Hey thanks for these on topic replies! Regarding the sperm and eggs and potential humans deal, from what I have seen the whole case against abortion is more based on the fact that the sperm or egg by itself has the 23 (I think) chromosomes of the father or mother but at the time of conception the being that comes into existence has 46 chromosomes, half from each, and at that point its own unique genetic code distinct from the mother. So it is a whole different status then a sperm or egg on its own. I've been kind of thinking this over as I've been discussing it with him and while they say the point of conception is when the soul is created we at least would believe that at conception all the materials that this being is are brought together to make up that being. From the point of conception to the time of death the being doesn't receive anything new, it just develops more. So the only difference we can really point at is a difference of maturity. On this point at least I think I would have to agree with him, he had a pretty big list of supporting resources from medical science to back it up, for ex: "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." - Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth Harvard University Medical School.
As far as the different justifications go for abortions a few of his responses to me were, would you kill a born child in that situation? So would a mother kill a born child to help alleviate poverty or something?
Yeah the fetus is dependent upon the mother, it is dependent after birth too. He gave this example of people in an airplane. He says what if the pilot were to decide he didn't want passangers on his plane any more and just decided to crash the plane or order them to be shot. They depend on the pilot for safety but that gives him more responsibility he says not less.
He also used the recent example of the Chile miners, he says they were traped underground, relied on support from outside sources, had to be fed through a tube and had to be extracted through a tube, but we would never think of abandoning them much less killing them. It seemed a rather close comparison to abortion. Anyway I had some other thoughts on objective morality too but I'll have to get to those later I'm pretty short for time as of recent I've had a lot of extra work.
As far as the different justifications go for abortions a few of his responses to me were, would you kill a born child in that situation? So would a mother kill a born child to help alleviate poverty or something?
Yeah the fetus is dependent upon the mother, it is dependent after birth too. He gave this example of people in an airplane. He says what if the pilot were to decide he didn't want passangers on his plane any more and just decided to crash the plane or order them to be shot. They depend on the pilot for safety but that gives him more responsibility he says not less.
He also used the recent example of the Chile miners, he says they were traped underground, relied on support from outside sources, had to be fed through a tube and had to be extracted through a tube, but we would never think of abandoning them much less killing them. It seemed a rather close comparison to abortion. Anyway I had some other thoughts on objective morality too but I'll have to get to those later I'm pretty short for time as of recent I've had a lot of extra work.
