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ultima on 22 May 2013
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sc94597 said:
ultima said:
sc94597 said:
ultima said:

I'll quote KungKras for you, whose response is perfectly in line with my own position:

Who cares if it has the same genome as a human, it doesn have a brain, so it does not experience anything. It's not developed into a person yet, so it shouldn't get treated as a person.

Again, a fetus is a potential human being. Like a seed is a potential tree.

Many people define humanity by a unique organism which falls within the human species, which a fetus does, as opposed to one's brain-capacity. Likewise, we should promote post-birth infanticide because a baby is not a "fully-developed" human if we accept the definiton that a fully developed brain qualifies somebody as human. 

P.S The brain of a fetus develops within 4-5 weeks of conception. 

The difference is that an infant does have a brain and is in fact sentient.

I'm against late-term abortion myself. But abortion early on is not immoral. It's certainly not murder.

Would you say cats and dogs are sentient then? My point in asking that is that we hold humans to a different standard because they're human. A full-grown cat is more "sentient" than a new-born human baby, but killing one is far more excusable than killing the other, because one has far less of a potential than the other. Consequently, the natural right to life is more than just in regards to brain activity and sentience. 

I don't think you fully understand my position.

Humans are held to have a higher intrinsic value. I acknowledge this. So, if one has to choose between killing a human and a cat, the cat, unfortunately, will probably be the one to go. I never backed killing of people with less sentience or brain activity; even if they aren't yet fully developed or have handicaps, they're still human. A child, as primitive and inexperience as he/she is, is nonetheless a human. The reason I'm not against abortion is because a fetus is not a human. A fetus is to humans as an egg is to chickens.

A fetus before it is sentient is not only not human, it is not even sentient. So, there's absolutely nothing wrong with aborting it. You literally bring more pain to the world by pinching a rat than aborting a pre-sentient fetus (ignoring whatever emotional pain abortion may cause in those involved).

The natural right to life? First of all, I'd say it's more of a privilege. Secondly, why do you think it applies to a fetus?