Atheists, the death penalty and abortion...

[Esquilax]

Yes, it a question about what you and I both would do. Would I be out of line to infer from your words above that you're pro-life, yet pro-choice? I.E. You respect all (any) life but do not wish to oppress others?

Essentially, yes. I like life, and in my ideal world abortions wouldn't be needed at all because contraception would be fool proof, people would be educated enough to use them and rape would never happen. Unfortunately we don't live in that world, and after weighing up the morality of the situation I've come to the conclusion that it's immoral to intrude on the- bodily, especially- autonomy of people in favor of a fetus.

I would argue that "alive" is either a yes or a no concept. I think you're refering to having "enough" attributes to be considered a "person" here? I would say causing the life of any individual lifeform to cease would be "killing" it. I.E. Cutting a branch off of a tree is not "killing" it but destroying enough to cease it's biological activity is.

Yes. Life is a binary concept, something is either alive or not, but we find some forms of taking that life to be acceptable. Again, nobody minds too much if you kill a bug, despite that being a life you're taking.

Again, I'm going to say that "life" is a yes/no proposition. Can we at least agree that it's an individual lifeform and now add to that description that it's fully alive?
Basically, at which point do you consider it sufficiently developed to consider it an "actually living person"? Heartbeat, cerebral cortext, brain activity, 8.5 months?

If I had to put a specific time on it, I'd say around the point of brain activity or consciousness. I don't value the zygote inherently, but once it's progressed to the point where it's viable outside of the womb and active mentally, then I'd say it has some stake in its own existence.

It is a difficult prospect, I will admit.