We Can Be Reasonably Confident that Abortion Entails the Killing of a Human Being

Thanks for debating. If you'd like to start another debate I'll gladly participate. You need not worry about the score as I fully expect to lose each debate. It will take several more generations for these issues to really become apparent. Many still have a rather naive view of concepts like "life", "death", and what constitutes an organism. We tend to think of "DNA" as the Rosetta Stone that delineates animal from non. And have a rather romantic view of the practice of taxonomy. Many are not even aware that we've been making strands of DNA for 30 years. (And, that anyone can buy a DNA synthesizer on eBAY):http://goo.gl...We are about to enter a great period of biological change. Let's start with an example.Venter led the private side of the H.G.P. Last year, Science reported that he had successfully digitally recorded, synthesized, and transplanted the first viable genome. A couple years prior, Venter gave a lecture in which he talked briefly about a lofty goal. The following is a slide from that lecture:http://goo.gl...Venter dreams of a day in which his laboratory technicians will be able to sit down at a computer, create any creature they desire, and render the genome in a living cell. Or, to put it another way, Venter wants to attach a DNA synthesizer to a piece of software much like the popular video game "Spore" -- which features its own creature designer interface:http://goo.gl...Now if you look at Venter's screenshot, you can see he's got a ways to go. But once he achieves this goal, whose scale shall we use to classify his new constructs? Josh, in the above YouTube video, would you have us believe that all of those biological concoctions, could actually occupy a species category that objectively exists? Venter has already applied for a patent for a creature he has labeled "Mycoplasma laboratorium." Since, in your above arguments, you seem to believe that a category for each species objectively exists, does this mean that you think that a category for "Mycoplasma laboratorium" objectively exists as well?Question.Given the 2010 findings that "Neanderthal DNA makes up at least 1 to 4 percent of a person's genetic makeup" how does this affect your classification schema? If we are ALL walking around with varying degrees of Neanderthal DNA in us, then how much of this "alien DNA" is allowed to enter our bodies, before Josh says that the resultant construct is no longer human? FSIAs your litmus test, you seem to be fond of quoting the above FSI paper. I find this puzzling for several reasons.First, all the paper proves is that, when comparing the DNA of a college student to lunch meat, some differences become apparent. Now, this of course was never contested. When comparing the DNA of ANY two constructs whatsoever, differences become apparent.Second, if we suppose that this is the "end all be all" test for delineating animals from humans, then this may lead to some curious results. For it would probably be the case that many of the below constructs possessed mtDNA that fulfilled the F.S. I. criteria, and hence, would be labeled "human" by Josh .http://img13.imageshack.us...If this were true, and if we were to reanimate these creatures, then, Josh, you would have some very odd looking church members sitting in your pews on Sunday. In light of this, I find it very curious that you wrote this line:Josh: "In fact, I’d be open to making it illegal for humans to cause the abortion of offspring for all higher mammals"The notion that abortion is murder for "all higher mammals" will surely have some interesting ramifications. One can't help but wonder whose definition you will be using for "higher mammals…?" Is a pig a higher mammal?Here is a xenotransplantation video of doctors performing an abortion on a pig, cutting out the neurons of the piglets, and injecting them into the skull of 21 year old stroke victim Amanda Davis:http://goo.gl...Josh, would you really have us believe that all of these doctors should be put in jail?(As a side note, Josh, since some of the brain cells of Amanda Davis now have pig DNA, do you still consider Amanda Davis a human?)ApplePieJosh Said: How could I make an “apple pie” when different recipes exist and the concept of an “apple pie” is simply a subjective construct? How many apples does an apple pie need to have in it to be an apple pie?Well Josh if you want to know how many apples are needed to have an apple pie, it says so right here:http://goo.gl...For the last 20 years, the Pennsylvania Apple Marketing Program, and Association of County Fairs, have all agreed that the answer to your question is 60%.But we ask again: Does this number OBJECTIVELY EXIST as a property of the cosmos -- like Pi or the speed of light?I would hope that, by now, you would realize that this is the sort of number that is merely jotted down as a matter of convention. And, cannot be unearthed via science.OrganismsJosh said: "if you could take a blood sample of the 1.2 million fetuses that will be aborted this year...you’d find that they all have human DNA."Let's do that!In fact, let's take a sample of every organism on earth that has ever existed ever. Our task now is simple.Draw a circle around the humans.How shall we start?Well, first we need a benchmark. I'm voting for the genome of Craig Venter or Angelina Jolie.Do you agree? Yes? Good, we're almost done.Now we need a tolerance value.I'm voting for the number 3%.Do you agree? Yes? Then we've succeeded!We have now formulated a mechanism with which to test if any given construct is human or not.We have found our J!http://goo.gl...We can now write our J value down on paper. (Just like the IAU did when they wrote down their rules for planets. And, just like the Pennsylvania Association of County Fairs did -- when they wrote down their rules for apple pies.)Now if someone disagrees with either our benchmark, or our tolerance value, what shall we tell them?If, as you say, "I honestly don’t know exactly what percentage of genetic variation would need to exist to disqualify someone from the human family" then why should they take heed of any rule set you would bother to scribe?"Can we be reasonably confident that abortion entails the killing of a Human Being?"To answer this question we need only devise a mechanism by which we can tell which constructs are human and which ones are not.How to approach this task? Well, how do we approach other taxonomic exercises?Can we be reasonably confident about which constructs are planets?Sure. We need only fly to Paris, knock on the door of the International Astronomical Union, and ask them for their list of criteria.Can we be reasonably confident about which constructs are apple pies?Sure. We need only fly to Pennsylvania, knock on the door of the Pennsylvania State Association of County Fairs, and ask them for their list of criteria.Now as we glance upon the two lists in our hands, we ask the question:Does this matter selection criteria OBJECTIVELY exist (as Pi or the laws of logic might)? Or are they merely SUBJECTIVE conventions that someone has jotted down to organize their file cabinets, or to make tastier treats?I hope it is becoming obvious now that this is the sort of information that is not taken to objectively exist.This is not only true with pies and planets. But it is also true with biological constructs as well.In order to win this debate, Josh would have had to provide an argument that illustrates why he thinks that a human benchmark OBJECTIVELY exists, and why he thinks a human tolerance value "j" OBJECTIVELY exists.Since he has neglected to do this, we need only conclude that this was a subjective undertaking all along.And that the question posed in this debate, does not have an objectively true answer. But rather, is merely a matter of subjective opinion.