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From: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: The myth of humanity (moral article)
Message-ID: <7053@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Feb-84 23:47:54 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.7053
Posted: Wed Feb 29 23:47:54 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Mar-84 07:07:47 EST
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 42

Note how I flagged this article as talking about the moral issue,
namely, is abortion right or wrong?

Many people like to debate when a fetus becomes a human being.  The
two camps pick upong conception and birth.  anti-abortionists claim
(fairly correctly) that the birth distinction is arbitrary.  I would
like to suggest the the conception distinction is just as arbitrary.

Yes a fetus is human, as is an adult person, as is a zygote, AND
as is a sperm-egg pair (unfertilized) as is a skin cell.  They all
have all the genetic material, and with the exception of the skin
cell (for now, until we can clone a human, which is possible in theory)
they all can be made into a thinking human being (What I'll call a "person")
if we want to.

Barring the injection of a soul by god, what is the difference in potential
between an egg and a zygote?  A modern biochemist can take an egg and
fertilize it in vitro with a high success rate.  So the two potentials
are within an order of magnitude.  Only a chemical reaction which we
understand part of remains in the way.  And it's a chemical reaction that
likes to happen, and which we can make happen fairly reliably.  How can
it not be murder to destroy an egg which has a sperm on the way in and
yet be murder to destroy the finished product ten seconds later?

How can there be any line based on the chemical reactions of DNA?

If we are to draw a line, we must use another critera.  If you look around,
I think you'll see it is the developed mind that makes the human unique.
When the brain is dead, the law says the person is dead.  In is the mind
that distinguishes us from the animals and makes us special.  So here is
my proposed definition:

Human cells are not a person unless there is (or has been, with the
possible chance of remission) a developed human mind of capability beyond
that of the animals we kill for sport, food or experimentation.

To be conservative, we should say the capability should be way below
that of those above animals.  For example, it is estimated dolphins and
some simians are beyond infants, but the question is too hard to decide
easily in this case.
-- 
	Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304