"Killing a zygote is murder."

Its been great to see that reason has prevailed in the parliamentary
vote. Perhaps some of those against this kind of research will them
selves or their loved ones benefit directly from the outcome.

HH, talking of murder and homicide when it comes to cells, makes
for great spin and might push the odd emotional button, fact is
that the general community simply don't see it your way!

People can differentiate between people and cells, for most they
are not the same.

Now I know that trying to make out as if they are the same is old
Catholic dogma and will be repeated endlessly by the leaders of
the church. The result really has been a split of the Catholic
Church, into Catholics for Choice etc, Catholics who accept family
planning, abortion as reality. A few Catholics still actually
believe in the dogma repeated by Rome. Their numbers seem to be
fewer and fewer. Perhaps that explains why those church pews
are seeing less and less bums on seats.

What I can see is that as people have become more educated and
less gullible, they have also become more questioning. They don't
simply believe as easily as they used to. In that case the
evolution of morality in our species as a social species will become
more obvious and religious lines in the sand will play less of a
role. Frankly to me that is good news !

Yabby and Fester,

Here is the position I have been defending.

1. A single-celled conceptus, the zygote, is an individual being: a self-organizing entity distinct from the sperm and ova which resulted in its conception, and the same individual which will, in the normal course of things, later manifest powers of reasoning and will. A zygote is not a part of a greater whole: it is a separate living entity. In this it is distinguished from liver cells, bone tissue, tumour cells, and sperm cells and ova. None of these are separate living organisms, classifiable into species. I came into being when I was conceived. I manifested rudimentary consciousness later when I developed a brain. But it was the same individual who was conceived and who developed a brain.
2. Human zygotes, like all other, more developed human beings, have an innate capacity to think and choose. Of course, this capacity can only be exercised if and when they develop a brain, which normally occurs weeks on in their life. In like manner, most birds are born with an innate capacity to fly. However this capacity can only be exercised if and when they develop mature wings. Defects may impair or even impede altogether the exercise of a capacity. The existence of a defect doesn’t remove the innate capacity itself.
3. Humans seem distinguishable from other animals in the order of their innate capacity (note: exercisable or not) to think and choose. They are, uniquely, self-conscious (“rational”) beings, or persons.
(Continued below)

4. Even humans without functioning brains have this capacity. So, a zygote is a human being in the process of building a brain for itself. And we can hypothesise an adult human snap frozen but revivable – like a frozen embryo. With NO extant brain functioning, that frozen adult nevertheless retains this capacity. It is wrong to kill this adult, REGARDLESS of the lack of a functioning brain. The wrongfulness is bound up with his/her retained CAPACITY to think. That capacity is something which zygotes also have, but sperm and ova don’t. Neither do completely de-brained adults. If the latter COULD re-grow their brains as lizards to tails, our moral obligations to them would be different to what they are now.
5. Therefore the only coherent line in the sand for not deliberately killing seems to be tied to this capactity. The line is: any human life from the zygote stage onward. Any other subsequent line such as “awareness” or “functioning brain” forces us to treat as killable those who, when it comes down to it, seem deserving of life – such as deeply comatose patients, the frozen-but-not-dead adult, or – consistently – the most severely deformed anencephalics. Drawing any EARLIER line – eg, the sperm or ova stage, is treating as individual human beings things which are merely parts of other human individuals. Of course, treating parts of humans recklessly or wantonly is itself wrong too, but it’s a different kind of wrong than that of destroying a human being altogether.
6. The only ‘killable’ humans seem to be malicious, fully responsible adults. The argument is that they have, by an act such as wilful murder/s, declared hostility to other humans – and also their own – innate capacity, treating it as an evil. Executing them when the common good requires it is a punishment in accord with the logic of their actions. Should they repent and accept this punishment willingly, their dignity is restored.

NB: There are no religious premises in the argument. Atheist philosophers support exactly the same line of reasoning.

HH, what your argument boils down to, is basically a question of semantics.

One definition of “capacity” is the ability to do it. A zygote does not have
the ability to think of feel. It simply has the potential to perhaps develop
that capacity, under certain conditions.

To me a frozen human is not a person, but a frozen corpse! If the cleaner
accidentatly pulls out the plug on the freezer as she vacuums, do we charge
her with murder? Under certain conditions that frozen corpse might well
come back to life, but whilst its frozen, a corpse it is. That corpse does
not have the capacity to think or feel, but the potential to reinstate that
capacity, given certain conditions.

You have the same dna as when you were conceived, that does not mean
that you are the same person. Environment, maternal nutrition etc, could
have affected you in many ways, to make you quite a different person,
compared to whom you are today. I therefore dispute your claim that
dna is the only thing that matters, in making you who you are today.
The evidence clearly shows that nutrition, the environment in which
that zygote develops etc, played a role. That is exactly why even in
identical dna twins, they are similar, but not identical.

In fact the evidence suggests that hormones in miniscule amounts
affect the developing brain and its masculanisation for instance.
So those innate tendencies of sexual attraction could well be
decided long after conception and the formation of your particular
dna. So would HH the heterosexual be the same person as HH
the homosexual,? all innate drives after all.

Sperms and ova, under certain conditions, have the potential to go
on and develop the capatity to perhaps think and feel, but just
like zygotes, if those conditions don’t apply, but are flushed down
life’s toilet.

You have still to point out as to who should decide as to whom should be declared
as “evil

Yabby,

Whilst you’re right to beware of semantic confusions, I don’t think it applies in this case. Most kinds of bird have an innate capacity to fly. Do you deny this? Do you say that a crow chick born with a bent wing doesn’t have a capacity to fly? Of course it does! Fix the wing, and it will be able to fly! And if you’re semantically hung up on the word ‘capacity’ well then, I’m easy … call it ‘Factor X’. Crows are born with Factor X, whereas Emus aren’t. Emus aren’t defective re. flying. Making emus fly isn’t curing a defect, or enabling a capacity. OK?

On the other hand, it’s you that has semantically strayed with your use of the word ‘corpse’. Any dictionary predicates ‘corpse’ of a DEAD person. Since when is a REVIVABLE person a DEAD person? Over to you. [Incidentally, I noticed you didn’t say whether it was OK to pull the plug on this frozen human. Could you give an answer, and a reason? Obviously, I think so doing would be wrong.]

Your fourth para. totally confuses accidental features with essence. I totally agree that all sorts of alternatve occurrences might have shaped the way that I think and feel about things today. The point is that I am the same INDIVIDUAL that is the subject of discussion. Had the sun rose half an hour earlier this morning, I might have had different thoughts and made different choices. But it would be the same ME.

You’re fixated on potentiality re. sperm and ova. I’ve refuted this time and again. A sperm has no ability to develop thought processes. When conception occurs, a sperm and ova CEASE TO BE. No serious scientist refers to a zygote as a ‘mature sperm’ or a ‘mature ovum’.

If a sperm WAS a human being, why are scientists so obsessed about cloning EMBRYOS, and not just fiddling with sperm or ova?

Yabby,

‘You have still to point out as to who should decide as to whom should be declared
as “evil””

Let me remind you of YOUR answer: Educated Western Democracy! Since you’re a moral subjectivist, I’m at a loss: Why should this class of people be able to determine moral evil or good any more than say, Stalinists or Nazis?

But since I’m a moral objectivist, my answer is easy: ‘Those who are able to determine whatever IS evil’. Which includes most of the human race, apart from yourself (and even yourself, when you’re not angsting about it.)