greywolf

Is that a federal law? No, but as far as I know pretty much all the states follow this guideline.

[PureX]

Originally posted by Aussie Thinker Purex nailed down what the law says but it is REALLY hard to say a 15-20 week old foetus is not human. True. The law has never decided when a human being becomes a human being, exactly. I don't suppose it could. The question it was handed was deciding if/when the fetus is part of the mother's body. If the fetus is a part of the mother's body, then the mother has the right to decide what to do with it. If the fetus is not part of the mother's body, and is it's own independant human body, then it has it's own rights. The courts considered the question of "human-ness" to be too subjective to resolve, so it relied on viable physical independance as it's criteria.

[pwbayon]

The question of when life begins ignores the fact that what makes a human being a person and not just an animal is that we have a soul. When is the soul given to the fetus is unknown.

But lets us analyze abortion:

Lets us look at a matrix of choices when it comes to the issue of abortion. The first issue is whether the unborn is a person. The second issue is the cost of interfering with the life of a woman. If the unborn is not a person and the woman has an abortion then nothing is lost. If the unborn is not a person and the government interferes and the woman is not allowed to have an abortion then at the most it can cost the woman the inconvenience of few months of her life. This is a possible cost. Pregnancy by itself is not a risk to a mother since a C-section can always be done. On the other side if the unborn is a person then not allowing an abortion interferes with a woman's life but again for only up to nine months. If the unborn is a person and abortion is allowed then a grave injustice has occurred since it is a life that has been lost. The cost of an error in this discussion is either a woman suffers some inconvenience or a life is lost. At the end of the day we as human should error on the side of caution and not allow abortion.

[Aussie Thinker]

Pwybayon,

I am strongly anti-abortion but I have to temper this stance somewhat as I am a man.

Does being a man stop me from voicing an opinion or fighting for right over wrong.. NO.. but it does put me in a different frame of mind when addressing the issue of abortion.

I am pissed that women have abortions.. it disgusts me that life is held so cheaply.. however I have to imagine myself as a young girl… I was careless enough as a young man so I can’t imagine I would have been too much different as a girl..

Would I want to continue with an unwanted pregnancy ?

What would I do ?

Would my own selfishness overcome what I KNEW was right ?

Probably !.. so do I have the right to judge women who probably act the same way I might have ??

What do WE as a society do about this situation.. women will continue to have abortion regardless.. ???

I hate abortion but I am at a bit of a loss as to how to completely deal with the situation ?

[pwbayon]

Originally posted by Aussie Thinker

Pwybayon,

I am strongly anti-abortion but I have to temper this stance somewhat as I am a man.

Does being a man stop me from voicing an opinion or fighting for right over wrong.. NO.. but it does put me in a different frame of mind when addressing the issue of abortion.

I am pissed that women have abortions.. it disgusts me that life is held so cheaply.. however I have to imagine myself as a young girl… I was careless enough as a young man so I can’t imagine I would have been too much different as a girl..

Would I want to continue with an unwanted pregnancy ?

What would I do ?

Would my own selfishness overcome what I KNEW was right ?

Probably !.. so do I have the right to judge women who probably act the same way I might have ??

What do WE as a society do about this situation.. women will continue to have abortion regardless.. ???

I hate abortion but I am at a bit of a loss as to how to completely deal with the situation ?


A prenancy is not a death sentence for a woman but it does interfere with her normal life. But a woman also has made a series of choices in order to get into this condition and thus must be held accountable for her chioces and not offered a "simple" way out of the consequences of her choices. I must conclude that we as a sociewty should error on the side of protecting life.