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I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware that I am looking for submissions to the abortion topic if any of you are interested in writing something up.

I'm looking strongly for not just what positions are held, but the justification for that positions. IE I know that many pro-lifers believe that potential is an important thing, but what I don't know is the "why" behind believing potential is an important thing, or the method one would use to justify it.

The same is true of the "it is of the human species therefore it is a human being" view. I know many believe that at conception the fact that it is of the human species and can be identified as being "human" that grants it personhood... but I don't know why that belief is held or how it is justified.

Right now the abortion topic is slanted in a pro-choice direction because I'm only really familiar with the pro-choice "whys" and the pro-choice justifications for beliefs (being that I am pro-choice does that surprise anyone XD ). I don't want it to remain this way, I want it to be more balanced with the representation of each side's views.

And as a side note, if any of you are having trouble in the thread or you're seeing flaming going on, let me know about it ok? The best way to let me know is to just PM me since it isn't guaranteed I'll see a bit about it in the thread (I've been terribly busy this holiday season and unfortunately not active much at all in the new thread).

Thanks ^_^

Even if potential doesn't matter... the fact is many people still argue it and it wouldn't hurt to have that argument explained by one who holds that belief, or even if they don't hold that belief ^_^

Well i'm agnostic and I do believe that their is a God out their but I don't know at what point for sure when people get a soul, I just know you can't live without them. As for what happens to the souls when you die I do not know. They can be spirits until reincarnation or just gone for good. Nobody knows for sure.

As for potental I don't use it most of the time but I like to point out that they can't say that their is potential that something could go wrong in a pregnancy if they say that potentail means nothing. Seems like a double standered.

There is a slight difference between the two. The potential to end up with the things that go wrong could end up harming the woman or the child. Plus they are things that (at times) NORMALLY happen. Potential for what happens with the fetus though is constantly up in the air.

The thing with the getting social security when a young adult is more of a proper comparision.

I'm confused on what you mean exactly by potentiol. Which way do you mean it's argued?

I personally think you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone in here who argues potential personhood. If you're pro-life, you aren't dealing with a potential, you're dealing with an actual life. A fetus is only a potential man to me as much as a young boy is a potential man. Eventually he'll grow into a man, but for now he's at a younger stage in life. There is no denying a fetus is not a toddler or a teenager. The debate lies, I think, in whether the fetal stage is as valid as later stages of growth. If you think a fetal life is not as valid as other stages, you view a fetus as a potential person are most likely pro-choice. If you believe that the fetal stage is as valid, you view a fetus as an actual person, not a potential person.

Now there is potential for certain things to happen, but that doesn't have much impact on the debate. Potential can go both ways...either this child could be the next Hitler or the next Ghandi. Either this child could have a wonderful life or a miserable life. No one knows for sure what the outcome will be, but it can go either way. That one I've seen argued, usually someone will say something like, "That'll be a broken home and the child will be miserable," and it's countered with, "or the child might be incredibly happy despite the odds, it could happen," and then comes, "Yeah, and besides, the mother could adopt out the child," and of course the reply is, "But that could still leave the child with a miserable life." Both cases are pointless to make, really, they butt heads. It's fatalism against optimism in an argument where both parties have ample proof on their sides that it COULD happen. Yeah, it could happen. But no one knows if it will.

No one really believes a fetus is not alive.

Egg cells are alive. Sperm cells are alive. Zygotes, embryos and fetuses are alive. One cannot deny that the tissues that make up these things are infact living tissues.

Anyone who argues a fetus is not "alive" either is not articulating their views properly, or is direly undereducated.

Lymelady, I had a longer post for you but gaia ate it XD so I'll be brief... The idea behind the potential argument is this:

P1) You can be 100% certain that a born infant, a born child, and a born adult are persons.
P2) You can also be 100% certain that a fetus is a potential born infant, born child, and born adult.
Conclusion: Therefore you can be 100% certain that a fetus's stage of life is validated as a person.

It is the notion that potential allows one to convey certainty of personhood, without needing to define what actually grants personhood, or what it means to be a person.

I'm trying to think of another analogy off the top of my head... but none that is satisfacotry really comes to mind. I guess you could say:

p1) I am 100% sure that a fantasy novel is a book.
p2) I am 100% sure that a word document on my computer (or a stack of papers at a typewriter, for the old fasioned) has the potential to become a fantasy novel.
C)Therefore I am 100% certain a word document on my computer (or the stack of papers) is, in fact, a book.

But I have not defined what a book is, or if my word document (which may very well be completely blank) fits that definition. Based solely on potential I've asserted certainty in something without ever explaing what that something is. Granted this argument is biased to the pro-choice side since we have a pre-established definition of "book." But that's the very point, without an understanding or definition of "person" it seems moot to argue whether a fetus is one.

I will put your information in the first posts though under potential ^_^

I don't quite understand.

I am 100% sure a fetus is a person, not because it will become an adult but because it is a fetus.

The fact that they can dream during the third trimester assures me that they aren't just useless junk, and the earlier they're able to save premies, the earlier they find fetuses can respond to external stimuli outside of the womb as well as inside of it.

This has pushed the personhood back to the third trimester at least for me.

To go earlier than that, I know a fetus is alive but in a state akin to sleeping. I also know that people don't lose their personhood when they sleep, they merely enter a different realm of consciousness. I know that humans don't usually remember anything past the time when they were 2 years old. Some scientists believe this is because they don't have speech and speech is necessary for intelligence, which I can sort of understand in terms of how it helps organize thoughts, but I don't buy completely. Some say it's because their brains aren't developed enough. I'm not sure really who to believe on that one, but it isn't until later that babies respond intelligently and not instinctively. That is the only way fetuses respond. So far, though they've only proven themselves to be primitively aware, fetuses are in the same sort of awareness as infants...they can and do react to changes in their environment, but the only way to tell what they feel is by interpretting their reactions. An infant can't say, "Mommy, I'm cold." It can only shiver. That does not mean it does not shiver.

Since a fetus displays environmental awareness shortly after it enters the fetal stage and doesn't advance to the next type of awareness until well after birth, and assuming personhood is based on the awareness as I'm led to believe people who are pro-choice think it is, a fetus is 100% definitely a person in the womb to me. Not because it will be a newborn, but because it IS a fetus. It has the potential to be an adult, but it is a person. The same way a newborn has the potential to be an adult, but it is a person.

I don't understand how your example fits this, because I'm not basing my definition of personhood off of born people. I may be basing it off of characteristics shared by born people, but that would be like saying a sleeping man's personhood is only potential because

You can be 100% certain that an awake man is a person
You can also be 100% certain that the man has the potential to wake up and be an awake man
So, it's 100% sure that the man is a person

This argument is flawed because his personhood isn't based on his ability to be an awake man. The same goes with a fetus. Personhood isn't based on the ability to be born, and if it is, test tube babies are in trouble. Though a waking man has the characteristics necessary to be a person, it isn't simply because he is awake.

With potential, a sperm and an oocyte both have the potential to become a person. They both have the form for it, they both have the structure to become a person. They're both crafted by nature (or God if you're religious, but then by that logic, it's still alright since God is natural and not magical so please no one fuss over it) to become a person, if certain events take place. It has all the pieces for a person in place. There is no person, though. They are both separate reproductive cells fully belonging to another human being.

Ah, I understand now. So you mean to them the potential that it is a human and not that it will be a human is what keeps them prolife.

But that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, if someone could be in a building that's about to be demolished, they check to make sure no one is first because it's better to make sure there's no one in danger than to find out after killing someone that there was a person killed, especially if that person had no warning that the building was going to be demolished and was there legally.

Have you read the fetal developement thingy? I can find more in-depth than that, but not right now, my boyfriend's preparing to leave for Norway again so I'm a bit occupied right now.