Would you sell liquor to this baby?
7d 9h ago by lemmy.today/u/Wren in BrandNewSentence@lemmy.today from lemmy.today
As a libertarian I would advocate selling liquor to all babies who want it.
Man, I miss the "As a libertarian" guy on reddit. Dude would start every comment like that before saying something insane.
Hilariously redundant.
Praximis_Prime_ARG iirc, the best part was that they'd include a link to a libertarian actually saying that exact thing.
Yeah!!! That's the guy. He's used multiple accounts over the years. Dude was funny as hell.
Omg you guys are taking me back. Fucking loved this guy. Best bit ever
As a libertarian, I'd also still comment on Reddit.
As a libertarian I would advocate selling liquor to all babies who can afford it.
FTFY
If they want it enough they'll get a good enough job to afford it so that's redundant.
As a 19th century physician I can only agree, and suggest pairing it with a spoonful of soothing cocaine syrup for maximum efficacy.
Liar, you're not a 19th century quack. Mine prescribed tincture of laudanum
Nonsense! Can you look at how that kid's bouncing off the walls and honestly tell me that cocaine isn't a healthy and energizing remedy?
(Yeah, I was trying to think of morphine but wrote cocaine because brain = dumb)
I mean they're two lines away from each other (with cannabis in the middle) for doc duckerson's miracle cough expressant, it's an easy mistake to make
Don’t waste my fucking time, baby beer.
As a libertarian I would advocate selling liquor to all babies who want it
As a progressive with libertarian tendencies, I would add that alcoholic babies should also have access to rehab if they want it.
should also have access to rehab if they
want it.can afford it.
Ftfy what kind of libertarian did you say you were
The kind that cares about individual liberty, not the "bUt WhO's GoInG tO pAy FoR iT" kind.
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread
I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.
“Bad news, detective. We got a situation.”
“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”
“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoins.”
The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoins are the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. They represent true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”
“Not yet. But mark my words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”
“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”
He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find those bitcoins.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m on it.”
I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.
“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge and my gun and a small picture of Ron Paul. “Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.
“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”
It didn’t seem like they did.
“Seriously, guys. Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”
Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.
I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors. A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.
“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.
Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.
“Stop right there!” I yelled as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.
I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled. “What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large long-sleeved men’s T-shirt!”
He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.
“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoins.”
“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.
“Because I was afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said. “I’m a central banker.”
I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner. Instead, I shook my head.
“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how many bitcoins you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”
He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me.
Don't be ridiculous. Babies can't consent to treatment!
I mean, expecting libertarians to follow age of consent laws in any area is kind of foolish . . .
It's got what babies crave
Objection! They believe that life starts at conception, but not that aging starts at conception! This is why people are not considered 9 months old at birth!
Conceptually, people can also be frozen at any age, which "pauses" or slows their aging (see: Captain America, Han Solo, Dave Lister)
that's a good steelman. but this is why I think the better argument is Hasan's usual hypothetical about this: there's a fire in a hospital and you can only get into one of the rooms in time to save some people. do you go into NICU where you could save a couple babies or to the IVF section where you can save thousands of embryos?
This hypothetical is great as it forces them to admit born babies are more important than embryos, but it doesn't prove embryos are not alive
it's not about them being alive; embryos are alive, that's not even disputed. it's about whether the life is a person. if you think the babies are more important you're already conceding the embryos don't have personhood, or at least not to the degree that babies do.
either case they shouldn't have the same rights as actual people. if you think an embryo is a person then you can't choose the couple babies over so many people. or if you do it's still going to be fun hearing you try to justify it without conceding.
Ooh yeah makes sense
In a fertility crisis with aging population (e.g as bad as upside down population pyramid) people might save the hundreds of embryos
Edit: I didn't notice that you said babies the first time i read that tbh. Lol.
Yes even a eugenicist would say the babies are more valuable than embryos because you can see that they're healthy, whereas with an embryo it's unproven.
Many would also prioritise them because they have reached consciousness so there is "suffering cost" at play.
Doesn't prove that embryos aren't life though, as another commenter said.
theres no fertility crisis, its an economic crisis. greedy rich people are ruining the world and making existing unaffordable so no one can afford to have babies.
Like I tell a friend of mine who was premature: Do you want to celebrate your birthday today or in a couple months when you should have been born?
Didn't give them any ideas lol
Your age is defined by your birth Thus your age before birth is negative. And an estimate. Quod erat ipsum dolor et maximus.
I struggle to parse the Latin. My first reading would be "That's why it was pain and the greatest..."
What does the maximus refer to? Is it an attribute to dolor, and if so, what does the et refer to?
Or am I supposed to read it as an implied duplication or retroactive emphasis? "pain, the greatest (pain) even."
Or is there something I'm missing between morning brain and rusted skills?
Or is it not actually sound Latin and I'm trying way harder than I should?
Let me help you a bit since you got morning brain
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi ac ultricies ipsum, nec fermentum quam. Ut gravida nisl purus, et interdum risus porttitor a. Aenean euismod tellus ante, viverra fermentum tortor commodo a. Praesent lacus mauris, efficitur eget odio a, mollis fringilla eros. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Duis bibendum euismod mi id maximus. Vestibulum lacinia tincidunt sapien vel lobortis. Curabitur consectetur iaculis iaculis. Mauris tincidunt elit ac quam finibus, id dapibus leo sodales.
I suspected that, but couldn't find the specific bit in the Lorem Ipsum text, nor in the original its fragments were lifted from, so I assumed it was a genuine quote or self-constructed sentence.
I'll file it under "went way too hard on a throwaway blurb" then, thanks.
Conceptually
icwydt
Freezing an adult would be murder.
not if they can be un-frozen
Right, that's not a thing. So murder.
"Conceptually" makes a lot of heavy lifting, along with the fictional examples like Captain America
Is Dave Lister an actual real life person? Or is it a fictional character like the others? Otherwise, they can't be taken as examples. That's like saying that oh yeah, a toddler can totally lift a car no problem.... see Superman.
He’s an absolute smeghead.
You can't talk about Cloister that way!
Bro don't get mad it's just fun.
Pretty sure cryogenic freezing will exist one day - scientists seem very bullish on it.
If there was a fire and you only had time to save one of these, which would you save: a one-month old baby, or a flask containing 100 frozen human embryos.
Is the fire making me uncomfortable? I might just sit there saying "This is fine" until it's too late to save either.
Or scout outside to make sure it is really safer than inside before discovering it's too late to save either.
Or maybe flip the lever between the front wheels and back wheels going over the switch for some multi-track drifting--ah nm, that doesn't work for this version of the trolly problem.
I respect your rejection of the premise.
For real though, I'd save a baby (or adult) seal before the 100 human embryos.
Can I just leave them both?
I don't have kids and do you have any idea what one of those smoothies costs. I choose 100 horse sized human embryos
Who leaves their infant in an IVF clinic? If I walk out with the flask they’ll suspect me of arson. If I walk out with the baby, who knows. Call 911 and let the fire fighters save the rest of the buildings occupants.
If one one-month old baby and 100 embryos spontaneously combusted I'd assume the world was ending in flames. In that case, where humanity is on the line, I would save the embryos because we need to repopulate the earth after the fires extinguished. I'd probably trip though with the case and break all the embryos.
If we were to actually treat this as a moral dilemma, without external factors or trying to challenge the premise:
One of these is sentient. The other hundred are not. Much as my heart might bleed for the potential humans that will never be realised, my priority would be the living, feeling, crying one.
Actually, the crying might be an issue. I tend to be sensitive to some sounds, and particularly in a stressful situation, a wailing baby might be a detriment...
Still, I'm susceptible to emotional bias. I don't like babies or small children, but I won't pretend to be immune to the kind of protective reflex they tend to evoke in (sane) adults. So on top of the above reasoning, I would most likely save the baby, headache be damned.
And then I'd go and find whoever set up this cruel choice in the first place. Why would I be in such a clinic in the first place? Why would it catch on fire? Why does God hate us?
Why would I be in such a clinic in the first place?
You are visiting your partner at the their place of work, which happens to be a lab, with your newborn baby and an accident happens and a fire breaks out. ^/s^
I believe I would save the baby simply because I can emotionally relate to it and not a flask with some frozen content.
their place of work
Home?
which happens to be a lab
I mean, it does house all my code experiments, so I guess it's a lab. The sort filled with abominations begging to be relieved. "Delete me!" I can sometimes hear them cry if I open ~/Projects and linger a little too long.
with your newborn baby and an accident happens
If she carries a baby to term, there have been at least two accidents already, what's one more?
Though I'd probably be saving her instead. Odds are the baby could crawl faster than her after pregnancy is done with her.
Shame about my PC though. I've got all the important stuff backed up, but there's a few code projects I've been meaning to get back to some time...
I believe I would save the baby simply because I can emotionally relate to it and not a flask with some frozen content.
Yeah, I think that's on the mark. I can't in all honesty say I'd stand there rationally weighing the ethics of the situation and morality of the choices. The baby feels "more human" than the jar. It also probably has better chances of surviving the lack of refrigeration.
Though I’d probably be saving her instead. Odds are the baby could crawl faster than her after pregnancy is done with her.
Pregnancy sure does a number on the body!
Shame about my PC though. I’ve got all the important stuff backed up
You don't happen to have a good off site backup solution to share?
I've got a Nextcloud storage at tab.digital, set up to sync with Nextcloud's own client. It does the job just as well as Google Drive, but is hosted in Europe and not by a bloodsucking megacorp.
Will I sell booze to this baby? Absolutely.
Will I extend this baby booze on credit? Not in this economy.
I dunno, how big a baby?
Elon Musk sized.
I'll fight the ducks please. That's one brobdignagian baby.
puts on devil's advocate hat
No, because liquor laws don't care about when life began. They care about date of birth. Life beginning at conception does not erase date of birth as a valid type of data.
removes hat because I'm not pro-life
We should not rely on "pro-lifers are too stupid to understand how to refute this" when deciding our views.
Can I have your hat? I eat them, they're an acquired taste. Yours seems interdasting to my entrenchables
If you get a pro lifer giving this excuse comment about how "When life starts and age start are different.". Then flip it into a gender vs sex being different and see where they go.
What I really want to know: Is Abortionado pronounced like afficianado, and they are an expert in abortions? Or is it like Tornado, and they are a tornado of abortions?
I assumed the first one before reading your comment, probably because I am too feeble to imagine an abortion tornado on my own.
That's okay I can help you imagine.
It's very gooey.
Like I always say, abortionado, abortionado 🤷♂️
Well, for starters, I don't think DOS would handle the amount of memory modern PCs use...
How is this confusing anyone? We count age from date of birth. Anything that happens before that has nothing to do with your legal age any more than whether you were carried for more or less than 9 months. This would only become interesting if someone froze a toddler for 30 years or something.
Yeah, seems like this might be a bad faith argument intended to cause more division. It's a flimsy argument that people who like the point it's trying to make might ignore that big thing that makes it fall apart while those against it won't ignore that and will see the other side ignoring it as dishonest.
Don't tell me what to let my baby do. Now excuse me but I'm taking little Babythan to the dog fights.
He can buy it, but maybe he should wait to drink it.
My rule is, if you are dead when brain dead with a beating heart then you are not alive until you are brain alive with a beating heart. Life starts with brain activity, around 16 weeks.
More like 32 years.
Never for some...
Waiting to be alive any day now
Oh, you mean I get to have some brain activity soon?
I go by the Jewish rule.
In the Old Testament, God breathed life into Adam, and thus he became a living soul.
So until the infant takes its first breath, it's not an actual soul. It is a lump of tissue with potential.
I hope that there are as few abortions as are absolutely necessary, but I will not begrudge a single person their choice to have an abortion regardless of the stage of the pregnancy at which it happens.
it's not an actual soul. It is a lump of tissue with potential.
It's part of the mother according to Jewish law.
Is this one reason why Jewish doctors were historically the only ones okay with performing abortions?
Yes but abortion procedures are not unique to Jewish doctors. Egypt, China, India, Rome; all of them practiced abortions both medically induced and surgical.
Respiration still occurs through the umbilical. You shouldn't use sky fairy tales for scientific bases.
Internal (diffusion of gases from the bloodstream into the tissues of the body) respiration =/=external respiration (diffusion of atmospheric gases through the alveolus into the bloodstream)
And respiration is only half of breathing, the other half being ventilation.
Don't use science to put someone down when you don't even understand what you're talking about
Logic is typically lost on the feeble-minded. I'm aware you are around us. Believe what you want, but it should play zero role in public policy.
Also, public policy should ensure nobody goes hungry.
It would seem turning the other cheek isn't part of your religion.
Nah man, religion kills people, still, today. It deserves a bit of derision.
But once again, the point was not religion, it was a stance on abortion.
Kind of frustrating that the moderator I'm assuming removed my remarks, but still.
Alas, that's not the legal definition. Another reminder that legal is not necessarily ethical, and vice-versa.
Bible says life begins at first breath.
Trees are alive without a brain. I think what you mean here is sentience
Nathan, is that you?
PS: To anyone who hasn't yet, I can highly recommend watching the TV show Nathan for you
I read that cut-off sign as saying
“YAY!
IT’S
TRANSFEM”
and all I could think was “imagine knowing that early AND having supportive parents”
The baby's 30 so it's not that early /s
Trying not to upvote flawed arguments just because it supports my views challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
Isnt it called birth day for a reason?
whoosh, huh
What if baby was born in Asia?
They...have days over there too.
Asian countries will count the year a child was in the womb as part of their lifespan. A person who is 30 in America is 31 in China, for example.
But it's also like year 12,000 or something in China, so they're all much older in general and why they only have one babby now, because there country is so old.
Has he been frozen inside a womb this whole time?
They have Jello shots like that now, with nitrogen n stuff
I'm not sure, sometimes they develop embryos to a certain stage and freeze them to implant later, sometimes it's just the eggs.
That still wont make the baby in the post 30 years old because embryos arent frozen in the womb.
No, how can the sun set on the land of the rising sun, China?
I am pro-choice & think that life begins at birth, but this argument is fallacious. Even if you believed that life begins at conception, you could coherently claim that this baby is physically still a baby and cannot safely take alcohol
Safely? No.
Legally though?
And what about hilariously? When did we start leaving that one out?
Did you go to little Bobby Two Pints's birthday party? The little shit falls asleep after two pints of whiskey. Wimp.
Same thing. You don't see nazis pro-lifers saying their newborn child is 9 months old
Age for legal purposes generally begins counting at birth, even for people whose cells have been active, and whose organs and such have been growing and maturing for longer than that.
If you could put a baby into suspended animation of some form, and return it to usual biological function 25 years later, there might be a real legal issue. As it stands, I don't see it.
When someone asks me my age and I feel like being a smartass, I tell them I'm "younger than my tongue, older than teeth". Sometimes I sub "asshole" for "tongue" depending on my mood
at least homie's not knee deep in debts at 30. practically dodged a bullet
Jokes on you: the kid can't pay for liquor!
But you can sell the kid for liquor, therefore if you have kids you always have booze!
In this thread: people who are going to lose our liquor sales licenses when we're caught in a sting operation by an undecover cop baby.
As long as the ID looks legit and the baby isn't already visibly drunk, I've done my job.
I ain't ever seen a sober baby look like they weren't drunk. All uncoordinated and shit, can't speak anything but incoherent babbling, shit all in their pants...
Ehh I'd just pour them a glass of water first. I need money.
How fucked up is it to be of legal age, and have no benefits, as a Baby, because your life was literally put on hold while frozen.
The baby can legit be told to get a job, diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders, prescribed adult drugs.
Or am I reading this wrong?
All those legal obligations start at date of birth. I think that was the point of the post.
well if embryos can be frozen for longer time, perhaps they can be the first humans to travel to other galaxies?
What's the benefit of sending babies to Mars? That's just a very expensive recipe for dead babies.
TIL Mars is in another galaxy
It's in the Mattel Chocobot galaxy, not the Milky Way galaxy
Give them a manual they can't read or something idk.
well, there's also questions about whether you could have a species that is entirely made of robots, that could do spaceflight, and kinda incubate humans in a lab when it arrives.
my personal guess is that it's not possible to have a species entirely made of robots because they cannot reproduce reliably. so it would go extinct after a while. but that's just my guess; some people believe that robots can indeed build more of themselves, i.e. completely reproduce.
You are absolutely correct, we were supposed to go to Alpha Centauri! I have course corrected, and have confirmed that we are now on the correct trajectory.
The new estimated time of arrival is: 1.1E+4932 years. 🚀👨🚀
Jokes aside, would they need to reproduce? Or just not break for a long time
This one is silly and a good way to mock the church (big fan of mocking them).
That being said, what if a 5 year old falls into a coma for 16 years? I figure the mental age is still 5, although I think the chances of this happening are very low since a coma doesn't work like they show it in Hollywood.
He seems like he'll be a chill drinking buddy lol🤣
You shouldn't drink babies, regardless how well you chill and salt the glass
Hey 30 years old is 30 years old. Give that baby a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I would, but I'd sell liquor to any baby.
I would sell liquor to that baby. I would sell liquor to any baby. I am not claiming to be a morally righteous person.
I’m very confused and too buzzed to scroll the comments.
I'm buzzed enough to just imagine what went on, and in my possibly professional opinion it's aliens.
Hahaha relatable.
I'd sell liquor to ANY baby. Drunk babies and toddlers are hilarious.
Wave, pray... ? transform? is that what her shirt says?
Wake, pray, transfer, I think. The day they transfer the "embryo" into the uterus is a big, hopeful day.
Oh, that’s makes sense. She must have custom made the shirt.
Probably Etsy.
I don't believe that but I still would
Wow, fascinating story. Any chance that this advances the potential of cryogenic stuff for adult humans wanting to do a Futurama thing ?
No not really. The problem with human cryogenic freezing is our size. You can freeze animals up to around the size of a hamster, as you can freeze and thaw them fast enough. Anything bigger than that, you run into issues.
And, fun fact, the microwave was originally invented for these small-scale cryogenic experiments. Then researchers starting warming up their lunch in 'em.
On a separate note I think people like abortianado are just as bad as prolife tards because they think they are educated but they’re not.
Anyone who is “pro-abortion” falls in that category. Nobody wants an abortion. They simply want access to medical care. Like most things it boils down to education. If we actually took sex ed seriously in the US and provided adequate access to birth control for all sexes we’d have less abortions.
But... conception is when the swimmer breaks into the egg, which happened after the egg was thawed out.
If the unfertilized egg is the start of life, then this whole argument just got a lot more stupid.
Yes... which happened back in 1994 just before the embyro was frozen.
Well it says embryo not egg
Life started billions of years ago, dude. Conception is way older than you think. Just ask Dr. G. Carlin, he did a good talk about this a long time ago.
¿Isn't that the point? The embryo formed decades ago but implanted in 2024. By anti-abortion arguments the baby is a legal adult.
This says the embryo was frozen in 1994. An embryo is already fertilized.
Which then becomes an... Say it with us...
Omelet?
I've never seen it. Not really a Shakespeare fan
Two eggs, or not two eggs: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous cholesterol,
Or to take arms against a sea of feathers,
And by opposing end them? To dine: to eat;
No more; and by a brunch to say we end
The mouth-ache and the thousand natural calories
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To dine, to eat;
To eat: perchance to bloat: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep after dinner what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal foil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whisks and spatulae of time,
The chicken's wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised meat, the law’s delay,
The insolence of cheffery and the spurs
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his flatus make
With a bare bottom? who would his fartles bear,
To grunt and sweat above a porcelain bowl,
But that the dread of something worse than death,
The undiscover’d anus from whose born
No meal returns, puzzles the senses
And makes us rather bear those smells we have
Then fart at others that we know not of?
Thus trots do make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the beige cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of charmin.–Soft you now!
The fair Eudora Welty! Nymph, in thy eruptions
Be all my sins remember’d.
That's what embryo means.
A fertilized egg.
You're almost there dude... Just keep working through each step and you'll catch up eventually.
they froze an embryo in 1994, rather than eggs / sperm, so doesn't that count as conception and at least the first half of the IVF process?
either way, congrats to the new family!
It doesn't count as long as someone's argument relies on it not counting.
Which is basically how it always is.
No. But life beginning at conception is the only logical line to draw. Every other is arbitrary. And having arbitrary set lines for who is human and who isn't is not something we should want. But banning abortion also doesn't work and is cruel. Life is complicated.
No. But life beginning at conception is the only logical line to draw.
No it's not, conception is just as arbitrary. Just because it's the logic you adopted doesn't mean it's the only logical choice.
At the point of conception all you are is a small group of cells that are forming something. There is no brain, there is no heart, there is no anything that would be described as human other than the DNA. At some point during the endless splitting of those cells a heart is created to push blood around the body that has developed, a body I might add looks entirely the same no matter what species you're looking at at this stage. And then, sometime long after that, a brain emerges but it's nothing like what we have when we're born. The human brain of a baby takes a long time to form. The question of "At what point does Life Begin?", is not "At what point is something alive?", it's "At what point can it be considered human and not just a small group of cells working toward being a human one day?"
Anti-abortion groups are not pro-life as they like to claim. For one, more than a few of them are pro death penalty. And for two, they don't actually care about children who are born because more than half of them actively work towards taking assistance away from single mothers and children and adoption services and Foster Care programs. Even if all they do is vote for the wrong party, they are guilty of this.
Tbh, "At what point does life begin?" is a pointless question and a false equivalence.
A removed appendix or a removed cancer are clearly human life too. They clearly live, and still there is no moral panic about "killing" someone's appendix or cancer.
The actual question here is "At what point is a human a legally protected being?" or "At what point does it make sense that legal protections cover a human being?"
Claiming that the question is "At what point does life begin?" is a purposely wrong question that is used to shift the discussion from the actual question. Because life begins as sperm and egg cells, but legally protecting these would be completely crazy. But if we are talking about "At what point does life begin?" instead of about "At what point is the embryo human enough to warrant human-level protections?" the story rapidly changes.
I always thought of the question as "at what point is it a human being". I think we could both agree that a cut of arm is living tissue and not a human being. From this point of view, the original question stand in my opinion (and could somewhat be equated to yours).
“at what point is it a human being”
That is a much more valid question than "at what point does life begin", and that's pretty much the same point as "at what point is it a being covered by the legal protections of human rights?"
Yeah, I felt the same when I wrote it. I agree with what someone else said though, these movements are often not about life but about control over women.
Yeah, that's the really infuriating part. While some people might argue in good faith on the pro-life side, a lot of them don't.
A common scenario:
- A woman who is not ready, equipped and/or willing to have a child gets pregnant and wants to abort.
- She ends up not doing it (due to laws and/or social pressure) and has the kid.
- Turns out, she's not ready, equipped and/or willing to raise the child, and the child ends up neglected in some form.
- Society turns on the woman telling her she's a bad mother.
If it was actually an honest pro-life movement, the pro-lifing wouldn't end with the birth of the child. Instead, then the movement should step in and be pro-free-school-lunch, pro-free-education, pro-free-child-care and so on.
But no, it's all like "You gave birth to this child, so screw you, it's your own fault, your own responsibility."
Cue running to an anti-abortion with a ball of human hair and screaming, "BEHOLD, A MAN!"
I really liked your first paragraph. I can't argue with you regarding the second because I'm not USAian and thus live in completley different socio-political landscape.
At what point can it be considered human and not just a small group of cells working toward being a human one day?
This is intelectually stimulating position. But this same line of thought can be traced further into extremes such as eugenics and scientific racism. Because of these historical aberrations that stem from this same principle, I reject this position and thus adopt position that life begins at conception. And trying to discriminate who/what is human is dangerous and should not be done.
And trying to discriminate who/what is human is dangerous and should not be done.
By that logic, cancer treatments should be illegal.
I do not find much logic in your reply. But fear not, to me you are still human! Have a great day!
Cancer is made of a living human cells growing to its own means. Killing it is killing a human by your logic.
Instead of trying to define a point where something is a human based on how much it has developed, because of the associated risks and historical failings, your standpoint is that life begins at conception.
Did I understand correctly?
Correct
👍
trying to discriminate who/what is human is dangerous and should not be done.
People who eat meat and eggs already make this distinction. You want to get rough and stupid? Then let's get rough and stupid.
I’m not particularly interested in debate. However, I am down for getting rough and stupid with the right person.
The question of "when does life begin?" is deceptive. Life does not begin at conception with each life. Life began some 3.5 billion years ago and has never stopped. Each life continues unbroken from other lives. If the complaint is that any point we choose is arbitrary, well this is what nature gave us. The only logical point to begin from is when the new life separates from the old.
And frankly, nature eats way more babies than adults.
life beginning at conception is the only logical line to draw
What if the question of life or non-life is irrelevant?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Abortion_and_euthanasia
Ok, let's take "life begins at conception". And let's say that means "life that should be legally and ethically be protected like a human being begins at conception", because if we don't add that, it doesn't actually mean anything.
At conception, we have a single cell, nothing more or less. If we logically extend that, that would mean every single cell is a protected human. If you get your appendix removed, it's a protected human that was removed and thus killed. If you remove cancer, that's a protected human.
What about the HeLa cell line? That's a line of cells derived from the cancer of Henrietta Lacks in the early 50s. These are human cells that have mutated so that they can multiply and live as single-celled organisms. Each of them are protected humans. In fact, there are more HeLa humans (by that definition) than there are actual humans.
So does this definition make any sense?
In your first paragraph you are directly attaching legal consequences which I explicitly did not propose in my original comment.
Yeah, because the discussion is about legal consequences and ommitting them in favour of some nebuous "when life begins" is just a misdirection, nothing else.
Life begins when the sperm and egg are created. Or actually life begins as the parents, or as their ancestors, millions of generations ago, when they weren't even multi-cell organisms.
None of that matters at all to the discussion.
The only point relevant to the discussion is "When does this cross from being a 'thing' to being a 'human' worthy of legal protections?"
Sperm and egg cells don't have legal protection, they are firmly in the 'thing' category. A baby that survived birth is firmly in the 'human' category. The question is not "when does life begin", because that's an absurd thing to ask.