Fire Ologist

I think you nailed the competing interests here. Some are focused on more specific scenarios and situations, and me, I am focused on anything universa...

I would appreciate you giving me the biggest contradiction, particularly with regard to the essentialist/change part of the discussion. I am happy to ...

I’ve been dying to raise the oak tree, so thank you for doing that! This, to me, is the real conversation. What is a life, and what is a human life? W...

You don’t want to trust me. You don’t believe me or think I don’t have my own mind. I’m just a religious zealot (even though I don’t sound like one or...

So there could be reasons to value the life of an adult more than the life of a baby? Are values so subjective, that you could see someone make a poli...

I don't agree. In order to have one conversation, like we are doing, something has to be fixed between us that is not subject to only my goals or your...

Interesting conversation. I was thinking Kant right out of the gate so I appreciated when his name came up. Is there a possibility that where this is ...

Appreciate your point of view. What would you say to someone who basically agreed with you, but said they did not find newborns and infants as valuabl...

Pro-choice is a public moniker for what I would call Pro-abortion rights. Because we need to make public policy, and no one will ever agree on this, I...

Haven’t really thought about it much. It doesn’t really present any metaphysical questions, and ethics discussions are not worth the effort to me. Not...

There is no organism before conception. A sperm or an egg are specialized human cells, like a liver cell or any other special cell, but they are not o...

Legally speaking I agree. I prefer to discuss what things are and what they do before I discuss their value. Basically in order to say “I value Mrs Sm...

I get that not everyone is going to agree with me that the long chain of events that is a person’s life includes the moments they were conceived. I ge...

Post like what?

Yes. To keep the state out of it. But pro-choice and pro-life are political hatchet terms. I’m actually anti-abortion-without-exception, and if for so...

So you have nothing else you want to address?

Hi praxis, I don’t want everyone to agree with me. That’s why I’m bothering to talk about this with Banno. I want to find the most reasonable position...

I’m sorry you felt attacked. I don’t think I’m making divisions any more neatly than anyone else. Definitions and essences are a fickle bitch. But you...

I agree abortion ought to be permitted. What a pregnant woman does or does not do with her pregnancy and her body is none of anyone else’s business, p...

Attack you. You are tougher than that. Your use of the word “attack” shows the weakness of your position. You never said what kind of embryo you poste...

Why do you even speak? Repeating drivel by avoiding interlocution doesn’t bring new meaning to the drivel. If you don’t see that then “there’s not muc...

Where'd you go? You ok? Night - hi. Why did you say "organism"? Let me see if anyone can follow a simple set of observable, empirical facts and answer...

I insist that an adult pregnant woman, for example, is a person. I think we all agree there. But what do all the examples of a person have in common? ...

I know you are trying to be clear and I appreciate that. And maybe you are being clear and I just haven’t caught it yet. And I don’t mean to misrepres...

That is interesting. As a metaphysical construct. Relationship is language. Things speaking, by simply being, related.

Honestly, I’m not sure I follow you. It would help me if you didn’t use the poison berry/guide book analogy, and just state the case using words like ...

Tons of differences. What kind of embryo is it? I can’t tell by looking at it. Do you know?

:lol: The point is you can’t tell. Let’s try this. Do zygotes and Mrs Smith have anything at all in common? See, I know the answer (there a few for su...

But you are assuming you know what an abortion is. You have to assume what an abortion is before you can hold it up for moral judgment. The question i...

Not so fast. So quick to judge my values. So far you said a human being has “needs and desires” and “can do ethics and lunch”. That’s a human being as...

Then how is a new born baby any different than a zygote, because new born babies don’t do ethics or lunch either?

True. And if you keep comparing all these values, you keep sounding like you are avoiding the conversation. I'm asking you to tell me what you value a...

I'm just not sure how this helps a pregnant person who asks "I don't know what to do because I don't want to be pregnant or have a baby, but I also do...

Right. You can't stop contradicting yourself. Contradictions like: And "look around, see what I've discovered that is the case: Total mess.

All of that is a reasonable way to make an assumption. But what if you don't want to make an assumption? The guidebook is unhelpful if you do not want...

So the set of all humans (whatever the definition) is defined by a choice. All definitions are by a choice I take it. You are talking about how we def...

What evidence is there that a new born baby has a mind? When you say you have a "mind" do you mean certain the thing that seems to coincide with certa...

Problem solved. All questions answered. No more reason to debate abortion I guess. Why are people risking their lives to save anything? Are orphans un...

The question is whether a miscarriage is the end of the short life of a person, or not. Why jump to asking for blame and “wrongness” without addressin...

That is exactly right. The question is whether all of Banno’s wonderful concerns for other women apply to people in the earliest moments of their live...

Who said anything about any of that? I could care less what you or anyone does. I don’t need a law for or against abortion or lump flesh surgery or no...

I am following you here. I would say “if our faculty of reason warns us against abortions, then it is reasonable to infer the human fetus is a person....

Yes. In fact I am. I guess I’m not making sense to you. Hope you are okay too then. Maybe you are annoyed I keep asking “what” when you want to go in ...

Really? That is as specific as it gets? No other starting point than “whatever”? True. And Mrs Smith is not of the same value as a newborn baby. And a...

Based on what physical or metaphysical evidence can we make a decision about “what counts as a human being?”

So a human foetus is not a human being? I’m waiting for the qualities of an organism that make it a human being.

:100: You take a new born baby and cut its head off and you are Hitler. You take a 6 month old human fetus and cut its head off and no one can say wha...

No one who supports abortion will give a definition of a human being that includes a new born baby, yet everybody seems to think new born babies are p...

Does a human being have a mind when it is sleeping? Even a primitive one? How about when it is knocked unconscious? It is not “brain dead” but it cann...

And how about a dog or a chimp, do they have minds?