I love when people take clearly religious values and then try to pretend they have some basis in science (intelligent design instead of creationism, brain waves and scientific humanness of fetuses instead of a misinterpretation of the Bible God's will) I hope the next discussion we can have will be on how banning gay marriage is justifiable because science shows that gays marrying is against _______ (fill in pseudo scientific babble excuse here).

If you don't want something because of your religious beliefs just say it, if you think the world is 10000 years old or Noah had an Ark or whatever else just say it straight out, don't pretend you're interested in empirical data and the scientific method. The key to science is not having preconceived notions of what the outcome SHOULD be in a moral sense, which is exactly what religious "science" is all about, preconceived notions as fact.

There is no scientific reason a fetus is anything more then a non sentient collection of cells just like there's no scientific reason homosexuality is evil and no reason stem cells should be banned. Religion and science should not mix, when they do, the result is always crap. You can't marry unreasonable beliefs (religion) with the reason required for scientific inquiry, an incurious religious mind is antithetical to the curiosity cutting edge (or even mundane) science requires.

Science is NOT about disagreements either, except in terms of untestable theory (like String Theory vs other multi dimensional theories for instance). The key to solving the disagreement? Experimentation! You can't just say "we should agree to disagree but I'm going to pose me fundamentalist values on you with pseudo science". If you are so convinced a fetus is a person put a 40 day old collection of cells under test conditions and see if it responds as a baby human would, if it doesn't, it is not yet a baby human and is thus not afforded the full rights humanity endows upon it in our society.

The mother, who is a human, has rights which trump the collection of cells rights since it is not a sentient human (provably so). That trump goes away as soon as you can prove the baby has sentience (which it seems is about the 7th month) before that, they are not moral or scientific equals, the mother wins.

To quote a darwinist philospher (Michael Ruse):

"Why should a bunch of atoms have thinking ability? Why should I, even as I write now, be able to reflect on what I am doing and why should you, even as you read this now be able to ponder my points agreeing or disagreeing, with pleasure or pain, deciding to refute me or deciding that I am just not worth the effort? No one, certainly not the Darwinian as such, seems to have any answer to this...The point is there is no scientific answer."

Until you pro-choice people tell me when consciousness begins in a human, then I'll continue to be pro-life.

You can't be conscious until your brain works, so consciousness begins when brainwave activity begins if it begins anywhere.  Self-awareness is different than consciousness, and is a higher level of consciousness.

So how can you know when someone is self-aware?

It kind of depends on how you define self-aware:

This is from wiki:

Self-awareness is the explicit understanding that one exists. Furthermore, it includes the concept that one exists as an individual, separate from other people, with private thoughts. It may also include the understanding that other people are similarly self-aware.

This is from dictionary.com:

Aware of oneself, including one's traits, feelings, and behaviors.

So technically babies and most animals are not self-aware.  They may have a range of emotions, but that does not mean that they are aware of those feelings.  Many animals and babies cannot understand that if they look in a mirror that it is a reflection of themselves.

So self-awareness is really a non-issue in this debate because it isn't developed until after birth anyways.

@ all that say when they have self-awareness
http://www.whenlifebegins.com/
this says that they don't gain self-awareness until 18 MONTHS after birth.
So is it OK to kill a 1-year-old?

Actually, my views are based on science and are not a façade for my “fundamentalism.” I have never once intimated in any of my posts that there is a scientific reason that a fetus is anything more then a non sentient collection of cells. Biologically speaking, however, an embryo is alive. And since an embryo is uniquely human from the moment that an egg and sperm fuse, I would say a unique human “life” begins at conception. Does this unique life deserve a basic right to life? I believe it does.

Also, I am not apt to use “sentience” as a benchmark for when a fetus becomes "human" because it looks like it would prohibit a full-term fetus from being considered human. There is new evidence that fetuses do not develop sentience and the ability to feel pain until after the birthing process. The brain circuitry that allows a fetus to feel pain is complete by 26 weeks of gestation. However, the ability to use the circuitry and to subjectively feel pain is prohibited by the chemical environment in the uterus which encourages sleep and suppresses higher-level brain activity.

At the point of conception.

Wow never figure I'd quote John McCain.

but yes when the child is concieved, it is a life.

Me too, at the point of conception. At that time, it is an unique (as in different than the mother and father) human DNA with 23 pairs of chromosomes. It exchanges "substances" with the wound, and it grows on its own. So it is alive and human, therefore, it must be protected by the same laws as any other.

An argument that I have heard before that I agreed is that in order for something that has no life to become alive you have to add something. Since the only time during the pregnancy that such a thing happens is at conception, then that is when life begins (afterward, it´s like in the previous paragraph, it exchanges "substances" with the mother and grows on its own).

Not to mention that by the end of the 1st month of the pregnancy the baby already has a heart beat. So if that ain´t alive, I don´t know what is.

By the same reasoning a tumor would be 'alive' and condoms would be a form of mass murder.

Conception consists of only one cell, one cell is not human life.

After 6 weeks brain activity begins, that is the earliest anyone could logically argue that human life begings.