Re: abortion
tonyf wrote:"a human being who has been born and is alive" to "a human being who is alive, including an unborn child at every stage of gestation, from fertilization until birth."
Is this patently a nonsense? Surely "human being" implies sentience & sapience; an unborn child is not sapient, nor sentient - both of which imply learned behaviour....which brings in nurture vs nature. The quote above used to define a human being impies creationism, which in itself is medieval and harks back to the Dark Ages.
It is interesting that you find this statement "patently a nonsense." (Only tangentially because "nonsense" is rarely, if ever, considered a noun)
How do you come to the conclusion that "human being" implies sentience, or, for that matter, sapience?
Your argument (assuming you understand the meaning of these two words) implies that the unconscious and the
dull are not human beings.
Consciousness (sentience) most definitely does not imply learned behavior.
I surely cannot prove that a fetus is self-aware, but I challenge you to prove it is not. Considering that we are discussing this issue in the context of killing the fetus, doesn't it seem to make sense to give the fetus the benefit of the doubt?
