Political Crossfire Forums

[Gilbert1908]

Gitana wrote: Quote: It's a human organism yet not a "person".. I'd love to know the practical difference between them.

The practical difference:

human organism - blastocyst explanation:


greatly magnified human blastocyst:


human being, person, baby:


Anyone who can look at a blastocyst and call it a 'baby' is not entirely dealing with reality.
To answer the thread question; prochoicers do not equate a blastocyst or zygote with a baby or child - because it isn't one - we can see that it is a clump of cells. Prolifers see it as the same thing as a child, & believe it should have the same rights as a real baby or child. They believe no woman should be able to prevent those microscopic cells in her body from later becoming a baby, and they intend to pass laws to enforce their views on all of us.

That's the entire abortion issue.

It would seem that it is you who is ignoring the difference. I always fail to see the relevance of this claim since the blastocyst is a stage prior to implantation and 100% of all medically induced abortions take place long after this stage? for the sake of argument I am willing to distinguish between a blastocyst and an embryo, the question is are you? I am more than willing to make a distinction between a fetus and a newborn, a newborn and an infant, an infant and a a toddler, a toddler and a child, a child and a teenager, a teenager and an adult, an adult and middle age, middle age and elderly. But I still don't see how terminating that life at any stage has any other result by the end of a human life, again unless you are denying that human life is a continuum?

A medically induced abortion is not relevant to that stage you so dutifully have pasted here and by the way you also do not explain the practical difference, Unless you are saying that a human life must have a certain appearance to establish enough value to be kept alive in which case what other exceptions might there be for an individual to maintain the right to life?

[Gitana]

The person I responded to asked the practical difference between a person and a human organism. I thought my illustration and comments made my view of that quite clear.

Quote: I always fail to see the relevance of this claim since the blastocyst is a stage prior to implantation and 100% of all medically induced abortions take place long after this stage?

Most prolifers are telling everyone that Plan B is an abortificant; Plan B would be preventing a developing blastocyst as shown above, from implanting; so in their definition, that would be a medically induced 'abortion.' RU486 would prevent pregnancy at this (and later) stages, and is an abortificant - so you cannot accurately say that all medically induced abortions take place long after this stage, and particularily not with the advent of Plan B in our pharmacies.

Without doubt, zygotes, blastocysts and embryos are human, in the sense that they are human tissue. They also have the potential of becoming full-fledged human beings. (Acorn becomes oak tree arguement again). To view them as a human being, or a person, or a baby, however, is a purely personal/emotional/religious portrayal.

Not only are zygotes and blastocysts not human beings in the view of medical science, they also face fairly long odds against ever becoming human beings. Far less than half of all fertilized eggs make it to live birth, all issues of abortion aside. A large percentage of them never implant in the uterus and are simply washed out of the system. A few implant in the wrong place, usually one of the fallopian tubes, and create a non-viable and potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy. Of those zygotes/blastocysts that do implant and thus officially become embryos, up to 50 percent suffer spontaneous abortions (miscarriages), often without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant.

Where we are headed to now is either "all human life is sancrosant" or "where do you place the demarcation line to declare it a 'person?'" I can tell you I certainly do not consider a blastocyst/zygote a 'person':

Fertilized human egg (zygote) having reached the blastocyst stage, Zygote contains 20-30 eggs and a fluid-filled blastocele is beginning to form. Stage: conception to two weeks

Nor a 4-week-old embryo -about 1/5" long:


Nor about 7 weeks -about 3/8":


My 'dutiful' pasting of images is in the interest of accuracy; compare the above with a prolifer's depiction of a 6 week embryo, below:


To address what may be the main thrust of your post: is all human life sancrosanct? Of course not. If that were true, we wouldn't kill in wars, in self defense, have capital punishment, etc. It's an idea (and universal guilt mechanism) upheld as the Holy Grail by anti-abortionists, but it has no basis in reality - in secular or religious history. To the best of my knowledge, Ghandi and his followers - and some Tibetans and Buddhists - are the only people that believe(d) all life was sancrosanct - and they lived their belief fully.

To answer where I place the line, it is when the fetus is fully formed, or almost fully formed. If a fetus is not in possession of reasonably developed body, organs, brain, or nervous system, I do not consider it equal to a person. I have no problems, however, with abortion limited to less than six weeks, and should home pregnancy tests become more sensitive and cheaper, I would also have no problem with abortion limited to less than four weeks. I cannot be clearer than that. For others reading this, please do not bother arguing me on my views; they are my personal opinion and cannot be "discredited."

I'd like to make a broader statement about this entire issue than your post required, if you'll bear with me; it may head off many other questions and responding posts from others.

To address religious views regarding abortion (which is often the elephant in the room that everyone avoids): the Roman Catholic Church and various fundamentalist denominations posit that human life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized by a sperm. In the most technical sense, that's true, but they imply that that equates with a fully realized human being, which is where the adamant position of most prolifers originates. Any step taken after that moment that destroys or interferes with the fertilized egg is, in their view, an act of murder. Drill down, and you will find that most believe this based on their idea that a human 'soul' exists from the moment of conception. (Assuming religious belief, one could reasonably ask why God would give souls to all zygotes, when most of them, as many as 70 percent according to one study, naturally will never develop into actual living persons...but I digress). The earliest believers/the origins of todays Judeo-Christian tradition stated clearly that a soul took possession of a body at birth. (That makes more sense to me, but granted, I don't subscribe to religious dogma, so I try not to apply reason to expressions of religious faith.) Abortion is a man-made (and relatively modern) issue. It is not mentioned in any of the rules set forth by God or Jesus, and the sole mention of the loss of a pregnancy (caused by someone else) requires a monetary fine; so apparently pregnancy termination did also not fall under the "Do Not Kill" law; or the punishment would have been death for the perpertrator. (Which is in itself ironically contradictory, but that's another entire topic). Since the Christian God so frequently used death as a punishment or threat - to include exterminating the entire world at least once, murdering all Egyptian first-born male babies, ordering his people to brutally kill enemies & wipe out entire peoples (genocide), one has difficulty seeing how adherents made the leap to assuming that their God held all life -let alone babies - as sancrosanct, and by extension, so should they.

While one can explain what an opinion is based on, or how it formed, it is not a position that needs be be defended or attacked, as both sides have a right to their views. Unfortunately, as is always the case, some will try to impose their belief on others, and it is always the party that believes they - and only they - are 'right.' Those people do not believe that all have a right to their own views. It's an attitude that is responsible for all the worst excesses in the history of the world. It is the dread absolutism. By it's very nature, it is not able to be discussed, or compromised with; to do so is an exercise in futility. Any attempts merely increase the rigidity of an absolutists position, and convince them yet further (twisted logic) that they must be right because someone is opposing them. Demonizing an opponent is also a necessary technique of absolutism.

I seriously doubt if anyone has ever been 'converted' from one side to another because of discussion on this issue. lol

To conclude with a return to the thread topic, of course one can be pro-choice and never want to have an abortion, or promote one. They are standing for the right of others (individual liberty & self-rule) to make that same decision for themselves. To call prochoice the same as 'pro-abortion' is either a misunderstanding of the issues involved, or a deliberate obfuscation designed to artificially create more negativity over the entire prochoice camp.

Pardon the length.