If a fetus is not a human life....

In memory of the recently locked baby eating topic here's a couple of questions revolving around a hypothetical scenario where a fetus is not considered to be a human life until it is born.

If a fetus is not a human life then would you let people eat it and have it sold at supermarkets (assuming of course that it is legally obtained and properly labelled)? Would such a practice be considered cannibalism?

If a fetus is not a human life then what sort of crime is it to kill it. Would a roundhouse kick to a pregnant womans stomach be murder, property damage or just assault?

If a fetus is not a human life then would torturing it be a case of animal cruelty or something else?

I should never have made that topic, :?.

I mean, out of kitten stomping and monkey brain table splattering, the fetus video was the worst.

I should never have made that topic, :?.

I mean, out of kitten stomping and monkey brain table splattering, the fetus video was the worst.

Cantius

Monkey what?

Thats the double standard. Show a Pro-Choice person a dead fetus, put it near their face or mail it to them in a bag and see if they dont get sick or freak out and call the police.SylentButDeadly

I would get sick if you sent me any fetus and put it in my face :S

I would not sell fetuses at a supermarket and I don't know what kind of cruelty it is but it shouldn't be done. :?Mr_Leonis

Oh yes cruelty shouldn't be done but when it is done what should the offense be? Is torturing a non-human organism animal cruelty?

lol, wow.

Fetuses are worthless and should be used as doorstops and paperweigh 50% [4]

Thats the double standard. Show a Pro-Choice person a dead fetus, put it near their face or mail it to them in a bag and see if they dont get sick or freak out and call the police.SylentButDeadly

[QUOTE="SylentButDeadly"]no one likes to see anything dead.remmbermytitans

Before the brain develops, Fetuses should be treated like any other part of the body or considered private property - not life worth protecting.

In memory of the recently locked baby eating topic here's a couple of questions revolving around a hypothetical scenario where a fetus is not considered to be a human life until it is born.

If a fetus is not a human life then would you let people eat it and have it sold at supermarkets (assuming of course that it is legally obtained and properly labelled)? Would such a practice be considered cannibalism?

If a fetus is not a human life then what sort of crime is it to kill it. Would a roundhouse kick to a pregnant womans stomach be murder, property damage or just assault?

If a fetus is not a human life then would torturing it be a case of animal cruelty or something else?

domatron23

I would let people eat them. I'm guessing there are a lot of people who wouldn't like that kind of thing going on, though. To clarify exactly what a fetus is, it is alive but it is NOT, at a certain stage, considered human. Though it may have fingernails, hair, etc, these biological traits do not in and of themselves constitute a human being. I think you know this, though. It is for this reason that I can find no difference between eating a fetus and eating a horse in America. Nothing technically wrong with either act, though both will be looked upon unfavorably.

Legally, a roundhouse kick to a pregnant woman's stomach would be murder, manslaughter at the very least. I can agree with this, provided it could not be proved in court that the woman had intended to abort the fetus.

I don't really know about torturing a fetus. I'd assume it'd be like torturing a fish or something. Everyone would do it where they couldn't really be seen and the torture would be over quickly. It wouldn't really be the kind of noticeable thing you'd be dragged to court over, like fighting your pooch or leaving some large animals without water for a week.

it's wrong though, the fetus has it's own dna, it's of it's possession; nobody, not even the mother has any right to take away the potential of this into developing into a human being, if u suppose that a fetus is not a human being; I honestly believe a fetus is still a human being.The_Nintendawg

Well, morally and philosophically that argument is up in the air. I couldn't fault you for your moral and philosophical stanc/opinion; scientifically, however, you are wrong. But I do think that we need more laws in this country that are based on what we know to be true, what agrees with the science--not what offends our sensibilities. For the record, I don't necessarily agree with abortion either, and that's how I will live my life. In a free society others would have the choice to make their decisions as they see fit, as long as the choices are within the law, which idealistically, is grounded in truth.

Personally, I've always thought that the best differentiator is to consider whether or not the fetus, given its current life signs, would be considered clinically dead were it an already born human being. If the answer is yes, then I don't think there's any real scientific basis to treating it like human life, because it cannot be considered a living, conscious organism. You can talk about its "potential", but that's like accusing a person of deforestation because he dug up a pine cone that had been buried.

On the other hand, however, if the answer is no, then it absolutely should be treated identically to a human baby that has already been born. I've never understood this whole half-baked approach of "except in cases of rape or incest" and whatnot - either it's a human life that needs protection or it isn't.

the poll is just bad.

human fetus more value than human life?

or?

use it as a doorstep?

wtf? where's the one where it goes to science?

it has human dna, u can argue that the fetus is a developing human being.The_Nintendawg

But is it human life? A corpse has human DNA too; I don't think anyone would argue that it's a form of human life. At some point along the way, it goes from essentially just a lump of flesh to a sentient, conscious human being, and I think the real question is when that happens. It's definitely not at conception as some claim, and it's also definitely not at birth as others claim.

^^^what about those in coma or those who are mentally retarded? Do u consider those human beings?The_Nintendawg

Not anymore, but there is always the chance that they could regain consciousness, so that is a debate unto itself.

A fetus is a human life. Abortion is only acceptable if the life of the mother is in mortal danger, because one life lost is better than two lives lost.famicommander

Often times it can be one newborn life spared for the other, though doctors don't see it that way...

Abortion is never acceptable in my eyes, it's directly murdering a human being; That's my belief and i will not shove it down ur throats but i won't give in too.The_Nintendawg

What makes an embryo in the first week after conception a human being?

I don't like eating any meat, farm animal or fetus. None of it is morally sound.NearTheEnd

Why not? Do you think people who eat meat are not morally sound either?

k first of all, define human being; in my eyes it's nature is human being; it's an embryo created by human beings, it has human genes that defines it wat it is human; u would have to distinguish it from a dog embryo from an human embryo; secondly this embryo is gonna develop more and more and become a baby then a toddler then a child then pre-teen, then teen, then adult and so on. A human being in my views goes through all these stages by it's vary nature. That very embryo is already defined at the very beginning as a zygote defined eye color, defined sex, and other defined traits. So the qualities of a human being are there, it's just getting developed otherwise it would seem arbitary and random and unfair to say when exactly that embryo became human being.

[QUOTE="The_Nintendawg"]Abortion is never acceptable in my eyes, it's directly murdering a human being; That's my belief and i will not shove it down ur throats but i won't give in too.GabuEx

What makes an embryo in the first week after conception a human being?

k first of all, define human being; in my eyes it's nature is human being; it's an embryo created by human beings, it has human genes that defines it wat it is human; u would have to distinguish it from a dog embryo from an human embryo; secondly this embryo is gonna develop more and more and become a baby then a toddler then a child then pre-teen, then teen, then adult and so on. A human being in my views goes through all these stages by it's vary nature. That very embryo is already defined at the very beginning as a zygote defined eye color, defined sex, and other defined traits. So the qualities of a human being are there, it's just getting developed otherwise it would seem arbitary and random and unfair to say when exactly that embryo became human being.

The_Nintendawg

So you are saying that a fetus is human life just because of its potential to become a human being? Ovums are potential human beings too and they get flushed down the toilet when women ovulate. Sperm are potential humans too, so would that make the porn industry the biggest killers in the world?

Potential for life does not outweigh the fully human rights of a woman. I just think that it's fallicious to justify a fetus right to life on potential alone.

[QUOTE="The_Nintendawg"]

k first of all, define human being; in my eyes it's nature is human being; it's an embryo created by human beings, it has human genes that defines it wat it is human; u would have to distinguish it from a dog embryo from an human embryo; secondly this embryo is gonna develop more and more and become a baby then a toddler then a child then pre-teen, then teen, then adult and so on. A human being in my views goes through all these stages by it's vary nature. That very embryo is already defined at the very beginning as a zygote defined eye color, defined sex, and other defined traits. So the qualities of a human being are there, it's just getting developed otherwise it would seem arbitary and random and unfair to say when exactly that embryo became human being.

jazznate

So you are saying that a fetus is human life just because of its potential to become a human being? Ovums are potential human beings too and they get flushed down the toilet when women ovulate. Sperm are potential humans too, so would that make the porn industry the biggest killers in the world?

Potential for life does not outweigh the fully human rights of a woman. I just think that it's fallicious to justify a fetus right to life on potential alone.

U got the wrong idea from my post, the fetus is already human being, it's nature is human being; sperm and ovums are not really potential until united during conception to produce the zygote, this is similar to the analogy that oxygen atoms and hydrogen atoms are different until they combine and become water, a different substance.

So you are saying that a fetus is human life just because of its potential to become a human being? Ovums are potential human beings too and they get flushed down the toilet when women ovulate. Sperm are potential humans too, so would that make the porn industry the biggest killers in the world?

Potential for life does not outweigh the fully human rights of a woman. I just think that it's fallicious to justify a fetus right to life on potential alone.

jazznate

^do u really have any evidence to back that assertion up?

I know that many religious are against abortions, and are committed to helping the poor and are against unjust wars (atleast modern day christians) and as for makinig abortions illegal increases the number of abortions in that country? Is that really true? I really doubt that until i see some evidence.

\The fact that it's alive, and contains everything it needs to become a sentient being. If left to its own devices, it will become a breathing, thinking human being. The same thing cannot be said about anything else.famicommander

But that doesn't make it a human being. What you're saying is even implicitly agreeing with the idea that it isn't a human being - you can't become something that you already are. I don't see why we should treat it as a human being until it actually is one. You don't put a seed in the ground and say, "Now I have a plant."

In my view, terminating an existing human life is one thing; preventing a human life from ever even coming into being is entirely another. If the embryo is still just at the stage where it's non-sentient cells, I don't see the logical difference between aborting it and not having sex in the first place.

A human life begins at conception. I just don't understand how people can think it's ok to terminate a human life just because it's out of the woman's womb yet. So what if it doesn't have fully developed limbs and organs yet. It WILL.JustPlainLucas

See, this is what I always hate about abortion debates. The majority of those who are in favor of the legality of abortion absolutely do not think it's okay to terminate a human life. What they think is that it is not a human life. The fact that so many continually make this straw man argument of "pro-choice people think murder is okay" is what makes so many abortion debates go nowhere.

^do u really have any evidence to back that assertion up?

I know that many religious are against abortions, and are committed to helping the poor and are against unjust wars (atleast modern day christians) and as for makinig abortions illegal increases the number of abortions in that country? Is that really true? I really doubt that until i see some evidence.

The_Nintendawg

anyway, most people I've met in the U.S. who are pro choice are like I described, maybe it's different outside the U.S. I really don't know.

But that doesn't make it a human being. What you're saying is even implicitly agreeing with the idea that it isn't a human being - you can't become something that you already are. I don't see why we should treat it as a human being until it actually is one. You don't put a seed in the ground and say, "Now I have a plant."

In my view, terminating an existing human life is one thing; preventing a human life from ever even coming into being is entirely another. If the embryo is still just at the stage where it's non-sentient cells, I don't see the logical difference between aborting it and not having sex in the first place.

GabuEx

Anyway, anybody who is pro choice, I suggest you try to argue using data that shows abortion rates are generally higher or the the same where illegal. It's very clear that pro choice is the correct poing of view when looking at that, however, when we debate what a fetus is, it becomes unclear.Thechaninator

A fetus is alive. The difference here is that you're taking a life that will become human rather than stopping a human life from existing in the first place. A fetus is a living thing that will become a human. By aborting it you're killing it. There is no killing involved with not having sex in the first place.famicommander

It's alive in the same sense that a tree is alive in that it's a cluster of living cells, but I don't think anyone would argue that any old cluster of living cells is a human life whose termination is murder. The crucial point, as I see it, is the question of what constitutes human life, and as I said, you're even essentially agreeing with the thought that it isn't yet human life. No human life, no murder.

[QUOTE="famicommander"]A fetus is alive. The difference here is that you're taking a life that will become human rather than stopping a human life from existing in the first place. A fetus is a living thing that will become a human. By aborting it you're killing it. There is no killing involved with not having sex in the first place.GabuEx

It's alive in the same sense that a tree is alive in that it's a cluster of living cells, but I don't think anyone would argue that any old cluster of living cells is a human life whose termination is murder. The crucial point, as I see it, is the question of what constitutes human life, and as I said, you're even essentially agreeing with the thought that it isn't yet human life. No human life, no murder.