I'm all for abortion, but that is because I don't consider a potential human to have rights, only an actual live human. Where that line is drawn is the core of the debate, and both sides refuse to even discuss it. They instead opt to throw insults at eachother: baby killer, rights denier, etc.
Until we at least try to agree on where life begins, this shit will run circles till the heat death of the universe, and journalists will profit from it.
HeLa cells are living, unique, and human, but we don't consider them to have human rights.
I would debate the basis for those three criteria too.
Living? We consume thousands of once living things to continue living, and will happily genocide microbes of any sort without batting an eye. We only consider life within very narrow parameters, that displaying obvious sentience, to be important.
Unique- exactly what value is this criteria representing? Are identical twins not deserving of the same rights?
Human? That's very debatable, at the moment of conception the first cell is human in the sense that any body part would be, but when does it become a distinct human separate from the mother. For some portion of gestation it has no distinct internal organs and is functionally very similar to any other mutant cells in the body. But we don't consider excising a tumor to be unethical, just because it has different genetics from the median cell doesn't mean that's a line we don't cross regularly. Your spinal cord is capable of rudimentary reflexes independent of your brain, but we don't consider doing something stupid and severing your spinal cord to be negligent manslaughter. It's only when they're biologically independent and autonomous that they're unarguably a separate distinct human.
Those same values are the basis for a variety of the abortion criteria, just under different
and arguably more defensible interpretations than yours.
Life? Abortion up until the point of brain activity.
Human? Abortion up to the point of viability, or heart beat.
Unique? Nevermind, no-one does that one, but that's ok, twins are cool and make for great data for investigating genetics' impact on traits and life outcomes.
I'm all for abortion, but that is because I don't consider a potential human to have rights, only an actual live human. Where that line is drawn is the core of the debate, and both sides refuse to even discuss it. They instead opt to throw insults at eachother: baby killer, rights denier, etc.
Until we at least try to agree on where life begins, this shit will run circles till the heat death of the universe, and journalists will profit from it.
HeLa cells are living, unique, and human, but we don't consider them to have human rights.
I would debate the basis for those three criteria too.
Living? We consume thousands of once living things to continue living, and will happily genocide microbes of any sort without batting an eye. We only consider life within very narrow parameters, that displaying obvious sentience, to be important.
Unique- exactly what value is this criteria representing? Are identical twins not deserving of the same rights?
Human? That's very debatable, at the moment of conception the first cell is human in the sense that any body part would be, but when does it become a distinct human separate from the mother. For some portion of gestation it has no distinct internal organs and is functionally very similar to any other mutant cells in the body. But we don't consider excising a tumor to be unethical, just because it has different genetics from the median cell doesn't mean that's a line we don't cross regularly. Your spinal cord is capable of rudimentary reflexes independent of your brain, but we don't consider doing something stupid and severing your spinal cord to be negligent manslaughter. It's only when they're biologically independent and autonomous that they're unarguably a separate distinct human.
Those same values are the basis for a variety of the abortion criteria, just under different and arguably more defensible interpretations than yours.
Life? Abortion up until the point of brain activity.
Human? Abortion up to the point of viability, or heart beat.
Unique? Nevermind, no-one does that one, but that's ok, twins are cool and make for great data for investigating genetics' impact on traits and life outcomes.