If you believe?

[msc545]

If you believe that life begins at conception, then how is outlawing the destruction of fertilized frozen empryos different than outlawing murder?

If you DON'T believe that life begins at conception, then when do you think it begins, and most importantly, why do you believe that it happens at a different time?

Updates

+1 y

So far nobody is really addressing the question. Is it too complicated or something?

[goaded]

Every cell is alive. It takes more than that to be a person, especially a person whose rights outweigh the rights of another person.

People have human rights, not cells.

In my opinion, viability (the compromise Roe v. Wade struck) was not terrible; an earlier limit could be justified on the basis of suffering, but only if there are no impediments to procuring an abortion by someone who wants one. You shouldn't get to legislatively delay an elective abortion only to then say it's too late to have one. (The "health" system that requires people to pay for abortions can also have the same effect; the price of an abortion goes up the later it is, not being able to afford one leads to more suffering.)

Six weeks (which is timed from the previous period, so just two weeks "late") is inhumane and often before someone's aware that they might be pregnant. This is, of course, by design.

That covers the vast majority of abortions. Then there are end-of-life decisions for loved ones. A wanted but non-viable pregnancy should be treated in such a way as to minimise suffering of all concerned. That does not include forcing someone to give birth to a baby that is already dead, or will suffer for a few hours or days before dying, any more than families should be forced to keep a loved one on life support after there's no chance of recovery.

I also think that it's insane to cry murder for use of the pill, the morning after pill, IUDs and other contraceptive methods that prevent implantation, not to mention disposal of IVF embryos.

Is every miscarriage going to be called manslaughter or illegal disposal of human remains now?

[msc545]

So what exactly is your definition of a person and why do you hold that definition? Why isn't being alive enough?

[goaded]

The qualifications "living, breathing..." rings a bell. There's no clear point when personhood begins, just like there's no clear point when an acorn becomes a tree.

[goaded]

I know this isn't a person:

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I'm in the camp that thinks a lot of the value here is human attachment. If my wife gets pregnant, it is not a "fetus" or "parasite" growing inside of her; it's our "future child". A couple might be attached the same way to a fertilized embryo.

On "murder", to me the reason to outlaw homicide is to protect public safety. I might be able to invite someone to my home who has had an abortion or destroyed a frozen embryo without perceiving a threat. I wouldn't do that to someone who has just stabbed an innocent person with a knife; such a person might need to be placed behind bars to protect public safety. I'm against abortion but for different reasons than conflating it with murder.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I like this joke from Bill Burr!
www.youtube.com/shorts/Jj3cE-i27jc?feature=share

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I don't quite have the same pro-choice view as him; I lean pro-life. Yet I deeply agree with the point about the oven. The potential for something to become a baby when left alone is enough for me and I suspect many other responsible people to develop the same degree of attachment they would for a baby fully-formed, and so I think people debating about things like the sentience of a fetus at various stages are missing the point.

There's something messed up and wrong with a society as I see it that cannot become attached to a future baby and even to the point where they want to call it a "parasite". That's really messed up and I think a sign of a very sick society.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

In response to the update, I would say life begins the moment someone takes responsibility over it.

[msc545]

What does responsibility mean in this context?

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Generally I'm allergic to the utilitarian notion that all lives should be weighted equally in utility/value since I think it ignores varying degrees of responsibility that individuals have to each other.

So, for a blatant example, I don't think a parent should prioritize let alone weigh equally the life of a complete stranger over their own child. Their own child should take priority since they have the ultimate responsibility for the well-being of the child. When that child becomes an adult, that responsibility shifts to the adult having the ultimate responsibility over themselves.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

To tie this back to this context, I see a never-ending debate about the nature of the morula, embryo, fetus, at various stages of development. I have no answer here to resolve it. What I can say is that if my wife were to become pregnant, both of us would feel responsible for the resulting life as soon as she discovered she was pregnant. For me, that suffices to constitute something that has not only the value of a regular human life, but beyond to the value of a child from the perspective of a parent.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Value is ultimately subjective as I see it. As a most extreme example, suppose a man lives entirely off the grid. He's homeless and lives in the wild, has no loved ones, no family, no friends. The value of his life as I see it will then be entirely up to how much he values it and takes responsibility for it and no one else, as there's no one else taking responsibility for his well-being. If he doesn't value his life at all, then I would say his life has become worthless because no one values it and no one takes responsibility over it.

The ultimate question from my perspective with pro life vs. pro choice isn't what constitutes a human life. I see no resolution that will lead to anything close to a unanimous agreement.

From my perspective, it's ultimately, "should anyone take responsibility over a fertilized human egg?" I lean towards pro-life since I think the answer is, "yes", at least for those involved in its fertilization. At least if all of us said "no", we'd be working towards extinction. If we answer "yes", then something as valuable as a child (to the would-be parents) begins at conception.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

There's a big reason I frame this way and apologies for my long-windedness; this does at least seem to be a very unconventional approach to this debate that I've never seen anyone else attempt so I'm still working on summarizing my argument better.

A very common argument of those on the pro-choice side is that pro-lifers don't actually care much about lives beyond conception. They have a point if we assume utilitarian ethics; most pro-lifers seem to be against providing refuge for illegal immigrants, for example. If we're supposed to prioritize all lives equally, then it should not matter whether a person is a citizen of our nation or not.

Yet my argument counters theirs because I am not pro-life from a utilitarian perspective; I am pro-life from a subjective responsibility perspective.

If we look at the value of any life: zygote or fetus or embryo or fully-formed human, as defined by the responsibility we place over it, then it makes no sense to expect people of a nation to be responsible for the lives of people from other nations who enter their nation illegally. That's not their responsibility.

It does make sense for would-be parents of a would-be child to take responsibility over the would-be child. That is their responsibility, or at least I'd argue that it should be their responsibility. This is why I frame things in terms of responsibility. I find utilitarian ethics impractical and actually unethical. Ethics to me centers around individual responsibility, not the idea that all human lives are of equal worth to everyone.

[LazerBean]

I do believe that life begins at conception, and I do not think that outlawing the destruction of frozen embryos is any different than outlawing murder. I fully support what Alabama has done.

[msc545]

You get an MHO for this because so far you ar the only person who answered the question.

[Agape93]

I consider you alive, once you're born and separated from the mother. Otherwise you're no more alive than a kidney in my eyes.

[msc545]

Why do you have to be separated from the mother in order to be alive?

[Agape93]

Because until then, you're not a separate being, liberally. You're literally a part of her body.

[msc545]

No, you are not a part in the body. You are just growing in there. It's different. Saying you are a part of the body is like saying food in the stomach is a part of the body. Obviously it is not.

[Agape93]

It's physically attached to you, it is taking nutrients from you. Food is not physically attached to you.

[msc545]

So being physically attached is the indicator of life? What happens when it detaches?

[Agape93]

When you detach, you are now a singular being, and alive.

[msc545]

Why?

[msc545]

The whole thing about needing to be attached seems to be just an arbitrary distinction on your part that you possibly made up specifically for this question. I've never heard it before and I don't understand why it's important or not.

By this logic, a person who is temporarily attached to another person for purposes of a primitive blood transfusion is alive until they get detached from that person and then according to your logic, they are dead. I don't think I have to tell you how absurd this is.

[exitseven]

The embryo thing is a stretch. However this is what the Supreme Court envisioned. The states can have the authority over abortions. Evidently this is what people in Alabama wanted and they change their minds they can vote in a different legislature and change the policy.

I do not know when a clump of cells become a living organism. I imagine that there is some kind of scientific way to determine it. I bet that the pro abortion crowd will be disappointed.

[slatyb]

We don't protect "life", we protect conscious beings.

[slatyb]

We don't know when human consciousness begins. We know that it's not before 24 weeks of gestation.