(April 25, 2015 at 7:04 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote:(April 24, 2015 at 7:43 am)polar bear Wrote: In the minds of fundies, a fetus is alive when the first cell splits. I am not sure that 2 cells have a soul...
Yet it's obvious that first cell is alive. It even has its own genome, distinct from the parents.' Why the shrill cries of "mass of cells" anyway? The abortion issue isn't really about whether the fetus is alive, or even whether it has a soul. It's a question of whether the fetus' "right to life" outweighs the "right of women not to be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies." Both of these rights are reasonable. A fetus has a definite interest in its chance to be born whether it's able to articulate that or not. Pregnancy represents a major burden on the mother. Nor do women generally seek abortions in a cavalier way, "for convenience," as we keep hearing from the anti-sin crowd. Roe v. Wade attempts to resolve the conundrum via a compromise with arbitrarily demarked "trimesters." Perhaps unsatisfying to the partisans on all sides, yet workable in our day and age.
Regarding the 'anti-sin' crowd, we need to be aware of their sincerity of belief, or lack thereof. When they claim religious motivation for their protests yet their 'sacred' tome describes life beginning at the first breath, the infant having no value till one month old, birthdays celebrated/noted instead of conception days, censuses not counting infants, and directions for making abortifacients, we rightly and logically conclude they, in fact, do not have religious motivation for their stance.
Makes it very easy for me to disregard the religiousites position on abortion just like they disregard their supposedly sacred book on this topic.
And then a further aggravation, the religousites look down their noses at me for my atheist disbelief in their god, and I am looking back and wondering WTF about THEIR disbelief in His word.
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
