From: ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: The christian perspective...?
Date: 29 Sep 92 21:08:49 GMT
Organization: Netcom San Jose

egorr@hebb.uoregon.edu (Eric Gorr) writes ...
>You are correct.  That is because I don't think anyone can define what a
>person
>_is_ beyond what I have done in saying that a person must be given moral
>consideration.  We know that a "person" exists.  Everyone can (I would
>hope) agree that adult humans are persons.  The question becomes when...

Then your definition is useless.  If one is just knows what is, and is not,
a person, then everyone's definition is just as valid as everyone else's,
and we're left with what is, in essence, the pro-choice view.

Which works for me, by the way.

>The other thing I feel is important in the discovery of this point is that
>it must happen
>at the same point for every human.  The _only_ point like this is when a
>human was
>conceived.

Just because you keep saying this doesn't make it so.  As has been
pointed out many times, conception is NOT the only point.  Birth
also works quite well (note that everybody is born at the moment of
their birth).

>But I am saying that a human life starts at a very specific point.  That
>point is the same for everyone.  That point is conception.

Nope.  It's birth.

>I have considered that myl...(however you spell it) point over these past
>few days, assuming that you could come up with support that would show it
>to work better then any other.
>
>I would like to ask you a question:
>
>Would your point occur at the exact same moment (relative to conception)
>for every human?

This is where you show your prejudices.  You cannot imagine the possibility
that conception is irrelevent.  Here's a question.  Suppose, for the moment,
that conception is irrelevent.  Why should myelination have to occur at
some moment _relative_to_conception_?  Why should birth have to happen at
some moment _relative_to_conception_?

>> You say that 'bad interference' would include having a fertilized egg
>> fail to implant.  We tell you that lack of action can't be
>> 'interference', and that fertilized eggs usually fail to implant when
>> they're incorrectly formed in some way.  You then say that to remove
>> interference, you're going to do something that will someday make
>> _all_ fertilized eggs implant.  I can't help but think this is a very
>> loony and poorly-considered idea.
>
>Why do you believe that this is a loony and poorly-considered idea?  
>I am willing to listen.

You've presented no evidence that zygotes will ever all be implanted.

Scenario.  Egg fertilized, but because of problems, it only got 1/3
rather than 1/2 of the mother genes.  It is incapable of growing.

You're claiming that such examples will someday be fixed and implanted.
That the missing sixth of the genes will be created from somewhere,
inserted into the appropriate places in the existing genes, and the 
resulting zygote will be implanted.

Even if it could be done, why would anyone want to bother?

-- 
Ray Fischer                   "Every improvement in communication
ray@netcom.com                 makes the bore more terrible"  Frank Moore Colby
Newsgroups: talk.abortion