roe vs wade

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-20 05:27pm

Sporkzen wrote:I think that you could raise a child in an artificial womb and the child come out fully functioning and not be deficient.... The image of it can be a little disturbing to people and i can understand where people might feel that some of our humanity could be lost.. its all emotional.. the fact is if it could work... it could work... plain and simple.. you could have recordings of the mothers voice played to the baby. You could have stimulating sounds played. You could simulate the sound of a womb fairly easy. The baby would be fine. Any argument about it is basically based on feelings alone. One thing that has not changed from the beginning of human existance is how we are born.. barring cesarian birth of course. So some people may think we would be losing some of our humanity.

I think an artificial womb would also be great if a mother wants a child but it would endanger her life or to save a fetus that is too young to survive in the outside.

If this just sounds like inane drivel just ignore it i'm at work...

Except while you say that so definitively, you have no idea if it is true. And I'm not telling you something based on emotions, you are making a strawman there. I'm telling you a fact that neurocognitive development starts prenatally, which is a fact, and that it is advanced by interaction with the mother and other people, also true.

Meanwhile, you say that it will work "plain and simple" entirely without evidence. Provide evidence of an artificial wombs practicality and that it is just as functional as the real thing, please.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-06-20 06:05pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:Except while you say that so definitively, you have no idea if it is true. And I'm not telling you something based on emotions, you are making a strawman there. I'm telling you a fact that neurocognitive development starts prenatally, which is a fact, and that it is advanced by interaction with the mother and other people, also true.

You've cited nothing to back up your case, and you still haven't answered my question. Do children whose mothers did not interact with them prenatally come out noticeably deficient in cognitive abilities? Or does prenatal interaction just give them an advantage?

Meanwhile, you say that it will work "plain and simple" entirely without evidence. Provide evidence of an artificial wombs practicality and that it is just as functional as the real thing, please.

Don't throw stones from a glass house. You've provided no evidence for any of your claims, and it's perfectly reasonable to think that we can simulate natural environments artificially with a usable degree of precision. We do it all the time. It's called a lab setting.

Sporkzen · Post by **Sporkzen** » 2003-06-20 07:42pm

I said *IF*

it could work, since when is saying *IF* something could work saying something definatly.

Basically all i was saying is that *IF* they did develop a WORKING artifical womb couldnt they just simulate the sounds of a real mother's womb? couldnt they have the mother talk to the baby? coudlnt they use stimulating sounds? Yes in my psychology 102 class we did discuss how neurocognitive ability does start early.. THAT is why i mentioned duplicating the sounds and so on...

I do know of one thing that could never be duplicated though.. and it is most important. The bond that is formed between the baby and mother long before the child is ever born. But that can be overcome still.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-06-20 08:10pm

Durandal wrote:
Gil Hamilton wrote:Except while you say that so definitively, you have no idea if it is true. And I'm not telling you something based on emotions, you are making a strawman there. I'm telling you a fact that neurocognitive development starts prenatally, which is a fact, and that it is advanced by interaction with the mother and other people, also true.
You've cited nothing to back up your case, and you still haven't answered my question. Do children whose mothers did not interact with them prenatally come out noticeably deficient in cognitive abilities? Or does prenatal interaction just give them an advantage?

I would also be curious about the test methodology. A lot of psychology and sociology experiments have shockingly poor controls, bordering on outright fraud. For example, the famous study which is cited as proof of subliminal messaging was a farce (theatre test group with imperceptibly flashed images of soft drinks onscreen bought more drinks at the intermission than the control group ... but the control test was done in winter and the subliminal messaging test was done in the heat of summer).

So I would be interested in seeing what sort of controls existed on the study being cited. It is no secret that mothers who are "keeners" (ie- do all of the things they read about in parenting magazines) and who try things like exposing their prenatal children to music etc. are far more attentive and enthusiastic about parenting, and that fact alone skews any comparison, particularly if it is based on forensic statistics (as most sociology studies are) rather than controlled experimentation.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-20 08:15pm

Mike, you're a father of two. When your wife was pregnant, weren't you told that talking to your wifes stomache, et cetera, was a good idea for the baby?

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-06-20 08:20pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:Mike, you're a father of two. When your wife was pregnant, weren't you told that talking to your wifes stomache, et cetera, was a good idea for the baby?

Yes, I was told that. However, I was not presented with any supporting evidence. We did it because it was fun to talk to the baby and it couldn't hurt, not because we were convinced of the validity of the science.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-20 08:40pm

AdmiralKanos wrote:Yes, I was told that. However, I was not presented with any supporting evidence. We did it because it was fun to talk to the baby and it couldn't hurt, not because we were convinced of the validity of the science.

Good, and who told you to do it? A maternity counselor or doctor, or laypeople?

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-06-20 08:53pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:
AdmiralKanos wrote:Yes, I was told that. However, I was not presented with any supporting evidence. We did it because it was fun to talk to the baby and it couldn't hurt, not because we were convinced of the validity of the science.
Good, and who told you to do it? A maternity counselor or doctor, or laypeople?

A pediatrician, who admitted up front that he was not familiar with the studies used to "prove" this claim.

Please look up "appeal to authority"; you appear to be on the verge of committing that particular offense.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-23 06:33pm

Actually, I was about to commit an Appeal to Majority, with a spinkle of Appealing to Authority. My point is that you would be hard pressed to find any pediatrician, maternity counselor, doctor, et cetera in North America that doesn't strongly encourage prenatal interaction. While hard evidence is impossible to get (how would you go about demonstrating such a thing? In order to do it you'd have to find parents who were willing to neglect their baby), there is plenty of soft bits of evidence, like those those studies you think are aren't controlled enough. It's not strictly logical, of course, but that doesn't make it false. It would be odd to call it farce if you yourself did it?

Besides, you mentioned how parents who are enthusiastic about it skews the results of said studies. All me a slight tangent on that. If enthusiastic parenting leads to more developed children, for which hard evidence does exist, is it not a bit counter-productive to put a baby into the hands of a person who wants a baby, but isn't willing to but the time and energy into it because of some career?