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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sol System: [QB] "My ancient Greek is a little rusty." Then I suppose it is a good thing that very few philosophical texts are written in it, no? "I don't attempt to define human." Then you are ignoring the central issue at hand. "I simply extrapolate, based on what everyone (short of the few feminazis in the country) agrees is a human, and use a little legal logic." I don't know if Godwin's Law applies to bulletin boards, but it should. "If there is even the SLIGHTEST chance that something could be called a living human being, we have an obligation to let it become whatever it will." Are you sure you want to say this? I fear your argument is going to be rapidly outpaced by reality in a few years. Will it be a crime to ruin our own stem cells? Demand that our barber collect our hair in a liquid nitrogen cooled chamber? We are rapidly reaching the point where we can make humans out of a lot of things. My viewpoint, it seems, makes some room for this sort of thing, by providing a reasonable definition of humanity to be applied to each new creation. Yours, on the other hand, and if you don't think this is true I'm sure you'll let me know, does not make such provisions. That is my main issue with it. Another is that you seem comfortable with a sort of...well, perhaps we should coin a word here. A sort of ethical determinism. That is, you seem to be indicating that our actions now must have their rightness or wrongness decided based on what outcome they have five, or ten, or five hundred years in the future. I cannot help but reject this. Part of me agrees, of course, but I can't shake the little voice in the back of my mind demanding that such an ethical system is horribly unfair. It asks that we take into account every possible outcome of our actions in a universe that seems to make such a thing impossible. If, as you say, the "SLIGHTEST chance" is to be taken into account, not just in this but in all things, then we seem to reach a point beyond which action is impossible. Help this old woman across the street today, and she may run down a group of pedestrians later that she might have otherwise avoided had she not been able to cross in a timely manner. Or, to go back to something First said, by eating meat, I might be delaying the evolution of some future sentient species. (Actually, that's a bit misleading. More accurate would be to say that by engaging in actions that significantly alter a species, I am altering its future course of evolution, while acting just on a single individual most likely will not.) So no, I am not willing to make my decisions solely based on what might occur in the future. I get the impression that this might be a deal breaker here. "The only one's we have any question over is where the mother has an abortion for the simple reason that she doesn't want the child." And what is that question, exactly? I have already stated that I don't [i]believe[/i] them to be moral. I have also stated that the issues involved are so complex that the only two people really qualified to deal with them are the doctor and the woman involved. "The willful ending of a human life is not nesecarily wrong." You're the one who made an issue out of it in the first place! "When it involves the death of an innocent being, no, I can't." I'd like to know how you suggest doctors deal with instances where they have a number of gravely injured patients and can treat only a few in time. "Simple. All humans are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these is life." Oh, so it's a religious thing. Well, nevermind then. If it's a religious thing, then the thread is pointless, and what I've said so far will have to stand on its own. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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