when does a human being become a human being?

[FallingPianos]

what does it mean to be a human being?

at what point (if any) during development does a fetus become a human being?

 

[vergiss]

It becomes a human being at the first breath, when the soul enters the body. However, I chose viability because, logically, it's at the stage of development where it will be able to breathe, and survive, outside the womb.

 

[talloulou]

A human being is easily defined as a live homo sapien at any stage of development. Now you can argue that human beings at the earliest stage of development should not have rights, legally. But to argue that they aren't human beings poses problems.

For example if you try to define human being but exlude the unborn you end up excluding newborns, the disabled, the very old, senile, ect. You also end up accidently including the great apes and other intelligent animals.

That is why for all intents and purposes a human being is a human (homo sapien) that is alive. Not a piece of homo sapien like a hair or flake of skin. But a homosapien from its earliest stages up until death.

 

[talloulou]

Birth and viability are not accurate ways in my opinion to decide when a human being becomes a human being. Why? Because they are arbitrary. For example babies are born at all different gestational ages and babies prove viable at different gestational ages. Technology has made viability earlier however some babies still die at early gestational ages so it's all very arbitrary and we can't define something arbitrarily.

 

[talloulou]

As far as when the brain is sufficiently developed.....I don't even know what that means. That's very vague. If you are born with brain damage is your brain ever sufficiently developed? At what gestational age are we deciding the brain is sufficiently developed?

 

[afr0byte]

As far as when the brain is sufficiently developed.....I don't even know what that means. That's very vague. If you are born with brain damage is your brain ever sufficiently developed? At what gestational age are we deciding the brain is sufficiently developed?

Well, either way, a single cell (or group of cells) doesn't have any type of brain.

 

[talloulou]

Well, either way, a single cell (or group of cells) doesn't have any type of brain.

Well that sounds like your not really attempting to pick a gestational age at which a human being has sufficient brain function. Clearly they don't in the earliest days after conception but when do they? Are we talking when the brain can receive pain messages? Are we talking when brainwaves can be measured? To take you seriously I have to have information that is way less vague then "sufficient brain function."

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

Just like the pro-lifers tell you, it's a living human being from the point of conception, because it couldn't possibly be anything else.

I think people that argue to the contrary are confused; they're really trying to argue about whether or not a given human being is a person or not, but they allow the pro-lifers to frame the entire debate in their favor.

Personally, I think a living human being becomes a person when the doctor and the parents sign the birth certificate.

 

[afr0byte]

Just like the pro-lifers tell you, it's a living human being from the point of conception, because it couldn't possibly be anything else.

I think people that argue to the contrary are confused; they're really trying to argue about whether or not a given human being is a person or not, but they allow the pro-lifers to frame the entire debate in their favor.

Personally, I think a living human being becomes a person when the doctor and the parents sign the birth certificate.

I would agree.

 

[talloulou]

Just like the pro-lifers tell you, it's a living human being from the point of conception, because it couldn't possibly be anything else.

I think people that argue to the contrary are confused; they're really trying to argue about whether or not a given human being is a person or not, but they allow the pro-lifers to frame the entire debate in their favor.

Personally, I think a living human being becomes a person when the doctor and the parents sign the birth certificate.

:rofl So if I deliver my baby in some backwoods mountain forest or swamp and I don't register my child and never sign a birth certificate then my child is not recognized by the law as a person?

I'm sure if I slaughtered my five year old and proclaimed....hey I never registered the kid, the law didn't legally know about the kid till now, and therefore get off my land and quit with those accusations of murder.....you think I'd get away with it:rofl :rofl

 

[Vincent]

When you debate when a unborn human becomes a person,(who is safe from having a drill make a puncture at the base of the skull, his brains get pulled out by tongs, then his skull crushed while his legs are in the air [also called partial-birth abortion]) realize that you must decide when a person will stop being a person and can be killed without punishment because no-one wants him. :2nobashin

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

When you debate when a unborn human becomes a person ... realize that you must decide when a person will stop being a person and can be killed without punishment because no-one wants him.

Of course. Isn't that called "capital punishment"?

 

[talloulou]

Personhood in regards to law is different from a living human being. Furthermore the law has always and continues to give various persons different rights at various ages and the law will also take away rights by legally declaring a person incompitent or by administering the death penalty.

To argue an unborn is not a living human being is inane. It's ignorant at best and total bullshit at worst.

What prochoicers should argue is that yes it's a human being but one who has no rights at all. That's a much harder statement to debate. And theres tons of legal precedent to back it up. A 4 yo does not have the same legal rights as a 16 yo, 18, yo, 21 yo and so on. The unborn human being has no rights unless it is wanted. If it is wanted it can be treated like a person in respect that a surgeon will perform life saving in utero operations! In some states you may be charged criminally for the murder of a pregnant women on two counts, hers and her unborn babiy.But even in those cases it is the rights and desires of the parents that are being shown respect. If it is unwanted it can be killed. But either way it's human and its not a flake of skin, parasite, or piece of hair.

 

[afr0byte]

Personhood in regards to law is different from a living human being. Furthermore the law has always and continues to give various persons different rights at various ages and the law will also take away rights by legally declaring a person incompitent or by administering the death penalty.

To argue an unborn is not a living human being is inane. It's ignorant at best and total bullshit at worst.

What prochoicers should argue is that yes it's a human being but one who has no rights at all. That's a much harder statement to debate. And theres tons of legal precedent to back it up. A 4 yo does not have the same legal rights as a 16 yo, 18, yo, 21 yo and so on. The unborn human being has no rights unless it is wanted. If it is wanted it can be treated like a person in respect that a surgeon will perform life saving in utero operations! In some states you may be charged criminally for the murder of a pregnant women on two counts, hers and her unborn babiy.But even in those cases it is the rights and desires of the parents that are being shown respect. If it is unwanted it can be killed. But either way it's human and its not a flake of skin, parasite, or piece of hair.

Well, it's definitely not a piece of hair, because the hair on our head is in fact not living.

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

So if I deliver my baby in some backwoods mountain forest or swamp and I don't register my child and never sign a birth certificate then my child is not recognized by the law as a person?

Obviously, there needs to be some conditions by which we simply assume "implied personhood". It's not the legal document that makes the difference to me-- it's what the legal document stands for, the child's declared membership in society.

If you "raised" your kid for five years without anyone else knowing he was alive and then killed him, you probably would get away with it-- how would anyone know to accuse you of murder?

And in such a case, wouldn't it be a mercy? The crime you describe is far worse than murder, but the crime was committed a long time before the killing occurred.

... you think I'd get away with it.

I think you'd spend the rest of your life in a hospital for the criminally insane. Which is precisely where you'd belong for doing such a thing.

 

[Korimyr the Rat]

What prochoicers should argue is that yes it's a human being but one who has no rights at all. That's a much harder statement to debate.

I think that's why so many are afraid to do so. People would rather take a moral position that "feels good" than one that makes sense.

If it is wanted it can be treated like a person in respect that a surgeon will perform life saving in utero operations!

Life-saving operations are performed for other living beings with no rights. Veterinary surgeons will perform surgeries for housepets or even for livestock, if the owner prefers it over much cheaper euthanization.

 

[talloulou]

I think you'd spend the rest of your life in a hospital for the criminally insane. Which is precisely where you'd belong for doing such a thing.

Yipeeee Korimyr! We agreed on something in the ABORTION forum.....and people say theres no hope for peace in the middle east!

:rofl :rofl :monkey :rock

 

[vergiss]

:rofl So if I deliver my baby in some backwoods mountain forest or swamp and I don't register my child and never sign a birth certificate then my child is not recognized by the law as a person?

I'm sure if I slaughtered my five year old and proclaimed....hey I never registered the kid, the law didn't legally know about the kid till now, and therefore get off my land and quit with those accusations of murder.....you think I'd get away with it:rofl :rofl

Wow, dude - good job at sounding like you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[talloulou]

Wow, dude - good job at sounding like you don't know what you're talking about.

Why 'cause I suggested that perhaps a birth certificate wasn't the best way to decide when someone becomes a human being?

 

[talloulou]

Are we really 50/50 on when a human being becomes a human being. Are we really that confused over high school biology?????? Geez I knew there was a problem with the dumbing down of america but come on!

 

[vergiss]

Why 'cause I suggested that perhaps a birth certificate wasn't the best way to decide when someone becomes a human being?

Nice job of twisting what was said, too.

 

[FallingPianos]

lets make this more complicated...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twin

Parasitic twins are a variation on conjoined twins—except one of the twins stopped developing during gestation and is now vestigial to a healthy, otherwise mostly fully-formed individual twin. They are defined as parasitic, rather than conjoined, by being incompletely formed or wholly dependent on the body functions of the complete fetus...

...Fetus in fetu describes an extremely rare abnormality that involves a fetus getting trapped inside of its twin. It continues to survive as a parasite even past birth by forming an umbilical cord-like structure that leeches its twin's blood supply until it grows so large that it starts to harm the host, at which point doctors usually intervene....

...An acardiac twin, also called the TRAP sequence, is a parasitic twin that fails to develop a head, arms and a heart. The resulting torso survives by leeching blood flow from the surviving normal twin by means of an umbilical cord-like structure, much like a fetus in fetu, except the acardiac twin is not enveloped inside the normal twin's body...

A girl with a parasitic twin:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6998205/

a acardiac twin:
http://www.thefetus.net/page.php?id=1146

more images at link

a fetus in fetu
http://www.thefetus.net/page.php?id=289

more images at link




I'm sure you'll love these, steen. :2wave:

 

[talloulou]

lets make this more complicated...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twin

I hope that's not your attempt at proving that all unborn fetuses are parasites. Anyway that's an abnormality where one twin leeches from the other causing great harm. The one twin didn't create or produce the other twin. Sometimes one twin completely absorbs another leaving nothing! It certainly does not prove STEENS claim that all unborn babies are parasites or parasitic.

 

[FallingPianos]

I hope that's not your attempt at proving that all unborn fetuses are parasites.

it certainly is not.

Anyway that's an abnormality where one twin leeches from the other causing great harm. The one twin didn't create or produce the other twin. Sometimes one twin completely absorbs another leaving nothing! It certainly does not prove STEENS claim that all unborn babies are parasites or parasitic.

very true.

I do think though, that cases like these make it necessary to form a more precise definition of a human being. a parasitic twins were at one point a zygote, and they are "alive" in the sense that they are not dead. under the definition of a human being used by most of the pro-lifers on this forum and myself, a parasitic twin would be a human being.

 

[talloulou]

it certainly is not.



very true.

I do think though, that cases like these make it necessary to form a more precise definition of a human being. a parasitic twins were at one point a zygote, and they are "alive" in the sense that they are not dead. under the definition of a human being used by most of the pro-lifers on this forum and myself, a parasitic twin would be a human being.

Well I would think that of course both twins are human beings. Obviously something went horribly wrong but that doesn't make them less human. Just like if a women delivers a stillborn or has a spontaneous abortion.....there was a developing human being but it died. Usually the parasitic twin is completely absorbed and no one knows it ever existed. Ever seen those weird pictures where a tumor was removed and the tumor has teeth and hair and stuff? But I don't think we exclude deformities, even massive ones, from the definition of human being. Most parasitic twins don't survive and sometimes one has to be purposely killed to save the other as is the case sometimes with conjoined twins. But just cause it horrifies our sensabilities does not mean it's not a human being.