5th October 2005, 8:24 PM
Quote:When is something 'its own organism'? A six-month old child is as completely dependent on its mother as a six-month old fetus. The baby cannot survive without constant attention. If left completely on its own, it will die, without a doubt. This is the case for the first several years of human life.
The fetus is developing inside the mother. Eventually it grows too large to be contained in the womb and must be removed, but it still continues development at the same rate for many more years. What is it about birth that makes a fetus suddenly human? Nothing. Nothing changes except the infant is in a crib instead of in a womb. It is as dependent on its parents care as if it were still in the womb. Yet, it is murder to kill the infant, but not the fetus.
That is just not true. A fetus needs more than a child. A child needs just to be fed... I know there is more to it than that, but that's the core of it... while a fetus requires much more elaborate means to keep it alive outside the mother (and this does not always work, especially before a few months before the due date).
Quote:I'm not completely anti-abortion (I absolutely despise it as a method of birth control, I think it should only be used as an emergency procedure to save the mother), but the idea that human life only begins at vaginal passage is complete bullshit. Either human life begins at conception or it begins at the point when the child is able to survive without any sort of help, not at one point in-between that is absolutely meaningless to human development in the end.
1) Read my above post.