Six months, one month or even one DAY after birth a baby can survive outside the womb. It needs food it cannot obtain on its own, but is a distinct being; smothering its mother will not ensure its death. Not so for the zygote, the blastocyst or the fetus within the first (and most of the second) trimester.

There is plenty of scientific proof that could convince me a fetus is a distinct being; it has already been amply provided for fetuses in the third trimester. What we both know full well is that it is VERY unlikely to be provided any time soon for fetuses in the first trimester. However, the burden of proving a proposition is on its presenter: We KNOW pregnant women are beings; anyone asserting her fetus has a countervailing preeminent beings right to deny her an abortion must prove that with equal certainty. Especially when that denial threatens her life and/or dooms her to poverty.

moondogs old favorite "I'm a Friend of the Fetus" comes to mind yet again: Those defending the right to life of a 14 year old HS drop outs fetus disappear after delivery, when the child and mother need every aid imaginable to ensure the medical care, food, shelter and education indispensable to the childs life. Government keeping newborns alive is Big Brother oppression, but government forcing women to bear children left to fend for themselves is somehow "liberty."


Proof denies faith, and the bible was never meant as a science text, so no, that is definitely NOT what I mean by "proof." Faith has copious EVIDENCE, but incontrovertible PROOF would make it knowledge, not faith. When I demand proof of material propositions I necessarily mean material proof. Show me a fetus displaying consciousness and I will accept it is conscious; show me a fetus acting as an independent being and I will accept that it is one. I accept what the Church Fathers say, so far as it goes; it is not definitive on abortion, only that children must not be killed in the womb (without stating when the wombs occupant IS a child.)