Abortion...what should be the line?

Originally posted by no1marauder
I did. Dr. Hardin doesn't agree with your assertion regarding "human beings" specifically that a fetus is one. Live with it, jerkwad.

LOL. Go back and read it again. Will Dr. Hardin disagree that fetuses are organisms of the species Homo sapiens sapiens?

Originally posted by no1marauder
Gee, I though it was only for a "specific legal purpose". Change your "mind"?

Your baseless assertion aside, it was meant to define death for all purposes.

Gee, I thought you were smarter than that. What is legitimate action in a hospital is a legal issue.

Continue putting the law at the pinnacle of intellectual activity if you want. There's nothing I can do if a person thinks the law takes priority over science, philosophy and other spheres of human endeavour.

There's a name for such a position -- fascism.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Gee, I thought you were smarter than that. What is legitimate action in a hospital [b]is a legal issue.

Continue putting the law at the pinnacle of intellectual activity if you want. There's nothing I can do if a person thinks the law takes priority over science, philosophy and other spheres of human endeavour.

There's a name for such a position -- fascism.[/b]

!!!

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Keep lying to everyone.

!!!

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Gee, I thought you were smarter than that. What is legitimate action in a hospital [b]is a legal issue.

Continue putting the law at the pinnacle of intellectual activity if you want. There's nothing I can do if a person thinks the law takes priority over science, philosophy and other spheres of human endeavour.

There's a name for such a position -- fascism.[/b]

Again, you're doing nothing but deliberately lying. As pointed out several times, the law evolved to meet the changes desired by the medical community, not the other way around. You insist on pretending otherwise because it destroys your position.

EDIT: Here's an article giving the history which easily refutes your baseless claims:

When does a human life end? This question used to be answered quite easily. According to the traditional standard, which has only recently been questioned, a human being is dead when her heart and lungs have irreversibly ceased to function. In some cases, permanent loss of consciousness may precede cardiopulmonary failure. But the interval between these two events has typically been a matter of hours or days, and the traditional standard regards only the latter event as definitive.

Today, however, the development of mechanical respirators, electronic pacemakers, and other medical technologies has created the possibility of a greater temporal separation between various system failures -- a patient may lose consciousness a decade or more before his heart and lungs fail, for example. Meanwhile, interest in the availability of transplantable organs has provided an incentive not to delay unnecessarily in determining that a person has died. (Current law, it need hardly be said, embraces the so-called "dead-donor rule": organs necessary for life may not be procured before donors are dead, since the removal of such organs would otherwise cause death -- that is, kill the donors -- violating laws against homicide.)

....................

One way to approach the issue of defining death is to consider it from a biological perspective. The concept of death applies not only to humans, but also to nonhuman animals and plants; it is a biological fact that all organisms live and die. In asking what death is, then, it seems logical to ask what is common to all instances of death. The answer will provide the core meaning of the term "death."

What happens when a human, dog, squid, bee, or tulip dies? In each case, the organism breaks down in a fundamental way. Particular systems may break down before others, and the events from the first major system failure to eventual putrefaction clearly involve a process. But somewhere in the continuum that includes both dying and disintegration, the organism as a whole ceases to function. Charles Culver and Bernard Gert have helpfully defined death as "the permanent cessation of functioning of the organism as a whole." The phrase "organism as a whole" does not mean literally the entire organism (since loss of a limb or spleen, say, is compatible with life); it refers to the integrated functioning of most or all of the important subsystems (organ subsystems, in the case of all but the most primitive animals). This, roughly, is the core meaning of "death" as seen from a biological perspective.

Both of the currently recognized standards of death are arguably compatible with this organismic concept. Under the cardiopulmonary standard, death occurs when a patient's heart and lungs have permanently ceased to function -- that is to say, when they no longer support each other or other organ systems. Under the whole-brain standard, a patient is dead when her brainstem no longer orchestrates her vital functions. In either case, the appeal is to the role of a particular organ or system in the functioning of the organism as a whole.

http://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/IPPP/winter98/biology_consciousness.htm


Perfectly logical and consistent with biological and medical knowledge.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
LOL. Go back and read it [b]again. Will Dr. Hardin disagree that fetuses are organisms of the species Homo sapiens sapiens?[/b]

He will and does disagree that that is sufficient to make it a human being. Keep reading what you wrote and what he wrote and maybe you'll get it.

EDIT: You probably won't, so I'll break it down for you. Your argument runs:

Premise 1: A human being is an organism of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.

Premise 2: An embyro and zygote is an organism of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.

Therefore, an embyro and zygote is a human being.

Mr. Hardin disputes Premise 1 is a proper definition (the condition may be necessary but it is not sufficient) and thus the conclusion.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Again, you're doing nothing but deliberately lying. As pointed out several times, the law evolved to meet the changes desired by the medical community, not the other way around. You insist on pretending otherwise because it destroys your position.

EDIT: Here's an article giving the history which easily refutes your baseless claims:

When doe
Perfectly logical and consistent with biological and medical knowledge.

For a guy who claims that another person's intent is unknowable (in the "Killing to Protect the Unborn" thread) you seem to think you know what my intent is ("deliberately lying" ). Did you develop telepathic powers while I was away? LOL

Thanks for providing the excerpts from the article. It actually helps my case. The death of an organism can actually be defined as the break-down of integral functioning of the organism. Clearly, the integral functioning of a human being kept alive on artificial life support hasn't broken down yet. It may very well break down if he's taken off the support -- but it hasn't broken down yet. From a biological standpoint, a brain-dead person on life-support is still alive.

Which is somewhat off-topic for what started this sub-thread -- your blatant misuse of legislation intended for the medical community as providing a philosophical basis for what defines a human being.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
For a guy who claims that another person's intent is unknowable (in the "Killing to Protect the Unborn" thread) you seem to think you know what my intent is ("deliberately lying"😉. Did you develop telepathic powers while I was away? LOL

Thanks for providing the excerpts from the article. It actually helps my case. The death of an organism ca may very well break down if he's taken off the support -- but it hasn't broken down yet.

It doesn't take telepathy to see that you're dishonest, ill-informed and yet still arrogant.

Only an idiot would "think" that an article showing that a human being's death is defined by the cessation of systems that a zygote/embyro doesn't possess helps the case that a zygote/embyro is a human being.

EDIT: You're obviously having reading comprehension difficulties; a brain dead human being i.e. one with no brain activity at all is dead according to the medical definition given.

Originally posted by no1marauder
He will and does disagree that that is sufficient to make it a human being. Keep reading what you wrote and what he wrote and maybe you'll get it.

EDIT: You probably won't, so I'll break it down for you. Your argument runs:

Premise 1: A human being is an organism of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.

Premise 2: An embyro and zygote is an organis ...[text shortened]... definition (the condition may be necessary but it is not sufficient) and thus the conclusion.

Mr. Hardin may dispute Premise 1, but he can't do so in his capacity as a biologist. Sure, he can do so as a philosopher, or a political activist or an abortion rights activist. But not as a biologist. The biologist's fundamental frame of reference is the organism.

Originally posted by no1marauder
It doesn't take telepathy to see that you're dishonest, ill-informed and yet still arrogant.

Only an idiot would "think" that an article showing that a human being's death is defined by the cessation of systems that a zygote/embyro doesn't possess helps the case that a zygote/embyro is a human being.

Only a dishonest, ill-informed, arrogant, pompous and rude person like you would argue that a law aimed at the practical applications of the trade of medicine in society provides a philosophical basis for what a human being is.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Only a dishonest, ill-informed, arrogant, pompous and rude person like you would argue that a law aimed at the practical applications of the trade of medicine in society provides a philosophical basis for what a human being is.

You keep ignoring that the law came from the medical definition, not the other way around. And you keep ignoring why the medical definition evolved. And you ignore these things because they spell finis to your argument.

It's perfectly logical to argue that a medical definition which describes systems that, when they fail, cause the death of a human being is describing systems which are necessary for the existence of a human being.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
Mr. Hardin may dispute Premise 1, but he can't do so in his capacity as a biologist. Sure, he can do so as a philosopher, or a political activist or an abortion rights activist. But not as a biologist. The biologist's fundamental frame of reference is the organism.

The point he makes is that Premise 1 is not a scientific one. But you know that and try to pretend otherwise.

Originally posted by no1marauder
You keep ignoring that the law came from the medical defintion, not the other way around. And you keep ignoring why the medical definition evolved. And you ignore these things because they spell finis to your argument.

On the contrary, it is you who is ignoring why the medical definition evolved (and turning it into a philosophical one). It was, to put it quite simply, because medicine is a practical science. The new definition of death was introduced because of social and legal concerns -- not biological ones.

You keep conflating these issues because they spell finis to your "argument" (which is quite meaningless anyhow -- as I pointed out, a dead cow would also qualify with your logic).

Originally posted by no1marauder
The point he makes is that Premise 1 is not a scientific one. But you know that and try to pretend otherwise.

In a certain sense, you're right. The definition of a term is a matter of linguistics and essentially reflects how it is used.

Then again, most biologists do use "human" or "human being" in precisely the way I said:

http://web.mit.edu/king-lab/www/research/protein%20definitions-H.html (scroll down to find "Homo sapiens" )

You can find more examples for yourself by Googling "homo sapiens definition".

As I said earlier, most pro-abortion philosophers are simply happy to distinguish between "human beings" and "human persons" (the latter being the object of human rights) and move on. Some people (like yourself and Dr. Hardin) are discomfited by the fact that this means that some human beings do not have rights and so need to try and redefine what the term means.

Originally posted by lucifershammer
On the contrary, it is [b]you who is ignoring why the medical definition evolved (and turning it into a philosophical one). It was, to put it quite simply, because medicine is a practical science. The new definition of death was introduced because of social and legal concerns -- not biological ones.

You keep conflating thes ...[text shortened]... quite meaningless anyhow -- as I pointed out, a dead cow would also qualify with your logic).[/b]

That's quite simply false as shown by the article. The prior definition became inadequate when technology was introduced which could keep someone breathing or a heart beating by artificial means for an indefinite period. You are putting the cart before the horse; the new definition had ramifications (though it need not have been codified into law and indeed was not for quite a few years) but it was not because of its societal ramifications that it became the standard MEDICAL definition. And as clearly shown, the definition is perfectly consistent with biological reality.

Your "dead cow" point was shown to be moronic and remains so.