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Henry Morgentaler Given Honour?


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:lol: I think you'd be hard-pressed to come up with an exact definition of "life" and "human", let alone decide exactly when a human life begins.

What makes you so absolutely certain that life begins at conception and not a second before or a second after?

Uhhh, because that is when it starts to grow and reproduce on it's own?

See definition of life..

thanks for coming out though!

the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/life

Edited by White Doors
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Uhhh, because that is when it starts to grow and reproduce on it's own?

See definition of life..

thanks for coming out though!

Uhhh, no, an embryo can not grow and reproduce on its own. It is entirely dependent on the mother for survival. "Thanks for coming out though!" :lol:

the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

A sperm fits this definition just as well as a fetus does...

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Uhhh, no, an embryo can not grow and reproduce on its own. It is entirely dependent on the mother for survival. "Thanks for coming out though!" :lol:

A sperm fits this definition just as well as a fetus does...

Whether stepping on a bug or tossing a sperm filled condom down the toilet - I fret worry and wonder what will become of my little DNA carrying friends...whether they suffer and if death in an acid vigina would be more humane than a sewage treatment centre....maybe I am turning into an ancient Buddist monk or something?

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Uhhh, no, an embryo can not grow and reproduce on its own. It is entirely dependent on the mother for survival. "Thanks for coming out though!" :lol:

A sperm fits this definition just as well as a fetus does...

you are mixing up the definition of biological life with the legal definition.

Besides, an embryo can survive in a petri dish so you are wrong on two counts there.

How does a sperm self replicate? There are no divisions of cells until it successfully implants the egg.

A biology 101 refresher course is recommended.

Edited by White Doors
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you are mixing up the definition of biological life with the legal definition.

Besides, an embryo can survive in a petri dish so you are wrong on two counts there.

How does a sperm self replicate? There are no divisions of cells until it successfully implants the egg.

A biology 101 refresher course is recommended.

And you are mixing up the definition of "life" with the definition of "human life". Of course an embryo is alive, just as a sperm is alive and just as a bacterium is alive. That doesn't make them human.

And no, an embryo can not survive on its own. Perhaps after several months it can live outside of the mother, but you said that life begins at the moment of conception. Even then it is dependent on others for survival, so if your definition of "human life" is something that can survive on its own, you are going to lose that argument every time.

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And you are mixing up the definition of "life" with the definition of "human life". Of course an embryo is alive, just as a sperm is alive and just as a bacterium is alive. That doesn't make them human.

And no, an embryo can not survive on its own. Perhaps after several months it can live outside of the mother, but you said that life begins at the moment of conception. Even then it is dependent on others for survival, so if your definition of "human life" is something that can survive on its own, you are going to lose that argument every time.

Show me a biological contraint where it mentions in the definition of life that something has to 'survive' on it own?

Are any humans 'alive' in your world? I mean if we weren't under the protenctive embrace of Earth's magnetic field we would all be dead....

So think of the earth as one big womb.

You have no where to go. Life DOES begin at conception, that is a biological fact.

That's when it starts splitting cells and growing - two essential things that have to happen in order to be considered 'alive'. Coincidentally, neither sperm nor ova can do this on their own.

However, that is ok with you - Apparently you have some defintion of life that disagrees with Merriam Webster's that I provided above.

Don't be angry that I have shattered your belief in something you obviously haven't spent much time thinking about, but try to take it as a learning experience.

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Show me a biological contraint where it mentions in the definition of life that something has to 'survive' on it own?

Are any humans 'alive' in your world? I mean if we weren't under the protenctive embrace of Earth's magnetic field we would all be dead....

So think of the earth as one big womb.

:lol: It's not my fault that your argument that an embryo is alive because it can survive in a petri dish supposedly contradicts the definition that you provided...

Life DOES begin at conception, that is a biological fact.

Once again, you are confusing life with human life. A dog is clearly alive, does that make a dog a human?

That's when it starts splitting cells and growing - two essential things that have to happen in order to be considered 'alive'. Coincidentally, neither sperm nor ova can do this on their own.

Not everything that is alive reproduces. Would you consider a bacterium "alive" if it doesn't reproduce? How about cells that don't divide?

And yes, sperm is "alive", it is produced by splitting living cells (where do you think sperm comes from?), and after fertilization, continues to divide. Life does not stop and then restart, it is continuous.

Don't be angry that I have shattered your belief in something you obviously haven't spent much time thinking about, but try to take it as a learning experience.

A while back someone told me that when you have to resort to insulting your opponent, it is usually because you don't have an argument to stand on. I think it's fitting to mention that here...

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Life DOES begin at conception, that is a biological fact.

Really: who cares? There's the essential biological process of cell division and so forth and then there's the much more fraught question of when a collection of living cells and tissue becomes a human being. Since all definitions of the latter are more or less arbitrary, there's no way to achieve any kind of consensus. Best then, to leave the definition of when human life begins to those individuals responsible for bringing it forth.

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Really: who cares? There's the essential biological process of cell division and so forth and then there's the much more fraught question of when a collection of living cells and tissue becomes a human being. Since all definitions of the latter are more or less arbitrary, there's no way to achieve any kind of consensus. Best then, to leave the definition of when human life begins to those individuals responsible for bringing it forth.

Agreed BD, however others brought it up. Life does begin at conception and I find it incredulous that people would blind themselves to this fact to make their 'side' feel better about themselves.

It is the ultimate in intellectual dishonesty. Or perhaps they are just that dumb, however - I doubt it.

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Once again, you are confusing life with human life. A dog is clearly alive, does that make a dog a human?

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?

You saw the merriam webster's definition of life right? You read that?

The fact that you think sperm and ova are 'alive' after all this tells me that you don't care about science in the least. Look, it's just a fact.

Did you not have the birds and the bees conversation yet?

When the sperm joins with the ova the 23 chromosomes that each carry join together to make a unique 46 chromosome human life. This then starts to grow and cells divide becoming a unique organism. It reacts to stimuli, it eats and produces waste and it requires all of the nutrients and necessary biological inputs that we do. It is a fact that this is life from the very defintion of the word.

I am not saying that it is wrong to abort right at conception or the morning after pill, I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that 'life' begins at conception.

The debate we were having before we went down this rat hole is when does that human life become a 'person' in the legal sense of the word. Currently there is no biology involved in that discussion.

I think biology should be in involved in the discussion about when the fetus becomes a 'person' in the legal sense of the word. Perhaps at 4 months of development? 6 months? I don't know, but I do know that this should be a part of the discussion.

Please do some homework so you can keep up and join in it with us.

If you insist in repeating that 'life' does not begin at conception than you will tell everyone that you are not ready for that discussion yet.

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The fact that you think sperm and ova are 'alive' after all this tells me that you don't care about science in the least. Look, it's just a fact.

Let me just see if I understand your argument correctly.

It seems to me that you think humans, which are alive, produce gametocytes that are also alive, and that when these divide to form the egg or sperm, life ends and these cells are dead. These now "non-living" cells come together and like magic, two non-living things make something that is living? It seems to me that you are the one who doesn't understand Biology.

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Let me just see if I understand your argument correctly.

It seems to me that you think humans, which are alive, produce gametocytes that are also alive, and that when these divide to form the egg or sperm, life ends and these cells are dead. These now "non-living" cells come together and like magic, two non-living things make something that is living? It seems to me that you are the one who doesn't understand Biology.

wow, and you have problems with definitions. The are biologically programed to find each other to make a new life. They do not reproduce on their own, nor do they grow. If they do not find each other, then yes - they are dead. Both eggs and sperm are genetic code and instructions of the person that made them. But they are only half of what is needed to make a new life on their own. If they do not join forces, they cannot make a new life. Normal people above the age of 15 know this.

Why you keep insisting on going down this rathole is a mystery to me, especially with how foolish you are making yourself look to everyone.

The Sperm and Ova are carbon based biological excrements who's mission it is to make a new life. If they do not successfully join up no new life is made. They are incomplete on their own having only half the ingredients needed to make a new human life.

Again, please refer to the definition of life that I provided to you (from a dictionary no less), and tell me how a sperm and a fertlized embyo are the same in regards to the aforementioned defintion of 'life'

I'll tell you what, if you are successfull I will lobby the dictionaries of the world to change their meaning of life for you. LOL

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wow, and you have problems with definitions. The are biologically programed to find each other to make a new life. They do not reproduce on their own, nor do they grow. If they do not find each other, then yes - they are dead. Both eggs and sperm are genetic code and instructions of the person that made them. But they are only half of what is needed to make a new life on their own. If they do not join forces, they cannot make a new life. Normal people above the age of 15 know this.

The Sperm and Ova are carbon based biological excrements who's mission it is to make a new life. If they do not successfully join up no new life is made. They are incomplete on their own having only half the ingredients needed to make a new human life.

The egg and sperm cells themselves had to grow; did you think they magically appeared full form in the ovaries and testies, respectively? The sperm cell can even move under its own energy. The sperm and egg cells are, therefore, living tissue, which by the word's definition, means: 1) a: having life, b: active, functioning; 2 a: exhibiting the life or motion of nature. If the cells "have life" then they meet the criteria of life, which, as you've pointed out, are: 1) a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body, b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings, c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. The sperm and egg cells demonstrate each of the first three. Thus, gc1765's interpretation of your take on the whole reproduction process is correct; you seem to think dead matter bonds to become life.

Even if, however, you wanted to stick to that story and say life begins only when two dead cells fuse in syngamy, then there must be millions of female murderers out there who allowed their fertilsed eggs - those newly blossomed lives - to be flushed out after they failed to adhere to the endometrium.

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The foot cells themselves had to grow; did you think the foot magically appeared full form on the end of the leg? The foot can even move under its own energy. The cells in the foot are, therefore, living tissue, which by the word's definition, means: 1) a: having life, b: active, functioning; 2 a: exhibiting the life or motion of nature. If the cells "have life" then they meet the criteria of life, which, as you've pointed out, are: 1) a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body, b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings, c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. The foot cells demonstrate each of the first three. Thus, gc1765's interpretation of your take on the whole reproduction process is correct; you seem to think dead matter bonds to become life.

Even if, however, you wanted to stick to that story and say life begins only when two dead feet cells fuse in syngamy, then there must be millions of murderers out there who allowed their foot cells - those newly blossomed lives - to be flushed out while scrubbing too hard in the shower.

~fixed~

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That's the resort I am forced to take to show you how silly your simplitic arguments are.

What happened to critical thinking?

Of course sperm and eggs are living tissue! It is not however, a 'life'.

Holy crap people, seriously... can you guys not keep up or what?

Does a foot feel and react to stimuli or is it the nervous system it is attached to?

Do you think sperm and ova self generate or are they produced from the human being they are invariable attached to?

What do you think the primary function of the testes and the Ova are? They are there to produce copies of the human life they are a part of and to pass it on to make a new life! That is their purpose!

I really cannot believe that I am arguing this with seemingly grown-up people?

Does your liberal beliefs on abortion blind you to scientific facts and the defitinitions in a dictionary?

Conventional definition: Often scientists say that life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit the following phenomena:

Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, sweating to reduce temperature.

Organization: Being composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.

Metabolism: Consumption of energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.

Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. The particular species begins to multiply and expand as the evolution continues to flourish.

Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.

Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.

Reproduction: The ability to produce new organisms. Reproduction can be the division of one cell to form two new cells. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from at least two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

Are you two going to continue with your ridiculous ascertions and tell me that my sperm are a life of their own and are just as 'human' as a fertilized egg? serious? I mean, according to you two if I lost my testes I wold continue to produce new sperm from the sperm that was left there, right? Because they are 'alive!'

hahaha

un

real.

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That's the resort I am forced to take to show you how silly your simplitic arguments are.

Well, forgetting that human muscle, bone, and skin cells actually can reproduce, and that feet are not formed when "two dead feet cells fuse in syngamy," really undermines your undermining of a contrary argument.

Of course sperm and eggs are living tissue! It is not however, a 'life'.

Do you think sperm and ova self generate or are they produced from the human being they are invariable attached to?

I don't believe anyone tried to claim that two cells constitute "a life." You did, however, assert that "life" begins at conception, and that this is affirmed "by science." Nobody, though, has affirmed this; even your own attempts to do so tie you up into the most convoluted knots wherein you invariably contradict yourself. You even just did so by saying sperm and egg cells are not "life" because they cannot self generate and must be produced by the human they are invariably attached to. An embryo cannot self-generate, and is produced from the human it is invariably attached to. By your own argument that makes an embryo a non-life.

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Well, forgetting that human muscle, bone, and skin cells actually can reproduce, and that feet are not formed when "two dead feet cells fuse in syngamy," really undermines your undermining of a contrary argument.

I don't believe anyone tried to claim that two cells constitute "a life." You did, however, assert that "life" begins at conception, and that this is affirmed "by science." Nobody, though, has affirmed this; even your own attempts to do so tie you up into the most convoluted knots wherein you invariably contradict yourself. You even just did so by saying sperm and egg cells are not "life" because they cannot self generate and must be produced by the human they are invariably attached to. An embryo cannot self-generate, and is produced from the human it is invariably attached to. By your own argument that makes an embryo a non-life.

Ok, so it is ignorance. An embyo does self replicate, it's called cell division. It replicates and gradually becomes more and more specialized. It is a life, on it's own and unique from the mother in whom's womb it resides. it is unique and it is growing.

I am not the one tied up in knots. The definitions are clear despite your inability or unwillingness to understand them.

By your two definitions, sperm are a 'life' therefore testes are no longer needed to produce them, right? That's what you said, so it's only logical - amirite? lol

Same logic, no need for ovaries to produce eggs anymore, because the eggs are a life form and therefore can grow and reproduce on their own. lol

Are both sperm and egg living tissue? of course. Are they seperate lives in and of themselves? not a chance.

All the link I supplied and definitions that there are back me up.

You two, conversely, have supplied nothing other than pedantics.

carry on if you must. I will run and get you a larger shovel.

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Ok, so it is ignorance. An embyo does self replicate, it's called cell division. It replicates and gradually becomes more and more specialized. It is a life, on it's own and unique from the mother in whom's womb it resides. it is unique and it is growing.

I am not the one tied up in knots. The definitions are clear despite your inability or unwillingness to understand them.

By your two definitions, sperm are a 'life' therefore testes are no longer needed to produce them, right? That's what you said, so it's only logical - amirite? lol

Same logic, no need for ovaries to produce eggs anymore, because the eggs are a life form and therefore can grow and reproduce on their own. lol

Are both sperm and egg living tissue? of course. Are they seperate lives in and of themselves? not a chance.

carry on if you must. I will run and get you a larger shovel.

Your juvenile attempts to inflate yourself are blatantly transparent. Perhaps if you stopped focusing on creating distractions with your verbal buffoonery, you'd have more energy with which to think clearly. Nobody ever said either a sperm or an egg cell are "a life"; why you insist on interpreting everything as though someone did is beyond me. A sperm and an egg cell are living, which means they have life; the dictionary definitions I provided above make this amply clear. Thus, life (the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body, an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction) does not begin at conception; conception is merely a point in the continuity of life. What you're trying to argue is that a life (the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual, the period from birth to death, a specific phase of earthly existence) begins at conception.

There are, however, no set parameters to when an individual's life begins; the genetic distinction of a zygote certainly doesn't in itself make that clump of living tissue a life; the tumerous cells of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma are genetically unique to each individual, yet cancer is not itself a life. Self-replication doesn't apply; an embryo's cells split in order to increase the embryo's mass; that's called growth, not replication. A life takes into account factors like consciousness (which cannot be defined), sentience (which cannot be defined), and soul (which cannot be defined). Even the exact point of death has been diffused by relatively recent advances in biological knowledge.

But, again, if you have the scientific evidence that proves this to be wrong, please present it. It would help your case greatly if you did so.

Edited by g_bambino
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Your juvenile attempts to inflate yourself are blatantly transparent. Perhaps if you stopped focusing on creating distractions with your verbal buffoonery, you'd have more energy with which to think clearly. Nobody ever said either a sperm or an egg cell are "a life"; why you insist on interpreting everything as though someone did is beyond me. A sperm and an egg cell are living, which means they have life; the dictionary definitions I provided above make this amply clear. Thus, life (the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body, an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction) does not begin at conception; conception is merely a point in the continuity of life. What you're trying to argue is that a life (the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual, the period from birth to death, a specific phase of earthly existence) begins at conception.

There are, however, no set parameters to when an individual's life begins; the genetic distinction of a zygote certainly doesn't in itself make that clump of living tissue a life; the tumerous cells of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma are genetically unique to each individual, yet cancer is not itself a life. Self-replication doesn't apply; an embryo's cells split in order to increase the embryo's mass; that's called growth, not replication. A life takes into account factors like consciousness (which cannot be defined), sentience (which cannot be defined), and soul (which cannot be defined). Even the exact point of death has been diffused by relatively recent advances in biological knowledge.

But, again, if you have the scientific evidence that proves this to be wrong, please present it. It would help your case greatly if you did so.

a sperm is living tissue - same genetic make-up as the human it came from

an egg is living tissue - same genetic make-up as the human it came from

blood is living tissue - same genetic make-up as the human it came from

a fertalized egg is a unique life - different genetic make-up. growing, expanding, metabolizing on it's own, all things that blood, eggs and sperm do not do on their own.

me make simple so you understand.

Still don't get it?

I will let a person with more letters behind his name than mine, answer it for you:

A human "being" is created when upon the resumption of meiosis, the haploid chromosome

from sperm and egg are joined to form the complete human chromosomal complement. Like

you say, "beingness" is a social question that I doubt will ever be answered by

scientists...but rather by the current opinion.

my point all along..

thanks,

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Nobody ever said either a sperm or an egg cell are "a life"

wrong on this count too.

People who said that if there were restrictions on abortion it would be the same as letting eggs going unfertalized and sperm from masturbation would be murder. That's how this all came up.

really. That is why we went down this rat hole of which, you are the johnnycomelately - pardon the pun.

I am done with this conversation, my point has been made and I have backed it up something you two have not done.

Both of you have only attempted to move the goalposts with yoru pedantics. Everything I have said is verifiable and factual but I am done teaching you anatomy and biology 101.

You go ahead and continue to think that sperm will produce without testes - it matters to me not.

I only question what other intellectual gymnastics people will perform to make reality fit into ideaology.

It makes me shiver when I think about it. You and your ilk are a new-found creationists.

congratulations.

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Of course sperm and eggs are living tissue!

Good, so it seems that after all of this...

Life DOES begin at conception, that is a biological fact.

That's when it starts splitting cells and growing - two essential things that have to happen in order to be considered 'alive'. Coincidentally, neither sperm nor ova can do this on their own.

Life does begin at conception...
The fact that you think sperm and ova are 'alive' after all this...
The Sperm and Ova are carbon based biological excrements...

...it seems we finally agree. A sperm IS alive. As g_bambino pointed out, two non-living things don't come together to produce something living. I guess that's why they call it the "circle of life", from human, to sperm/egg, to embryo, to fetus, and back to human. Life does not stop and re-start again.

The fact that the remaining 90% of your post is just childish insults tells me that you don't have an argument to stand on. I suspect you realized that you were wrong all along, but that you if you made enough noise, people wouldn't notice.

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I am done with this conversation, my point has been made and I have backed it up something you two have not done.

I rather think you'll never be done with this conversation; you're so all over the map with statements and claims that you've ended up arguing with yourself. Probably the greatest problem is that you never did back up your assertion that science has discovered either the beginning of life or when a life begins (depending on which part of your verbal diarrhea one chooses to sample). Even your unsourced quote only affirms what I've been saying: there's a difference between a being (an object, i.e. a lump of cells) and "beingness" (a life, i.e. a consciousness).

And now for your next inane ramble around the loop...

Edited by g_bambino
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