Abortion

"The purpose of the mother's kidney is to filter and reprocess blood [1] in the mother's body. That we can repurpose it to do the same in the child's body is truly a marvel of modern medicine. However, as this is an extra-natural (i. e. outside of nature) act there is no onus on the parents to do so. As such it is up to the parent to decide the best course of action. She may decide that this is her only child and that she'll make the sacrifice, or she may decide that that she has another 7 children at home and that the toll will be too great on her resulting in much suffering for her and her other children. Now we can look at the child within the womb. The purpose of the womb is there explicitly to give life to the mother's young children. In fact, the woman can live safely without the womb, the unborn child cannot. Additionally, the mother's body naturally desires the child to be there since every month it intentionally prepares itself to provide nourishment to the child. As procreation is the natural purpose of every living being, and this is the only means by which our species can naturally reproduce, it is intuitive that the child has a natural right to use the mother's womb for the purpose that it exists while being in conformity with the natural desire of the woman's body. " This same parallel could be applied to abortion but much more so. Lets say a mother has seven children and is pregnant with an eighth there are circumstances where "toll will be too great on her resulting in much suffering for her and her other children. ". I don't see why you make the distinction between natural and extra-natural. This appears to me to be arbitrary, you say "However, as this is an extra-natural (i. e. outside of nature) act there is no onus on the parents to do so. " I see no justification for this and ask for you to provide one. "Finally we agreed that the child has a right to life. If (s)he is alive (s)he has a body. An abortion "artificially ends a pregnancy" in either a direct or indirect attack by the mother on the child thus denying him/her of his/her right to life. Whereas choosing not to give the child her kidney merely lets nature take its course. " This is a distinction between passive and active and I will attempt to argue that this doesn't matter. Actively ending a life feels worse than passively ending one though they have the same outcome for the person in question, the difference between passively and actively ending a life is purely emotional. In this case the passive action of the mother not giving the child her kidney is action, her inaction is action. "Additionally, you will note that in that phase of development you were never a placenta. In fact, there is no natural process that results in a placenta developing into a human being. At no time has a placenta ever spontaneously become any of the other stages of life that I described. A placenta does not become a teenager, baby, fetus, embryo or zygote. It is a tissue of a human organism, and not an organism itself. " The point I was attempting to make was that it is that there is a point where fetus and placenta are indistinguishable, while both are "human" if you want to go from a genetics standpoint both the fetus and the placenta are both human, in fact they are identical. Even earlier there is a point where the cells which will make up the placenta and the cells that will make up the fetus are indistinguishable. I am perfectly willing to accept most of the second part of your argument and I feel that the first part of mine is the important section and I don't see it as being fully refuted yet (though the voters will decide that). I look forward to your response.