Pants-of-dog wrote:If you want to believe that, go ahead.
But since actual people are not potential people, you are wrong.
I'll believe it because its true, and potential people are not temporally the same, but are logically the same. If you destroy potential persons you destroy actual persons.
ingliz wrote:You understand my point well enough.
No, I didn't, because you speak in an oft-convoluted manner, as if English was not your first language, so I legitimately did not know what your point was. But since I want to debate this OP with someone who is going to give it serious analysis, and you seem like you want to provoke such, i'm game to put up with your rhetorical inadequacies.
ingliz wrote:Feigning ignorance is silly.
You would have to know what ignorance feels like to feign it.
ingliz wrote:Both the sperm and the egg can produce something which has the potential of becoming an adult human being, but neither the sperm nor the egg has that potential itself. It follows that as neither the sperm nor the egg is human, neither the sperm nor the egg can be a victim. Therefore, as the killing of the sperm or the egg harms no one, it cannot be murder.
Ah yes, an actual argument written in an intelligent manner. Here is my response.
Sperm, is not, at all times a potential person in my argument. Thus, there are times, when sperm is not a potential person and therefore "wasting it" is not the same as actual person destroying. This would mean, that regarding semen, my position is that sperm, in-and-of-itself, only ever, is
vitae potentialis, and not ever
vitae actualis. Ontologically speaking.
I clarified this in my OP:
Victoribus Spolia wrote:Now, before concluding this article, it must be made clear what is not meant by contraception and what is:
Pregnancy prevention is not: the elimination of circumstances by which procreation and conception could take place, but the use of semen for non-procreative purposes when procreation was not only possible but the circumstances also permitted it. {Added Clarification: The Existence of A Fertilizible Egg is Subsumed Under Such Circumstances}
Thus, homosexuality and bestiality are anti-procreative as they are a volitional deviation from natural sexuality, they are a wasting of semen that could be used for procreation (no circumstance would make this permissible, except the possible non-existence of all women in the universe).
Similarly, contraception is a wasting of semen within the bounds of marriage wherein a heterosexual couple could produce offspring but instead deviates from that practice. Contraception, homosexuality, and bestiality must, therefore, all be regarded as anti-procreative on these aforementioned grounds.
Now, within the context of heterosexual marriage, if a couple is unable (by the observable laws of nature) to produce offspring (I.e. during pregnancy, menstruation, or post-menopause) then non-procreative sex acts between them would not be ipso facto immoral because such acts would not be anti-procreative or an act of pregnancy prevention (no circumstance of actualization exists and therefore the semen may be used but is not "wasted").
Hence, getting your dick sucked when your wife is on the rag, is pregnant, is breastfeeding (for most women) or is post-menopausal, would not be an anti-procreative sex act under the above definitions, no matter whether she spits or swallows
Likewise, regarding the difference between egg and sperm in my argument and my focus on the male component.
1. The woman produces (typically) one egg per month; wherein, the actualization of life is dependent not on any action on her part (as the production of an egg is involuntary) but upon the active fertilization of that egg via copulation when conception was, generally speaking and all-things-being-equal, possible. Thus, a woman is complicit in potential person destroying (and therefore active-person destroying) only when she actively seeks to prevent pregnancy by, (in the context of marriage), refusing her husband when she is fertile, or prevents natural ovulation which would, otherwise, result in pregnancy.
2. Thus: Inasmuch as a woman is passive, her component of the egg does not even rise, nor logically would it need to rise, to the status of
vitae potentialis as sperm does, for it is not the limiting factor in the same manner. Her role and her component is passive in relation to the active role that sperm plays in fertilization. This is why the distinction exists.
ingliz wrote:p.s. Is abstinence, prima facie, morally wrong? It too is "potential person destroying".
It depends on the context. Is both conception and the production of a viable offspring both biologically and socially possible? If so, then abstinence is prima-facie actual person destroying if it involves the willful prevention of pregnancy via the wasting of semen that could otherwise be used to bring about such ends as are being discussed at present.
- By wat0n
- By FiveofSwords
- By Puffer Fish