:liberals: No, I’m the pro-choice one here, therefore by default, I only need to satisfy myself about “personhood” and don't seek to compel others as you seem to.
Too ignorant to understand how this is relevant in matters of life and death... no surprise there.
I seem to be more concerned with the lives of extant persons rather than of potential ones than you are apparently. I also don’t require that others adhere to my thinking if they don’t want to, as you do.
You can of course try to convince me otherwise but you don’t get to impose your views on me or indeed a recently pregnant woman by use of bald assertions.
What's the point? You reject any notion that you might be incorrect as to when one becomes a person. So much so that you actually refuse to take a stand on when that point is actually reached, rather relying on the cop out of "nuance."
I’ve given you my reasoning based in actual evidence of the CNS but you seem to think that your assertions carry more weight for no apparent reason. Why should I change my thinking based on your beliefs and assertions?
No perhaps I can’t define a “person” to your satisfaction, or be clear on exactly when “personhood” begins, however I only need to conclude for myself, from the evidence, when a person clearly does not exist, just as you can too.
Not at all the issue; but I assume this is simply just more of your usual runaround as you have refused to actually just show what defines one as a person from a source outside your own opinion.
I’ve already given you my reasoning for a “person” based on a reasonably functioning CNS and that DNA is not the “person” factor that you seem to think it is, while you otoh have nothing but bald assertion with which you seem to expect civil law to be founded on.
If, as it seems, you want your views to be enforced generally by secular laws then it is plainly up to you to find better evidence and a more convincing argument than my one and the lack of a functioning CNS, not me.
That's not the point of this discussion. Wiz asked for you and your ilk to provide an argument as to why it should remain legal.
So, it is up to you to show why a functioning CNS is what defines one as a person and separates them from before they had a functioning CNS and were thus, according to you, not yet a person.
Why, when I have already done this many times? You simply won’t accept the physical evidence that a CNS is where the person exists and does not exist when it stops functioning. What evidence have you got that it is otherwise?
It’s a moral choice, and without evidence even either way then civil laws have no place imposing a particular morality on those who disagree.
Well, my albeit lay understanding is that the autonomic system (ANS) is one of the functions of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) which in turn is connected to the CNS. However I think it’s true to say that just without the “person” element of the CNS being present it will more often than not simply “stand alone” so to speak, requiring no actual conscious input from the “person”. Typically however it will be shut down or become damaged along with the CNS imo.
In your opinion? What kind of an argument is that?
I simply presented my understanding of the evidence and that my conclusions are based on it. I’ll await any evidence from you of why or how a “person” could exist outside of a functioning CNS.
Perhaps but not decided on by the prosecution obviously, but if they aimed too high then they would risk acquittal altogether, so they need be realistic and un-dogmatic about it and perhaps go for a lesser charge.
What do you think would lead them to lose on the charge of homicide?
The law tries hard to consider the relevant facts when passing appropriate judgment while your dogma doesn’t.
Then I can’t imagine why I would be getting involved at all :idunno:, do you think that I might simply enjoy killing people or indeed the unborn for some obscure reason?
Are you seriously too stupid to understand a hypothetical?
Red herring more like.
Unless I am somewhat mistaken you simply conclude that any abortion is murder and want that view imposed on others within secular law without exception perhaps? Imo the very rational impossibility of a “person” existing while there is a clear lack of any apparent physical means, is never considered within your thinking and dogma. You don’t want to make sometimes tough human choices, so you don’t, and then you don’t think that others should be allowed to choose either.
Is there a physical, living cell that if allowed to follow its programming with all the necessities will live and develop, eventually, into what you would consider to be a person?
A potential person is has some value perhaps but I see no reason not to consider the whole specific situation and let the woman choose at least until a “person” might reasonably exist in the foetus.
All know is what I personally might choose. Sometimes I too might well support an abortion where a “person” is likely to be present, depending on the particular circumstances. However any doctors who routinely have more interest in personal profit yes of course probably do exist, I would agree, but is also not really the point here.
You seemed to have missed the point; they all agree that it is a person, at every stage wherein an abortion might be performed. PP even put out a brochure wherein they admitted so much in print.
I’d need to know the specific details first whether I would agree with what they do in each case. I may not agree sometimes, but it is the woman’s choice in the end afaic.
So a functioning or otherwise CNS is not good enough evidence for you, while it remains pretty good and convincing evidence afaic.
However even if neither of us actually does have any evidence then what gives you the right to make others comply with your beliefs?
:doh:
If the existence of the living zygote prior to an extant CNS is good enough for me then why would an extant CNS not be? Or did you just word this ambiguously?
I have offered you my reasoning based on at least some evidence, if you don’t like it that’s fine but imo you shouldn’t seek to impose your morality on those who may disagree.
What exactly then makes “brand new” DNA any more “a” "person" or special over any other similar DNA, when many or none “persons” may be the result?
The fact that it is distinct from anyone else makes it a separate entity, regardless of its DNA, actually. It is simply that DNA unique from the mother's is a way to show this.
And even if its DNA code were the same as the mother's as gcthomas has suggested is possible it is still a distinct, separate entity.
As we’ve already discussed a unique DNA does not necessarily mean a unique person, a unique CNS seems to have that honour, and do you really think that most “persons” that have ever been have only existed for a few short hours and never get past the zygote stage? I don’t.
Are you actually thinking "soul" or maybe the supernatural, but would rather not say that kind of thing to a non-believer?
While I believe the spirit is present at that point I don't see the point of arguing that with someone who doesn't believe a spirit exists.
If you simply want to wave your faith at me then perhaps you could be rather more honest here and not even try to bring in physical facts at all since you will probably never accept any I nor anyone else could offer should it contradict your beliefs. Instead you would need to convince me and others of your God’s existence and that your God’s morality is true and absolute, good luck with that btw.
A unique original DNA is clearly not what then defines a “person” imo, but a unique functioning CNS rather seems to.
How so? You have yet to support this argument.
The same DNA does produce different "persons" (monozygotic twins).
But again you simply don’t want to see even the rather clear evidence from a previously functioning CNS that a person existed in it and that when damaged or worse that person is also damaged or worse similarly. It should indicate something to you LH about when a CNS is yet to develop, but apparently it doesn’t perhaps because you don’t want it to.
