"Life begins at conception"

ROFL!

The truth is that life begins at 40

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some liberals,too. Look on the first post.

Perhaps life does begin at conception. You could make a case for that. But the problem is, too many people want to start there and leap to "therefore, abortion is murder." And it's not.
Bury an acorn in the ground for a week and water it. Does that constitute the beginning of life for an oak? Perhaps. But if you dig up that acorn, is it the same as cutting down a fully grown tree?

the current administration probably believes life begins at impure thoughts....

Is the question about the beginning of life, per se, or the beginning of personhood? After all a worm is alive but that does not earn him your reverence.
While the the beginning of "life" is largely an empirical question, the beginning of personhood is not an empirical question; it's a definitional one. It depends on how one arbitarily defines "person". (and, of course, the question of the beginning of life is to a lesser degree a definitional matter, an issue for the life sciences. But there's no corresponding discipline for the scientific definition of "person").

There are religious definitions though, which I know is at the heart of most opinions that abortion is murder. It's partly a matter of when the soul comes into existence (or enters the body as your religion may be).

Patiodog, would you say the same about Africans?

Life begins with primordial ooze, but that doesn't mean every cell should get preserved. Also, souls are mere conjecture. I for one assert they are not for real.

If believers of certain religions contend that the person begins with the emergence of a its "soul" or that life begins with conception and is more valuable than the life of a born individual, then the solution to the conflict between them and their ideological opponnents is simple. They simply "should" not have abortions under any circumstances. But they have no validly established (universally acknowledged) right to control the bodies of women who either believe otherwise or hold that particular abortions are necessary evils. It is amazing how right to life advocates can cast aside the lives of medically endangered women and the lives of capital crimminals (whom they consider to have souls). The contradictions in their worldview are mind boggling, almost as boggling as their ability to rationalize them away.

JLNobody: As I've noted elsewhere:

Sorry, this argument doesn't wash either. It's like those bumper stickers -- "Don't like abortion? Then don't have one!" The problem with this line of logic is that it's like saying "don't like murder? Then don't kill someone!" As long as anti-abortionists believe that abortion is murder, they are acting perfectly reasonably in opposing [i]anyone's[/i] abortion, just as those opposed to murder are perfectly reasonable in opposing any murder.

Whether something is universally acknowledged is no indication of truth.

Just as Joe said, it doesn't matter whether the murderer BELIEVES he is committing murder--I would want to stop any murderer, regardless of their view of their own actions.

Joe, good point, but it isn't as if abortion and murder have been validly equated, and that's the point. I'm against killing people in war (at least most wars, like the Iraqui war and where I consider doing so murder); it is therefore my moral responsiblity to myself to avoid being put in a situation where I must kill an iraqui to save myself. And I know that most Americans would insist that I be jailed for that belief/action. Similarly, an anti-abortionist may argue that I be jailed (or killed) for carrying out an abortion. The problem is not whether or not it is reaonable to oppose abortion because it seen as murder; the problem is whether or not one has the right to define reality for others. Does a person have the nonproblematical right to put me in jail for conscientious objection simply because THEY define pacificism as wrong?

If they felt your pacifism was endangering lives (which they could argue, and I personally would disagree with), and if they felt so strongly enough, it would be odd for them to not threaten you with jailtime. What else but our beliefs do we have to act on?

scoates, you are right. We can only act on the basis of our beiefs. But it is preferrable that they be reasonable. For example, if "they" jail me because they believe that my non-participation in the war will endanger the lives of those fighting the war, doesn't my encarcertation contribution to that endangerment? Would their argument be based on an assumption of deterrence? If so, does that meet the standard of reasonableness?

Let's take an episode of Star Treck for example (have some fun with me ). Captain Picard is captured and replaced with some sort of doppleganger. Eventually the crew grows concerned at his strange actions, and plans a mutiny. They certainly have no right to disobey their captain, or mutiny, but they believe it is the correct thing to do, and we can support their decision since we (the viewers) have a little inside info, but from their point of view it was not as simple as "Do we have the right to do this?" It came down to "What do we think is right? And do we think it right enough that we must force the captain to step down from his view/actions?"

Obviously this example from Star Treck solves the age old disagreement, proving that abortion is wrong.

scoates, by the way, you note that: "Whether something is universally acknowledged is no indication of truth." Of course that's right, but that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about rules (criteria) for action which become universally binding because they reflect criteria established by institutionalized methods.

As to your last post (second to last post now), if everyone had a perfect sense of right an wrong, there would be no problem. The real problem arises when someones sense (whether correct or incorrect) is so different than that of someone else, that they feel bound to contend. Either as we are, civilly, or with guns, or protest signs, or... phasers as it may be.

I just threw the point out casually. It was only meant as a truth, and not really an argument. Incidentally it wasn't very useful.

SCoates, if I recall correctly, the movie, The CiderHouse Rules, addressed a similar situation. If was about a young medical caregiver who did not believe in abortion (on moral grounds) but in a concrete case decided (on ethical grounds) that it was necessary. Morals are general rules; ethics has to do with concrete situations, and sometimes moral principles do not apply to particular situations. What does one do then? Well, one then has to break loose from his cultural programming and take responsibility for original thought, but, I suppose, in pursuit of solutions that do not grossly violate moral sensibilities. It's just that it is rarely a simple matter of following rules like a programmed automaton. Social solutions are not always individual solutions.