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I often read article and pictures on the site reddit, which has some interesting things as well as some stuff you should avoid… One of the things I like about the site is the ability to look at and analyze the arguments of those that do not agree with us, and see insights from the other part of the culture.
I strongly believe that Christianity is the truth, and that we have answers to all of the questions that can be brought up, but unfortunately we are often ill equipped to deal with reason and logic.
So, I’ve bookmarked some of the things there, and I’ll use this blog to help you see what I’m seeing and how to deal with these types of arguments, if you so choose to do it.
In this Facebook thread1, the original author makes a valid point—a single cell on another planet would be concerned “life on Planet X”, but we don’t consider life inside a woman to be all that big of a deal.
The response is typical (click on the image to view full size), but the author believes that he wins the argument because he doesn’t believe the embryo fits these 2 classifications:
- Living things maintain homeostasis (equilibrium) on its own
- Living things reproduce
Why not? Here’s the quote:
A human embryo meets all of these except 6 and 4. The embryo is totally dependent on it’s [sic] mother for everything it needs, therefore cannot maintain homeostasis on it’s [sic] own. Also, an embryo certainly cannot reproduce to keep its species going. This forces the conclusion that, because an embryo fails to meet all the criteria for life, it is NOT life, but property of the mother.
As the commenters on the thread noted, this poster doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
First homeostasis. I’m not sure what it means that it can’t maintain homeostasis on its own means. Homeostasis is the ability to be balanced, and the embryo is able to adapt to its surroundings. In fact, the idea that embryos can be harvested and grown outside the womb would invalidate the idea that it needs a mother.
Second, reproduce. The cells of a embryo are constantly reproducing themselves, and if you took this argument by itself, both the child, the woman in menopause and the childless couple (and maybe even homosexual couples) would not be considered alive. That wouldn’t work, now would it.
The weakness of the arguments made against the initial photo shows that this is not a topic the pro-choice side is winning. Might be best to ignore this poster unless you want to utterly discredit him.
- You can never tell if they’re invented or not when a screen shot is shared! [↩]
