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“Life” can have a basic meaning, just that a thing is alive. Or it can be used to mean “personhood.” There’s a pretty big, clear difference. It’s not a genuine argument.
It's incredible how many people *believe* this is a good argument, though. They always come with the same "gotcha" energy too.
It's like dealing with a bunch of children who don't understand basic logic, but they actually have power and influence.
They also have arrested development.
I was at a baseball game this weekend and two couples, all around retirement age, kept shouting "let's go Brandon" and "fjb" the entire game the row behind us, to everyone's annoyance.
They giggled like middle schoolers. They were annoying, and it has nothing to with being "triggered". They pretend people worship Biden like they do Trump. It's fucking weird.
That's what I love. Generally not fond of Biden enough to even defend the guy. But FJB and LGB Chants aren't clever, funny, or meaningful. Certainly not at a kids event. That's why I don't like it. I care little about Biden. Bunch of losers that lot.
People like this live their lives just hoping to be the metaphorical dogshit for someone to step in. They don’t care how shitty or obnoxious they are, just so long as other people are annoyed/bothered/inconvenienced by them in some way
It’s because arguing about whether it’s alive is a question without a definitive answer, so they can argue around in circles. That lets them avoid arguments like bodily autonomy.
Its why I think the “just a clump of cells” argument is bad. I think it’s right, but in practice it’s basically useless. It just feeds into the endless, pointless “is it alive” argument.
That's exactly how I feel when people start debating whether non-traditional sexual attraction and gender identities are natural. Why does it matter if it's natural or not? Either way, it's *my* life and rights.
Forced-birthers love to equivocate between personhood, humanity, and life.
A foetus is certainly human, and it's arguably alive, but it's definitely not a *person*. So its life should never take precedence over that of an adult human that everyone sane can agree is a person.
since pregnancy & childbirth have a mortality rate & over 600,000 women globally die from complications of it "forced-birthers" have no problem if the woman dies. it's bizarre. it's misogyny of the worst kind because women suffer & die as a result
but they make it very clear. women don't matter
And a bacteria can survive all on its own. A fetus is only forming while a live parent is growing it. The cells, would cease to exist if taken outside the body.
And when bacteria is infecting a person, eating off them, both sides of the argument nuke it with antibiotics (usually, anyway).
I'm really not sure what this meme is trying to say, which side is it even on?
That's a main piece of the scientific definition of what life is. An organism thats life systems can independently function and self sustain for a period of time.
Parasites' life systems could still independently function and self sustain for a period of time. Not a very long amount of time mind you, maybe not at every part of their lifecycle, but when capable they typically have enough time to find a host.
And bacteria can survive in people's colons, but can't survive for long in their feces. So pro-life people should eat their feces to bring that bacteria back inside of them to preserve life and carry the bacteria to its full life cycle instead of ending it shorter. After all, they do like saying "all lives matter".
Exact same confusion arises in debates against vegans.
It is not whether an organism is “alive” that matters – it is that the organism possesses sentience, that is to say, subjective experience – something that it is like to be that organism.
As far as we are aware, there is nothing that it is like to be a plant.
In a kind of morbid way, I once came across a discussion that claimed that the litmus test for being sentient enough to deserve rights is the capacity to suffer. Even meat eaters will generally be against causing unnecessary suffering to livestock, but you'll rarely see plant rights discussion because we generally accept that plants can't feel the pain of suffering, nor can single-celled bacteria nor a recently fertilised egg.
Yeah I mean I think generally speaking “plants feel pain” is a mere throwaway not a real argument.
However if taken seriously… There are a few ways to reply…
The amount of plants that are inefficiently fed to livestock is far more than if they were simply consumed directly on a vegan diet.
- Meat based diets contribute to far more plants being harvested (“slaughtered 😂“) and inefficiently fed to livestock.
- The type of consciousness that a plant might have is so far different to any type of consciousness that we are currently aware of. we are able to fairly directly infer consciousness in all sorts of creatures due to the similarity between them and us possessing near identical nervous systems for instance. We can also use known painkillers to strongly infer that various animals feel pain because they react vastly differently when you’ve on painkillers – quite an ingenious experiment when you think about it! This is even been unequivocally prison in fish. Fish feel pain.
Some devout Jains wear masks to avoid breathing in living beings and sweep the ground in front of them to avoid stepping on them. That's probably about as close as any human gets.
Technically if it was public school *maybe* but like there’s no way in hell anyone would take her to court over ot
Edit: Y’all I wasn’t saying I like it, I was just saying that I small towns most people either support it or don’t care enough to make a deal out of it. Additionally I didn’t know if it was private or public school, in a private religious school this type of shit happens a lot
I mean, catholic schools exist. But yeah, I'm firmly of the belief that kids should not be indoctrinated with religion in school. (or elsewhere for that matter)
I can't speak for all Catholic schools but I went to Catholic school and if a teacher invited me to church with just them I'm pretty sure that would be a red flag. My school would go to church but never with just a teacher
Oh I don’t disagree that it’s bad, I’m saying a public school in rural Indiana isnt about to do shit about it
Also you’ve clearly never seen Texan private schooling, half of our private schools are Catholic and the other half are just vaguely Christian.
They're just calling it life. Bacteria dont have human rights either, so they end up not making any point at all. Also i noticed a level of science denial/distrust, where they mock people for being excited about life in space. But thats secondary.
Hand sanitizer will also kill lots of skin cells from your hands, it does not differentiate between bacteria and human cells. Every time you use it you are killing thousands of "human lifes"
Yes, but people who care about reproductive rights do not say "It isn't life". That has never been the argument. It's a strawman.
When people say "it's a clump of cell" They're not saying "it's a **dead** clump of cell."
Life is not the same a sentience. A carrot is alive but not sentient. A cow is both alive and sentient. A fetus up to a certain point is alive, but not sentient
Probably has more to do with vegans watching what they eat. You're selecting for a group of people that are mindful of what they consume, so it's natural they have increased lifespan, regardless of whether they eat meat.
I don't think that's the only reason, as after all there is plenty of vegan junk food and sweets nowadays. But eating meat specifically has a high correlation with cardiovascular diseases and other mortality causes.
This has been my biggest annoyance. A cow, a deer, a lamb, and all other animals have lived more than a fetus. I hate that these people will pick and choose what life is sacred based on bullshit logic. If you really cared, you'd also be vegan.
This is from a meat eater btw. I'm cool with meat eating, I just hate hypocrisy. Livestock, bugs, and all these other things they kill without a thought at least LIVED.
This is a point that’s been grinding my gears as of late (on top of all the other nonsense that irks me about people who are anti-choice). Ultimately, I think it just reinforces the belief that restricting and banning abortion is about control. I mean, all the arguments they use in defense of the unborn embryo or fetus (e.g. “the baby had its own unique DNA at conception and is therefore entitled to life”) could literally be applied to all living animals on the planet. Why aren’t these pro-lifers all strict vegetarians or vegans?
They think dna is a soul which leads the them to conclude: organism possessing “human” dna= person. I’m sure they are happy to ignore how much of our genome we share with mice.
Depending on how much of the genetic sequence they saw from the Mars’s sample, they might even conclude that human life existed on mars.
It's not even that. Even if we came to the conclusion that an embryo is a full human - should a 9 year old girl that got raped being forced to give birth?
Should you be forced to save someone's life by risking your own life? I'm pretty sure the general consensus is "no".
Are you allowed to kill someone in self-defense? The general consensus is "yes".
The fundamental questions to "abortion" have been answered millennials ago. The only problem is, that it only affects women. This whole discussion wouldn't exists if men were affected.
Viruses being alive or not depends on who you ask. I personally consider this requirement kind of silly. If this excludes viruses, doesn't it also exclude a bunch of other plants and animals that are parasites like tapeworms, those tongue isopods, ticks, fleas, tarantula hawks, etc? They all require a host to survive so why are they excluded from being alive?
firstly, that isn’t entirely correct. what differentiates viruses from other parasitic organisms is that animals/plants/bacteria are able to reproduce either sexually or asexually, whereas viruses are **incapable of reproduction on their own**. viruses reproduce by injecting genetic material into a host cell. viruses are incapable of replicating their own DNA/RNA, so they rely on a host’s cells to do it for them. all known living organisms, on the other hand, are able to replicate their own genetic material in one way or another, without the aid of a host. so — although both viruses and parasites require a host to live, it is the way in which they are needed that differentiates the two.
there are a few other reasons we don’t really consider viruses to be “alive”, but it also depends on who you ask. there are reasons that some scientists think they’re alive, but the general consensus is that they aren’t
One of the reasonings I enjoy (if not particularly subscribe to) is that a virus itself is not alive, but an infected cell is, with the virus acting as a sort of seed. That acknowledges the living thing producing more viruses, while keeping up the understanding that a viral particle is still.
Thank you for the explanation. I guess to me it feels entirely arbitrary to separate viruses, and this rule seems to be there to specifically exclude viruses. It is still "driven" to copy it's genes and it is made of the same stuff we are. I understand that the rule is there but I guess I don't understand why it has to be there. I've heard of it before and it always feels like they just tell you that's the rule without ever explaining why it's there in the first place.
Another big reason is that viruses don't metabolize anything. They don't eat or use energy or respond to stimuli. They're pretty much just little shells holding some genes.
They don't? That is actually really interesting. I think that makes a lot more sense in my head than they aren't alive because they use other cells to reproduce. I guess I just didn't understand why it should matter whether or not they need cells to reproduce.
of course. you’re getting a lot of downvotes, but i don’t see anything particularly wrong or offensive with what you’re saying.
the way i see it is that viruses are not “alive”, but they aren’t necessarily “un-alive” either. they are not life as we understand it, but perhaps something else entirely
What requirement of life states that life has to be multicellular? Viruses are made of the stuff that other life is and it has a drive to reproduce and multiply. Adding the extra caveat to it just feels pointless and arbitrary. What about it using other cells to reproduce suddenly makes it not alive?
A virus is literally a bunch of rna in a shell. It’s just a piece of information . It is literally incapable of ANYTHING unless it floats around and bumps into a host, then it gives the cell the instructions, and the CELL using the information from the virus makes more viruses. A virus is not alive because it is nothing more than protein and rna/dna. It can’t even reproduce, or do anything without a host
I honestly find this videos definition of life to be better than what we currently have. which isn't even a definition but a list of dos and don'ts.
[https://youtu.be/ibpdNqrtar0?t=168](https://youtu.be/ibpdNqrtar0?t=168)
"Life is a bunch of chemicals that take in energy in order to keep each other from reaching equilibrium."
Viruses fall under this definition.
You are right. A lot of biologists I've heard interviewed over the years think viruses should count or that it's still up to interpretation. There are animals that rely on other species for reproduction for example which was one of the main arguments against viruses.
Viruses not being alive has been taught for a long time so people are attached to it like with their idea of what the continents are.
>Viruses being alive or not depends on who you ask.
Well I dunno who the fuck you’re asking, but virologists are the one who say they’re dead and since they’re the experts here I’m gonna listen to them.
>I personally consider this requirement kind of silly.
I can’t imagine why.
>If this excludes viruses, doesn't it also exclude a bunch of other plants and animals that are parasites like tapeworms, those tongue isopods, ticks, fleas, tarantula hawks, etc? They all require a host to survive so why are they excluded from being alive?
Because those are called parasites, which are distinctly different from viruses. I would recommend sticking to the experts here if you’re not sure of the difference.
It's weird that people are acting like this is a settled thing. "Alive" and "dead" are arbitrary categories that we made up to cut the infinitely complex and bewildering universe into understandable chunks. The universe is not obligated to actually divide itself in that way and there would inevitably be weird edge cases that don't fit neatly into one category or the other.
Yeah I don't get it. The status of whether a virus is "alive" has been openly debated in the scientific community for decades. Viruses literally exist in a grey area between the definitions of alive or not. Anyone that is talking about it being a settled discussion is either bullheaded or scientifically illiterate.
Yeah, it's wild. I literally just stated a fact and apparently people disagree? You can literally search on google if a virus is alive or not and will find articles arguing both points.
>Well I dunno who the fuck you’re asking, but virologists are the one who say they’re dead and since they’re the experts here I’m gonna listen to them.
Do a two minute Google search and you will see that while the majority do see viruses as not alive there are still a fair number of experts who disagree
>I can’t imagine why
I explained why I thought so and was asking why it was this way. Don't be a fucking snark about it
>Because those are called parasites, which are distinctly different from viruses. I would recommend sticking to the experts here if you’re not sure of the difference.
Yet you can't explain that difference to me. That's what I was asking for. I said I didn't understand it. Maybe I put people off by calling it silly (my mistake, there is probably a logical solution). I have just yet to see any reason as to why this is included as a disqualifier. Maybe it's just a super complex reason that isn't delved into unless your actually becoming a virologist but everyone it's been brought up to me it's always presenting these rules for life while never saying why they are there, and without context it comes off as arbitrary.
>Do a two minute Google search and you will see that while the majority do see viruses as not alive there are still a fair number of experts who disagree
There's a "fair number" of "scientists" (using the term loosely) disagreeing with climate change and claiming the world is flat. Do we go off outliers or the general consensus?
Or just get rid of religion all together. I know that will never happen and I personally wouldn't take away someone's right to choose what they do with their life but a man can dream.
I think my favourite definition of "life" is something that actively tries to preserve itself and/or its species
A fetus doesn't do that. It floats there and doesn't move. It doesn't avoid danger, it doesn't get food for itself (if relies on the mother) it literally does nothing.
Not just basically, by most biological considerations they literally are: [https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-archive/press-releases/pr9938.html](https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-archive/press-releases/pr9938.html)
Women can become malnourished because the parasite is taking the nutrients out of their bloodstream in extreme cases. Pregnancy and birth can be wonderful processes, but biologically it's a very uneasy truce.
The key difference between fetuses and parasites is that by definition, parasite is of different species than the host. Other than that, fetuses are definitely parasites.
Thats kinda unreliable. What about a person who is disabled and cannot recognize threat to themselves and hence dont react to it? They are still people. (Im not saying fetuses are people, but them being helpless doesnt mean much).
Wouldn't that exclude suicidal people? I feel like we should just grant that a fetus is a life but we should also distinguish life from moral worth/personhood.
Bacteria and plants are a life, yet I have no moral qualms about killing them.
I’m so sick of this argument. Yes! Embryos and fetuses are alive. That shouldn’t really be the argument. Even a dead person can’t be forced to give organs to save another life- it’s called bodily autonomy, and the status of life regarding the other organism shouldn’t affect your rights regarding YOUR body.
Not to mention, lots of things are very technically alive, but not alive in a functional sense. A fetus essentially acts as a parasite, unable to exist without feeding off of a host. Another reason I’m adopting.
Lol when you're unable to distinguish between life and personhood.
Just swap out bacteria with chicken and turn it around, and they'll change their opinion very fast.
Again, the right conflating the exact definition of 'life' in either context to make some kind of 'gotcha'. It's the dumbest shit ever, but what do you expect from a political group that only exists to legitimise stupidity.
The difference is one can function independently and, as far as I'm aware, has life cycles and has the potential to lead to larger lifeforms (however unlikely), the other cannot function to the same degree without its mother's nutrients, or until it's grown. Also those bacteria essentially function at the same equivalent as fully grown humans, they travel, reproduce, fulfill their biological functions etc. That foetus hasn't reached that stage yet, and therefore cannot function to that degree. Yes the foetus is of course an organism. But we get excited over bacteria because of what it could mean.
Regardless this whole "What counts as life?" Arguement is redundant anyway. No one should have to risk their life trying to grow something that has a risk of seriously harming them, or even killing them. Nearly 1,000 people die from childbirth each year in the US alone, not even in countries where the mortality rate is much higher. that may not seem like much on the scale of the US's population, but 1,000 people dying from that process is A LOT when you think about it. In 2011 the village I lived in had a population just under 1,000, (958). Now imagine if over the course of One Year that entire village died. It'd be all over the news.
In 2017 the global maternal mortality number was a total of 295,000 deaths. According to UNICEF, this isn't including the fact that for every one of these deaths, 20 birthers suffer from either a serious infection, illness or disability due to the pregnancy/birth. That's 5.9million lives heavily affected by pregnancy/birth. But sure, going through that risk should totally be something someone is forced to do. /s
Disclaimer; I'm not trying to put anyone off birth if that's something you want. 140,000,000 babies are born every year, with a birth rate of 2.4 babies per birther. So out of those 140,000,000 successful births, there's a total 295,000 deaths caused. That's a relatively small percentage. And that number has been decreasing by roughly 2.9% each year, in the year 2000 the total maternal deaths was 451,000. The death rate has decreased by 34.6% in just 17 years, it's going down and getting safer to have children each year. I just want to make it clear, that no one should be forced to do ANYTHING where their health, safety and life may be put at risk. No matter how low the chance.
Exact same confusion occurs when arguing against vegans.
Life ≠ Consciousness.
Plants and bacteria are “life” but are not conscious.
The conscious experience of sentence bangs is what we care about.
In fact, on a fundamental level, it’s the only thing anyone ever cares about.
All that we value ultimately comes down to changes in the experiences of sentient beings.
I'm glad people are finally seeing that Republicans have been fucking over the education system for the past 40 years. Now stop voting for them they're evil
A fetus is alive, no one is contesting that, the question is: is it a person? The answer to which is scientifically, ethically, legally, and spiritually an unequivocal no.
Nobody said it's not life, it's just that in the weeks that abortions actually happen they're not even close to being anything other than several cells
This shit is why we can’t let conservatives dictate our educational policies. They let an entire generation turn into this, non inquisitive mooks that believes anything their “supreme leaders” tell them without question
They don't even know the argument.
A fetus ***IS*** life, but it is ***NOT*** a person. At least not until a certain point.
A fetus is a growth on the mother until it is developed enough to sustain its own life. Sorry if that sounds cold but that's just how pregnancy works. We have a very good scientifically accurate definition for when person-hood starts and that is the age of viability at around 24 weeks.
We've explained this to them over and over again yet they continue to get it wrong. It's not ignorance at this point, it's willful ignorance.
"Yesterday you said the oven wasn't hot enough to bake with because it was at 200 F, but today you're saying it's too hot to do anything when it's only 110 F?? Hypocrite!!"
I mean was the argument ever even if it was alive? I thought it was more if it was a person or not. Like, right wingers have no problems cutting down trees or stepping on bugs, and those are alive. Weird for them to then claim a fetus is valuable simply because of it’s status as technically alive.
The way I see it, at one end of the "alive" argument spectrum, a fetus is alive but is not a separate life from the mother. As such, it is just an extension of the mother's life, and can be removed like you would hair that's too long. At the other end, it's similar to a virus and parasite, and as such, can also simply be removed. It is not a separate life that can exist on its own, so it does not have the rights like an animal or person has.
That is a strawman argument. [This](https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm) is a fairly strong argument which allows the ridiculous idea that embryos are people, and even allows the idea that abortion is homicide, yet still establishes a moral grounds for abortion. It's kinda long, but if you can't handle a four page essay, you don't deserve an opinion anyway.
Literally nobody is saying that a 9 month old fetus isn't alive lmao. But nobody is getting abortions at 9 months either. It honestly sounds like you've been tricked by pro-lifers into believing nonsense, so you should probably take some time to familiarise yourself with the reality of what abortion actually is and the reasons people choose to terminate pregnancies before attempting to further participate in this coversation.
Yeah bro obviously a fetus is a living organism, nobody was disputing that. The questions at play are 1) is that organism a person, and 2) does that organism (whether or not it's a person) have an inherent right to use its mother's body to sustain itself?
Nobody would respond to Martian bacteria with "We found people on Mars!" and any special consideration given to that life would be a result of its scientific value and the potential wider effects on an undiscovered ecosystem that would come from interfering with it, not because we think bacteria have an inherent right to life.
... Fetuses don't develop a functional nervous system within the time frame set for abortions... that is the point, even a jellyfish is more sentient that a fetus within its 3 months, before that, is just a bunch of cells pretending to be human. For those that know(I am admittedly ignorant in the subject), does the bible actually states anywhere that life starts at conception, or is just another super shitty interpretation of a really vague passage somewhere random in the bible?.
Okay then let's ban hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap and cleaners and showering, and since plants are alive too let's ban lawn mowers and and everything that requires deforestation like paper, furniture, houses, farms, and more and if you've ever bought a plant and forgot to take care of it you now can be sentenced to years in prison.
This argument is nothing to do with science, it's about whether something's a 'person', which is a philosophical question.
Scientifically of course it is life.
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I have never met a person who's had a problem with killing bacteria
“Life” can have a basic meaning, just that a thing is alive. Or it can be used to mean “personhood.” There’s a pretty big, clear difference. It’s not a genuine argument.
It's incredible how many people *believe* this is a good argument, though. They always come with the same "gotcha" energy too. It's like dealing with a bunch of children who don't understand basic logic, but they actually have power and influence.
They also have arrested development. I was at a baseball game this weekend and two couples, all around retirement age, kept shouting "let's go Brandon" and "fjb" the entire game the row behind us, to everyone's annoyance. They giggled like middle schoolers. They were annoying, and it has nothing to with being "triggered". They pretend people worship Biden like they do Trump. It's fucking weird.
That's what I love. Generally not fond of Biden enough to even defend the guy. But FJB and LGB Chants aren't clever, funny, or meaningful. Certainly not at a kids event. That's why I don't like it. I care little about Biden. Bunch of losers that lot.
They literally cannot conceive of people who aren't them or the inverse of themselves.
People like this live their lives just hoping to be the metaphorical dogshit for someone to step in. They don’t care how shitty or obnoxious they are, just so long as other people are annoyed/bothered/inconvenienced by them in some way
I uh. I hate to be that guy. They don't understand basic logic.
It’s because arguing about whether it’s alive is a question without a definitive answer, so they can argue around in circles. That lets them avoid arguments like bodily autonomy. Its why I think the “just a clump of cells” argument is bad. I think it’s right, but in practice it’s basically useless. It just feeds into the endless, pointless “is it alive” argument.
That's exactly how I feel when people start debating whether non-traditional sexual attraction and gender identities are natural. Why does it matter if it's natural or not? Either way, it's *my* life and rights.
It's a genuine reason to kick some people in the nuts though.
ha ha ha ... I know, right?
Forced-birthers love to equivocate between personhood, humanity, and life. A foetus is certainly human, and it's arguably alive, but it's definitely not a *person*. So its life should never take precedence over that of an adult human that everyone sane can agree is a person.
since pregnancy & childbirth have a mortality rate & over 600,000 women globally die from complications of it "forced-birthers" have no problem if the woman dies. it's bizarre. it's misogyny of the worst kind because women suffer & die as a result but they make it very clear. women don't matter
This person probably photosynthesizes their own food from the sun so as not to kill plants, seeing how much they value life.
And doesn't shower as not to shed a single skin cell.
Yeah it’s just a stupid equivocation fallacy. Forced Birthers are vile idiots.
And a bacteria can survive all on its own. A fetus is only forming while a live parent is growing it. The cells, would cease to exist if taken outside the body.
And when bacteria is infecting a person, eating off them, both sides of the argument nuke it with antibiotics (usually, anyway). I'm really not sure what this meme is trying to say, which side is it even on?
That's a main piece of the scientific definition of what life is. An organism thats life systems can independently function and self sustain for a period of time.
Parasites are not life then? Or I am misunderstanding the definition?
Parasites' life systems could still independently function and self sustain for a period of time. Not a very long amount of time mind you, maybe not at every part of their lifecycle, but when capable they typically have enough time to find a host.
Alright then. Thanks
And bacteria can survive in people's colons, but can't survive for long in their feces. So pro-life people should eat their feces to bring that bacteria back inside of them to preserve life and carry the bacteria to its full life cycle instead of ending it shorter. After all, they do like saying "all lives matter".
Do you know what viable means?
I have never met a person who's had a problem with killing ^(/j just in case...)
Exact same confusion arises in debates against vegans. It is not whether an organism is “alive” that matters – it is that the organism possesses sentience, that is to say, subjective experience – something that it is like to be that organism. As far as we are aware, there is nothing that it is like to be a plant.
In a kind of morbid way, I once came across a discussion that claimed that the litmus test for being sentient enough to deserve rights is the capacity to suffer. Even meat eaters will generally be against causing unnecessary suffering to livestock, but you'll rarely see plant rights discussion because we generally accept that plants can't feel the pain of suffering, nor can single-celled bacteria nor a recently fertilised egg.
Yeah I mean I think generally speaking “plants feel pain” is a mere throwaway not a real argument. However if taken seriously… There are a few ways to reply… The amount of plants that are inefficiently fed to livestock is far more than if they were simply consumed directly on a vegan diet. - Meat based diets contribute to far more plants being harvested (“slaughtered 😂“) and inefficiently fed to livestock. - The type of consciousness that a plant might have is so far different to any type of consciousness that we are currently aware of. we are able to fairly directly infer consciousness in all sorts of creatures due to the similarity between them and us possessing near identical nervous systems for instance. We can also use known painkillers to strongly infer that various animals feel pain because they react vastly differently when you’ve on painkillers – quite an ingenious experiment when you think about it! This is even been unequivocally prison in fish. Fish feel pain.
I had a guy try to tell me vegans couldn't eat tree products because trees are "alive"
Some devout Jains wear masks to avoid breathing in living beings and sweep the ground in front of them to avoid stepping on them. That's probably about as close as any human gets.
My high school science teacher offered extra credit if we went to church with her. Edit: rural Indiana btw
She should have lost her job for that.
Technically if it was public school *maybe* but like there’s no way in hell anyone would take her to court over ot Edit: Y’all I wasn’t saying I like it, I was just saying that I small towns most people either support it or don’t care enough to make a deal out of it. Additionally I didn’t know if it was private or public school, in a private religious school this type of shit happens a lot
No. Regardless of what school, that is grounds for termination.
I mean, catholic schools exist. But yeah, I'm firmly of the belief that kids should not be indoctrinated with religion in school. (or elsewhere for that matter)
I can't speak for all Catholic schools but I went to Catholic school and if a teacher invited me to church with just them I'm pretty sure that would be a red flag. My school would go to church but never with just a teacher
Oh I don’t disagree that it’s bad, I’m saying a public school in rural Indiana isnt about to do shit about it Also you’ve clearly never seen Texan private schooling, half of our private schools are Catholic and the other half are just vaguely Christian.
ACLU and FFRF absolutely would.
Could have got those grades up by blackmailing her, that is straight up illegal.
Was it a public school?
Yup
I’m from Indiana too. I’m sorry.
Just raise your hand every time you have a question, and they'll soon reward you not to come.
I’ve been asked not to come back to more churches mosques and synagogues in Florida exactly this way.
mine just straight up taught creationism
My wife's government teacher made them watch Fox News. Rural Ohio.
And they say liberals want to indoctrinate the youth
They cannot comprehend that life =/= personhood
A baby is as alive as a tapeworm, a living thing but not a sentient being capable of independent life or individual thought
This argument doesn't work for the right wing, they support tapeworm rights. How do you think Cucker Tarlson and Ben Shapiro got so big?
Minor error, I think you meant shen bapiro
They can't comprehend that a heartbeat is essentially meaningless, as even a single heart cell beats on its own.
Lol by that logic should we be banning hand sanitizer?
It kills innocent LIFE!
But they’re saying it’s a human life. Not agreeing or disagreeing.
They're just calling it life. Bacteria dont have human rights either, so they end up not making any point at all. Also i noticed a level of science denial/distrust, where they mock people for being excited about life in space. But thats secondary.
So is a cancerous tumor. Human cells, independant parasitic lifeform.
Hand sanitizer will also kill lots of skin cells from your hands, it does not differentiate between bacteria and human cells. Every time you use it you are killing thousands of "human lifes"
Yes, but people who care about reproductive rights do not say "It isn't life". That has never been the argument. It's a strawman. When people say "it's a clump of cell" They're not saying "it's a **dead** clump of cell."
Also plant and animals. We should ban food. aLL liVeS mAtTeR!!!
Life is not the same a sentience. A carrot is alive but not sentient. A cow is both alive and sentient. A fetus up to a certain point is alive, but not sentient
The ironic thing is that any food animal is more sentient than a embryo or fetus but pro-lifers tend to absolutely despise vegetarianism.
True statement
I always want to use this argument but I’m scared people will come at me with the, “B-BUT YOU NEED MEAT TO SURVIVE!!1!1!” bs
How do they react to the increased lifespan of vegans? Not even advertising veganism, I eat meat—but the facts are the facts.
Probably has more to do with vegans watching what they eat. You're selecting for a group of people that are mindful of what they consume, so it's natural they have increased lifespan, regardless of whether they eat meat.
I don't think that's the only reason, as after all there is plenty of vegan junk food and sweets nowadays. But eating meat specifically has a high correlation with cardiovascular diseases and other mortality causes.
Literally can't miss what you never knew. I remember nothing of the early years of life.
Or call you a vegan nutjob if you try to argue that maybe we eat less meat and treat food animals more humanely...
This has been my biggest annoyance. A cow, a deer, a lamb, and all other animals have lived more than a fetus. I hate that these people will pick and choose what life is sacred based on bullshit logic. If you really cared, you'd also be vegan. This is from a meat eater btw. I'm cool with meat eating, I just hate hypocrisy. Livestock, bugs, and all these other things they kill without a thought at least LIVED.
This is a point that’s been grinding my gears as of late (on top of all the other nonsense that irks me about people who are anti-choice). Ultimately, I think it just reinforces the belief that restricting and banning abortion is about control. I mean, all the arguments they use in defense of the unborn embryo or fetus (e.g. “the baby had its own unique DNA at conception and is therefore entitled to life”) could literally be applied to all living animals on the planet. Why aren’t these pro-lifers all strict vegetarians or vegans?
They think dna is a soul which leads the them to conclude: organism possessing “human” dna= person. I’m sure they are happy to ignore how much of our genome we share with mice. Depending on how much of the genetic sequence they saw from the Mars’s sample, they might even conclude that human life existed on mars.
I've never heard people say that fetuses weren't alive. The question is whether they have all the same rights afforded to a full human.
It's not even that. Even if we came to the conclusion that an embryo is a full human - should a 9 year old girl that got raped being forced to give birth? Should you be forced to save someone's life by risking your own life? I'm pretty sure the general consensus is "no". Are you allowed to kill someone in self-defense? The general consensus is "yes". The fundamental questions to "abortion" have been answered millennials ago. The only problem is, that it only affects women. This whole discussion wouldn't exists if men were affected.
Somehow I never thought of framing it as a self-defense debate. Huh.
Washing our hands is murder. It kills bacteria
That's why I never do it 👉😎👉
One difference between bacteria and viruses is that viruses are not considered alive because they can not survive without a host.
Viruses being alive or not depends on who you ask. I personally consider this requirement kind of silly. If this excludes viruses, doesn't it also exclude a bunch of other plants and animals that are parasites like tapeworms, those tongue isopods, ticks, fleas, tarantula hawks, etc? They all require a host to survive so why are they excluded from being alive?
firstly, that isn’t entirely correct. what differentiates viruses from other parasitic organisms is that animals/plants/bacteria are able to reproduce either sexually or asexually, whereas viruses are **incapable of reproduction on their own**. viruses reproduce by injecting genetic material into a host cell. viruses are incapable of replicating their own DNA/RNA, so they rely on a host’s cells to do it for them. all known living organisms, on the other hand, are able to replicate their own genetic material in one way or another, without the aid of a host. so — although both viruses and parasites require a host to live, it is the way in which they are needed that differentiates the two. there are a few other reasons we don’t really consider viruses to be “alive”, but it also depends on who you ask. there are reasons that some scientists think they’re alive, but the general consensus is that they aren’t
One of the reasonings I enjoy (if not particularly subscribe to) is that a virus itself is not alive, but an infected cell is, with the virus acting as a sort of seed. That acknowledges the living thing producing more viruses, while keeping up the understanding that a viral particle is still.
Thank you for the explanation. I guess to me it feels entirely arbitrary to separate viruses, and this rule seems to be there to specifically exclude viruses. It is still "driven" to copy it's genes and it is made of the same stuff we are. I understand that the rule is there but I guess I don't understand why it has to be there. I've heard of it before and it always feels like they just tell you that's the rule without ever explaining why it's there in the first place.
Another big reason is that viruses don't metabolize anything. They don't eat or use energy or respond to stimuli. They're pretty much just little shells holding some genes.
THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY????
Proteins
So you’re saying to secret to getting on the swole patrol is viral infection?
They don't? That is actually really interesting. I think that makes a lot more sense in my head than they aren't alive because they use other cells to reproduce. I guess I just didn't understand why it should matter whether or not they need cells to reproduce.
there are several different criteria we use to describe life. one is the ability to reproduce. another is the ability to respond to stimuli.
of course. you’re getting a lot of downvotes, but i don’t see anything particularly wrong or offensive with what you’re saying. the way i see it is that viruses are not “alive”, but they aren’t necessarily “un-alive” either. they are not life as we understand it, but perhaps something else entirely
Because those are actual multicellular animals. a virus is literally strands of rna floating around in a shell of protein
What requirement of life states that life has to be multicellular? Viruses are made of the stuff that other life is and it has a drive to reproduce and multiply. Adding the extra caveat to it just feels pointless and arbitrary. What about it using other cells to reproduce suddenly makes it not alive?
A virus is literally a bunch of rna in a shell. It’s just a piece of information . It is literally incapable of ANYTHING unless it floats around and bumps into a host, then it gives the cell the instructions, and the CELL using the information from the virus makes more viruses. A virus is not alive because it is nothing more than protein and rna/dna. It can’t even reproduce, or do anything without a host
I honestly find this videos definition of life to be better than what we currently have. which isn't even a definition but a list of dos and don'ts. [https://youtu.be/ibpdNqrtar0?t=168](https://youtu.be/ibpdNqrtar0?t=168) "Life is a bunch of chemicals that take in energy in order to keep each other from reaching equilibrium." Viruses fall under this definition.
>Viruses fall under this definition. …No they don’t.
You are right. A lot of biologists I've heard interviewed over the years think viruses should count or that it's still up to interpretation. There are animals that rely on other species for reproduction for example which was one of the main arguments against viruses. Viruses not being alive has been taught for a long time so people are attached to it like with their idea of what the continents are.
>Viruses being alive or not depends on who you ask. Well I dunno who the fuck you’re asking, but virologists are the one who say they’re dead and since they’re the experts here I’m gonna listen to them. >I personally consider this requirement kind of silly. I can’t imagine why. >If this excludes viruses, doesn't it also exclude a bunch of other plants and animals that are parasites like tapeworms, those tongue isopods, ticks, fleas, tarantula hawks, etc? They all require a host to survive so why are they excluded from being alive? Because those are called parasites, which are distinctly different from viruses. I would recommend sticking to the experts here if you’re not sure of the difference.
Whether viruses are alive or dead is actually an open discussion in the scientific community.
It's weird that people are acting like this is a settled thing. "Alive" and "dead" are arbitrary categories that we made up to cut the infinitely complex and bewildering universe into understandable chunks. The universe is not obligated to actually divide itself in that way and there would inevitably be weird edge cases that don't fit neatly into one category or the other.
Yeah I don't get it. The status of whether a virus is "alive" has been openly debated in the scientific community for decades. Viruses literally exist in a grey area between the definitions of alive or not. Anyone that is talking about it being a settled discussion is either bullheaded or scientifically illiterate.
I'm surprised how people are responding to this. Biology's classifications are increasingly seen as arbitrary and full of exceptions.
Yeah, it's wild. I literally just stated a fact and apparently people disagree? You can literally search on google if a virus is alive or not and will find articles arguing both points.
"But in high school science they said otherwise!"
>Well I dunno who the fuck you’re asking, but virologists are the one who say they’re dead and since they’re the experts here I’m gonna listen to them. Do a two minute Google search and you will see that while the majority do see viruses as not alive there are still a fair number of experts who disagree >I can’t imagine why I explained why I thought so and was asking why it was this way. Don't be a fucking snark about it >Because those are called parasites, which are distinctly different from viruses. I would recommend sticking to the experts here if you’re not sure of the difference. Yet you can't explain that difference to me. That's what I was asking for. I said I didn't understand it. Maybe I put people off by calling it silly (my mistake, there is probably a logical solution). I have just yet to see any reason as to why this is included as a disqualifier. Maybe it's just a super complex reason that isn't delved into unless your actually becoming a virologist but everyone it's been brought up to me it's always presenting these rules for life while never saying why they are there, and without context it comes off as arbitrary.
>Do a two minute Google search and you will see that while the majority do see viruses as not alive there are still a fair number of experts who disagree There's a "fair number" of "scientists" (using the term loosely) disagreeing with climate change and claiming the world is flat. Do we go off outliers or the general consensus?
Not just that, but viruses don't really take in energy or give off waste or respond to stimuli.
This is why we need to get religion out of politics.
Or just get rid of religion all together. I know that will never happen and I personally wouldn't take away someone's right to choose what they do with their life but a man can dream.
Life, bacteria, personhood - yep, all the same to me
So are right-wingers vegan now?
You have been convicted of murdering a bacteria. All life must be protected. Death penalty it is
I knew that hand sanitizer I bought from the checkout line at Wal-Mart would come back to haunt me.
I think my favourite definition of "life" is something that actively tries to preserve itself and/or its species A fetus doesn't do that. It floats there and doesn't move. It doesn't avoid danger, it doesn't get food for itself (if relies on the mother) it literally does nothing.
My mother used to say they're basically parasytes... and yup.
Not just basically, by most biological considerations they literally are: [https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-archive/press-releases/pr9938.html](https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-archive/press-releases/pr9938.html) Women can become malnourished because the parasite is taking the nutrients out of their bloodstream in extreme cases. Pregnancy and birth can be wonderful processes, but biologically it's a very uneasy truce.
The key difference between fetuses and parasites is that by definition, parasite is of different species than the host. Other than that, fetuses are definitely parasites.
Thats kinda unreliable. What about a person who is disabled and cannot recognize threat to themselves and hence dont react to it? They are still people. (Im not saying fetuses are people, but them being helpless doesnt mean much).
Their body still preserves itself, even if their brain cannot realise the threat, things like their immune system are still at work.
The argument is personhood or human life.
Wouldn't that exclude suicidal people? I feel like we should just grant that a fetus is a life but we should also distinguish life from moral worth/personhood. Bacteria and plants are a life, yet I have no moral qualms about killing them.
No one is calling bacteria a “person”.
I’m so sick of this argument. Yes! Embryos and fetuses are alive. That shouldn’t really be the argument. Even a dead person can’t be forced to give organs to save another life- it’s called bodily autonomy, and the status of life regarding the other organism shouldn’t affect your rights regarding YOUR body. Not to mention, lots of things are very technically alive, but not alive in a functional sense. A fetus essentially acts as a parasite, unable to exist without feeding off of a host. Another reason I’m adopting.
Dipshits wilfully refuse to understand the distinction between life and personhood, more at 10.
neither is test tube fertilization... even conservatives agree about that
Lol when you're unable to distinguish between life and personhood. Just swap out bacteria with chicken and turn it around, and they'll change their opinion very fast.
Again, the right conflating the exact definition of 'life' in either context to make some kind of 'gotcha'. It's the dumbest shit ever, but what do you expect from a political group that only exists to legitimise stupidity.
Why everyone trying to defend this strawman in these comments what's going on
It is not about life, it is about body autonomy. How hard could it be to understand this?
The difference is one can function independently and, as far as I'm aware, has life cycles and has the potential to lead to larger lifeforms (however unlikely), the other cannot function to the same degree without its mother's nutrients, or until it's grown. Also those bacteria essentially function at the same equivalent as fully grown humans, they travel, reproduce, fulfill their biological functions etc. That foetus hasn't reached that stage yet, and therefore cannot function to that degree. Yes the foetus is of course an organism. But we get excited over bacteria because of what it could mean. Regardless this whole "What counts as life?" Arguement is redundant anyway. No one should have to risk their life trying to grow something that has a risk of seriously harming them, or even killing them. Nearly 1,000 people die from childbirth each year in the US alone, not even in countries where the mortality rate is much higher. that may not seem like much on the scale of the US's population, but 1,000 people dying from that process is A LOT when you think about it. In 2011 the village I lived in had a population just under 1,000, (958). Now imagine if over the course of One Year that entire village died. It'd be all over the news. In 2017 the global maternal mortality number was a total of 295,000 deaths. According to UNICEF, this isn't including the fact that for every one of these deaths, 20 birthers suffer from either a serious infection, illness or disability due to the pregnancy/birth. That's 5.9million lives heavily affected by pregnancy/birth. But sure, going through that risk should totally be something someone is forced to do. /s Disclaimer; I'm not trying to put anyone off birth if that's something you want. 140,000,000 babies are born every year, with a birth rate of 2.4 babies per birther. So out of those 140,000,000 successful births, there's a total 295,000 deaths caused. That's a relatively small percentage. And that number has been decreasing by roughly 2.9% each year, in the year 2000 the total maternal deaths was 451,000. The death rate has decreased by 34.6% in just 17 years, it's going down and getting safer to have children each year. I just want to make it clear, that no one should be forced to do ANYTHING where their health, safety and life may be put at risk. No matter how low the chance.
Exact same confusion occurs when arguing against vegans. Life ≠ Consciousness. Plants and bacteria are “life” but are not conscious. The conscious experience of sentence bangs is what we care about. In fact, on a fundamental level, it’s the only thing anyone ever cares about. All that we value ultimately comes down to changes in the experiences of sentient beings.
They had science in their schools. They still didn't listen. What makes you think they'll teach their spawn to listen?
You can lead an idiot to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
These are the same people who will call you a snowflake for being vegan or vegetarian
I bet they think they were really smart to come up with this too
If you justify hunting for animal with gun you have no right to oppse abortion
Everyone is ignoring the fact that we’ve never found bacteria on mars anyway
Imagine: words with different meanings depending on context 🤯
nuance in a complicated thing in that you have to remember at least two things at once. We can't always expect that of the paste eaters of the world.
I'm glad people are finally seeing that Republicans have been fucking over the education system for the past 40 years. Now stop voting for them they're evil
I hope the person who made this is not only a vegan. But collapses in tears out of remorse every time they eat, wash their hands, step outside, etc
A fetus is alive, no one is contesting that, the question is: is it a person? The answer to which is scientifically, ethically, legally, and spiritually an unequivocal no.
Nobody said it's not life, it's just that in the weeks that abortions actually happen they're not even close to being anything other than several cells
This shit is why we can’t let conservatives dictate our educational policies. They let an entire generation turn into this, non inquisitive mooks that believes anything their “supreme leaders” tell them without question
What *is* life? Or rather, *what does it mean, to **truly** be alive*?
Exists=Alive? I knew my pet rock was alive! /j
They don't even know the argument. A fetus ***IS*** life, but it is ***NOT*** a person. At least not until a certain point. A fetus is a growth on the mother until it is developed enough to sustain its own life. Sorry if that sounds cold but that's just how pregnancy works. We have a very good scientifically accurate definition for when person-hood starts and that is the age of viability at around 24 weeks. We've explained this to them over and over again yet they continue to get it wrong. It's not ignorance at this point, it's willful ignorance.
Where’s the point you mention?
"Yesterday you said the oven wasn't hot enough to bake with because it was at 200 F, but today you're saying it's too hot to do anything when it's only 110 F?? Hypocrite!!"
I mean was the argument ever even if it was alive? I thought it was more if it was a person or not. Like, right wingers have no problems cutting down trees or stepping on bugs, and those are alive. Weird for them to then claim a fetus is valuable simply because of it’s status as technically alive.
The way I see it, at one end of the "alive" argument spectrum, a fetus is alive but is not a separate life from the mother. As such, it is just an extension of the mother's life, and can be removed like you would hair that's too long. At the other end, it's similar to a virus and parasite, and as such, can also simply be removed. It is not a separate life that can exist on its own, so it does not have the rights like an animal or person has.
Because they just make shit up.
Woawza! So a fetus can reproduce on its own? Cool!
[удалено]
That is a strawman argument. [This](https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm) is a fairly strong argument which allows the ridiculous idea that embryos are people, and even allows the idea that abortion is homicide, yet still establishes a moral grounds for abortion. It's kinda long, but if you can't handle a four page essay, you don't deserve an opinion anyway.
Literally nobody is saying that a 9 month old fetus isn't alive lmao. But nobody is getting abortions at 9 months either. It honestly sounds like you've been tricked by pro-lifers into believing nonsense, so you should probably take some time to familiarise yourself with the reality of what abortion actually is and the reasons people choose to terminate pregnancies before attempting to further participate in this coversation.
I’m not sure on the pro choice side who is arguing that it’s not a life. Why are they still trying to argue that point?
At this point I think they just strawman the left any way they can.
The amount of effort into making the meme was far more than thought related to the topic
There is, just not taught well
By this logic they should all stop eating anything other than rocks… because you know… it’s life
Yeah bro obviously a fetus is a living organism, nobody was disputing that. The questions at play are 1) is that organism a person, and 2) does that organism (whether or not it's a person) have an inherent right to use its mother's body to sustain itself? Nobody would respond to Martian bacteria with "We found people on Mars!" and any special consideration given to that life would be a result of its scientific value and the potential wider effects on an undiscovered ecosystem that would come from interfering with it, not because we think bacteria have an inherent right to life.
... Fetuses don't develop a functional nervous system within the time frame set for abortions... that is the point, even a jellyfish is more sentient that a fetus within its 3 months, before that, is just a bunch of cells pretending to be human. For those that know(I am admittedly ignorant in the subject), does the bible actually states anywhere that life starts at conception, or is just another super shitty interpretation of a really vague passage somewhere random in the bible?.
Yes the only difference is no one gets mad if you killed bacteria
Okay then let's ban hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap and cleaners and showering, and since plants are alive too let's ban lawn mowers and and everything that requires deforestation like paper, furniture, houses, farms, and more and if you've ever bought a plant and forgot to take care of it you now can be sentenced to years in prison.
Guys, my immune system has been killing for years. What do I do?
GLUUUUUEEEEEE
Man I wipe bacteria the fuck out on my counter tops every day. I'm okay with treating the two exactly the same.
i think that a fetus is undoubtedly “life” and yet i still do not think it is immoral to kill it
How does science determine whether a baby inside the mother, is or isn’t a life yet?
This
That's why all of these miscreants jealously guard their mastisocks. Every sperm is sacred!
We can see they failed English
Life vs consciousness
This argument is nothing to do with science, it's about whether something's a 'person', which is a philosophical question. Scientifically of course it is life.
Fucking bacterias DIE DIE DIE!!!!
If i see anyone post this meme and wash their hands ima have a field day
and this is why I always think it's hilarious when the right says that the left doesn't understand nuance.
You just have to view the Right as Cartman in South Park when he was on Maury. 
Yo hit me up when we find human life on mars.
Still detecting no lies. Ya'll are bad at this.