Summations Only

My apology, here, but you seem to have mistaken what I was saying. I meant only to convey that this is the typical conservative Christian argument... not that it is my argument. Again my point is that the issue is solely on person hood. Nothing else.

As I demonstrated, pregnancy does pose an immediate threat to the mother's life.You state that a person has the right to live. Does that right include the right to demand potentially life threatening support from someone else? If your answer is yes, does that mean that if someone needs your blood, and you are the only available match, that they have the right to take it from you against your will? What about a skin graft? What about a kidney? What about part of your liver, or a lung?

My take on the issue of abortion.(1) Human life starts at the point of conception.(2) The fetus is a human parasite. If the woman decides to not allow it to keep using her organs, who are any of you to tell her otherwise?(3) If you think abortion is murder, then technically speaking you not helping the starving children in Africa mass murder.(4) We as civilized human beings have the right not to help each other. Sure, it's heartless, but you, me, and the next guy over has the right to not help the next person in distress.(5) I don't want a biological kid. My wife is starting to want one. Should I just get a vasectomy and bring the issue to an end? Good grief, why do women want biological kids so badly? Anyway, the point is I personally will never have an abortion (if I ever get pregnant... which is pretty damn unlikely due to my biological handicap as a man). But I would never tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body.(6) The catholic church can go to hell for all I care. They used to torture and burn people for their pleasure. And now all of the sudden they have the moral high ground? Give me a break!

Lol. Here's another interesting little tid bit of information from your Wiki source. Did you know that a common danger exists while having a bowel movement? Yes indeed! This is caused when a persons blood pressure drops due to the parasympathetic nervous system during bowel movements. This condition is actually linked to many toilet related deaths. My point of course is that pregnancy is as a natural of a bodily function as is having a bowel movement and goes back just as far. However in the grand scale of things, skin grafts, liver transplants and blood transfusions are relatively new on the scene. To compare a natural bodily function with these other procedures is just plain ignorance gone to seed.The fact of the matter is that statistics show that 100% of the human population (EVER) all had a mother. (Even Jesus) Pregnancy is the "natural" risk two take, when they get in any situation that allows the sperm to get close to the egg. The "natural" result is that a person will eventually emerge from this pregnancy. Our society places great value over "persons" (normally), and tries to the best of its ability to pass laws that protect persons.The question we are trying to determine here today, is just when does it become a person. As I have pointed out we can not determine the answer to this question, neither through science nor through Christian scripture. However in other cases where we are unsure, we usually pass laws that error on the side of safety. So what is it exactly about this issue that makes it any different?

This is an interesting concept, and may very well be true. However, the thread is not about helping starving children in Africa. If you would like to bring up a thread like that you might submit it. However the issue here is "When does human life begin?" Or as I have shown is more correctly phrased, "When does Person hood take place?" Yes, but doing nothing is decidedly different than doing something. If you don't want to help the children starving in Africa, this is decidedly different than going to Africa to kill the starving children. Society does not sanction the murder of persons. Our current abortion laws were passed because they deemed the unborn to not be persons. They didn't say, "Well we know they are persons, but a mother has the right to kill them anyway because they are in her body."

It seems as if you are excusing humans right to terminate a pregnancy with the fact that it occurs naturally. Try following this to its logical conclusion. We have likewise witnessed thousands of people die from airborne or contact transmitted viruses that occurred "naturally" so does this mean its okay for us to cultivate these viruses and use them to take lives for advantageous reasons? Obviously this is not a logical reason to excuse it or say that its morally okay. But then as I pointed out to another poster, the prognosis for the patient is almost 100% better than most coma patients, in that, within 9 months that "clump of skin" (as you put it) will have a fully functioning and healthy brain that is totally self aware. A prognosis that most coma patients with person hood status do not look forward to. This makes brain development a terrible criteria for establishing one's viability. Of course now we are discussing religious implications that would vary, based upon what religion you are asking. If you are asking Christianity, then the answer is... "I don't know." There is no way to know when the soul enters the body. In Christianity God never tells us. The real question here then becomes, "If we don't know then is it okay to play fast and lose with these embryos or should we error on the side of safety?"

The fact is that the chances of a new conceptus/zygote reaching successful term in 9 months is very far from 100% as has been detailed in several posts in this thread. Do you dispute the figures that have been quoted?It is slightly confusing to say it is a 100% better chance, do you mean they have twice the chance or are you saying that no coma patients ever recover self awareness? Because if the first then some basis for these figures would be good, if the second then clearly you are engaging in hyperbole and just making numbers up to suit your rhetorical needs.TTFN,WK

And most countries do have such laws about abortion, its allowed during the first 3 months of pregnancy give or take a few weeks . So both sides of the issue are addressed. The danger to the mother and her choice what is going on with her body, and the protection of the child to be. Changing the law to either extreme never or until birth forces eiher the mother to risk her life or bodily harm, or forces a child that could survive on its own to die, or be bodily harmed.At 3 months the "child" is a few centimetre large (i think 3) and his survival chance is bellow 50% it reaches 50% at week 24. Basicily your if you are against this you are saying a pile of goo the size of your thumb has more right to live then the mother has rights to her own body or her right lo live.edit: got the week wrong 24 fixe Edited by frako, : edit: got the week wrong 24 fixed it

Speaking for myself, the difference is that I would always place the life of my wife over the life of her unborn baby.

Natural risk is pretty much irrelevant.If you want to make the issue one of personhood.Personhood involves several things, one is being an individual.As long as the thing under discussion is simply a growth attached to the mother, it is not a person.There is no ere on the side of safety except when considering the mother.

And when exactly do you think it is that "life begins"......?How are you identifying the beginning of life on which your position depends?If I look at 2 egg-sperm combinations, one of which meets your criteria of a life and one of which doesn't, how can I tell which is which?

Well, it's not clear that we do err on the side of safety when it comes to metaphysical propositions. We don't forbid the eating of animals in case they have souls, or of bacon in case Allah disapproves, or of beans in case Pythagoras was right.We don't mandate human sacrifice to the Mayan gods in case the world will end in 2012 if we don't.We don't have laws against adultery or taking the Lord's name in vain just in case God will smite the unregenerate nation in which these things are lawful.In fact, I am at a loss to know what you do have in mind when you say that we "err on the side of safety".If it comes to that, we don't allow unlimited abortion on demand just in case God is fanatically pro-choice and will punish the unbelieving nation that interferes with a woman's Sacred Right To Choose, either.You are candid enough to say that we can't find our answer in Christian scripture --- but in fact it is only with reference, if not to Christian scripture, then at least to conventional Christian ideas that you get your notion of which side safety might lie on. You say we should "play safe", but you (perhaps unconsciously) assume that when we're playing it safe, the only metaphysical mandates that we might have to worry about as potentially existing and that therefore might demand our caution are those of the American Religious Right.

Well, there isn't. Its gradual. You're asking; at what point in the following picture does black become white:

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?