Roe v. Wade Potentially Dead

[smac97]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Again, your attempt to tar me with eugenics and racism is a nonstarter.

I am not trying to do that.

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

I really thought better of you. 

Well, I apologize.

My ideological position has some uncomfortable parts.  The Restored Gospel is really good as to its basic constituent elements, I think, but I have a hard time rationalizing/justifying some of its manifestations.  

As regarding abortion, its more strident advocates seem to have plenty of heavy lifting to do on their side as well.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SeekingUnderstanding]

20 minutes ago, pogi said:

"Person" certainly is the unclear term in this.  That is not a term that is defined in biology as a stage of development or taxonomic species, or anything.  "Personhood" is a scientifically arbitrary term.  It can only be defined by law or philosophy with no scientifically objective guidelines.   What is scientifically objective is that it is a living organism belonging the genus/species Homo sapiens with the common name in biology for that species being human being.  It is a living human being.  Whether or not it is a "person" is up for debate.  If the scientifically arbitrary term "personhood" is what qualifies one for rights, than I simply don't know how that will ever be settled.

If I extract living cells from my body and put them in a Petri dish do they constitute a living human being? What if science develops a way to convert the living cells into embryos? Are they living human beings then? Because the potential exists? What if I actually convert them into an embryo in a Petri dish. Is it a living human being then? Where is the line for you?

[bluebell]

20 minutes ago, pogi said:

"Person" certainly is the unclear term in this.  That is not a term that is defined in biology as a stage of development or taxonomic species, or anything.  "Personhood" is a scientifically arbitrary term.  It can only be defined by law or philosophy with no scientifically objective guidelines.   What is scientifically objective is that it is a living organism belonging the genus/species Homo sapiens with the common name in biology for that species being human being.  It is a living human being.  Whether or not it is a "person" is up for debate.  If the scientifically arbitrary term "personhood" is what qualifies one for rights, than I simply don't know how that will ever be settled.

I don't believe it is a living human being, not yet anyway.  I also don't believe that science proves it's a living human being. 

It will grow into one, certainly, but an embryo and a living human being are vastly different from each other in some really important and significant ways.  I do think those differences matter.  But I also don't think that those differences imply that abortion isn't morally wrong under most circumstances.

[Durangout]

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/honestly-with-bari-weiss/id1570872415?i=1000560474755

This is a reasonable interview by a Liberal Law scholar that agrees with Alito’s opinion to deep six Roe v Wade.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Durangout

[Scott Lloyd]

36 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Again, your attempt to tar me with eugenics and racism is a nonstarter. I really thought better of you. You’ve really jumped the shark this time, and I see no point in taking part in such a bad-faith conversation. Cheers.

ETA: As I said before, I don’t believe the church has anything to answer for, either. 

Perhaps you could explain why you think Smac is thus tarring you when he has explicitly said he is not referring to you in particular. Are we supposed to suppress the historical fact of Sanger’s overt racism?

[bsjkki]

13 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I don't believe it is a living human being, not yet anyway.  I also don't believe that science proves it's a living human being. 

It will grow into one, certainly, but an embryo and a living human being are vastly different from each other in some really important and significant ways.  I do think those differences matter.  But I also don't think that those differences imply that abortion isn't morally wrong under most circumstances.

I think what people are arguing is when it is worthy of protection and rights. I think in a life and death situation, the mothers life should come first if it’s an either/or. So, I concede the point that while the fetus is in womb, it’s rights are less than the mothers. But, that doesn’t mean abortion for convenience is okay either. 
 

We have low cost preventions that are easily purchased or free. Personal responsibility is a thing. (The vast majority of abortions are for convenience.)
 

Once the baby is out of the womb, making an either/or choice would be in an extreme ‘rescue’ type situation. So not really any different than making that choice in any of those types of situations.

[Analytics]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

There is a flaw in your thinking here.  Blithe reductionism of the Bible as "a book that was compiled 1700 years ago" is a terrible basis for disparaging it. 

West Point, perhaps the finest military academy in the world, has a "Top Ten" reading list from its History Department:

Nearly 200 years old.

50 years old.

Over 100 years old.

Over 100 years old.

76 years old.

184 years old.

501 years old.

65 years old.

2,400+ years old.

2,500+ years old.

Your reasoning seems flawed.  The Bible is old, ergo it is unreliable, even "terrible."

You totally missed my point. An ancient book can be worth reading. But that doesn't mean it should be an authoritative guide to ethics. Sun Tzu being on a student's reading list doesn't mean that the 10 commandments are the foundation of modern ethics.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

My take is that the Bible has stood the test of time and has proven its value.

You can use the Bible to justify just about anything you want. Just choose which of the contradictory passages says what you want to justify, and it's there. Want to justify slavery? You can with the Bible. Want to justify a flat earth? You can with the Bible. Want to justify child abuse? You can with the bible. Want to justify genocide? You can...

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

"Humanist values" presuppose Judeo-Christian ethics as a starting point.  Nietzsche had it right, I think, when he said that humanism is "nothing more than an empty figure of speech" and a "secular version of theism."  It would be like me quoting Hamlet's Soliloquy and then concluding with "By the way, Shakespeare has no bearing on what I just said."

You have that exactly backwards. Chronologically, Christianity came before humanism. Sure. But the tools and values of humanism are what shaped "Christian ethics" to become what they now are. Humanism is what informs you what is actually good, and that is how you know which Bible verses to embrace and which wants to ignore or rationalize away. When a Mormon rejects the humanistic filter of the scriptures and takes them literally and at face value, he enters Ron Lafferty territory.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

First, I hope Teancum is reading what you have said here.  Teancum, do you see what Analytics is saying here?  There doesn't seem to be much daylight between his rhetoric and yours.  He's a bit more explicit is all ("keep your opinions to yourself").

You'll notice that when I said "keep your opinions to yourself" I was referring to people whose "beliefs are based solely on the writings of old books." Do you think that describes you? Are your beliefs based solely on the writings of old books? Do you agree with the scriptures that if an angel tells you to murder a child or a passed-out drunk, you should follow the examples of Abraham and Nephi and do it? That isn't you, and I never said it was.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Second, I am grateful for the Constitution, and that it allows people like me to participate in the political process, even when people like you suggest we should not.

I never suggested that people like you shouldn't participate in the political process. In general, you use the tools of rationality to argue for policies that promote the values of humanism. Because of that, you have a valuable voice.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Third, we have plenty of examples of "humanism" in control of the political process.  How many tens of millions have died under the regimes operating under your preferred set of ethics, which you apparently claim to be superior to Judeo-Christian values?

What are you talking about? Humanism is not the same thing as Nazism or socialism. American values are humanist values. 

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

And the cost of that supersession?  100+ million lives.  And counting.

According to the Bible, 100+ million people being wiped out in genocide isn't necessarily a bad thing. God did it when he flooded the earth. He commanded His people to commit geocide when He gave them the land that was inhabited by the Canaanites. He uses war and death as tools to bring about His objectives throughout the Old Testament (and the Book of Mormon). So according to Biblical ethics, what's wrong with 100+ million people dying?

I can use humanist ethics to explain why that's bad, and you presume it is bad because those are the ethics that you embrace. But knowledge that it is bad doesn't come from Christianity's revelations and scriptures. It comes from humanism.

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Next up: A "No True Scotsman" take from Analytics.  "No, no.  Real humanism in politics doesn't lead to misery, death and destruction on a massive scale.  We'll get it right if we do it this way..."

Uhh. No. Saying that Nazism and humanism are two different things is like saying that Mormonism and Taoism are two different things. They are two different things.

You seem to be operating under the illusion that every philosophy that isn't rooted in God is exactly the same philosophy. Would you like me to make some book recommendations to disabuse you of this error in thinking? 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Analytics

[pogi]

50 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

If I extract living cells from my body and put them in a Petri dish do they constitute a living human being? 

"Human Being" refers to a unique living organism belonging to the genus/species Homo sapiens.  It develops from a single cellular organism into a multicellular organism.   A skin or liver cell is a living cell belonging to a living organism, but is not an individual living organism.  

This really goes without saying unless you are suggesting that all human cells are human beings.  

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

What if science develops a way to convert the living cells into embryos? Are they living human beings then? Because the potential exists? What if I actually convert them into an embryo in a Petri dish. Is it a living human being then? Where is the line for you?

I am not going to play with hypotheticals.  What if humans could travel back in time?  What if we could transform into dinosaurs?  If and when the technology develops (I'm confident it wont) we can talk about it then.  

 

 

[MrShorty]

I don't know if this adds anything to the discussion, but I was thinking about this over the last couple of days and here's where I'm landing.

I generally agree with the Church's position on abortion (CHI 38.6.1), which condemns abortion except when the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest, competent physician determines the life/health of the mother is in serious jeopardy, and fetal defects that will prevent the child from living much beyond birth. I have been thinking about what actual legislation based on the Church's stance might look like.

Abortion is illegal except
a) when the result of rape or incest. Incest will probably be fairly straightforward to include in legislation. The only question would be whether or not to include first cousins in the umbrella of incestuous relationships. Rape would be more difficult. Would the law accept "date rape" (arguable the most common kind)? Would the law require preapproval (and would the law empower the bureaucracy to preapprove quickly?), or prefer to handle this in the courts after the deed is done? Considering that so many cases of "rape" end up without the necessary evidence (other than he said -- she said) to criminally convict, how will the law handle rape claims?
b) how will the law handle life/death of the mother cases? Simply being pregnant has a non-zero risk of injury/death (modern medicine has dramatically reduced the risk, but there is still some risk. Ultimately, this part seems to be about how much risk will the government impose on someone. Will the law prohibit abortion if 9 out of 10 mother survive the scenario? 6 out of 10? 3 out of 10? Will the law consider only physical injury, or will it also consider mental/emotional health? How will the law measure risks of various scenarios, and what will be the cutoff between legal and illegal?
c) similar to b. How will the law measure the odds of survival of the unborn, and where will it declare the cutoff between legal and illegal.

One thing I notice about the Church's official position is that it is vague -- it doesn't try to answer any of these. We often feel like this is a feature of the CHI, in that it allows for individual adaptation/interpretation. I think that, for a law to be enforceable, it cannot be as vague, so it must answer the kinds of questions I pose above. Unless we want the courts to judge each case (legislating from the bench???) and decide if it fits into the spirit of the law, but that doesn't seem like the best way.

When all is said and done, I agree with a lot of the pro-life sentiment. The cynic in me, though, doubts our legislators ability to craft legislation that can prohibit abortion and allow for appropriate exceptions to the law. Others in this thread have expressed greater optimism that the system can work and correct itself. If the leaked opinion (or similar) is the one eventually released by the court, then we may have the opportunity to see how well our legislators can craft such legislation.

[MrShorty]

1 hour ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

What if science develops a way to convert the living cells into embryos?

I expect it is not news to some of you here, but science is already doing this. Look up "artificial gametes" (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gametes#Artificial_gametes ) where we are already close to being able to take stem cells and make gametes from those stem cells. Once you can make gametes, then you can join them and maybe get them to recombine into new embryos. Contrary to @pogi's skepticism, there are many in the field who are confident that we will soon be able to convert living stem cells from two people (maybe even same-sex couples) and convert them into an implantable embryo.

[smac97]

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

You totally missed my point. An ancient book can be worth reading. But that doesn't mean it should be an authoritative guide to ethics. 

Good luck with identifying anything than can be characterized as an "authoritative guide" to something as broad and nebulous as "ethics."  Particularly one superior to the Judeo-Christian ethics that are based on the Bible.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Sun Tzu being on a student's reading list doesn't mean that the 10 commandments are the foundation of modern ethics.

Your disparagement of the Bible was . . . that it's old.  Sun Tzu is also old, yet it's recommended reading at West Point.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

You can use the Bible to justify just about anything you want.

And you can use "humanism" to justify just about anything you want.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Just choose which of the contradictory passages says what you want to justify, and it's there. Want to justify slavery? You can with the Bible. Want to justify a flat earth? You can with the Bible. Want to justify child abuse? You can with the bible. Want to justify genocide? You can...

And yet . . . we don't.

Meanwhile, humanism has been used to justify regimes responsible for untold measures of death, mayhem and misery.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

"Humanist values" presuppose Judeo-Christian ethics as a starting point.  Nietzsche had it right, I think, when he said that humanism is "nothing more than an empty figure of speech" and a "secular version of theism."  It would be like me quoting Hamlet's Soliloquy and then concluding with "By the way, Shakespeare has no bearing on what I just said."

You have that exactly backwards. Chronologically, Christianity came before humanism. Sure.  But the tools and values of humanism are what shaped "Christian ethics" to become what they now are.

Well, no.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Humanism is what informs you what is actually good, and that is how you know which Bible verses to embrace and which wants to ignore or rationalize away.

Nope.  Humanism doesn't have a monopoly on observation, reasoning, evidence, etc.  Christianity has a very healthy pedigree relative to learning, education, science, and so on.

What humanism does have a monopoly on, relative to Christianity, is a godless approach to ethics.  And again, we've all seen plenty of examples of how that has turned out.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

When a Mormon rejects the humanistic filter of the scriptures and takes them literally and at face value, he enters Ron Lafferty territory.

Malarky.  Latter-day Saints have "filters" that do quite well without the untethered meandings of humanism.  We have the Bible and other scriptures.  We have living prophets and apostles.  We have personal revelation.  We have exhortations to learn and study, to use "the best books" to grow in wisdom and in faith.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

You'll notice that when I said "keep your opinions to yourself" I was referring to people whose "beliefs are based solely on the writings of old books."

A pretty fine hair to split.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I never suggested that people like you shouldn't participate in the political process. In general, you use the tools of rationality to argue for policies that promote the values of humanism. Because of that, you have a valuable voice.

Attributing "rationality" to "the values of humanism" and not Judeo-Christian ethics, practice, belief, history, etc. is facially absurd.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

What are you talking about? Humanism is not the same thing as Nazism or socialism. American values are humanist values. 

And I wrote Hamlet's Soliloquy.  

American values are Judeo-Christian values.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I can use humanist ethics to explain why that's bad, and you presume it is bad because those are the ethics that you embrace. But knowledge that it is bad doesn't come from Christianity's revelations and scriptures. It comes from humanism.

It does not.

10 minutes ago, Analytics said:

You seem to be operating under the illusion that every philosophy that isn't rooted in God is exactly the same philosophy.

I am not.

You seem to be operating under the illusion that humanism invented, rather than borrowed and appropriated, ethics.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Perhaps you could explain why you think Smac is thus tarring you when he has explicitly said he is not referring to you in particular. Are we supposed to suppress the historical fact of Sanger’s overt racism?

Maybe you can explain how the retrograde views of someone I have never mentioned and have never indicated any affinity or support for are relevant to my expressed opinions. That I was asked to defend Margaret Sanger in a sneering post that misrepresented my statements from another thread suggests I wasn’t wrong about its intent. But you know, bringing up racist eugenics was entirely apropos of nothing I said, right?

[Calm]

22 minutes ago, pogi said:

If and when the technology develops (I'm confident it wont) we can talk about it then.  

You don’t believe cloning humans will be possible?

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, MrShorty said:

how will the law handle rape claims

And how could it do it quickly?  That seems impossible without setting up a specific department that streamlines the legal process massively or maybe deputizing a limited number of doctors to make the legal determination and having at least one in every place abortion might be initiated.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Calm

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Calm said:

And how could it do it quickly?

The thought of any government determining whether or not you have a legitimate reason for an abortion makes my skin crawl. 

[Scott Lloyd]

26 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Maybe you can explain how the retrograde views of someone I have never mentioned and have never indicated any affinity or support for are relevant to my expressed opinions.

I can’t speak for Smac, but retracing the conversation, I myself see relevance in your making an issue of the possibility that restricting abortion will have a disproportionate impact on the urban poor. Smac pointed out the interesting history that it was arguably by less-than-noble design that abortion clinics were placed in such neighborhoods in the first place. He never accused you of sharing in that ignoble sentiment, and in fact, he explicitly disclaimed such an intent in a follow-up post. 

26 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

That I was asked to defend Margaret Sanger in a sneering post that misrepresented my statements from another thread suggests I wasn’t wrong about its intent. But you know, bringing up racist eugenics was entirely apropos of nothing I said, right?

You were never asked to defend Margaret Sanger, nor were her motives imputed to you either explicitly or implicitly. Not that I can see, anyway. 
 

I’m afraid your hair-trigger is on display here, jkwilliams. 

Edited May 12, 2022 by Scott Lloyd

[SeekingUnderstanding]

22 minutes ago, pogi said:

"Human Being" refers to a unique living organism belonging to the genus/species Homo sapiens.  It develops from a single cellular organism into a multicellular organism.   A skin or liver cell is a living cell belonging to a living organism, but is not an individual living organism.  

This really goes without saying unless you are suggesting that all human cells are human beings.  

I am not going to play with hypotheticals.  What if humans could travel back in time?  What if we could transform into dinosaurs?  If and when the technology develops (I'm confident it wont) we can talk about it then.  

 

 

https://www.statnews.com/2019/06/05/creating-eggs-sperm-stem-cells/

 

Closer than you think.

[jkwilliams]

4 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I can’t speak for Smac, but retracing the conversation, I myself see relevance in your making an issue of the possibility that restricting abortion will have a disproportionate impact on the urban poor. Smac pointed out the interesting history that it was arguably by less-than-noble design that abortion clinics were placed in such neighborhoods in the first place. He never accused you of sharing in that ignoble sentiment, and in fact, he explicitly disclaimed such an intent in a follow-up post. 

You were never asked to defend Margaret Sanger, nor were her motives imputed to you either explicitly or implicitly. Not that I can see, anyway. 
 

I’m afraid your hair-trigger is on display here, jkwilliams. 

Maybe so. Either way, the conversation went in an ugly direction that I do not care to follow. 

[Calm]

37 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

The thought of any government determining whether or not you have a legitimate reason for an abortion makes my skin crawl. 

The thought of a woman in emotional distress, even traumatized having to be subjected to even more confrontational interaction…because there is an implicit guilty until proven innocent imo in requiring governmental permission to receive an abortion…that is very disturbing to me.  I can see the necessity of requiring a rape kit to proceed with an investigation of rape in most cases, but if a woman was forced to have a rape examination as soon as she uttered “I was raped” or even “I think I may have been raped” rather than leaving it to be her choice, that is just wrong in my view. And I think most people would agree forcing a woman to be examined for rape would be wrong.  In my view, it would be a continuation or extension of the rapist overpowering her, the government being the proxy for the rapist..as in ‘because you were raped, the law now has the right to do what it wants with you and your body’.  To me, requiring a woman to prove rape before granting an abortion is very close to forcing an examination.

To dismiss this problem as irrelevant to forming a law about abortion is troubling given even if abortions being sought for a rape or incest is less than 1% of all abortions iirc, that is still a significant amount of women involved.  We have a significant legal system for the purpose of preventing the innocent from being accused even though there is a massive reason to convict the guilty.  In that case it seems acceptable to protect the margins not as an exception, but as SOP.

Quote

Among 48 reporting areas with data each year during 2010–2019, in 2019, a total of 625,346 abortions were reported

There were quite a few areas not reporting, iirc including California, so likely the number is significantly higher.  1% would be more than 60,000.  60,000 confrontations demanding the woman prove she was raped or even a girl having to testify the person who got her pregnant was an uncle, brother, or father without the time needed to help them feel safe because clock is ticking. Not a marginal number in my view.

The implications for how this would impact how women are treated generally when making claims of rape (since refusing abortion being the default is starting from a position that such a claim is a lie unless significant evidence is presented) is also quite troubling.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Calm

[mtomm]

27 minutes ago, Calm said:

And how could it do it quickly?  That seems impossible without setting up a specific department that streamlines the legal process massively or maybe deputizing a limited number of doctors to make the legal determination and having at least one in every place abortion might be initiated.

I asked this question at the beginning of the thread. I do not see how this is possible without a huge violation and certainly breaching a person's right to privacy. But we know that right to privacy really doesn't exist even for a rape victim.

[BlueDreams]

21 hours ago, pogi said:

Thanks for clarifying.  

Every living organism has a common name and a scientific name in biology.   They are used interchangeably and synonymously in biology.  The scientific names are more precise where a common name might refer to several species of "badger" for example.  The scientific name lets us know exactly which badger we are talking about.  We don't have that same problem with humans however, as human beings are the only living species that belong to the genus "Homo".  So the common name and scientific name leads to no ambiguity whatsoever as to what one is referring to and are completely synonymous.    For example, I have a Northern Red Oak tree in my yard that I just planted a couple years ago.  That is the common name for Quercus rubra.  Biologists identify them to be the same thing - there is no distinguishing factor between Norther Red Oak and Querca rubra.  They are the same in the eyes of biology. 

"Human" is the short-hand of "human being", which is the common name of "Homo sapiens".  No biologist would object to referring to the Homo sapiens species in the common name "human being".  I truly do not understand your hang up on this term.  Perhaps it is all of the philosophical meaning that you personally are injecting into it.  I am genuinely confused as to why you are ok with the short-hand common name but not the long-hand common name - neither of which are scientific names, but both of which are synonymous with Homo sapiens.      

Let's go back to my og post that started this weird rabbit hole of semantics...it would probably help explain it:

Quote

As I've been reading the last few pages I've been nailing down what I hinge this on and my problem with some that's been said. I think it comes down to just a few points for me:

1.) can you prove that a spirit has entered the physical entity to create a soul at conception? Or at the very least that all that's necessary for personhood is solely met by the presence of unique dna? If you can't then one can't fully say what's killed is a baby/person. It's one of personal belief not fact. Personally I haven't seen an argument that clearly lays this out and proves either point, spiritually or scientifically....it's always juxtaposition of specific ideological beliefs or scientific points, minimizing the points that don't fit the assertion that a blastula, zygote, or early fetus is completely equivalent to a baby/newborn. I have seen more of a case for potentially later pregnancy...both in personal experience, biological functioning, etc.  

2.) Is the right to existence from said living entity equal to the life of the woman it's completely dependent on for said existence? Are there any other options for care or support beyond the mother? On the latter, maybe one day many many many years from now, artificial wombs will be a thing. And many many years after that it's possible to transplant a fetus from a woman's womb to an artificial one. And at that point the ethic around abortion may need to be re-evaluated. But there currently is no option beyond the woman's body to successfully gestate a fetus to at least early viability, with the longer it gets to grow the better its long term health/physical development will be.  This dependence also comes at greater risk for the woman, including death and severe injury, to maintain the existence of the unborn. If one is completely and irrevocably dependent on another to merely exist, and there's a major inequity of burden, there's likely a good case for an inequity of legal rights and protections as well.

These two points are the biggest crux to just about every other concern that I have with any debate about abortion. It's the biggest reasons I can't be absolutist around abortion and the biggest reasons why I feel uncomfortable restricting abortion the degree that I may personally see as "justifiable." My third Keeps me personally uncomfortable with absolutely no limitation on abortion.

3.) Is the brain function of a fetus the same or similar enough to that of a newborn? Earlier fetuses this is either extremely debatable or  fairly solid "no." After around 23-24 weeks gestation, there's enough brain co-ordination that it's very likely it's fairly equal to that of a newborn. 

Bold mine. All 3 of these questions focus on what makes a human fully human. Science doesn't answer this. Raw science focuses on categorizing, naming, and describing processes. Science, for example, can tell you the functionality of someone in a coma, the best practices for continued life support or ending life support, and name varying phenomena that happens to people's bodies in coma. It cannot interpret that information to the family for them to decide whether or not life support is really worth it.  That is a human interpretation of science. It certainly can't tell you if a spirit is still inhabiting the body and is thus a "living soul." That is a spiritual/religious one. Or in the case of my creation/god analogy, it can only describe physiological processes via current methodologies and technologies. It's us that interprets the significance of said info. An atheist may see it as a sign of no God, a theist may see it as a sign for god. But hard sciences just continues describing, as neutrally as possible, the processes of known matter.

Human being in common vernacular is different than how science describes human organisms. In science any descriptor given to human form is working to be amoral, neutral, and merely a label to describe something occurring in the physical world. In common vernacular is has emotive, spiritual, and imagery bias. It's a weighted term. I veer away from describing zygotes or early embryos as human beings because the common vernacular/weight behind it....that weight is not scientific, it's a lived/emotional interpretation of the physical world. 

Which is why I stated some 15 pages back that one can't prove that a single celled zygote is truly a person. That one is killing a baby. Your stopping a beginnings of a human from developing into what we all see as a human being. It's why anti-abortion advocates are farrrr more likely to use a picture of a newborn or later stage fetus than the embryonic/zygote stage that represents the stages roughly 65% of abortions actually take place in (and rising) and where all procedures like in vitro happen. One of these elicits the emotional response tied to the word "human being," "baby," and/or "person"...which can all be used interchangeably in common vernacular.  One can't prove through science that the full weight of the word human being used in common vernacular can be fully applied to a human zygote who's sole trait is living human dna wrapped in a few cells. Or a human embryo, with dna and proto structures that later form human beings and functioning organs. In short I'm trying to separate emotive language from what is provably there: a human embryo which has the capacity to develop into a mature newborn on average, but that currently doesn't have fully functioning organs, consciousness, and at best involuntary neural patterns (depending the stage of development and genetic code functionality). 

This may seem ****, but it's important. You mention earlier I believe that people have a tendency to dehumanize the unborn. I agree. I would also note that people overhumanize the unborn. For example I watched a video of a 12 week old stating it was "dancing" in the womb. It was set to soft cheesy music and the comments further went on about what a good "dancer" the fetus was. How the fetus was having a "good time." Etc. Except this isn't what's happening. The fetus' brain/code is developing reflexive movements/nerve pathways and most development is happening in the part of the brain controlling involuntary movements. These early movements are not really experienced (as those parts aren't functional), they're just the genetic code connecting the cerebellum and hind brain to the the rest of the body. In other words, its forming the structural basics of what it commonly means to be a human being. Of course the title "12 week fetus showing signs of healthy brain-motor development" isn't a short and "cute" sounding.   

21 hours ago, pogi said:

I tried to search on google scholar as well, but I can't find how to limit articles by biology journals.  Any help anyone.  I would like to search for any evidence of the long-hand "human being" being the common name for Homo sapiens in a biology journal.  I did however find other biology sources on-line that are not journals which confirm this fact:

No biologist would distinguish between "a human" and "a human being", or suggest that it is ok to use "human" in biology, but not "human being".  That simply is not a justifiable claim.  Both would be recognized as the common name for Homo sapiens and would use them interchangeably.  

To put it as simple as possible - "Human being" is a type of species in biology, not a developmental milestone as you seem to be suggesting.  That simply is not how the term is used in biology. 

According to their help site, there isn't a way to screen for specific journals in their how to....so i'm assuming one can't. 

 

With luv,

BD

[BlueDreams]

5 hours ago, bsjkki said:

Covid mandates. 

It would probably be easiest to say we see this differently than to go too far into it. I actually think this would have gone better if there was more centralized capacity to regulate. Our death rates speak loudly of this IMHO. 

 

With luv,

BD

[BlueDreams]

14 minutes ago, mtomm said:

I asked this question at the beginning of the thread. I do not see how this is possible without a huge violation and certainly breaching a person's right to privacy. But we know that right to privacy really doesn't exist even for a rape victim.

to me it just shows a lack of real knowledge of what happens in our legal system when someone is raped. We have so many problems with the current system in just reporting rape because of its intrusive nature and tendency to re-traumatize. So many where it takes weeks to accept what happened to them. anyone with basic knowledge/experience of this process would automatically be super hesitant if not outright repulsed by the idea. I sure am. 

 

With luv,

BD

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

You don’t believe cloning humans will be possible?

Seeing as how they have already cloned other animals like sheep, I am assuming it already is possible. 

 

 

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Good luck with identifying anything than can be characterized as an "authoritative guide" to something as broad and nebulous as "ethics."  Particularly one superior to the Judeo-Christian ethics that are based on the Bible.

Finding a book about ethics that is better than the Bible is laughably easy.

For example:

Practical Ethics by Peter Singer

The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values by Sam Harris.

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker.

Those books give compelling explanations why, for example, genocide is wrong. In contrast, the Bible depicts God condoning genocide, commanding genocide, and even committing genocide. I know the meme of "Judeo-Christian ethics as based on the Bible" is important to you, but it is laughably false. You can call modern humanist values "judeo-christian" if you insist. That's just nomenclature. The fact of the matter is that Europe was in a medieval funk for a thousand years. Throughout those dark years, it was dominated by "judeo-christian" ethics, including the genocide of the crusades. If those Christian crusaders would have had 20th century weapons and enough infidels to kill, you can be certain they would have killed more people than the Nazis did.

The plague killing a third of europe disrupted the social order and paved the way for people to start groping with reality through the tools of rationality and reason. It was a slow haul, but the renaissance led directly to enlightenment thinking, and enlightenment thinking led directly to the American experiment and to our current values. These values are a rejection of traditional Christian values--not the true manifestation of them. Of course you are free to call the values that emerged in society 1,600 years after Jesus died "real" Christian values. That's just nomenclature. The enlightenment was driven by the heretics, not by the priests, prophets, and popes.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Your disparagement of the Bible was . . . that it's old.  Sun Tzu is also old, yet it's recommended reading at West Point.

I didn't disparage the bible. I said it is a "terrible basis and authority for delimiting right and wrong." That's a simple, factual truth.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

And you can use "humanism" to justify just about anything you want.

That's patently untrue. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

And yet . . . we don't. [use the bible to justify slavery etc.]

It depends upon the time and place. Christians used the Bible to rationalize slavery 160 years ago, just as Mormons used the Book of Abraham to rationalize not giving blacks the priesthood 50 years ago.

But in general you are right. You don't use the Bible to justify those things. And that is precisely my point. You get your values from humanism, and use that as the basis to pick and choose which parts of the Bible are the good parts.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Nope.  Humanism doesn't have a monopoly on observation, reasoning, evidence, etc.  Christianity has a very healthy pedigree relative to learning, education, science, and so on.

When Christians started to get serious about learning, education, science and so on, it was called the enlightenment. This led to a process of distilling the truth, including the truth that humanism is the true source of ethics. Completely dropping religion is the natural ending of this progression.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

What humanism does have a monopoly on, relative to Christianity, is a godless approach to ethics.  And again, we've all seen plenty of examples of how that has turned out.

That isn't true either. In addition to getting ethics from humanism, atheists could get it from Nazism, communism, or Nietzscheism, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc. 

It's shocking how ignorant you are about ethics and their sources.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Malarky.  Latter-day Saints have "filters" that do quite well without the untethered meandings of humanism.  We have the Bible and other scriptures.  We have living prophets and apostles.  We have personal revelation.  We have exhortations to learn and study, to use "the best books" to grow in wisdom and in faith.

You can't use the Bible to figure out which parts of the Bible should be ignored. Don't be so blatant in your circular reasoning. The value of living prophets and apostles is a mixed bag. Do they teach you to commit genocide on travelers who are trying to pass through the Utah territory? They do now, but they didn't unambiguously teach that in the 1850's.

Yes, you can tap into the tools of humanism and learn, study, and read the best of books. Speaking of which, you really ought to read Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Attributing "rationality" to "the values of humanism" and not Judeo-Christian ethics, practice, belief, history, etc. is facially absurd.

You need to choose a basis for your beliefs. Another term for "rationality" is "the philosophies of men." You can either go all-in on rationality, you can go all-in on the the scriptures, or your can mingle the two. If you look at the direction that your religion has evolved over the last 100 years, the mingling has weighted more and more towards the philosophies of men. You can call what you believe "Judeo-Christian ethics" if you want. That's just semantics. 

And this trajectory that your church has taken is a great thing. It is definitely moving in the right direction.

Edited May 12, 2022 by Analytics