Which set of statements is true?
(a) You came from a fertilized ovum. You came from an embryo. You came from a fetus.
OR
(b) You once were a fertilized ovum. You once were an embryo. You once were a fetus.
If you make a timeline of your own existence and then go backwards in time that timeline will obviously begin at Conception. Now some pro-choicers would have it that at the very beginning of that timeline, perhaps up to about 6 or 7 months if you use the outdated Roe model still in popular use today then within that 6-7 month timeframe you were something else entirely, came from something else. In other words there was a point in your existence when you weren't even human (evolution in the womb? dunno) but since statement (b) above is obviously correct how does this square with the choicer's view? If you once were that fertilized ovum, that embryo, that fetus then YOU were still YOU, it's the timeline of YOUR own existence beginning at Conception. You can't argue with the Math.
So begin but be well-advised that when you advance your traditional pro-choice views I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Don't just throw it out there all confident-like. Think of it like a chess match and as I already know what your answers are going to be I already have my countermoves set up.
Which set of statements is true?
ReplyDelete(a) You came from a fertilized ovum. You came from an embryo. You came from a fetus.
OR
(b) You once were a fertilized ovum. You once were an embryo. You once were a fetus.
Since this is almost always a theologically charged argument, I'm going to depart from my usual and argue this straight out of MY religious beliefs.
Neither of those statements are true.
YOU are not the body.
From the Bhagavad Gita:
Chapter 2, Verse 20
For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor, having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.
Chapter 2, Verse 22.
As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly, the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.
Chapter 2, Verse 23.
The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.
Chapter 2, Verse 24.
This individual soul is unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither burned nor dried. He is everlasting, all-pervading, unchangeable, immovable and eternally the same.
Chapter 2, Verse 25.
It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable, immutable, and unchangeable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.
Chapter 2, Verse 28.
All created beings are unmanifest in their beginning, manifest in their interim state, and unmanifest again when they are annihilated. So what need is there for lamentation?
Chapter 2, Verse 30.
O descendant of Bharata, he who dwells in the body is eternal and can never be slain. Therefore you need not grieve for any creature.
--
Now, I'm not arguing against the fact that killing a living creature (ANY LIVING CREATURE) carries with it evil karma.
What I am arguing is that your initial premise is irretrievably flawed, and thus, your argument can't proceed from it.
So there you go.
I would not say it's a theologically charged argument at all but a philosophical one tinged with Math.
ReplyDeleteWondering though about Ch. 2, Verse 20 of the Bhagavad Gita if this verse means the soul existed for all eternity going backwards in Time something that I thought only God could do but since I began by talking about the physical you the physical you can obviously be traced on that timeline going all the way back to Conception.
ReplyDeleteThis verse does mean that the soul has existed for all eternity. Every soul is part and parcel of God, a spiritual spark as it were, one drop of the ocean that is He. As long as God has existed (forever) so has each individual soul.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is no real relationship between 'you' and 'your body' just the same as there's no real relationship between 'you' and 'your car'. Both are vehicles for the real, actual you. You and the material body come together for a short period of time and then seperate, and then you take on another body. So you've had millions of bodies. None of them have any bearing on you, who you are. This is why prejudice and discrimination based on things like race, nationality, etc really just show ignorance; a soul doesn't have a race or nationality.. just the temporary, material body does.
And I guess that the reason I said this was a theological argument is because the minute anyone says the word abortion, or leads a conversation that way, everyone's religious beliefs come into play. I usually make a strenuous effort to NOT do that, but this time I thought I might.
This is not a theology thing, it is simple biology. Where did we come from? There hasn't been a big bang and then each of us started to exist!
ReplyDeleteSaty that's interesting and I have to admit I have a deep fascination with the Eastern religions especially as regards karma. When I go to Mass and we recite the Nicene Creed it's different though. Jesus, God the Son was eternally begotten of the Father, "light from light, true God from true God" so in that sense our souls had to begin somewhere unlike God who has existed through all Eternity. Basically what I'm saying here is the same thing Beth just said and I think the paradox of modern times is that deep down we all know the truth, that life begins at conception but we act like we don't by practicing mass abortion. People who masturbate your mind.
ReplyDeleteSince I expected more of a response to this thread let me bring up the old standby of pro-choicers which is consciousness. Basically they'll say something like a fetus only becomes human or you only become fully human when you get or have consciousness. Only problem with this is take "vegetables", although I don't like this term just for the sake of argument here let's say someone just walked into Terri Schiavo's room while all that litigation and adjudication was going on and that person just took a big old knife and stabbed her to death. The Law would still say that was murder and someone would have to be prosecuted. The plot thickens.
ReplyDeleteWell, this has already become an impasse on my part because as far as we believe, the soul is eternal, never takes birth, never dies. So the whole idea of 'where did you begin' is null and void for us.
ReplyDeleteWith that line of thinking Saty then there would be no such thing as murder then?
ReplyDeleteObviously, Beth, the body can be killed. The soul cannot.
ReplyDeleteThis is in no way a validation of, excuse for, or justification to kill. In fact, because we understand that while the external body make take the form of other species, the soul remains the same; thus there is no valuing of one over the other. Killing an animal is the same as killing a person; only the bodies are different, the spirit soul remains the same.
And even more obviously, we're vegetarians; all killing is equally wrong to us. As we've discussed previously.
I've said this many times before but I think what drives the lifers in large part is the very commonness of abortion. It shows a deep disregard for life especially when we have the technology today to ascertain when life begins. I was in the library the other day waiting for a computer and I saw the latest magazine section of the Sunday NY Times and it had the friendly face of some middle-aged woman doctor with a stethoscope (nice touch the stethoscope) and the cover story read "Meet the New Abortion Providers." Not that often but every once in a while the Ole Gray Lady feels the journalistic need to do a major and positive piece on the abortion industry. You can almost set your watch by it.
ReplyDeletewe have the technology today to ascertain when life begins.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is where the impasse begins.
I wonder then if you think abortion is wrong then Saty, it is destroying a body.
ReplyDeleteBeth, we have been over this a hundred times and I guess you either have never written a single thing I wrote or it just doesn't sink in?
ReplyDeleteLet's look at the very first post I put up in this very discussion:
Now, I'm not arguing against the fact that killing a living creature (ANY LIVING CREATURE) carries with it evil karma.
Which part of this doesn't make any sense to you?
Here's the difference between you and me: When we talk about legislation and making laws and making things legal or illegal, I have to approach that from the standpoint that we're not talking about just for me, but for everyone. And personally, if I don't want to do something, even if it's legal I don't have to do it.
For example, while it's legal to kill an animal and eat it, the thought is horrifying to me. But do I have the right to make it illegal to kill animals just because it's against my personal beliefs? No, I don't. We legislate for the whole population, not on the basis of particular groups. I am not required to kill animals, and so I don't.
In the same way, you cannot legislate abortion. You cannot legislate someone's particular feelings and religious beliefs onto people who may not share your beliefs. No one is required to get an abortion; no one is forced; in the same way that I'm not required to buy a chuck steak when I go to the grocery store. If I don't want it, I don't buy it, I don't participate in it.
The difference here between you and me, Beth, is that I understand that not everyone shares my religious beliefs, and I don't presume to attempt to legislate those beliefs of mine onto anyone else.
Because if I did, just buying that chuck steak would get your happy ass in jail.
Saty we've been over this before and I said even the view that the fetus has the same moral status as Hamburger Helper, that is also someone's view obviously legislated into law. If we accept the fetus as a separate biological entity from the mother then obviously such laws affect the fetus, have an impact on the fetus in terms of you can now take it's life. ALL laws are the imposition of someone's moral worldview even the worldview that abortion is ok so......
ReplyDeleteIf you'll notice, I didn't say anything about legislating anything, why discuss something that I didn't bring up Saty? Why not just say yes it is wrong to destroy a fetus or no it is not, in your opinion, thanks. Try to keep on task if you would.
ReplyDeleteI was just making sure you consider a fetus a living creature, thanks.
ReplyDeleteNow I am curious about legislating things, since you brought it up that you don't want to impose your personal views through legislation, in your examples above, (fetus, possum, etc.) do you think killing any of them should be punishable by law?
Beth,
ReplyDeleteIf I were willing to impose laws based on my personal beliefs (which I am not in any way willing to do), the mere act of buying a chuck steak or a rib roast would be illegal. Eating such things would be illegal. Raising animals for slaughter would be illegal. Fishing, keeping birds for eggs (or meat), and hunting would be illegal. Jello and any other product that contains cattle-derived ingredients would be illegal. We can extrapolate there without the need for me to go on endlessly that dogfighting, pet-animal mills and all kinds of such cruelty would also be illegal.
ANY KILLING of ANY LIVING CREATURE would be illegal.
Now.
As we know, I as an individual don't have the right to make what I believe legal and/or illegal for other people. Therefore, I have to simply do what I know is right and leave others to their own choices, and their own karma.
People make decisions and take the responsibility thereunto. I can possibly give them some advice, or some warnings, if they're willing to listen; otherwise, they're on their own.
And despite that I believe all killing should be illegal, I believe that there should be regulation and oversight to prevent as much as possible people getting sick from eating unhealthy, poorly processed or otherwise tainted meat/eggs/etc.
I equally believe that abortion should be safe and medically supervised.
If people are going to make these poor decisions, they take on the karma for them. That's their issue. I choose to not participate in that karma. That's my issue.
Just like today you'll eat whatever you eat, and take on the evil karma attached to it (whether you believe it or not). That's your decision. Everyone has to make these decisions for themselves, and then deal with the consequences they bring.
Ok, so you think killing an animal is wrong, but should not be illegal, but killing a person should be legal as long as it is safe?
ReplyDeleteYes, it is tiresome trying to figure out how you equate eating unhealthy has anything to do with ripping unborn children from their mother's womb.
ReplyDeleteWell, since Z-man is lamenting the desire of people to weigh in on a discussion that has been flogged to death, and since Satyavati (and probably Beth, should she talk to me before reading the subsequent comment) can't help but ask me if the other half of this argument doesn't make sense, I might as well weigh in with my shiny quarter.
ReplyDeleteFirst, let's deal with the alternate possibilities posted at the beginning. Both are correct and both are false, in various ways. This is why we go back and forth. And why I somehow find myself in between.
First of all, on the metaphysical level, we all agree that snuffing a baby in the womb is snuffing a baby in the womb. That is not necessarily the argument, because any answer relies on a certain amount of faith. For Christians, conception is when it starts. For others (Saty and myself), it began before (which leads to another discussion on reincarnation). And for yet another group (leaning atheist), some form of medical criteria are used to decide when life begins, as it also has an end in death (which precludes the afterlife, reincarnation, etc.). So in this discussion, one must jettison any argument based solely on belief, because we're never going to agree.
The question is, simply, at what point does the unborn child's legal right to exist supersede the mother's right to control her own body. Now, before the baby is conceived, there is no right, as there is no person as far as the law is concerned. And after birth and until corporeal death, there is a legal right to live (protected by law).
So the problem comes back to when a n unborn baby's life becomes of greater value than the mother's. So let's start at conception (where Christianity defines it). To enforce that rule would mean banning all hormonal birth control because it might make a fertilized egg get flushed (which may happen anyway).
On the other extreme (of which there are a minute number, thankfully) would be an atheistic person who has no problem sticking in the roto-rooter if junior hasn't successfully squeezed out.
This leaves the majority wondering where that (relatively) happy medium is. The Supreme Court tried to come up with something in Roe (which, being bad law, ultimately solved nothing). And we've been chasing standards ever since.
And even in the law, there is a double standard. A woman can have her insides scraped out (depending) almost the whole way through pregnancy, but someone who causes an unborn baby that is less developed to die can be charged with that murder.
In the end, I don't have a clear answer, but in the end, it's going to come down to a hard and fast set of numbers by which we determine which murder is ok and which is right out.
And before I go, one clarification for Beth:
There hasn't been a big bang and then each of us started to exist!
There usually is a bang before conception. You're a mother, you should remember that part. I'm a father myself, and therefore remember said bang (not sure if it was a big one or not). I think my son even used that mattress when he moved to a big bed....
(Yeah, had to go there. I'll talk Satyavati into sending you a steak pack as compensation...)
If you could just chill Saty, I just am trying to figure out where you are coming from, you are not the typical pro-abortion type because you say you are against killing, and you personally won't kill any living thing, so I assume you would not have an abortion, right?
ReplyDeleteBut, you also say you won't impose your beliefs on anyone else through legislation, and so if someone were to kill their neighbor then you do not think we as a society should punish that person because the karma will take care of that? And this is ok with you?
Another burning question of mine for you Saty is why you feel the need to whine to Patrick about me? I mean, he obviously came to this posting because of you saying something to him about it, and I know you have a history of complaining to Patrick about me, why do you do that? Patrick is not me, he is his own person, and although I usually agree with him, he doesn't need to hear from you when I annoy you, okay?
ReplyDeleteOG am I tired after work today and I just had to plow thru this. Saty's belief here can best be summed up by Dennis Miller who once said "if abortion is wrong then God will get you in the end and believe me payback is an eternal bitch." If I'm a little brief today it's because I need a drink. Now let me get to the illustrious Patrick M.
ReplyDeleteSee here's the thing that Pat said and we should all agree on and that is Roe is bad law. I'm off tomorrow and will be getting more into this. Beth I myself asked Saty once how she can so compartmentalize this stuff, it's almost SUPERHUMAN.
ReplyDeletePat: "Well, since Z-man is lamenting the desire of people to weigh in on a discussion that has been flogged to death..."
ReplyDeleteIn a few years immigration will be that discussion that has been flogged to death. I prefer to think of it this way. As old as it is abortion has always been a classic philosophical argument. It's like having White Fang by Jack London and The Jungle by Upton Sinclair on your bookshelf gathering dust. You probably won't read it again but it's there although you might browse once in a while. I certainly wouldn't throw them out but that's me.
"There usually is a bang before conception."
Four words come to mind. Rick Pitino, fifteen seconds. Even preemies last longer than this.
Some other thoughts:
ReplyDeleteThere should be more common ground on this. How far into the pregnancy do you go in allowing abortion? Said to a chef at work once that get ten people in a room and you'll get ten different opinions which is precisely why Roe is such bad law. So how far into the pregnancy do you go? Abortion BY ITS VERY NATURE is properly a legislative issue. It can be no other way. Harry Blackmun and co. acted like a bunch of OB/GYNs and bad ones at that and by stating that the fetus is not a person under the law, THAT IN ITSELF IS A MORAL POSITION, A STAND so in effect even the Supreme Court couldn't stay neutral on the issue. A law or social policy allowing abortion is not the enforcement of a neutral stand and that is the problem. A law or social policy allowing abortion is actually a STAND on the matter because in order to make it go you have to first negate the moral status of the fetus. As for only Christians believing that life begins at conception as if this is just the Christian position it's also the conclusion drawn by the majority of biologists. Now if it all came down to the Soul then how do we know a newborn babe of a week old even has a soul but the law still states that you can't kill a newborn of course and the soul has nothing to do with it.
Did karma finally catch up with Saty?
ReplyDeleteThere is a fundamental premise that both Saty and Pat seem to share and it's deeply flawed. That premise is that we can never fully answer the question of when life begins to which I would ask WHY? People who start from different premises can never agree on much actually.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I typically refuse to argue this from my religious perspective, because once people start calling other people's religious perspectives flawed, we have an impassible issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd as you can look back and see, I mentioned that we'd come to an impasse ages ago.
For the soul there is neither birth nor death. He is eternal and undying.
There is nothing flawed about my religion. There are many flaws in human perception. One of them is not understanding the relationship of the body to the soul.
I did not call your religious perspective flawed, just the premise that you and Pat seem to share that we have no way of really knowing when life begins. Biologically we can and we do and it might be admirable that the PatMan is trying to please everybody but if you don't know when you began......
ReplyDeleteThis is getting like arguing with Beth. Which part of 'for the soul there is neither birth nor death' is unclear?
ReplyDeleteA body of itself hasn't got 'life'. When speaking of a dead body, a person will often say 'He/She is gone'. This is an instinctual understanding that the actual life, the actual person is not (and never was) the same as the body; just INHABITING it.
Arguing about when a body has life is ridiculous, because a body hasn't got 'life' unless it's got a soul in it. A car can't drive without a driver. Same thing. It's not difficult to understand.
So you can go on endlessly about this if you like, but the bottom line is that a person and their body are two completely seperate entities that get put together on a temporary basis. The person is eternal. The body is very much temporary, prone to breakdowns and sickness, and ultimately doomed.
Nothing flawed there.
The point of the piece is that biologically you're killing a life of the species homo sapiens. WHEN did YOU begin? at conception. Is the soul relevant here? The law that forbids murder doesn't first speculate when a newborn gets a soul (2 weeks after birth? 2 years?), simply that it's wrong to take a life of the species homo sapiens.
ReplyDeleteThere is no 'life' without the soul.
ReplyDeleteActually I'd agree with you there. BTW what was Pat's rant about the other day?
ReplyDeleteOK, so when does the soul enter the body? We have no way of knowing for sure, so how do you know that aborting an unborn baby doesn't stop a soul within that baby from having an existence? If we cannot know for sure, then why don't we err on the side of caution and not allow abortion?
ReplyDeleteSerious question for Saty - do animals have souls in your opinion?
Beth:
ReplyDeleteOnce again, you ask a question I've already answered. I can only guess you don't bother to read:
In fact, because we understand that while the external body make take the form of other species, the soul remains the same; thus there is no valuing of one over the other. Killing an animal is the same as killing a person; only the bodies are different, the spirit soul remains the same.
There is no scientific proof of that belief, though, so my belief has just as much a chance of being right as yours does.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, I cannot see how you can think that human and animal souls have the same value, but you say you won't push your beliefs on others through legislation. I presume you are against murder of a human being, like if a man killed his wife, but you won't impose the same punishment if someone kills and unborn baby or a cow. Seems like you actually have a hierarchy of souls' value in your scheme.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, the abortion issue is not about religion. It is about rights, and our nation was founded on the idea that we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But my rights end where your begin. So a mother ending her child's life takes away that child's life right to life.
ReplyDeleteAnimals do not have rights, so not having laws to protect their lives is appropriate.
Just on a sidenote I do believe animals have souls and that we'll meet our pets in heaven someday but I'm with Beth on this one. As soon as you make the argument theological then there is no basis to legislate which is why I vastly would have preferred to discuss the biological facts only here but whatever:)
ReplyDeleteWonder if Saty can figure out how to find this blog post now that it is on page 2....
ReplyDelete