[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.