Are you Pro-life or Pro-choice?

[Bodhesatva]

fkusumot said:

Bodhesatva said:

fkusumot said:

Bodhesatva said:

Here's a simple scenario to highlight my above point: if science or some religion were to prove, without any doubt, that two day old embryo's were capable of understanding and feeling pain the way a month old new born is -- or, if you'd prefer, were able to "prove" the existance of souls to us beyond a shadow of a doubt, and then prove that these embryos had souls -- would any of us still be pro-choice?

I'd bet the answer is no, because that is unambiguously, unequivocably murder. However, no religion has really "proved" to me (or many others) that souls exist, and science certainly doesn't support the notion that early embryonic fetuses are capable of cognition or any real semblance of pain. Therefore, I am pro-choice, because the evidence I see does not support the notion that early embryos are "human" in the manner in which I define that term.

Not exactly. I do appreciate the distinction you are making but I think it turns on what a "person/human" is. I mean, I'm a carnivore and I believe that animals (amongst other things) have a soul.

This whole thing is all a semantic argument, so you can replace that word with whatever you want. If you'd prefer something like "inaliable spiritual essence instilled by god, making us uniquely human," that's fine. Just jam that phrase in wherever I say "souls."

 

Everything relies on semantics when you're just talking aobut it. If I jammed your interesting phrase into every applicable slot I (for one) don't think it gets at the root of the distinction. We are talking about distinctions here. Just to define my position, I am partial to philology and have spent many years studying the subject.

I'm not sure I necessarily agree. When we talk about "semantic arguments," I believe we're discussing positions where we largely agree on essential meaning, and only disagree based on the the choice of words that are used to describe that meaning. Simple example: you may think Hitler was an awful person. I disagree -- I think he was a terrible person.

Sometimes synonyms are not actually the same thing, and the word "awful" really must be considered distinct from "horrible," (in this example, one might argue that horrible connotes fear and horror that awful does not), but in most cases outside the strictest confines of a professional forum, I'd say that's a specific distinction that is largely irrelevant.

However, if you were to say that Hitler was a fantastic person, that wouldn't be a difference in semantics -- that would be an entirely different meaning.

In this case, I agree that there is a distinction between "soul" and the phrase I used, but I think we can agree that's a gigantic can of worms in and of itself. I didn't swap out the word because I think they're exactly equivalent, but rather because I wished to avoid opening an entirely separate and rather large discussion. I think a discussion of abortion is large enough without introducing an additional debate in which we define precisely what a soul is :p