🚀 go-pugleaf

Rob Hocker (rah@teleport.com) blathered incoherently:
: And thus you bring up a spiritual argument.  

	And thus something that _does_not_ belong in law.

: The fetus is fully *human*
: in the physical sense, but perhaps it doesn't have a soul or spirit
: yet... thus it's not a person.  You can't put a person's spirit in a
: test tube. (Indeed, some pure naturalists don't even believe in
: spirit -- they would be forced to see personhood as the physical
: structure.)  Anyway, once you bring in this "personhood" issue, it
: gets very complex.  

	Only in your little mind. You have a brain and a free will and exist
without anyones intervention. You must be a human being (no matter how it 
sickens me). At what stage of development does a fetus have such things? Can
this be proven? The only currently proven circumstance where such traits are
shown is after the fetus emerges into the world and starts his or her life.

: Why should a two or three year-old be considered
: a "person"?  You can't measure their spirit any better than the spirit
: of a fetus.  

	The religious concept of spirit has no bearing on the laws
defintions of a person. You can't measure/prove/disprove or do anything
scientific with a religious concept.

: How about an old person?  Someone with Altheimer's, someone
: who's mentally retarted, etc., etc.

	They have a brain, free will and exist without the intervention of
anyone. Now we do care for them and help them live longer happier lives, but
they don't die if we move out of the room. They are persons. A fetus is not
a person.

: I prefer to go by what can be measured and scientifically proven.

	What a boldfaced lie. Then why did you bring up this religous
concept of spirt? Then why do you "believe" fetuses are human beings. Then
why do you "belive" that the product of a egg and sperm cell comeing
together is instantly a human being. What a crock.

: > > I addressed this in a previous post.  Sperm do not have a full
: > > set of DNA; they are not human... [...]
: > 
: > If it originated in a human male,then it is human sperm.
: > 
: 
: It's human sperm, but the sperm is not a human being.

	And a human fetus is not a human being. Thanks for pointing that
out.


						-Walter Hansen