NationStates Jolt Archive

According to an encyclopedia Life is defined like this....

"In biology, an entity has traditionally been considered to be alive if it exhibits all the following phenomena at least once during its existence:

Growth
Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste
Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion
Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to itself
Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions. "

This definition has exceptions....

"For example, according to the above definition, one could say:

fire is alive (this could be remedied by adding the requirement of locality, where there is an obvious feature that delineates the spatial extension of the living being, such as a cell membrane, although this would then discount fungi, and grasses from being alive).
Stars could be considered living beings (for the same reasons as fire).
male mules are not alive as they are sterile and cannot reproduce.
viruses are not alive as they do not grow and cannot reproduce outside of a host cell.
people who are impotent are not alive "

By these criteria, a zygote is technically alive. But, is it human? It does not exhibit cognative thinking, and does not learn and behave as we do. Also, most abortions are done while the "unborn Child" is in the zygote state, in which it has no eyes, brain, or organs. Could an abortion of a zygote be considered murder?

I have heard the logic used that abortion has killed more than every war the US has been in. I dont think thats true... but, by that logic, couples deciding not to have sex has killed more than have ever lived. And, condoms are also murderers. A man who masturbates is a mass murderer. Technically, all of that sperm had the potential to become human life.

I still havent truly decided my stance on abortion, I dont think a woman should have sex until she is ready to bear children, but it is her bod,y and so many arguements one could make.

What do you think, and why?

According to an encyclopedia Life is defined like this....

...

What do you think, and why?

A fallacious appeal to authority. If all things that appeared in encyclopaedias were the truth, even unnamed ones, then the lumniferous aether would have actually existed.

A fallacious appeal to authority. If all things that appeared in encyclopaedias were the truth, even unnamed ones, then the lumniferous aether would have actually existed.

You are so cynical, it gave me cancer.
Those are the definitions of life, you fool.

A fallacious appeal to authority. If all things that appeared in encyclopaedias were the truth, even unnamed ones, then the lumniferous aether would have actually existed.

Okay, I give up, what is the lumniferous aether ?

I still havent truly decided my stance on abortion, I dont think a woman should have sex until she is ready to bear children, but it is her bod,y and so many arguements one could make.

What do you think, and why?
I think you should ammend that sentence to read: "I don't think a woman should have contraception-free sex until she is ready to bear children..."

I probably will never be ready to have children, and I know that I will abort any pregnancy that occurs for at least the next 5 years, but I'm not about to stop having sex. Birth control pills + condoms + randy boytoy = happy Bottle.

I think you should ammend that sentence to read: "I don't think a woman should have contraception-free sex until she is ready to bear children..."

I probably will never be ready to have children, and I know that I will abort any pregnancy that occurs for at least the next 5 years, but I'm not about to stop having sex. Birth control pills + condoms + randy boytoy = happy Bottle.

Yeah, I guess so. Also, I forgot, abortion in the case of rape is totally fine with me...

Now, http://baharna.com/philos/life.htm is a definition of life.

Where are you getting your definition?

Everything has an exception, but what difference does it make if you consider abortion murder or not. If you've never been faced with the situation personally I don't think you have a right to say anything. Also, morality is defined by whatever society you happen to exist in, it's completely a human institution, and really doesn't have much to do with anything. IMO we're all just animals, developed animals with the ability to problem solve and vocalize with a coherent language. So why can't people just accept this? Sex is completely natural fact of life, and should not be made a taboo because of someone's definition of morality. But pregnancy and world population is a real problem, and thus we have to take steps to make sure this can be controlled.

A fallacious appeal to authority. If all things that appeared in encyclopaedias were the truth, even unnamed ones, then the lumniferous aether would have actually existed.
Okay, so are you saying that someday we might "discover" the "true" definition of life?

This is not an appeal to authority. It's an attempt to use logic to find a moral boundary, which is hard, so cut W1k1ped1a a break.

Thank god in America our laws aren't dictated by the encyclopedia, but by another, slightly shorter document known as the Constitution. The supreme court has determined abortion to be enshrined in the Constitution. Case closed. If you don't like it, go to Iran.

...and people say abortion is a complex issue

Thank god in America our laws aren't dictated by the encyclopedia, but by another, slightly shorter document known as the Constitution. The supreme court has determined abortion to be enshrined in the Constitution. Case closed. If you don't like it, go to Iran.

...and people say abortion is a complex issue


Wow, you are ignorant. You missed the entire point of what I was saying. I was attempting to use a BIOLOGICAL definition of life for the basis of my arguement of what is alive or not. Everyone is debating whether a zygote is alive, and it is. But, people kill living things every day.

Wow, you are ignorant. You missed the entire point of what I was saying. I was attempting to use a BIOLOGICAL definition of life for the basis of my arguement of what is alive or not. Everyone is debating whether a zygote is alive, and it is. But, people kill living things every day.

I think you missed my point. What I'm saying is that the law has nothing to do with biology. When you engage in this kind of probing of supposed gray areas you encourage pro-lifers. Abortion is legal because the Constitution enshrines individual rights in a way that America's greatest legal scholars has determined to include abortion rights. There's nothing scientific about it.

I think you missed my point. What I'm saying is that the law has nothing to do with biology. When you engage in this kind of probing of supposed gray areas you encourage pro-lifers. Abortion is legal because the Constitution enshrines individual rights in a way that America's greatest legal scholars has determined to include abortion rights. There's nothing scientific about it.

This time you didnt miss my point, you missed the point of the entire abortion debate. It has a lot to do with science, when you consider something human, BY SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION, it is murder. However, if a zygote or a feotus is not human, it cannot be murder. Science is 50% of the debate, 25% is religion, and the other 25% is various logic and arguements.

Abortion is only complex when you disregard the baby as a living being.
When it becomes a living being, the question is simple: is killing (yes, KILLING) it wrong or not?

Therefore, we must first decide whether or not the baby is a living being.
By the dictionary's defenition, it is a living being. But as previously pointed out, the dictionary does not always provide completely applicable explanations.

From a spiritual standpoint, true Life in regard to human life is defined by the "soul or spirit, that which transcends physical death" (also a dictionary definition.)

From a biologist's or naturalist's standpoint, life involves growth, metabolism, response, and reproduction. (as previously stated)

So far, both these views seem to support an unborn baby as living. However, a more cynical and literal interpretation of life can be found in yet another dictionary definition-"from birth to death."

From this standpoint, a fetus/embryo/zygote is not living. However, what makes passage through the birth canal the defining point of life?

Its all perspective, mixed with faith/moral standards.

If we're basing a definition of life on biological standards, I'm gonna finally take a side and say that it supports an unborn baby as a living being. Aside from having the requirements for classification of life, an unborn baby also does not experience any significant biological influence after fertilization. (It begins developing on its own genes alone, without any more influencing development.)

Now, is killing an unborn baby (supposedly classified as life by the above biological standards) any different from killing an adult human (classified as life)?

At the same time, is it not also as wrong to chop down a tree? (also classified as life by these same biological standards?)

From what I can see, biological standards are unstable.

I'm done now, sorry for the long post.

Abortion is only complex when you disregard the baby as a living being.
When it becomes a living being, the question is simple: is killing (yes, KILLING) it wrong or not?

Therefore, we must first decide whether or not the baby is a living being.
By the dictionary's defenition, it is a living being. But as previously pointed out, the dictionary does not always provide completely applicable explanations.

From a spiritual standpoint, true Life in regard to human life is defined by the "soul or spirit, that which transcends physical death" (also a dictionary definition.)

From a biologist's or naturalist's standpoint, life involves growth, metabolism, response, and reproduction. (as previously stated)

So far, both these views seem to support an unborn baby as living. However, a more cynical and literal interpretation of life can be found in yet another dictionary definition-"from birth to death."

From this standpoint, a fetus/embryo/zygote is not living. However, what makes passage through the birth canal the defining point of life?

Its all perspective, mixed with faith/moral standards.

If we're basing a definition of life on biological standards, I'm gonna finally take a side and say that it supports an unborn baby as a living being. Aside from having the requirements for classification of life, an unborn baby also does not experience any significant biological influence after fertilization. (It begins developing on its own genes alone, without any more influencing development.)

Now, is killing an unborn baby (supposedly classified as life by the above biological standards) any different from killing an adult human (classified as life)?

At the same time, is it not also as wrong to chop down a tree? (also classified as life by these same biological standards?)

From what I can see, biological standards are unstable.

I'm done now, sorry for the long post.

No one can deny that the zygote/feotus is not alive, by biological standards, but the question is, is killing something like that wrong? People kill animals all the time, and there are no punishnents, yet the animal is more advanced then the zygote. I was in no way denying the life of the unborn child, but humans kill evey day and see it as right. Who knows....

"However, what makes passage through the birth canal the defining point of life?"
That would be, by most peoples logic, the cutting of the umbilicle cord.

[QUOTE=W1k1ped1a]According to an encyclopedia Life is defined like this....

"In biology, an entity has traditionally been considered to be alive if it exhibits all the following phenomena at least once during its existence:

Growth
Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste
Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion
Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to itself
Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions. "

This definition has exceptions....

"For example, according to the above definition, one could say:

viruses are not alive as they do not grow and cannot reproduce outside of a host cell. QUOTE]
viruses are NOT alive!! whoever told you they were is wrong. because of that definition sienest will tell you they are not alive so you can take that off the list.

When you engage in this kind of probing of supposed gray areas you encourage pro-lifers. Abortion is legal because the Constitution enshrines individual rights in a way that America's greatest legal scholars has determined to include abortion rights.
THIS IS THE POINT EVERYBODY! THE "AT WHAT POINT IS THE BABY A LIFE WITH LEGAL RIGHTS" DEBATE MUST GO!! THE ARGUMENT IS FOR CIVIL RIGHTS OF WOMEN! WHY AM I YELLING?? :D

Luminiferous Aether in its original conception was disproved, but with the emergence of theories like zero-point energy and dark matter spawned from a vacuum, its looking like the idea of a background tapestry of energy is coming back. Soon Nikola Tesla's dream of free energy harvested from the untapped vacuum will come true, and I for one am looking forward to levitating around like an idiot.

Also, watching my state (Florida) force an impoverished 13 year old girl to bear an unwanted child is pretty barbaric by any standards. She shouldn't have become pregnant in the first place(but thats the result of a crumbling society lacking defined goals and secular morals), but forcing her to carry the baby into an already overburdened system is like saying two wrongs make a right.

I think instead of trying to ban abortions, we should be focused on trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies from developing to begin with, and we should improve funding and manpower in our social services departments. Then again, the religious mafia requires something to hate and fear to get anything done, so doing something as humanitarian as that probably wouldn't fly.

Luminiferous Aether in its original conception was disproved, but with the emergence of theories like zero-point energy and dark matter spawned from a vacuum, its looking like the idea of a background tapestry of energy is coming back. Soon Nikola Tesla's dream of free energy harvested from the untapped vacuum will come true, and I for one am looking forward to levitating around like an idiot.

Also, watching my state (Florida) force an impoverished 13 year old girl to bear an unwanted child is pretty barbaric by any standards. She shouldn't have become pregnant in the first place(but thats the result of a crumbling society lacking defined goals and secular morals), but forcing her to carry the baby into an already overburdened system is like saying two wrongs make a right.

I think instead of trying to ban abortions, we should be focused on trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies from developing to begin with, and we should improve funding and manpower in our social services departments. Then again, the religious mafia requires something to hate and fear to get anything done, so doing something as humanitarian as that probably wouldn't fly.

Yes, I agree wiht most of what you say, but it is difficult to prevent sex... Whos says that we should prevent it? It is a womans right to choose.... (I have no defenite opinion on this issue, just bringing up some random logic....)

No one can deny that the zygote/feotus is not alive, by biological standards, but the question is, is killing something like that wrong? People kill animals all the time, and there are no punishnents, yet the animal is more advanced then the zygote. I was in no way denying the life of the unborn child, but humans kill evey day and see it as right. Who knows....

"However, what makes passage through the birth canal the defining point of life?"
That would be, by most peoples logic, the cutting of the umbilicle cord.

How true it is...consistency is very hard to find in political and social issues. I think we can all agree on that one, at least in general. :)

As for the the umbilical cord, that doesn't seem logical to me...I fail to see how changing the source of an organism's nourishment changes its classification as life.

So...does being on a feeding tube or life machine make a human not human? That would be a logical conclusion if the above statement is true.

Don't want to offend anyone, and I certainly don't believe in ad hominem, just chopping logic here. :cool:

[QUOTE=W1k1ped1a]According to an encyclopedia Life is defined like this....

"In biology, an entity has traditionally been considered to be alive if it exhibits all the following phenomena at least once during its existence:

Growth
Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste
Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion
Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to itself
Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions. "

This definition has exceptions....

"For example, according to the above definition, one could say:

viruses are not alive as they do not grow and cannot reproduce outside of a host cell. QUOTE]
viruses are NOT alive!! whoever told you they were is wrong. because of that definition sienest will tell you they are not alive so you can take that off the list.

You are quite wrong in much of what you say, the issue of a virus being alive is under heavy debate by the sicentific community, and is largely considered to be alive. By your logic, a male mule is not alive because it cannot reproduce. Are you saying that all male mules are dead? I think not...

What is with you people and going on about how killing something that Might be living is so damn bad. But what about the thousands of people who die every day for useless reasons. People who have had anything from 1 hour to 100 years of actual living life before they were needlessly killed. I think this topic shouldn't even be discussed because it makes me sad to see all the hipocracy. If you believe in religion, science, whatever, it doesn't matter cause you're all missing the real facts. A fetus won't survive until it's finished growing and developing, so why worrying about killing something that can't live without support anyways. Focus on the already born.

i really hesitate to post in one of the abortion threads, but i just wanted to know what anyone thinks of the rights of the father? not saying i have any opinion on the subject, just curious what you all thought...

How true it is...consistency is very hard to find in political and social issues. I think we can all agree on that one, at least in general. :)

As for the the umbilical cord, that doesn't seem logical to me...I fail to see how changing the source of an organism's nourishment changes its classification as life.

So...does being on a feeding tube or life machine make a human not human? That would be a logical conclusion if the above statement is true.

Don't want to offend anyone, and I certainly don't believe in ad hominem, just chopping logic here. :cool:

Im saying that the unborn child's life is not technically its own until it is an independant being. I slightly consider it part of the mother while it is attached....

i really hesitate to post in one of the abortion threads, but i just wanted to know what anyone thinks of the rights of the father? not saying i have any opinion on the subject, just curious what you all thought...

Interesting, Ive never heard this brought up before....

Well, He was very much a part of the impregnating process, but, the feotus is not developing inside of him, and is not part of him, so I would say the rights of the mother superceed that of the father.

This time you didnt miss my point, you missed the point of the entire abortion debate. It has a lot to do with science, when you consider something human, BY SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION, it is murder. However, if a zygote or a feotus is not human, it cannot be murder. Science is 50% of the debate, 25% is religion, and the other 25% is various logic and arguements.
Well then possibly with your logic there is no such thing as God because it cannot be scientifically proven. People who believe in God can't accept that. That is why this is the wrong abortion debate. The way to look at abortion is as a woman's right to her own body.

Here is the same topic of defining life in last nights forum:
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=416178&page=1&pp=15 :p

Dempublicents1 is my idol!

Wow, you are ignorant. You missed the entire point of what I was saying. I was attempting to use a BIOLOGICAL definition of life for the basis of my arguement of what is alive or not. Everyone is debating whether a zygote is alive, and it is. But, people kill living things every day.

You are on thin ice with the repeated mild flames.

This was raised in the other continuing thread -- same definition of life from Wikipedia. Starting a duplicate thread was unnecessary.

But, more importantly, as you know the question is not "life," why did you even bring it up?

The question of abortion resolves around 3 things:

1. The Constitution -- which protects "persons"

2. A woman's rights to self-ownership, bodily integrity, control over her own body, privacy, reproductive freedom, etc.

3. Whether or not the object of abortion has rights. No one denies that embryos, zygotes, and fetuses are alive -- sometimes they use sloppy language -- but they do not deny they are alive. As you say, millions of things are alive but have no rights. Embryos, zygotes, and early term fetus are clearly not persons -- they have no moral or legal claim to rights. Even if these entities had a claim to a right to life, it does not supercede that of the mother.

All of this was covered repeatedly in the other thread.

Any questions?

It has a lot to do with science, when you consider something human, BY SCIENTIFIC DEFINITION, it is murder.

Nope. You are ignoring the fact that murder by is a case of unjustified or illegal killing, not simply killing.

i really hesitate to post in one of the abortion threads, but i just wanted to know what anyone thinks of the rights of the father? not saying i have any opinion on the subject, just curious what you all thought...

The father has little or no rights in the situation.

You don't own a woman or any part of her because you impregnate her. That would be slavery.

Her body, her rights.

If the parents are married or the father has some other legal status beyond "father," he may have some role as a surrogate decision maker if the woman is incapacitated. But those are more of a trust than "rights"

If the father has influence, it is because of an emotional bond between him and the mother.

If the father wishes to ensure a woman does not abort his child, he should be sure of that before he has sex with her. Even then it is a matter of trust. The woman can in no way be bound.

Once the child is born -- is no longer a parasite living within the woman -- then the father has equal rights concerning the child.

For a life to be human, it requires humanity. Humanity requires consious thought, which in turn requires memory. I believe that no one is concious before the can remember one thing to the next and thus became able to learn. The birth of the human is that point at which they become able to remember, grasp, and retain knowledge. I do not consider myself to have been alive previous to my earliest memory, though it is likely I was human for a short time previous to that. Human life begins with conciousness (awareness) in my opinion. That is not to say, however, that each individual is by their own mind endowed to know good and evil and make this determination for themselves. It is that fact which allows abortion, for each person know good and evil as a god individualy, and so is the only one culpable for their decision. To force judgement on this issue upon other would be of greater than immortal arrogance, which is why it left to the individual, who, should they have an abortion, would not be ending a sentient human life anyway, only a thing with the potential to become sentient and human.

-----------????????????????????????????????????????????????------------

The birth of the human is that point at which they become able to remember, grasp, and retain knowledge.

Evidence for this assertion?