[Hank Kerchief]

A fertilized egg is a human being. You don't need religion to believe this, you don't even need science.

Sure, you can all anything by whatever name you like. If you are going to call a fertilized human egg a human being, then we need another term for human beings who have been born. How about, homo epiphanous, which would roughly mean, men who have made their earthly appearance.

Words mean things. If a fertilized human egg is a human, than a fertilized chicken egg is a chicken. If you go to your grocer and ask for a pound of chicken, you won't be satisfied with a pound of chicken eggs, fertilized or not. A chicken isn't a chicken until it's hatched and human isn't a human until it's until it's born.

Religion, science and common sense all say, don't count your chickens 'til their hatched, and don't count your children 'til their born.

Hank

[palmer]

At what instant does the "whatever" become a "child"? The halfway point in the birth canal? At the last moment it touches the mother? When the umbilical cord is detached? Sounds to me like an arbitrary and useless definition.

[syriacus]

Religion, science and common sense all say, don't count your chickens 'til their hatched, and don't count your children 'til their born.

You are right in one sense...but common sense tells us that the chicken/human analogy doesn't help in this discussion We are discussing the inherent, special worth of preborn human life. We are asking whether preborn humans are more valuable than mere animals (born or preborn animals).

We are not just discussing semantics or the applicability of the labels "born" or "preborn".

We are talking about the humanity of very young humans.

Chickens won't ever be human. They will always be fowl, so they can tell us nothing about humanness.

There is a special difference between human life and animal life and even the law recognizes that.

A person who beheads a group of people can be punished by lifelong imprisonment or execution.

A person who beheads a group of chickens doesn't get punished that way.

[syriacus]

Words mean things

---

You are absolutely right!!! Words mean things and words have power to influence our thinking.

That's why people commonly referred to a pre-born human as a "baby," until the liberalization of abortion in the seventies.

The labelling changed at that time, as pro-deathers insisted that the human preborn be called by its scientific names...fetus, embryo, etc. They did their best to dehumanize the little unborn person.

Why do you need a new name to label born human beings?

We already have all sorts of labels for them, such as teenager, adolescent, tot, toddler, adult, senior citizen, oldster, youngster, kid, etc...

[hocndoc]

You say,""If you are going to call a fertilized human egg a human being, then we need another term for human beings who have been born. How about, homo epiphanous, which would roughly mean, men who have made their earthly appearance.""

Do you think that if you can't see someone, they don't exist on earth? Ultrasound could be a true epiphany for you.


You are now giving your personal beliefs, not anything based on science. In fact, they deny the facts of physics, chemistry and biology.
Why should I care about your personal, non-scientific beliefs and prejudices which deny the protection of human rights?

[XBob]

334 - "Religion, science and common sense all say, don't count your chickens 'til their hatched, and don't count your children 'til their born."

good point. Did you ever have a Filipino Balut? (An egg due to hatch in about 3 days)? It still isn't a chicken