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Human development timeline?

Started by joel96, June 07, 2019, 12:27:04 PM

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joel96

Recently federal funding for fetal tissue research got yanked. It's impossible to overemphasize how important that research is. I wish I could help fund fetal tissue research, but I don't have that kind of money.

Can someone help me get an idea of human development as it pertains to the usual arguments anti-abortionists put forward? They're a bunch of anti-science, anti-reality nuts. That means I need a little more than the wiki articles on the subject to use against them. The issue crosses over the science and into metaphysics and philosophy. I've tried telling people that a blastocyst isn't human and isn't alive any more than a skin cell is. All I get back is a denial of the antecedent, people saying it's human and alive. In order to continue arguing with them, I have to develop their own stupid definition for them since they don't have the brains to do it themselves.

I think it's accurate and consistent to say that the defining characteristic of whether something is or isn't human is more than DNA--if it were, a skin cell could be given human rights. Right there, most anti-abortionists would probably get lost and double-down and say that anything that possesses any human DNA is wholly human, even though a dead human possesses that same trait. I think it's more accurate to eliminate anything outside of the brain as being something that is a key part of what it means to be human. A human brain in particular that possesses consciousness, is unconscious with the ability to regain consciousness, or has some level of measurable activity that separates a brain-dead brain from a living brain. It's hard to find out when consciousness is fully developed in a human because Google's search algorithm turns up the usual conspiracy quacks pushing the date earlier and earlier.

Baruch

If money wasn't involved, people could discuss this rationally.  $50,000 per motivates people in a bad way.

If people weren't ideological, people could discuss this rationally.  Absolutes without exception, doesn't count as thinking.

Reasonable harvesting of reasonable miscarriage or early term abortion tissue is not unreasonable.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Munch

human development taught us how to use paragraphs.
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

aitm

A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

aitm

tell an anti-abortionist that it is their child that is dying and the possibility of saving it is in the umbilical cord of the pregnant lady over there and they would gut her like an August pig.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Sal1981

It's only pro-life until birth for the so-called pro-lifers.

That's where most of pro-lifers drop the ball. You actually have to raise the kid - but pro-lifers probably know damn well they don't give a rats ass about the woman who is supposed to carry to term. They only care about, from all their rhetoric, about the concept behind it, not the actual consequences.

Baruch

Quote from: Sal1981 on June 08, 2019, 11:41:46 PM
It's only pro-life until birth for the so-called pro-lifers.

That's where most of pro-lifers drop the ball. You actually have to raise the kid - but pro-lifers probably know damn well they don't give a rats ass about the woman who is supposed to carry to term. They only care about, from all their rhetoric, about the concept behind it, not the actual consequences.

Yes, if you are pro-Life, communism is the only option.  I want you to adopt all 1 billion poor Chinese.  If you don't you are an evil capitalist.

Yes, people don't give a rat's ass.  Anyone who claims they do ... are lying.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: joel96 on June 07, 2019, 12:27:04 PM
Recently federal funding for fetal tissue research got yanked. It's impossible to overemphasize how important that research is. I wish I could help fund fetal tissue research, but I don't have that kind of money. Can someone help me get an idea of human development as it pertains to the usual arguments anti-abortionists put forward? They're a bunch of anti-science, anti-reality nuts. That means I need a little more than the wiki articles on the subject to use against them. The issue crosses over the science and into metaphysics and philosophy. I've tried telling people that a blastocyst isn't human and isn't alive any more than a skin cell is. All I get back is a denial of the antecedent, people saying it's human and alive. In order to continue arguing with them, I have to develop their own stupid definition for them since they don't have the brains to do it themselves. I think it's accurate and consistent to say that the defining characteristic of whether something is or isn't human is more than DNA--if it were, a skin cell could be given human rights. Right there, most anti-abortionists would probably get lost and double-down and say that anything that possesses any human DNA is wholly human, even though a dead human possesses that same trait. I think it's more accurate to eliminate anything outside of the brain as being something that is a key part of what it means to be human. A human brain in particular that possesses consciousness, is unconscious with the ability to regain consciousness, or has some level of measurable activity that separates a brain-dead brain from a living brain. It's hard to find out when consciousness is fully developed in a human because Google's search algorithm turns up the usual conspiracy quacks pushing the date earlier and earlier.

I generally agree.  Some really stupid people seem to think a developing fetus is a full-formed miniature human that just grows larger inside the mother.  And then you have some PROFOUNDLY stupid people who think that an abortion means taking a viable baby and executing it later. 

There is no help for those people; they aren't knowledgeable about fetal development.

And then you have the people who are convinced that aborting a fetus at any stage is a denial of "the soul that God put in the fetus at conception".  I have little to say about that other than religion is a bunch of crap and there are no "souls" involved at any stage of life.

And THEN, you have those who seem convinced that all abortions are done 2 weeks before a natural birth time.  Because somehow the parents went through 8.5 months and decided the baby wasn't going to be a football or rock star or wasn't the right hair color.  That situation is somewhere around non-existent.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

joel96

Thanks for all the responses, people. I added paragraph breaks to the OP. I think the argument stating that an embryo or fetus isn't just a smaller version of a toddler might be somewhat effective. Almost every anti-choice billboard I've seen shows a picture of a six month old infant instead of a cluster of cells or some ambiguously mammalian thing.

I don't know how to respond to people who refuse to acknowledge the status of a fetus or embryo as what they are. No matter what sane argument you throw at them, they reflexively say, "It's a child." I can show them pictures of what it is that they're talking about, point out the lack of nerves, sensory development, brain, heart, or limbs, but they still insist without thinking about anything that I've told them that "it's a child." When I ask them to identify what defines a human child, they point to DNA or state that since it's not a zygote, "it's a child." I refuse to conform to their bad definition.

I guess I could turn to OT verses about how Adam wasn't alive until he had breath in him, or that a child isn't a child until it's born (not sure which thing that's in). I shouldn't have to turn to an primitive, uninformed source of religious rhetoric to answer what is really a scientific reality though. I think the argument can be won with facts instead of ancient fiction. Part of the problem is that I'm using reality to argue with people disconnected from reality. They're not neutral people that might be won over, they're people who are deliberately treating pro-choice people as enemies. It's like trying to argue with an authoritarian--you can't convince them to give up the power they have over other people when they're working every day to try to increase their power.

Baruch

Medical research is important.  Also important it be done ethically.  That may mean there is never enough fetal cells to satisfy all the medical science, but if not, then like organ donations, they have to wait their turn.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: joel96 on June 27, 2019, 08:59:55 PM
I guess I could turn to OT verses about how Adam wasn't alive until he had breath in him,

I've tried that, doesn't work.


They're not hard to find on the web:

https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=breath+life&t=KJV#s=s_primary_0_1

But Christians don't care what the Bible says, since it only means what they say. The vast majority have never even read the whole thing cover to cover, so they have no real idea what it says, anyway.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

aitm

It's hard to argue that old god is against abortion....hell...it's not even in his top ten list.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Baruch

Quote from: aitm on June 28, 2019, 02:50:34 PM
It's hard to argue that old god is against abortion....hell...it's not even in his top ten list.

Ancient people might not have had the means for abortion (as opposed to miscarriage).  But they did have exposure of infants.  That was quite common.  Does the OT ever speak against infant exposure?  The Quran does, specifically in the context of Arabic pagan hostility to female babies.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: aitm on June 28, 2019, 02:50:34 PM
It's hard to argue that old god is against abortion....hell...it's not even in his top ten list.

Heh, heh, 10 commandments, Good One!
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on June 28, 2019, 05:04:20 PM
Ancient people might not have had the means for abortion (as opposed to miscarriage).  But they did have exposure of infants.  That was quite common.  Does the OT ever speak against infant exposure?  The Quran does, specifically in the context of Arabic pagan hostility to female babies.

A good response to theists, Baruch...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!