Fetal ability to feel pain pinpointed at 35 weeks

If feeling pain is the criterion for murder, and if the absence of pain means no murder was committed then if a person is anaesthesized, and then shot or otherwise injured to death - should this not be considered murder anymore?

If a bunch of terrorists douse a stadium full of people with nitrous oxide or isoflurane, and then blow up the whole thing - would that not be murder anymore? The people didn't feel pain when they died.
 
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I think Vis is referring to the innate ability to feel pain.
Apparently, a fetus of less than 35 weeks has no innate ability to feel pain.
 
Abortion isnt murder, its as simple as that.

Murder is defined as
The unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.
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http://www.google.com.au/search?sou...&rlz=1T4ADRA_enAU417AU417&q=murder+definition

Abortion is defined as:

1.The deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy


2.The expulsion of a fetus from the uterus by natural causes before it is able to survive independently

http://www.google.com.au/search?sou...gc.r_pw.&fp=525802156bb2f02e&biw=1366&bih=532
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NOT the same, for starters one is unlawful and the other lawful. Secondly one is a human being and the other is a fetus
 
lightgigantic said:
I am pretty sure that there are ways to kill a person so quickly that they feel no pain even without anesthetic.
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For example?

Apparently the head is still alive for seconds after guillotinization; electrocution is far from painless; I suppose there are methods of crushing the body quickly, but in those instances, the person to-be-killed would be aware of what is going on, and would possibly be afraid, anticipating the pain.
 
Signal said:
What renders murder immoral then?
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Two things in my opinion

1. A presumption that all human beings have a right to life

2. The lack of consent or the inability to give consent to take away this right by the victim
 
Asguard said:
NOT the same, for starters one is unlawful and the other lawful.
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so in places where it is against the law you have no problems abiding by it?

or do you concede that laws actually are implemented in accordance with morals as opposed to defining morals.

Secondly one is a human being and the other is a fetus
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only because you apply some totally subjective definition to human (such as not feeling pain at 30'ish weeks or some other such thing)
 
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Signal said:
For example?

Apparently the head is still alive for seconds after guillotinization; electrocution is far from painless; I suppose there are methods of crushing the body quickly, but in those instances, the person to-be-killed would be aware of what is going on, and would possibly be afraid, anticipating the pain.
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being unaware of getting squashed sounds good i guess
 
I don't believe abortion is ever a murder.

It's simply the decision not to donate your body as an incubator.
 
If it is true, I am glad that the babies/foetuses/children/blobs are not in pain
as they are ushered out of existence, like unwanted guests.
 
Don't forget we are using the scientific method which is recursive. So you should add the disclaimer

As far as we know, based on current information about pain and the tools we have to measure them...etc

We've been steadily moving back in age regarding the value of children in history

Infant skulls split by an ax have been found at religious sites from Stonehenge to Jericho, early Arabians sacrificed their infants to “the Mothers,” Aztecs ripped out the hearts of their children and ate them, in India children were sacrificed in quantity to goddesses well into the nineteenth century, and Mayans still sometimes sacrifice their children in the mountains to give them good luck in cocaine trade.33 The skin of the sacrificed children was considered so holy that in societies like the Maya and Aztecs the sacrificers flayed the skin and wore it to increase their strength.34 Sacrificial rituals always contain elements of the abusive childhood practice that engendered them. Aztec mothers would regularly pierce their children’s genitals and pull knotted cords through the wounds to cleanse them of sin; during sacrificial rituals, therefore, the genitals of the victim would be pierced during the sacrifice and the blood spread over the idol of the goddess.35 Sacrifices are always necessary whenever independence and success is achieved and the avenging Killer Mother goddess must be placated. Even when people built new buildings or bridges, little children were usually sealed in them alive as “foundation sacrifices” to ward off the avenging maternal spirits who resent the hubris of building the structure.36 Not even ancient Greeks could dispense with human sacrifices; early reports of burning and eating of children in human sacrifices were followed in classical Athens by the practice of keeping victims called Pharmakoi who were ritually stoned to death as scapegoats for the sins of others.37
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So many children were killed by their parents in early Greece and Rome that people were afraid their populations were declining, and passed laws limiting the infanticide of children of citizens, which, however, were rarely enforced. As Tertullian told Romans, “Although you are forbidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it so happens that no laws are evaded with more impunity.”
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Children were not considered fully human for many years by the early Church, since priests believed “the majority of children become unprofitable, poss*essed by demons… performing useless and abominable deeds.”45 God Himself, Gregory said, killed newborn infants “in order to prevent their full development of their evil passions.”46 Even when infants were found dead in privies, they “might have fallen into it by accident or been placed there after stillbirth” so the mother was usually not thought guilty of anything.47 Post-partum depressed mothers paid far more attention to Soranus’s instructions on “How to Recognize the Newborn That Is Worth Rearing”48 than to any Church opinion. Leopardi said he noticed that his mother, “when she saw the death of one of her infants approaching, experienced a deep happiness.”49 Even by the 16th century, a priest admitted that “the latrines resound with the cries of children who have been plunged into them.”50 Every morning mothers during most of the Christian period could be watched throwing their unwanted babies into rivers.
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http://www.psychohistory.com/originsofwar/09_bipolar.html
 
Signal said:
What renders murder immoral then?
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Murder is always immoral, otherwise it wouldn't be murder.

lightgigantic said:
So you think V is suggesting that the innate ability to feel/to not feel pain plays no part whatsoever in rendering abortion more/less legitimate?
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No, I think Vis is suggesting that it does play a part.
So you see no difference between supporting an opinion and clarifying a possibly misunderstood opinion? :rolleyes:
 
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