Re: Why Abortion is WRONG! It is Just THIS Simple...
AH HA!!! YOU ADMIT IT IS A LIFE! GAME...SET...MATCH!!!
What type of environment it is able to survive in is not relevant. You admitted it is a life. I win.
It doesn't matter...I still win.
There is a difference between each, that is why each stage of LIFE has a different name. Just like we label children infants, toddlers, preteens, etc. Labels do not negate life.
Actually, no, you don't win. I've never said a human zygote is not alive or not a living human entity, because it is.
But I have said that a human zygote is not necessarily a member of the species Homo s. sapiens, and neither is a human blastocyst, a human embryo, or a human fetus.
The species of a specimen can be determined rather easily in most cases even though there are quite a few scientific species concepts and no single species concept is considered by all scientists to be completely satisfactory. But species membership is a very different problem.
Thus, whether the specimen is a human zygote, a human embryo, a human fetus, a human liver, or some human skin tissue, the fact that it is human can be determined and by more than one criterion (not just the genetic criterion), which would therefore pass muster with the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). We can also determine whether these specimens are alive or dead, because it is possible to claim that a human liver is dead or living, that human skin cells are dead or living. But so what?
To claim that any of those specimens are actual members of the species Homo s. sapiens is much more problematic, because membership in a species is ordinarily decided on more than genetics. It also is by the standard biological species concept based on various characteristics of the mature organism or, at least, the free-living larval state.
First, we would have to agree that placental mammalian zygotes~blastocysts are living placental mammalian organisms. I honestly can't make that claim unequivocally. Living organisms have certain characteristics that these entities can be claimed not to have up to the point of implantation, such as response to outside stimuli and internal organizational complexity.
Second, it is apparent to everyone that the placental mammalian zygote~blastocyst stage and the embryonic and fetal stages do not actually equate to the free-living larval state of an organism of any species.
The placental mammalian zygote/blastocyst can't continue in a free-living state and still develop to the point of acquiring the characteristics of mature placental mammalian organisms. In a free-living state, it dies before going through organogenesis.
Furthermore, an implanted placental mammalian embryo or fetus is not in a free-living state at all because of its implanted state in a mature organism of the same species. It is by remaining in that implanted state that it continues to live and grow, or, rather, the mature organism makes it continue to live and grows it, and if the mature organism has not sufficiently developed it, it has no capacity for a free-living state.
For me, when a fetus attains viability, that means it has a probable capacity for a free-living state even though its clearly not finished being developed by the mature organism, so fetal viability could reasonably be treated as nearly equal to free-living larval state even though the fetus isn't actually in a free-living state yet. Whereas at birth, it obviously exhibits the free-living characteristic as well as other characteristics used when claiming a specimen is an actual member of its species.
I honestly think you have misunderstand what the proponents of opposed sides are arguing here.
The issue isn't, and has never been, that a zygote or embryo or fetus is not alive. We all acknowledge all the unborn stages to involve human life in the scientific sense except where it can be determined that, e.g., the embryo is dead.
Rather, the issue is whether personhood can be unequivocally recognized. And that requires more than human life, because my skin or kidney can exhibit human life. It requires being unequivocally a member of the human species as in the state of the mature organism or at the very least the equivalent of a free-living larval state. It requires that because only then can it exhibit those characteristics that we associate with the humanity by which we dare to claim that our species is capable of living in a way that makes us very distinct from other species in behavioral terms.
We do not give other animals rights as persons because we do not think they are capable of handling the responsibilities that go with the rights. Technically, there are some chimpanzees who would be more capable of controlling their behavior to accord with personhood rights/responsibilities than some born children, because this ultimately depends on minimum IQ and not just the capacity for sentience and consciousness.
We choose to ignore that problem and take a very liberal view that includes all of the humans born, even the anencephalic, in our assertion of rights as persons. But just as "free-living" has been considered a required characteristic for membership in our species, so it has been considered a required characteristic for what we call personhood and the rights related to personhood.
The only kinds of case where this issue comes up apart from that of pregnancy and the unborn are those concerning conjoined twins.
One kind of case is where there are two heads sharing one body, whether the body is formed so that two bodies are in a biologically joined state or it is formed as virtually one body with two heads. As long as each head has sufficient capacity to sustain the body without the efforts of the other head (i.e., each has a brain stem, capacity to take in oxygen from air or medical equipment, and capacity to take in nutrients), and each has a brain, then each has a claim to the body and each is recognized as a person. When these capacities are lacking in one head, it is considered a "parasitic" head and is not recognized as a person.
Another kind of case is where a complete body with a head (including brain) that can sustain the body, the "host twin," completely contains a partly developed body, with or without a partly developed head, the "parasitic twin," that is implanted in the tissue of that complete body and depends on the latter biologically for its survival. In this case, only the host twin is recognized as a person and the parasitic twin is ordinarily removed as a health hazard. Biologically self-sustaining, e.g., capable of "free-living," is the characteristic associated with personhood here.
So the issue has never been about mere human life, and that's why the Supreme Court said what it did in Roe v Wade. The issue has been something else.
Liberty and life are both inherent characteristics of free-living organisms whether one is considering a mature or larval specimen. Free-living human beings are created equal and endowed with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because they in fact have life and liberty already, and with sentience they also have the pursuit of happiness automatically. But a human embryo doesn't have liberty as an inherent characteristic. If "freed" from the woman's body, it dies, because it is not capable of "free-living."
To me, demanding that one of these embryos be treated equally with a "free-living" person demeans every person or human capable of the free-living state.
Life is not everything. It is not THE right on which all others are based. Etc. You people have no respect for or appreciation of what you and other persons actually have in being "free-living." Aghhhhhh!!!
