Yabby, Yabby, Yabby, you do 'yabba' on sometimes..... No matter what pieces of a human being you replace - the person is human NOT because of his or her mind, but because of their SOUL. This is the distinguishing feature that makes us human.

Re the rest of your post - The venomous nature of your constant attack on faith, the Catholic church in particular, suggests to me that you are a lapsed Catholic. In my experience, those who most attack the church are those who have left it. They seem to feel the need to attack to justify their position.

Re "no functioning brain at 12 weeks" - electrical activity is present in the brain at 5 weeks. The degree of 'awareness'of a pre-born is the correct level of awareness for a preborn. The level of awareness of a 40 year old (in most instances :-)) is the level of awareness of a 40 year old. And as I have said we are ALL just a bunch of cells, but cells with a soul.

"If you are a normal woman and have had your period, then you have flushed many potentially cute babies down the toilet." No egg/ova is a potentially cute baby. As you commented, it needs not a cell but a sperm to enter it and create a baby. God designed women this way and He is the author of life. It is ludicrous to say that an ova/period is a potential human. An ova is one half of the equation needed to create a baby. Please do some research on the topic and stop proving how silly you are.

Te dear, no doubt as a little kiddie, the concept of a soul was brainwashed into you as the literal truth, but thats no more then a philophical then later a religious idea, no evidence for it.

My "venomous attacks" as you describe them, are not against people believing whatever, but on them wanting to enforce those beliefs on the rest of us by law. I read recently where Augustine was described as the first jihadi, because it was his huge influence and belief that it was ok to use compulsion and fear to get people to abide by catholic dogma, making his philosophy similar to present day muslim jihadis. I strongly disagree with religious dogma and associated laws being forced on anyone.

Electrical activity does not make for a functioning human brain.
Electrical activity can move a removed piece of muscle tissue, nothing special about that. About 25 weeks is when the neural connections are formed, to make what we could call a functioning human brain, not before that. To be described as a person, child, baby whatever, you need a human mind. The mind is what the brain does.

A sperm is basically a cell with a little tail. Your egg could quite easily have become another cute baby, it was your choice, so if you are going to become emotional about the morning after pill, you might as well be emotional about that potential baby you flushed down the toilet, it would have been pretty cute too.

Your god interpretation of the world is once again just an idea that you were brainwashed into. In a world of reason, we need more then just faith to believe and follow silly rules.

Yabby

"...crusaders would head off to kill the muslims,"

Who had conquered the entire Middle East the source of Christianity and had moved into Turkey and were trying to conquer the whole of Europe.

"heretics were burnt at the stake ..."

I would suggest it is misleading to say it like that. See the discussion of this in previous posts

"...plus the tens of thousands of dying women each year from present church policy..."

They are dying from abortionist's policy. Abortions are killing them.

"...so stop ignoring history."

You stop ignoring history. It is mainly a history of kind deeds. To put it in a way you might understand part of the 'mission statement' of the organisation is treating other people the way that you would have them treat you. We call it the Golden Rule.

"Contraception works pretty well, when its properly taught and made freely available, look at Holland!"

Look at non-Catholic Sweden.

"My argument with religion is ..."

If that was all you were saying I wouldn't have been arguing with you so extensively. I take exception to venomous attacks on the Church. You want to enforce your ideas and attack the group you see as the main voice of disagreement with your ideas. Abortion prohibited by law is no more a religious dogma than manslaughter prohibited by law. They would both simply be legal protection of human life.

"At the end of the day, religion is no more then an idea, no substantiated evidence has been presented to show that its any more then that."

How regularly would God coming to earth in human form and bringing people back from the dead be required by you?

"I read recently where Augustine was described as the first jihadi"

Don't believe everything you read.

Yabby

If there were prizes for perseverance in the line of unreasoned and unreasonable fire, you deserve it.

You continue to argue coherently and fairly - without resorting to personal invective.

Simply because you do not believe in a particular religion you subjected to abuse.

Simply because you believe in freedom of reproductive rights - you are accused of dogma - how more oxymoronic can one get?

Thankfully abortion IS legal.

Thankfully there are legal and safe options for women to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

Thankfully there are people like you, Yabby.

Cheers

Dianne

1964…a long time ago to find a death from ‘illegal’ abortions in the US, Yabby…and then misrepresent the facts.

Gerri Santoro had 14 siblings, using your criteria for ‘sustainability’, she’d have been aborted along with many of her siblings and her mother sterilized. You’re then as guilty as her defacto, Clyde. You suggest aborting her baby was ‘helping’ her - that’s what he did, not ‘backyarders’- but the father-of-her-child…your methods may be different, your means and the result for the child, are the same.

‘Gerri Santoro was six and a half months pregnant’, evidently planning to carry the child to term until ‘her ex-husband announced he was about to visit his two children. Clyde, who tried to perform an abortion, fled to another state when he saw the consequences of that action. It sounds as if he left before she died.’

Another anti-life hero?

So this has NOTHING to do with the Catholic Church or the availability of abortion…the abortion was performed in great haste so that the ex-husband would not know of the pregnancy to another man, that’s why Clyde did it, ‘botched’ it, then left Gerri dying for the maid to discover next day.

This is no advertisement for abortion to be legalized or trivialized, quite the opposite – this is a consequence of NOT taking responsibility for your actions and trivializing the consequences. Had the Church’s teachings been followed, Gerri would not’ve been in the situation to start with. Had Clyde respected Gerri enough to take responsibility for the child and Gerri, the situation may not’ve happened. Where was Gerri’s family? Where was her support? Where was Clyde’s protective support for his de facto and child? Obviously it was not the availability or otherwise of abortion that was the reason for this illegal abortion. It was so only the two of them would know.

How distressing that you would use this woman and falsely display her like an anti-life trophy or advertisement when the opposite is the case. Are you employed by the anti-life lobby? Is your livelihood dependent on abortion being commercially available?

(tbc...)

MJ, has it ever occurred to you that present day Arabs use much the same justifications for their actions, as you do for the crusaders, ie the West stealing Palestine, stealing their oil, invading their countries (Bush etc). It seems that
killing in the name of religion is tolerated on both sides.

Previous posts established that the Church had heretics burnt.

Lots of people perform kind deeds, it is not the exclusivity of the religious.

Sweden is going along fine, its only a problem for those who follow Catholic dogma. But that dogma has been wishy washy over the years.

http://liberalslikechrist.org/Catholic/abortion.html

My ideas are to give people choices MJ, free of religious dogma. I don’t think that the giving them choice, is a bad idea. You have yet to point out why it is.

No evidence of god coming to earth or bringing people back from the dead.
God is free to write his rules on the moon for all to see, he has never bothered.

For details about Augustine the jihadi, see “The History of Christianity” by historian Paul Johnson.

Dianne, many thanks, its appreciated :)