Election 2004: The 5MV District

[Xeroc]

Originally Posted by Gatac

Warning: We are approaching the border of the (very) long and tedious sentience/sapience/consciousness discussion. I will follow and argue even that point, I just want to point out that I tend to leave this fuzzy for a good reason.

The whole "when life begins" debate, IMHO, really determines the morality of abortion.

I've heard a few dominant philosophies on the subject:

When does Human Life* Begin?

At Conception:
By this definition, all abortion would be immoral, and so would some morning-after pills when it prevents a fertilized zygote from developing.
At Birth:
By this definition, all abortion would be legal, (and so would pills) as human life begins at birth, not before.
Sometime Between Conception and Birth:
By this definition, abortion would be legal or illegal based on the developmental stage of the fetus.
Gradually begins throughout, no particular breaking point between alive and not:
Abortion in this case would still be debateable, as the fetus is not "entirely" human, but can be more or less so depending on the development, this would likely also be where abortion would be legal or illegal based on the developmental stage of the fetus.

*Note: Biologically, the cell is alive even before it is fertilized, but so are the millions of bacteria floating around in our air.

Usually, which category one falls in to is determined largely (or entirely) on one's religious beliefs.

Click Here for a Table of Abortion Law around the World

Originally Posted by Wowbagger

1) Xeroc, I mentioned Best of the Web by James Taranto because that is how I found Good News Watch, which, I believe, was only entitled Good News Watch on that page. Arthur Chrenkoff, I thought, called it something else on his blog.

Oh, I actually found it elsewhere, but I see what you mean.