Brainstorm

[Excited Penguin]

I honestly can't answer that last question without referring back to my religious beliefs that human life has inherent value and dignity regardless of whether it is fully self aware, mentally handicapped, or otherwise too young for full awareness.

I believe this is true for all non human life as well, but perhaps to varying degrees. Nonetheless I think it is more wrong for a human to kill another human than it is for a human to kill a fish, for example, because we're going against natural law by killing our own species. Then again, natural law is also a religious concept so I don't know how else to explain it without turning back to my beliefs, since a that point it becomes a matter or moral objectivity.

We do it precisely this way. By discussion.

I have no idea what natural law is, but if that is all it's about it sounds good to me. Also, not only the fact that it's our own species, but the fact that it can think - which sets it apart from other species, as far as I know.

I think going on the principle that only life that suffers, when talking about fetuses, matters, is good. Otherwise it honestly doesn't make sense, beyond the fact that that early human life, despite the fact that it can't feel pain, has potential to develop the ability of feeling pain and thinking, but then the same could be said about a simple sperm. Know what I mean?

That doesn't mean people who can't feel pain, or are mentally handicaped shouldn't have a higher regard. Those people are already developed, they are not mere fetuses. I think it's important to make that distinction.