ScienceLaw,

Your slavery example presupposes two people, something that the rest of us would not accept in the case of a first trimester abortion (or the morning after pill or IUD). If you are willing to accept the brain death criteria to distinguish between a human person and human tissue at the end of life, why wouldn't the same criteria apply at the beginning? As the late Carl Sagan said, if there is brain death, then there logically has to be brain birth. He put brain birth somewhere in the second trimester, so wouldn't have agreed with Peter Singer about infanticide or very late abortions. I don't either.

Incidentally, the majority view among early Christians was that abortion was morally wrong at any stage, but didn't become immediately tantamount to murder. We know this from the different penances suggested for late and early abortion in early manuals for priests.

A large group can be tyrannical in a democracy, the real issue is whether it is right or wrong to kill the unborn.

Everyone knows human life along with the life of every animal starts at conception, human rights are there to protect humans. Killing innocent humans is wrong.

Either we all have rights or only some have rights, if they are arbitrarily assigned at a certain stage of human development or lack of it what stops other rights being arbitrarily assigned. Perhaps one day we’ll find ourselves on the wrong end of a majority decision to end our life.

(Don’t worry they’ll use anaesthetics.)

Who decides if you are worthy of life? Or if you are human? Or is it intrinsic to us? A slavemaster used to be allowed to decide. A slavemaster had unparalleled access to the humanity of their slave – in our time organised criminals mete out justice according to their own rules, with unrestricted abortion we would allow something similar - allow the whim of individuals to determine who is going to live or die.

If abortion is allowed now, in a decade or two what about involuntary euthanasia of you or me? We aren’t pretending to ourselves that we might escape the effects of an increasingly callous society are we? If society is so accepting of killing its inconvenient young children, what about killing its inconvenient elderly or not so elderly?

Fools.

That there is a desire to protect sexual license by sacrificing 90 000 of our children per year ought to show us how desperate our situation is.

Generations that actually make it out of the womb (that most hostile of places for humans these days), will name what we explained away as the "surgical removal of a clump of cells" as the barbaric child sacrifice it is.

(Abortion in the first trimester)
http://www.silentscream.org

Divergence – I think your arguments are very intelligent and well-made, so here goes!

“Your slavery example presupposes two people, something that the rest of us would not accept in the case of a first trimester abortion (or the morning after pill or IUD).”

I acknowledge that that is something you and many others do not accept (and as you know I think otherwise).

My point is that people made the exact same argument at the time of slavery – that black people were not people, and this was the basis on which they denied their rights. We need to be so so careful about ever doing this again, whether it's on the basis of skin colour or age/stage of development.

Divergence “If you are willing to accept the brain death criteria to distinguish between a human person and human tissue at the end of life, why wouldn't the same criteria apply at the beginning? As the late Carl Sagan said, if there is brain death, then there logically has to be brain birth. He put brain birth somewhere in the second trimester”

I disagree with this – there is evidently growth and development before this stage, so life is there already. The development of the brain (like that of all organs of the fetus) is continual from conception; the second trimester may be the stage at which we (with our imperfect skills and equipment) become able to detect brain activity.

Also, on such a vital issue, “somewhere in the second trimester” is too vague a delineation. If we are unsure, we should err on the side of the fetus. [There is a famous allegory that used to come up in philosophy classes. You are out hunting with a friend, and you become separated. There is movement in the trees; could be a deer, or it could be your friend. Do you shoot? Of course not, until you are absolutely sure it is not your friend – ie you err on his side, rather than take any risk.]

“Incidentally, the majority view among early Christians was that abortion was morally wrong at any stage, but didn't become immediately tantamount to murder. We know this from the different penances suggested for late and early abortion in early manuals for priests.”

That’s interesting – I did not know that. Still, I would say that was due to people in those early times not having the knowledge of embryology and fetal development we now have. I think they thought a fetus was not alive til “quickening” (?The first time the mother felt it move). We now know different.

ScienceLaw,

I would be inclined to give the fetus the benefit of the doubt in the later months of pregnancy, but an embryo or early fetus either has no nervous system or only has a very rudimentary one, i.e. no capacity for consciousness. There is no room for doubt at this stage. There is no question that living human tissue exists from the moment of conception, but it also exists in a brain-dead body on life support. To say human tissue = person or potential person = person is a matter of religious revelation, not reason.

Martin,

Some of us don't want to be hung as albatrosses around the necks of our children. I am actually far less worried about being offed prematurely than about being kept alive to suffer, long past the point when I would have been mercifully dead back in the first century, thanks to the efforts of the religious zealots and their allies, the money-hungry medical industry and the venal politicians they buy.

Divergence: “An embryo or early fetus either has no nervous system or only has a very rudimentary one, i.e. no capacity for consciousness. There is no room for doubt at this stage.”

Why is consciousness the criterion for determining who is entitled to human rights? Again, like for “personhood”, we are imposing another threshold for an entity to “earn” its humanity. I see this as arbitrary – why choose consciousness? Why not birth, ability to walk unaided, passing a fifth birthday? (or having white skin/non-Jewish religion, for that matter?). Of course I can see arguments why attaining consciousness is an important stage of development, but as I’ve said all along I do not feel humanity needs to be earnt or conferred by criteria decided by others.

“There is no question that living human tissue exists from the moment of conception, but it also exists in a brain-dead body on life support. To say human tissue = person or potential person = person is a matter of religious revelation, not reason.”

I did not say that; I said there was growth and development before brain activity becomes observable, and hence human life was present before that stage.