Canada's worse... There aren't any laws on abortion like in the US

The fact that he doesn't strike us down, probably relates to the fact that zeus, yahweh and the tooth fairy, are just as viable. I don't honestly care what religion people subscribe to. I don't care about peoples religion, but can't we have Freedom to keep religion to oneself. You can believe in gods, or what have you but Once you start restricting people who don't buy into the same thing you do, I have a problem. Its the same thing, gay marriage and abortion, restrictions because it makes people uncomfortable and apparently controlling people only reaffirms these beliefs as valid. I like how you didn't comment about any of the statistics that I presented or the fact that almost half of all worldwide abortions are obtained illegally (hence NOT STOPPING THEM), however if you want to take one comment I made because I got passionate about stating how ridiculous opressive religion (only opressive, I don't care if you worship BAAL, but if you start telling me that I can only see the world as you see it, I have a problem). I digress. I'm not trying to fight anyone. I just want to see a logical Pro Life argument set in the here and now, without metaphysical babble thrown in. That's all, why can't everyone who is pro life try to help people who are actually living? Please pointing out that many ideals of a religion are archaic is anything but bigoted. As a matter of fact it's quite factual. (On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture.)I'm not saying that I hate the beliefs and how they affect me. Sorry, I'm not always politically correct, but the more words we use for stuff the further we get from the point.

If you leave a fertilized egg alone to develop naturally before it is implanted, it may or may not survive.  If you leave a fertilized egg alone after it is implanted, most likely it will eventually be born.  Therefore, one is a potential life and another is a life.

Yes, my argument rests on the premise that human life has value.  You obviously do not accept this premise.

And what is it with anyone who has an opposing view automatically bringing up Christianity?  Why are you obsessed with other people's religious beliefs?  I oppose abortion because I view it as murder, plain and simple, and I value every human life.  Perhaps this follows just from being human in my case, who knows?  I think deep down we all know what is right and wrong regardless of religious beliefs, which obviously is a viewpoint diametrically opposed to a viewpoint I look upon with complete disdain, your moral relativism. 

Most Christians are pro life they believe in the sanctity of life that God gives and takes away. Weather one believes in God or random chance by goo to you by way of the zoo is irrelivant.
When the president can pass a law that says a minor can get an abortion with out parental consent yet if the procedure has problem and additional care is needed the parents are responsible for it. I dont think my children should make a decision like that on thier own but we home school our 3 kids and my 18 year old daughter has never been on a date! She's focused on her job and school I preach stay in school get your degree and get a job with benefits retirement healthcare ect. You cant have a family with one income in this day and age. I try to make them see how the dollar works and what it takes to have things and survive getting pregnant working fulltime is hard you really need to be prepared. Abstain

Ahaha, just like I said, the same damn lunatics posting over and over and over. Hey, as long a they keep it up, I guess I can keep it up as well, that's fair, right?

On a much more respectfull note, I want to thank people like Helios for having genuine thought activety and having the patience to try and explain them to these people. It won't make a damn difference, as I have experienced so many, many times before. I really admire the patience some of you people handle these lunatics with.

So again, you're using survival rate as the deciding factor? That seems strange to me, especially when you probably could have made an argument a thousand years ago in support of "abortion" up to the first year after birth based on that factor.

"Prospective studies using very sensitive early pregnancy tests have found that 25% of pregnancies are miscarried by the sixth week LMP (since the woman's Last Menstrual Period).  The risk of miscarriage decreases sharply after the 8th week, i.e. when the fetal stage begins."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage

Are you OK with abortions in the embryonic stage before the fetal stage? Or is 50% survival rate when it becomes human?

"Are you OK with abortions in the embryonic stage before the fetal stage? Or is 50% survival rate when it becomes human? "

This is exactly why survival rate is a poor criteria for humanity.

As far as the earlier question of why implantation vs conception, it really doesn't matter. Reason being, a woman isn't ever going to know she lost a fertilized egg. It'll just pass out with her next period. How this relates to abortion: If she never knew she was pregnant, why/how would she seek an abortion. However, an implanted egg will continue to grow long enough for a woman to know she's pregnant.

This was mostly just a concession in the interest of compromise (like I said originally "I might entertain the argument of implantation vs conception") Emphasis on "might entertain".

Final-Fan said: Crono said: Final Fan, lets go back to this: "No, the only logical times to define whether a fetus is "human" is at conception or at the moment of birth. Since almost nobody thinks aborting a 9 month fetus is acceptable, the only other logical option is conception. Anything in between is impossible to logically "prove" humanity." There are plenty of developmental stages during pregnancy. My whole point with this statement is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to scientifically prove at what point a concept such as "humanity" is reached. We can't even define humanity in this discussion in a way that everyone (or even a simple majority) can agree on. This is more a philosophical argument than a scientific one. HOWEVER, what I said was, since we can't even agree on what the definition of "humanity" is, then its scientifically impossible to determine at what stage in development humanity is reached. Knowing this to be true, then there are only 2 logical time that we can define humanity, at the moment of birth or at the moment of conception. Anything in between will never be agreed on. Its not black/white, right/wrong at this point. Its pure reason. If you MUST define when a fetus is human, these 2 points in development are the only ones that make logical sense. Though, I might entertain a compromise from conception to implantation, since eggs fail to implant frequently, and we don't really consider this a lost child. "Just because we may not be able to pin down exactly when it happens doesn't mean we can't narrow it down at all. If the job of narrowing it down isn't "easy" enough for you, well, there are smarter and more knowledgeable people than you (or me) thinking about the problem" I would agree with this, if we had CLEAR criteria by which we measure humanity. But we don't, and we never will without someone arbitrarily saying "this is what humanity is." But going by that is no better than going by what an ancient book says. And please keep the personal attacks to a minimum. I know this is hot topic, but I'm trying to keep things in the realm of reason here. I apologize if it seemed I made a personal attack first (I think my monster comment may have been construed this way), but this was not my intent. EDIT: Yes, I know it was metalcube who said that. Would you rather I double posted a response to avoid confusion? It was more a comment on relativism, than the argument at hand. Where we fundamentally disagree is that I believe it clearly IS possible to find at least a range of development after which we can say, "yep, human" and before which we can say, "nope, not yet". Example: A five-week-old embryo looks like this: That's probably indistinguishable from any mammal and a lot of fishes except at the genetic level. Why is that human except as far as what it will potentially become? It seems clear to me that at some point after that and before this: it becomes human. I would be extremely surprised if we ever pin it down to a single moment in time, but we can get it down to a couple of weeks or a few weeks. At the start of those weeks it is no longer OK to abort because, better safe than sorry right? At the same time "better safe than sorry" doesn't mean you need to wear a helmet 24/7 so don't even think about saying "well push it back to conception because we're not sure whether it's at 3 or 4 months". Though, I might entertain a compromise from conception to implantation, since eggs fail to implant frequently, and we don't really consider this a lost child. See my discussion with elprincipe. What does the survival rate of the fertilized eggs have to do with anything? Back in the middle ages when infant mortality rates were just ridiculous would it be OK to have abortion? (I seem to recall that way back when they didn't even name infants in many cultures until a certain age, presumably because so many died soon after birth. I could be wrong though.) Why is it human right after implantation and not before? How can you compromise if you believe that human life begins at conception? I'm glad we were able (thanks to you) to bring our exchange back down to a calm debate.

This was mostly just a concession in the interest of compromise (like I said originally "I might entertain the argument of implantation vs conception") Emphasis on "might entertain".

My response is merely to restate: How can you compromise if you believe that human life begins at conception?

People who support the right of women to get abortions overwhelmingly do so because they don't consider the aborted embryo/fetus to be truly human yet. Rath believes that feti attain personhood once they are viable, not that they are persons but somehow still OK to kill before and until then.

[edit:  By the way, the viability argument is not based simply on survival rate but on the fetus' stage of development based on ability to survive outside the womb (including artificial wombs and suchlike).  Feti at a certain stage of development, for instance, cannot breathe on their own.  The two criteria are not unrelated but they are very distinct.]

In any case, the central question of the post is of course Why is that human except insofar as what it will potentially become?