[MHGinTN]

My argument for protecting fetuses from being aborted is based on emotion with some reasoning. The emotion is empathy and helps us to feel the pain of fellow humans. To trigger empathy though, the human in question must have some human characteristics such as human form and ability to feel pain. palmer A neat and totally arbitrary syllogsm. How godlike of you. You will, without any scientific facts to support your arbitrary asignment, assign value based solely on your whim. I can tell by your brevity that 'it works for you'.

[palmer]

I wouldn't read too much into my brevity! The empathy I have described does not require any scientific facts or complex logic to form value judgements. Rather than "neat and arbitrary" I would call it simple. Here's an simple example:

If abortion clinics dumped their victims in the street instead of destroying the evidence, there's no doubt everyone with the least bit of empathy who didn't intentionally close their eyes would be horrified. But if the fetuses were all microscopic in size, I doubt you would see the same reaction.

The reaction in the first case is people identifying with the death of their fellow human: human in form, human in suffering, human in their death. In the latter case they are still human in their death, still have had all their potential extinguished and very much fit the definition of innocent victim.

But those latter constructs are moral abstractions in that there is nothing to look at, even through a microscope, that would trigger the emotion of empathy. I am the type of person who values my senses particularly vision in these cases. Although I understand and respect your moral abstractions, I cannot believe them without having the same religious faith that you do.