Look, I know it's been overdone - but abortion - yay or nay?
POSTED BY: FLF
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 13:13
VIEWED: 24147
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Quote:What is the purpose of fertilization? Why did nature create it? In the broadest sense, what would you say is its principle benefit to life? These are all the same question. I've posed them in three different ways in the hopes that the three together will allow you understand what I'm asking without dismissing me based on my ignorance of Obstetric terminology.
Originally posted by SignyM:
What the heck are you talking about, Finn? Who "intends" anything about fertilization? Whose "purpose" are you talking about?.
An Anancephalic is a human being.
Human life begins at fertilization, and if it fails to develop, there is no more reason to believe that "someone" meant for it not to be, then to believe that if a person dies that "someone" meant for that person not to be. Dieing is a characteristic of being human, as it is a characteristic of all life. That a fertilized egg may die, for whatever reason, prior to becoming a fully developed human child doesn’t suggest that the fertilized egg was ever not human. A placenta, on the other hand, is a human organ, by definition it is not a complete human, anymore then a human lung is a complete human.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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There are a thousand and one reason to debate for and against abortion but it comes down to choice, taking into consideration for each individual all of the following (and perhaps more)
Responsibility- can you emotionally, physically and financially support that child.
Religion-plays a part but in all honesty, irrelervant except for the womans views (yes the man's is important too but lets face it in the case of a lot of abortions, daddy's PO somewhere)
Health factors-mother and fetus
I can see from all sides of the argument here, part of my job is to extract from cells, some of those cells are aborted fetus', products of conception and amnios.
For against abortion:It's always heartbreaking to see a family come in having lost a child, spurning the argument should anyone have the right to abort a healthy baby when others can't have them.
Yes, we're back to choice again. No one should be judged or made to feel guilty for doing what is best for them. No one has the right to do that.
For abortion: On the other side of it we test babies which look ill in the womb for arious disorders. Is this right? Can debate that all you like but is it fair for a woman whose child has a terrible, debilitating disease to have to do through with that pregnancy? For her baby or herself? No not in some cases, not for what we test for. Because at the end of it, without the abortion that family would be left with a child who from the moment it breathed would feel pain, and nothing but pain and then die. Most of our disorders, involve infant or young child death.
Is it fair anyone finds themself having to chose in that situation? No-but life is not fair. Take away someones choice, its being just as unfair, if not more.
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Quote:You're asking the wrong questions. Let me follow a similar tack of another natural phenomenon and perhaps you'll see the problem: What is the purpose of water? Why did nature create it? In it's broadest sense, what would you say its its principal benefit to the earth?
What is the purpose of fertilization? Why did nature create it? In the broadest sense, what would you say is its principle benefit to life?
ALL of your questions assume some sort of "intent" or goal. But nature has no "intent". It didn't create fertilization "in order to" benefit life. Life "occurred" and fertilization eventually developed as part of SOME processes. People often ask "why" when "how" makes more sense: How was water created? How does fertilization affect species survivability?
But asking "why" always... always...assumes intent. If you ask it long enough, you will eventually be forced to create a sentient being in order to satisfy the question, whether you call that being Mother Nature or God.
Quote:You've repeated "fully developed and complete" several times. What you seem to be saying is that IF EVERYTHING HAPPENED IDEALLY the fertilized egg would always become (the ideal) human. That is "why" you assume that every fertilized egg IS human: because it has no other "purpose".
A placenta, on the other hand, is a human organ, by definition it is not a complete human anymore then a human lung is a complete human.
I can approach this assumptions two ways:
(1) If fertilization is for the purpose of creating more humans, what is the purpose of creating more humans?
I'll save the other approach for later.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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Quote:That’s not the same thing. Water did not develop in the course any evolution. It forms as a result of the proximity of Hydrogen and Oxygen ions. Fertilization did. One need not necessarily presume the existence of a god to suggest that a purpose exists for fertilization; the purpose is evident in the process. A similar tract, might be to ask what is the purpose of opposable thumbs? Life reproduces itself and human life reproduces as a result of a fertilization process. The purpose of fertilization is therefore the reproduction of human life.
Originally posted by SignyM:
What is the purpose of water? Why did nature create it? In it's broadest sense, what would you say its its principal benefit to the earth?
Quote:Life. Life sustains itself.
Originally posted by SignyM:
(1) If fertilization is for the purpose of creating more humans, what is the purpose of creating more humans?.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:There is NO "purpose" to evolution. You seem to think the there is an end-goal to various developments. In fact, MANY developments are evolutionary dead-ends. So fertilization "occured". It was survivable. It conferred enough of a benefit on the organism in which it occurred to be a self-sustaining process.
One need not necessarily presume the existence of a god to suggest that a purpose exists for fertilization; the purpose is evident in the process.
But many living organisms, and all organisms on the boundary between "alive" and "not alive" reproduce WITHOUT fertilization. Fertilization per se isn't "necessary" for reproduction, as there are other reproductive mechanisms evident. If I recall what Rue said correctly, bacteria, protazoa and other single-celled organisms reproduce by "twinning".... in essence, cloning themselves. That should lead to a static species, but it doesn't because (if I recall correctly) these species have a much higher mutation rate than multi-celled organisms. They survive a high mutation rate as a species simply because of their extremely rapid reproduciton: make a lot, toss out a fair chunk. Any single-celled organism with a high mutation rate and a slow reproduction rate would quickly commit genetic suicide. Any single-celled organism with static genes and a high reproduction rate could be astoundingly successful, but only in an exact niche. It would not be able to compete for new niches that opened up, or to accomodate a changed environment.
However, complex organisms "invest" a lot in development, which necessarily slows down their reproduction. A slow-reproducing species with a high genetic mutation rate would not be viable very long. A slow-reproducing species with static genes would die out in the long run because it would be unable to compete for new niches. The unique feature of fertilization is the combination of genes from two DIFFERENT parents, which allows a unique gene combination to be expressed. If I had to postulate an advantage that fertilization confers on a species- humans specifically, is NOT because it's "purpose" is to create more humans but because it creates DIFFERENT humans... it tosses the dice in the process of reproduction, and creates disorder.
Quote:None. Like fertilization, it occurred, and either conferred enough of an advantage (in the right setting) to be survivable, or it didn't. You don't see opposable thumbs in animals that run quickly for example. And development along those lines would be counterproductive and would die off quickly.
A similar tract, might be to ask what is the purpose of opposable thumbs?
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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Just some additional musings... All we see around us are the "successful" species... the ones that are thriving today... and from that apparent order and abundance and complexity we feel that this is "meant to be". But our world is literally littered with the bones of failures.... the millions of species that died in cataclysm or withered in evolutionary dead-ends. Nature spawns EVERYTHING ... from the immediately fatal to the hundred-million-year survivor species.
I sometimes wonder about our evolutionary path. Our clever dodges around the species-killers but profligate use of resources has us behaving like bacteria in a petri-dish...following the S-shaped curve of reproduction. In a scifi kind of way, I imagine a future intelligent species looking at our geologic/ paleontologic record: massive species loss, acidic carbonate depositions, traces of heavy metals and chlorinated polycyclic chemicals everywhere... and looking wildy for a meteor strike or major vulcanism to explain all of the findings. Because it would be inconceivable to them that a species that was so clever about creating hive-like living spaces measuring many square miles would be so stupid as to breed itself out of existance.
---------------------------------
Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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Quote:The difference bettween the Strong and Weak Anthropic principles. The Universe is the way it is so we can live, or we are the way we are because of the way the Universe is.
Originally posted by SignyM:
Just some additional musings... All we see around us are the "successful" species... the ones that are thriving today... and from that apparent order and abundance and complexity we feel that this is "meant to be". But our world is literally littered with the bones of failures.... the millions of species that died in cataclysm or withered in evolutionary dead-ends. Nature spawns EVERYTHING ... from the immediately fatal to the hundred-million-year survivor species.
Quote:I read a book in the not too distant past that mused that maybe creatures like Dolphins were more intelligent than us. They are intelligent enough to be able to build nuclear weapons, the internal combustion engine, nets that sweep the ocean clean, but they aren't stupid enough to do it.
I sometimes wonder about our evolutionary path. Our clever dodges around the species-killers but profligate use of resources has us behaving like bacteria in a petri-dish...following the S-shaped curve of reproduction. In a scifi kind of way, I imagine a future intelligent species looking at our geologic/ paleontologic record: massive species loss, acidic carbonate depositions, traces of heavy metals and chlorinated polycyclic chemicals everywhere... and looking wildy for a meteor strike or major vulcanism to explain all of the findings. Because it would be inconceivable to them that a species that was so clever about creating hive-like living spaces measuring many square miles would be so stupid as to breed itself out of existance.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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I’m not arguing that there is any such “end-goal” to evolution, but that doesn’t mean that biological mechanisms serve no purpose. You seem to think that the only way something can serve a purpose is if that purpose was pre-ordained, but in reality, the benefit that fertilization provides for some organism is to serve the purpose of reproduction, and one need not assume that this was pre-ordained. It might have been, but there’s reason to demand it. In the case of protozoa, perhaps other biological mechanisms serve that purpose, but there is no doubt that the purpose is being served by one biological process or another, or otherwise, reproduction wouldn’t occur. And organisms that developed no biological process for sustaining their species, probably don’t exist anymore, unless they were in some way immortal.
And there is the problem that I see in your point. If all of these biological mechanisms that were ultimately selected by nature, actually serve no purpose to life, then why were they selected? The Theory of Evolution demands that we accept that a biological mechanism can, in fact, serve a purpose, because if it does not serve a purpose, if it does not provide some benefit, then it will not be selected by nature.
Opposable thumbs developed because they served a purpose. The purpose they served was in greater manipulation of the physical environment, which along with other things, such as increased mental capacity, allowed for the use of tools. Opposable thumbs didn’t develop in animals that run quickly, because they serve no purpose to an animal that doesn’t rely on using its hands to manipulate its environment.
Actually, I believe that there are examples of things in nature that have continued to survive, because they serve no purpose, and simply never got in the way. The aforementioned appendix is one such useless item. It may have once served the purpose of processing indigestible plant material, but at some point in our ancestry, we must have stopped relying on the digestion of cellulose for survival.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Finn,
If I may step in qiuckly to comment on your previous post. You've concluded that if no embryo develops then it must have 'died'. And if in fact it had been there alive and then 'died' it would still be there, but dead, rotting and septic. But there is no rotting sepsis, just a live and healthy but empty placenta.
It didn't 'live' and then 'die'; it failed to come into being. There's a difference between 'never having been' and 'having been - and then dying'.
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