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Why couldn't we call a sperm cell life, when it has a structure, it moves, it has a specific goal, it achieves it's goal, and all that based on living material?

You can call it life, if you want to.

But calling it "life" doesn't make it a human being or a person.

A human being will not be present without the sperm being combined with some other material or without the sperm being "tinkered with" in a lab.

In both of those cases, it will no longer be called a sperm, because scientists have known for years that there is a difference between a sperm and a human.

Like scientists, right-to-lifers are well aware of the difference..

Here's an irony....The people who want to confuse an ovum or a sperm with a human seem to be the people who are pro-abortion. Those are the same people who declare themselves more scientifically knowledgeable than pro-lifers.

Even the "great science expert " James Trefil got so confused that he wrote a NY Times Op-ed in which he said that, because parthenogenesis is possible, pro-life women who are menstruating should worry that they are having abortions.

Sometimes, during a discussion, the pro-abort "experts" can be their own worst enemies.

If that sentence wasn't in the Bible where Jesus refers to the fetus of a pregnant mother as "life" (or something along that line), I seriously doubt this would be such a hot issue.

I wonder.

It seems to me that the pro-abort crowd brought up the issue of religion, as a red herring, back in the 70's. They needed to say that people who were opposed to abortion were forcing their religious beliefs on others. In reality, back in the early 70's most people did not think abortion laws should be liberalized and for a good number of those people, abortion seemed as naturally wrong as murder.

Plenty of people who declare a belief in Jesus, read the Bible or attend Church, are pro-abortion.

Plenty of people who don't believe in Jesus are pro-life.

So it seems that, ultimately, something other than religious belief or something in addition to religious belief is at play in a person's decision regarding abortion.

For me it's logical to think a fellow human being is present from the moment of conception.

To me, people who think that the fetus is not a person one moment, but becomes a person at some "magical" moment are "unscientific." Pro-aborts need to lie, in order to support their illogic. They've lied since the days of Roe v. Wade.

You can call it life, if you want to.

But calling it "life" doesn't make it a human being or a person.

True, but what makes something a human being or a person? Let's face it, we just don't know. Different people set up different boundaries, but they are all artificial and none have irrefutable evidence supporting it. My favorite is the zygote. Is it really A PERSON? Or is some form of biological "unit" which eventually will become a person? Before you would quickly respond (I noticed that you too accept that theory), think of the concept of identical twins. The zygote can still split up and become two persons. Not only the zygote, but even the blastocyst, the zygote after many divisions can still split up into two persons. Therefore, even in the zygote there is a potential toward something else, other than one, single, defined, FINAL individual human being. Obviously it is less potential than an egg or a sperm (on their own), but still not ONE FINAL individual.

That's why I am saying that the issue is tricky at least and we claim to know more about it, than we really know about it.

Here's an irony....The people who want to confuse an ovum or a sperm with a human seem to be the people who are pro-abortion. Those are the same people who declare themselves more scientifically knowledgeable than pro-lifers.

Nobody is "more scientifically knowledgeable. The science knows so much about the issue, whatever is known is available to all. Neither side has a scientific upper hand. Yet, both claims one. That's why I am unable to support either side without reservations.

The reality? The reality is far too simple. There is a dispute, BECAUSE the lack of knowledge. If this would be a scientifically settled, obvious question, there could be no dispute. Nobody argues why an airplane can fly. Nobody argues why an automobile can go forward. Nobody debates why a lightbulb emits light. These are all settled scientific issues. Life isn't (or the beginning of thereof). That is why mankind is forced to decide on a societal level, and not on a scientific level. One believes this, the other believes that, and whichever gets to political power will try to coerce his/her belief on the entire society. That's where we are right now (and will be for quite a while).

Plenty of people who declare a belief in Jesus, read the Bible or attend Church, are pro-abortion.

Plenty of people who don't believe in Jesus are pro-life.

So it seems that, ultimately, something other than religious belief or something in addition to religious belief is at play in a person's decision regarding abortion.

I already accepted that statement. Yes, it is true. Doesn't mean a whole lot. Some people are vegetarians, because they feel bad about killing the cow, pig, chicken, etc. Some people don't even eat plants, only the fruit of plants. That is a weird (yet understandable) feature of some humans. It appears so horrible to kill in general. Yet, the entire living world is "built" on the concept that one living thing must destroy another one just to survive. Much as some humans want to "get out of this", they can't. They can pretend all they want, in order to survive, they must consume material originated from living creatures. So, society drew lines, this is what you can kill, this is what you can't. The lines are totally arbitrary, but typically drawn "somewhere around humans". Since the transition, the boundary are unavoidably hazy, hence the argument about abortion, for some other people argument about even killing a chicken. Funny, some vegetarians refuse to kill the cow, but kill the fish. Their dividing line is somewhere between the chicken and the fish (:-). Seriously, don't you see how artificial this whole thing is?

Killing humans also has a hazy boundary. Many pro-lifers have no problem (for example) to support wars, capital punishment, killing for self-defense. Don't get me wrong, I am not condemning those, only pointing out that it is an obvious contradiction (you can't kill the zygote, but you can kill an adult human under war conditions). The only way to try to justify this (and they do) is the question of "innocense". But what has that got to do with conceptual scientific knowledge of life itself? Nothing at all. It is just another societal level artificial judgement issue.

The pro-choicers are drawing their own boundaries somewhere else, that's all. They contradict themselves just as well. For them, it is okay to terminate the life of a seven month fetus, yet they are the one typically who don't want to kill the chicken. Weird, isn't it? They are the ones typically opposing capital punishment and wars. Yet they have no problem to rip the fetus out of the mother, tear it up and toss it to the trash. Weird, isn't it?

For me it's logical to think a fellow human being is present from the moment of conception.

Still, after you read the above (:-)? You drew the line there and it is fine with me. But don't think for a moment that your boundary is any better than any other boundary. They are all artificial. We don't know what life is, how can we possibly know when it begins for real?
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Because of all of the above, if somebody would ask me to settle the abortion dispute, I would suggest that both sides should sit down and work out some compromise. Because NOBODY owns (knows) the truth about life. By the way, that's where religion sneaks back to the issue. I debated abortion with many people in the past and when I mentioned the word "compromise", the typical reaction was "God does not compromise".

Anyway, so much for today.

Gabor