If you’re going to argue that a fertilized egg is equivalent to a “human life,” then you have to be specific about whether that fertilized egg must be implanted or can remain in a beaker before it is considered a “human life.”
“The point of conception” is not a point. I just gave you an example of when something can be aborted – a fertilized egg in a lab can be discarded (“aborted”).
Where did I say anything about a fertilized egg?
So the whole concept of conception is a myth that doesn’t happen? You are grasping at [really thin] straws now.
The general “you”, not a specific “you”. meed18 said it:
You’re the one grasping at straws. Conception is a multi-step process, and I’m just trying to illustrate that it is as arbitrary as any other non-point in the long process of individual cells forming, combining, multiplying, implanting, and eventually becoming a human life.
Give an example and explain how it would be constitutional
My fault. Change what I said to fertilization. I use the two interchangeably. (I’m more hardcore than @glitch99 in my overarching views, but not necessarily in my preferences when it comes to our society’s political realities.) The moment of fertilization is not arbitrary. It is a distinct moment in time for every human life (and essentially all animal life as well if you really want to get down to it) with very obvious similarities. The moment of birth is not arbitrary. It is very easily and clearly observed. Anything in between (a heartbeat, brain function, ability to feel pain, human-like form, sense of smell, viability) seems to be quite variable between individuals and very difficult to observe. That makes those points in between much more arbitrary. But I’m willing to be convinced otherwise.
Protecting eggs and sperm is not protecting a new life. Anything pre fertilization is not a separate human life. I actually assumed you were joking/trolling when you said that.
I agree with your last sentence. That is because by calling egg and sperm “potential,” you are blowing up the common claim on the left that a anything before viability is a “potential” life not worthy of protection in the law. If sperm and egg are potential (they are), then that means a zygote (what the two become when fertilization takes place) is clearly a separate life. So do we now agree when it goes from potential life to a distinct and separate human life? And isn’t that clearly not an arbitrary point in the life of an unborn baby?
What garden? It’s just a pile of dirt. There are no weeds to kill.
ETA: Keep up better. 
Go to Delhi (or whatever the current name is) and see if you want to maintain that stance.
I see the distinction as arbitrary, yet you can’t see that. Perhaps in the same way that I can’t see the fertilized egg as being equivalent to a separate human life.
No. It’s neither clearly nor separate. It’s still only potential.
Do you oppose IVF? I’d guess that you do, but I am curious. It’s a significant scientific achievement that may not be practical if every zygote had the same rights as any other live human.
You can’t pour poison on my pile of dirt, cause it’s my pile, on my property! I will use it any way I want and nobody else has any rights to (a) the dirt, (b) whatever it does or does not produce, or (c) tell me what to do with it.
Poison? It’s not poison, it’s weed killer. What harm is it doing? You’ve just got a generous neighbor looking out for property values by eliminating weeds from your yard.
Weed killer is toxic, it’s poison. It’s ruining my dirt. The nosy neighbor isn’t allowed on my property.
So now, having failed, miserably, on one argument, you want to switch to another. No go, bro! You’ve made your bed, possibly for the first time ever. Now lay in it.
Keep up! … or at least pay attention.
Give an example and explain how it would be constitutional
I’m certainly not defending it as constitutional, and I think it’s a really dumb restriction – but based on the actual medical definitions used in some trigger-laws, there are a range of what are currently considered contraceptives that would instead, in those states, be considered abortive.
Go to Delhi (or whatever the current name is) and see if you want to maintain that stance.
I’m not following where you’re going with this one… you’ll need to spell it out for me.
So now, having failed, miserably, on one argument, you want to switch to another.
He didn’t fail, miserably, in his argument, you just seem to refuse to acknowledge that the neighbor has no right to alter the property. (let alone be on the property in the first place without permission)
But maybe this is the fundamental crux of the overall disagreement, is that you seem to view intervening in someone else’ affairs as a potential positive, when from their perspective, you may be inflicting what to them is perceived as direct harm with your meddling.
The thing with using the word arbitrary is that it isn’t a great concept to use akin to an on off switch. There are a lot of things that can’t be simplified down to arbitrary/not arbitrary. Sometimes it’s better to use a level of arbitrariness. For instance starting adulthood at the age of 18 is arbitrary. It’s a made up number. It could just as easily be 18 years 2 months. Some people hit a certain maturity level around that age, some before, some after. Calling someone an adult at high school graduation is less arbitrary. Everyone is a different age when they graduate, but they have all completed (essentially) the same maturing process. I think you can say the same thing about human development in the womb.
Everyone experiences the exact same thing at the exact same time when it comes to fertilization. Because it is literally the beginning point of the formation of a new, unique, and distinct human being (with the only real exception being identical twins which essentially get that moment a second time). Everything after that depends on the individual and is highly variable. Then there is birth. We are all born. Some through c-section and some through the birth canal. Some of us are born at 8 months gestation, some 9, and some at other times, but the day and time we were born is something we can all know. Both of those points in time are LESS arbitrary than any other point. Does that mean we can’t write laws based on arbitrary points during development. Of course not. We do it all the time. But we aren’t talking about laws much right now. We’re having the philosophical discussion. If you accept the premise of everything I just wrote (I don’t know if you do and I’m sure you will point out where you don’t if that’s the case), then I feel like there has to be some willful ignorance involved if you were to continue to say the point of fertilization is just as arbitrary as any other point.
You are disregarding basic biological and evolutionary science by not drawing a distinction between a separate sperm and egg and a sperm that has fertilized an egg. Do you not believe in biology? Do you not believe in evolution?
This question came up in another thread. Here is what I wrote on the topic. Short answer - philosohpically I’m against it when it means discarding fertilized embryos. Legally, it is clearly different than abortion, so I don’t see a reason to combine the two.
Ok. So it was simply a scare tactic. There is no law proposal by any republican elected official in existence that would ban anything commonly referred to a birth control. But a left wing advocacy group “claims” that a law that doesn’t mention birth control at all and is not designed to ban birth control is actually a secret way to ban birth control in order to scare people about what republicans are actually trying to do (restrict abortion). Telling the truth isn’t enough to get people to vote against republicans. You actually have to lie and embellish in order to hammer it home. Got it.
Also, and the ACLU knows this because they are literally all lawyers, any attempt to use that law to stop someone from using birth control would get laughed out of court, 1. because it isn’t even remotely designed to do that and 2. the SCOTUS has literally said people have the right to contraception and the draft opinion by Alito in the Dobbs case does not even remotely attempt to limit that right at all. Abortion has been a contentious issue that both sides have disagreed on the moment that SCOTUS in 1973 decided to create a constitutional right to it. The fight has never waned. The SCOTUS created right to take birth control, whether or not it is was properly legally and constitutionally grounded, on the other hand, is not something anyone on the pro-life side has ever been willing to attack as far back as I can remember. If you pretend that it is, you’re flat out lying.
So it was simply a scare tactic. There is no law proposal by any republican elected official in existence that would ban anything commonly referred to a birth control.
Did you actually read the link in detail and see the specific language that is in question.
That’s okay. I don’t care to elaborate. If you’ve been to Delhi, you might have a different opinion on bodily autonomy.
Then why did he switch. His original argument was that whoever put weed killer in his dirt was destroying his property. When he couldn’t answer how, he wanted to change the argument to trespassing.
Sorry for quoting the whole paragraph, but I liked it. I think the first phrase is right. I consider protecting an unborn child to be positive. From their perspective, I believe they would also think it to be positive.
We’re having the philosophical discussion.
And to me, a major part of that philosophical discussion is, rather than in terms of “arbitrary” units of time – speak in terms of actual physical development, which is observable and measurable, to find the threshold of when a fertilized egg should be considered to be morally equivalent to a human being.
I don’t find it “arbitrary”, at all, to suggest that prior to developing a central nervous system and a brain structure, that the developing entity is not yet equivalent to a “human”, since our brains and minds are essentially what make us so. (and if you want to instead take the religious tack – it would seem incredibly bizarre that every fertilized egg out there was “ensouled” prior to even having a brain)
Granted, overall, I think that is still an earlier milestone than where I would probably place moral equivalence – but there seem to be a substantial contingent of pro-lifers that want to argue that an entity with no brain or related structures is morally equivalent to a 2 year old, in how they should be protected and treated. And I simply do not see any basis for that view that is grounded in reality.