A couple of weeks back one of the The Hand Mirror sent a letter to the Herald protesting their use of a picture of an unborn baby smiling, for she believed it was physically impossible and that the Herald was displaying an inaccurate picture of an unborn baby smiling when it couldn't possibly do so.
When I pointed out that it is actually physically possible for an unborn baby to smile, and in fact more likely the younger the baby is, and could even be quite possibly evidence of a dream-state and that both my babies had smiled from a very young age even before it was supposedly physically possible, I got a very nasty reply. Apparently I was "trolling" and I should really leave them alone, as they leave us alone.
But they leave us alone not because of respect, but because when you have a morally indefensible position it's very difficult to argue. And abortion is hardly morally indefensible. The best you can do with it is argue it from selfishness, ie my body, my choice. Hardly moral.
Now, in their latest post yet more hissing and spiting over people daring to hold the opinion that the unborn baby is human. But, with the qualifier of "fully developed".
Of course a fetus isn't fully developed. It wouldn't be a fetus if it was fully developed. If people are arguing that unborn babies are fully developed human beings it's because they don't have a toolkit of the exact terminology that should be used in the debate. But if you think about it, a baby isn't fully developed either. What age does a human being get to before they are fully developed - eighteen, twenty-five?
However, a fetus is fully human, that is a biological fact. It's not a kitten or a puppy or a walnut, it's a human being. There is no point at which it is not human. To get all upset at people thinking a fetus is a "fully developed human being" is to get upset that people see the fetus as human at all.
The last lot that redefined human beings as non-humans and sub-humans so that those human beings could be killed were defeated in WW2. That pro-abortionists hold similar views on the lack of humanity of unborn babies shows just how inhuman they themselves have become. No wonder they don't like us talking to them.
Related link: Abortion and the Ick Factor ~ The Hand Mirror
When I pointed out that it is actually physically possible for an unborn baby to smile, and in fact more likely the younger the baby is, and could even be quite possibly evidence of a dream-state and that both my babies had smiled from a very young age even before it was supposedly physically possible, I got a very nasty reply. Apparently I was "trolling" and I should really leave them alone, as they leave us alone.
But they leave us alone not because of respect, but because when you have a morally indefensible position it's very difficult to argue. And abortion is hardly morally indefensible. The best you can do with it is argue it from selfishness, ie my body, my choice. Hardly moral.
Now, in their latest post yet more hissing and spiting over people daring to hold the opinion that the unborn baby is human. But, with the qualifier of "fully developed".
What astonished me was the lack of simple biological knowledge that many arguing against abortion displayed. Things like the so-called fact that a fetus at seven weeks' gestation (i.e. roughly 5 weeks after conception) is a fully developed human being.
Of course a fetus isn't fully developed. It wouldn't be a fetus if it was fully developed. If people are arguing that unborn babies are fully developed human beings it's because they don't have a toolkit of the exact terminology that should be used in the debate. But if you think about it, a baby isn't fully developed either. What age does a human being get to before they are fully developed - eighteen, twenty-five?
However, a fetus is fully human, that is a biological fact. It's not a kitten or a puppy or a walnut, it's a human being. There is no point at which it is not human. To get all upset at people thinking a fetus is a "fully developed human being" is to get upset that people see the fetus as human at all.
The last lot that redefined human beings as non-humans and sub-humans so that those human beings could be killed were defeated in WW2. That pro-abortionists hold similar views on the lack of humanity of unborn babies shows just how inhuman they themselves have become. No wonder they don't like us talking to them.
Related link: Abortion and the Ick Factor ~ The Hand Mirror
Interesting that they only way they can justify their position is to lie about both the nature of an unborn baby, and the motives of those that oppose them.
ReplyDeleteYep, they have no defensible position.
ReplyDeleteWhen the dust ultimately settles, people like this are really quite happy to let women have the choice to kill off a new born baby for some reason.
Human life is really what grates with them, not the "stages" of development.
What I don't understand is why people who are pro-choice think their position is good for women. Whilst bodily autonomy is good, it isn't good when a mother sets about destroying her own child. So much of female experience is about motherhood, abortion actively destroys the relationship between mother and child.
ReplyDeleteI have read someone on The Hand Mirror (I forget who said it) say that a foetus was analagous to a parasite - that just upset me so much.
Muerk,
ReplyDeleteThat parasite link goes back to one of their feminists in the 70's. The infamous violinist example where a person wakes up tied to a bed, supporting a famous violinist who would die if he were unplugged from the person's body. It's supposed to be analogous to what a baby does to a woman.
I think selfishness blinds people to what they are choosing, that's why these women can think like this and presume it's good for women. Yet they are the ultimate misogynists - they hate being women.
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ReplyDeleteLM - I agree. One aspect of womanhood is the blessing od sharing our very selves with our child. I'm not underestimating the difficulty of a crisis pregnancy, but how can a person's _death_ be better?
ReplyDeleteI have had four high risk pregnancies (I'm not just being idealistic here) but abortion is just wrong. I can understand women being unable to take on parenting a child but that why we have adoption.
However, a fetus is fully human, that is a biological fact
ReplyDeleteWell maybe. But then a skin cell is fully human, you need to establish a few more facts before you can set up your black and white picture.
You want to compare a fetus to a skin cell then? That seems a bit trite, perhaps you could make your point a little clearer, because I can only see pedantry in that comment.
ReplyDeleteAnd I interpret your mention of "black and white" as if black and white is a terrible thing full of bias. Except black and white isn't necessarily that at all.
Take the concept of Dead and Alive.
That's fairly black and white.
An aborted fetus is definitely left dead. Although many argue it was never alive, and never really human. It would seem going from "live" to "dead" is far too black and white for many to admit to.
Sophistry wont cut it David - a skin cell is a fully developed skin cell. the end of the line as far as development goes and a tiny part of the whole
ReplyDeleteAn embryo is the whole and the beginning, if left untampered with, of a unique individual who has never been before nor will ever exist again.
You want to compare a fetus to a skill cell then
ReplyDeleteNo, I just want to point out how stupid making the "biological fact" a fetus is 100% human the basis or a moral claim is.
Andrei,
I agree, the fact an skin cell or an embryo is 100% human isn't enough to make the moral judgement.
"I just want to point out how stupid making the "biological fact" a fetus is 100% human the basis or a moral claim is."
ReplyDeleteThere is an inherent difference between the humanity of a developing human person and a single cell that is part of a human person.
Yeah, so the moral question isn't about whether it's "100% human" (species are actually very hard to define btw...) it's about a potential outcome. So we are back to what point in that process the potential is realised.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to argue that was conception then go for it, but you need a better argument than the embryo is 100% human. That's all I'm saying.
I don't think it is about potential outcome, I think that at the point of conception a new, unique human being is created by the fusing of the egg and sperm. At this point a new, unique DNA blueprint is made and the human being begins to grow and develop.
ReplyDeleteAll human beings (even very new, small ones) are people, all innocent people have a right to life, ergo embryos and foetuses have a right to life.
Well, then you have some more "biological facts" to deal with. Like the fact that quite a few people are chimeras of two embryos.
ReplyDeleteAnd you still have to convince me that an new conceptus is a person (well actually you don't have to do anything to hold your own beliefs, but if you want to convince society that abortion of stem cell research or IVF is wrong you will).
David Winter
ReplyDeleteI don't know where you get your facts from but they are wrong. Fantastically.
Humans are humans from conception, actually from capacitation (when the sperm actually breaks the eggs resistance and enters). The simple fact is that a womans egg dies if not fertilised. If it is fertilised, then it lives and behaves in a completely different way, as if it were something else. AND because it is SO different from the mother, maternal immune compromises must be made. That fact that it might miscarry does not make it any less human, that is why miscarriage is upsetting for a lot of woman. They KNOW what they have lost.
And the parasite argument makes no sense - only a living thing can be a parasite, so it kind of makes an argument against abortion.
Arguments about twins means nothing - they are both human.
Ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny was a fraud - everyone knows that.
Given all the above, if a fertilised egg is not human, what is it? Its not animal. Its not vegetable. And if it wasn't a viable, self-driven existing person, then IVF wouldn't work.
The argument that, from conception humans aren't human, is simply untenable. Humans can't beget something they are not.
And consciousness is not the arbitar of humanity. Otherwise we are not human when we sleep, when hypnotised or when we get knocked out by militant, violent pro-abortionists trying to deny free speech.
The HandMirror likes to think they changed a picture. Bollox. Pictures change on news sites all the time. what they really didn't like was the clear evidence that children are REAL and alive in the womb. Those aging hippies are living in fantasy land.
Biology is proving the lie that is abortion ideology - and its only going to get stronger - I know: I teach medical students and an increasing number believe in the biology of humanity from conception. THATS what scares the pro-abortion ideologues so much.
Mr Tips: if you're correct, many sexually active women have flushed a human being down the toilet at some point without even noticing it. "What passing bells for those who die as blastocysts?"
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you strongly desire to be able to draw a line and make the issue black and white, doesn't make it so.
Mr Tips: if you're correct, many sexually active women have flushed a human being down the toilet at some point without even noticing it. "What passing bells for those who die as blastocysts?"
ReplyDeleteAnd your point is? Woman tend to notice when they miscarry.
The fact that you strongly desire to be able to draw a line and make the issue black and white, doesn't make it so.
Being a vehement anti-semite, you'd know all about that.
PM,
ReplyDeleteWomen are far more likely to flush a human being down the toilet if they are on the pill. Which doesn't make the baby any less human - it just makes the use of the pill completely evil.
Hey tipsy,
ReplyDeleteJust a wee idea you might want to consider: some people read comments before they reply to them and don't instead go off in some strange spiral of non-sequiturs
Er, David, are you on the wrong blog post?
ReplyDeleteNo,
ReplyDeleteHere are some of the things Tips refutes that weren't mentioned before he started his shot-gun replies
*Twins
*"Ontongeny recapitulating phylogeny" ( I suspect he doesn't know what that means, because I can't imagine how it could be releveant)
*Spontaneous miscarriages
*The fetus as a parasite
*PM's antisemitism
David,
ReplyDeleteIt's a pre-emptive reply. Saves all the backwards and forwards stuff that happens on blogs.
You're just annoyed because he makes you look like an idiot. All that crap about skin cells being equivalent to a unique human being and all ...
David
ReplyDeleteyou bought the twins up
to the rest
wot Lucia said
And your point is? Woman tend to notice when they miscarry.
ReplyDeleteThey certainly do. Whether they notice when a "human being" fails to implant in the uterus and disappears with the rest of the menstrual fluid is another matter.
The point is this: a little clump of cells isn't a human being. People instinctively know this. When my wife miscarried at 28 weeks, we experienced the death of a human being. The dead child was given a name and a funeral, and I have a photo of us with her body. Our children are aware they have a sister who died and know her name. By comparison, we lost two others at very early stages of the pregnancy - in these cases, there was no grief, no funeral, just disappointment at a failed process and a determination to make another attempt. Trying to nominate a particular point in that process where your view changes from it involving a blob of cells to it involving a baby is necessarily arbitrary, and your wish that it were otherwise doesn't make that the case.
Being a vehement anti-semite, you'd know all about that.
Not only a non-sequitur, but a bizarre one.
Tips,
ReplyDeleteI didn't mention twins I mentionde chimerism. Some unique beings are made up from cells from two blastocysts. If each conceptus is a human then are such people in fact two people?
I never said that a skin cell was a unique human being, in fact my point was that it's obviously isn't a unique human being but it's still 100% human. Just like Tips' idea, simple rules like that seldom work.
As an aside, doesn't this smack of "scientism" to you guys? Using science to frame moral debates. Aren't you usually against that?
David
ReplyDeleteYou might have an interesting posit if two people were formed in a chimera, but....the next logical posit is twins... ad nauseum
Its not scientism, its looking at reality.
PM
Trying to nominate a particular point in that process where your view changes from it involving a blob of cells to it involving a baby is necessarily arbitrary, and your wish that it were otherwise doesn't make that the case.
I appreciate the sadness of your loss at 28 weeks but in reality, it was just the same for the earlier miscarriages you and your
wife had to go through. It is just as sad and you recognise that in a different way. Incidentally, you have actually just presented the "quickening" argument from Aquinas, which he developed from an incomplete understanding of biology (not his fault).
Because the physical constraints of biology make later miscarriages physically and visually more difficult to bear, does not make the children who die in earlier miscarriages any less real. They are just as human and modern ultrasound etc. is revealing that in ways Aquinas could never have imagined.
...in reality, it was just the same for the earlier miscarriages you and your wife had to go through. It is just as sad...
ReplyDeleteI can assure you with the confidence of direct personal experience that this is not the case.
PM - I'm sorry for your loss. Miscarriage is deeply sad.
ReplyDeleteWhen my fourth child was very little they thought I had miscarried him, I was only a few weeks pregnant but I was bleeding and they wanted to check so I got a scan. He was alive, his little heart was beating and he was about the size of a bean. For _me_ had I miscarried it would have been the death of my child and I would have felt it as such even though he was very new.
Time does not confer humanity, humanity is inherent in the human condition.
Just a wee idea you might want to consider: some people read comments before they reply to them and don't instead go off in some strange spiral of non-sequiturs
ReplyDeleteYes I read Mr Tips comments too. It seems to me that rather than address the issue you attack the person. Strange? Really? Standard procedure really.
The point is this: a little clump of cells isn't a human being.
ReplyDeleteNo, and no again. Humans beget humans, not not a clump of cells. As muerk pointed out, human DNA is never anything other than human DNA. Cells contain the human DNA, not any other type of DNA, and not no DNA, and therefore your sentence is a logical contradiction...
a little clump of human DNA isn't a human being