As if your head wasn't hurting enough....life/death

I'm gonna go with:

1.  Depends entirely on your own viewpoints on the existence of a soul and what being a "person" is.  I can see how this gets debated fiercely, but I can't see how anybody really ever changes another's mind about it.

2.  Whenever they're admitted to the hospital on my service. 

Somewhere between Mile 19 and 20.

Thanks for repeating what he just said. Bravo on padding the post count.

This is where I'll disagree with both you and Jim.  Death is an absolute thing.  You're either dead or alive.  Dying is a made up concept.

<snirk>

Too heavy.  Does not compute.  Please refer to peanut butter or alpaca thread to clear the system. 

So much for the fun philosphy exercise. Killjoy. 

I'm here to extinguish all forms of entertainment, joy, and happiness.

I should go to work now and spread that around.

Must you always put it in our faces that you're a Dr.? Geez.

No.  I sleep on occasion.

People were supposed to teach me how to do this?

I'll try to answer the first question.

We need to separate this question into two parts. The first is: when does biological human life begin. The second is: when does human personhood begin.

Just a short definition of what I mean by personhood: The Founders of the US said in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

When Jefferson wrote about self-evident rights that we humans are endowed with, he was talking about Natural Law . Natural Laws are those laws which, in general, one does not need to be taught. They are written on the heart. They are true independent of any religious institution claiming that they are true. People often have the mistaken notion that Natural Law refers to the Law of the Jungle, or to the way that animals act in the wild. That is not what is meant by Natural Law.

Natural Law can be understood through reason. It is a concept that everyone can come to understand regardless of their reigious beliefs. An entity that possess Natural Law is in a state of being that I would call personhood.

The importance of understanding Natural Law in the abortion debate is that it supercedes any religious argument that you might bring to the table. I believe in religious freedom. Everyone has the right (itself based in Natural Law) to freely express their religious beliefs, or to profess no religion or belief in a god at all.

If the abortion quesion was merely a religious one, then I would be the first to agree that I have no right to bring my religious beliefs to the table and try to force them on others. But, I think it's clear that there is a very compelling non-religious argument to make that says that abortion ought to be illegal, and that argument is based in Natural Law.

OK, so if we parse the abortion question out into two parts, one being when does biological life begin and two when does personhood begin, where does that leave us.

First the question of biological life. It seems quite clear that every animal begins it's biological life at conception. Just take this self test: when would you say that a dog's life begins. How about a chicken?

I have friends who are vegetarians. They will eat eggs, but will not eat fertilized eggs. Why? Because they believe that at fertilization, the egg changes it's nature and becomes, biologically, a chicken.

Our biological life begins at conception. Right now, I am a 48 year old man with plantar fasciitis. At one point I was a sixteen year old boy on a championship football team. At another point I was a five year old boy. Before that, a baby. Before that, a fetus. Before that, an embryo.

Embryos are human beings in the embryonic stage of life.

OK, but the next question is: When does personhood begin? When does a biological human being possess rights that supercede the rights of its mother to do what she wants with her body? Or, when does a biological human being possess rights that supercede a scientist's right to further scientific knowledge?

For that, there is no empirical evidence. There is no point in the development of a biological human being at which you can say: before this point it does not have personhood, and after this point it does have personhood.

The only point at which we can be 100% sure that a human being does not have personhood is precisely at the moment before conception, which is the moment before it becomes a biological human being. Any point after this point of conception opens up the possibility that the human being possesses personhood.

I believe that what I've laid out is the basic outline for the non-religious argument of why abortion ought to be illegal.

The interesting thing is that any argument that says that we ought to move the point of personhood somewhere down the line of development from conception, for example at the point of a certain kind of brain activity, is itself a kind of religious argument.

It requires that I take a leap of faith and believe that, again for example at the beginning of brain activity, at this magical point a human being suddenly becomes a human person.

Well, to throw the argument back at those who would say this I say: show me. Show me the empirical evidence that this is the point at which we become human persons.

Lacking that empirical evidence, we need to assume the possibility that a human being is a human person at conception. And, lacking that empirical evidence, we need to protect that being with law.

How about instead of legislating morality, we simply teach it in our homes and churches?

Edit: admiditedly, that's sentiment sounds funny coming from a hairy guy in a Speedo offering you a drink.

I have to admit that this is an issue that I am conflicted on.  While I do believe intuitively that life begins at conception, I also think that viability outside the womb should also be factored into the equation.  I do feel that abortion can be justified if there is a threat to the health of the mother and the fetus would not be viable.  However, this certainly gets more complicated as medical science advances and the threshold of viability is pushed back further and further back.

And what happens if science is someday able to produce a true test-tube baby? One that does not even need a human womb to grow and develop, only a donated egg and sperm?  Would such a person be  less "human" than one naturally conceived and borne?