I love how liberals are all for slaughtering babies in the womb, but they protest against the death penalty.

Black Adam on October 14, 2008 at 2:07 AM

That’s irony.

In any event, the naming convention doesn’t make much difference in my reasoning. It’s more conceptually that the foetus gradually reaches a point where I think we switch from abortions being allowed to abortions not being allowed. I understand that this isn’t your view.

ManlyRash on October 13, 2008 at 6:28 PM

Thanks for the biology lesson, although I’m unclear about its signifcance to the discussion. My question was what is the difference between human life and human beings? Human cells are human cells, my hair, my skin, my blood, my fingernails…that isn’t the point. The zygote, that amazing unification of the sperm cell and the oocyte, is more than a human cell. It is human life and thus a human being, and I still can’t tell the difference that mycowardice referred to.

Thank you for the Nelson reference by the way!

Barack Obama’s top priority … unfettered taxpayer funded abortion.  More: HotAir and JillStanek……

his mellifluous speaking voice

Racist.

God creates life. We humans don’t. God has a purpose for your life that doesn’t come from your mother and father. God gives your life significance beyond that found by your relationship to your mother and father. The founding fathers had it right in the preamble to the constitution. “Self-evident” was their way of saying “duh”!

The democrats are always the last hurdle in human rights reformation. They were the party of slavery and segregation. Now they’re the party of socialism, sub-prime, and abortion. It’s the democrats that must be convinced about the evils of abortion, not the Republicans.

But when they join, the resulting zygote has only one natural destiny: to grow into an adult human being capable of reproduction. Human life does not “begin” at conception (indeed, living cells can come only from other living cells), rather, every individual human organism (i.e., every human being) begins his or her individual biological existence as a zygote.

This is not more a matter of opinion than 2+2=4.

ManlyRash on October 13, 2008 at 6:28 PM

… So – simply put – once that event has occurred the resulting entity is, for all intents and purposes, a Human. Correct?

*eats*

What the dickens is the difference between a human being and a human life? – Trafalgar on October 13, 2008 at 5:16 PM

Truth be told, Lord Nelson, although all human beings are comprised of living human cells, not all living human cells are human beings. A living sperm cell is just that: a sperm cell. Ditto for an oocyte.

But when they join, the resulting zygote has only one natural destiny: to grow into an adult human being capable of reproduction. Human life does not “begin” at conception (indeed, living cells can come only from other living cells), rather, every individual human organism (i.e., every human being) begins his or her individual biological existence as a zygote.

This is not more a matter of opinion than 2+2=4.

Grue in the Attic on October 13, 2008 at 5:20 PM

Focus on the Family is doing yeoman’s work in getting ultrasound technology into abortion-alternative clinics. Clinics that have this ability to show parents the baby moving around inside have a much greater success rate in convincing parents not to kill their babies.

The FOCA would undo many of the restrictions on abortion at the federal and state level.

And the two or three SC justices that will step down during the next four years will either be replaced by liberal activists or strict constructionists, depending on who becomes President.

ManlyRash on October 13, 2008 at 4:51 PM

The answer is above my pay grade, but for purposes of abortion, I think it should be a increasing slope (as the embryo becomes bigger, it becomes more and more a full fledge human being).

Now you’re quoting Obama.

You’re either a joker with bad timing, or a parrot. I’ll let you decide which.

However, I want to touch more thoroughly on your response to me, as I was a bit rushed in my prior post.

Society,

Frankly, society has well enough proved itself to be corrupt. I don’t want some nameless “society” dictating what is human and what isn’t. Saying “society” dictates such things essentially means “whatever is popular is right”… meaning you aren’t willing to take a stand for whatever you might believe in if “society” doesn’t support it.

norms,

What is “normal” is determined by “society”. See above.

science,

Modern “science” is so overrun with Humanist philosophy that it no longer qualifies as a fair arbiter.

However, older science refutes your claim – Mendel and his contemporaries, in their experiments that proved the law of “like begets like”. It’s either Human or Not Human – it cannot be anything in-between – and since it was produced from two Humans that by automatic default makes it Human. And the extermination of an innocent Human life is Murder. End of Line.

morals, religion

Again, see my last post, I call BS on this one. I don’t know any part of religion or morality that declares one person “less human” than another for ANY reason.

*eats*

The answer is above my pay grade

Right out of the Messiah’s playbook. Get pinned down and avoid the question.

I don’t think 16 cells qualifies as a human being, but it is human life.

What the dickens is the difference between a human being and a human life?

ManlyRash on October 13, 2008 at 4:51 PM

The answer is above my pay grade, but for purposes of abortion, I think it should be a increasing slope (as the embryo becomes bigger, it becomes more and more a full fledge human being).

I don’t think 16 cells qualifies as a human being, but it is human life.

The state could, for purposes of abortions, define personhood differently than for other purposes (for example, taxes).

I hope that answers your question, although I have a feeling it doesn’t.

Mycowardice did answer part of your question by stating that “society” determines personhood, which I think means the state. It’s been tried before throughout history and has failed every time. – Trafalgar on October 13, 2008 at 5:00 PM

Didn’t catch that. Thanks. Yes, it has been tried. Perhaps ‘mycowardice’ is a Nazi. Or an antebellum slaveholder.

She certainly has no grounds on which to argue against either.

ManlyRash on October 13, 2008 at 4:51 PM

Mycowardice did answer part of your question by stating that “society” determines personhood, which I think means the state. It’s been tried before throughout history and has failed every time.