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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (18604)	7/18/2001 12:19:17 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

A Cherry pit isn't even a potential human. No, but we're just about at the point where a skin cell is part of the continuum of potential humanity, more so than a sperm. That has to muddy up the issue and give one pause. Karen

To: TimF who wrote (18604)	7/19/2001 12:03:55 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

LOL! It really is difficult to explain things to you, isn't it?! Am I to understand by your confusion that you don't have any idea of the concepts I am trying to communicate to you when I speak about "potential?" Main Entry: 1po·ten·tial Pronunciation: p&-'ten(t)-sh&l Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English potencial, from Late Latin potentialis, from potentia potentiality, from Latin, power, from potent-, potens Date: 14th century 1 : existing in possibility : capable of development into actuality <potential benefits> 2 : expressing possibility; specifically : of, relating to, or constituting a verb phrase expressing possibility, liberty, or power by the use of an auxiliary with the infinitive of the verb (as in "it may rain") The possibility of a human being born is not significantly different between the actual moment of conception, and the nanosecond before conception. Therefore, to draw the line at conception is capricious and incomprehensible unless one is supposing ensoulment at that time which would create an actuality that does not become a corpse and cherry pits over the course of time. Do you not understand that spermicide intercepting a sperm one nanosecond before it fertilizes an egg has interfered with the "potentialities" that were inherent in that situation? Are you not aware that a fertilized egg is more than a potential homo sapiens--that it is potentially anything? Approximately 75 % of the time it will spontaneously abort, and it will combine with other substances to become other things. In the case where the unborn survives the probabilities and potentialities of Nature (or the Will of God, for those who have decided to believe in the supernatural), and becomes a legal person through the process of birth, and of separation from the body of the mother--in that case it is only an interim potential that has been fulfilled. The child will die at some point and will then become something else--perhaps cherry pits, and so on. All these potentials are inherent in all the building blocks that make up the universe. The stars were "potential" worlds; they were "potential" human beings. Those potentialities were realized as were infinite other possibilities. WE are composed of star dust. Our genus began with homo habilis about 2,000,000 years ago when we started to make tools--and our brain began a steady increase in size. Prior to that our hominid structure was classified under a different genus. Before that--way before that--star dust. Am I making any headway with you in trying to explain that everything is actual and everything is potential, and that the actual is the unceasing and ever-changing fulfilment of potentials? You are only a human for a nanosecond of history. Most sperms do not become humans. Most eggs do not. Only a percentage of fertilized eggs become human. It is estimated that up to 75 % of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion--usually within the first 2 weeks. And fertilized eggs which become legal persons-- they will also all become an infinite number of other things. Now I can understand the argument of people who hold the supernatural idea of a soul entering an embryo. These people believe that the soul creates a special actuality. Some of them imagine this to happen at conception. Some of them imagine it to happen at some other time. Regardless that many of these "special" growths will be dissolved and sent to other potentialities than homo sapiens by the spontaneous Will of God--still, people with this supernatural belief in ensoulment have given a valid reason for believing that this special entity must be husbanded through the womb and into the light of day as a blessing, or a curse to humankind--depending on the kind of potentialities that are realized. But your opposition to abortion is not based on supernatural beliefs in God or ensoulment. Your belief is that the fertilized egg has a "potential" which overrides the RIGHTS of the mother. We know that even should the human growth become a legal person and a thinking creature--we know that this is--oh so temporary. The realization of this potential to be human is one of many immediate potentials, and it will give way to all the infinite future potentials of cherry pits, etc. Now those who believe in the supernatural could say that, "NO. The body may become an infinite number of things, but the "soul" will live in an afterlife either picking apples off trees or wailing in eternal agony. This is the ACTUALITY that we are concerned to protect, and this is the ACTUALITY that we believe exists at conception, or at some other time when we imagine the soul to enter the body." But you don't believe this, Tim. You believe that a mother does not have a right to terminate her pregnancy. You believe that you have an interest in her body, and that your interest in the potential of the human DNA she carries trumps her interest in the potential of her own life, and in her ownership of her organs. I don't understand on what basis you would oppose, say, rape then. I am easily strong enough to forcibly impregnate a woman and thus cause my sperm to potentiate toward the making of a human being. Any argument that my sperm was not potentially human could be easily disproved in 9 months. You don't believe in souls so on what basis do you arbitrarily decide that conception is a good point for you to play police officer with a woman's body? There is nothing magical about conception for those not holding out the supernatural belief in souls. Conception is just one stage in a process that started when stardust created the world and the building blocks of humans. Conception is just one phase on an infinite continuum. The egg and the sperm did not just appear in time and space. They were produced out of complex chemical processes. Why is this ONE stage of the process--conception-- being worried by you? A spermicide killing a sperm that was about to fertilize an egg has destroyed pretty much the same potential as had the hand of God 3 seconds later, or the tools of a doctor 3 weeks later. Either your argument is based on potential or it is based on something else. I honestly don't believe you have any idea why you are opposed to abortion to the point of being willing to sacrifice the basic rights to privacy of living human beings. The rationale you have passed on to me seems to be arbitrary, and to be "justified" by caprice or whimsy. I am only trying to understand you. I understand the people on this thread who openly admit that they believe in supernatural powers, and have imagined supernatural "facts" to believe in from one or another of the books which claim to be communicating supernatural information. I can understand the thinking of those people. I do not understand why I an having so much difficulty in understanding the premises behind your belief that abortion should not be a "right" of the mother, and that she does not have a "right " to her body if her actions might compromise the health or life of her fertilized egg. I would like to understand you. I am really trying my level best to understand you I have said before that I personally would hope for no abortions on the planet--that those fertilized eggs which survive the winnowing hand of Nature (or God for those believing in the supernatural)--would have a chance to add to the human race or perhaps to destroy it. But I would never interfere with the privacy of a moral choice--to the detriment of the justice of humans having their RIGHTS to their own minds--and to their own bodies. I am sure that technology will be able to practically eliminate abortions in the next 30 years. And it is ironic that billions of more potential human births will then die in the pan halfway to the oven. And small minds will have turned their attention to saving fleas. Main Entry: 1po·ten·tial Pronunciation: p&-'ten(t)-sh&l Function: adjective Etymology: Middle English potencial, from Late Latin potentialis, from potentia potentiality, from Latin, power, from potent-, potens Date: 14th century 1 : existing in possibility : capable of development into actuality <potential benefits> 2 : expressing possibility; specifically : of, relating to, or constituting a verb phrase expressing possibility, liberty, or power by the use of an auxiliary with the infinitive of the verb (as in "it may rain")