"Where is our common humanity?"
The common humanity is STUPIDITY and SUPERSTITION in Black Africa is akin to sentencing all the world to a future without any cure at all!

nferyn:

I must confess... Finally my devious plan has been uncovered.... Finally someone has popped up with the wit and foresight to see through my satanic intentions...
at last my witchcraft has been exposed ... I am who I am

Whoa, nferyn. . .I never would've guessed. ..

Please allow me to introduce myself....
I'm a man of wealth and taste ...
I've been here for such a long time...

man nfern what did the white pplz in belgium do to u, lol what u think of euthanasia. i bet u'll tell me its right for someone to decide to take person life

panthress:

man nfern what did the white pplz in belgium do to u, what u think of euthanasia. i bet u'll tell me its right for someone to decide to take person life

Look at my profile, dear.... I am the white devil

And, as a counterbalance, go and look at this
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-2837.0.html
you'll understand I'm not all that bad

dude r u da white man with da mixed race kid?

Horrible isn't it

lol not really, u married to a nigerian lady? dat muz be it man.

panthress:

man nfern what did the white pplz in belgium do to u, what u think of euthanasia. i bet u'll tell me its right for someone to decide to take person life

I suppose if someone cut off your head, but somehow, your heart continued to beat and the rest of your body was alive, you'd want to bankrupt your parents so they could keep your mindless body alive?

allonym:

I suppose if someone cut off your head, but somehow, your heart continued to beat and the rest of your body was alive, you'd want to bankrupt your parents so they could keep your mindless body alive?

And maybe you can then lobby for congress to pass a law just for your sake, and have the president interrupt his holiday just on your behalf. You will be more important than those thousands of people fighting for their lives because of a hurricane. For you, the president would interrupt his holiday, for them not. It's great to be special, isn't it.

my parents dont believe in euthanasia my mum doesnt indulge in that stuff at work including abortion they r both against it, so i think they'll keep me alive.
president bush is a dickhead

panthress:

my parents don't believe in euthanasia my mum doesnt indulge in that stuff at work including abortion they r both against it, so i think they'll keep me alive.
president bush is a dickhead

So, though there is no hope of bringing "you" back, you would want your parents or family to waste money to keep your body alive? What is the point? If they want your body, couldn't they just freeze it?

God giveth God taketh i believe if i am still alive, i shld die naturally with a condition like thatenwayz ill die soon and i dont need someone to kill me, when i dont wannabe killed

panthress:

God giveth God taketh i believe if i am still alive, i shld die naturally with a condition like thatenwayz ill die soon and i don't need someone to kill me, when i don't wannabe killed

but you are already dead. All that is alive is a mindless body. I personally will not want money wasted on keeping my body alive any longer than necessary to do something like an organ transplant.

if the doctors say im alive, im alive so when im dead my blood will stop flowing

panthress:

if the doctors say im alive, im alive so when im dead my blood will stop flowing

This doesn't quite make sense and/or you're avoiding the question. There is no question of your body still being alive. But you are brain dead with no hope of revival (in the example).

IF MY brain is dead then im no longer alive, then i can be buried, da heart cant function withhout the brain. da brain runs tingz

panthress:

IF MY brain is dead then im no longer alive, then i can be buried, da heart can't function withhout the brain. da brain runs tingz

Not quite. Its postulated that the brainstem actually controls much of the bodies . . . ahh unconscious activities - i can't think of the word now but - its stuff that you do without having to think about it like breathing, your heat beating, etc. So, maybe with your head cut off, your body could no longer do that. . but I'm sure there are situations where a person could become brain damaged to the point where their mind cannot return, though the brainstem is still intact and functioning perfectly.

Abortion is cold killing....
A lady who's found doing that should get a 4ever punishment..
it's being crook and ofcourse it's just like pulling a trigger and blowing someone"s brains off.
Not a quest to that, it's a CRIME!!!

I've been reading this post, and it's really interesting. Kudos to everyone for providing their opinions on this. Nferyn, you have earned my respect in many ways. I find it hard to put aside emotions when in an argument (this being one that elicits emotion), and have always admired people who do. Continue to stick to that mentality, and you'll go places.

I really don't know much about biology and physical sentience to begin with, so I will argue based on what I have read and understood in this post.

We have already established here that sentience and consiousness, in short, life, does not begin in a human structure until after 26 weeks of his/her conception.


What I cannot fathom is that it should be valued as nothing more than a toe, or smear of saliva, or phlegm because they are all cell structures and are capable of having life. It might be true, but should we accept it as such?

zygotes/embryos in the womb, unlike other cells such as saliva, toes and so on, are in the process of becoming life--independent life. They fuse (sperm+egg) at first, become one, and begin the natural process in acquiring sentience. The fact that they are not life does not belie the fact that they going to be human beings (and there is a Very very very very high probablity, as we all know, that it can become human being). Stopping the process to life is knowledgable act of preventing something tangible from coming to be as we are, and that, in itself, is wrong. It already has the phyisical bearings to make it whole and it is continuing to do so. Zygotes are by definition, not life, as you all say. But they are established entities HIGHLY capable of being life, and should be respected as such. Zygotes are going to be persons, not trees, or animals. An animal may be of higher importance than a zygote scienficially, but humans share an affinity for another pre-life, half-life, of full-life person. We were all once zygotes. Zygotes became scientists, people, fathers, children--US. Cell structures became the beings that built the civilizations we thrive on. Now, going down a notch or two to static human cells or structure, consider this: why does a limbless person gather more sympathy than a dead monkey? Considering this, What do we now make of cells inherently capable of becoming like us in every way?

Even if they are just a bunch of cells as some of you postulate, why is there a vast consensus here? A deep-seated thought by most that it is not "just right" to get rid of these cell structures?

I don't need to explain it. This is something we know deep down, science or not. A lifeless zygote is a lot more than just a hinderance.

That being said, here's my piece as an observant: Abortion is both a crime and a right. It is naturally a mother's right to abort the cell structure depending on her body for enterance into life.

But it is also crime against that which might grow sentience and acquire different natural abilites or talents that might highly contribute to the human civilization.

An exaggeration? Einstein and Darwin were once lifeless zygotes.

So, when weighing both ends of the deal, I'm leaning more towards the crime hypothesis. It is more or less a right though.

And my piece a woman: I understand what some women go through before taken decisions such as these, and I sympathize with them. But as for myself: If I were pregnant even in the most dire circumstances, I cannot imagine doing away with that which is depending on me for life. That which is a part of me. No matter the circumstances, that cell is my child. Potential life or no, I will not do anything to it. It deserves to live. It deserves to grow and be nurtured and nuture. I might not be the one to do it, but by God, I'll make sure someone else will. No part of me inherently capable of living, deserves to be done away with by ME, of all people.

Hi Nnenna1,

Thanks again for making a meaningful contribution to the board. I wish more people would think before they spoke.

You indeed have an emotional approach to the problem of abortion and there is nothing wrong with that. Now, if I were a woman, I have no idea how I would react if I were placed in such a situation. It would be a very hard dilemma and I cannot imagine that something like undergoing an abortion would not leave emotional scars behind. Therefore it is important that we, as a humane society, try to avoid being placed in such a postion. This goes both for your personal choices in life as for the policy we implement.

That being said, policy cannot directly be guided by emotions. When developing or implementing a policy, you need to look at the cold hard facts and investigate what the overall outcome of that policy would be. Suppose your child get brutally murdered. It is only natural for the parents to have feelings of revenge toward the perpetrator, but we cannot let those emotions guide the judging and sanctioning of the crime. they are to be considered, for sure, but they are certainly not the only issues at stake.
The same goes for abortion. What is the overall impact of abortion on society, on all actors involved? What are the facts and what are the effects of our actions in a specific case, but also, what are the effects on society? All studies I know of point in one direction: the best way to avoid or limit abortions and unwanted pregnancies is by implementing a policy of allowing abortions under controlled circumstances, coupled with comprehensive sex education. Either banning abortion or allowing abortions without the proper societal guidance have shown to give worse results.

One thing more about legalised, controlled abortions (such as we know in Belgium, I consider the US an example of how it should not be done). They force [b]not one [/b]woman to undergo an abortion. If an individual woman has moral or other objections against abortions, she is given all possible guidance into finding a suitable solution for her unwanted pregnancy.

So all in all, it is important that a policy does not codify a morality that is not shared by the whole population. Nobody's moral values should be forced on other people by means of legal prohibitions. The law should only consider the cold hard facts.

3 Weeks: The eyes and spinal cord are visible and the developing brain has two lobes.
4 Weeks: The heart is beating. The portion of the brain associated with consciousness (the cerebrum) and internal organs such as the lungs are beginning to develop and can be identified.

What? We have established that sentience and consiousness, does not begin in a human structure until after 26 weeks of his/her conception.
Who says that. Crazy. Being a person is not whether one can feel pain or not.

Chrisd,

look at this link:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/294/8/947
and this debate:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=88699

That's where I get my information from.

cya

Feeling of pain and consciousness are two different things

chrisd:

Feeling of pain and consciousness are two different things

Yes, and?
I never said that the sensation of pain should be the only determining factor

Federal law. Ah. I won't rust those lawyers. Let's say abortion is a decision. At this point in history we cannot understand where to drawn a line. Perhaps the line does not exist. What shall we do then. We have to decide some way or the other. In the US they decided that way, no?

chrisd:

Federal law. Ah. I won't rust those lawyers. Let's say abortion is a decision. At this point in history we cannot understand where to drawn a line. Perhaps the line does not exist. What shall we do then. We have to decide some way or the other. In the US they decided that way, no?

Legislation always has something arbitrary to it. E.g. when is a sex between consenting partners legit and when is child abuse. The legal line needs to be drawn somewhere. As long as you build in a reasonable margin of error, it's Ok.

That means there is overlap yes?

chrisd:

That means there is overlap yes?

What do you mean? Overlap between what?

Reasonable margin of error means overlap. Adam Smith said, the best result comes from everyone doing what's
best for himself, right?

Is very interesting. But is difficult to define reasonable margin of error. One needs a quantitative calculation. Perhaps we can come up with a differential equation or something.

chrisd:

Reasonable margin of error means overlap. Adam Smith said, the best result comes from everyone doing what's
best for himself, right?

Indeed you take you margin in the direction where you know it should be taken. In case of abortion, you ensure thatthere is absolutely no chance that sentience is present (that's why 26 weeks is a reasonable limit)
Please don't bring Smith into the discussion, it wil quickly result into an ideological shouting contest, but Ill respond anyway
Economics is also ignorant of externalities that it cannot quantify or have no economic value, therefor economics should not be the only guiding principle for society and it's properties should be taken with an ocean of salt (after removal of the water).