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Texas bans abortion.

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The difference between a zygote/embryo/foetus and other human cells is that only a zygote/embryo/foetus can grow to be a fully developed independent human being.

Your semantic word play is designed to draw attention away from this fact.

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Do you deny that cancer cells in a human are human cells?
 
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I beg to differ.

I think we can 100% agree on certain facts:

The “thing” developing is human.

The “thing” developing is alive.

The “thing” which is developing transitions through stages ranging from a single fertilized egg to a fetus ready to be delivered.

The “thing” going through those phases is not viable outside the womb up until a certain stage.

That there is no evidence of a “soul”.

Those are facts. Those are scientific.

Yes, I agree with these but with the distinctions that smartcooky posted.

I was speaking of morality. That’s where it’s hard to come up with scientific answers. You can ask a scientist when a developing human may feel pain or have a semblance of consciousness, and get an answer. But the question of whether the mother’s right to autonomy over her own body completely supersedes any protections of the developing “thing” at any and all stages of development, that’s a moral question and different people, and different scientists, can and will differ on the answer. I’m leaning to the position that it does, but am troubled by the mechanics of terminating a pregnancy that’s continued beyond a certain point.

Morality comes in when things are not scientifically or empirically provable; morality is basically a matter of opinion. Morality is determined by one's culture, religion, personal experience, etc. For example, Muslims find it immoral to have sex outside of marriage whereas western, non-Muslim culture largely does not hold that to be true . For the early Mormons, polygamy was not only moral, but mandated by God. In Japan, seppuku was a way to regain one's honor.

So the real question when it comes to morality is "should one have the right to impose their morality on another who disagrees with that version of morality"?

I love science, and biology, and Evolutionary Theory. But some moral and ethical dilemmas don’t lend themselves to easy, black and white answers, scientific or otherwise.

True. That is why abortion, in particular, has so much disagreement. But it is either legal or it is not. It boils down to the question of "Does a woman have the right to control her own body or not when certain questions cannot, and in almost all certainty, never be answered? Those question are "When do the unborn become human beings?" "Is there such a thing as a 'soul'?", etc. Those are, and will remain, a matter of opinion/belief and not of science.
 
I was speaking of morality. That’s where it’s hard to come up with scientific answers. You can ask a scientist when a developing human may feel pain or have a semblance of consciousness, and get an answer. But the question of whether the mother’s right to autonomy over her own body completely supersedes any protections of the developing “thing” at any and all stages of development, that’s a moral question and different people, and different scientists, can and will differ on the answer. I’m leaning to the position that it does, but am troubled by the mechanics of terminating a pregnancy that’s continued beyond a certain point.

I love science, and biology, and Evolutionary Theory. But some moral and ethical dilemmas don’t lend themselves to easy, black and white answers, scientific or otherwise.

It might be simpler and easier to make the overall point that you look like you're making by directly pointing at the is/ought problem.
 
We are NOT going to get drug back down into yet another "Okay but maybe this is a special kind of discussion where facts don't exist and I can win by just declaring an opinion right" discussion.

How about this. My morality says facts matter. There now I have morality AND facts on my side.

You can't "but it's morality" a clump of cells into being a human being.
 
"Okay but maybe this is a special kind of discussion where facts don't exist…”

Unless someone actually said that, isn’t that kind of a straw man?

I went so far as to list a bunch of facts that we could agree upon, but did and will continue to make the case that while facts may inform moral choices, they are often not determinative of those choices.

Analogies are risky, in that they run the risk of derailing a thread, but I think it’s worthwhile here. There are existing facts about capital punishment, bullfighting or meat eating. Even after agreeing to the facts, different people with different moral/ethical systems in place will vary in their view of the rightness or wrongness of each. Such is the case, obviously with abortion rights.
 
I went so far as to list a bunch of facts that we could agree upon, but did and will continue to make the case that while facts may inform moral choices, they are often not determinative of those choices.

Then what does outside of who is the most stubborn and who can yell the loudest?
 
Moral choices are determined by personal moral/ethical codes, which vary from person to person. Do you disagree?

Morality being a personal thing is a misunderstanding akin to Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc each having their own truth. Morality is about agreements between people or it isn't morality.
 
Morality being a personal thing is a misunderstanding akin to Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc each having their own truth

That implies there are certain things that are inherently moral or immoral. Based on a universal TRUTH.

I think that’s wrong, as moral codes have evolved over millennia and continue to do so.

But I agree that’s a topic for another thread.
 
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But I agree that’s a topic for another thread.

Then why did you bring it up in this one?

It's always like this with the "I can call something a 'moral' question and not defend it or have to be factually correct" people. THEY use "But it's a moral question!" to defend a falsehood, and then go "Oh but that's not the topic" when asked to defend it.
 
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I saw it…

“Morality is about agreements between people or it isn't morality.”

I didn’t respond to that part because I didn’t understand it. Perhaps clarify it for me?

*Hammers planks and nails over the rabbit hole*

Before we do that how does any of this mean a woman's body and her right to make decisions about it is less important that a clump of a few dozen cells?
 
Mischaracterized argument. Personal accountability is a thing, for all parties. See my statements on proactive vs reactive birth control measures.

W12, what would accountability look like in the following:

There is some small percentage of women who know correctly that they will never, ever want a child, even if they became pregnant and even if they delivered the child. Also, besides abstinence, no form of birth control is 100% effective.

That means that there will be some small number of women who don't, have never, and never will want a child but will become pregnant unless they are abstinent.

Unless you're willing to say that such women should be abstain from sex throughout their entire lives (because no form of birth control is 100% effective), what form would accountability look like for those women who did use birth control as best as would be possible, yet it still failed and they became pregnant?
 
Maybe I missing something, but I don't understand this logic of comparing a cancerous tumor to an embryo or a fetus.

I mean a cancerous tumor doesn't develop into this:

[IMGW=250]https://platform.nashvilleparent.com/media/Baby%20Girl.jpg?raw=1[/IMGW]
 
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Warbler, the disagreement was over the use of the word "human". A tumor is made up of 'human' cells just as a zygote is made up of 'human' cells.

By the way, your image did not post correctly. You can always check if an image or video is going to post correctly by clicking on "preview post" after clicking on Go Advanced below the reply box. The way it will post is in the box above the reply box. If you need to correct something, you can edit in the reply box and then post it.

ETA: Your image is now correct. When I posted the above, all that showed to me was the coding for it. If you didn't correct it, I have no idea why it's now correct.

ETA: Yes, you are right that a tumor does not develop into a human BEING. But the human zygote below is not a human BEING :



 
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