Quote:
Originally Posted by Blade
This is just another one of the many arbitrary reasons given to come up with a cutoff point for abortion. Suppose the researchers are right - so what - does that ipso facto mean a fetus necessarily has no rights before it can sense pain? Nooooooooo. How about if you're sleeping, and I shoot you in the head -you'll die and feel no pain if I do a proper job of it.
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Anti-abortion critics have yet to come up with a valuable reason as to why fetuses should be entertained with rights they'll never need, but to answer your question yes it is very legitimate. Pain is one major factor in consciousness, and consciousness is a quality that is undeniably a component of personhood. Just like one has the right to remove a family member from life control under given situations, so do they have the right to abortion.
If it were so arbitrary, there wouldn't be so much widespread propaganda claiming fetuses can feel pain as early as 2 month. The fact is chickens have more consciousness than a human fetus at 25 weeks (like my reference to the cock fighting thread?).
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"If the substance of life is information, transmitted through genes, then society and culture are essentially immense information transmission systems, and the city, a huge external memory storage device."
Purists are intolerably dull-thinkers.
Last edited by GeneCosta; 02-09-2008 at 02:12 AM.
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