Summations Only

In this thread, you're really asking more than one question. "Human life" is sort of a vague term, but I could agree that a unique human life is formed at the point where the sperm and egg combine and create a new genetic code.The real question you're getting to, however, is at what point we can be justified in terminating this "life." Morals are even more vague, but it would seem the major reason we dislike the ending of "human life" is that we are a social creature with a seeming universal idea of the golden rule - you don't want to be killed, therefore the killing of others like you is repulsive - combined with the evolutionary predisposition to care greatly for a baby, especially one with which you are related.So, if we can further delve into what it means to be "like us" there is definitely more at play than mere genetics. There is the similar shape and appearance aspect. This is why there are racists and others for whom killing other races or treating them as less than human is alright; they don't look enough like you to count as "like us." I think we can all agree that a blastocyst looks nothing like us. Though the looks criteria is one that is frowned upon, it definitely holds sway over parts of our subconsciousness.The real aspect that we consider when thinking about who is "like us," is consciousness. That's why some kids feel bad when something happens to a doll, and why humans have a tendency to feel bad about animals being hurt. Anthropomorphization allows us to see ourselves in other creatures, and agin, the golden rule comes into play.All that combined leads us to the division over abortion. For many people, we recognize that a human embryo has the potential to become a human, with consciousness, but that it doesn't currently have it, wheras the mother does. Others tend to anthropomorphize, envisioning a little human-looking baby, complete with feelings and thoughts, growing inside the mother's womb, and then feel empathy for the little "baby" that is being "killed."The law, however, shouldn't deal with potentiality. If it did, you'd never be able to go shopping, because everyone who enters a store is a "potential" thief. You'd never be able to drink alcohol, or drive, because either one of those actions makes you a "potential" drunk-driver.The only actual, conscious person is the mother, up until the time the fetus' brain develops. Up until then, abortion shouldn't be an issue.Beyond that, you have two human beings, two persons, but even then, abortion shouldn't be just balnket prohibited. At that point, you have competing rights; the rights of the mother and the rights of the baby. The rights of the baby do not automatically trump the rights of the mother, and just as we are allowed to kill in self-defense, in cases where the mother's life is threatened by carrying the baby to term, she is justified in choosing to abort. In other cases, the line gets grayer, but never is it so cut-and-dried as the pro-life cadre would make it out to be.

How about when brain waves approximating thoughts/dreams begin?

A person in a coma still, generally, has brain waves similar to a person asleep, or at the very least, some brain activity. When the brain activity stops, they are suually consaidered brain dead, and "pulling the plug" becomes either a matter of course, or at worst, a choice for the family to make. Indeed, even when there is still brain activity, but no hope for recovery, family or next of kin, generally choose to "pull the plug." This seems to argue that brain activity is a very common, and obvious choice for determining "personhood." See above. I believe we have sufficient precedent to use brain activity as a measure of personhood. But even if we didn't, if we classified every fertilized egg, through birth, as a person, we're still left with the murky moral discussion of contrary rights, namely the rights of the mother versus the rights of the baby.Many conservative Christians view the mother as giving up her rights at the moment she has sex. After all, sex is for procreation, and if the mother does so, she should be willing to "suffer the consequences" of that choice. In reality, that view is very outdated and morally wrong, IMHO.

It doesn't say anything about when life begins. It mentioned when the point of viability usually occurs, and says that that point is the point at which the rights of the fetus begin to match the rights of the mother.

I said nothing about "viable" brain activity. I merely said brain activity. If there's no brain, no activity. If there's no electro-chemical impulses moving through the brain, no activity.This is precisely the way we determine whether a person is alive or not in a hospital, why should it not be used universally?And your slippery slope fallacy is ludicrous. Even if we make a determination of a certain type of brain activity as an indicator of personhood, that has nothing to do with mental ability. All humans have delta waves. All humans have alpha waves. This makes no distinction between being a genius or being a dunce. If there is no brain activity, they can keep the body alive, but in most cases, the body is disconnected as a matter of course. In the cases where it is not, the next of kin have the option to disconnect it or let it continue to use resources when there is nothing left of the person.In fact, the majority fo cases where the body is left "plugged in" is where the deceased or the next of kin are allowing the body to be a donor and keeping the body functioning is necessary for the preservation of the organs. But in this case, there is brain activity, is there not? If there is no brain activity, the person is dead, and no matter how long they wait, the prognosis is the same.You're conflating an embryo and a human in a hospital. This is part of the anthropomorphization I mentioned in a higher post. The embryo feels nothing, knows nothing, cares not a whit what happens to it because it has no brain activity yet. But why can't we determine if it is a person? In all other instances at the other end of the spectrum, i.e. death, we use brain activity as a determiner of personhood. Why is that no longer a good measure in the womb?

The necessity of this thread may be disturbing, but I don't see anything particularly disturbing about the thread itself. It's just as easy to say that life continues when the woman gets pregnant, as the sperm and egg are each alive, too. Many people disagree with things that should be no-brainers. However, I don't think this is quite as easy to resolve. The word "life" is rolled up with a lot of baggae, including deciding whether the life in question is a human, a person, when it gets rights to life, when those rights might overcome the rights of the mother, etc. That's why this thread is needed, because people can have very legitimate disagreements on all of those points. How far along in her pregnancy can she decide this? Most people would agree that she can decide this within the first few days and take the morning after pill without being a horrible person.Most would agree that she can't make this decision at 8 months and 3 weeks, or she would be a horrible person (with a few medical caveats).The question comes down to where, in the middle, should the line be drawn.

Which is partially what this thread is about. Depends on how you define reproduce. You could say that reproduce is all a sperm and an egg do. They're alive in the sense that cells can be alive or dead. Which is why it is sort of disingenuous to ask, as the OP did, "when does life begin?" because that's not really what they were getting at. The real question was "when is it moral to abort?" And yet, a person who is unable to reproduce for whatever reason is still considered alive. This is rather simplistic, but I agree in essence. First, we need brain activity, not merely the presence of the organ. Secondly, killing a person is sometimes justified. Unfortunately, the laws are a hodgepodge across the country. I agree with some laws in some states, but not others.I agree that a law outlawing abortion after brain activity develops except where the mother's life is endangered by continuing to carry the pregnancy to term would be morally right and lawful. Restricting it more than that should not be the place of the politicians. The decisions should be left to a mother, her family, and her physician.

But that's exactly the same of humans. We can't reproduce without, at least, the germ cells of the opposite sex. The sperm requires the egg, and vice versa, just as a man requires a woman and vice versa (or at least their germ cells). This is where I would draw the line as well. (As long as the health of the mother is kept in mind as well.) Legally, but not necessarily morally. A legal system should be moral, but not all are, and in fact, I'd say most have some morally ambiguous laws. Not in every state. In many states, if the mother is a minor she is required to get the consent of her parents to terminate her pregnancy, in more states, she is required to at least notify her parents. Many other states require a "waiting period" or counselling. Counselling often involves a religious or emotional appeal not to abort the baby.Some states even have laws that, if Roe is overturned, would outlaw abortion, except in cases where the mother's life is endangered.Beyond that, even if a mother decides to get an abortion, and it is technically legal, it may not be technically feasible. In many states, almost all counties don't have a clinic or hospital that provides abortions.

An infertile male human being.What the definition of life does is comes up with generalities. Of course, we also get things like viruses that seem to be alive in some respects but not in others. Still, the ability to reproduce does not disqualify a single organism, though it may be used to define a species or describe whether a group of similar organisms are alive.

A skin cell came from a fertile, reproducing human being.

Usually, in those cases, there is still brain activity, but it is often below the threshold of measurment of the devices being used. In other cases, they use a different means of determining clinical death. In either respect, having no brain is clearly a scenario where there is no brain activity. Right? As devices get better, we can be more and more certain as to whether there is measurable brain activity. Regardless, when the odds against a person recovering become overwhelming, there is still moral and legal precedence in terminating the machines keeping the body alive. Just because some people buck the terrible odds stacked against them does not mean we need to continue to use resources and put a family through the grief and pain of false hope on the off chance that their loved one is going to be that one in a million or one in a billion that pulls through.I still say that brain activity is a good measure. Maybe we need to have more development in devices to measure brain activity, but if there's no brain, there's no activity. If there's no activity, measurable or not, there's no person. How can you know with pretty good certainty? In the first trimester, there is still a good chance of miscarriage or self-termination. But regardless, the fact there will potentially be a person in the future has no bearing on the fact that, at present, there is no person in the womb, but there very definitely is a person outside the womb. I used that to illustarte that brain activity is the current measure of whether a "person" is alive or not. Trying to pull the analogy further is a stretch as, in the hospital, you have a very obvious case of previous personhood. In the embryo's case, we have, by the same criterion, an obvious case of no previous personhood and only potential future personhood. You're missing the point. We're not talking about prognosis so much as when a person is considered to be alive. If there's no brian activity, the person is considered dead. In other words, no brain activity, no person. Prognosis generally only refers to people who are still alive, meaning there is still brainf activity, but often the brain activity is such that there si still reason to believe the person no longer exists.For an embryo, if there's no brain, there's no person. If there's no person, there's no moral obligation to keep it alive. That's all it boils down to.

I would say this is the quality that most people use, whether they're aware of it or not. The people who disagree with this in the case of a fetus are, IMHO, succumbing to anthropomorphization and/or sexism.

I think a lot of us feel it's not that difficult to pinpoint. You're just uncomfortable with the point many of us have chosen. But there is definitely a point at which it begins to develop. But we would have narrowed down the window. Right now, you're arguing that we can't be sure, so we need to go all the way to conception "to be safe." If we accept a brain as a necessary part of being a person, then we can close this window of "Just to be safe" to the couple of weeks where brain formation might begin. Well, if we stick with the "no brain, no person" paradigm, we'd be safe, on matter how early it ends up being that brain waves begin.Besides, we know for a fact that the embryo can't feel pain, have thoughts, have dreams, or be self-aware without a brain. Ignoring the "potential" person argument, it seems pretty clear that without a brain you don't have a person. If we know there are no children in the house (like no brain in the fetus) then we have no chance of killing our children.We should definitely keep looking to make better sure we know what we're "shooting" at, but the chance of shooting our kids before we have kids is pretty minimal, to say the least.

If the above is true, wouldn't he also know which children would be aborted, and thus not give them souls as well, making it possible to abort at any time without worrying about a soul?

So you keep asserting. Please tell me how you can have "personhood" without a brain? If you can't have a persona, how can you have personhood?