Abortion

I just provided a scientific definition of life from a biology website that I cited. I do not know how you can still say there "is no scientific definition of life." These characteristics are what define life. And because we can scientifically define life, we can prove you and I are both alive. Would you ever be willing to say "Science cannot define me as being alive, so I'm probably not alive."? I believe extraterrestrial life could very well exist. I do not have an issue with that. And wonderful: extraterrestrial life might be defined by a different manner of biological characteristics. But this is completely irrelevant because we are talking about earthly abortions that kill earthly fetuses that happen ON EARTH and science can define the life ON EARTH. And there is no definitive scientific proof of alien life in the form of test samples of alien blood, studies on alien creatures etc. Because there isn't the slightest bit of empirical evidence of alien life that has been evaluated by science (other than some bacteria on Mars, I believe, which had the same characteristics as bacteria on Earth) then the current definition of life encompasses those things which are earthly. And because the fetus is of this earth, then the definition of life must apply to the fetus. Furthermore, your "Elysia Chlorotica" argument is about the classification of a species, not whether the species was alive. Science places species into kingdoms, phylums, etc once they have been shown to be alive. So it is, in fact, easier to define what life is than to specifically give an organism a certain classification because classification deals not with life, rather it deals with how the species will function and where it is genetically is placed in an ordered list. And because we are not debating what kingdom or phylum the fetus is placed in to, this only adds to the fact that the fetus is alive. I would ask you to use that same "Merriam-Webster" source you used to cite your definition of "terminate" so we can stay consistent with your sources. Now look up abortion. Look at the first definition. Notice my definition of abortion was cited by the same source, which, by the way, you never gave me a citation for your definition of abortion in the first round. Guess what? Our shared source defines abortion as :"a medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the DEATH of the fetus." Because abortion is defined as causing the death of the fetus, the fetus must have been alive before the abortion took place. But I still would ask you to provide the definition of abortion using your resource used to define "Termination" just to vindicate what I am saying is true. Next you say " Because a fetus cannot SURVIVE without its mother before the 24th week, you would be "ending' the fetus as well." I would like to focus on the word "survive." Survive: " to remain alive : to continue to live" . You are saying that the fetus must inherently have a life, because, in order for anything to survive, it must CONTINUE to live. The mother is simply the way the fetus remains alive. Therefore, the fetus is alive before the 24th week. Actually, the fetus is alive at conception as I showed last round. Furthermore, I am arguing abortion at any point after the moment of conception is wrong and should be illegal. The only exception is where the mother and fetus will both die. Here is why a tumor and a fetus are different. The tumor is formed from one host, and initially the tumor stems directly from the DNA of one preexisting being, The fetus is an entirely new being not formed from one preexisting human body, rather the merging of two sex cells. Now we look at potential. Is the tumor conceived with the potential to use a mental acuity, to speak, to hear, to love, to hate, to have emotion, to lust, to desire, to use free will? No. Is a fetus conceived with the potential to love, hate. use free will, have emotion etc? Yes. A fetus only has one biological future: To continually grow into a more complex human being, unless that is stopped short by natural or intentional (abortion) death. The tumor does not have the potential to ever be more than a lump of cells that have no characteristics of a human being such as emotion and free will. Next argument: It would be fair to say the mother's womb and umbilical cord acts as the median through which life is SUSTAINED by the fetus. It is NOT fair to say that "it is the mothers life and the fetus is just part of it" because as you just admitted, the fetus is alive as well as the mother. Does a day old baby who cannot function without a mother (or any other advisor) and also who cannot have the ability to reason have free will? Yes. Both the baby and fetus are conceived with the potential to use free will, but neither have reached enough biological complexity to ACCESS that free will. Laws can be wrong, just as it once was legal to own a slave. Just because it was legal 200 years ago to own a slave dis not make it morally acceptable to own a slave 200 years ago. Laws do not always represent an accurate representation of an objective moral standard, and therefore, should not be used to assess whether innocence exists or not. Laws are contingent on time, location, and circumstance. Objective morals are not contingent on these things. Your argument about society and individuals having different moralities is often brought up and rightfully so. But just because certain people believe one thing, and other people believe something else, that does not mean their is not an objective truth. We cannot create our own reality. Society creates "morals" that are based on time, location, and circumstance. They are attempting to make their own reality on objective morality, which cannot be done. Would you agree there are varying acts of morality? Such as stealing an ice cream cone does not have the same gravity as murdering 25 children. If so, then why? Because you are comparing the two moralities. But how? You are admitting their are degrees of difference in morality, and therefore, because we compare morality as that which breaks an objective truth of proper moral action, we know there is, by necessity, a perfect moral standard. If there were no perfect moral standard, stealing an ice cream cone would carry the same moral weight as committing genocide. "The world should all agree...", well the world will never all agree because human beings have been given free will by which we attempt to change objective standards. This does nothing to deconstruct my argument for a perfect moral standard. I ask you this hopefully rhetorical question: Do you believe every human being has the inalienable right to life, whether they live in America, Serbia, Germany, Australia etc.? Once you answer as "yes or no", I will be able to conclude my argument for why morality is objective. I need you to answer this question before I can continue my argument. I dont understand why you argue morality is subjective but then say "The US Government is run on objective morality." But before I speak more on morality, I need you to answer the question above. At first glance, yes the fetus does appear to be a parasite. But this is not the case. Parasitic relationships exist between two different species. The fetus and mother are of the same species. Therefore the fetus and mother are not in a parasitic relationship. Also, there is a condition known as Peripartum cardiomyopathy which is essentially a heart attack while a woman is pregnant. What is strange about this condition, however, is that the mothers recover from the heart attack at a significantly higher rate than anyone else suffering from a heart attack. According to the "Mt. Sinai School of Medicine", it has linked a fetus to donating cells to the others heart in order for quicker recovery of the heart. The relationship between the fetus and mother is not parasitic. . .