Welcome to Gaia! ::

We now have machines that do the jobs that men used to do--welding, assembling cars, mass-producing consumer products, etc. Does that mean men are no better than these machines?

Machines make life easier for humans. That is their purpose (and don't let The Brave Little Toaster make you think otherwise). As long as we don't create artificial intelligence that can think beyond it's programming, our humanity is not at stake.

However, not allowing technological development in the name of "preserving man's worth" can do nothing but make our lives harder. I think it was the ancient Greeks who criticized writing because, as they saw it, it made information too easy to come by--it would discourage the hard work and discipline of memorizing thousands of lines of verse.

Something to chew on.

That's ridiculous. Rapists could care less about the women they rape and the children they help concieve. They're goddamned rapists, for crying out loud.

There is no logic behind your claim.

Personally, I wouldn't think a person was less human if they were concieved artificially, or if they weren't incubated inside a woman. I'm sorry that you do.

It wouldn't take anything away from the child--do you honestly remember being inside your mother? I know I don't.

That is officially the most ignorant, immature thing I've read or heard all day.

I agree with you...but there has to be compromise somewhere.

I think that if the fetus was incubated in a machine, and the woman was not made to pay for this, and she was able to waive any responsibility for the child, we'd be ok. I'm sure there are couples out there willing to pay the fees associated with such a procedure--most of the couples out there are willing to pay for a birthmother's medical fees and other stuff--this shouldn't be too much more.

However, if the woman couldn't find someone to pay for it, she would be able to get an abortion.

I don't know. Just brainstorming. Compromise is good.

But many aren't creating a child just to give it to someone. Many don't want a child at all. Are you saying you would rather deny a child a right to live than let some childless people be happy? Do you even get paid for putting a child up for adoption, because I"m pretty sure you don't.

The difference is that in abortion there already is a child, and in not getting pregnant there is not. I believe abortion is a form of murder, even if others may not think so.

Lelas... I just wanted to add something to your post ^_^

The argument for "it has an independant set of DNA" would almost seem so good if it wern't for the fact, that Lelas claims, that human life is defined more broadly or vaguely as a result of such belief.

For example, a human corpse also has independant DNA. It once housed a human being, but now it doesn't. It, by itself, is not a person. It's just the shell of what once was. Although we respectfully give corpses a dignifying burial in remembrance of the human that used to exist, a human corpse does not have the same rights as a living human does.

Independant DNA would be a marker of identification, rather than definitive of consciousness, because DNA is "the blueprint of life". It's the "instruction manual" on how to build a given lifeform.

Actually, inside a mother's womb, a child has been known to suck its thumb. How is that for alive?

Pre-natal environment probably has an effect on the development of a fetus and those who would oppose this on the grounds that "it's just wrong" to have a human being develop inside a machine might have a case against it. Although, I doubt that any child would be hideously deformed or psychologically warped as a result of it.

I think that far too little is known about pre-natal development to actually make this kind of technology a possibility in the near future, though, and it would incredibly risky even to attempt to transfer an embryo from a woman's womb into it. It makes for a nice point of discussion, however.


Rarely is the motive for rape the conscious desire to pass on genetic material, so I doubt that you have a valid concern. Conception is also something that is avoided in incestuous relationshiops because of the fear that any child produced will be hideously deformed (an unlikely situation, but the risk of a child having a hereditary disorder is greatly increased), and I believe that this is the main argument for abortion in the case of incest, rather than the strain produced on the mother.

If your main concern is for the life of the fetus then you should be prepared for some give-and-take on other points.

A lot of things purportedly "dehumanise" people, but I think that abortion in itself dehumanises them more than allowing them to develop inside of a machine and that goes back to give-and-take. Besides, nobody thinks that murder is acceptable if the person you are murdering was conceived in vitro, which shows that these kinds of "artificial" stages in development do not dehumanise the product as much as you might have me believe.

I would still like to have some control over my genetic material and its predominance in the next generation, however.


That's a nice emotional argument. A zygote is alive, as is a sperm cell and an ova, no one is desputing whether it's alive or not. However, whether it's moral to kill it or not does not rest on whether or not it is alive (which is a tricky enough definition and particularly hard to define without feeling that you're drawing arbitrary lines); it's philosophy deeper than words alone and rests on the concepts behind those words. Consciousness -- the actual concept of consciousness -- is one of those concepts.

Not everywhere in the USA. Im fairly sure a majority of state governments ban 2nd or 3rd trimester abortions.