The developing embryo has no autonomy. You are transferring your desire onto it; an action that is morally wrong, despite how you may feel about it.

That's a very wicked way to define autonomy. And you say suicide doesn't destroy the soul? Well there are messed up people poising as philosophers everywhere I know. You're on the road to a naraka you won't have the strength to get out of. I'm too bored with this conversation,

and good luck but I wouldn't help you

Can't say that I need the luck, but thanks anyway. The end of your discussion was, unfortunately, predictable. I would like to debate with a "pro-lifer" whose position is based on more sound ground than "because it is wrong", however, perhaps that is the only ground they have?

All pro-lifers can do is indicate the way. Try debating an Islamic terrorist and you'll see how that is

Hey, EricH, now you and I are BOTH Nazis! If you're not too busy tomorrow, shall we invade Poland? — Herg

Ha! That got a laugh out of me. But no - I don't get the impression he's a troll - I think he sincerely believes what he says. I get the appeal of zygote personhood - it's simple to understand plus you get to be self righteous and lecture people on how bad they are.

↪Herg

It's not about insults. — Gregory

That's like a burglar telling me it's not about theft.

Your abortion stance is contrary to what your soul tells you.

An atheist who believes there are such things as souls is a new one on me.

There are no such things as souls. If you think there are, provide evidence.

While I'm thinking about this, tell me: on what grounds do you, as an atheist, draw an absolute moral line between humans and other animals? I can see why a theist might do it, because theists, or at least Christians, believe that only humans are made in the image of God; but on what grounds do you do it?

Babies have heart beats and brain waves by the tenth week. They are alive and sentient at conception. — Gregory

Your first statement does not provide any grounds for accepting your second statement. Was it supposed to? If not, what is the first statement doing there? Do you understand how to construct a logical argument?

Brains are not necessary for sentience. Like I have said many times on this forum, dividing the line between Christian philosophy and common materialism is false. You have to have proper philosophy and an understanding of your own soul and that things contain flux but also essence in them. There is no Prime Mover. Most people don't really understand anything about philosophy, apparently you included (after all, you asked for "proof" for the soul lol, gee)

Your first statement does not provide any grounds for accepting your second statement. — Herg

Babies have brain waves and heart beats by ten weeks, so that establishes (one would assume) that you can't kill them at that point. Knowing that the essence was there from conception takes knowing your own soul and how to do philosophy. Philosophy is a very dangerous practice if you have no idea how to do it right. Obviously you don't know how to even read my posts

Brains are not necessary for sentience. — Gregory

Find me a scientist who agrees with this statement.

Most people don't really understand anything about philosophy, apparently you included (after all, you asked for "proof" for the soul lol, gee) — Gregory

No, you're right I don't understand anything about philosophy, I only have an honours degree in it from one of the world's best universities.

Go and enrol on a proper philosophy course at a decent educational establishment, and come back to this forum when you've completed it. At the moment you're just talking utter nonsense.

things contain flux but also essence in them — Gregory

Gibberish. Where do you get your ideas from? Who have you been reading?

If you can't feel your soul you can't know philosophy. I read Kant to Hegel, who were obviously atheists who COULD feel their souls and knew morality well. Most philosophy students are pretentious and don't know anything really. Asking where souls come from is like asking where matter comes from. Those are prerequisites for understanding and don't have a source. The ten weeks of substantial essence (soul) is what produces the brain and heart in ten week old child of the womb

If someone spends years studying philosophy without knowing they have a soul then they've dug themselves into a deep hole. Philosophy can be very dangerous. You're not an authority on anything. As for flux and substance, there is Heidegger, Sartre, Hegel, and most phenomenology

I genuinely don't hate you but I don't know what you want from this conversation. I'm not sure I'm willing to discuss philosophy for hours on end in how it relates to soul. If you don't believe in the soul you can believe anything. I post rather sporadically on this forum because I don't like it to take up much of my time. I've taken a couple years of philosophy at the college level but I learn far more on my own. Again, I don't like this forum to take up much of my time because I read philosophy mostly for myself and spend much of my time doing that

Again, I don't like this forum to take up much of my time because I read philosophy mostly for myself and spend much of my time doing that — Gregory

I'm afraid that if you post an opinion in any philosophy forum, particularly if it's as contentious as some of your opinions, people are not going to just let you have the last word and go away. They will argue with you, and it will take up your time. That's how it works. If you don't like it, don't post here.

I read Kant to Hegel, who were obviously atheists who COULD feel their souls and knew morality well. — Gregory

As for flux and substance, there is Heidegger, Sartre, Hegel, and most phenomenology — Gregory

Except for Kant, these authors are not central to current Western philosophy. You need to read more in the English and American tradition. I suggest you dip into the online Stanford Encyclopedia (https://plato.stanford.edu/), which is free and contains excellent articles summarising the status of current debates on a huge variety of philosophical subjects. Just search using a keyword and find what interests you.

Peace out.

The only people I called Nazis was, firstly, you because you did not hesitate to say "I'd be perfectly willing to kill a pre-sentient foetus". That's very cold blooded and the type of of philosophy your into makes the situation worse. And the other fella said fetuses are people but their mothers can kill them anyway, which shows where bad philosophy leads

The only people I called Nazis was, firstly, you because you did not hesitate to say "I'd be perfectly willing to kill a pre-sentient foetus". That's very cold blooded — Gregory

I'm not cold-blooded. Since in my view a pre-sentient foetus is no more deserving of consideration than a pot plant, it is no more cold-blooded for me to say I'd be willing to kill a foetus than for me to say I'd be willing to kill a pot plant.

and the type of of philosophy your into makes the situation worse.

I think it is YOUR philosophy that makes things worse, by denying a woman the right to abort a pre-sentient foetus if having a baby is not in her best interests.

This kind of discussion could go on for ever, and it never gets anywhere because your basic assumptions and mine are incompatible.

I know how this forum works. I have 3000 posts and 100 threads. Studying philosophy is a big part of my life and I have a unique approach it seems in comparison to others in that I read some of Hegel everyday (I'm reading phenomenology of spirit for the 4th time now, or as I like to call it "appearance of Brahmin").

I will just add that you could have disagreed with James above when he said fetuses are persons we're allowed to kill, but you didn't object to it. We dont get to decide on our own how we are to view pre-born life. But anyways thanks for the conversation

Letting fertilized eggs die outside the womb is not killing them. — Gregory

If there is some way to save the embryos we must do it instead of taking away what we give to it for it to live — Gregory

If you were to leave a newborn infant unattended, it will die a painful death in a few days. If you leave an embryo unattended it will perish shortly.

For the moment let's forget about the millions of frozen embryos. There is nothing anyone can do about it, they will never be implanted and while you can postpone it , they will eventually all be killed.

So let's ask a different question. How can this holocaust be prevented moving forward?

I am not an expert in IVF, but from what I have read, under the current technology there is no way to prevent at least some of the embryos from being killed. It is in the nature of the procedure; multiple embryos must be created because not all of them turn out to be suitable for implantation - and the unsuitable embryos are killed.

So I put it to you, the only way to prevent this mass murder is to outlaw IVF. Now you might say that if IVF procedures could be improved to the point where all embryos are implanted, you could pass such a law - "All embryos must be implanted". But to get to this point you would have to do further research - and there is no way you could do such research without doing extensive testing - and such testing would inevitably involve killing embryos.

So, I put it to you that if you truly want to embed zygote personhood into a country's legal system - then IVF must be outlawed.

- - - - - - - -
But all of that aside, IVF is really a minor side issue. Here's my next question:

and have capital punishment for the doctor (and him alone) for illegal abortions — Gregory

This is selective punishment. Any punishment for the abortionist must apply equally to the woman. Take this example: you and I agree to murder someone. I grab the person from behind and seize their hands so they cannot defend themselves - and then you stick the knife into their heart. Even tho I did not perform the final act of killing, I am equally responsible for the murder.

A woman goes voluntarily into an abortion clinic, holds down here helpless child, and lets the abortionist rip her child out of her uterus and kill it. The woman and abortionist are equally responsible for this murder and must be punished equally.

But it goes beyond that. If a murder is committed in the course of a bank robbery, the driver of the getaway car is equally responsible for that murder (at least that's my understanding of US law). So if you knowingly and voluntarily assist in any way this murder - if you drive the woman to the abortionist, if you give the woman money to have the abortion, if you work in the clinic (receptionist, assistant, etc) - you are committing 1st degree murder and must be punished accordingly.

- - - -- - - - - -
As an aside, I generally try to avoid getting personal in these discussions and just deal with the issues, but it is revealing that you used the masculine pronoun for the doctor. There are female doctors.

Whether the abortion doctor is female or not does not matter. I don't know if we can judge pregnant women in their abortion decisions but we can judge the doctors (they aren't real doctors of course). As for frozen embryos, you just don't make ones you plan to kill and if you have too many you let some die. This is not the same as stopping the fertilized egg from getting to the uterus wall. To me the answer to these questions are very easy, you even said they were simple. Pro-abortion people are stuck with the mind numbing problem on when to kill the young offspring and I imagine this issue has caused for more pain for people then relief from sufferings

As for frozen embryos, you just don't make ones you plan to kill and if you have too many you let some die. — Gregory

So under some situations it's OK to kill your children by "letting some die" (which is simply a euphemism for murder). Got it. And there is no punishment for a woman who murders her child via abortion. Got it.

How is a frozen embryo a child, let alone a person (philosophically)? If it isn't a person it isn't murder, it is just killing. Furthermore, if you believe that an embryo is a potentially valuable being then you must also believe that the pre-inseminated ovum and semen constitute a person, if the ovum is going to be inseminated. That is patently absurd, and yields the conclusion that contraception, or a failure to inseminate the ovum, is murder. Even further, if you believe that the embryo has value because it can develop into a sentient, conscious, etc. being and therefore should be carried to term, then you must maintain that we should bring into existence as many of these valuable beings as we can. So do you believe that we should just breed tons of happy cows? Or all have scads of children, despite the fact that they might live in sub-par conditions due to a lack of resources? Should we raid the freezers and inseminate all of those ova? You might say no, but to not do so is tantamount to murder according to you.

The only people I called Nazis was, firstly, you because you did not hesitate to say "I'd be perfectly willing to kill a pre-sentient foetus". — Gregory

It never hurts a conversation to cell your interlocutor a nazi :up: .

Leave the woman alone, ffs.

I don't see many people complaining when a guy uses porn for release. That's genocide...

:shade:

Leave the woman alone, ffs. — Manuel

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with this kind of stuff. And I don't know why this thread just got popular, it's like a year old.

Haha.

Philosophy.

It never ends.

Pro-life people seems not so pro life when we are including their threats and actions against abortion doctors to the whole picture.

I knew that this thread would go this way, but do feel like things would go better for everyone were they willing to entertain that, from a philosophical standpoint, there's probably not a determinate set of conditions to be met as to qualify something as living, conscious, or of such qualified life that precludes its elimination, all the while accepting that a woman's choice is her own and that choosing not to have a child is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I understand that there exists the perceived need to specify just when it is that an embryo develops consciousness from a scientific standpoint, which I don't even think is possible, because of the the pro-life argument that "life begins at conception", which, in determining qualified life from a purely philosophical perspective, I think would actually be a less nebulous position to take, has the effect of slandering the pro-choice movement as being "murderous", if not a form of Eugenics.

I don't have a uterus, and, so, even I am of the opinion that I don't really have a say in this debate, but it'd seem to me to be the case that Feminists would be better off not trying to refute Christians with science, occasionally backpedaling oddly nebulous philosophical qualifications of either life or consciousness, and just simply relying upon the strength of their argument from a societal standpoint.

Things like the basic claim that outlawing abortion does not prevent it from happening, but just makes it unsafe, to me, seems to have gained them considerably more ground than attempting to navigate their way through the rather elaborate set of philosophical arguments and rationalizations for Eugenics that the other party has only brought them into so as to make this debate go on forever.

You have completely mistaken my position. If you read through the exchange between @Gregory and me, what I have been doing is echoing @Gregorys position back at him.

E.g., here

He believes in Zygote Person-hood. I.e., the moment a sperm & egg fuse - that single cell organism (AKA zygote) is legally a human being - and any attempt to prevent the zygote or blastocyst from implanting in a woman's uterus is murder - it is no different than if you were to go into a maternity ward, garb a newborn by the legs and bash its skull on the floor.

However his position is wildly inconsistent, because he is OK with IVF - a process which inevitably leads to killing unused embryos which (again according to him) are human beings.

He is also wildly inconsistent in how he would treat people involved in abortions. He calls for the death penalty for the doctor (or person) performing the abortion, but there is no punishment for the woman - who is equally responsible for committing (again according to his belief) murder.

There is no point in trying to talk him out of his belief. He's locked in. The only thing you can do is to point out the logical consequences of such a belief.

I don't know that that comes off quite right, and, so, will make another attempt to explain this.

I am a vegetarian. I used to eat bivalves because I had reasoned that, because they didn't have brains, they didn't have consciousness. I, later, came across a piece by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals about bivalves, explaining that they were capable of feeling pain. I, then, reasoned that being capable of feeling pain was a form of perception and that perception necessitates consciousness and stopped eating bivalves.

At this point in my life, I remembered getting into a debate with a friend of mine about abortion and vegetarianism. Because I was not well-versed in debate at this point in my life, he was capable of somehow walling me into defending an eco-Fascist pro-life position, which, I think, resulted in my just shouting at him in terminal frustration. He has kind of a knack for debate, but is also kind of one of those left-wing Liberals who, in any given conversation, has kind of a habit shifting the focus of the debate so as to somehow prove that the other party is lock, step, in line with the American Right.

Anyways, upon reflecting upon this, I came to suspect that it was kind of absurd for Feminists to attempt to prove to people who primarily are Christians that consciousness begins with something like the development of the cerebral cortex. It's absurd because it just shouldn't at all be requisite, but also because I just don't think that it can be done. I've never even taken an anatomy class, but I would assume that an embryo is somehow capable of responding to stimuli and that it probably has some degree of sentience before fully developing a cerebral cortex.

I later, came to wonder as, when there ought to be a wholly uncontroversial and incontrovertible assessment of the general plight that outlawing abortion just simply would incur, aside from the very obvious arguments there are to make in regards to a woman's autonomy, livelihood, and quality of life, to why it was that this sort of thing had become the entire focal point of the debate upon abortion. What I came to suspect is that pro-life advocates have intentionally led pro-choice advocates into what is a nebulous philosophical domain of qualifying life with which there is no prohibition upon eliminating as inextricably bound to consciousness so as to later slander them as being some sort of Eugenicists.

Perhaps, in some highly qualified philosophical sense, a person could prove that life can be ethically qualified as such and that some highly specified form of Eugenics is permissible. Within the general discourse, however, this would take such an extraordinary degree of abstraction and reasoning that, for any old person watching the debate on television, it'd be far too easy for the other party to just simply insinuate that they were somehow advocating for the systemic elimination of entire sectors of the global population. That the debate has culminated as such, I think, has been entirely intentional.

Though technically non-binary, I do identify as being male and am of the opinion that men only really have a place in the Feminist movement as allies, and, so, I should hope that it doesn't seem like I am making an attempt to secure any agency over the movement, but, as a bit of advice, I think that Feminists would be much more successful by relying upon the tried and true arguments that they do have to make for the legalization of abortion and just simply affirming and developing their basic principles than they would be in the general course that the debate has taken in attempting to make rather odd philosophical qualifications of life and to attempt to justify some highly specified form of Eugenics, as they have only been brought to do so so that pro-life advocates can continue to slander them.

To summarize, pro-choice advocates should not agree to the terms of debate as such, as pro-life advocates have not, in good faith, brought them into a conversation about the ethical consequences of family planning and are merely making an attempt to slander them as advocating for the systemic elimination of entire sectors of the population. The tried and true arguments in favor of the legalization of abortion and fundamental Feminist principles make for much better arguments than the rather abstract set of rationalizations and justifications for the near biopolitical initiative that pro-life advocates have led them to defend. I have included the anecdote about the argument with my friend to draw a parallel to what has happened in the course of this debate, and, though I claim no agency over the Feminist movement, as I generally identify as being male, will contend that this is just good advice. That is all.