Right to Life Ethical Considerations

I am no pro-lifer mind you.What if a woman changes her mind in labor and wants to abort? What is the difference between a fetus halfway down the birth canal and a newborn baby except a couple of hours of elapsed time?Extend that a bit to the day before. What is the difference between an in utero fetus 1 day before it is born and a newborn in terms of its humanity?That being said, a blastocyst certainly is NOT a human. There is a very grey cutoff point but I in no way believe birth is some kind of miraculous transformation from non-human to human.I personally think the most ethical position to take since we cannot know when consciousness begins would be to pin it at the moment we can detect higher order brain activity which I believe is somewhere in the 2nd trimester.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

We have to work within the bounds of what we can know. We can know when higher order brain function begins. There may be a way to test for this.We can know that our cognitive recognition of self is tied to the physical brain. So even though I doubt a 16 week old fetus really is sentient, I can't know for sure. I can't remember if I was sentient at 16 weeks gestation.We can know that a fetus of greater than a certain age possess certain characteristics of a person and would have a significant ability to survive. A fetus of enough age can dream, explore its environment, express some basic emotion, etc. There is little difference between a fetus of this age and a baby. The primary developmental trait missing between a 30 week and 40 week fetus is the maturity of the lungs. If we define humanity based on the development of the lungs then I know many people who may not be considered fully alive. =)Since we do consider infanticide murder, I cannot see why the abortion of a 30 week or greater fetus would be any different. Personally of course. I also realize that there may be a number of special circumstances due to the fact that the fetus still exists inside its mother at that point and that they may be valid reasons for the unfortunate termation of a fetus to save the mother.The problem is exactly as you say though, once we outline the gray area how do we draw the line. I would, like I said above, draw it at whatever age we can detect higher order brain function. Some may push it farther for other developmental issues which I may agree with. You seem to push it to birth which I have some personal moral problems with.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Your DNA makes you human, but does it make you a person?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

So anything that has human DNA and is alive is a person? If that is your only criteria for being a person then is my fingertip a person. The hair that came out on my brush, are those people?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Since we are talking about personness and not mosquitoness your point pretty much does not further the discussion. We are trying to define when a developing human becomes a person.I am going to respond to the rest of your post but I must ask why you didn't address what I felt was my main point about basing the decision off of what is knowable about a fetus? Is that not a reasonable initial criteria for making a decision? You are side stepping my point. We are not talking about fishiness nor do we consider a fetus our prey. My point is simply that the only thing we can know about our sentience is that it is congruent to our ability for higher order brain function. In the future we may be able to associate sentience with something more specific or there may already be a way for us to do that now that I don't know about.I seem to remember hearing that we have a way to detect when high order brain function begins for a particular fetus. This seems to be a good canidate for a cutoff point. I would like to discuss THAT and not some distraction relating a fetus to a variety of other animals. We will always be able to compare the cognitive ability of a baby to that of some animal. That does not translate though into conclusion that because that animal is not a person that the child is also not a person. At least I do not see the objectivity in that line of reasoning. Well that depends on if we base our decision, like I said, on what is knowable. I seem to have this belief that consciousness does not begin with higher order brain function but I don't really have any other criteria for identifying that point OTHER than the identification of the start of higher order brain function. The problem with extending the line forward from that point is that we cannot find an objective critera. In reality it may be different for the individual. Maybe some children gain consciousness at 1 year while others do not until 5 years. What is the objective criteria? If you dont have any then you potentially are murdering a lot of real "people". No not necessarily. According to the law birth is the critera for personhood. Therefore technically aborting a fetus 5 mins before it is born is not murder while killing it 5 mins after it is born is. Also, it seems to be that most people think that killing babies is wrong. While this idea, and the law, may change, I was commenting on the current view regarding infanticide. Sure. I agree with you. What I am asking is what is that "reasonable criteria". Although since we are talking about life and death here it may be better to set the bar at higher than "reasonable". I prefer, as I have said before, an objective definition of the beginning of sentience before I would ever feel comfortable playing with the life of a potential person.Overall I think we are saying the same sort of thing. I just don't know of any criteria past the beginning of higher order brain function as an objective test for sentience. Do you?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

We seemed to have a good discussion going that stopped back at Message 40.Is that over?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Yes because I was trying to get you to acknowledge what I was really trying to discuss which was criteria for consciousness. I was not trying to anthropomorphize a fetus.Well, whatever. I thought we were having a good back and forth. I didn't realize that I put you off somehow.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Maybe you should. A number of contraceptives work not by preventing conception but rather preventing implantation. It is not just Catholics that have problems with contraceptives. There is a huge push from mainstream protestants to outlaw post-conception contraceptives. Hence all the politics over the morning after pill.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

It is good to have you back holmes, even if in "temp decloak".

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

CS and Tal are a waste of bytes on the internet. The cages that holmes rattles contain creatures with much sharper teeth and the battle is much more important. Dogmatism within liberalism is just as scary as it is in conservatism except that the former case "seems" less threatening.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)