Sorry about the harsh tone in that last post, Is Mise, but I get really irritated when my position is misrepresented.

A quick question, though: if an unborn human child, made in the image of God, is not an individual whose survival is totally dependent on its mother’s body, then what is it?

I mean, we wouldn’t force a parent to donate an organ to their dying child, so why do unborn human children, potential Beethovens (to borrow from the Christians' Great Beethoven fallacy), deserve more rights than a child that has already been born?

AJ,

A human child, like all the offspring of mammals, is totally dependent on its mother's body but that doesn't make it a parasite, once it has become non-dependent then there is no obligation, legal or moral, for the mother to continue support with her body,e.g. there is no obligation to breast feed if other options are available.

The parasite theory is one of the great fallacies of our times.

I know, Is MIse.

<<A human child, like all the offspring of mammals, is totally dependent on its mother's body but that doesn't make it a parasite...>>

I’ve never said or implied otherwise. How many times do I have to use the most emotive possible language to describe the unborn human child before you understand that?

<<...once it has become non-dependent then there is no obligation, legal or moral, for the mother to continue support with her body…>>

I wouldn’t be so quick to write off a moral obligation. There is a case for a moral obligation to use one’s body to assist the child in both instances. However, the moral obligation not to strip someone of their bodily autonomy is greater because of the social costs that that would entail.

That being said, There is also no obligation for the mother to support the unborn human baby before it is born either. By what logic or reasoning have you come to the conclusion that there are obligations in one instance and not the other? You haven't explained that.

<<The parasite theory is one of the great fallacies of our times.>>

Yeah, I’m happy enough to go along with that.

//A human child, like all the offspring of mammals, is totally dependent on its mother's body but that doesn't make it a parasite, once it has become non-dependent then there is no obligation, legal or moral, for the mother to continue support with her body,e.g. there is no obligation to breast feed if other options are available.//

That just means that it is a facultative parasite - a parasite which is not dependent on a host to complete it's life cycle - rather than an obligate parasite - a parasite which cannot complete it's life cycle without exploiting a host.

If want to talk about biology, it helps to learn some biology first. Otherwise you just wind up coming across as an under-educated goose.

Thanks for that, Toni Lavis. I didn't think the dictionary definition would contain such an inaccuracy, but didn't bother to look into it further because it's been beside my point.

Is Mise,

Since I apparently haven’t been clear enough, let’s assume that not only is the unborn human child not a parasite, but that your God exists and that souls somehow magically possess or spontaneously appear in ovums at the moment of conception. In light of my comments in the third paragraph of my response to Josephus at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7084#217848, how would that change my point?

Furthermore, since everything that happens is the will of God (Isaiah 45:7), then God is responsible for spontaneous abortions, making him the worst abortionist in history, and many times worse if you take the Catholic point of view in which every sperm is both sacred and great, and that if a sperm gets wasted, God gets quite irate.

Another reason I’m happy to assume that souls enter ovums at the moment of conception is because, according to Christian theology, abortion should ultimately be a good thing since there would be no risk to the soul of the unborn human child if they get to skip this Earthly life which is, after all, just a place to wipe one’s feet, according to the theology of the Abrahamic religions. We should be encouraging pregnancy and abortion because souls would be created and sent straight to heaven with no risk of them using their God-given reasoning and becoming atheists, or being born into a criminogenic environment.

If I was given the choice of eternal bliss or eternal nothingness, then I think I’d choose eternal bliss. How could a god, with unlimited love to give, ever be disappointed with, or even indifferent to, the idea of having even more souls to love?

Toni,

"If want to talk about biology, it helps to learn some biology first. Otherwise you just wind up coming across as an under-educated goose."

you left out 'but in good company'.

The human child is needed for the continuation of the humanity, therefore it cannot be a parasite.