You have argued that it is not a person. I have argued the opposite and have asked you to qualify whether a human being by nature is a personal being?
You have not seen a reasonable response because this question doesn't make sense to me. Is a human being always a person, my answer is no. Before they're born they are embryos, zygotes, fetuses. Not people. Please clarify what a 'personal being by nature' means.
Well, if you are not sure (i.e., "doesn't make sense" and "please clarify") then you tell me the difference between a human being and a person?
When two human beings mate the result is what? It is another human being, not another kind of being like a fish. So the human zygote, embryo, fetus, is biologically the same kind of being. Can a human being produce another kind of being? Thus its nature is what it is.
I find your thinking here is ridiculous thinking and I borrow from the thoughts of others in explaining this to you. What are HUMAN embryos? What are HUMAN zygotes? What are HUMAN fetuses? They are human beings in various stages of growth. You were all of these STAGES during your grow cycle but that did not change what you were/are by nature, a human being and a personal being. You are you from conception to death, not someone else.
Greg Koukle drives this nature home with his examples of the Acorn. He asks, "When does an acorn become an oak?" He says, "An acorn never becomes an oak." An acorn is an oak." It is an oak in an immature form. By its nature, it is a tree and a specific kind of tree in an immature form. Thus, the specific embryo, zygote, fetus, is a particular and specific human being in an immature form, just different descriptions used of its stages of growth. It does not change its nature (what it is) as it goes through the stages of human growth.
Human nature is a combination of characteristics and traits shared by all humans that make us human and different from other life forms. Healthy mature humans have the ability to reason, think morally, think in abstracts, love, empathize, and be self-aware. As humans, we have a personality that you become at conception and are now aware of that you retain throughout your life that makes you unique in how you express yourself, how you act, how you are. Even though you go through physiological changes in your appearance and stages of growth you remain the same in your identity. Even though your environment influences your personality, it does not change what it is, you. So, with the physiological changes you can point back to a sonogram before you were born, a picture of you one minute after birth, at graduation, and one of you celebrating your eightieth birthday and say, that was me when... Thus, you don't change your identity. Even if you changed your name the essence that makes you unique remains.
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Definition of person:
1: human, individual —sometimes used in combination especially by those who prefer to avoid man in compounds applicable to both sexes
5: the personality of a human being
Legal Definition of person:
1: natural person
2: the body of a human being
Medical Definition of a Person:
1. A living human.
2. The composite of characteristics that make up an individual personality; the self.
3. The living body of a human.
4. Physique and general appearance.
Definition of a Person:
1. a human being, whether an adult or child:
2. a human being as distinguished from an animal or a thing.
How is it that a woman can decide to kill/murder her innocent unborn human offspring but if she decided to kill her innocent two-year-old, twelve-year-old, or twenty-year-old it is murder? Why two different sets of rules?
Because an embryo is not offspring. It is an embryo. All the others are people. This is not hard
Yes, an embryo is the offspring of the male and female kind. It shares in the DNA of the two and that DNA is human DNA. 'Embryo' describes the offspring's level of development.
1a: the product of the reproductive processes of an animal or plant : YOUNG, PROGENY.
But how does that work in our environment, outside the womb?.
Your environment is not part of anyone's body anymore and you are a person.
I never said the womb was part of the body of the unborn, yet it is where the unborn resides. The womb is part of the body of another being which shelters, feeds, nurtures, another human being.
Definition of environment
1: the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which one is surrounded
2a: the complex of physical, chemical, and biotic factors (such as climate, soil, and living things) that act upon an organism or an ecological community and ultimately determine its form and survival
b: the aggregate of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community
“Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change in environment.”
The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology fifth edition, Moore and Persaud, 1993, Saunders Company, page 1
Rationally, you can't say that the unborn do not live in an environment called the womb. Now, if you want to be irrational then that is your business.
the newborn is dependent and reliant on the same woman for its life. Why can't she just end its life because it is undesirable too?
Because, you guessed it, the newborn is a person.
A person is an individual who has a different personality from everyone else. The unborn human is also an individual, containing the DNA from its conception that is different from every other human being except in the case of twinning. Tell me, what is the difference between the unborn one minute before birth as opposed to one minute after birth? It is its environment. How does that change its personal nature? You seem to think it acquires a personality at the magic moment of birth. Personality is built into the kind of thing the human is. You do not acquire humanity at birth just as you don't acquire personality at birth. It is part of the kind of thing you are.
I think you confuse what one is by/with what one does. Even if I am not functioning as a person because I am asleep or in a coma, I am still that person. When I wake or come out of the coma I am still me. My function, what I do, does not make me a different being. I don't acquire a personal nature. I have built into my being a personal nature (what I am). The difference is in the level of development of that nature.
Human beings in loo of what they are (their nature) are personal beings.
there are very few good reasons why abortion is ever justifiable.
THis makes it sound like you think there are also circumstances where it IS justifiable. If you think that, say that, but this seems disingenuous as it is.
I believe I answered this in another post.
I do not have a right with my body or because of it to kill an innocent human being. Why does the woman?
Because the woman is making a choice about her OWN body. If you could carry embryos to term, I'd give you that choice to. As it is, you can only end the lives of PEOPLE. Not embryos.
What you are saying disgusts me for a specific reason. You are discriminating and devaluing the life of one class or group of human beings based on a distinction that you cannot prove as starting at birth, its personhood. If you can, then do so. If you can't, give the unborn the benefit of the doubt that it is a personal being that has not yet developed that personality.
Well, you must be including yourself in this grouping too then since you would also save the one as opposed to the many.
If it isn't clear, I'm not included in that group because I don't think embryos are 1000 people. I think the child is a person. I've already said if you chose the embryos I'd have disagreed, but said "At least you're consistent that the embryos are in fact people, not just cells, as I see them."
Your feeling and thinking do not change what it is.
Here is another misconception many people have about the unborn, that they are just human cells or a group of human cells. The unborn is a unique, organism functioning as a whole, not just a human cell or group of cells.
