[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 181 KB, 460x307, 1234556.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4679574 No.4679574 [Reply] [Original]

When do you think human life begins, /sci/? I can't figure out how i feel about abortion.

>> No.4679588

When the fetus could survive outside the mother. The limit of viability is about 24 weeks these days so start of the third trimester.

>> No.4679587

who cares. if that life is physically inside me and dependent on my physiology, then i have the right to kill it.

question of sovereignty, not of biology

>> No.4679589

if abortion terminates the potential development of a sentient human, doesn't ANYTHING that terminates the potential of a sentient human qualify as something just as bad as abortion?

For example, human females have the potential to have 30+ babies throughout her life time. If they don't have all of them, aren't they technically denying those potential babies of life? The only difference is that with the abortion, the baby's DNA has already been chosen.

>> No.4679592

Never. Sense of agency is an illusion and humans are nothing more than biological machines.

>> No.4679596

>>4679589
"ending" and "not starting" are two different concepts. Nice red herring though.

>> No.4679597

"Personhood" can't begin at conception because the blastocyst can split and give you identical twins, which we recognize as being different people.

>> No.4679599

Some food for thought:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-exper
ts-say.html

>> No.4679601
File: 33 KB, 1017x432, 1329511458001.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4679601

Why is it those who oppose abortions also tend to support the death penalty?

>> No.4679602

>>4679599
That paper was an anti-abortionist wet dream.

>> No.4679604

>>4679601
Because killing guilty people is okay and killing innocent people isn't.

>> No.4679613

>>4679592
I'm afraid i agree with this.
We are made of matter that follows basic physical and chimical rules, in no way our perception of reality is not analogical and i'm not even talking about free will, if there's no emotional connection to the fetus, there's nothing to be lost.

We need more scientifically literate people.

>> No.4679617

>>4679602
They did have a point though. If you define a person with the criteria they did, a baby is not a person per se and as such they don't have the same rights a person would have.

>> No.4679624

>>4679599
Abortion prevents a woman from having to carry a baby she doesn't want in her womb, and go through labour for it, the stress of which can be compared to torture, and potentially puts the womans life in danger.

But once the baby is born nothing bad is prevented by killing it. If it's unwanted it can simply be put up for adoption.

>> No.4679627

I believe morals rights only apply to things with minds. I believe that things without brains do not have minds based on the available scientific evidence. Thus I believe that the daily pill and the day-after pill are both moral.

>> No.4679631

I think we are a primordial cloud of hydrogen that has been evolving so long that it asks where it came from.

>> No.4679637

When does life begin? There's a number of interesting options:

1. 13 billion years ago.
2. 500 million years ago.
3. Last night, your mom.

>> No.4679639

>>4679617
Which is why anti-abortionists loved it. Since that definition allows the killing of babies (which even the most hard core abortion advocates balk at) then the definition is clearly flawed. That means a new definition that will inevitably include late term fetuses is required. It was a win for the pro-lifers.

>> No.4679643

>>4679627
Does that mean we can kill the mentally retarded? One could argue that they are not fully self aware so it's kosher by your standard.

>> No.4679652

>>4679643
>I claim things without minds have no righs
>You claim that it follows that as saying less intelligent minds have no rights.
Sorry, no. Go troll another thread.

>> No.4679665

>>4679643
he argued

no brain => definitely no mind
definitely no mind => we can kill it

so not sure what your relevance is

>> No.4679669

>>4679652
I simply want you to make your standard more clear. If its self awareness then dolphins count but Terri Schiavo does not. You need to elaborate your stance.

>> No.4679676

>>4679665
insects have brains. are you going to become a hindu vegan?

>> No.4679684

i think you don't understand implication

if it has no mind => you can kill it

is not the same as

if it has a mind => you can't kill it

this is elementary logic. denying the antecedent or something

>> No.4679686

when the pineal gland is developed is when you begin to be human

i think anything before a week is fair game to abort. After that it's up to adoption

>> No.4679697

Conception. At that moment its alive and is uniquely a human life. Even the Christians are right once a while.

>> No.4679698

You are assuming a sufficient condition (having no brain) is a necessary one.

Lrn2 logic

>> No.4679711

I don't think it really matters. There is no way to tell at the moment if a fetus is sentient beyond a simple stimulus - response machine. And by my understanding of neuroscience, higher order thinking depends on cortical plasticity after birth. Over-population and birth of children who don't have caring parents is too big a problem to be arguing this whole "life" thing. We need to do whats best for our society.

>> No.4679775
File: 73 KB, 1280x800, 1297860114414.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4679775

I suppose I'd have to say that life begins at the time the baby maintains life independently(physically independent from the mother, not in food/care needs obviously.)

Honestly this abortion issue has always seemed like a religious issue concerning the time the "soul" enters the body, non-religious opinions probably don't play a large role in the general population's thought process.

The entire issue is also dependent on the understanding that human life has some inherent value, which may change depending the beliefs of different cultures/philosophies/individuals.

>> No.4680138
File: 84 KB, 485x720, 1312139983464.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4680138

I remember this same thread showing up on /pol/, with of course a lot more cursing and ad hominems.

The important thing about abortion is that it's a moral issue. This means the only arguments that are useful are those with moral relevance.

So, what is the morally relevant thing that is under argument? What makes human life morally valuable, and when does that quality first show up?

I would argue, and I've heard others make the same argument, that what makes people morally valuable is not that we are alive. Algae are alive. It's not that we have a unique DNA configuration, flies have unique DNA. It's our minds. Regardless of your beliefs or understanding of science, you have to realize that ultimately, a human being is a brain with a support structure built up around it. Who we are is in our brains.

This is why we have the concept of "brain death" or "information-theoric death", where all the old lines we thought divided death and life, the loss of a heartbeat or breathing, loss of blood circulation, no movement, and not really death anymore. Those things can be reversed now. But damage to the brain can change fundamentally who you are. The entire concept of humans as unique individuals is based on their brain states.

So, a human fetus becomes a morally relevant human when it develops to the point where it has a functioning brain. This can and has been detected with an EEG, and occurs around 24 weeks into the pregnancy. Which is, in most places, the legal limit for when an abortion can take place.

Before that, it's no more a human being than a clump of cancer cells, a sperm, or a cell culture.

>> No.4680148

>>4680138
All the hordes of babies worthless poor people have who will spend their lives committing crime and living off welfare is the issue at stake here.

Not only should abortions be legal but free and encouraged. It's simply a waste of money to give birth to dumb children who will never do anything other than be a burden or a danger to others.

Then when they're all dead we can use the money we spend policing and giving them free handouts on stuff that's actually important. Like radio telescopes and super computers.

>> No.4680156

>>4680148
The world needs deltas. We just have to make sure they take their soma and don't vote.

>> No.4680189

teh issue of abbortion just foregrounds the fact that being a biological entity and being a legal entity're 2 different things one of which is entrirely made up guess which.

>> No.4680201

>>4680156
There's nothing that dumb people can't do that we can't make robots for. And they aren't as expensive to take care of.

>> No.4680206

I am as Liberal as they come, but Abortion is one area where I stray from the norm.

I believe week 10 is the absolute cut off point for Abortion. Beyond that point in time the nervous system has developed too much to consider the unborn child a non human.

>> No.4680218

Life doesn't begin until you've fucked at least one bitch or sucked at least one cock. If you haven't done either of these things, you should just abort yourself.

>> No.4680248

Why is killing others wrong?

>> No.4680272

i really havent heard a remotely convincing argument as to why any time after conception is a better or less arbitrary cutoff for human life than the moment of conception

however as i am a convinced nihilist and blissfully amoral and lack a vagina myself, i do not give a fuck about abortion and dont really want to ban it

>> No.4680283

>>4680148

genetic helps a population survive

>> No.4680311

>>4680248

Because if it isn't people will likely kill you.

That is the actual reason.

>> No.4680323

>>4680218
>Life doesn't begin until you've fucked at least one bitch or sucked at least one cock. If you haven't done either of these things, you should just abort yourself.

Do you get extra points for both? And when should you off yourself? 10 years or 10 weeks? We need more specifics here.

>> No.4680327

Week 5, beginning of brain activity.

>> No.4680338

>>4680327

While I agree with the brain activity bit, I think you missed a 2 before the 5 there. Everything I can find says it's not till the end of the second trimester that you have any brain activity.

Wikipedia (not the best source) says 25 weeks for nervous control and 29 for thalamic (sensory input).

>> No.4680375

It doesn't matter when human life begins, if that even means anything.

>> No.4680392

No matter what the idiots say, it does not begin at conception. that we can all agree on right?

>> No.4680399

When brain activity peaks late in pregnancy. Little to no brain activity = no person there, same goes for vegitables.

>> No.4680417

>>4679589
Yeah, but then things can go the other way too.
Babies aren't fully developed yet, and can't survive long without an older human. Does that make them less human, and therefore more ok to kill? I think about it often, but I can never come to a conclusion

>> No.4680971

>>4680417

Babies are not inside anyone. As such, they are not a threat, so killing them cannot be justified.

>> No.4681032

Life begins at conception, but it's ok to kill people sometimes. /thread

>> No.4681054

>>4680392
You have to be an idiot to believe Human Life does not begin at conception.

By definition its living, and by definition its Human. Theres no other way to look at it. Those are the facts.

>> No.4681474

>>4681054
right, and cracking an acorn is the same as cutting down an oak tree.

>> No.4681518

Zygotes are different than babies. /thread

>> No.4681530

>>4681054
why is it human by definition? which definition?

>> No.4681533 [DELETED] 

>>4681530
It has the same genes as a human, it is just that the body is not fully grown yet.

>> No.4681540

>>4681533
but the scab i just picked and put in the bin has the same genes as a human

>> No.4681542 [DELETED] 

>>4681540
Yes, I suppose so.
Your genome is in every cell.
Forensic science depends upon this.