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You can't be partially dead. There is no middle ground. You're alive or you're dead. You're born or you're killed. And they are extremes.
Halleluiah!!! You get it! Embryos and fetuses aren't alive. They aren't babies. Babies are born human life. Babies are protected under the law as are all other human lives.
The definition of life versus death has been debated by philosophers and various cultures for centuries, but, medically speaking, if the heart stops beating, there is immediate physical death (excluding artificially generated heart beat). This is an irrefutable observation across all mammals.
Everything has been debated for centuries and I don't need a philosopher or other culture to tell me that an abortion?
Kills a baby. That the woman is no longer pregnant. She doesn't give birth and is no longer a mother.
Abortion kills. Anyone who continues to debate that fact? Doesn't understand what an abortion is.
The heart is just a muscle that circulates blood, replace it with a machine that does the same thing and you still have life.
The brain is the organ you were looking for. Consciousness is what separates us from the other animal species and the most logically consistent criteria for personhood.
Heartbeat as a measure of personhood is asinine and emotionally rather than logically derived.
Natural heart beat is biology, not emotion.
The breathing center of the brain is what matters, not the entire brain. People with severely damaged brains walk among us, but when the heart stops, they drop dead.
Natural heart beat is biology, not emotion.
The breathing center of the brain is what matters, not the entire brain. People with severely damaged brains walk among us, but when the heart stops, they drop dead.
Nope, there are people who do not even have a heart, rather a mechanical replacement and they are alive and kicking - that alone is enough to debunk the irrational and emotionally derived notion that the heart defines our personhood. BTW "life" is irrelevant to the debate - only personhood under the law and when it is/is not granted. The whole "what is life/non life" rabbit hole is completely irrelevant to the topic and is merely trying to change the framing of the issue. Legal personhood is the actual question and it is not the same as biological definitions of life.
Everything has been debated for centuries and I don't need a philosopher or other culture to tell me that an abortion?
Kills a baby. That the woman is no longer pregnant. She doesn't give birth and is no longer a mother.
Abortion kills. Anyone who continues to debate that fact? Doesn't understand what an abortion is.
It sounds like you are on one of the extreme options: all or nothing. I understand that religion has it's own magical definition of life - something about a soul. Medicine relies on more tangible criteria, and that is what is necessary in a world where religious opinions are not only diverse, but contradictory.
It sounds like you are on one of the extreme options: all or nothing. I understand that religion has it's own magical definition of life - something about a soul. Medicine relies on more tangible criteria, and that is what is necessary in a world where religious opinions are not only diverse, but contradictory.
Oh, I didn't realize you were religious. Not sure why that's relevant, though. /shrug/
Nope, there are people who do not even have a heart, rather a mechanical replacement and they are alive and kicking - that alone is enough to debunk the irrational and emotionally derived notion that the heart defines our personhood. BTW "life" is irrelevant to the debate - only personhood under the law and when it is/is not granted.
That would explain why I mention "Natural" heart beat and exclude artificial heartbeat. In the context of the discussion, there is no such thing as an artificial heartbeat in a fetus. Furthermore, prior to the last century's inventions to artificially stimulate the heart, we have centuries of a clear cut observable definition of life versus death. The body can be subjected to many things and remain alive except the termination of the natural heartbeat. That defines death.
That's funny. The only argument for life beginning at conception is religious, i.e.: the soul.
Well, I'm prolife and not religious at all.
Good to know you think abortion is funny though. Explains a lot.
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