The connection between guns ,abortion & religion.

[Kyle Reese]

Good advice, I intend to go to the gym tomorrow. Went yesterday. Sunday, I will shoot a match and my biggest decision is to shoot a:

1. Revolver
2. One of my Glocks
3. My 1911 - which I shot last week.

I just don't know. If I shoot my revolver I will come in high in the ratings as few due nowadays. I tell my friends that I have come in second after a national champion. Oh, there were only two revolver guys that day. Oops.

It will be 100 deg. on the range. TX - oh, well.

Maybe I will go get pancakes.

Post-range session hotcakes are always a winner.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[Sensei]

I rest your case. It must be as annoying to see biology terms misused as it is for the rest of us to hear "clip" in movies. My use of "life on its own" should have been "being" or perhaps "consciousness." I'm not sure about that, actually. The philosophical discussion is really all we have until a scientific demarcation of 'becomes a human BEING' can be demonstrated.

Either way, I think the initial thrust of Guns, (Anti)Abortion, and God being linked has a number of exceptions.

Is consciousness or self-awareness required to be considered a human being or person? Do humans in a persistent vegetative state lose their moral status as persons? How about the demented?

[critter]

Is consciousness or self-awareness required to be considered a human being or person? Do humans in a persistent vegetative state lose their moral status as persons? How about the demented?

Interesting questions for sure. No, no, and no. Consciousness or self-awareness (along with memory creation), vegetative states and dementia are, apparently, attained at or after birth. There have been rulings that allow for the deaths of those in persistent vegetative states, but those are passive though one could easily argue that actively unplugging a respirator or disconnecting a feeding tube with full understanding that life will cease is active killing as opposed to passively allowing natural death to occur. An abortion, by contrast, would seem an unquestionably active process occurring in a different time frame. The primary difference is that these are all, irrefutably (though I always hesitate to use that word), beyond whatever line of determining 'living human being.'

People believe that souls exist and are imbued, inserted, or maybe created at conception. I have no problem with that other than the lack of evidence that souls actually do exist at all so wind up being unusable for point of no return, or event horizon determinations. That elusive event horizon should be a physically evident line which can be referenced.

At what point in development may the cord be cut and life naturally continue? I think that's the only actual line we have if such line indeed exists somewhere between conception and birth (which apparently it does.. but where exactly?).

I think such a line is important to prove simply because this is framing a reference for lawfully enforced compulsory behavior which would be removing freedom from one in protection of another.

Fascinating thought exercise regardless.

[Sensei]

Interesting questions for sure. No, no, and no. Consciousness or self-awareness (along with memory creation), vegetative states and dementia are, apparently, attained at or after birth. There have been rulings that allow for the deaths of those in persistent vegetative states, but those are passive though one could easily argue that actively unplugging a respirator or disconnecting a feeding tube with full understanding that life will cease is active killing as opposed to passively allowing natural death to occur. An abortion, by contrast, would seem an unquestionably active process occurring in a different time frame. The primary difference is that these are all, irrefutably (though I always hesitate to use that word), beyond whatever line of determining 'living human being.'

People believe that souls exist and are imbued, inserted, or maybe created at conception. I have no problem with that other than the lack of evidence that souls actually do exist at all so wind up being unusable for point of no return, or event horizon determinations. That elusive event horizon should be a physically evident line which can be referenced.

At what point in development may the cord be cut and life naturally continue? I think that's the only actual line we have if such line indeed exists somewhere between conception and birth (which apparently it does.. but where exactly?).

I think such a line is important to prove simply because this is framing a reference for lawfully enforced compulsory behavior which would be removing freedom from one in protection of another.

Fascinating thought exercise regardless.

The lower limit of viability where life can be sustained outside of the womb is around 24 weeks. Interestingly, the rate limiting developmental milestone that keeps you in the womb is related to lung development rather dependence on a cord for circulation or the brain. Assuming that we do not go out in the next 50 years like the dinosaurs, humanity will likely have the technology to “grow” someone from gametes to adulthood just like in the movie The Matrix. We can already do this with lower animals and much of the reason why we are not pushing the envelope with humans is an international consensus on ethics. Regardless, in our lifetime there may very well be humans walking the Earth who are not persons because they never had the opportunity to pass through the magic “personhood” bestowing vagina that seems to be our current criteria for gaining basic human rights.