So Yabby, a sperm is human and a being, hence it is a human being? Really? But a zygote is not? Nice logic. The DNA of sperm "will be replicated in the next generation"? Generation of what? Sperm do not reproduce to make other sperm, do they? Thus they are not organisms. Sperm fuse with ova to produce a new human being. I guess you did not read the Condic article? Person has no scientific definition in the context you are using it: you just made one up.

Thanks Tony, sloppy of me to not notice virus incorrectly included in that definition of organism. Yes, sperm are more like an organism than a virus, but neither make it. A zygote does, and is a human being.

Yes, I quit enjoy philosophy myself. Of course there will often be crazies who act on the ideas of often harmless philosophers, won't there? Ideas have consequences. I bet you can think of examples of this yourself. Yabby's answer confirms there are those already interested to try head transplantation. There are also those interested to try out "after-birth abortion". I doubt you are that naive not to know that ideas have consequences Tony. Oh, and how's life on Vulcan?

*So Yabby, a sperm is human and a being, hence it is a human being? Really? But a zygote is not? Nice logic.*

You remain confused Rich, so I will clarify the point. Neither a
sperm nor a zygote is a person.Both are beings with human dna.

*Sperm do not reproduce to make other sperm, do they?*

Ah, but there are a number of ways to pass on dna, some more complex
then others. Every bit of that sperm's dna is in every cell of
its human host. So its dna is reproduced zillions of times.

As Richard Dawkins so cleverly put it, the body is simply
the host used by dna, to replicate itself from generation to
generation.

In the end, the host will produce more sperms, eggs and on it goes.

So sperm do reproduce to make other sperm, they just go the long way
about it. They take a partner, just like you take a partner, to
reproduce yourself

>>Oh, and how's life on Vulcan?<<

Obviously you haven't seen the awesome new Star Trek movie: shame on you. Spoiler alert: Vulcan gets destroyed. There is a very amusing scene just prior to its destruction with Chekov ordering all the inhabitants to 'ewacuate Wulcan!'. Priceless.

>>Of course there will often be crazies who act on the ideas of often harmless philosophers, won't there?<<

My word yes. There was this Jewish ethicist who lived about 2000 years ago who wrote some pretty harmless stuff and you should see some of the things that crazies have gotten up to and keep getting up to in his name.

Cheers,

Tony

david f,
your inability to present a coherent, logical argument atounds me. You start off with a preposterous accusation against runner, accusing him without any justification of not caring about your cousin who committed suicide more than half a century ago, and your posts get progressively more confused and irrational.
You repeatedly assert that an adult woman is worth infinitely more than an embryo, but has it not occurred to you that these are not different tpyes of human being, merely different stages in the same human existence, stages through which all of us have passed? You simply cannot become an adult woman without first becoming a tiny female embryo. Consequently, you cannot logically defend the right to life of the adult, but not the embryo. Has the obvious never even occurred to you?
Given your stated views, it's a fair assumption that, if your cousin had been aborted during the embryonic stage of her existence, that would have been fine with you because you would not have known her and been able to care about her. Yet, from her point of view, she would have lost her entire born existence through abortion, not half of it as a consequence of her equally tragic suicide.
In other words, you wouldn't have given a damn if she had never existed, as her life only had value to you because she earned your affection by being allowed to be born. That's a purely subjective, not rational argument. Who would have defended her right to be born? Runner, not you.
Don't delude yourself that you valued her life if you are not prepared to defend her right to be born. She was the same human being from the moment of conception until her untimely death, yet in your eyes she was worth no more than a disposable nappy until she took her first breath. Take the plank from your own eye.

Peter D

Dear Peter D,

It is evident that you, like runner, can't see the difference between an adult human being and an embryo. An embryo has potential, but potential is not realisation. Yes, we pass through different stages, but when runner talks about murdering children he ignores the simple fact that an embryo is not a child.

You wrote: "She was the same human being from the moment of conception until her untimely death"

The simple fact is that she was not the same human being. You are I are not the same human beings that we were one second ago. You may well talk about deluding yourself.

Dear Peter,

Whence that "right to life" that you mentioned?

The reason we should not kill has nothing to do with so-called "rights" of the person being killed, but because it would turn us into murderers, which is normally very detrimental to our spiritual well-being.

The word "life" is too commonly used in two erroneous ways:
1) the functioning/breathing of a biological organism.
2) one's identification with such biological form.

In Reality, life does not depend on biology - life goes on eternally regardless whether or not we are associated with a worldly proxy/body through which we can sense, act and think in a worldly way.

Being associated with a worldly body is not a privilege, it is a duty.

If one dies as a fetus, then they can be said to be lucky, blessed that they were not required to endure a whole lifetime as a human. The more likely scenario, however, is that nobody yet was associated with that fetal body. Even if one did, then that association was still weak, temporary and fragile, hence nobody suffered a significant loss. OTOH, if one dies as a capable adult, then one loses all s/he learned, which can be painful indeed.

For our own spiritual good, we should do our very best to avoid causing suffering, pain and loss, to others. The pain and loss caused when killing an adult human are generally greater than the pain and loss caused when killing an adult animal, yet generally greater than the pain and loss caused when killing a human fetus, certainly in its early stages.