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Is there a particular time in your convoluted world, when someone wouldn't be allowed to kill their own child, or is all about property rights?

I'm assuming you live in the same convoluted world in which I live...21st Century America. I don't make the laws; I don't make the court rulings. I was simply explaining that the logic (about bird eggs) is valid--but you merely disagree with the basic assumptions.

I have to go (to a church meeting, no less), so I'm going to cut to the chase...

Since I have no way of knowing at exactly what point human life deserves protection, I am generally protective of human life at all stages.

When it comes to Abortion, the argument goes that there is a right of the individual to have an abortion that is to be weighed against the right of the fetus to human life. It is this balancing of rights that is at the heart of the abortion debate, which we will not hash out successfully here.

However, when it comes to Embryonic Stem Cell Research, we are weighing the value of the human life, which I find to be unknowable, against the utility to be derived by destroying it. This is a very different type of argument.

Some people approach it by saying that the value of the Embryonic Stem Cell Research is so high, it outweighs the value of the human life destroyed. Others try to counter that argument by saying the value of this research is not so great, therefore it does not outweigh the value of the human life destroyed.

Frankly, I find such arguments to be abhorrent. They can be, and are, naturally extended to other types of human life that is viewed as less-than-fully-human and of lower value. I do not want to tinker with the machinery of who gets to live and who has to die based on the objective value of their lives. I, rather, choose to be protective of all human life, because I understand that the true value cannot be evaluated rationally.

I don't make the laws; I don't make the court rulings. I was simply explaining that the logic (about bird eggs) is valid--but you merely disagree with the basic assumptions.

If I own the Bald Eagle, its still a crime to destroy its egg, so I guess I don't agree with the basic assumptions you've made.

If your point is that the law currently views the death of a child by crushing its skull and ripping apart its body as a nonevent if done at the direction of the mother, but a homicide if done against her will, then yes, I follow the analogy, but still not the logic.