Why is human life special?

The lifer position rests on this syllogism:

It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
A human fetus is an innocent human being.
Therefore it is wrong to kill a human fetus.

Most people attack the second line, but I attack the first - and lifers find themselves without a defense. My question is simply then, why is it wrong to kill an innocent human being?

Can any lifer answer this question straight up? Can any answer it without posing another question or by using ad hominem and non-sequiturs amongst other logical fallacies?

 

why dont' you explain why you think killing innocent people is ok?

and have you killed anyone yourself? If not, why not? Since you are saying that it's ok.

You keep posting these threads OVER and OVER wanting someone to debate you but you never put your own beliefs out there, you just want to refute other people's views. You can't refute another person's moral code, it's not debatable. You can debate the law but you can't debate feelings.

 

That's ridiculous. injest already put that post in its place, but I'm going to follow up by concluding that that particular "question" of yours designed to supposedly trip up opponents in debate is so absurd that it doesn't even merit an answer from anyone, let alone just "lifers." Anyone who would actually answer your query of "why is it wrong to kill an innocent human being?" would be stooping to the intellectual level of your post, which is to say, they would be stooping very very low.

 

Its not ridiculous. Its a very valid question. In fact, its central to the abortion debate. Without knowing why exactly we value persons we cannot determine if fetuses possess said quality or not, and thus if they should be also protected or not.

I answer it:
I value persons because they have a mind.
Human life (biological) in itself is thus not valuable to me, its the mind which is valuable in us. Human life is only valuable by proxy, if some mind needs it to exist. If no mind needs some life to exist, then I see nothing wrong with killing it. Thats why killing fetuses before the appearance of mind, and also braindead (but biologically alive) humans is not wrong.

Thats also the answer to injests question about whether killing innocent humans is OK. If they dont have a mind, it is indeed OK.

 

It is a Foolish thread just as others have pointed out.

 

read the post again...what makes someone valuable is not the question...he asks why is it wrong to kill innocent people.

so answer that please, not the question you WANT to answer, answer the question he asked.

Do you think it is wrong to kill innocent people?

and if so, how many have you killed? if you haven't then why not?

 

You do realise that Nazi Germany had the same idea as you which led to it's killing of people with mental illness. Doubt you'll have many people following you on this.

 

The american philosopher: Peter Singer. Has many views on this subject. (so much so, still banned in a few nations)

 

It has been brought to my attention that a thread on this very subject exists already. Megadeth, you started the below thread with the exact same title, so please continue the discussion in that one.

http://www.politicalforum.com/abortion/210713-why-human-life-special.html