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You: Abortion makes me sad. =(

Stranger: hello

Stranger: oh

Stranger: why

You: It's a sad thing.

Stranger: why's that?

You: What do you mean?

Stranger: Why is it sad?

You: Same reason it's sad when anyone dies.

Stranger: Everyone has to die.

You: It's still sad when they die, especially if they were killed.

Stranger: Some people would argue that fetuses aren't people, so its not really murder

You: How can they not be people?

You: They're human beings.

Stranger: Is an egg a chicken?

You: No, but some have chicks inside them.

Stranger: i think the argument goes

Stranger: that since they don't have a working brain they aren't considered people

Stranger: just something that could grow into a person

You: So is Sarah Palin not a person? ;)

Stranger: like an egg can grow into a chicken, but is still different

Stranger: hahaha

You: Why should someone be discriminated against based on their mental capacities?

You: I mean a newborn acts purely on instincts for quite a while, no smarter than plenty of non-human animals.

Stranger: but it has a brain, and can feel pain and fear

Stranger: so it's inhumane to harm or kill a newborn

You: So can non-human animals.

Stranger: whereas a fetus can't feel pain for the majority of its gestation period

You: Wait, is it okay to kill someone that can't feel pain?

Stranger: is not feeling pain the only thing wrong with them?

You: Yeah.

You: Well, not necessarily.

Stranger: they're still thinking, living beings

Stranger: unless you're talking about someone who is brain dead

You: Okay, so if someone was under anesthesia, can they be killed?

Stranger: can they? yeah. should they? no.

You: Why not?

Stranger: because anesthesia is different than brain death

Stranger: or not having a brain

You: I'm talking about general anesthesia.

Stranger: yeah

Stranger: your brain is still working under anesthesia

Stranger: it's subdued

Stranger: and you aren't conscious

You: Working, yes, but not at a very high level.

Stranger: which is still a level up froma fetus

You: So, are cows people?

Stranger: whose brain stem doesn't even work

Stranger: no

Stranger: they're cows

You: Why not? They feel pain and fear.

Stranger: they aren't self aware and sentient to the level we are

You: Neither are newborns.

Stranger: newborns are surprisingly smart, smarter than you'd likely give them credit

You: Not right out of the womb.

Stranger: yeah actually

You: For a while, they act purely on instinct.

Stranger: they begin soaking up information as soon as they're out

You: Yes, true.

You: Awareness and self-awareness are different.

Stranger: of course

You: A cow also soaks up information.

Stranger: yes

You: Newborns, the severely retarded, sever Alzheimer's patients, all aren't self-aware.

Stranger: Yep

Stranger: but fetuses are neither

Stranger: in the first, and part of the second trimester at least

You: Are newborns, the severely retarded, severe Alzheimer's patients not people?

Stranger: they're clearly people

You: Why?

You: They're not self-aware.

Stranger: is that a crucial part of being human?

You: You seem to think it is.

Stranger: i'd say that structurally they are human

Stranger: so they're people

Stranger: a fetus is not structurally a human

Stranger: it's getting there

Stranger: but it isn't there yet

You: What do you mean "structurally"?

You: The fetus is just like what a human at that age should be.

Stranger: has, y'know, all the parts of a human in place

Stranger: a fetus doesn't have a brain for like the first trimester

Stranger: the first few days its just a mass of cells with no human like shape at all

You: Development is a continuum.

You: http://www.ehd.org/science_main.php?level=i

Stranger: yeah it is

Stranger: but there has to be a line some where

Stranger: where you say "this is human, this isn't"

You: Scientifically, it's a human from the beginning.

Stranger: other wise you could count an egg and seperate sperm as human, since they're a step in the development

You: No, they are not.

Stranger: and so masturbating and ovulation are murder

You: The egg is part of the mother and the sperm is part of the father.

You: When they join, they form a zygote, the first stage of development.

Stranger: with out those stages, you couldn't have the "first stage"

Stranger: so they're in the contiuum

You: No, they're not. The zygote is a new organism.

You: BRB

You: if u have to leave, email me

You: [email]

Stranger: no, i'm good for a while

Stranger: but the point you're bringing up

Stranger: if i may

Stranger: is that at the point of conception, a new organism is formed

Stranger: and this new organism is, through all stages of development, a human being

Stranger: so destroying it at any stage is murder

Stranger: am i understanding you correctly?

You: to kill the organism at any stage is homicide

You: murder is illegal by definition

Stranger: Okay.

Stranger: I can see your point.

Stranger: And what I think it boils down to is that everyone has their own line, where they say what a human is.

Stranger: It's a bit arbitrary, but that's where the disagreements come from.

You: Some draw the line of personhood after birth.

Stranger: Yeah.

Stranger: And so to them, abortion is just destroying some worthless organism.

You: Same with infanticide.

You: Some think newborns aren't smart enough for rights.

Stranger: I think they're fairly uncommon, but yeah.

You: Peter Singer, for instance.

Stranger: Some people don't even appreciate an adult's right to live.

Stranger: Serial killers, people like that.

You: Yeah.

You: Have you heard MLK's quote about restraining the heartlesS?

Stranger: Can't say I have.

You: ok just a sec

You: "Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you've got to change the heart and you can't change the heart through legislation. You can't legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there's half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

[APPLAUSE]

So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government."

~ Exerpt from a speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Stranger: He was a pretty smart dude, that MLK

You: Yeah.

You: We need to agree upon who's a person (and biology seems like the best way), because otherwise nobody is safe.

Stranger: And I think for the most part, we have.

Stranger: Seeing as how killing a person from the third trimester up is illegal everywhere

You: Not true.

Stranger: it's a period of 6 months that people are fighting over now

Stranger: well, a good number of places

Stranger: unless the mother's life is in danger, I think

You: In the US, it's mother's "health", which has been defined to include pretty much any possible reason for abortion, including socioeconomic ones.

Stranger: That's pretty vague.

You: Yeah, it's a loophole so big you could drive a Death Star through it.

Stranger: And I would definitely be for tightening that up.

Stranger: especially now that maternity wards have gotten advanced enough that you could be born a month early and still stand a good chance

You: More than a month, even,\

You: the young4est premmie to survive was 21.5 weeks, way short of 38

You: i have to go soon. can u email me?

Stranger: I'm guessing that was pretty uncommon though

Stranger: sure

Stranger: i'm [email]

You: usually we wait until full term

Stranger: feel free to drop me a line

You: ok

You: cya

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