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The issue of the woman’s bodily autonomy would remain, because after survivability she would still be forced to go through childbirth.

But what chance of survival are you shooting for? Is it typical to declare someone who is less than 50% likely to survive a hazardous experience no longer a person? Maybe we should shoot for 25%, or 10% likely to survive. Your criteria is arbitrary and unmeasurable.

The qualities of survivability and dependence do not compare with the quality of life in regards to determining personhood. They are arbitrarily chosen – is survivability a better criteria than self-awareness, or age, or mobility, or wantedness? You can take your pick, but you will see that there is no significant change immediately before and after any of these criteria are met, if such a time can be accurately determined at all. Compare that with conception and the beginning of human life.

All you would be doing is allowing the killing a person (a living human) because you think that person is probably vulnerable. Such a criteria would leave the door wide open to sex-selection.

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The criteria is dependant on technology. Babies can survive outside the womb weeks earlier than they could a few decades ago. Were those babies back then not people? Who can say if a particular baby can survive or not today? Before, you speculate that the baby probably can’t survive outside. After, that the baby maybe can. No significant difference – a slight change in the probability of survival. The only way to tell is to try to save the baby. It’s like the all you can eat restaurant that stops feeding people with the explanation that that’s all they can eat. The baby can’t survive outside the womb because you kill it.

My rope analogy comes into play also. Do I not have bodily autonomy? Am I not free to let go of the rope and let you fall? I would say that since another life is dependant on me I am responsible for the other life as well as my own. A symbiotic attachment adds responsibility, it does not take responsibility away. This is especially true if I pushed you off the cliff – if I am partially responsible for your predicament.

No, there is nothing here, nothing at all that indicates the presence of a new life. No way to tell if it is a person or whatever you think it would be before it is a person. Every observation would indicate that the thing in the womb before your criteria would make it a person is just a younger and slightly more dependent person.

Conception clearly makes more sense as the most logical time when personhood begins. Before, you have two sex cells. After, you have a completely new individual. There really is no comparison.

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A fetus may be argued to be not a person prior to the point where it is able to survive outside the womb because until that point it is dependent on its symbiotic attachment to the mother.

Or it can be argued to be a person because it is new entity with its own genetic code from the point of conception.

Both arguments carry some weight, neither is so obviously persuasive as to win the day with everyone.

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We are in 100% agreement here – but note that this is not a reason not to ban abortion.

And is not a fertilized egg a living human? It is not dead. It is human. If not, when does it become a living human and why is what exists just before not a younger human?

The argument for bodily autonomy will not impress you
Another agreement. An arbitrary criteria that is not better than conception. Children are not truly autonomous for a long time after birth. So before this time they are less autonomous, after more autonomous – no significant change. And the time of “bodily” autonomy is a function of technology, if it can ever be accurately determined.

If I held the other end of the rope that prevented you from falling to your death, you would not have bodily autonomy. It’s my hand I can do with it what I want.

The issue is not what we believe, the issue is what is in fact true. If it was declared that Methodists are not people, would we not argue that this declaration is wrong? Yet those who believe Methodists are people would not compelled to kill them. You have not been able to logically show that a fetus is not a person.

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On the other hand, the woman carrying the fertilized egg most definitely is a person. The argument for bodily autonomy will not impress you, I know. But many people do take it seriously and consider it a factor to be considered.

From a non-religious perspective — and the laws of our country are theoretically not supposed to reflect religious beliefs — there is an argument for leaving the decision in the hands of the woman and her doctor. People who believe abortion is wrong are not compelled to do it. People who believe it to be acceptable are not compelled to avoid it.

I do think the number of abortions should be minimal, but I think, on balance, the better way to accomplish that is through education and persuasion than force of law. If most people can be convinced it’s morally wrong, then most people won’t do it no matter how legal it is.

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There is a real argument — and it’s not just Christians vs. non-Christians, the argument goes on within the church too — about whether an early term fetus is yet a person.

What is the argument? That’s what I was asking for.

I have heard a lot of arguments – most amount to smoke screens like those you have thrown up here. None answer my questions, questions that are the logical response to every single “not yet a person” argument. At conception we have a living human person whose vulnerability allows others to pretend he does not exist.

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a significant percentage of fertilized ova never implant
This is a theory – nobody knows for sure. But I would not be surprised if it happens sometimes, just as other accidental deaths and still births happen.

I am dogmatic about life. It is wrong to kill a child because that child is a girl. It is wrong to kill a child because that child interferes with your lifestyle. And until you can answer my questions, we must consider it a fact (not an opinion) that personhood begins at conception, because there is no other alternative that makes more sense.

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The convicted murderer (how can we ever be 100 percent sure of guilt?); deaths in war (even civilian casualties, which are usually said to be unfortunate but unavoidable); or the man threatening you with a gun (but what about turning the other cheek and not resisting evil?)

There is a real argument — and it’s not just Christians vs. non-Christians, the argument goes on within the church too — about whether an early term fetus is yet a person.

I do not claim to have an answer so I can’t respond to your first question in #38. The fact that doctors, scientists and theologians can’t agree on it is what makes the issue so difficult.

You have a firm and clear view. And that’s fine, but it’s your view. The fact that a significant percentage of fertilized ova never implant and get expelled in the first few days after conception suggests that if God designed the human reproductive system, he did so without regard to the personhood of those very young persons, whose mothers never know exist before they’re gone forever.

My only firm opinion on the topic is that both the pro- and anti- side should stop being so darn dogmatic about it.

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