foy@aero.ARPA (Richard Foy ) (08/20/85)
In article <3658@decwrl.UUCP> arndt@squirt.DEC writes: > >From a recent Church newspaper: > >"Sixty prominent physicians have recently declared that the 'biological >facts' show that the unborn are living human beings. The doctors, including >Regards, > >Ken Arndt The question of living human being or not is not a scientific question. The type of questions that are scietific are: Is the fetus viable, what does it look like, does it respond to stimulus etc. These are only loosely related to the question of being human. Being human is a question of definition. That is what aspects of a being are necessary and sufficient for one to call it human. The definition of human has varied widely from time to time and from people to people as has been amply discussed on this net. One person has suggested the idea of two stages of being human. One that begins with conception and the other which perhaps starts around the time of birth which is necessary for a being to be a human being. I think this is a reasonable definition. There is also data to support the idea that something happens after conception that makes a step change in the nature of the being. People have been interviewed under hypnosis and have report events which occurred around the 6th month after conception which seem to support the idea that the soul enters the body at that time. This is the only data that I have seen which supports any stage of development being necessary to be fully human. It is interesting to note that the time pretty much corresponds with the Supreme Court decisions. I reiterate however that I am a man and thus this is provided for information only. I don't believe that men should have any say in the question of abortion.
charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips) (08/26/85)
In article <378@aero.ARPA> foy@aero.UUCP (Richard Foy (Veh. Systems)) writes: > >I reiterate however that I am a man and thus this is provided for information >only. I don't believe that men should have any say in the question of >abortion. Mr. Foy has said this a number of times. If he doesn't want to have any say in the argument, that's his business (and it makes me wonder why he posts to this news-group, since it is not hard to infer his position from his statements). However, the statements "men should have no say in the question of abortion" seems to me to be logically equivalent to any of the following statements: "Persons living in north of the Mason-Dixon line should have had no say in the question of slavery." Abolition affected (and may have caused economic harm to) Southern slave-owners, not northerners. "Persons living in the United States (Canada, Europe) shoud have no say in the question of apartheid." "Persons . . . " Well, you get my point. If a person believes a question is a matter of morality, not a question of economics or convenience, then his sex, race, nationality, and the like do not affect whether he is competent to address the question. (Admittedly, his sex, race, nationality, and the like may be important to his opinion, and may need to be considered when evaluating the validity or importance of his opinion.) charli