petrol added, match lit.................

?? WTF?

How can a pile of plywood and nails be compared to an unborn child?

A pile of plywood and nails can be shaped into any structure, while a human baby, barring severe abnormalities causing miscarriage, if left unkilled, will ALWAYS come out to be a human baby.

That was a dumb analogy, UT. And people need to stop "thinking" for me. "OC calls it this" and "OC thinks that". I don't do it to you. Please offer me the same respect.

While there's a lot that OC and I don't agree on, we on the same page here. Tissue or fetus, it's a baby. I think I posted elsewhere in the thread about the pro-abortion/pro-choice semantic game.

From Merriam-Webster:
Opinion:
a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter

I guess, in a way, my opinion is my perception of fact. That doesn't mean it's your perception or that we have to agree or that I'm always right.

So you're right. My opinion is that saying "I killed my unborn baby" IS the same thing as "I terminated a parasitic relationship." You don't have to hold to that opinion, and obviously you don't. But until you bring forward evidence to change my mind, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

That's not what I'm saying.

Some people have no problem with multiple abortions as a form of birth control. Some people don't hold the same beliefs I do. And that's ok. What I'm saying is that my beliefs say that killing an unborn baby is wrong (with limited exceptions) and that whatever YOU may call it, I call it a baby. So to me, it is indeed, "killing an unborn baby".

I believe life starts at conception. If left alone, those cells mature into a human baby.

And of course, all pro-lifers are radical, and overgeneralize like you just did.

I am staunchy pro-choice, because my morals should not be the standard for all women. It SHOULD be the individual woman's choice, guided by her morals and her beliefs. At the end of the day, she and her baby are the ones who have to live or die in the consequence of that choice.

the core question is
 

I posted this in another thread where I thought it was on topic but the argument roared on without me. The jumping off point was whether or not abortion is murder. It speaks to when personhood begins. I think it is appropriate here.

The core question
For a murder to happen, a person has to be killed. If the an abortion is defined as murder, and the victim as a person, then much, much more should change to be consistent with the stance that the rights of the fetus/embryo/zygote include more that just protection from murder.

I find the prospect that the abortion of a zygote, while certainly “alive”, should, could be considered “murder” as sensible as the prospect that a woman carrying this zygote should be counted as two people in any other circumstance. If she drinks, smokes, or does any other legal physical activities minors are prohibited from, is she breaking the law? If “it’s” a person, and murder-able, why--no--how can the discussion stop there? Which brings come to…

There question in the abortion debate:
"When does human personhood begin?"
A description of all viewpoints

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_when.htm

This is a calm, reasoned, informed discussion of the facts and opinions on all sides. I do not know of a “bright line” that separates one side from the other. I expect that search for such a line will be futile and acrimonious, because such a line does not exist. It is a range, not a point. At either end of the spectrum, the decision is clear, but in the immortal words of Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, “What was that part in the middle?”. The middle (range) is the part where lots of stuff happens, including personhood. That’s where the answer lies, along a continuum. After all, we’re human beings, taking nine months to develop. For me the emphasis here is on the being, as an active verb, as well as a noun. We don’t talk of dead people as “human was’es” or of a pregnant woman’s baby as a “human will-be’s”.

In the Roe v Wade decision, dividing the pregnancy into trimesters seems a wise, Solomonic decision, the best possible resolution in a minefield of difficult choices. To consider the independent viability of the fetus in the first trimester to be approximately zero, the court concluded that the decision was a medical judgment to be decided by the woman and her physician. In the third trimester where viability is much more likely permitted the court to consider a fetus more like a person and entitled to more recognition as such.

The search for a single marker to define personhood, and from that murder, and medical procedure and everything in between is doomed.

Saying “I’m pregnant” doesn’t work in carpool lanes either, (except in California, predictably).

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20041122.html
__________________
Yours,

Uhhh, where did I say ALL pro-lifers are radical? I simply stated that mrnoodle's comments sounded like the words of a pro-lifer who is radical on his/her position. I don't believe all pro-lifers are radical, and would never say that. Please don't put words in my mouth. Thanks.

So which is it? Cells or a baby? You've called it both in the above sentence, and you can't have it both ways.

You're cells, but you're presumably also a fully grown human adult. I think the sticking point with me is that, while I'm radically pro-life (who ISN'T pro-life?), I would never do any of the things that the militant anti-abortionists do, but I'm lumped in with them. I'm not going to feign offense over being called "radical". I was answering UT's analogy with one that I thought was equally excessive and silly.

And for the record, I'm not hypocritical. I think pregnant women smoking or doing drugs when they know the effect on the baby constitutes child abuse, and maybe attempted murder. I think abortion is the killing of a living human (but I won't go so far as to call it murder - there are justifiable reasons for ending pregnancy).

People are so afraid that some religious nut is going to tell them how to live their lives that they fail to realize that there are real people on the other side of the argument. I don't give a rat's ass what you do with your body or your ovaries or what the hell ever. But if I really think that's a person living inside of you, wouldn't I be remiss if I didn't speak out in his/her defense when no one else would?

You'd do the same thing for a dog, but a human life somehow isn't that valuable. I don't get it.

Your comment was a gross overgeneralization, and I pointed it out with another overgeneralization. You seem to call a set system of beliefs that differ from your own "radical".

Unborn babies, infants, children, adults and old people all have cells. You're a group of cells, correct?

BigV - Your post is insightful and well reasoned. And will be ignored. What's going on here isn't really debate. It's more -- demolition derby.

No, you are choosing to read my post that way so that you can make your point and prove that everyone is picking on you and your beliefs. I clarified what I said, yet you are continuing to insist that I'm insulting you and others opposed to abortion. I'm not.

Well, the flames are licking at the walls of this doomed thread so I'm pretty much done here. i save my overly defensive name calling posts for tw.

Jag - i wasn't comparing shooting a soldier and aborting a child. i was talking about people who display the need to couch unfortunate, unpleasant actions in euphamistic terms. that is a pet peeve of mine.

"eliminating an enemy combatant" - call it what it is - Killing a person

"terminating a pregnancy" to me has the same ring to it.

mind you, i support the right to choose i just don't like all the justifications that seem to go along with it. admit what is really happening.


*********hey look - the ceiling seems to be about to cave in on this thread*********

That was apparent by the title. Everyone always leaves miffed from this argument.

They have to be more specific than "killing a person"

I feel that killing a person can't be compared with killing a person because....
You get my drift? :)

Would this not lead into a debate about what killing is? Many times have there been debates about the difference between killing and murder. I see both as negative while many of my friends would nix abortion because they believe it to be murder, and not just "killing".

Apparently to my friends, you can kill someone on a battlefield, with no thought or plan and it'd be alright, but if you plan to kill them before-hand, such as murderr, having the intention of killing them, that would be bad.

But in the end, when wars start and you are put on the battlefield, don't all soldiers have the intentions and plot to kill the "enemy"? Is there a difference at all, or are they just making excuses for their bloodlust not being sin?

I'm not against abortion because there are factors that most of the pro-life people can't put into their own context. I've grown up with friends being abused, molested, etc. etc. Their biggest fear was having a child, and if that wasn't enough, the pain of just having it taken away because she can't take care of it. It's her life, her body, her child. Not everyone has the blessing of being in a situation when they can take care of a child, should they still have to bear through child-birth for the sole-purpose of it being taken away?

From another post:

An Estonian anti-abortion ad (I think): Smoking chicks and hatching chicks