Iriemon said:
What this all comes down to is that this is semantics. Calling a single celled egg a "human" or a "child" or a "baby" doesn't make it so. Neither does calling a single celled egg a "single celled egg" mean that the egg cannot possess characteristics deemed worthy of rights that would prohibit abortion.....
Perhaps not biologically, but legally, the name of the thing is the critical difference. If we confer the legal name of "person" onto a Zygote, the Zygote's nature doesn't change, but the mother can not abort it except to save her own life.
All of this fuss is about approaching how any child in utero will be regarded by society.
"But, an 8 1/2 month old fetus is not biologically or physically the same as a single celled egg."
They are not identical, no, but they are both dipendant individuals.
"What are the characteristics of a human being that warrant giving it the rights that would prohibit abortion?"
In short: it's existence.
To quote from the ideals of our Founding Fathers:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.."
I agree with most Deists that "equal" refers to reason ( and reason seems to be the center of the scientific view as well), but I do not neglect the fact that this "equality" is conferred upon
creation; which happens at conception, not birth.
This ideal makes no distinction between current ability and future potential, and nither do I.
The difference between a child in utero and a dead body is that the dead body has neither current ability nor future potential, where as a child in uteruo has both -- to varying degrees of each, at different times during development.
"If you believe based on your religion that the spirit of a human enters the single celled egg at the moment of fertilization, and upon that basis it has the characteristics of a human life worthy of the rights, fair enough.
I can not say with any degree of certainty when a sole enters the body, so I revert to my default position of L.O.V.E. thy neighbor.
"Everyone is entitled to their religious views, but I would argue that support for that position is not found in the Bible."
My views are not based on the bible. It's a handy study guide, nothing more.
"Putting aside religious views, if you look at the human characteristics exhibited in the single celled fertilized egg, we find only 1) DNA, and 2) the potential to develop into a human being."
It has the ability to develop into an adult, yes, but it is already a dependant individual.
"It is missing almost all other human characteristics."
Totally irrelevant.
"The next question becomes, then, at what point in the gestation period does the single celled egg develop sufficient characteristics of a human being to warrant affording it those rights we give other human beings."
Conception.
*I* exists independently of the body.
The key difference between the two headless bodies is that one continues to develop while the other dies. Even if some sci-fi incubation chamber were made and the adult headless body were placed inside (artificial womb), the adult body would not grow another head.
Decapitation is obviously death. But if our genetic programing dictated that a new head would grow, just as a ZEF is growing a head, then there mite be room for argument.
We're both thinking "no smoke, no fire", we just disagree on what constitutes "smoke".
However, perhaps we can agree on this point:
Re;
"A guy who has his head chopped off, for example, I have no problem saying is no longer a human being..", if said "guy"s head is cut off then it is Murder, even if said "guy" is not yet born.