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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
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To: PROLIFE who wrote (235354)3/8/2002 11:19:24 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof  Read Replies (2) of 769670
 
Isn't the question: when is a "child" (as you put it) a child? What's your answer?

At birth? At first trimester, second trimester, third trimester? At the zygote stage? At blastocyte stage? At implantation (first drawing sustenance from the mother's womb)? When an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm cell... but before implantation? How about if a fertilized egg is not even in a woman's body and hasn't divided yet?

What about an egg that is induced to cellular division by nucleus implantation, without use of a sperm cell? Is that still a "child"? It that a "unique individual" produced without sexual genetic exchange?

What about if a skin cell from a male of female is induced to cellular division in a petri dish? Are you prepared to call that a "child" yet? What about YOUR sperm cells? You shed millions... what if a few rounds of cell division were induced in a sperm cell, or one of your skin cells... still a "child"?

Many religions of this world have had many different answers to the ethical question "when are human rights granted to a new individual?" Until this century, one of the most popular views was: at birth... That is when many peoples believed a human was imparted with a soul... though some societies did not grant personhood until some rite of passage was mastered, often at puberty.

The legal/moral debate is only more interesting with the advent of advanced biological sciences, less amenable to simplistic answers.

You can ignore shades of grey in this debate... call everything 'black and white'... but it only makes you look foolish and unthoughtful, and your arguments are less likely to be listened to.
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