Slashdot Mirror
Start of Life Gene Discovered
gollum123 writes "The BBC reports that scientists from the UK and France have may found a gene responsible for controlling the fertilization of a new egg." From the article: "The HIRA gene is involved in the events necessary for the fertilisation that take place once a sperm enters an egg. Faults in this gene might explain why some couples struggle to get pregnant despite having healthy sperm ... Although their work in Nature is based on fruit flies, the same genetic processes are present in humans."
Does this mean that people are willing to acknowledge that fertilization is the start of life for individuals in a species that reproduces via sperm and egg?
So if I mate with a fruit fly and she doesn't conceive....I'll know why.
Just when you thought you'd get rid of those flies for some time now during the winter, scientists come up with a way to help those damn flies to reproduce?
Full Tilt
God is dead.
And they would need suicide bombers—why? Kick back, enjoy life and watch your hatred's work progress via multigenerational warfare.
the faulty sperm: "Heelllpp Meeeeeeeee"
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
One wonders if gene therapy is a possibility. Could this gene be "repaired" allowing couples previously unable to conceive to have children? If so it may spell the end to births of "litters" as those are mostly due to fertility drugs.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Yeah, that episode of Stargate: SG-1 was pretty good, wasn't it?
LOL. I stopped watching SG-1 like three years ago after it got a little... ridiculous. Didn't see that one. :)
'2010'
:)
Seems like all good ideas come from SF
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
when the first in-vitro fertilization was performed?
Gee, we have progressed!
Fruit flies like a banana
G Marx
Help fight continental drift.
"bootstrap code"...
:-)
Anyone know if it's an Award or a Phoenix?
(In any case, the ramifications are stupendous - literally
seems that we're learning something new about genes every day,
like the story yesterday about Black Death/Plague and HIV)
I find it even funnier that Republicans throw a massive tantrum with regards to abortion in the US, even when done under the best possible circumstances (ie. as early as possible, and so forth). Yet they feel compelled, eager and even overjoyed to participate in the mass slaughter of actual Iraqi and Afghani children via their "war on terror". Then again, your Republicans these days are as hypocritical as your Democrats.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
But gene therapy using viruses generally doesn't affect the testicles or ovaries - see that's the part that carries the genetic information and spreads it to the offspring - and AFAIK, AIDS targets only white cells.
Besides, if permanent, inheritable gene therapy had been discovered, there wouldn't be any cases of Down syndrome and other diseases, because people would've been vaccined already!
heck, we could have vaccined people with the delta-32 gene and get rid of AIDS once and for all!
But guess what, we aren't there yet.
Interesting thought. But I'm placing my bet on good ol' human nature to stop this one in its tracks. The kind of people that want to kill all those $ENEMY bastards are generally more motivated by self interest than anything else, so this plan's too slow to accomplish anything in that regard.
you just made my day. Couldn't think of a better excuse.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Who gives a fuck if it is a 'human life' under undefined terms, or under your defined terms, it is a living organism for crying out loud!
So, I should stop eating plants? They're living organisms! In fact, they're still alive when I eat them!*
* assuming they're fresh - fast food salads notwithstanding.
Don't trust any concentration of power.
Then so is eating turkey. Once a year millions of turkeys get slaughtered for a feast. And what have they done to you ? Did they plan to assassinate you ? No it can't. It is a living organism for crying out loud ! What in the world makes you think you have the privilege, oh I'm sorry, the 'right' as you call it, to take the life of an absolutely helpless innocent turkey ? I'll answer that last one for you ... they taste nice ^_^
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
While I tend to agree with you that any viable cell that may become a human being must be treated with the same respect a fully developed one demands, I would not force other people to live under my beliefs.
It is curious many people (don't know your position about this) who object to abortion never do so about death penalty.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Nietzche Is Dead ~ God
The ridiculous episodes are the best part. Just ask Murray!
Who is John Cabal?
Praise God, who in His infinite wisdom and omnipotence, used the same genetic methodology in fruit flies as He used in that created in His image.
He works in mysterious ways, so don't bother to wonder why He couldn't optimize the system in each species.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Stage 2...
Booting Human Organism (2.6.13) in 5...4...3...2...1...
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
...but then again, why must God be unknowable or even mysterious? Maybe we're just getting closer.
Just a note, I personally don't have anything against (most) abortions, but I can see the point of view of those who are against abortion and for the death penalty.
Its basically that the fetuses have done nothing to deserve death, while the criminals have.
Effectively, for most, its about sin and biblical justice.
Where do I sign up?
I am a strict materialist, as you seem to be. Therefore, I agree that organic life has no "animating spirit" that fundamentally distinguishes it from non-life. In that sense, you are correct that life is just "an elaborate pile of goo".
On the other hand, human life exhibits some characteristics that are currently beyond all scientific explanation. In particular, I am thinking of free will, conciousness, and self-awareness (which are all probably words for the same underlying phenomenon). No one has the slightest idea how these characteristics arise in a human (and, puzzlingly, don't seem to in any other form of life).
While this doesn't necessarily imply that humans have "souls", it does leave the question very much up in the air. Therefore, it is entirely possible that your personal pile of goo is home to some extremely unusual processes. Some have speculated, for example, that quantum mechanical uncertainity is at the heart of free will. In this sense, the difference between "human" and "a bunch of cells" is an immense one.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Wow, do you political moonbats EVER take a day off?
I'm not a Republican (or a Democrat) by the way... just sick of seeing politics dragged into EVERYTHING. The fact that this has been moderated "interesting" rather than "off-topic" (as it clearly is) shows the extent to which this crap has gotten out of hand.
Hint: there are lots of people who don't give a flying fuck about your big-end vs. little-end fetish.
Firstly, it may be a living organism. But at 2 weeks or 3 weeks, certainly not cognizant. Further more, it's not so much taking the life of a 'child' (I wouldn't call a bundle of goop after a couple weeks a child), but preserving the life style of the mother. For people who accidentally conceive, and have no wish to have a child, who are not ready to have a child- say a college student- a child would be catastrophic. Certainly the mother's livelihood takes precedence over a bundle of goop. I can't see how you would argue that an abortion is a worse outcome than a mother being forced to have a child she doesn't want and has no interest caring for.
Secondly- pull your head out of your ass and realize that people can accidentally conceive while using protection. It's not foolproof.
Thirdly- go back to school and learn you some gooder words:
"genocide- Noun. The deliberate killing of a large group of people, esp. those of a particular ethnic group or nation." Last time I checked, "babies" can't be classified as a nation or ethnic group.
Lastly- you can say "Abortion is legal ______ (I would say infanticide, but that definition doesn't really fit either)," but the fact is that it is legal. So, neener neener neener.
Please, come back when you have some sensical arguments and aren't typing while slobering over a Bible.
that we as a society can define death as when the higher level brain is no longer functioning AND has not capability to do so again. The smart way to define human life would seem to be the opposite of that definition. And yet, there are so many who try to change that. Some by creating a none life (pro-choice), when it is obvious that it is (at the very least, if the fetus can live outside the womb AND has higher brain function, then it must be alive). Then there are others who wish to extend the creation of life back to the beginning, will still accepting the above as death.
Too funny.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is HIRA intended as wordplay on HERA, the wife of Zeus and Queen of the Olympian deities? I ran a quick search and found no such suggestion. Hera is an ancient mother goddess worshipped as the source of life. She is an aspect of the White Goddess whose three representations are a young mother (colour blue), a warring matriarch (colour red), a death hag (colour black).
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Mmmmhmm. because when terrorists want to make a point and wreak havok they often go the the most non-sensational, subtle and long term but slowly effective methods available. Right. But let's continue thinking along the lines of OH NOES! won't someone think of the terrorists?!! Because, you know, even though its irrational, that's more exciting. Right?
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Just as long as Dr. Van Parijs, formerly of MIT's biology department had absolutely no involvement with collecting the data.
My rights don't need management.
If you are alluding to the abortion/stem-cell/IVF debates, the question isn't really weather life begins at conception, but rather moral personhood.
I would have to say that a fertilized egg is "alive" by any meaningful standard you can come up with. Bacteria are indisputably alive, and a fertilized egg is even more complex and larger. The cell has potential to reproduce and is metabolizing, which are often used as tests as to whether something is alive.
The three debates I mentioned above are not technical or scientific debates. Rather, they are moral, philosophical debates. In other words, they are not disagreements about what is, but what ought to be. Science can never answer such questions.
Goddammit don't mod him interesting; I'm sick of this 'terrorist' thing coming up on every friggin' topic already.
mnemonic is dead.
find it even funnier that Republicans throw a massive tantrum with regards to abortion in the US, even when done under the best possible circumstances (ie. as early as possible, and so forth).
How about the MAJORITY of American throwing a massive tantrum. It's not that hard to figure it out when nine judges cast a vote on the most controversial topics in US history. In fact, it's so controversial that many are in favor of putting togeather a Constitutional Amendment that explicitly states when you can and cannot justify abortion at the federal level.
Seriously, I suggest all Non-Americans read about Roe vs. Wade before bashing America for our ethical and moral views. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_vs._Wade
Life is not for the lazy.
According to here, there are approximately 46 million abortions every year (1.4 million in the US). It seems a little hypocritical to hold massive protests and complain so much about the "mass slaughter of Iraqi and Afghani children" when the 126,000 unborn children destroyed every day are written off as "the right to choose".
This means that modern medicine will soon be able to detect infertile couples by testing for the HIRA gene and help these couples reproduce, for example through early in-vitro fertilization (early while the woman is young and has little pregnancy risk).
Of course, this means that the descendants will also carry HIRA, thus greatly increasing their chances they'll require assistance to reproduce.
This is like a repeat-customer wet dream for a clinic chain owner, you know. When the IVF clinic owner's kids will inherit the clinic, they'll also inherit a sound customer base.
It reminds me of these PC repairs technicians that just reinstall Windows on the same spyware-laden machine every month instead of training their customers to use Linux or a Mac. Repeat business.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Some have speculated, for example, that quantum mechanical uncertainity is at the heart of free will.
Could someone expand on this? From what I understand, the cells in our brains are much too large to be aware of or take advantage of any quantum uncertainty...
I wonder if this breakthrough could lead to better birth control options.
I have never met any American, left, center or right, who is at all pleased with the "mass slaughter of Iraqi and Afghani children".
Can you provide even one example?
Or are you just making "#$# up?
Yeah right.
Like a bunch of raving durka durkas are going to be able to accomplish anything like that.
Under your logic, you would also permit murder of fully sentient adult humans! After all, you wouldn't want to force your belief that murder is wrong upon others?
It is perfectly logical and self-consistent to use force in order to prevent one person from harming another. I daresay you would hate living in a world that did not adopt this general standard.
If the zygote has rights, the fact that it could reproduce does not diminish its rights - it enhances them!
Have you seen the replacement rates in Europe (both eastern and western)? They are well below the replacement rate (approx. 2.1 children/fertile woman), resulting in exponential population decay. By most projections, the muslim to non-muslim demographics in France are expected to flip within less than 50 years (and that's a conservative estimate). Terrorists don't need to do anything to prevent Europeans (and Canadians, Australians, etc.) from breeding; they are doing a very good job by themselves without any help.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
What I find interesting is that pretty much no one in the system has any logically self consistent views. People in favor of abortion are typically against war, and the death penalty, and much more likely to be vegetarians for cruelty reasons, while people who want to end abortion typically are happy to kill just about everything except fetuses.
I know this isn't 100% applicable, but it's close enough to be right.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Why hand-optimize the system when you can use genetic programming to optimize the system to perfection? While you may never get as good a result as if you'd gone in and tweaked all those millions of genes yourself, you're letting the system do all the hard work and the end result will be "good enough" to perform its job efficiently. It's exactly the way I'd have done it!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Postmenopausal women, by that definition, are not alive. I suppose it means a reproductive phase in the life cycle, not constant fertility. And neither are folks in a coma, as they don't really respond to stimuli, right.
Oh, wait, it included the phrase "at least once during their existence". Never mind.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Why would an engineered device that satisfied those criteria not be life? ("Because people made it" isn't a valid answer.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
What, exactly, is a "moonbat"?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
> I have a parallel for you. How many animals in nature actively kill their young when there is no need to?
Lots of male mammals kill the children of any female they court.
(I doubt that many pro-lifers would approve that behaviour in humans.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I mean, girls' souls are a different color than boys' -- so God can't have handed the thing a soul until that's settled.
This also brings up the point that many theolgians have seriously, seriously discussed -- that a fetus must not be granted a soul until it's PAST the point where it may split into twins... because then each twin would only have HALF a soul.
Heady stuff, I know.
"But who are you, so wise in the ways of science?"
An unborn child can hardly stand up for itself. Would you say we shouldn't try and stop parents killing their 10-year-olds?
It is curious many people (don't know your position about this) who object to abortion never do so about death penalty.
While I'm personally very anti-death-penalty, a child is almost the definition of innocence. You can't compare wanting to stop people killing their children - which is how most anti-abortion people I've spoken with see what they're doing, I'm not saying they're right or wrong - to wanting to stop criminals who have killed other people being killed.
I am trolling
For the sake of argument, justify that statement. (1) If the zygote is alive, why should it not receive equal protections?
(2) If, somehow, you managed to imbed an already born person into the body of another person, would that person lose the claim to equal protections?
I'm not the GP poster, but here are some thoughts on this (#2 is especially interesting to me):
1) We don't afford equal protection to all living things. Only "humans", and a zygote with no brainstem yet, etc. doesn't fit into that category in everyone's book. The definition is complicated, because it's not consistent with mental development, etc -- i.e., the average guinea pig has more brain function than some people with severe brain damage or serious genetic defects... but it's very hard to pin this one down. "Potential human" as a concept is just as fraught.
2) You're forgetting that two people's rights are involved here, and the fact that one of the people would be totally and parasitically dependant on the other. If I woke up one morning and a psycho missing some essential organ had wired himself to me so that he'd *die* if we separated him, I definitely *do* *not* think his right to live would trump my right to live free of him. Think about it. Cut the sucker free; it's not my problem.
So how does the law work on related questions? Suppose you had identical twins who hated each other, and one would die without a kidney but the other refused to give it. Obviously there's a huge moral question here, but could the twin be legally FORCED to undergo the operation and give up a kidney? I have a feeling that the answer here is "no", but I don't know.
Really, really interesting stuff.
You mean instead of abortion?
When you get right down to it, most[0] people who oppose abortion these days are really against the use of abortion as birth control. Children are a huuuuge responsibility, and sex is still the way most people have 'em. If people thought about not getting pregnant BEFORE having sex, there would be less "need" for abortions. Fact remains that pregnancy is 100% preventable--it should not have to be stopped.
[0] Yes, I talked to everyone. I called you and left a message.
He's probably referring to the book by Roger Penrose and Martin Gardner (both brilliant minds, to be sure) called "The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics". In that book, Penrose makes a rather detailed argument for the fact that the essence of human-ness, whatever that is (consciousness, creativity, free will, etc...), the thing that we are desperately trying and failing to create with strong-AI efforts (AI that *really* can operate on a human level, not the stuff that gets marketed as "AI"), depends on some quantum effects in the brain. I haven't actually read the book (but I should), only seen reviews of it.
I'm guessing he's just getting very technical about an idea that I've also always harbored about human intelligence vs AI - that a lot of the "magic" of how the human brain works boils down to have a good random number generator deep down inside every neuron that has a small chance to perturb the neuron's normal output and give you something unexpected. A quantum probability effect somewhere within the neuron would fit the bill nicely. On the scale and complexity of the brain, that small probability of "error" (as opposed to how an otherwise relatively rigid neural network would perform) could give rise to creativity, and also break loops (a problem detailed by Hofstated in the GEB and MMT books - how can you construct a peice of (sufficiently complex) software such that it will never get stuck in an infinite loop regardless of the inputs? You really can't - but a true AI needs that capability, or it will get stuck often. Small random perturbations in neuron decisions gaurantees that you won't keep re-executing the same response to the same feedbacked stimulus over and over and over)
11*43+456^2
40th trimester abortions, anyone?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Animals are not a moral standard (look up naturalistic fallacy). More generally, facts do not form a moral standard.
> Animals are not a moral standard (look up naturalistic fallacy). More generally, facts do not form a moral standard.
Nor do misstatements of fact.
But shouldn't you have directed your reply to the GP post, where some A/C argued:
>>> I have a parallel for you. How many animals in nature actively kill their young when there is no need to?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Thought experiment: Premises: 1) You don't want to force others to live under your beliefs. 2) I am a ritualistic cannibal and want to consume your significant other, a practice allowed in my original country. What do you do if you happen to value your s/o's life? What do you do if you happen to value people's lives in general? Do you stop me and therefore impose your version of morality on me? Relativism is tyrannical because you force it upon people who don't believe in relativism (i.e. they believe in some absolute form of morality). If I believe that most people in this world are unproductive slobs and don't belong to a master race, and you say that you feel I am wrong, but don't want to impose your value judgement on me ... well, that's already happened, hasn't it? Develop a real ethical system where you can stick to your values without necessarily compromising everytime you disagree with another person on moral matters.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
They should patent it ... just to see the Pope go berzerk on television.
Now now, you can't just go about saying that a fertilized egg is 'life'.
That could lead you down a path that might interfere with a womans right to choose what to do with her body.
Utopia forbid.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I said when there is no "need" to. I was very aware of male animals killing the young of other males before they produce their own offspring. I'm no biologist but I don't recall watching to many nature shows talking about a male killing its own ofspring when there is no reason for it.
It is curious many people (don't know your position about this) who object to abortion never do so about death penalty.
I've heard this repeated often but have never come across someone who holds those (seemingly contradictory) values.
It's looking more like a strawman argument used to tar pro-lifers as hypocrites.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The start of life gene doenst kick in until either speech or 'Screw You' is uttered. Sheep they is until then.
"Sperm makes this change by swapping the type of 'packing material, known as histone proteins, it contains.
The result is called the male pronucleus, which can then combine with the female pronucleus.
The process is controlled by the HIRA gene. "
In other words:
The female downloads the executable to her ovum and attempts to insert it into the Egg OS... the HIRA (VM) runs the male code and translates it into the local Egg OS opcodes so the egg can run it...
Insert whiney geek laughter here followed by obligatory monty python quote...
(Okay that's not QUITE right, but then it wouldn't be funny... But it does strike me as pretty close to the mechanism that's going on there...)
No, but then again lots of animals practise homosexuality, rape and cannibalism.
If it's morality we seek, the animal kingdom is not the place to look.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
And how do you pass genes to your kids if you can't have kids?
wait. Our birthrate is ALREADY below the replacement rate due to our own lifestyle decisions. No virus needed.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
or this will happen! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091064/
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
Fact remains that pregnancy is 100% preventable--it should not have to be stopped.
Consider the female of a couple trying to have kids (so she is off birth control) getting raped, resulting in her getting pregnant.
I'm not trying to argue that abortion should be warranted in this case (it is a very complex subject and I've not made up my mind about it yet), I'm just saying that pregnancy is not 100% preventable.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
How about the MAJORITY of American throwing a massive tantrum This is all so dishonest (in its omissions), it is making my head spin. The majority of Americans may be against abortions regardless of development status but I have never heard that the majority is against _all_ abortions. You would count me to support your cause, because I am against abortion myself, if abortion is defined as ending pregnancy at any time before birth. But I am for abortion, if the pregnant woman chooses one when there is no unborn child but only a fertilized egg or a clump of cells without brain because who am I to tell another human being what to do with her body, if it does not harm somebody else (and, no, its not a "somebody" right after conception and up to TBD development phase) Of course, the question is where to draw the line. But amazingly this is rarely discussed !?! Neither the die hard pro-lifers (=control freaks?) nor the die hard pro-choicers (=individualist extremists?) want to give an inch.
sexual reproduction, while old, is not the root of life. All early life was asexual. Sex was just an evolutionary breakthrough that allowed more rapid evolution. So calling this gene the "start of life" is not really all that accurate.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
>I would have a lot better time hearing pro choice arguments if they also said it would be ok to kill a newborn if unwanted. I'm serious, there really isn't any difference, and I would like a consistent argument.
There's a very large difference. When a fetus is embedded inside you, you are the one that must care for it (and take serious health risks for it). Once it's born and turns into a baby, you can hand it off to someone else, who can then take responsibility. It's the difference between "part of your body" and "not part of your body". This is, I believe, where the Roe v Wade viability test comes in.
I'm not going to say where I stand on this issue, but I do think it's pretty clear that the situation where the fetus is inside vs. where the baby is outside are distinct.
Sounds like there is potential to develop a great male contraceptive out of this, too.
Be even better if a single gene therapy would damage the HIRA gene, and another could reverse the damage.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Its fun to be anonymous, is all.
Let's see... non-sensational, subtle and long term methods... well... you got me... they don't do it that way at all. Except maybe for long term methods... they (the religiously intolerant ones who subvert Islam for their own needs-- lets be clear...) already have decades of experience in extremist indoctrination down pat. Let's hope they never learn to become subtle.
The HIRA gene is involved in the events necessary for the fertilisation that take place once a sperm enters an egg. Faults in this gene might explain why some couples struggle to get pregnant despite having healthy sperm .
I'm confused. My knee jerk reaction is too blame the parents for everything. Now they say the fault lies with a gene. How dare Slashdot challenge my worldview!
No. Genocide has a special meaning. What ethnic group is being targeted via abortion? I'll grant that it is legal murder, but that doesn't in itself mean that we should ban abortions.
Second, the mother has always had the power to kill their unborn child and has exercised it for thousands (perhaps even millions of years). Frankly, we turned out all right despite that. I still believe the interpretation of whether this power is "right" or "wrong" is a dogmatic belief of the society, and see no obvious reason for either allowing or prohibiting abortion.
Apparrently the replacement rate in the US is around 2.06 (in 2000) so it's not as bad as it is in Europe-- where they have already begun some social programs to encourage people to have families. One plan in Germany that makes childless individuals pay more for nursing home premiums seems a little... discriminatory. It's not clear to me if it works this way, but if you're at retirement age and need assisted living, it's a little late for you to have and raise children to cut yourself some slack in retirement. If this punitive kind of program keeps working there, I can see it encouraging emigration of the childless-elderly.
I know people who have lost their legs, are they no longer human? What makes us human, our shape? Our fingers? Our brains make us human ("Humm, brains" - sorry, Simpsons flashback). Neurological development should be the guiding factor in determining when the fetus turns from just another organism into a human.
Admittedly I'm walking out into hotly contested area here, but I also feel that such quantum events are required for the essence of free will...otherwise you are merely a state machine. My basic "religious" theory is that the "soul" is what decides the actual outcomes of the quantum events within the brain that are connected to "consciousness", and thus the soul can't actually "bind" to the being until the brain has formed to a certain degree. My guess is that time is somewhere around the beginning of the third trimester but I could be wrong.
So, he's saying there's something going on at a sub-neural level in the brain that effects our decisions and creativity in slight ways. And that this phenomenon only happens in human brains. (Why only human?)
Sounds like a soul to me.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Why on earth would I visit such a site?
You might be able to drag up some neo-Nazi-like trash to demonstrate the existence of such an absurd thought, but the assertion that it is in any way mainstream is silly.
The line is certainly arbitrary, but it has to be drawn somewhere. Quickening has been a traditional time point, birth is another, conception yet another. But some societies found it acceptable to kill newborn children, as a method of birth control. In Iceland, before the missionaries converted everyone, infanticide was an acceptable practice--the infants were left to die of exposure, i.e., freezing to death. The Spartans did the same thing, and with a disturbing frequency.
I personally think abortion is a necessary evil--no one would argue abortions are a good thing, except perhaps Cartman on South Park. Birth control ought to be readily available to everyone, including Plan B ("morning after" pill) and abortions, because unwanted children are most often the ones who turn out to be criminals or screwups. If a child is unwanted, best to get rid of it as fast as possible, while the damage is minimal. Think about all the cases where an unwanted child grows up to be a murderer. Wouldn't it have been better if he'd been aborted? Of course it's best to prevent an unwanted pregnancy from occuring in the first place, if at all possible; but from a practical standpoint, I think the current legal standard is reasonable.
Now you have a consistent argument: any termination of pregnancy is undesirable, and is more distasteful the older the fetus gets, and an arbitrary place where we (the US) draw the legal line is after two trimesters. Happy?
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Wading into the quagmire here...
One of the observations I have personally made about abortion and fetal rights is how the mainstream society handles naturally-occurring miscarriages. I don't know of anyone who names an early-term miscarriage. However, if it is a person, shouldn't receive a proper religious funeral? Similarly, the Catholic Church (with which I am most familiar) won't baptize an in-utero fetus, so again, if it were a person, shouldn't it be eligible?
I'm not sure where the line needs to be drawn and I have a deeply unsettled mind regarding abortion. However, I'd like some consistency in the logic being forced upon society by the religious right.
Which came first, the H1RA gene or the egg?
Reminds me of that old joke of someone saying that sterility runs in the family...
Seriously though, some people definitely have more trouble. My parents did. They didn't believe in using drugs, so they researched fertility cycles. Interestingly enough, in the four week cycle, a female can only become pregnant in three days of that cycle. By virtue of NFP, they have six children. *wry grin* Although that leads to another old joke...
What do you call people who use the Rhythm Method?
Parents.
And, since I told that joke, I feel obligated to mention that NFP is not the Rhythm Method. It has a similar concept, watching natural cycles, but it's much more advanced, with a 99.9% success rate when used to prevent conception.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
God isn't dead! He just got the hell out of here!!
Ah, so you're a Deist, then?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
You must be lucky. I have come accross quite a few. Most of them are conservative right-wing non-catholic christians.
And I bet George W Bush is pro death-penalty.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
The argument is usually presented as "IF late-term abortion is okay, then infanticide is okay". This usually leads to "late-term abortion is not okay".
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Having fallen victim to thought loops many times, I'd personally say it's the equivalent of a watchdog timer that fixes it, and not some inherent quantum property that prevents the mind getting into them in the first place.
"...the lack of any such numbers in your list is a failure of imagination on your part." [strike "the" in original].
However, from a legal and moral perspective, we have consistently held that articles XIII, XV, and XIX were enacted because we finally realized that we had been artificially restricting the rights of some humans because we did not properly recognize their humanity. Few now would argue that blacks did not actually have a moral right to vote prior to the passage of Amendment XV. Rather, our collective understanding is that the right for blacks to vote was implied in the Constitution and Declaration, but went undiscovered until 1869, when XV was adopted. We did not expand society in 1869; we righted a fundamental injustice that had previously gone uncorrected. It was our failure to correctly empathize with women and blacks that kept us from granting them full rights from the beginning, in 1789.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.