QUESTION TO ALL THOSE WHO FAVOUR ABORTION ON DEMAND:

divine_msn wrote:

>>As far as I'm concerned a foetus - namely an unborn child no matter at what stage of pregnancy, becomes an entity the moment it emerges LIVE from its mother.>>

Consider the case of a healthy foetus in a healthy mother where the overwhelming likelihood is that the pregnancy will end in the birth of a healthy child.

Consider a continuum of development from the moment of conception up to age 18 years.

Up to what point along that continuum do you think it should be solely the mother's choice whether or not the life continues?

I'm not asking what is. I'm asking what you think SHOULD be.

Justify your choice on SCIENTIFIC grounds.

Remember, we are not talking about the "hard" cases. We are considering only cases where there is no indication that there is anything wrong with the baby and there are no contra-indications for pregnancy for the mother.

Where should the cut-off point be where we say to a pregnant woman "No, you've PASSED THE POINT OF NO RETURN. Too late for an abortion. Now you have the baby"?

How about up to (say) one week before birth as a reasonable cut-off point?

Or how about up to birth as divine_msn suggests?

See also LOLFetus:

http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978592147

The way I see it Steven, is this:

A being is not a person. You have a person, when you have a
being, with a human brain. The first time you have the structures
in place, for what can be called a human brain, are around
week 24.

Steven, this definition is really at the heart of the issue. The concept of 'life starts at conception' is flawed, the egg and sperm are both alive, and the argument that the combination of genes at conception makes a potential new life must now take into consideration that ordinary skin cells can be programmed to form a potential human.

If I had to decide the time-point on scientific grounds I would (conservatively) choose 12 weeks post-conception. At the 12th week of gestation, nerve fibers appear. One could argue at this point (most likely some time after) the fetus could feel pain or become self conscious. I would support this argument by stating that I wouldn't consider an adult human with no brain/nerve function as having life. Even a deceased persons cells are still 'alive' for a period of time.

Stezza et al, the nerve fibres of the "periphery" of the fetus do not transmit nerve impulses to or from the brain until the spinal cord joins to the brain at about 6 months of gestation - the barrier up to that point is a structure called the sub-cortical plate.

This means the movements of the fetus up to this point are uncontrolled and meaningless.

Sorry but this is outright disgusting:

"“Children”, as writer Bob Ellis put it, “who would have loved you”."
This is total garbage and the most lowly attempt to place guilt on people, but would it even play out this way?

So, we have a mother, father or couple who, for whatever reason, want to have an abortion, be it a conception they did not want, or cannot afford, but ultimately cannot fit into their lives. And the anti-abortionists insist that said child is to be RAISED, by force, by people who simply can't or don't want to even have him/her, or left to wait for someone else to adopt (and hope that person is ok)?

People should have children for only ONE reason- because they WANTED to have children, and more importantly made a place in their LIVES for the child.

Anything less is simply wrong.

Stezza. said...

"The concept of 'life starts at conception' is flawed, the egg and sperm are both alive,"

Um.....Technically' The egg is just what it is. Just an egg. I mean, a small batch sits in the ovaries per 30 day cycle, and in fact, its the sperm that's the living moving new entity.

Basically, women are contaminated with already live micro-organisms. so yes! technically its men that make life and the reason why its so emotional, is the fact that they carry and bond with the growing new human. But once you have brain and connecting nerves systems, findings show that pain responses are recorded so before this takes place, its just a bunch of cells with not really much of any-thing going on, but the cell division processes.

If you wish to argue that the sperm is the soul/life form, I guess you could say once the cell separating starts, its murder for the word go.

See religious views puts the automatic guilt trip on all concerned.

I think it will be never settled. I believe that all life takes its chances and understanding evolution was mans first attempt to understand god. But if god gave man the abilities to change his works itself, who are we not to exercise his gifts that he gave "as the believers say" and its fair to say all men are guilty of this, by following what god gave us.

Day 1: fertilization: all human chromosomes are present; unique human life begins.


Day 6: embryo begins implantation in the uterus.

Day 22: heart begins to beat with the child's own blood, often a different type than the mothers'.

Week 3: By the end of third week the child's backbone spinal column and nervous system are forming. The liver, kidneys and intestines begin to take shape.

Week 4: By the end of week four the child is ten thousand times larger than the fertilized egg.

Week 5: Eyes, legs, and hands begin to develop.

Cont>>>>