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The term "human life" is really too vague to be useful. A white blood cell may be both "human" and "alive" but that doesn't tell you anything. At the most basic level, this is a trick question. Life doesn't "being" anywhere except with other life (at this day and age).

Interesting take, perhaps person is the better term, as in “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”. I realize that there are problems with that definition as well. As I have said to another poster, who wants to make this a logical argument, the only way to get rid of abortion is to change the hearts and minds of the American people. This may sound cliché or trite, but I believe it is true. In my mind the best (in fact the only) argument against abortion is that fetuses are people. However, I think we must acknowledge that people of goodwill might disagree.

I have enjoyed the dialog with you, and would like to continue it. We are in different time zones so day by day interaction is unavoidable. I would like to respond to some of your other points but am not able to do so tonight. I will respond more later.

I wonder if it is a good or bad thing that people who agree 99.99% are ‘arguing’. It is also interesting how long this thread has existed.

By the way, I agree that changing hearts and minds may be as important as changing the law but I do think that the laws should reflect where we should be. Do realize that there is a terrible disconnect between what the law allows and what most people think should be allowed. Most people polled generally do not support abortion as birth control, abortion after the first trimester, or abortion for bio engineering purposes (e.g., sex selection), yet Roe v. Wade essentially protects all of those things. If Roe were overturned, we'd realistically wind up with a patchwork of laws with maybe a dozen states having fairly liberal abortion laws and most of the rest having very conservative, if not outright pro-life, laws. But, ultimately, I think ultrasounds are helping here. And remember that women tend to poll more pro-life than men.

I also agree that people of good character can disagree on this issue (talking to a pro-choice person who did volunteer work with AIDS babies while counter-protesting a pro-abortion rally illustrated that) but that doesn't mean that I think all arguments have merit or are right. I do think that there are plausible pro-choice arguments to be made but most of the "pro-choice" camp has pushed themselves well into "pro-abortion" territory.

That said, if you want to keep discussing this, feel free to send me private messages or to keep this going here. I don't argue abortion as much as I used to. I takes a long time to change minds and few people have the time or patience for the process. Abortion is a nasty issue to discuss (and a fascinating issue to understand) because it touches on so many aspects of people's worldviews that it tends to cut deep. This is only complicated by the fact that so many women have had them and so many men have contributed to them that they have a real personal stake in admitting that they might be wrong (when "wrong" means "you killed your child").