[Torie]

I don't think embryonic life in the first trimester should receive legal protection, because I don't think there is any sentinence.

[RadioAstronomer]

I don't think embryonic life in the first trimester should receive legal protection, because I don't think there is any sentinence.

I completely agree.

[Sabertooth]

I don't think embryonic life in the first trimester should receive legal protection, because I don't think there is any sentinence.

Is there sentience in the comatose? In the anencephalic?

If a woman is 10 weeks pregnant and is assaulted, resulting in a miscarriage, is this just your garden-variety aggravated assault?

In any event, I think you'd agree that there is a significant faction in the GOP coalition that disagrees with your first trimester exception. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, given the demonstrated scientific promise of other, less morally problematic lines of stem cell inquiry besides the fetal, why risk the political fallout of the fetal stem cell tar baby?

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Out of curiosity, at what hour of which day does sentience begin? Or are there degrees of sentience? If the latter, then what is the degree which deserves legal protection?

[Old Professer]

I don't think embryonic life in the first trimester should receive legal protection, because I don't think there is any sentinence.

Do you mean to say, sentience?

[Agamemnon]

..., because I don't think....

Yes, Torie, clearly you don't think whatever you don't think on this issue, but you are hardly qualified to declare what an unborn child "thinks" or doesn't think at any point in its development, nor am I.

Just because today's science and technology are not as yet capable of detecting when life or sentinence begins in the developing human being, does not mean that it has "proved" that neither life nor sentinence exist, even from the moment of conception.

Many biomedical scientists and "ethicists" are far too conceited, and enamoured of themselves to admit their limitations. This is why they often make sweeping proclamations which are evidences more of their intellectual self-infatuation, woven as it often is with a political or economic agenda than it is evidence of any amount of honest, scientific thought.

[heartwood]

An embryo six weeks from conception is sentient - it reacts to stimulus. Do you mean consciousness, intelligence, self-awareness? Why would you deny life to a human being doing what a human being is supposed to do, just because it isn't sentient? Personhood is subjective, legalistic. Humanity and life are a biological fact.

[Aquinasfan]

I don't think embryonic life in the first trimester should receive legal protection, because I don't think there is any sentinence.

They're people, but because they're not sentient they should not be given legal protection? What about comatose people?

[FairWitness]

I don't think embryonic life in the first trimester should receive legal protection, because I don't think there is any sentinence.

We are not insects that go through a metamorphosis which has on one side a caterpiller and on the other side a butterfly. Human development is a seamless day-by-day progression to what is inarguably a human person. I understand your arguement, and once believed in it, but have come to the conclusion that, in the absence of certainty, the only human choice is to chose life.