Uvic Abortion Debate Oct 21st '09 Part 1 of 10

A sperm's "end" is to meet the ovum. A human beings "end" is much greater. A skin cell's "end" and "powers" are not greater than a zygote's.

Let's not be so narrow minded as to assume that a person who is unconscious or has little brain activity is less of a human being. There are intangible realities to human beings that science can never measure... such as the capacity to love.

Dr. Kluge only looks at the human being materialistically. He sees humans as no greater than the sum of their physical parts and only gives them personhood based on their current capacities. He does not touch on our complete nature (we are greater than the sum of our physical parts). At the moment of conception, we have INHERENT capacity. All we need are the proper conditions to turn our "powers" on.

BUT, the most complete definition is evident by it's "end"... it's not ANY kind of tree, it has "oaktreeness".

In the same way, you cannot objectively get to the nature of a human being by simply describing it's tangible characteristics such as appearance. Nor can you define a human being simply by it's current capacity. You must also look at the intangibles (love, beauty, justice, etc) and also it's INHERENT capacity.

E.g. An acorn:
- is not only defined by it's tangible characteristics such as color, texture, size, etc. (or what we can tell through our sense). That is NOT enough to get to it's nature.
- it also defines itself by what it has the potential or capacity to do (such as photosynthesize, grow, etc.)
- it also defines itself by the conditions necessary to "turn the powers on" such as sunlight, water, dirt.
...

To get to the nature of a thing, you need to look at four things:
- it's appearance
- it's powers
- the conditions necessary to turn the powers on
- it's final end

Recall Dr. Kluge defined a person as a human with the "capacity for sentient cognitive awareness". Why didn't he just say, "capacity for sentience"? It's because all animals have the latter capacity. I believe he adds "cognitive" because to him a person is required to have the capacity to think or be rational regarding our senses in actuality.

Further, it is this rational nature that makes us human persons. A duck will never have this nature. Human males and females have it from conception.

Margaret Sanger founder of PP in The Pivot of Civilization 1922 stated-quote- Our failure to segregate morons demonstrates our foolhardy sentimentalism- Philanthropists encourage the healthier-sections to shoulder the burden of indiscriminate fecundity of others; which brings with it a dead weight of human waste. Instead of-aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race we are paying for the dictates of a spawning class who never should have been born at all.

Stephanie made a remark about the KKK? Can Charlie pinpoint that? SGasked  In real life there are born people who are poor. May we kill them to eliminate poverty? No. Then why may we kill the unborn to address poverty? Only if we dont perceive the unborn to be human like born people in Africa are human and perhaps in a poor situation. Nothing racist there. Racism demands the poor abort their children; a complaint frequently made about cultural imperialists of the West. What choice?

I feel like pro-choice encompasses both pro-life and pro-choice and always supports the women's right to choose. Stephanie's argument isn't discarded because of her religion, not at all, but by the way she argues. You simply have to watch the debate, and the way she responds to the crowds questions to understand that.

However, Stephanie doesn't need to say anything about her religion in order to have her argument discredited. Her argument is offensive to women, it is racist (did anyone catch the reference to the ex-ku klux klan member?) and anti-semitic (again, comparing abortion to the holocaust, please). I respect people on the pro-life side. I respect people wishing to carrying their pregnancy to term. In no way am I 'pro-abortion'.