Boiling Down the Meaning of Life 218
Shipud writes "A recent article in Journal of Biomolecular structure and Dynamics proposes to define life by semantic voting [Note: open-access article]: 'The definitions of life are more than often in conflict with one another. Undeniably, however, most of them do have a point, one or another or several, and common sense suggests that, probably, one could arrive to a consensus, if only the authors, some two centuries apart from one another, could be brought together. One thing, however, can be done – short of voting in absentia – asking which terms in the definitions are the most frequent and, thus, perhaps, reflecting the most important points shared by many.' The author arrives at a six-word definition, as explained here."
Re:Human Life (Score:4, Informative)
Heh. Have you even *read* the comment you replied to? How about in some cases, like where the birth would simply kill the mother. How does that constitute the child having no "fault"? Of course it's impossible to lay blame here, but that's hardly the point, since abortions aren't some sort of moral punishment. But let's say you'd detect something that means the child will kill the mother, then die, if brought to term. Sure, that may not be the common case. But to call it killing a human in any and all cases is just silly.
And you might even argue that as long as it's connect to the mother, it's part of her organism, to do with as she pleases. I don't agree with nilly-willy abortions, but you know what, neither does any woman I ever spoke to about the subject. I have not met a single woman who shrugged off having had an abortion. Those may exist, but personal anecdotal evidence suggests they take it more seriously than men (who would have thought). However, for other people to dictate them what to do with their womb, or to imply they are murderers without knowing anything about the specific circumstances, that's just not on. Fuck that.