[MTVN]

Originally Posted by christmas_cake

The only thing I can say in the favour of people who choose to murder their own children, is that if they are going to be the parents, perhaps the kid really is better of dead.

Aborting a fetus is not murder.

[fruit_cake]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Aborting a fetus is not murder.

as far as I am concerned, it is.

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by christmas_cake

as far as I am concerned, it is.

But it's a non-sentient being, it cannot feel anything, a fetus or an embryo is not a human being and should not be considered one

[Niall]

Originally Posted by MTVN

But it's a non-sentient being, it cannot feel anything, a fetus or an embryo is not a human being and should not be considered one

This. The child cannot even feel pain until at least 5 weeks in. It would also have no chance of surviving and in no way can be considered a human.

Abortion is not murder when all your getting rid of is a fertilised cell.

[Lee.]

Originally Posted by Blitzen

This. The child cannot even feel pain until at least 5 weeks in. It would also have no chance of surviving and in no way can be considered a human.

Abortion is not murder when all your getting rid of is a fertilised cell.

It's not just a cell though.. woman is 3 -5 months pregnant when the Downs test is done

[Niall]

Originally Posted by happyland

It's not just a cell though.. woman is 3 -5 months pregnant when the Downs test is done

I was on about the earlier stages of pregnancy.

But back on topic, those who have down syndrome can actually be regular normal people. It just depends on the degree of down syndrome you have which can be very widely varying. We were discussing this in R.S the other day

[Lee.]

Originally Posted by MTVN

But it's a non-sentient being, it cannot feel anything, a fetus or an embryo is not a human being and should not be considered one

By the time a pregnant mother is tested for Downs Syndrome, her baby IS very much a living being though. It has a heart beat and moves, the movements which can be felt inside her. I don't agree with abortion personally anyway, but I don't understand how a mother can choose to have her baby removed from her body ater she has felt those first few fluttery movements and listened to his or her heartbeat. I just couldn't bear it

[ElProximo]

Originally Posted by MTVN

But it's a non-sentient being, it cannot feel anything, a fetus or an embryo is not a human being and should not be considered one

You can just 'announce' that standard but it can't become a defining definition for what is or is not a 'human being'.
Look at it this way:
- It certainly can 'feel' something somehow in the sense it most definitely reacts or responds to outside 'stimuli' (going with that word).

- Okay, but if we mean it cannot register and respond to pain that doesn't make one a living human or not. We might refer to Leprosy patients or for that matter any number in hospitals tonight sedated or we could even take an example of a paraplegic.. we don't suppose their body from the neck down is anything but a valuable living human body.

- 'Sentience' is interesting though its unhelpful in defining a human being in this sense (we are attempting) because it is more a philosophical concept than its tangible.
Here again, we could point to many people in our town who are in comas, stages of dementia, severe brain damage and in some sense are incapable of being 'aware' of pain and pleasure (physical or emotional or spiritual etc). Are they anything less than human beings?
For that matter we might wonder - is a child less 'sentient' than an adult and therefore 'less human'?

- Speaking of definition there is something where people say 'Its a FETUS not a BABY'. Right.
The word 'Fetus' is a soft of 'stage term'. We say 'Infants' or 'Teenagers'. The word 'Fetus' is one of those words. It would be like saying "Its a Prepubescent not a Fetus!'.

- but all of these things together don't even really dictate or change or mitigate calling an 'unborn person' or 'fetus' or 'water baby' anything but a 'human being'.
That's not making a political statement or anything. I could be 100% for aborting everyone but I still have no choice but to call this a 'Human Being'. It is a 'Being'.
Its not a rodent being, animal being, outer-space being. I can't get around it when it comes to a defining description.

I don't get involved in these 'abortion' debates too often. I rarely discuss it. I find it horrifying or 'bad' regardless of any political or religious views I ever had. Nobody should ever 'want' an abortion no matter what.
OK,
but here is actually how I look at this sometimes and just bear with the unusual angle:
Let's completely forget this idea of it being a human being or not. Say it is not. We all agree.
OK.
Just imagine the amazing headlines next month: Scientists find LIFE FORMS on meteors!!!
In a stunning discovery there is a tiny sort of microscopic inorganic 'spore' found on a rock in the Amazon.
To the astonishment it was seen to transform into some organic 'drip'. After months of intense science the drip (fed simple sugars) began to transfer DNA coding from a researchers skin cells!!!
Under exact circumstances and work the 'blob' began mimicking a 'humanoid shape' blood vessels...
... a year later the alien life-form was a living breathing alien being!!!

Scientists, politicians, social workers cannot express the astonishing implications of this!
BILLIONS would be spent. Money and Time! Every one of our greatest minds and top geniuses would be marshaled to invest in this!
Almost immediately the meteorites would become nothing short of the most valuable matter on Earth!
The region the original 'dust spores' were found is now nothing short of a trillion dollar UN protected security zone with 10,000 agents spending 1000s of hours literally going through blades of grass with a fine-tooth comb!
Men would die for this.
Governments who mishandled the 'life form issue' may be defeated over this issue!
hell, some religion would start. Scientologists would become respectable FFS!
The 'alien spore', if found, would have the most astonishing security, protection.. again, every military defense, top-secret labs, billion dollars care facility, thousands of researchers in every sanitary protection, locked rooms ventilated in exact %s of air and heat etc.

Do you see this now?
EVEN IF the fetus were totally agreed upon as something 'inhuman' it is nothing short of amazing that with some simple science it can turn into a human being.
Something that can turn into a sentient human being by just adding some simple common substances?
To me and (seen in example) most people that is a highly valuable 'object' in itself.
Go ahead and suppose it isn't a human being. That, by simply NOT interfering and throwing some salt, sugar and water in it for a few month it becomes a human being?
Priceless!