Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site shark.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!tektronix!orca!shark!brianp From: brianp@shark.UUCP (Brian Peterson) Newsgroups: net.abortion Subject: Re: When does life begin? IT DOESN'T! Message-ID: <1191@shark.UUCP> Date: Sun, 16-Dec-84 06:51:37 EST Article-I.D.: shark.1191 Posted: Sun Dec 16 06:51:37 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 03:24:14 EST References: <1203@bbncca.ARPA>, <139@spp1.UUCP> Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR Lines: 52 XY From: johnston@spp1.UUCP XY > ... XY > Given that, moral issues, like abortion, ought to be decided on criteria XY > that are the most important & meaningful for human beings & their lives XY > as we know them. Fetuses may be complex organisms & biologically alive, XY > but it doesn't easily follow that, just because of that, they are human. XY > Cheers, XY > Ron Rizzo XY XY I'm a little confused. In the first sentence is a phrase "human beings & XY their lives". I've always assummed that I was a member of this class. Yet XY I find from the second sentence that while a fetus, though complex and XY alive, I may not have been human. Since I don't recall passing an XY acceptance test, I'm beginning to get worried. If there is criteria for XY becoming a human from a complex, biologically alive organism of homo XY sapiens, I'd better apply. After all, I've been lying on my resume. XY Mike Johnston I think you are more than a little confused; you seem to have missed the whole point. If you metabolize, etc. then you are a life. If you have the right type of DNA, you are of the species homo-sapiens. Now, let us suppose that someone took a spoon and stirred your cerebrum (or was it cerebelum?) and you were no MORE than a metabolizing entity with the right type of DNA. There is now something missing. That something is what we (Ron Rizzo up there, and I, at least) are talking about. Life (metabolizing, etc) is no more relevant to what we are than hardware is to a particular program being run. A particular set of DNA is no more important than a random molecule of oxygen, or a random configuration of a Rubik's cube, simply because there are so many of them. They only are useful as quantities. What we are is something more abstract than life or DNA. A fetus has nothing more than life and DNA, both of negligible value as a particular instance. Now, this something that we are does not get given to us, especially not at a marked point. Neither are there simpleton tests that make binary decisions on whether you have this (intentionally left vague in this article) quality. Yet it is obvious to all that there is this something, a characteristic which sets us beyond most other animals on this planet, and beyond those vegetables which happen to still have homo-sapiens DNA in them. It is this characteristic which is important, which fetuses don't have, and which anti-abortionists seem to have no concerns for. Brian Peterson {ucbvax, ihnp4, } !tektronix!shark!brianp ^ ^