At the Abortioneers blog, Mr. Banana Grabber (MBG) embeds a video of a young woman named Ana Benderas, who is the assistant director of Live Action San Jose, discussing abortion in front of what appears to be a Genocide Awareness Project display. MBG writes,
Early on, she says, "It's obvious that biology says that a human being becomes a human as a zygote." According to the dictionary, a zygote is "the cell produced by the union of two gametes, before it undergoes cleavage."
So a cell. A zygote is a cell.
And how does that biologically prove a zygote isn't a human being? MBG never tells us. MBG also misses
other online dictionary definitions which indicate that a zygote is an organism and a developing individual.
MBG goes on to make a bunch of typically poor arguments for why the unborn aren't human and aren't living.
The most interesting part of the post is
a comment left by fellow abortioneer placenta sandwich (PS) who claim prolifers "play on words" like human and living. She says that no one denies that the unborn have human DNA and claims prolifers are at fault for pointing out that the unborn are human beings because she thinks most people conflate "human" with "person." Prolifers are also supposedly at fault for pointing out that the unborn are living because the scientific definition of whether something is living has "nothing to do with the *moral* definition of life."
She left these comments in a post where her fellow Abortioneer author MBG writes,
"Um, doesn't biology "obviously" tell us something about zygotes? That zygotes are cells? How do you need evidence to prove that a clump of cells is a clump of cells? If a zygote is a cell then it is a cell. I think she is trying to suggest what is the evidence that it is not a human being? I would suggest the evidence that (a zygote) is not a human being is because it is not living outside the womb"
and
"Probably because there isn't a way you can actually prove when humanness begins. I don't know if we can all agree to disagree, but we can definitely agree pinning down when exactly a human is a human would be extremely difficult."
and
"What I do know, is that I value the life of someone who already exists in the world, and is living -- I value that more than a clump of cells. I value that more than a fetus. I value that more than a baby who is still in the womb."
MBG is responding to Anna's claim that science shows the unborn are living human beings by claiming they are not human beings based on a lone dictionary definition (apparently MBG thinks a dictionary.com definition is the final word on biology) which doesn't even prove what she wants it to prove and by assuming the unborn aren't alive because they are inside the womb.
MBG isn't saying, "Ok, they are scientifically living human beings but they're not persons." Instead of trying to make an argument for why the unborn aren't "persons" and explaining why anyone should accept her arbitrary criteria for personhood, MBG is simply asserting that scientifically the unborn aren't living human beings.
Prolifers who point out that the unborn are alive and human are typically responding to the assertions of people like Mr. Banana Grabber, who argue the unborn aren't living human beings because either A.) Have no clue what they're talking about (as is likely the case with MBG) or B.) Use terms like "human being" when they should be saying "person."
How is this dishonest on the part of prolifers? Prolifers should certainly try to clarify what the pro-choice people are trying to assert but if someone like MBG makes a bunch of ignorant statements (which she thinks are based on biology) then how are prolifers "playing on words?"
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