tisonlyi

Latenter:

An honest statement based in materialism starts with an open, unbiased disposition. The next thing is the acquisition of or enquiry into the evidence in an open, unbiased manner, then you frame a narrative that fits the evidence which can then be torn apart by other people looking at the problem.

A dishonest statement based in materialism starts with a proposition, then cherry-picks and distorts evidence in order to fit the prejudices of the person who makes the statement, who then reacts defensively when the obvious flaws are pointed out.

Ok, so, before you even look at the evidence, you presuppose the existence of souls and that at some unseen and unexplained point, through some unseen and unexplained means, these unseen and unexplained souls are imparted upon a freshly fused set of gametes, and it's this unseen and unexplained soul imparting at this particular point that you've chosen in the absence of observation, measurement and means that justifies your special pleading for the cluster of cells that current society says it's perfectly fine to dispose of.

To sum up, your argument goes like this:

There is something material with things happening that obey the laws of nature, THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENS THAT YOU CAN'T SEE OR MEASURE, and then we have a new entity that must be treated in accordance with my set of baseless beliefs, simply because I assert that the miracle happened and other people think the same way.

See where I'm going here?

The fact that a lot of people hold the opinion that souls exist holds no weight whatsoever. A lot of people believe in ghosts, angels, pixies, demons and fairies but that doesn't mean they're right, or that we can/should start going out to justify their conditioned prejudices by trying to cherry-pick evidence.

So, to the point of honesty. If you want to use supernatural/religious beliefs (the existence of souls is a religious belief) to justify a position, then use the language of the supernatural/religion to do that. If you want to use materialist/scientific/empirical arguments to justify a position, then keep unseen, ill-defined, immeasureable ideas out of your thinking and reasoning.

I think I've laid out my position pretty well. Developed, full-grown human beings have absolute rights over their own bodies. At the point that foetuses start to have either sentience or a very good chance of developing sentience _without_ the unwilling assistance of the host, then the foetus starts to acquire rights. This is a process of accretion of rights, not absolutes. If society would like to give the foetus every chance of developing outside the womb and the woman does not want to give the foetus her means of developing, then it's perfectly reasonable to remove the foetus and use society's means - not the woman's means - to do that.

If society doesn't want to do that, then termination is acceptable up to the point that society is willing to do that.

That position, where foetuses start to gain rights, judging from my look at the evidence, starts at around 24-26 weeks. Up to that point, the woman has 100% rights to do whatever she wants.

You don't like me attacking your position? Tough luck.

Oh, and on the 'because its weak' labelling of my position, which is a total red herring, society already has plenty of rules and plenty of experience in the murder of members of Homo Sapiens outside the womb, but dependent on external resources for their continued existence.

Brain Death of coma patients = acceptable removal of support.

The heart still beats, the lungs might still function, the liver still serves as the factory of enzymes for the rest of the body, there are plenty of nerve cells, even massive complexity capable of supporting sentience, but that sentience and sapience cannot be seen.

A living human being, without sentience or sapience, is 'killed' by removal of support.

Embryos/foetuses up to 20 weeks barely possess organs, let alone functional organs with complex interplay that might support independent existence and prop up the capacity for an excess of brain that can support a sentient, conscious entity.

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"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--