hey macgamer how is the catholic church NOT medieval and hor

[Senethro]

Lifesitenews? look at some of dese sotries

Tony Blair, Architect of Britain's Anti-Christian Culture, Complains Christians Are Being Marginalized
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030603.html

The Obama Victory Was a Giant Step Backwards For the Civil Rights Movement
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030615.html

agenda much?


But this is the weird one. this was actually a fairly netural in tone article, no threats of fire and brimstone, no social conservative persecution complex

British Prime Minister Says Proposition 8 Homosexual "Marriage" Ban "Unacceptable
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09030608.html

Not that I'm against fair and balanced journalism, but what has that got to do with the aims and goals of the site?

[macgamer]

Provided the criteria are objectively defined then why not? Do we define a 100,000 year old human to have 'personhood' (whatever 'personhood' actually is) ? What about Homo sapiens idaltu or Cro-magnon? Were they human?

I am not in a position to say, other than to question whether they were a member of the human species based on genetic similarity.

It hasn't been done therefore it is impossible? What has history told us about such statements? Oh and since it's clearly impossible that must mean your definition is therefore correct by default?

An appeal to parsimony.

I don't think you ever answered comepletely the exact point that a human life comes into existence on that thread. "Conception" is a sequence of events afterall, and within it there is no single moment between non-life and life (unless you wish to argue that their is indeed such a moment/step?)

I think I essentially said that when the zygote began expressing the genes of the assembled genome.

How about they have protection simply because it is immoral to kill or maim without good reason? Whether they are essential to the ecosystem shouldn't come into it. This sounds horribly homo-centric.

I think my idea of eliminating undue cruelty and stress and respect their rights to exist normally within their particular niche covers this. Humans are predators many other animals are our prey. Naturally we should not overexploit ecosystems as far as it is possible.

Yikes, so animal rights are merely property rights

Well domestic cats, as much as I love them, and domestic cattle serve no ecological function other than to bring us company and joy or sustenance. We know that both of these are otherwise a problem for many ecosystems and would not have come into existence other than by our intervention.

Rather a non-sequitar. Just because something is not absolute does not mean that any individual therefore has the right to define it. Rain is not absolute, there is a spectrum of rain. You don't treat every drizzle as if it were a hurricane in order to protect the sacred idea that rain is absolute.

Precipitation.

it is not full of discontinuous leaps from one species to the next, it is a slowly developing spectrum with species defined at arbitrary points by humans, simply because we love to label things. You are different to your parents, going by the idea of taxonomy being absolute you could be considered to be another species.

Polyploidy in plants is an example of sympatric species which causes the offspring to be entirely reproductively isolated from their parent population. This has not thus far been found to have occurred in mammals. I could never be considered a different species to my parents since there is insufficient reproductive isolation. What a bizarre concept to consider. Quite fitting given that we are discussing the issue of incest, albeit legalistic incest.

The mechanisms of speciation can be defined quite easily, and it's usually easy to tell which method caused the speciation event (slightly harder to tell between parapatric and peripatric though).

Gosh you should speak to Professors Abbott and Ritchie, they'd be very interested to hear how you've settled the arguments in speciation biology. Sympatric speciation (apart from polyploidy) is very difficult to prove, since you have to entirely rule out any period of allopatry which may have provide some barrier to gene flow. So to fully account for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years is quite difficult.

Yeah.... no. Cro-Magnon were homo sapiens. As I said above, species aren't distinct at all. That they are distinct is an outdated pre-darwinian idea. A paper came out last year where a researcher had cultured e.coli for 20 years subjecting them to certain selection pressures. After 20 years he had successfully bred them to metabolise citrate, something e.coli cannot do by definition, yet they are e.coli.

Your example of the E. coli is an example of evolution surely. Given the generation time of bacteria, 20 years with a high selection pressure is probably plenty of time for this to develop. Bacteria, as I'm sure you know, readily take up plasmids and other bits of DNA floating around in the environment: horizontal gene flow. For this reason it is not possible apply the species concept in molecular biology very easily. However distinctions between bacterial ecotypes can be and are made by assessing genetic similarity. To say that the species concept is obsolete is an exaggeration.

Well is it really justified in the nine year-old mother with twins circumstance?

When the doctors said that she was physically unable to give birth to one let alone two babies then that's an easy 'yes'.

The twins not attacking her

Putting her life in danger against her will?

nor are they intruders

In-trude [verb]
1. to thrust or bring in without invitation, permission, or welcome.[/quote]
This is a conceptual difference which is proving very difficult to resolve. They came into existence within her they never existed anywhere else other than within her. How is that intruding?

You are asserting things without justification. Right to life? Says who?

If they are human persons then a very basic right is that of existence.

Oh why not regress the responsibility further back and blame her mother for birthing her in the first place? You can be responsible for inaction as well as action. If someone is hanging off a cliff and you can save them but you don't, aren't you somewhat responsible for their death via your inaction?

Indirectly yes. However saving one person hanging from a cliff does not require throwing two others of first.

The BBC, the best source for a misunderstanding of the Catholic Church.

Yes damn the liberal media and their lies.

Hmm, why would all those child raping priests still be allowed to continue their profession then?

Are they? I think you'll find that they are not. Granted certain bishops were egregiously lax when it came to enforcing this, which the Church admitted was a very terrible crime.

[macgamer]

Actually, the Archbishop said exactly the opposite.

'When asked why he did not excommunicate the stepfather who sexually abused the girl, Gomes Sobrinho said: "He committed an extremely serious crime. But that crime, according to canon law, is not punished with automatic excommunication." '

(Quoted from http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show ... rtion.html )

Thanks for this, granted I'm not a Canon lawyer. First of all rape is a mortal sin, which if unrepented leads to unpleasant consequences. Given the Church's view of what abortion is, a crime worse than rape, excommunication is applied to highlight this. As well as encourage reform of the individuals concerned.

[Frank]

An appeal to parsimony.

Don't make me dig out Occam's Taser!

Or worse...

[the Empress]

I heard about this terrible case about a month or so ago. Thankfully the rapist step-father is behind bars. The mother must also bear some of the blame for the rape since she brought such a man into her home. Her prinicpal duty, as with any parent, is the protection of her children, she egregiously failed in that.

I'm guessing macgamer is a man? I'm picking up on this point because, from the articles presented, we have no idea what the circumstances of the rape were, i.e. if the mother had the capacity to intervene. The articles suggest the girl was raped from age 6, but not if the mother was aware of the events or if she herself was abused. The suggestion that the mother automatically bears responsibility for the rape is appalling - but totally in line with the Catholic choice of excommunicating the mother, who acted clearly in the child's best interest re: abortion, and not the male rapist. Macgamer's comment, unnecessary within a discussion on abortion and not the rape itself, suggests an attitude in which women are complicit in their own, or in this case, their child's, rape. Rubbish.

[Haunted]

I am not in a position to say,

But you are in a position to make that definition for a single cell?

other than to question whether they were a member of the human species based on genetic similarity.

Genetic similarity? We share 99% with Chimpanzees (and, the theory is, we can interbreed with them...). The first homo sapiens appeared between 100 and 250,000 years ago, a 100,000 year old homo sapien would be very genetically similar to you.

An appeal to parsimony.

Not so much an appeal as an application of the principle. You could also say it was an appeal to a continuing historical pattern: person says x cannot be done, scientist does x.

I think I essentially said that when the zygote began expressing the genes of the assembled genome.

So well after the entire genome has been completed? Assuming we froze the cell at this stage, any objections to that? I mean it's not yet a human life is it? Gene expression is also a long sequence of events (perhaps more so than conception). Does non-life become life when a transcriptase unzips the DNA? Or when the appropriate gene is transcribed into mRNA? Or when this mRNA molecule is transported out of the nucleus into the cytoplasm to be translated into the polypeptide? Or when the polypeptide is completed and is folded into the activated protein?

I think my idea of eliminating undue cruelty and stress and respect their rights to exist normally within their particular niche covers this.

It does because animals happen to live within an ecosystem. Why add this additional clause when it is arguably cruel to kill and maim simply because it is cruel to kill and maim? That protecting animals also protects the ecosystem is an added benefit but not the purpose of protecting them.

Well domestic cats, as much as I love them, and domestic cattle serve no ecological function other than to bring us company and joy or sustenance. We know that both of these are otherwise a problem for many ecosystems and would not have come into existence other than by our intervention.

This works only if you assume humans are above nature and not part of it. We have formed symbiotic relationships with cats and dogs. We both get companionship and happy lives. In slightly less balanced symbiosis Cattle get to live and we get to eat them. These are ecological functions. We are part of the ecosystem, the cows sustain us.

Precipitation.

A fancy word for rain...? I fail to see how this addresses my analogy.

Polyploidy in plants is an example of sympatric species which causes the offspring to be entirely reproductively isolated from their parent population. This has not thus far been found to have occurred in mammals.

Superfluous, not to do with my point

I could never be considered a different species to my parents since there is insufficient reproductive isolation.

Yes you could, if and only if, you were to consider species as being absolute and distinct. If they were absolute and distinct then there would've been a discontinuous leap from one species to another which would be between parent and child. Luckily however, we know better than to treat species as being absolute and distinct. Remember, species are just human applied labels, there's really not much of a fundamental bases on which to define them.

Gosh you should speak to Professors Abbott and Ritchie, they'd be very interested to hear how you've settled the arguments in speciation biology. Sympatric speciation (apart from polyploidy) is very difficult to prove, since you have to entirely rule out any period of allopatry which may have provide some barrier to gene flow. So to fully account for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years is quite difficult.

Ok yes, over longer periods of time in which the evidence has been destroyed be changing geology then yes absolutely it is near impossible. When writing this I had the Galapagos islands in mind and their recent (<3MYs) existence where the mechanism of allopatry is staring you in the face.

Your example of the E. coli is an example of evolution surely. Given the generation time of bacteria, 20 years with a high selection pressure is probably plenty of time for this to develop. Bacteria, as I'm sure you know, readily take up plasmids and other bits of DNA floating around in the environment: horizontal gene flow. For this reason it is not possible apply the species concept in molecular biology very easily. However distinctions between bacterial ecotypes can be and are made by assessing genetic similarity. To say that the species concept is obsolete is an exaggeration.

To say that species are not absolute is not to say they are obsolete, do you see everything as binary (it's consistent with theistic thought to think in terms of one extreme of the other, never any inbetweens, or so I've found)? Every living thing is an example of evolution, surely. This experiment was an experiment in speciation. Horizontal gene transfer can be completely ruled out in this experiment because the e.coli were completely isolated. They had to evolve the gene themselves, from scratch and they did it in only 33,127 generations (we are approx. 500,000 generations from our last common ancestor with chimps).

This is a conceptual difference which is proving very difficult to resolve. They came into existence within her they never existed anywhere else other than within her. How is that intruding?

The cells came into existence upon forced uptake of male gametes. We could just as well say that 'they' existed within the male before hand and he forced them into the female.

You are asserting things without justification. Right to life? Says who?

If they are human persons then a very basic right is that of existence.

Again, assertion without justification.

Indirectly yes. However saving one person hanging from a cliff does not require throwing two others of first.

But it's perfectly ok to let the mother drop for the off chance that one of her cells will develop? We are talking about a clump of unthinking cells versus the life of a 9 year old girl who has probably been through enough.

Are they? I think you'll find that they are not. Granted certain bishops were egregiously lax when it came to enforcing this, which the Church admitted was a very terrible crime.

[/quote]
Right, so only one example here of a child molesting priest still in the cloth business is enough to dismantle your defense here. Shouldn't be too hard considering they have their own wiki page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Cath ... buse_cases
Oh wait here's a nice document, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/aug/18/uk.religion.
So due to the amount of sex abuses cases the order from the Vatican was to silence everyone? In fact, rather ironically, the document threatens anyone who speaks out about these sex abuse cases with....excommunication!
Here's another more recent one, http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=3753385&page=1.
Told to stop performing priestly duties, granted, but not excommunicated.
Another one http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ne ... neDown.htm

[Senethro]

I heard about this terrible case about a month or so ago. Thankfully the rapist step-father is behind bars. The mother must also bear some of the blame for the rape since she brought such a man into her home. Her prinicpal duty, as with any parent, is the protection of her children, she egregiously failed in that.

I'm guessing macgamer is a man? I'm picking up on this point because, from the articles presented, we have no idea what the circumstances of the rape were, i.e. if the mother had the capacity to intervene. The articles suggest the girl was raped from age 6, but not if the mother was aware of the events or if she herself was abused. The suggestion that the mother automatically bears responsibility for the rape is appalling - but totally in line with the Catholic choice of excommunicating the mother, who acted clearly in the child's best interest re: abortion, and not the male rapist. Macgamer's comment, unnecessary within a discussion on abortion and not the rape itself, suggests an attitude in which women are complicit in their own, or in this case, their child's, rape. Rubbish.

(I thought this but couldn't work out a sincere way to say it)

[Thalia]

In response to Empress or, i suppose, continuing from Empress: As well as that - some rapists are very good at hiding their tracks. If he was always kind and loving with the mother, and the girl was too scared to say a word against him, you'd like to think that a mother could somehow pick up on something, work it out because her child was maybe being a bit withdrawn and quiet, but sometimes they just don't pick up on it. If that was the situation, the mother is probably overwhelmed with guilt right now, thinking that she should have worked it out. Of course, we don't know what the circumstances were but i'd give her the benefit of the doubt until information says otherwise.

also, i did actually think about questioning Macgamer's sex with regards to the abortion issues. It's always rather bugged me when men try to dictate what women should and shouldn't do with their own bodies. They've never been pregnant, and will never experience anything even similar to the emotional and physical effects of unwanted pregnancy - should they really be given any power to make judgements over a woman's decision? Here, i'm thinking of the catholic church passing judgement on this girl who was in a situation that they probably could never really understand the psychological distress of and probably haven't even tried to.

[Haunted]

(Quoted from http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show ... rtion.html )

Thanks for this, granted I'm not a Canon lawyer. First of all rape is a mortal sin, which if unrepented leads to unpleasant consequences. Given the Church's view of what abortion is, a crime worse than rape, excommunication is applied to highlight this. As well as encourage reform of the individuals concerned.

But you just said that rape was de facto excommunication? What's going on here?

[macgamer]

But you are in a position to make that definition for a single cell?

That is because we know that it is a member of the human species.

Genetic similarity? We share 99% with Chimpanzees (and, the theory is, we can interbreed with them...). The first homo sapiens appeared between 100 and 250,000 years ago, a 100,000 year old homo sapien would be very genetically similar to you.

If you compare the genome in its entirety then you will get that level of similarity. However that is not how these analyses are carried out. When constructing phylogenies certain genes are selected which possess variation that permits the characterisation of species. This method is even used to identify bacterial ecotypes.

So well after the entire genome has been completed?

I would not say well after, I said beginning. Once this process begins.

Why add this additional clause when it is arguably cruel to kill and maim simply because it is cruel to kill and maim?

I never understand why animal rights activists are so paradoxical very anti-human life. Justification of killing I suppose, which you advocated.

This works only if you assume humans are above nature and not part of it. We have formed symbiotic relationships with cats and dogs. We both get companionship and happy lives. In slightly less balanced symbiosis Cattle get to live and we get to eat them. These are ecological functions. We are part of the ecosystem, the cows sustain us.

Considering the distruption and destruction that humans are causing to the ecosystems globally, I'd argue that these problems are a symptoms of are above nature if you like it or expressed in a different fashion no longer being controlled by ecological controls which affect every other animal. Humans do not seem to fit well in nature, which many cultures have seen as the condition of man.

Superfluous, not to do with my point.

I was making the case for the importance of reproductive isolation in the definition of species.

Yes you could, if and only if, you were to consider species as being absolute and distinct. If they were absolute and distinct then there would've been a discontinuous leap from one species to another which would be between parent and child. Luckily however, we know better than to treat species as being absolute and distinct. Remember, species are just human applied labels, there's really not much of a fundamental bases on which to define them.

Really no. This is an issue of speciation, by sympatry or allopatry. Two populations between which there might be a relatively high degree of genetic divergence, are not truly distinct until they exhibit a sufficient level of reproductive isolation. No distcontinuous leap is required, if two populations, separated allopatrically must adapt to differing selection pressures from different environments. Eventually over time these adaptations may cause an genetic incompatibility and reproductive isolation upon secondary contact.

Ok yes, over longer periods of time in which the evidence has been destroyed be changing geology then yes absolutely it is near impossible. When writing this I had the Galapagos islands in mind and their recent (<3MYs) existence where the mechanism of allopatry is staring you in the face.

I'm not a great fan of sympatric speciation, although cichlid fish are an intriging case, and I think the case for allopatric speciation as the mode par excellence is well established.

To say that species are not absolute is not to say they are obsolete, do you see everything as binary (it's consistent with theistic thought to think in terms of one extreme of the other, never any inbetweens, or so I've found)? Every living thing is an example of evolution, surely. This experiment was an experiment in speciation. Horizontal gene transfer can be completely ruled out in this experiment because the e.coli were completely isolated. They had to evolve the gene themselves, from scratch and they did it in only 33,127 generations (we are approx. 500,000 generations from our last common ancestor with chimps).

On many issues I find that absolutes can be identified. However I think we were arguing about whether species can be distinct, I'm on the verge of confusion here. A few comments, firstly the species concept based on reproductive isolation gets a bit difficult to apply in microbiology, due to horizontal gene transfer. The development of a gene to metabolise citrate, does not necessarily cause reproductive isolation. 33,127 generations is a comparatively long time, but I suppose that depends on the selection pressure and the inherent genetic diversity of the starting population. The determination of the number of generations between divergence of species is of indeterminate accuracy since much of it is based upon mitochondrial DNA rather than changes in the genome.

We could just as well say that 'they' existed within the male before hand and he forced them into the female.

By 'they' I presume you mean the twins, no they never existed anywhere else apart from the nine year-old girl.

You are asserting things without justification. Right to life? Says who?

The 1947 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and the 2002 UNESCO International Committee on Bioethics both declared human dignity as their first principles.

But it's perfectly ok to let the mother drop for the off chance that one of her cells will develop? We are talking about a clump of unthinking cells versus the life of a 9 year old girl who has probably been through enough.

I proposed the option of conducting a caesarian section which would be an attempt to save all of the lives concerned. If they are just a lump of cells then there is no question of an abortion. However I'm advocating for the personhood from conception, as well as against determining whom has a greater right to live, which would involve directly killing the unborn.

Told to stop performing priestly duties, granted, but not excommunicated.

This issue of excommunication is one of Canon law. It should have been and should be the practice that following cases of abuse, priests are laicised.

[macgamer]

But you just said that rape was de facto excommunication? What's going on here?

A retraction, I'm not a Canon lawyer. I knew that abortion was. I offered above an explanation as to why excommunication is applied in the case of abortion but not rape. For the record I personally disagree with the Church itself pursuing criminal prosecutions. I do think there are distinct role for the state and the Church. It is for the laity to make laws of the state, although naturally these should be moral and just. It is the responsibility of each person to ensure they have a well formed conscience especially when it comes to making laws or speaking out against unjust ones.

[macgamer]

It's always rather bugged me when men try to dictate what women should and shouldn't do with their own bodies. They've never been pregnant, and will never experience anything even similar to the emotional and physical effects of unwanted pregnancy - should they really be given any power to make judgements over a woman's decision? Here, i'm thinking of the catholic church passing judgement on this girl who was in a situation that they probably could never really understand the psychological distress of and probably haven't even tried to.

Is an unborn child just another part of a woman's body? Abortion is a conflict of rights. I apologise if I have made it seem that this is a simple decision or that any crisis pregnancy is. I do not mean to come across as a prig, it is just that I was discussing this on a dry philosophical level, detached from the emotions of the situation.

I find this case of the rape of this girl, which appears to have been going on since she was three, utterly abhorrent and saddening. The fact that she became pregnant with twins added further to my shock. Part of me wants to be pragmatic about this situation and agree with the rest of you that the abortion was justified. However compromises cannot be made on human dignity.

At no point have I intended to come across as offensive and it would be to my shame if I had that intension. I hope you realise that I am not some sort of monster.

[the Empress]

I find this case of the rape of this girl, which appears to have been going on since she was three, utterly abhorrent and saddening. The fact that she became pregnant with twins added further to my shock. Part of me wants to be pragmatic about this situation and agree with the rest of you that the abortion was justified. However compromises cannot be made on human dignity.

To clarify, the article suggests that rape may have occurred from age 6 not 3. Compromises on human dignity? Do you mean dignity, as in the male dignity of the rapist to enforce a pregnancy on a child? And for male priests to enforce that pregnancy to come to term (a physically doubtful possibility). You certaintly appear willing to compromise the dignity of the pregnant child. Can you imagine the humiliation of being forced the bear your rapist's child? And the continuing engoing physical damage, not only from the rape itself but from pregnancy in an underdeveloped body and subsequent complications Perhaps this isn't a concern of the Catholic church, because the proability that man might be raped is in general much smaller than a woman, and that certainly a man cannot be forced to give birth. A man doesn't face the possibility of his rights over his own body, and his 'diginity', being taken away in such a manner.

[Thalia]

It's fine - i realised we were talking about it from a purely intellectual/ philosophical level, which was why i only brought it up when the Empress said something similar - I haven't been offended, even though i do strongly disagree with your beliefs

But the fact is, if i were to fall pregnant and have an abortion, for whatever reason, because i do not believe that the cells inside my body are human beings with an automatic right to existence, you (or any religious person with a strong view on this issue) would be judging me for something which you believe is wrong only because your religion dictates to you that it is. My lack of religion leads me to believe that i am not wrong and as long as the law agrees with me, it is not a conflict of rights because a foetus doesn't have the same rights afforded to it that i do.

And i agree with the Empress - the dignity of the living, breathing mother should come before that of foetus, again because it hasn't been afforded the same rights as the mother and i don't believe that it should be.

[the Empress]

I do not mean to come across as a prig, it is just that I was discussing this on a dry philosophical level, detached from the emotions of the situation.

Part of me wants to be pragmatic about this situation and agree with the rest of you that the abortion was justified. However compromises cannot be made on human dignity.

At no point have I intended to come across as offensive and it would be to my shame if I had that intension. I hope you realise that I am not some sort of monster.

Which is it? Dry philosophy or emotion? Surely pragmatism, which you reject, is divorced from emotion. To clarify, I, a woman, am able to recognise philosophical discussion. However, such philosphies have real world effect. My apparently irrational emotions have not led me to believe you are a monster. I do question however you're patriarchical viewpoint, as discussed in my first post.

[macgamer]

Do you mean dignity, as in the male dignity of the rapist to enforce a pregnancy on a child? And for male priests to enforce that pregnancy to come to term (a physically doubtful possibility).

I mean human dignity which transcends gender. I agree it is a doubtful possibility for the pregnancy to come to term, a miscarriage is more likely.

You certaintly appear willing to compromise the dignity of the pregnant child. Can you imagine the humiliation of being forced the bear your rapist's child? And the continuing engoing physical damage, not only from the rape itself but from pregnancy in an underdeveloped body and subsequent complications.

It is as much the mother's child as the rapist. The child did not choose to be born. Humiliation is an emotion. The chance of life from a rape is better than further indignity if loss of life.

Perhaps this isn't a concern of the Catholic church, because the proability that man might be raped is in general much smaller than a woman, and that certainly a man cannot be forced to give birth. A man doesn't face the possibility of his rights over his own body, and his 'diginity', being taken away in such a manner.

The facts of biology cannot be changed, but to say there is no concern based on this is simply not true. This is moving the argument outside of the issue of killing one to save another. That is the principle behind it. I have made the case for the human personhood based not on scripture but reasoning. This has been rejected.

By now I feel that you must have come to a better understanding for why I and the Church oppose abortion even in this case. I reject the principle that you can kill someone, whom I've argued is neither an intruder or attacker in the true sense, to save the life of another.

Which is it? Dry philosophy or emotion? Surely pragmatism, which you reject, is divorced from emotion. To clarify, I, a woman, am able to recognise philosophical discussion. However, such philosphies have real world effect. My apparently irrational emotions have not led me to believe you are a monster. I do question however you're patriarchical viewpoint, as discussed in my first post.

Pragmaticism is not entirely divorced from emotion since you made an the point of humiliation as a consideration. My issue with pragmaticism is that it compromises ethics, grounding them in a certain degree of subjectivity which leads to a different interpretation for each person. I have made no appeal to scripture, God, or the Catechism in instead making the case for the universality of human personhood, which brings with it certain rights and a coherent application of an ethic in every scenario.

[macgamer]

It's fine - i realised we were talking about it from a purely intellectual/ philosophical level, which was why i only brought it up when the Empress said something similar - I haven't been offended, even though i do strongly disagree with your beliefs

Thanks for saying, I'm pleased. This is an emotional charged topic and a completely realise that it can come across as malice.

But the fact is, if i were to fall pregnant and have an abortion, for whatever reason, because i do not believe that the cells inside my body are human beings with an automatic right to existence, you (or any religious person with a strong view on this issue) would be judging me for something which you believe is wrong only because your religion dictates to you that it is. My lack of religion leads me to believe that i am not wrong and as long as the law agrees with me.

I would also like to add that despite considering abortion to be very wrong, I do not judge people who have had abortions as being evil. Immense compassion is required. However opposition to the practice of abortion should still be voiced, but grounded in compassion. It is possible, as I'm sure you would agree, for laws to be unjust. There were laws enforcing aparteid in South Africa, which by your interpretation, would have made those in favour of it correct and justified. However it is possible to consider laws objectively and judge them as being just or unjust.

It is not a conflict of rights because a foetus doesn't have the same rights afforded to it that i do. And i agree with the Empress - the dignity of the living, breathing mother should come before that of foetus, again because it hasn't been afforded the same rights as the mother and i don't believe that it should be.

If the foetus (which is alive) is not considering a human person then it has no rights. If it is a human person then it does have at least one right, that to a chance to exist.

[the Empress]

[quote="macgamer"]

By now I feel that you must have come to a better understanding for why I and the Church oppose abortion even in this case. I reject the principle that you can kill someone, whom I've argued is neither an intruder or attacker in the true sense, to save the life of another.

[quote]

I perfectly understand where you're coming from: patriarchy. You have failed to reply to *my* point, in which you partially blamed the child's mother for the rape. You have failed to contextualise the case; the kid may very well have died if that pregnancy had come to term. You're saying that the life of a woman is less than the potential future life of a child and that they should have no rights over their own body.

[Senethro]

By now I feel that you must have come to a better understanding for why I and the Church oppose abortion even in this case. I reject the principle that you can kill someone, whom I've argued is neither an intruder or attacker in the true sense, to save the life of another.

I perfectly understand where you're coming from: patriarchy. You have failed to reply to *my* point, in which you partially blamed the child's mother for the rape. You have failed to contextualise the case; the kid may very well have died if that pregnancy had come to term. You're saying that the life of a woman is less than the potential future life of a child and that they should have no rights over their own body.

Don't bother. If you read his responses to me hes done it three times already. This is why I rarely put effort into my posts these days.


Edit: 08/03/09 Because I like to play psychic I'm going to try and guess macgamers reply to me on the next page. If he acknowledges my post at all and doesn't simply evade then it'll boil down to gods will or some other abdication of responsibility

[Haunted]

That is because we know that it is a member of the human species.

No, the DNA within may be of human origin, but so is the DNA in the mucus I sneeze out from time to time.

If you compare the genome in its entirety then you will get that level of similarity. However that is not how these analyses are carried out. When constructing phylogenies certain genes are selected which possess variation that permits the characterisation of species. This method is even used to identify bacterial ecotypes.

And this is still an imprecise method of human labelling. As humans, we all have different genes that give rise to different characteristics, e.g. dark skin, different eye-lids, hair colour etc. Where the line is drawn between species is still arbitrary.

I would not say well after, I said beginning. Once this process begins.

Oh come on I had a whole paragraph here about expression that was worth a response. You are doing a great job of making my point that it is impossible to define when non-life becomes life, unless you interpret things as a gradual development i.e. precisely what it is.

I never understand why animal rights activists are so paradoxical very anti-human life. Justification of killing I suppose, which you advocated.

There is a difference between anti-homocentric and anti-human. I see humans as part of nature, not above or separate from it. The killing of animals can be justified as can the killing of humans. What you said was that animals deserve protection because they serve us (via maintaining the ecosystem). I say such an attitude is immoral, whether they serve us or not should not enter into the question of whether it is moral to protect them.

Considering the distruption and destruction that humans are causing to the ecosystems globally, I'd argue that these problems are a symptoms of are above nature if you like it or expressed in a different fashion no longer being controlled by ecological controls which affect every other animal. Humans do not seem to fit well in nature, which many cultures have seen as the condition of man.

Humans are a product of nature, a particularly good one in terms of ability to thrive. Ecosystems come and go all the time (granted, on longer timescales than we are currently experiencing) and you forget that survival of life is a constant struggle and that it is perfectly natural for entire species to go extinct due to the tenacity of another. As an aside, human expansion will be curbed by nature eventually (we are already about 2 billion people over the capacity of the planet and this is going to rise) whether that be through virus' or famines.

I was making the case for the importance of reproductive isolation in the definition of species.

Mules.

Really no. This is an issue of speciation, by sympatry or allopatry.

Or peripatry or parapatry.

Two populations between which there might be a relatively high degree of genetic divergence, are not truly distinct until they exhibit a sufficient level of reproductive isolation.

Mules, and yes, some of them are fertile.

No distcontinuous leap is required, if two populations, separated allopatrically must adapt to differing selection pressures from different environments. Eventually over time these adaptations may cause an genetic incompatibility and reproductive isolation upon secondary contact.

Right,so at which exact point did the species change? If species are absolute then there must be one generation where one is different to the other. If species are not absolute then the change could've been gradual i.e. exactly what it is in nature, gradual change. My point has always been that 'species' are labelled arbitrarily. At large scales (in time) these look pretty easy to make but as we now know that life isn't fixed but is constantly in flux these labels become very blurry. The overlaps become significant. Which is why we are talking about this because us humans happen to overlap rather significantly with Chimps, Cro-Magnon and Homo Sapien Idaltu. Why aren't they persons? Where is absolute line? How many generations of your ancestors must we go back before you claim that your great great great great great great.............great great great grandmother was NOT HUMAN?

On many issues I find that absolutes can be identified.

Only a sith deals in absolutes.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

However I think we were arguing about whether species can be distinct, I'm on the verge of confusion here. A few comments, firstly the species concept based on reproductive isolation gets a bit difficult to apply in microbiology, due to horizontal gene transfer.

Reproductive isolation is used, but there are enough examples in nature to tell us that it only works for widely temporally separated lifeforms. As such it is insufficient to say that species are absolute and distinct because of this.

The development of a gene to metabolise citrate, does not necessarily cause reproductive isolation.

No it does not, however this is meaningless because e.coli do not reproduce via sex.

33,127 generations is a comparatively long time

Coming up for a million yeas if it were human time scales. About the time homo erectus became extinct.

but I suppose that depends on the selection pressure and the inherent genetic diversity of the starting population. The determination of the number of generations between divergence of species is of indeterminate accuracy since much of it is based upon mitochondrial DNA rather than changes in the genome.

The starting population was a single cell, i.e. no diversity and bacteria, by definition, do not have mitochondria.
The number of generations in this experiment is determined pretty well because they counted them.

By 'they' I presume you mean the twins, no they never existed anywhere else apart from the nine year-old girl.

The development of a human is a gradual process, there was just of as much of their ancestral DNA in the male as there was in the female. The embryo was not a product of the female, but the product of the forced introduction of male gametes into the female.

The 1947 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights and the 2002 UNESCO International Committee on Bioethics both declared human dignity as their first principles.

1948 actually. However, what has dignity to do with existence? Is there dignity in being the cause of your mothers death? Also, from the 1948 UDHR:
"Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."

Think that's significant? They don't bother to define explicitly what a human is but this is as close as they'll probably get.

I proposed the option of conducting a caesarian section which would be an attempt to save all of the lives concerned. If they are just a lump of cells then there is no question of an abortion. However I'm advocating for the personhood from conception*, as well as against determining whom has a greater right to live, which would involve directly killing the unborn.

And I am advocating two counter positions.
1. That they are not human 'persons' (again trouble defining what you mean by this).
2. They are human life, but it is justifiable to kill humans in certain circumstances.
Both of which are easy to justify, maybe slightly less so the second when abortions are done for convenience rather than medical reasons. A caesarian still carries with it a risk to the mother, one that she should not have to take because of the situation that was forced upon her, she has been through enough.
(* I thought we moved it up to gene expression?)

This issue of excommunication is one of Canon law. It should have been and should be the practice that following cases of abuse, priests are laicised.

Laicise =/= excommunication. Why has the Vatican tried to protect these priests? What would god have to say about all this?