fxashun;

What else is the human sperm and egg created foetus but a developing human? It's just a stage of human/mammalian development.

yes, one stage. but before it has developed into anything that could be called an individual person.

What else is the sperm going to be under the conditions in the human body? That stain on the Lewinsky's blue dress was just a stain. And an unfertilized egg is a stain on a maxi-pad.
Seems to me you are going on a HUGE leap with this. No human is gonna come from an unfertilized egg.

every human was once an unfertilised egg and a nearby sperm. then they met, and then the chromosomes combined, and then the egg started to divide, and then it implanted in the uterine lining, and then it started to deveolp organs, etc.

but when in this process does one become a person?

And all humans are the result of them. We are talking about abortion. Which is the termination of a pregnancy. Which was initiated by sex between two humans. Which resulted in conception. Which created a foetus. Which the woman assumes is gonna become a baby. I doubt a woman has ever considered that she might ought to get an abortion before she has sex to remove the developing egg.

this is what being on the pill is.

I just challenged those you just made.

no you didnt, you just said you disagreed with them.

Here's my link that gives a pretty thorough overview of many different viewpoints.

yes, useful. and strangely it reinforces my argument that there is no consensus on this issue.

I realize an egg and a sperm are alive. But we aren't talking about a woman removing her eggs or the use of spermicide. We are talking about a woman who once she finds out she has voluntarily

or involuntarily

performed the act that creates life for humans/mammals deciding that she didn't know that that might happen and wants to remove the developing human being

you mean the foetus

from the place where all developing humans live before they can survive in the outside environment. Termination of that process for convenience is killing/murder/homicide.

this leap of faith requires us to accept your definition of life, which your link illustrated was far from agreed upon.

But in the context of our discussion here, that isn't necessary. No one really considers the existential-ness of pregnancy when the pee-stick gets a line in it. It's pretty much assumed it's a human baby growing there.

it isnt going to be any other species, is it?

but whether or not it is a baby, well that is the point. and once again, your link shows that it is far from "pretty much assumed".

No I couldn't. The act of placing the sperm in the body does not result in anything but sperm in the body. When you eat food, you receive no nutrients until the chemical reactions take place. You might spit it out, you might vomit it, just eating doesn't mean you are providing nutrients.

but that is the beginning of the whole process.

Just ejaculating into a woman doesn't mean you are going to get pregnant any more than ovulation.

conception does not mean you are going to get pregnant either.

There is an entire process necessary for actual conception.

but you are confident that one instant along that (not understood and vastly complicated) process is the definite beginning of a life.

And "placing sperm in the female body" is analogous to putting a fig newton in your mouth.

putting food in your mouth stimulates blood flow to your stomach, causes release of acids and hormones that lead to increasing activity in the rest of the GI tract and causes psychological changes such as feeling less hungry even before you have swallowed. but you are not prepared to say digestion begins at an arbitrarily determined instant because it is a complicated process without a clear beginning.

this is a good analogy for pregnancy. but you do say that life begins at conception, which is just like saying digestion begins at putting food in the mouth. which you disagree with because digestion is more complicated than that. apparently life is not so complicated.


But that is the point where it starts.

the mouth is the point digestion starts. but thats different, right?

If the mother dies, conditions change, etc, there may be a miscarriage or whatever. But that doesn't mean that the process of the individual living thing doesn't start at conception.

nor does it mean it does start at conception. it just means conception is neccesary, as i agreed before, but not sufficient.

Well obviously that's not what we are talking about here in a discussion about abortion then is it. Because "science" has mice making pig sperm and creating 3 parent children. So now maybe we should start rationalizing what a human being is in the first place huh?

perhaps in another thread.

We can debate when life begins until the end of time. It is a decision for a pregnant woman to make, no one else. If she is anti-abortion, then she has every right to carry the child to term and either raise it herself or give it up for adoption. But if she believes that life begins at a later time, she has every right to terminate it in the first trimester without having to explain it to anyone. And those are her rights under the law. Who are you to say otherwise? You are not saving babies from being murdered when you protest and try to shove your beliefs down other people's throats. Because each woman who terminates, is terminating a POTENTIAL life. And that potential life is forming in her body, a body that is not potential, but totally made. If you don't believe in abortions, then don't have one, but keep your noses out of the woman's life who doesn't feel the same way you do.

I'm saying that 13 years old may or may not be old enough to have a child. The study presented showed clearly that there is negligible difference.
Are you saying you can't read that study and see that there is no sufficient evidence to support that a 13 year old can't have a child?

I believe the point wasn't about whether a 13 year can't get pregnant, it was that she shouldn't carry a child due to bodily immaturity due to the fact that menses has only begun in the recent past, and the possible risks to her well being.

(I'm not forming an opinion on that, just trying to clarify what hotdragon said for fx)

It is an individual embryo. And that individual embryo, created by sex by two humans, is in the first stage of life that will result in a human.

You might not call a pupa a butterfly, but for all intents and purposes, unless that cycle is aborted, it IS a butterfly.

Why does it matter when the embryo "becomes a person"? It sound like semantics to me in respect to the abortion argument. No woman looks at the pee stick and think back to her sexual partners and wonders if she is having something other than a human being.

But being on the pill isn't purposely stopping a life once you know it exists. You don't "know" that you have started a life on the pill, with an abortion, there IS a life developing with no uncertainty.
Shooting in the air and the bullet happening to come down a striking a person is different than barging in someone's house and murdering them.

And I presented reasons why I disagreed. What do I need? A chart?

Actually, I disagree. It shows the different philosophical ways that we have bullshitted a simple question.

I realize an egg and a sperm are alive. But we aren't talking about a woman removing her eggs or the use of spermicide. We are talking about a woman who once she finds out she has voluntarily

or involuntarily

that's rape. If a woman is pregnant because of a rape, she should not be required to carry the result of a rape.

performed the act that creates life for humans/mammals deciding that she didn't know that that might happen and wants to remove the developing human being

you mean the foetus

no, I mean the developing human being

from the place where all developing humans live before they can survive in the outside environment. Termination of that process for convenience is killing/murder/homicide.

Only to abortionists from this angle. Most pregnant women that want to keep their baby don't argue with "life starts at conception". It's only those that want to bullshit their way out of that fact that "don't agree".

What else is it gonna be unless terminated? The logical and inevitable progression is to a birth of a baby.

So is chewing gum. Gum ain't gonna give you sustenance.

Very true. In the context of abortion though, that stage is behind us and for all intents and purposes irrelevant.

We could argue this from medical terms and go into the myriad things that can go wrong during gestation, which is fine, but outside the scope of "abortion".

But we are talking about the completion of that process. And again, we are talking about an abortion. Abortions don't happen before conception and are usually a few weeks afterwards. So really I can cut this argument short since it is irrelevant to "abortion".

No that's not what I'm saying. You said that placing sperm in a body could be the beginning of life. And I said that no it's not. I gave the example that you can place food in your mouth, but until the process is complete, you receive no nutrients.
Placing sperm in a woman's body is not any more the beginning of life than simply chewing food is obtaining nutrients. You have to swallow it and allow the other chemical processes to occur.

No, you said that life begins at placing sperm in a woman, I didn't. I would say that the part of digestion that is near the same is when nutrients in food is turned into the sugars that our body uses for energy. THAT is the point of eating and the main reason we seek out food.
Just reproduction depends on conception which is the point of "placing sperm in the woman. The reproductive process starts at placing sperm in a woman, life starts at conception.

As I illustrated above, yes.

But you are arguing outside the context of the topic of the thread when you start talking from strictly "in medicine" terms. Conception has already happened and we have a fetus when talking about abortion.
We can argue "medically speaking" forever, but not necessary to decide if "life" has started and is abortion "killing" a developing human being. And there is not real argument against the fat that it is indeed.

Perhaps.

Until the process of gestation is complete, you receive no baby. You have to allow the processes to occur. If a woman chooses to interrupt the process, that's her business.

It is too risky for a 13 year old to bear a child. It is also risky for the potential baby.

Teenage Pregnancy - March of Dimes
"A teenage mother is at greater risk than women over age 20 for pregnancy complications, such as premature labor, anemia and high blood pressure (. These risks are even greater for teens who are under 15 years old (."

Howstuffworks "Pregnancy Complications in Teenage Mothers"
"Risks

Compared with mothers in older age groups, teenage mothers are at greater risk of having medical complications. Because the teenage mother is more likely to receive little or no prenatal care, she often becomes anemic and is more likely to develop preeclampsia, a severe condition associated with high blood pressure......

Pelvic bones do not reach their maximum size until about the age of 18; therefore, the pelvis of the teenage mother may not have grown enough to allow vaginal delivery of a normal-size baby. For this reason, the incidence of cesarean section is higher in teenage mothers -- a baby that can be delivered vaginally when the mother is 20 is often too large to have been delivered vaginally when she was 14 years old.

Babies born to teenage mothers are more likely to die in the first year of life compared with babies born to mothers older than 20 years of age. Since the teenage mother is less likely to eat correctly during pregnancy, her baby often has a low birth weight (less than 51/2 pounds), making it more likely the baby will become ill."

The difference is that one has been born and one is in the process of becoming a child. Big difference. One is outside of another human body and one is depending on a human body to develop enough to be born. Until it can live outside of a woman's body, it isn't an individual, period.