And Putin: What is this then? http://www.vfgh.de/

@semck, agreed. Nobody here is going to be swayed by any arguments made by the opposing side. And, on this subject, i dont think there is a middle road.
What you're saying, and please correct me if i'm wrong, a fetus is, in your opinion, a living, breathing human being and as such is entitled to the full protection of the law? Even over the objection of the mother?
Do you not see the ridiculousness of this argument?

Also, this is a question I genuinely don't know the answer to, and so I may be digging my own grave in this argument here, but are all preterm babies placed in incubators and given intensive care to ensure that they survive, regardless of circumstances and the wishes of the parents. I mean, generally in the circumstance that a patient would not survive without being in the ICU, the next of kin does have the option of pulling the plug. Is that not an option in the case of say 22 week old preterm births?

@Marti, I of course do not think a fetus is a _breathing_ human being. Nice try. ; ) But yes, I think that it is a human being, and entitled to the protection of the law, and that the mother's opinion is not relevant there.
And I realize you think that position is ridiculous, but I kind of think your position is ridiculous. And that is the problem. If we tried to argue about it, we would inevitably quickly get back to the level of _fundamental_ philosophical differences. I don't see any way around that, and I don't see why either of us should have the option of telling the other one to ignore his beliefs in coming to his opinion.

@ Mafia by your own admission one case is described as a premature baby while the other is termed an aborted foetus. In fact that was the very point of the data I presented to inform the discussion. Mea culpa, maybe I should have also presented images of ''premature babies'' in incubators next to those of the ''aborted foetus'', I shall have to remember that for next time.

Please do explain because I really do not understand.

Err, by 22 week old preterm births I mean babies that were born 22 weeks into the pregnancy rather than babies which were born prematurely and have subsequently been alive for 22 weeks, obviously.

Umm anyway, rather than reposting my argument, which I didn't phrase very well, I will take this opportunity to rephrase it. My point was that to argue that preterm births and late abortions are the same thing, must necessarily erase the possibility of choice on the part of the woman in question, which is illustrative of your approach to the issue which completely overrides a woman's right to choose.

@semck. Fair enough. I see no reason to get into a fight with you about it. Unlike some, you've put your case forward reasonably and intelligently and i cant find fault with it. Let's just agree to disagree and look at each other uncomprehendingly.
'i think he's smart, i quite like him, but i do not understand him one bit'
:)

@ Marti, my middle road is to lower the time limit, abortions at 24 weeks and rising are obscene in my view. I would set this limit at the medical consensus of when the foetus first starts to feel pain.

Back to my point. I don't think unborn fetuses are sentient; ergo does it count as murder? Can someone scientifically prove me wrong that they are? (Serious question)

(Don't confuse prior statement with me saying that they never become sentient. I know at some point they do)

Oh I see! You were saying "look these aborted fetuses do not look different from premature babies". In that case I do see what you're getting at. But as I've said, I think to not draw that distinction is to erase choice from the issue, which I don't think is something you can do. I think doing that is missing the point entirely.

Also does anyone know whether doctors must always save preterm babies in every case? I think that is a very salient point for the discussion at hand.

@ Mafia, I appreciate your ''choice'' argument and I am curious to know where you would set the limits (if any) and why?

@fulhamish. i like it, perhaps not that exact time limit, but a time limit. That should shut up everyone but the fanatic nutjobs, and who listens to them anyway. I mean which person with half a brain and a working knowledge on how to use it, listens to fanatic nutjobs? :)

"look these aborted fetuses do not look different from premature babies".

Yes in the light of some comments made in this discussion, I do think that this is a very salient point to make. Except that I would slightly rephrase it

"look these aborted fetuses are no different from premature babies".

@ fulhamish - I don't actually know when and where I would set limits if I would. I lack information with which to do so, and as a man, someone who will never be pregnant, (and a man who is exceptionally unlikely to ever even impregnate anyone at that), I would not presume to impose such rules on the people who would actually feel the effects of such a thing. I just don't have the right perspective on the matter. Obviously you don't feel the same way, but I think it's an approach you should consider.

@fulhamish, again though, it's the mother's choice that is the difference, as mafia did say.

Can I modify it a little more?
"look these aborted fetuses are, physically no different from premature babies".

as semck said, it all comes down to core beliefs, which are obviously poles apart. It comes down to the definition of what is human. If you believe a fetus is and has rights, you will oppose abortion, if not, you will be all for choice.

sorry lads, i'd love to stay and argue all night, but it is friday evening here and i've to get ready to go out. I want to go drink me some beer, dance and practice impregnating my better half :)

TMI dude. Have fun.

I must agree with Marti here, it's 1100 and almost time for lunch. Going to take my better half out for Sushi. It's her favourite. Maybe that will put her back in the mood (2 weeks without sex due to the 'Je ne veux.../Je n'ai pas envie qu'il...' excuses... Sad day :-(...)

@Marti, seems like a reasonable place to leave it for now. : ) Thanks.

Cheers lads.
til next game then :)

Mafia. I like your modification. Taking you up on what you say about HDUs could we have also: ''look at these babies some are wanted, others are not?''
I have enjoyed the discussion and do think that latterly most people have been trying to see the other's point of view and, to that extent, it has been refreshing. There is always the Putin exception, but then again there always is. Thank you in particular Mafia.

"Many people, for example (especially young people) have given up their racial prejudices after interacting extensively with people from another race."

pity we can't get the people who insist on holding prejudice against foetuses to spend a lot of time with them...

But wait, it's not a person...

'I think that it is a human being, and entitled to the protection of the law, and that the mother's opinion is not relevant there.'

And i entirely disagree. Not only is the mother's opinion important, it is vital to the survival of herself and anything which depends on her body.

If the government chooses to ignore the mother's rights because she happens to be carrying a child, then why not go so far as to have the government artificially inseminate women for use as breeding incubators?

Lastly, what is so special about human life? I mean, honestly. Tell me.

'I would set this limit at the medical consensus of when the foetus first starts to feel pain.' - i would IF and ONLY if there was no way to painlessly kill the foetus. I'm rather convinced that causing suffering should be avoided. Feeling pain does not equate to consciousness.

@ 'Back to my point. I don't think unborn fetuses are sentient; ergo does it count as murder? Can someone scientifically prove me wrong that they are'

no, you can't scientifically prove something which you define as human is not human. It was a human from the moment you defined it as a human, there was no need to invoke science to find a proof.

To be clear, human is not a state of being, it is a process, what it means to be human changes with age. Humans under a certain age are deprived of their rights because they are not considered fully developed (the right to poison themselves with alcohol, or to vote, for example) The process breaks down and the commonly medical definition of 'dead' is one where a living breathing human has no brain activity - we define this as 'dead' because we don't know of anything which can restart brain activity AND we can harvest the organs of such a body for use in saving other lives. This is entirely a medical definition, a practical question, not some pure scientific truth which has been discovered by examining all the available data.

"If you believe a fetus is[human] and has rights, you will oppose abortion, if not, you will be all for choice. "

A Foetus is a part of the process of being human, that does not make it a person. There is a difference.

If your belief is that God knows before hand how many souls to put in a single zygote which then splits to produce two identical twins (or more in the case of other multiple births), or only 1 soul when a chimera is going to occur, or 0 souls when it is not going to attach to the womb lining and become viable, you could easily argue that God knows when a pregnancy is going to be aborted.

But nobody is mentioning souls because it is such a difficult concept to address with the reality of our current scientific knowledge. I am still waiting to hear how many souls a conjoined twin has...

a foetus is part of the process of being human, so are eggs, so are sperm cells, a foetus is not however a separate distinct entity from the mother. It is not a being, while it is human.

It has different DNA, but DNA does not define a 'person' otherwise we could claim that identical twins (with identical DNA) are both one person and you can afford to kill one of the twins because while the other still lives the DNA still continues...

DNA does not define a 'person' because we can have chimeras where the person have sibling DNA in some of their cells and go on to live completely normal lives (with two separate sets of DNA)

It is dependant on the mother's body, it is a parasite, it feed on the mother's resources and causes risks to it's hosts health. If the government attempted to inflict this parasite on women or men it would be seen as a huge violation of their rights.

We can create these parasites (things which will attach to the human body and attempt to take nutrients...) using our now rather advanced medical technology. It would not surprise me if, in the next 10 years, we see them created from adult skin cells which are then used to create clones. Nobody has bother to tell me whether adult skin cells (which have the potential to become people) have souls.

Why? What is the major difference?

I stand by my position that the mother has a right to decisions regarding her own body. This is not a pro-abortion stance, this is a pro-choice stance. If women in general believe in souls then no abortions will occur, it happens that archaic beliefs like this are not the only view on life.

"I am still waiting to hear how many souls a conjoined twin has..."

Well, of course there is no scripture addressing conjoined twins, but I would think that, vague as the concept of soul may be, it would be somewhat clear it has two. This is not really a borderline case. Whatever criterion you use for soul, you get two here: two brains, two conscious entitites, two moral decision makers, etc., etc. The tricky cases would be where some but not all of these were mixed (such as split-brain patients).

"Lastly, what is so special about human life? I mean, honestly. Tell me."

Well, I pause for a moment to feel sad that you would ask this, but having paused, I'll proceed and point out that this goes back to my points to Marti. I obviously have an easy answer: humans bear the image of God. You obviously reject my answer. And we're back to first principles again. Yay.

"[Y]ou could easily argue that God knows when a pregnancy is going to be aborted. "

Sure, but God does not seem to protect us against our own evils. Since He doesn't tell us He'll do this, it would be wrong to assume.

As for chimeras, I was only suggesting one possibility.

"Nobody has bother to tell me whether adult skin cells (which have the potential to become people) have souls."

I must say, these are pretty empty, "gotcha" arguments, so don't expect me to enter an extended back and forth discussion with you on this. One could list all kinds of differences. If you want a scientific one, then like a sperm or an (unfertilized) egg, then skin cells are not in a state where they _will_ develop into a human absent any intervention. One could multiply these distinctions, obviously.

As I say, though, these are not really productive lines of argument. If you read the thread and treated prior posts thoughtfully, you wouldn't have to ask these questions. You're just trying to make clever little rhetorical points, as if they weren't easily answered.

'As for chimeras, I was only suggesting one possibility.'

fair point, i was just extrapolating from that. If as the op questioned aborted foetus go to hell (or at least exist outside heaven, in a state of abandonment) - and i'm sure this also depends on your theology - then it would be a rather cruel God which allows non-sentient foetuses to suffer for eternity because they are not able to ask God to be brought into his/her/it's glory (or whatever word you're translating that as)

'You're just trying to make clever little rhetorical points, as if they weren't easily answered.'

no, i'm trying to make my position clear. I do not believe in that suddenly at the point of fertilisation a human being has appeared (at what part of the fertilisation process? it may take several microseconds...) I think it is a process, which is to say there is no black and white.

I believe that is the conclusion which most of the previous posts came to.

'obviously have an easy answer: humans bear the image of God. You obviously reject my answer.'

Yes, that is primitive thinking which has facilitated the oppression of non-human animals for millennia. I reject it as both wrong and harmful.

Though at least this will answer my next proposed experiment, the chimp-human hybrid, which you would of then claim isn't 'fully' human and thus isn't in the image of god....

"no, i'm trying to make my position clear."

OK. Well, several of your points still seem like attempts at gotchas, but I shouldn't have judged your motivations. Sorry.