The All New Abortion Spin-Off Thread...

Húrin · 05-06-2009 02:17AM

Wicknight wrote: »

Of course they need to.

Life begins at conception?
Why?
Because that is when the soul enters the body.

I've had that discussion so many times I have lost count.

Sam Vines seems to be arguing that an individual life begins at conception, even though he certainly doesn't think that a soul enters the body.

I don't know when life starts. I don't need to know. I think, however, that caution demands that we do not risk killing individual humans

Why would he need to justify abortion? Less babies mean less babies to eat.

People have their reasons why they want to justify abortion. I can guess some but not all.

Your post shows the silliness of discussing this with you guys though. The foetus is alive. So is the bacteria in your belly.

Obviously it matters that the foetus is human the bacteria is not. We kill other creatures without qualms, but we don't kill our own species so flippantly. That's why murder and war cause so much controversy.

This again goes back to what Lego was saying about you guys really not understanding what you are actually arguing about

Because if everyone else had an understanding as perfect as yours we would all agree with you.

But you guys don't seem to do complex.

Why must you address me as "you guys"? I don't "do complex" in this because I'm not a biologist. You are not getting complex either, so what you really seem to mean is that "us guys" don't 'do' your opinions.

Zillah wrote: »

I thought Christianity was a product of the infallible word of God, no?

There are few things in this world with a single source. If Christianity is from God, then it is also mixed with the cultures it grew up in.

God is the only source of morality, if you don't believe in God you dehumanise humans!

I don't see how this is controversial. Without being "created in the image of God," humans don't have that special status over animals. In the naturalist world view we are animals. Thus we are dehumanised, because the process of "humanising" was itself artificial and false.

legologic · 05-06-2009 03:51AM

Sorry I'm replying to old posts here but I just read them and i'm slightly outraged

Húrin wrote: »

Legologic wrote:

One example of this can be seen in the way Christians and atheists approach abortion. My personal experience is that a person that does believe in God (Jesus) will immediately assume that an unborn child is alive. They will act on this and proceed with bombing an abortion clinic (apollogies for the extremism). Without any research into abortion they will blindly follow someone elses moral code. An atheist on the other hand would be compelled to research whether or not that the unborn child is alive.

I have seen no evidence that people who favour liberal abortion laws have done any more research, on average, than those who don't. I've seen even less evidence that your average person who is against legal abortion bomb abortion clinics. I think you're an anti-Christian bigot.

Have you discussed this issue with these people? Can you support this claim with anything whatsoever? How many abortion clinics have been bombed by atheists? How many churches? Why is it when you put hate crimes and atheist into google that the results are about hate crimes committed against atheists by religious people? You think I'm a Bigot? I think I have a right to believe whatever I want just as you do but I also have the right to defend what I believe in and that certainly DOES NOT make me a bigot. This accusation offends me to my core.

You're lucky I have a good enough moral standard to forgive you.

mewso · 05-06-2009 04:49AM

smidgy wrote: »

The previous n pages seems to have been a scientific discussion of when life begins. I think that we will all agree that nobody has convinced anyone else on the opposing side as to the starting point. However surely this leads us to the single ethical conclusion that if we dont know then we simply CANNOT choose any single point in time to destroy this 'entity'.

I understand that the pro-abortion people dont want to kill a life any more than the pro-life people then the only surefire way of achieving that is in not choosing - otherwise the pro-abortion people must accept that they could possibly be killing someone.

For starters I would consider myself pro-choice not pro-abortion. You won't see too many posters saying "More Abortions Now!" so I'm afraid using the term pro-abortion is just as wrong as associating all Atheists with being pro-choice.

Secondly do you plan on answering any question asked of you?
Are you in favour of capital punishment?
Do you think a lot of religious people are in favour of capital punishment, wars etc.?
How should we feel about the innocent lives lost in any of these instances?

I marched against the Iraq war. Thats an Atheist marching against starting a war that could result in the loss of innocent lives. It was not a religious march. I would imagine there were both believers and non-believers who were for and against the war. How is this possible if as you believe Atheists would have few morals in their own society?

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 09:42AM

Naz_st wrote: »

A tapeworm is a fully complete, external organism that has entered the body and is feeding off it, but the existence of the host is not a necessary requirement for its existence, it can be transferred to another animal, like a pig say, and it will still go on living and reproducing without issue. Growing new cells isn't "moving". What forms of life don't respond to stimuli btw?

Being fully complete and external are not requirements placed on a living being. If we had the medical knowledge we could create an artificial womb or stimulate a woman to grow a placenta and place the foetus in it and it would happily keep growing. And being able to be moved to another life form is not a requirement placed on a living being

Naz_st wrote: »

Anyway, we're going around in circles here. You seem to be defining a new life as any cell that has a different genetic component to its parents and could, potentially, under the right conditions, eventually become a new born baby.

No I'm not

Naz_st wrote: »

That's fine, I've no problem with that (but it does allow a very wide range of things to be deemed a new life (cf the cloning point from earlier)). I just disagree that your definition is any less arbitrary than say, for example, at the point at which the foetus is viable (is no longer wholly biologically dependent on the mother). Or the point at which it can react to stimulus, or the point at which it is larger than a pin head, or as individual gametes that could combine, etc. There's no point continuing to go over the same objections, but I would suggest that, given the inherent importance of this topic in the "abortion debate", and the different opinions on this topic in each camp, it is inaccurate to suggest your definition is an objective one and any others are "factually incorrect".

Well then you are denying a medical fact and you should look it up tbh

Wicknight wrote: »

You said separate. All cells are separate from all other cells, so I'm assuming you mean actually not clumped together, ie proximity.

You're misunderstanding my use of the word separate.

Wicknight wrote: »

Again conjoined twins are a good example of this. The zygote splits into two embryos but they do not split apart. Or the embryo cells rejoin (really throwing your definition out the window)

They do not fully split apart. There are two nuclei and in reality two cells that are joined at a certain point

Wicknight wrote: »

The embryo cells do not develop into two separate foetuses. The foetus develops as a single organism but with multiple organs.

That's is simply wrong. They are two organisms that are joined

Wicknight wrote: »

Where do you think the foetus comes from. The zygote is only the first cell. The next cells produce more cells and they produce more cells after that. They zygote is gone after a few days.

And lots of cells in your body are gone but the body itself is still alive, you are still a life form. Growing, developing new cells and removing old ones is a property that all life forms share

Wicknight wrote: »

If the zygote splits into two embryos both these embryo cells can develop into a child. Or they can fuse back together again where under your definition you have one life form, then two life forms, then one life form again. Which is all a bit silly.

No they can't. You don't understand what's happening in the womb and that's not my definition, that's your continual misunderstanding of my definition. Nothing you have said presents any problem to the definition I have given, only to the definition that you keep claiming I have

I'm not going to read the rest. As far as I can see your entire case is based on taking small irrelevant details from my posts and misunderstanding them them to make them seem wrong, eg

confusing separate being as in separate from the parents with embryonic cells developing into individual babies separate from each other which is impossible
changing the word nutrients to "material" to make it seem like eating is the same as changing your genetic structure
changing the debate from one of the medical fact of when a new life begins to when a person by your subjective definition of a person begins
Insistence on the use of the word proximity when it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about and proximity has no medical significance
the continual confusion of life in general with an individual life
the continual confusion of "being alive" with "being a living being"
the insistence that an egg grows which is not medically accurate

Basically, when I say that a new individual life (as opposed to the philosophical concept of life in general) comes into existence at the point of conception that is a fact. You can accept that fact if you want or continue to deny the sky is blue, it's up to you. You really should read up on this topic because you've shown a clear lack of understanding of what's actually going on in the womb

Zombrex · 05-06-2009 09:51AM

Húrin wrote: »

Obviously it matters that the foetus is human the bacteria is not. We kill other creatures without qualms, but we don't kill our own species so flippantly. That's why murder and war cause so much controversy.

Why does that obviously matter. What is special about humans? Can we happily kill our closest relatives in the animal kingdom without feeling bad about?

Zombrex · 05-06-2009 10:04AM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Basically, when I say that a new individual life (as opposed to the philosophical concept of life in general) comes into existence at the point of conception that is a fact. You can accept that fact if you want or continue to deny the sky is blue, it's up to you. You really should read up on this topic because you've shown a clear lack of understanding of what's actually going on in the womb

Saying over and over it is a fact is pointless Sam. It isn't a fact it is an arbitrary classification. Any definition you have given has had flaws or special cases in it. You simply say I'm misunderstanding your definition, but really the problem is you can't define this properly because it is not a fact it is something based simply on human presumptions about individualism.

You should also read up on conjoined twins and stem cells

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 10:13AM

Wicknight wrote: »

Saying over and over it is a fact is pointless Sam. It isn't a fact it is an arbitrary classification. Any definition you have given has had flaws or special cases in it. You simply say I'm misunderstanding your definition, but really the problem is you can't define this properly because it is not a fact it is something based simply on human presumptions about individualism.

You should also read up on conjoined twins and stem cells

Picking any point other than conception is what's arbitrary

Conjoined twins present no problem to my definition. My definition has not had flaws, you have simply misunderstood it. There are no special cases as long as you understand what a foetus, an egg, a sperm and an embryo actually are, which you clearly don't. There's no point continuing as long as you keep saying things like the egg grows into a baby and two embryos that are in close proximity to each other are the one life form

Zombrex · 05-06-2009 10:47AM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

There's no point continuing as long as you keep saying things like the egg grows into a baby and two embryos that are in close proximity to each other are the one life form

I guess there is no point continuing then. :rolleyes:

When you figure out a way to produce a foetus without an egg cell get back to me

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 11:03AM

Wicknight wrote: »

I guess there is no point continuing then. :rolleyes:

When you figure out a way to produce a foetus without an egg cell get back to me

*facepalm*

Big difference between an egg being involved in the process of creating a zygote and an egg growing into a baby mate. An egg contains 23 chromosomes and it is incapable of growing into anything. A zygote contains 46 chromosomes and is the only thing that is capable of growing into a baby

Zombrex · 05-06-2009 11:23AM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

*facepalm*

Big difference between an egg being involved in the process of creating a zygote and an egg growing into a baby mate. An egg contains 23 chromosomes and it is incapable of growing into anything. A zygote contains 46 chromosomes and is the only thing that is capable of growing into a baby

Grown.

The egg and the zygote are the same cell. What part of that do you not understand. It is how sexual reproduction happens.

The egg and the zygote are the same physical cell, the only thing that happens is that the genetic material is expanded from the sperm producing a more genetically diverse set of DNA which has evolutionary advantages. The egg cell has all the machinery that is needed to grow, it is simply waiting for the genetic material from the sperm. It will not reproduce until it has the material from the sperm, but once it has that it reproduces based on this new DNA pattern.

A zygote is simply an egg cell that has gained this genetic material. They are the same cell, it is simply a different state. That is how it grows.

Seriously I don't know how better to explain this.

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 11:26AM

Wicknight wrote: »

Grown.

The egg and the zygote are the same cell. What part of that do you not understand. It is how sexual reproduction happens.

The egg and the zygote are the same physical cell, the only thing that happens is that the genetic material is expanded from the sperm producing a more genetically diverse set of DNA which has evolutionary advantages. The egg cell has all the machinery that is needed to grow, it is simply waiting for the genetic material from the sperm. It will not reproduce until it has the material from the sperm, but once it has that it reproduces based on this new DNA pattern.

A zygote is simply an egg cell that has gained this genetic material. They are the same cell, it is simply a different state. That is how it grows.

Seriously I don't know how better to explain this.

Right so the egg cell has everything it needs except the thing it needs to stop it being an egg and turn it into a zygote. You might as well be saying that you have a glass of water if you're holding an empty glass because all you're missing is the water

Valmont · 05-06-2009 11:39AM

Could we all not just say that life begins when there is a functioning nervous system? I always looked at it that way.

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 11:42AM

Valmont wrote: »

Could we all not just say that life begins when there is a functioning nervous system? I always looked at it that way.

Why not when the baby toe develops or when it's got a belly button? The normal definitions for a living being are perfectly adequate until the topic of abortion is brought up when all these arbitrary restrictions are placed on it to try to exclude foetuses so it's ok to kill them

If you want to argue that it shouldn't have rights until it's got a nervous system that can be seen as subjective but you cannot argue that it's not a living being until it's got a nervous system because something that is not a living being cannot grow a nervous system in the first place. No?

The mantra of the pro-choice crowd should be something along the lines of "rights begin at the nervous system" because "life begins at the nervous system" is not medically accurate

Flamed Diving · 05-06-2009 11:43AM

Valmont wrote: »

Could we all not just say that life begins when there is a functioning nervous system? I always looked at it that way.

No, because there is a magic soul implanted in every egg the second a sperm gets in.

Bronze-age desert nomads know best.

Mark Hamill · 05-06-2009 12:05PM

Naz_st wrote: »

Either you misinterpreted my point or I'm misinterpreting yours, but this isn't anything to do with what I said.

My point was basically that an excised kidney has as much chance of staying alive and growing into an adult human as an excised blastocyst regardless of how well it is looked after. Not so a 28 week old foetus in a premature birth.

So what? The more helpless something is, the less important it is? A kidney, even if it had some artificial enviroment where it could survive, would never grow into an adult human as it does have the necessary biological and genetic material to do so. A blastocyst, in theory, could survive as long as it could be fed nutrients, and it would eventually grow into an adult human as it does contain the necessary biological and genetic material to do so.
I fail to see how something needing more help to become an adult human makes it less human.

JC 2K3 · 05-06-2009 12:06PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

The mantra of the pro-choice crowd should be something along the lines of "rights begin at the nervous system" because "life begins at the nervous system" is not medically accurate

That is utterly, linguistically pedantic.

The medical definition of "life" means absolutely nothing in this debate unless it's assumed that rights begin at life. As such, when the term "life" is used in this debate, it is very obvious that it is the point where we confer rights that is being discussed, not the medical definition of when life starts.

Mark Hamill · 05-06-2009 12:07PM

Zillah wrote: »

The last n pages have actually been completely irrelevant in my opinion. Even if you and I agree that a foetus is alive at point x, I still maintain we should kill it at point x if the woman does not want it in her womb.

And what if point x is a week after its born? Should the woman be allowed to have it killed because she doesn't want in her house?

robindch · 05-06-2009 12:12PM

Valmont wrote: »

Could we all not just say that life begins when there is a functioning nervous system? I always looked at it that way.

As you wish, but I take the time of implantation as the beginning of life, and therefore, the date from which the foetus acquires human rights. I suspect I'm one of not many atheists/secularists who sets it this early.

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 12:15PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

That is utterly, linguistically pedantic.

The medical definition of "life" means absolutely nothing in this debate unless it's assumed that rights begin at life. As such, when the term "life" is used in this debate, it is very obvious that it is the point where we confer rights that is being discussed, not the medical definition of when life starts.

For you it's when we confer rights but for many it's not. For a lot of people, their entire case is based on the idea that it's just a part of the woman's body or just a clump of cells the same as a toe nail. I don't think you'll find any dictionaries that define life as "when we confer rights" so again, pro-choice people should stop using the word life because that word is meaningless if you're talking about conferring rights on something that by all medical definitions is already a life. Life begins at conception and that is a fact, the only thing that might be variable is when you confer rights on that life

Mark Hamill · 05-06-2009 12:17PM

Wicknight wrote: »

Grown.

The egg and the zygote are the same cell. What part of that do you not understand. It is how sexual reproduction happens.

The egg and the zygote are the same physical cell, the only thing that happens is that the genetic material is expanded from the sperm producing a more genetically diverse set of DNA which has evolutionary advantages. The egg cell has all the machinery that is needed to grow, it is simply waiting for the genetic material from the sperm. It will not reproduce until it has the material from the sperm, but once it has that it reproduces based on this new DNA pattern.

A zygote is simply an egg cell that has gained this genetic material. They are the same cell, it is simply a different state. That is how it grows.

Seriously I don't know how better to explain this.

But isnt the genetic material an actual physical thing, actual chemical compounds, not just information? The way you are decribing the egg/zygote is like a car waiting to be told where to go. When it gets the information of where to go (the gentic material), essentially its still the same car and so any change is pretty much arbitrary. But if the gentic material is a physical thing, then its more like a car waiting to get an engine, and there's nothing arbitrary about saying that a car with an engine is distincly different from a car without an engine.

JC 2K3 · 05-06-2009 12:21PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

For you it's when we confer rights but for many it's not. For a lot of people, their entire case is based on the idea that it's just a part of the woman's body or just a clump of cells the same as a toe nail. I don't think you'll find any dictionaries that define life as "when we confer rights" so again, pro-choice people should stop using the word life because that word is meaningless if you're talking about conferring rights on something that by all medical definitions is already a life. Life begins at conception and that is a fact, the only thing that might be variable is when you confer rights on that life

Fair enough. From now on I shall use the word "rights" where I've previously been misusing "life". No big deal.

Being a clump of cells and a life are not mutually exclusive properties.

Mark Hamill · 05-06-2009 12:21PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

That is utterly, linguistically pedantic.

The medical definition of "life" means absolutely nothing in this debate unless it's assumed that rights begin at life. As such, when the term "life" is used in this debate, it is very obvious that it is the point where we confer rights that is being discussed, not the medical definition of when life starts.

Shouldnt the rights correspond to the life though? ie shouldnt the point at which rights are conferred be the point at which life begins? If not, then why?

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 12:25PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Fair enough. From now on I shall use the word "rights" where I've previously been misusing "life". No big deal.

Being a clump of cells and a life are not mutually exclusive properties.

Yay \o/

That's all I wanted from this. I can now die happy. But the real question is, am I even living in the first place if I arbitrarily decide that someone must have blue eyes to meet my definition of living

JC 2K3 · 05-06-2009 12:32PM

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Shouldnt the rights correspond to the life though? ie shouldnt the point at which rights are conferred be the point at which life begins? If not, then why?

Well why should they be conferred at the point of conception in the first place?

Pregnancy can and does happen without being planned. I think bringing a new person into the world should be a conscious, planned decision. It shouldn't be forced upon someone to go through with an accidental pregnancy. As such, it makes little sense to attribute such sacredness to and confer rights on a human life from conception. The point at which rights are conferred is arbitrary in the first place. To me, birth is a much better point than conception.

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 12:40PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Well why should they be conferred at the point of conception in the first place?

Pregnancy can and does happen without being planned. I think bringing a new person into the world should be a conscious, planned decision. It shouldn't be forced upon someone to go through with an accidental pregnancy. As such, it makes little sense to attribute such sacredness to and confer rights on a human life from conception. The point at which rights are conferred is arbitrary in the first place. To me, birth is a much better point than conception.

So the foetus shouldn't have rights because it having rights can negatively effect the mother.

Well I have to work quite hard to get money and it'd be much easier if we took the arbitrarily assigned rights of, say, red haired people or maybe people with the letter J in their name so they could be forced to do my work for me and give me the money. Sound fair?

Zombrex · 05-06-2009 01:00PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Right so the egg cell has everything it needs except the thing it needs to stop it being an egg and turn it into a zygote.

Yes, that is what sexual reproduction is.

Just like the zygote has everything it needs except for all the things it need but doesn't have

The egg waits for this stage, if it doesn't happen it dies. Just like the embryo waits for implantation

Fertilisation is simply an extra stage on the process of the egg turning into a child human. It is an extra stage added in sexual reproduction for evolutionary reasons to decrease the problem of errors in the genetic material

In asexual reproduction this stage doesn't take place. The cell that is produced by the parent simply grows into the child life form.

In both cases a cell is produced by the parent that grows into the new life form. There is simply an extra stage of DNA jumbling in sexual reproduction. That cell is living from the moment it is created. It may die if all the steps are not completed correct, but that is irrelevant to this point, any more than the embryo failing to implant is relevant. .

Life never stops. You "started off" as a cell in your mother.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

You might as well be saying that you have a glass of water if you're holding an empty glass because all you're missing is the water

I think of it more as two cars, one is asexual reproduction the other is sexual reproduction.

The first car drives straight from New York to LA

The second car drives a bit, stops at it's friends house to pick him up, and then drives to LA because having a second person is better for a long drive.

JC 2K3 · 05-06-2009 01:03PM

Sam Vimes wrote: »

So the foetus shouldn't have rights because it having rights can negatively effect the mother.

Well I have to work quite hard to get money and it'd be much easier if we took the arbitrarily assigned rights of, say, red haired people or maybe people with the letter J in their name so they could be forced to do my work for me and give me the money. Sound fair?

There's a difference between a lifelong, arbitrary, physical attribute, and a development stage of human life.

What you describe is discrimination. What I'm talking about is not because every human would go through a period at the start of their lives where they didn't have rights. It's just delaying the onset of rights, not denying them.

Sam Vimes · 05-06-2009 01:19PM

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes, that is what sexual reproduction is.

Just like the zygote has everything it needs except for all the things it need but doesn't have

The egg waits for this stage, if it doesn't happen it dies. Just like the embryo waits for implantation

Fertilisation is simply an extra stage on the process of the egg turning into a child human. It is an extra stage added in sexual reproduction for evolutionary reasons to decrease the problem of errors in the genetic material

In asexual reproduction this stage doesn't take place. The cell that is produced by the parent simply grows into the child life form.

In both cases a cell is produced by the parent that grows into the new life form. There is simply an extra stage of DNA jumbling in sexual reproduction. That cell is living from the moment it is created. It may die if all the steps are not completed correct, but that is irrelevant to this point, any more than the embryo failing to implant is relevant. .

In the case of asexual reproduction a cell from the parent grows into a new life form. That is not the case in sexual reproduction and to suggest otherwise is not medically accurate. An asexual life form can produce it's own version of zygotes which start to multiply and produce a clone, sexual life forms can't

Wicknight wrote: »

Life never stops. You "started off" as a cell in your mother.

I have made sure to make the distinction between life in general and an individual life every time I have mentioned the word life yet you persist in bringing this irrelevant point up. I know that everything is alive at all points, please stop saying that. Again, I'm talking about an individual life and not the philosophical concept of life in general

Wicknight wrote: »

I think of it more as two cars, one is asexual reproduction the other is sexual reproduction.

The first car drives straight from New York to LA

The second car drives a bit, stops at it's friends house to pick him up, and then drives to LA because having a second person is better for a long drive.

Then I'm afraid you're wrong. The first one is designed specifically to be able to drive from New York to LA all on it's own and the second one is sitting there waiting for someone to give it an engine before it can get going. you can drive from New York to LA without picking up your friend but an egg cannot grow into a baby without dramatically changing it's genetic structure with the aid of a foreign object. Its nature must fundamentally change before a baby can begin developing, it must stop being an egg and become a zygote

JC 2K3 wrote: »

There's a difference between a lifelong, arbitrary, physical attribute, and a development stage of human life.

What you describe is discrimination. What I'm talking about is not because every human would go through a period at the start of their lives where they didn't have rights. It's just delaying the onset of rights, not denying them.

So if the person dyes their hair or gets their eyes re-coloured we give them rights. What you describe is just as much discrimination

Zombrex · 05-06-2009 02:00PM

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But isnt the genetic material an actual physical thing, actual chemical compounds, not just information?

It is physical thing storing information. Bit like a book. Or blue prints.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The way you are decribing the egg/zygote is like a car waiting to be told where to go. When it gets the information of where to go (the gentic material), essentially its still the same car and so any change is pretty much arbitrary. But if the gentic material is a physical thing, then its more like a car waiting to get an engine, and there's nothing arbitrary about saying that a car with an engine is distincly different from a car without an engine.

Yes but would you so that a car only becomes a new car when it has an engine? What about the wheels? Or the dash board. Is a car with an engine but no wheels a "car" but a car without the engine but with wheels not one?

At what point in the process that starts with raw material and ends with a car rolling out of the assembly line is a "car" produced from something that isn't a car.

From the production of the egg to some time in your late teens, your mother is growing an adult human. Picking the time the egg has its DNA reshuffled as the start of you as an individual life form is as arbitrary as any other point.

Mark Hamill · 05-06-2009 02:31PM

JC 2K3 wrote: »

Well why should they be conferred at the point of conception in the first place?

Pregnancy can and does happen without being planned. I think bringing a new person into the world should be a conscious, planned decision. It shouldn't be forced upon someone to go through with an accidental pregnancy. As such, it makes little sense to attribute such sacredness to and confer rights on a human life from conception. The point at which rights are conferred is arbitrary in the first place. To me, birth is a much better point than conception.

That doesnt really answer my question. I was asking shouldn't the rights of a living human being be conferred on them from the moment they are considered to be first alive (regardless of wether we can agree on when that is)? Do you think that a person is only considered alive from the moment they are born?

The All New Abortion Spin-Off Thread...

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