Replies

Do you want absolute certainty again drunk driving? Then outlaw blood alcohol levels above 0.0% Want 100% certainty that nobody will ever get hit by a stray bullet? Then outlaw all firearms discharges. Obviously the law is a compromise designed to maximize the probability of a moral outcome; it recognizes 100% certainty is both physically and politically impossible.

Are you seriously comparing the threat of someone with 0.00001% blood alcohol level with sucking an unborn child's brains out with a vacuum? The threat from people with 0.00001% blood alcohol level can be studied with statistics and we can definitely state that the threat is virtually nonexistant. You don't have any kind of certainty about when life begins or what the odds are of abortion being a murder. You're willing to put a child's life at risk without ANY evidence or information. That's what I call reckless.

What would its death be like? A cell can't feel anything, won't react, and won't care. Do these single celled humans die normally? Yes, it happens all the time.

At first, the nervous system develops fastest. The ectoderm folds over to form a neural tube, or primitive spinal cord. At 3.5 weeks, the top swells to form a brain. Production of neurons (brain cells that store and transmit information) begins deep inside the neural tube. Once formed, neurons travel along tiny threads to their permanent locations, where they will form the major parts of the brain (Caesar, 1993).
pg. 105, "Infants and Children: Prenatal Through Middle Childhood", by Laura E. Berk, Copyright 1999 Allyn & Bacon

At 3.5 weeks, we know human brain cells are present in the unborn child. I'm not talking about a single cell, I'm talking about a living human organism with functional human brain cells. Is that worthy of protection?

Abortion ends an individual human lifetime already begun, an individual human on life support. But at 3.5 weeks from last ovulation, most women wouldn't know they were pregnant though some would be keeping track closely enough to think something isn't exactly on schedule.

Are you seriously comparing the threat of someone with 0.00001% blood alcohol level with sucking an unborn child's brains out with a vacuum? The threat from people with 0.00001% blood alcohol level can be studied with statistics and we can definitely state that the threat is virtually nonexistant. You don't have any kind of certainty about when life begins or what the odds are of abortion being a murder. You're willing to put a child's life at risk without ANY evidence or information. That's what I call reckless.

No, I was comparing someone driving with 0.00001% blood alcohol level with someone taking life of a fertilized egg. Both cases are almost certainly not moral issues although 100% certainty is impossible in either case. You were advocating 100% moral certainty so you would also have to support outlawing driving with 0.000001% blood alcohol level in order to be consistent. On the other hand we can all agree that someone driving with 20% blood alcohol could be compared with the partial birth abortion you described. You are correct that there can be no certainty, but to maintain that killing a fertized egg is murder is a religious argument.

I am certain that embryos made up of small numbers of cells deserve no protection. Beyond that I become less certain, but my reading of descriptions of development indicates that 6 weeks of development is enough to have recognizable human features and the beginnings of human thought (perhaps the ability to feel pain). If that's true, then that fetus should start to have a proportional amount of legal protection. On the other extreme, a baby about to be born deserves full legal protection.

At 3.5 weeks, we know human brain cells are present in the unborn child. I'm not talking about a single cell, I'm talking about a living human organism with functional human brain cells. Is that worthy of protection?

Probably not. Your own reference states those brain cells are not yet functioning.