OK I've decided to become a liberal...

[phookat]

Originally posted by AKIron
I've never really understood this whole fetus/child thing. Is there some mystical moment when life enters a fetus and it becomes a human being?

Damn good question.  Do *you* know the answer?  Can you prove it?

Or would you say every sperm is sacred?  In that case, you'd better not get a paper cut because thousands of blood cells will die, and each of them had a hand in creating your seed.  And don't forget the E. Coli living in your gut.  A thousand years of torment in boiling oil will you suffer for every fart.

[AKIron]

Originally posted by phookat
Damn good question.  Do *you* know the answer?  Can you prove it?

Or would you say every sperm is sacred?  In that case, you'd better not get a paper cut because thousands of blood cells will die, and each of them had a hand in creating your seed.  And don't forget the E. Coli living in your gut.  A thousand years of torment in boiling oil will you suffer for every fart.

I don't know. However, I think I know where callousness towards human life, especially the weakest and most vulnerable, will take us. Can Soylent Green be too far ahead?

[phookat]

Originally posted by AKIron
I don't know. However, I think I know where callousness towards human life, especially the weakest and most vulnerable, will take us. Can Soylent Green be too far ahead?

Yum.  No, what I think is that, since we don't know and we can't ever know, we leave this decision to individuals, and depend on their own morality (i.e. their own definition of when a fetus becomes a child).  And those of us who are religious trust that God will dole out judgement when and where it is due.

It is not a matter of callousness.  We'd like to make a law about this, since it is a question of the possible taking of human life.  But laws must be precise, and in this case we simply don't know how to make the law.

[Toad]

If I go into embryo farmin' fer a living, do I still get to drive a John Deere?