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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Omega: [QB] I would point out that I'm not for a COMPLETE ban on abortions. In a case in which the mother's life is at stake, I'd have no problem. If the child obviously has zero chance of surviving to be a thinking human being, I'd say it would be similar to taking a vegetable off of life support at the request of the family. In the case of rape, I'm still debating it. Sol: "I would usually recommend seeking out the source material." My ancient Greek is a little rusty. "unless your definition of human is purely genetic, unthinking embryos don't fit within it." I don't attempt to define human. I simply extrapolate, based on what everyone (short of the few feminazis in the country) agrees is a human, and use a little legal logic. "How you are extending it to include the statement that nonthinking entities are human is quite beyond me." I wasn't refering to the actual question of Data's sentience. I was refering to the speech given by the presiding command officer (perhaps she was a capitan) when giving her ruling. She said the question was whether Data had a soul or not. Whether he was alive. She said she didn't know, but that she had to give HIM the chance to find out for himself. What IS the measure of a (hu)man? How can you say "This is the line"? If there is even the SLIGHTEST chance that something could be called a living human being, we have an obligation to let it become whatever it will. "And yet you refuse to acknowledge extreme differences between an embryo and a fetus, and a fetus and a baby." I acknowledge the differences. I simply think they're irrelevant. One is basically a more or less mature form of the others. A gamite is a completely seperate entity that will die within a couple weeks under any circumstances. It can never become a human on its own. An embryo can. "Why is it that your argument is predicated upon abortion always being a clear cut moral issue involving only one person?" Because those are the abortions we're talking about. Ones in which the mother's life is at stake we both seem to find acceptable, so there is no debate over them. The only one's we have any question over is where the mother has an abortion for the simple reason that she doesn't want the child. "I merely pointed out that there are other cases where human lives are ended willfully that you do not seem to object to, rendering this point useless in this particular debate." Wrong. Your analogy is inaplicable. The willful ending of a human life is not nesecarily wrong. You seem to like splitting hairs, but to humor you, let's tack a "defenceless" in there, and maybe an "innocent", too. "You cannot concieve of an instance in which it is right for a doctor to perform an action and wrong for someone else?" When it involves the death of an innocent being, no, I can't. "then why must we treat them the same?" Simple. All humans are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these is life. *epiphany* I've been going about this the wrong way. I don't have to proove anything. Look at it this way. I take a rat to court, claiming that it has a right to life as a human being. How easy would it be to defeat that? It's easy to proove that a rat is not a human being, and therefore is not entitled to the applicable rights. But it must be _prooven_ that the rat is not a human being. The benefit of the doubt must be given. Otherwise, you could have someone claiming that other people aren't human, and they'd have to proove that they WERE. In the case mentioned, it'd be incredibly simple to proove that a rat isn't human. In the case of an embryo, it's not. Pretend this is a court. You have the burden of proof. You must give me a compelling reason why an embryo is NOT human until a certain point. To do this, YOU have to define human. The ball's in your court. Have fun. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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