Quotations and Literature Forum

The egg and the sperm will also become a person if the egg is fertilized or if the male does not masturbate and waste his sperm.

_________________
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
~Bertrand Russell

As I said, just a point of interest. Different folk in different counties using language differently.

"And when did "retarded" become insulting?"

The first time someone called someone else a 'retard' or asked someone who made a silly mistake 'are you retarded?'

Could be worse I suppose, imagine being (looks furtively around, and in a hushed voice whispers) [i]left handed.
Bloody mollydookers.

_________________
السلام عليكم

"Retarded" is not a pejorative. It is a legitimate term used in psychology. And, yes, it is still used today and rightly so. Political correctness has run amok and people need to get over themselves.

_________________
The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.

[quote="Menolly
"Retarded" is not a pejorative. It is a legitimate term used in psychology. And, yes, it is still used today and rightly so. Political correctness has run amok and people need to get over themselves.[/quote]

It may not seem so to you, but as DSW explained, as soon as a word is commonly used in this way, then it becomes insulting to those who have been known by that condition in a medical sense.

Incidentally, and I don't wish to get off the track here, but nowadays Deaf actually applies to those people who have been born without hearing and who generally choose to use sign language as their communication method, therefore often keeping socially among others who are the same.

They consider that those who have had hearing, and thus normal speech, should not be called Deaf, but called "Hearing Impaired", or suffer "Hearing Loss". This is not political correctness, but is used now as a clear distinction between two rather different groups, although as yet, I do agree that the term Deaf is used as a generality.

Because of major medical advances, screening of infants for hearing just after birth and the cochlear implant, there will be fewer children in the future who do not have hearing and hence speech from a very early age, but signing will still be needed for some incurable cases and in countries where cochlear implants are not yet available to children.

_________________
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

I wonder why no one calls me Caucasian. Or German American. Or Irish American. I'm offended!!

Yin, it is my personal belief that a zygote is as priceless as a grandmother at the moment of conception. There are CLEAR differences between a zygote and an 80 year old. But are they not the same species? Was your grandmother not a zygote too? Weren't you? When this cell's potential is that huge, why does it not become as valuable as a developed human being?

When IS a baby a baby? Scientifically (I think), a baby is a baby after it is totally developed and it passes through the birth canal; I don't argue that. I agree. Un-scientifically, when I think you could also consider a baby a baby is it when it is born and it could live on its own, or with intensive care. i.e Born pre-maturely/not fully developed.

Again, I don't argue the differences between these pre-natal stages and a baby/human/adult/whatever. What I *do* argue *for* is that each of these are priceless and have infinite value for reasons in the first paragraph.

Always being neutral is just taking the easy way out.

We raise our children until we think they are able to make their own chemically stable choices. Science has established, and can prove, that 18-19 (>22 is average) is a minimal age for a human female to be mentally stable, and thus the only age at which she can be trusted to be able to raise her child, in my opinion, because a child deserves a stable environment to grow up in.
Having a baby before you're ready is selfish, a baby is not a pet. You can't juste "have a baby" without thinking about what is good for his/her future. We are humans, to be anatomically ready to have a baby is like being big enough to beat the hell out of a guy you don't even know, it doesn't mean you have to do it though, because our lives are longer and, most certainly, more complicated than other animals'.

I believe human being can be considered human as soon as it reaches an uncertain degree of consciousness. Keep in mind that psychology and morality are not sciences as they never deliver proof.

_________________
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

So to stick to the last post I'd say it's not about whether a baby is a baby, it's about when a human is conscious enough to "exist".

_________________
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

My nephew is autistic. Does he exist?

Finally, when you talk about the potential of a cell, you should really know what you talk about, with all due respect. From mice stem cells we can produce a totally different species by replacing the genetic material only. So when a mouse gets killed, we destroy an incredible amount of cells with a potential similar if not superior to the one you tell us not to destroy.
But my main argument is that it's now obvious that there are two main creators of the human being: environment and genes. DNA will determine at least 20% of what a person will become later, both physically and mentally. The cell has nothing to do with that, so you can't say that destroying a cell is like destroying a human, since it has nothing to do with what the human will become. DNA will be responsible for that, and the mother has plenty almost identical strains left, so the child practically lives on to fight another day.
But you are a good highschool student you tell me that "yes, almost identical, but not identical, every DNA strain is special, so if you destroy it, you also basically destroy the future being". So you are going to sue the spermatozoon for condemning to death those millions of strains his mates contain? You'll have to admit that nature itself is cruel then, but what will you do? Nature is perfect, it does what is best for existance. Nature judges whether something should or shouldn't exist. So if I'm a doctor, if I'm really good at what I do, and I agree that this woman is not ready to raise her child properly, she should be allowed to not have that baby. And no, it's not "playing mother nature", we are nature, what we do is nature, everything.
I was wrong some time ago when I said that evolution has stopped, because we allow invalid people to exist. I now believe that evolution goes on, we just don't know it like this, because these invalid people are different, and the bigger the diversity of a species, the higher the probability it will survive.

This must have been a heavy read, and I thank you if you managed to swim though all of it.

_________________
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Autism doesn't imply the loss of consciousness, things aren't that simple. When someone has brain damage or a brain disease, that doesn't mean he's unconscious.

_________________
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

That italian girl who spent 20 years in a coma, without any brain activity and any hope of waking up, and only a heartbeat to keep her from being just a meatball deserves to be left alone, and to die in peace. Berlusconi, the pope and all those other ignorant fools should go to hell with their complaints. It's about time people start doing what they were meant to do, and politicians aren't supposed to play doctors and scientists, but instead listen to them.

_________________
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

I understand.
At first, I didn't understand what you were implying. You struck a chord there for a second.

Yeah, sorry, I tend to say things I don't think the way people interprete them pretty often, speaking many different languages also has it's disadvantage

_________________
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.

Unnil, I gave your last big paragraph some thought. One particular part, which was your main argument. The percentage is low - 20%. And you're saying that the zygote has nothing to do with the 80% that is what makes a human special, apart from its biological makeup. But that doesn't make sense to me because, there can be no 80% without the 20%. In other words, sure, the cell may have nothing to do with the Who the human is. But there can be no Who without that 20%.

Im so proud of you guys
lol
anyway.
As for the retard/mentally challenged discussion, i will be sure to insult my friends from now on using the term mentally challenged.
At which point that term will become offensive, making "retarded" more politically correct.
It's all about the meaning behind the word.

Moving on...
From what I've gathered, no one really wants to talk about abortion.
Let me rephrase my original question.
Scenario-You and your significant other are unexpectedly with child, 6 weeks into pregnancy, while in your current situation (financialy, geographically, career, school, marital status)
What do you do?
Yin

_________________
We hold these truths to be selve evident, but evidence is not ownership. Those words are not a decree that we have life, liberty, happiness. Only an iron clad statement that it is ours if we are willing to do all that is necessary to take it.