(September 30, 2015 at 3:51 pm)lkingpinl Wrote: Wait I say next will undoubtedly be controversial. Can you explain why killing a baby in utero is ok based solely on the decision of the mother (as you said you have no say), but killing a baby a minute after its born is murder? Is it a different baby? Is it any less dependent on the mother than when in utero?
Abortion in the first trimester, which is when the overwhelming majority of abortions take place, does not end the brainwaves of an individual, whereas aborting after about five months almost invariably does. A first-trimester abortion is different from a last-trimester abortion or killing a born child because you are not snuffing out a person with his or her own thoughts.
Not for nothing is our species named Homo Sapiens -- "Man, the Wise". This is because it is not our physiology that differentiates us from animals (we have homologous organs throughout), but because what sets man apart is his ability to think and reason. If a fetus is not thinking, how can it have attained personhood?