[Mrs. Don-o]

My point here is not that the law must protect "all life" (as the Jains do) but that a live embryo can be objectively distinguished from a dead one, and a human embryo can be distinguished from a non-human one.

Every individual in whatever stage of the human lifespan should be recognized as a "person" in law; otherwise, any socially disfavored individual or community (blacks, Jews, children, the autistic, the congitively impaired, alcoholics, the obese, what-have-you) can be excluded from the recognition of "human rights," the most fundamental of which is the right to simply go on living.

[aruanan]

Every individual in whatever stage of the human lifespan should be recognized as a "person" in law; otherwise, any socially disfavored individual or community (blacks, Jews, children, the autistic, the congitively impaired, alcoholics, the obese, what-have-you) can be excluded from the recognition of "human rights," the most fundamental of which is the right to simply go on living.

If “human being” is a later stage of an individual’s existence, then what is the name for the being started at conception and ended at death? On the individual level, pro-life people call it human whether conscious or not, crippled, retarded, senile, diseased, sinful, intelligent, female, or male. Pro-abortion people permit “quality of life and “value to society” to define the parameters of being human and those who have the power to do so to define those terms, whether a woman and her physician, N.A.R.A.L, or Big Brother.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"My point here is not that the law must protect "all life" (as the Jains do) but that a live embryo can be objectively distinguished from a dead one, and a human embryo can be distinguished from a non-human one."

Yes, this is a question of science or to use the old term, natural philosopy.

"Every individual in whatever stage of the human lifespan should be recognized as a "person" in law; otherwise, any socially disfavored individual or community (blacks, Jews, children, the autistic, the congitively impaired, alcoholics, the obese, what-have-you) can be excluded from the recognition of "human rights," the most fundamental of which is the right to simply go on living."

Please go on, how is this going to work? Will the socially disfavored be arrested and forced to under go abortions? If so, abortion is the least of our worries here, because this will obviously be under a brutal totalitarian regime.

So, getting from your first sentence to the next just doesn't work. And why does no one address my point that "Life" is a legal issue, not a scientific one? Is what I'm asking so far out? So unintelligible?

We can legally kill adult people. If someone is putting your life at risk, you can, if that's pretty much the only option, kill their adult butt. Don't the murderers have a right to life?