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Why is it murder to kill a fetus by assulting the mother but not when she or a doctor does it? Seems crazy if it is not a human being to me. Can't have it both ways.Say you pushed a mother and she fell and the fetus died;is that murder or just assualt on the mother. In most states unless she had serious bodily injury it would be a misdemeanor; if the fetus isn't taken into account.
It seems that you've painted yourself into a corner here, in more than one way. Firstly, a fetus has a brain (conscience,as you put it) AND a nervous system (senses), and is therefore sentient by your own definition.
No I haven't.
Like I said before, having a brain does not mean that you use it.
Coma patients who are brain dead still have a brain, but still aren't sentient.
Even when the foetus in the womb has a brain this doesn't mean that it is using it because it doesn't need to. Like a brain dead coma patient hooked up to an iron lung, the foetus is hooked up to it's own personal life support (the mother).
Under ideal conditions the water will break when the baby is fully grown and ready to enter the world.
Originally Posted by expat007
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A plant is sentient because it can "feel" its environment; a fetus is sentient and sapient
the moment its conceived !!
Nope it isn't, plants only react to (certain) conditions, but do not think ahead like animals.
Plants cannot anticipate, simply because they have no intelligence and thus no sense of self.
Why is it murder to kill a fetus by assulting the mother but not when she or a doctor does it? Seems crazy if it is not a human being to me. Can't have it both ways.Say you pushed a mother and she fell and the fetus died;is that murder or just assualt on the mother. In most states unless she had serious bodily injury it would be a misdemeanor; if the fetus isn't taken into account.
I can see how it can be a serious assault (I consider a fetus an extension of the mother), but you have a point on murder.
Originally Posted by Amaznjohn No I haven't.
Like I said before, having a brain does not mean that you use it.
Coma patients who are brain dead still have a brain, but still aren't sentient.
Even when the foetus in the womb has a brain this doesn't mean that it is using it because it doesn't need to. Like a brain dead coma patient hooked up to an iron lung, the foetus is hooked up to it's own personal life support (the mother).
Under ideal conditions the water will break when the baby is fully grown and ready to enter the world.
Originally Posted by expat007 Nope it isn't, plants only react to (certain) conditions, but do not think ahead like animals.
Plants cannot anticipate, simply because they have no intelligence and thus no sense of self.
So, what is this special effect that suddenly causes the baby's brain to miraculously start working when it exits the womb? My wife's had two children and this is the first I've heard of this. How silly to suggest the fetus' brain doesn't work. What causes the baby to move inside the mother? It couldn't be done without a functioning brain. That corner keeps getting smaller and smaller.
How silly to suggest the fetus' brain doesn't work.
You are silly indeed. I never said that a foetus' brain doesn't work, just that it does not need to work in order to survive. You can compare it to a coma patient who is brain-dead but does not need an iron lung to survive. Every human does not consciously need to remind himself that he needs to breathe, or that his heart needs to beat. This is done automatically (and not consciously).
Like I said before a baby’s brain is not fully developed, not even after its birth so the brain that automatically regulates and heals the body is (obviously) created first, but this does not mean that this part of the brain that does work makes a foetus sentient.
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Firstly, a fetus has a brain (conscience,as you put it) AND a nervous system (senses), and is therefore sentient by your own definition.
I never said that having a brain = being selfaware. The brain is only the hardware but without the software it is useless.
Being alive but not having examined your life (being self-conscious) is not worth a life worth living. I believe it was Nietzsche who said this, but I could be mistaken.
And a foetus doesn't yet have the ability to examine itself.
To the thread starter.
Assume that in the third month of the pregnancy someone kidnapped the mother. Assume the mother and all concerned had agreed to abort just before the abortion. Assume the child is born. NOw, go forward twenty years and engage the child, now an adult in this debate. It is now up to you to prove to that young adult that "it" was once little more than a blob of cells deserving of throwing in the waste basket if not otherwise rescued from the aforementioned decision makers.
Societal laws have made the mother the decisonmaker, judge, jury, and executioner. Of course she is helped along by the genral mores expressed in this chat. A womans right to choose is a womans right to choose to sleep with a man she doen't intend to marry. A man's right to choose is the right to an eighteen year mortgage if the mother chooses not to abort.
One day mankind will sufficiently educate itself and evolve to understand that uncivil druids of drudgery and liberal psychobabble that think we are talking about a blob of cells as insignificant as a polyp were wrong. These folks will either have dissappeared by natural selection or otherwise be in prison,socially alienated, or otherwise isolated from any forum of civil discourse.
The entire debate is as simple as personal responsibility, as simple as checking passion at the door of reason. Educate those neandethal compulsions to the concept of birth control and enjoy. If your in that big of a hurry at least one of you is bound to be dissapointed.
Assume that in the third month of the pregnancy someone kidnapped the mother. Assume the mother and all concerned had agreed to abort just before the abortion. Assume the child is born. NOw, go forward twenty years and engage the child, now an adult in this debate. It is now up to you to prove to that young adult that "it" was once little more than a blob of cells deserving of throwing in the waste basket if not otherwise rescued from the aforementioned decision makers.
If the child wasn't 'rescued' he doesn't need any explanation at all, so what is your point?
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The entire debate is as simple as personal responsibility, as simple as checking passion at the door of reason. Educate those neandethal compulsions to the concept of birth control and enjoy.
I suppose they must think in a strictly linear fashion in Holland.
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