Would you really be okay with one adult conscious conjoined twin killing another against its will? Such as in this case: ??7 I would definately be not. The number of persons is detemined by number of minds, not bodies. If two persons share one body, then both must be protected, even if it means they will stay abnormal.
It is a VERY spacial situation with no easy answer, but try to answer this: If one kills someone who goes to jail? If one objects to sex and one does not, is it rape?
I dont know. Those are very difficult questions. On the second question, they can make a deal in advance - either consent of only one, or both is needed in such matters.
Huh ? both unconscious and brain-damaged folks have minds and significant brain function. Unlike the zygote and for many weeks after.
Of course a sperm is a separate organism .. but what difference does it make ? What is the significant difference between a zygote, and any other human cell that makes it worthy of rights accorded to humans ? Hint: There is only one - The DNA in the zygote has the program codes "to create a human" turned on. Every other human cell has these codes .. they are just not turned on. One day we may figure out how to do so. That the DNA is in the process of creating a human does not mean a human exists .. only that there is a potential for a human to exists. This is the only significant difference .. Period. I think there are some good arguments that can be made on this basis .. but I will let you take it from here.
Wrong try again.. not that it matters because this is not much relevent to whether it is a Homo sapien or not. It is a singled celled eukaryote. It is not a Homo sapien .. It is a human eukaryotic cell just like every other human cell.
In this case, I think the answer is not difficult, but simple. Because of health reasons, noone goes to jail. Not really any different than normal humans with health problems preventing them from being jailed even if guilty. Or because two minds in one body are two individuals, noone goes to jail as to not punish innocent person in addition to guilty one.
Id say yes, it is. If two individuals inhabit one body, consent of both is needed. Of course, it may also depend on the configuration of conjoined individuals in question.
So if acquire amnesia and forget everything, I have a different mind? I do not the mind is reducible to neurons but regardless, this is a good reason to deny these people rights. What you consider their lack of mind is extrinsic to their humanity, due either to damage of lack of maturity. On top of that, there is no clear division between when the human being has developed (or lost) the level of synaptic activity you consider necessary for mind.
Are you opposed to killing a fetus after it achieves viability then? Should all concerted effort be made to extract the fetus alive? Which one has the right to lead the normal life and which one should be killed? What if one wants to separate--killing the other--while the other would rather remain conjoined than be killed?
Why are we sure mind is reducible to having brain function? Worms have brain function. Do they have minds? Do they have rights? And why does this distinction in brain function matter? I see no reason that merely having firing synapses confers rights, if being a human organism is not enough. What if I said I thought unconscious people did not have, since they lack sentience, will, and sapience, necessary components of a rights-possessing mind? Sperm isn't a separate organism because it contains not self-replicating DNA independent of the man. It is true that human rights ultimately derive from the human possession of a mind with reason, sentience, and will. However, temporarily lacking those qualities should not deprive one of rights. That is a temporary condition, including in zygotes. The zygote's rights stem from the fact that, as a human being, it is developing these qualities. It is merely without them transitionally, as a sleeping person is. Why does the number of cells matter? I have a different number of cells than you, but they didn't classify us into different species. Why isn't their a separate classification for zygotes, Homo.... ?
You forget only something, never everything. Anyway, even if such was the case, you say it yourself, you have a different mind, not no mind. Your mind restarts into clean slate, not disappears. Its comparable to state after birth, not embryos. There is pretty clear division - in 5th month of fetal development. It takes cca 2-3 weeks to come from no brainwaves at all to organized synchronised brainwaves. Anyway, for our purposes we need to know when the mind is surely not present, and in the first trimester we can be 100% sure it is not there. I am okay with some buffer just to be sure we dont kill a mind. Most abortions happen in first trimester anyway.
Something has to be a person before you can claim it is a sleeping person. You have not given any support for your claim that a zygote is a human being. Having self replicating DNA does not make a human cell a human being.
Terminating a pregnancy is an abortion. There is no pregnancy if the zygote has not implanted. /topic
I guess the hypocrisy and irony in that statement did not even dawn on you. Who are you making proud, your pastor, priest or other dogma pushing leader? By your edict or just the dogma you follow? Only religious zealot views. How about you try that for yourself?
There is no practical difference between the mental faculty of a person who is in a coma or a person who is an embryo, in that they both lack will, reason, and consciousness. The former has brainwaves but of a differing type than a conscious person and ones that no more grant the faculties of will, reason, and consciousness than the lack of brainwaves of an embryo. So why should the presence of some sort of brainwave be the determining factor when one can have them and yet be just as passive and unconscious as a mindless object? Of course, the thoughtlessness of a coma is often transient, but so is the thoughtlessness of the embryonic stage. Do abortion doctors perform tests on the fetus to determine the presence of brainwaves? Nope. And setting some general time limit based on a presumed average will not protect those minds that develop earlier on the bell curve.
A zygote has no brain waves. A zygote has no possibility of life without implantation. The morning after pill is thus not an abortion.
Than what does? If being a living creature that is categorized as belonging to the human species does not make one a human being, what does? I certainly can think of a more sensible definition and, quite frankly, I think all attempts to provide one are ideologically motivated by the desire to justify abortion. Were it not for that motivation, I think the vast majority would find the statement that zygotes are simply an earlier stage in the development of the creature in question a pretty uncontroversial statement.
Why should we consider the presence of brain waves the determining factor in defining a human organism? Earlier, someone was arguing that it was being multicellular. Which is it? Why isn't it being an individual, living member of the species in question? Yes, it does. It is living without being implanted up to the point that it is implanted. So obviously one can have a non-implanted zygote. True, it will eventually die without being implanted, but I will eventually die without oxygen.
Well, before you can ask and answer that question, you have to define what you consider to be a human being, as I am sure you agree that it is not a cut and dry matter. If you define a human being to simply anything with human DNA and alive, then you inadvertently including a host of "entities" that we all agree that are not human beings. You will also find that many will be ideologically motivate to deny women self determination. In the least you have to admit that there are no absolutes only in the positions some take.
It's survival is directly linked to being implanted. Just as it's progression to being an embryo is directly linked to being implanted. Without implantation there is a 0% chance the zygote will progress or be able to live on its own. Preventing implantation is preventing pregnancy. Thus chemical compounds that prevent implantation are forms of birth control.
If you take into consideration that we as humans at least attempt to be compassionate beings on occasion, then it is not unreasonable to follow a line of reasoning along the notion of preventing suffering. If a being has no brain, an active one, then it experiences no suffering and that can be applied to a fetus too in the abortion debate. One that maintains homeostasis. Of course it is. Have you ever met an individual of our species that had no organs at all? And was it a living individual? That is a simplistic if not naive argument without a point.
I'm defining it as a human organism, and I think it should be pretty clear what constitutes a human organism: a living member of the human species distinct from all other members of human species. It has unique, self-reproducing DNA and behaves as a unified, organized system developing seamlessly into a fully grown human adult.
My survival is directly linked to breathing oxygen. A disabled person's survival may be directly linked to various machines. So this doesn't seem like a good litmus test for defining whether the zygote is a human being.
