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To: Godel
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.

403 posted on 11/14/2002 4:43:53 AM PST by palmer
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To: palmer
Probably not. Your own reference states those brain cells are not yet functioning.

Where are you getting this from, aside from your wishful thinking?

So you see nothing wrong with killing a human organism with human brain cells. I guess we can't really discuss facts anymore then. I think human organisms with functioning human brain cells deserve protection. You're content to arbitrarily murder humans that you don't feel like extending protection to. On the facts we agree, our only disagreement is moral.

411 posted on 11/14/2002 3:49:13 PM PST by Godel
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