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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (28000)	4/23/2008 1:22:33 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Asking irrelevant questions to distract from the issue being discussed isn't exactly the best way to hold a conversation. In addition to being irrelevant that question was rhetorical, because everyone knows the answer. There isn't any doubt about current law on the issue. So the question you asked "At what precise stage do they qualify for full legal status?" is irrelevant. Looking back at the conversation, I see you want to retroactively change the question. (No problem with asking a different question, but you shouldn't act like that was the question all along), to something like "when would you (meaning me) grant legal personhood"? That is a relevant question, although for me the deciding issue is not "personhood", but the fact that you have a living member of the species homo-sapiens. Personhood is a much more complex issue. Legal personhood somewhat less so, but it isn't the only way to protect the fetus. A "legal person" can be something other than an actual person (for example corporations). So legal personhood would be a possible way to protect the fetus as early as conception, even if the embryo was not a person in the sense of awareness and moral agency. Outside of "legal personhood", "personhood is a term with a lot of definitions, so when and if a fetus is a person could be debated, but its clearly a human. I would want some form of protection, either legal personhood, or some other restriction, for the fetus from the begining. Legal personhood would be one way to do this, but if the protection was offered in some other form I would be unlikely to be opposed.