| palou said: I am in no way religious, nonetheless, I have much difficulty answering the question clearly. People usually assume that one can close out the debate by saying that one has not at that point developed the neural network to make us human. However, people agree upon that killing a newborn baby is a full case of murder, but rarely hesitate to eat a pig, who both has a higher intelligence and a less ambiguous consciousness. Thus, one has to come to the conclusion that there is another characteristic that makes the murder of a young child as significant (if not more) as the murder of an adult. What distinguishes murder as a crime worse than simple violence, in our morality, is taking away potential lifetime from the victim, taking away to develop himself further, erasing his futur self. This independently of actual capability of worrying about such a subject, as the case of infants or small children reminds us. Already at the stage of a fetus, much of what defines the person that is to be is established - genetic material, of course, but also some environmental influence, passing through the mother. An abortion most definitely takes away the right of said futur individual to exist, in lack or absence of a fully developed brain. |
| Teeqoz said: Life is sacred, yes. Not in a religious sort of way, but in the sense that all life has value. However up until a certain point in the pregnancy, like WolfpackN64 said, the fetus isn't really alive. Only very few (if any) extremist pro-abortionists will say that abortion is okay all the way up until birth. In Norway, you have free choice until week 12, and anything later than that and you have to apply. If it's later than 18 weeks, it's unlikely that you will get permission, unless there are special circumstances. So you don't have to answer the question "is life sacred". The real question is "when is a fetus alive". |
I'm actually more inclined toward palou's explanation than yours. Not only that, I think you mean "sentient" because every cell in our bodies is considered to be alive much in the way bacteria and single-cell organisms are.
Anyway, like palou's explanation infers, if [human] life is sacred, there has to be a reason why. There are points in the pregnancy where the fetus/child doesn't have a brain or a beating heart, yet its potential for sentient human life is what can be argued needs protecting.
I recall a half-joking Sarah Silverman suggesting that male sperm needs to be regulated, implying it's ridiculous for the converse to be true as well. This is easily refutable in that a fertilized egg has a significantly higher chance of surviving than a lone sperm or unfertilized egg. Again, if there is importance to the sanctity of human life, the potential of sentient life is what can be protected here.
The BuShA owns all!
