You mean "potential" human being, right? It is not only "unborn," as you put it, it is still, at the RU486 stage, potential, and not existing, isn't that the case?
Or are you using the word "human being" to equate cells with children for purposes of persuasion, even though they aren't children?
Is it about a sacred "soul," that definition?
You allude to a grammatical problem. What were you referring to? I saw none. It seemed to me you said in perfect English that cells were a child, and now are saying that they are a human being. The problem, Greg, is neither grammar nor word-choice between "child" and "human being." The problem is a conceptual one of a very simple sort. It involves the difference between "potential" and "existing."
Potential existence means merely that the thing may be at some time; actual existence, that it now is. --Sir W. Hamilton.
The only way you can evade the distinction is by saying that a holy soul, postulated by your religion, enters at one of the stages described in cosmic's link. But the millions and millions of people who don't believe that don't want to be forced by the state to live by your religious beliefs. That is unAmerican. |
