Election 2004: The 5MV District

[Gatac]

Xeroc: If we are going with the scientific definition of life, we can not refute that the fetus is alive right after conception. It is, after all, a cell with the same genetic code as the fully-grown human, and meets all criteria. It lives. To me, asking where life begins is nonsense; the question (as portrayed by Zeke) is: where can we speak of a meaningful correlation between this infant life and the finished baby? Heartbeat? Neural activity? Recognisable presence of all essential organs? That is, in my humble opinion, the great question.

Though a bit unscientific, if we portray the development of the child as a sort of evolution from one-celled organism to primate on a smaller scale, at which level of complexity do we recognise that this is humanoid life?

Wowbagger: Define independant. Is it being geneticall different from it's host organism? Then it's conception, yeah. Is it having an own circulatory system? Early pregnancy. Recogniseably human? Late pregnancy. Physically disconnected from the mother? Birth. Able to care for itself? Eh...I think we're looking at a few *years* after birth with progressing silliness of the argument.

I'll admit that my knowledge of the legal situation in Germany is not the best, so I'll get back to that after a bit of research.

I'm not saying that we'll have so-and-so many dead women when abortion becomes illegal. My point is that sure, outlawing it will deter many, but also drive a lot to backalley abortions. Whether they all die from them is arguably not important; the point is that you're going to have abortions either way, so why waste money and effort on making them *less* safe?

How do you seperate an abortion of convenience from all the others?

Valium: Better sex ed? Definately. I'm all for reasonable, educated people taking responsibility for their own actions. I apply the same reasoning to firearms: If you want to have them, YOU are responsible for them. No loaded revolver under the pillow. Get a safe, take courses, teach your children how to safely handle firearms.

Gatac