Planned Parenthood II

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Here’s the answer as to why it would be so offensive…Because our individual lives are a series of links in one continuous chain.[/quote]

Yes, but nothing that happens to the chain in any given moment can be said to happen to any of its potential links, as they don’t in that moment exist*, and what does not exist cannot be acted upon. Smh_23 is 27. 72-year-old smh_23 does not, on 5 November 2015, exist, and it is logically impossible for this non-existent entity to be touched, much less murdered. Nothing we do is done to anything but the precise thing we do it to in the precise moment of the doing.
[/quote]

What is murder if not robbing a man of the next second (and the next, and the next, and so on) of his life? Is that not in fact why murder is especially horrendous? We don’t vilify murder because it’s some passing inconvenience to a person. We do so because it takes everything a human life will ever be. Including a 72 year smh arguing with and/or against an elderly sloth and push.

Along those lines, do you believe we can wrong future entities that might not even be born during our entire life time via our actions today?

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Here’s the answer as to why it would be so offensive…Because our individual lives are a series of links in one continuous chain.[/quote]

Yes, but nothing that happens to the chain in any given moment can be said to happen to any of its potential links, as they don’t in that moment exist*, and what does not exist cannot be acted upon. Smh_23 is 27. 72-year-old smh_23 does not, on 5 November 2015, exist, and it is logically impossible for this non-existent entity to be touched, much less murdered. Nothing we do is done to anything but the precise thing we do it to in the precise moment of the doing.
[/quote]

What is murder if not robbing a man of the next second (and the next, and the next, and so on) of his life? Is that not in fact why murder is especially horrendous? We don’t vilify murder because it’s some passing inconvenience to a person. We do so because it takes everything a human life will ever be. Including a 72 year smh arguing with and/or against an elderly sloth and push.
[/quote]

Well said, but this is a “way of looking at it” kind of sense, not a technical or precise one. Putting that aside, even if we were to include potentiality in the definition of murder, we still must have a dead person in the present. Without a dead person, we cannot have a murder. From there everything proceeds unchanged.

Edit: Legally, medically. “A murder requires a dead person.” Do you deny that this proposition is true?

If I heavily polluted a river 25 years ago, yet only the children being born in the past 5 years were affected (deformities) then I’ve harmed no one?

[quote]Sloth wrote:
If I heavily polluted a river 25 years ago, yet only the children being born in the past 5 years were affected (deformities) then I’ve harmed no one?[/quote]

Of course you’ve harmed them – when they exist and get harmed. I can pick up the harmed child and show him to you. I can inspect his injuries. There is a thing being done to another thing. What is harmed is exactly what is harmed, exactly when it is harmed.

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Well said, but this is a “way of looking at it” kind of sense, not a technical or precise one. Putting that aside, even if we were to include potentiality in the definition of murder, we still must have a dead person in the present. Without a dead person, we cannot have a murder. From there everything proceeds unchanged.[/quote]

There is never a dead “person” in the present, by your earlier arguments. That person is non-existent. There is but rotting meat. A meal for worms.

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
If I heavily polluted a river 25 years ago, yet only the children being born in the past 5 years were affected (deformities) then I’ve harmed no one?[/quote]

Of course you’ve harmed them – when they exist and get harmed. I can pick up the harmed child and show him to you. I can inspect his injuries. There is a thing being done to another thing. What is harmed is exactly what is harmed, exactly when it is harmed.[/quote]

Now, what if you were with me 25 years ago as I heavily polluted that river.

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Well said, but this is a “way of looking at it” kind of sense, not a technical or precise one. Putting that aside, even if we were to include potentiality in the definition of murder, we still must have a dead person in the present. Without a dead person, we cannot have a murder. From there everything proceeds unchanged.[/quote]

There is never a dead “person” in the present, by your earlier arguments. That person is non-existent. There is but rotting meat. A meal for worms.[/quote]

No, we have a definition for a dead person. A person whose heart/brain activity has irreversibly ceased. We have a definition for death: the irreversible cessation of brain/heart activity. By the way, these are not my definitions. These are accepted medical definitions.

I added an edit, but I don’t think it made it in time. I’d like to repeat myself because everything hinges on it. Proposition: Murder requires the death of a person. Do you deny this?

The act of murder is at most a temporary act against a person then. In fact, it might only last for the pull of trigger. Afterwards, the person no longer exists to be harmed. Life in prison (heck even years) seems incredibly lopsided in such a case.

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

Well said, but this is a “way of looking at it” kind of sense, not a technical or precise one. Putting that aside, even if we were to include potentiality in the definition of murder, we still must have a dead person in the present. Without a dead person, we cannot have a murder. From there everything proceeds unchanged.[/quote]

There is never a dead “person” in the present, by your earlier arguments. That person is non-existent. There is but rotting meat. A meal for worms.[/quote]

No, we have a definition for a dead person. A person whose heart/brain activity has irreversibly ceased. We have a definition for death: the irreversible cessation of brain/heart activity. By the way, these are not my definitions. These are accepted medical definitions.

I added an edit, but I don’t think it made it in time. I’d like to repeat myself because everything hinges on it. Proposition: Murder requires the death of a person. Do you deny this?[/quote]

You’re using the term person still. Let’s be consistent now. Is a corpse a person or not?

Your argument is that we move so strongly against murder because there’s a messy corpse (a non-person) left over? Nope, we move so strongly on murder because the 72 year old John Doe has been prevented from existing by a deliberate and intelligent act. Which would be the natural course of his/her life cycle barring natural events.

I mean, why would I be outraged if a family member were to be murdered? The murder didn’t take away my memories of that individual’s life, he’s only prevented the future memories. And since those are presently nonexistent…I’ve nothing to be angry about? No, not angry, in a rage?

[quote]Sloth wrote:
The act of murder is at most a temporary act against a person then. In fact, it might only last for the pull of trigger. Afterwards, the person no longer exists to be harmed. Life in prison (heck even years) seems incredibly lopsided in such a case. [/quote]

Not to me it doesn’t. Anyway, murder of course has lasting effects, but my argument is unchanged by this fact. My argument is this: in order for a murder to take place, a person must die. This is fact. Do you deny it?

We don’t move against murder because of the robbery of the last second. Those seconds are sealed, done, and gone. There was never nay re-experiencing that moment in time. It is precisely the loss of the next second, that may have been, which shocks us, angers us, sends us into rages and into deep dark grief.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
We don’t move against murder because of the robbery of the last second. Those seconds are sealed, done, and gone. There was never nay re-experiencing that moment in time. It is precisely the loss of the next second, that may have been, which shocks us, angers us, sends us into rages and into deep dark grief.[/quote]

Again, even if we accept that bound up in the conception of murder is its lasting effect, we still cannot have a murder without a person having died. This is a necessary condition. Do you agree?

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
The act of murder is at most a temporary act against a person then. In fact, it might only last for the pull of trigger. Afterwards, the person no longer exists to be harmed. Life in prison (heck even years) seems incredibly lopsided in such a case. [/quote]

Not to me it doesn’t. Anyway, murder of course has lasting effects, but my argument is unchanged by this fact. My argument is this: in order for a murder to take place, a person must die. This is a legal fact. Do you deny it?[/quote]

No, I do not. For one, “a person must die” is not precise enough, obviously. Second, you haven’t convinced me as to why I should have a special label for a death, in the first place. Again, a “murderer” does not rob me of who I am the second before he pulls the trigger. Those moments are already gone and out of existence. I agree with my argument, a murder takes place when an innocent human life is deliberately robbed of it’s otherwise future. “Person” is a fiction we tell ourselves to feel better about who we murder. About the futures we stamp out.

Edit: By the way, I’m not interested in who we may legally or illegally murder. There’s many murders in history that have been perfectly “legal.”

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
We don’t move against murder because of the robbery of the last second. Those seconds are sealed, done, and gone. There was never nay re-experiencing that moment in time. It is precisely the loss of the next second, that may have been, which shocks us, angers us, sends us into rages and into deep dark grief.[/quote]

Again, even if we accept that bound up in the conception of murder is its lasting effect, we still cannot have a murder without a person having died. This is a necessary condition. Do you agree?[/quote]

But what person is then ever murdered? The ‘person’ a second before had already stopped existing. You can’t argue that the potentially of “person” must be cast aside when the “individual” that is “murdered” stopped existing at every next instant of time. Some person did a physical act to a “person” that could exist (and then cease to exist) in some arbitrary snapshot of a might as well be an instantaneous point of time. If you’re not 72 year old smh, neither are you the smh that began reading this sentence. That smh stopped existing in a blink of an eye. And now this one is gone. And this one. This one. This…

You choose to separate our lives into some noncontinuous collection of stills, and I will run with that argument until all involved are thoroughly disgusted by how we must think, act, and behave if we were to truly accept it on an intellectual level and in our “hearts.”

Abortion is murder. An innocent human life is deliberately ended and every one of that life’s future arbitrary moments of time deliberately prevented.

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
The act of murder is at most a temporary act against a person then. In fact, it might only last for the pull of trigger. Afterwards, the person no longer exists to be harmed. Life in prison (heck even years) seems incredibly lopsided in such a case. [/quote]

Not to me it doesn’t. Anyway, murder of course has lasting effects, but my argument is unchanged by this fact. My argument is this: in order for a murder to take place, a person must die. This is a legal fact. Do you deny it?[/quote]

No, I do not. For one, “a person must die” is not precise enough, obviously. Second, you haven’t convinced me as to why I should have a special label for a death, in the first place. Again, a “murderer” does not rob me of who I am the second before he pulls the trigger. Those moments are already gone and out of existence. I agree with my argument, a murder takes place when an innocent human life is deliberately robbed of it’s otherwise future. “Person” is a fiction we tell ourselves to feel better about who we murder. About the futures we stamp out.
[/quote]

We are descending into absurdity. You are claiming that a murder can take place without a person’s having died. This is demonstrably not true:

Person/human being, I will use them interchangeably. One kills another: this is murder in its most fundamental essence. I will consider the above proved and resolved, because it is. The definition I’ll use for murder, from now on, is from the above link:

“Murder occurs when one human being unlawfully kills another human being.”

We will set “unlawfully” aside, because what is at issue here is not what the law is, but what it ought to be (i.e., abortion is presently lawful, but not necessarily moral). So we have “murder occurs when one human being kills another human being,” keeping in mind that we are not discussing self-defense or any other such out.

Now, in order for us to say that a human being has been killed, we must say that a human being has died. Do you agree with this?

I’m going to jump ahead: you do agree with it. I know that you do because I know that you aren’t insane, and the above is necessarily true.

Moving forward, in order for us to say that a human being has died, we must say that the human being has undergone irreversible cessation of heart/brain activity. This is medical fact, accepted and established (as are so many other other medical facts to which the pro-life argument appeals – again, a position cannot rely on special pleading).

By logical necessity, a human being cannot be said to have died without having undergone irreversible cessation of heart/brain activity, the latter being the medical definition of the former.

An embryo cannot be said to have undergone irreversible cessation of heart/brain activity, because what has not happened has not ceased (this, too, is logically necessary).

Therefore, an embryo cannot be said to be a human being that has died, which in turn entails the impossibility of a murder having happened.

Please, if you’re going to refute any of this, pick it out and refute it specifically. I only want to do this if we do it precisely.

If someone were to deliberately end the life of one of my family members right this second, what have I lost smh? What is there for me to grieve? What rage? My family right before that instant was already gone and lost to history. Nothing but memories. And those still exist. So what is then that we are missing?

[quote]Sloth wrote:
If someone were to deliberately end the life of one of my family members right this second, what have I lost smh? What is there for me to grieve? What rage? My family right before that instant was already gone and lost to history. Nothing but memories. And those still exist. So what is then that we are missing?[/quote]

You’ve lost your family member. He has died and won’t return. More specifically and with medical precision, your family member has undergone irreversible cessation of heart/brain activity. This is what death is, and in it is entailed all of the finality and loss. See my post above.