>>A zygote is a member of the human species: it has the full human genome and is a living organism.<<

Technically that should read 'a human zygote is a member of the human species'.

I just don't understand why we're all so hung up on species:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=13312#230187

If a zygote's right to life is determined by its membership of the human species then it would seem to be acceptable to murder Vulcans: they are not members of the human species. In that sense it is no worse than ending the life of any other animal species. I eat meat which means I'm indirectly responsible for the deaths of cows, pigs, cute fluffy little lambs, goats, kangaroos, rabbits, frogs, chickens, quails, ducks, turkeys, and pigeons. I hope to be responsible for the deaths of more - I'd really like to try venison one of these days. Should I feel no worse about killing a Vulcan? What about Spock?

If murdering Vulcan's doesn't sit well with your conscience then it would seem there is more than just species that comes into consideration. And if as I suggested earlier that it an organism's personhood that counts it is reasonable to ask the question 'is a human always a person?'

Cheers,

Tony

Gee boys, you can argue all you like about embryo's, zygotes, fertilization and unmarried mothers, but at the end of the day, which of you guys are going to actually force a woman to go through with a pregnancy she doesn't want?

Will you tie the potential abortion woman down on her bed until she gives birth?
Will you also tie down the man that played an equal part in making this unwanted baby?

At the end of the day, the very least likely people that should be allowed to have a say in what women can or can't do with their bodies are unrelated males.

Abortion is currently legal,
and this will never change,
so get over it...

Yabby, +1
Tony, I don't know what planet your on.

It's a sad reflection on 40DFL and other right-to-life groups who aim to reduce the rights of a woman to less than or equal to those of a non-sentient embryo or fetus.

When abortion was first made lawfully available, the RTLers arguments were all based on their argument that "life starts at conception" and that the church forbids abortion. Now, after a couple of decades of their alienating women and driving more and more people away from a hostile and misogynistic church, their aim has shifted towards pretending to protect women from "the harms of abortion". Despite the fact that national medical bodies (in USA, Australia, UK, NZ etc) do not support any of the RTL claims about heath concerns. In fact, the largest risk facing a woman after having a termination, is confiding with a judgemental, right-to-life friend or family member.

If the 40Days people achieve their stated goal and ended abortion, women would have far greater health concerns to worry about but I'm sure that they wouldn't be holding 40 days of praying on street corners then.

Let's look at the emotive language the rtlers use. They refer to the embryo as unborn. Actually that is inaccurate. Embryos may not get born. Even if no surgical procedure is performed there are many cases of spontaneous abortions in which an embryo is disposed of and not born.

For accuracy in language all of us are undead. We know we are going to die some time in the future, but we obviously have not done so yet. Unborn is inaccurate usage. However, undead is accurate usage. Since I would rather dwell in the present I would refer to all the people on this list as alive rather than undead. They are also born. I place the rights of a woman who is born as above the rights of an embryo.

An embryo for most of the gestation period cannot live outside of its mother's body. During that period it is just tissue in the body of a pregnant woman. As far as I am concerned a woman, pregnant or not, has a right to say what goes on in her body. Those who would mess with that right point out the risks of abortion. That is nonsense. In most cases giving birth is a riskier procedure for women than abortion.

When my wife was a young woman the only choices for a woman going to university was being a teacher, a librarian or a nurse. While she was going to uni a new profession opened up, and she became an occupational therapist. She is quite bright, and I think she would have made a terrific mathematician, but that was not a choice for women at that time.

Now a woman is allowed in most professions, but some troglodytes do not want her to control what goes on her body and want to force her to have a baby that she doesn't want to have. Let having a baby be her choice, too.

davidf

Twist language and fact all you like. Any person who looks at a baby of 6 weeks under a mircoscope is under no illusion unlike yourself. The abortion industry certainly stoops to deceit to hide simple truths. The nazis did not see the Jews as human and abortionist use the same logic to kill babies.

THE PRIME MOTIVATION FOR ABORTION?

What??

What women want? - More Credible lies, Power and destruction!

The prime motivation is for pregnancy to GET power in a very competitive society where most of that competition is from women against other women. Blaming men is just a ruse to ease womens guilt that every child born DEMANDS more polluting companies to serve them and fewer protected species and maximum environmental destruction to give them the liebensraum (free space) their double dealing psyches WANT along with the RIGHT to blame other people for so they can feel righteous about themselves.

What women therefore REALLY WANT is a bloody good WAR which their men will fight to get the EQUALITY nee POWER that they LUST after.

This ugly reality is why every civilisation has at some point had to exclude women from the VOTE in order to stem the unsustainability that is the crest and frontespiece of every women's EQUAL RIGHT movement.

But alas War cometh and women will get exactly what they want. But it will be between 2025 and 2030 and 4-5 billion souls will have to perish along with any permanent ideals of equal rights.

The new world post 2030 will be exclusively ruled by men out of necessity ALL because women do not have the brains to understand the consequences of overbreeding and the lies they continue to tell in order to maintain that posture.

If they did have the brains they would take responsibility for their monthly oestrogenic selfishness, regulate their own reproduction to one child per lifetime and fess up to the environmental, biospecies and pollution and climate destructions they are DRIVING in this extant socio political miasma we call a modern world.

Four things remain: