From: Stephen D. Williams (sdw@lig.net)
Date: Mon May 14 2001 - 08:31:26 PDT
Tom wrote:
>
> Personaly my view is human life begins when sperm hits egg. From that
> moment on the potential is there for humanity. Extinguishing that
> potential is a hard hard thing to do, or should be. OF course the
> valuation on HumanLife varies from human to human, so it may be easier for
> some and harder for others.
>
> THe thing is, once the life is in progress, wether it be .02 seconds along
> or 2 weeks or 2 months or 2 years or 2 decades or 2 centurys it is still
> a life. How that life will unfold, what ripples of change it will cause ,
> this is the Potential of that Life. The little critter could turn out to
> be a mass murder a enlightened monk a toll booth attendent or a IT
> executive..youll never know unless it lives the life and rides out the
> potential.
There is a major difference between living tissue and conscious living
tissue. The simplistic 'potential' argument has been used to argue
against birth control because of the life potential of sperm. This is
rediculous and hopelessly shallow.
The question becomes one of consiousness, which we don't fully
understand, and viability which is easy but a moving target.
Consiousness doesn't mean reflexes or early brain activity. If you
start wondering when the 'soul' is inserted, you are off in left field
again.
> Untill medical science can do otherwise the first 10 months of most human
> life is totaly dependent on the host mother. There for the actins of the
> host mother is part of the process of that potential being carried forawrd
> or ending. The host mother is also a HUman being with potentials and life
> all thier own. There will be cases when the valuation of the host mother
> will outweigh the valuation of the little critter.
Of course this is the key issue. The right of self-defense allows you
to morally kill someone else when necessary. Does the right of being an
independant entity allow you more or less complete control over budding
progeny that is arguably still part of your tissue? Although this can
be pushed (in late term) to bruise our sensibilities and bring it close
to the line, the answer is clear to me.
> At the end of the day though the potential is either still alive or its
> dead. We can name it all sorts of difernt things and drape it in
> poltical/life style rhetoric, but the bottom line is life or death.
>
> Killing is never, and should never be, a pleasnt experience. It happens
> though and sometimes the outcome is not evil.
Indeed.
sdw
-- sdw@lig.net http://sdw.st Stephen D. Williams 43392 Wayside Cir,Ashburn,VA 20147-4622 703-724-0118W 703-995-0407Fax Dec2000
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