I think you've not read the earlier comments (all 300+ of them!) because I addressed some of your points before. I'll try to summarize.
Abortion is not a good thing. At some point it becomes, without a doubt, the killing of a human being. But killing human beings is something human beings have been doing forever. They justify a lot of it. I think we do better if we frame the debate in practical terms - a lesser of two evils situation. (For more read the earlier discussion).
What is a living human being? Seems simple but it isn't. Brain dead is dead. A being without a head, organs, or the ability to live on its own is not what most people would call human. I find it more realistic to say a fertilized egg grows into a fetus which grows into a baby which matures into a human being with all its powers. There is no definite point at which the transformation occurs - which is why I say the choice is somewhat arbitrary and why I think early abortion is better than late. As for the specific months mentioned - that refers to a compromise I proposed. Any woman who misses two successive periods would undergo mandatory pregnancy testing and have two months to seek a legal abortion, if she so chose. That was the earliest I could think of.
Now all of this may seem quite arbitrary to you both philosophically and morally - but my reading of history is that's the way it really is.
I've read the thread. But I do not comprehend your position. You acknowledge that abortion is killing, and you also acknowledge that at some point it is the killing of a human being. The problem I have understanding your position is twofold:
First, let's suppose for a moment that there were real uncertainty about what constitutes a living human being. It seems to me to be your position in effect that because there is uncertainty, then killing should be morally and legally allowable. Let's say you and I are in the same neck of the woods and you are deer hunting, and I am just out on my own, going for a walk in the woods across a clearing from you. You see something moving in the woods across the clearing, but you don't know if the target in your sights is a human being or a deer. You don't know what it is. What is your appropriate response, since you are in doubt about the identity of the moving object. Do you just go ahead and fire because of your uncertainty? If you had a neighbor with you, would you tell him it's ok to just go ahead and fire? Or is the appropriate thing to do to excercise caution when you don't know if your target is a human being or not? If you truly do not know, out of caution, and reverence and respect for human life, then you will not pull the trigger. If you do pull the trigger, and the bullet strikes and kills me, then you have shown a callous and wanton disregard for human life.
Now, I realize that you have already passed the fifth month of your mother's pregnancy so it is easy for you to forget where you came from and consign other human-beings-in-fact who have not yet reached that level of maturity to death because of your own uncertainty as to their humanity. But that seems to me just like not seeing anything wrong with pulling the trigger in the woods when you don't know if the target is a deer or a human being. That is the first thing I do not comprehend.
The second thing I do not comprehend is your use of words in the sentence: "I find it more realistic to say a fertilized egg grows into a fetus which grows into a baby which matures into a human being with all its powers." In my understanding, if words mean anything, 'fertilized egg', 'fetus' and 'baby' are all subsets of the category, 'human being'. I am referring here to objective, scientifically and ontologically irrefutable facts that have been proven beyond cavil, beyond any reasonable doubt for over 150 years. While there are many things of which we human beings are uncertain, this is not one of them. So it simply seems like a category mistake to say that these mature into a human being for the simple reason that they all are already members of that class.
You are right that killing has been going on for a long time in history. There have always been people who did not regard others as being on the same level of humanity as they, but I don't see any reason to tolerate or accomodate it, or even hideously promote it under the rubric of 'population control.' If something is wrong with abortion killing, then EVERYTHING everything is wrong with it. If nothing is wrong with it, then it is no worse that clippings one's fingernails.
Cordially,
The point you need to further consider is this: I will grant you that the zygote (I spelled it right this time) may not be a human being. To make such an argument requires a philosophical argument I am not prepared to make. However, the zygote is human. That is an undeniable scientific fact. It is a human different from either parent and therefore not a mere mass of the mothher's tissue.
I have stated this in a previous post, but I will reiterate because of its importance. The zygote has done nothing wrong. It has violated neither political nor natural law. And yet we treat it as criminal for expediency's sake. We choose to rectify a bad choice with another chioce though without giving the condemned a choice, and never have I heard that any child under the age of five choose rather to die than live. We prosecute one who cannot speak, because it is easier than condemning the choice that brought about that consequence.
Now the argument that the zygote is not sufficiently developed to be termed a human being is fallacious for the following reason. All human development proceeds by stages. Therefore an infant who cannot speak is not fully human, not having developed the full capacity of human reason. Likewise, I would argue that many adults are in a way not fully human because they lack any ability to reason. The difference between the infant and the underdeveloped adult is that the infant has never made a choice in its development whereas the adult has. The child is innocent for not being fully adult whereas the adult is.
We have chosen to rectify the situation of the unwanted child not by punishing the licentious behaviour of the mother, but the innocent child who has not even yet developed behaviour. We have rejected the notions of virtue and vice and therefore we fallatiously put the mother who has behaved wantonly and the child who has not on equal footing.
IMHO, I do not think there is much life in a society where all things are permissable. Yet by the day we resemble more and more such a society.