cabiness42

Never been to Vegas for New Year's but I hear that it's incredibly expensive then, as in like the low-end strip hotels charge over $200/night.

I moved my TSP money out of the markets a few months ago and now I need to figure out when to move it back in. How long does everybody think the post-election swoon goes before things correct?

No, you can't both respect human life and at the same time allow others to decide when abortion is acceptable. We don't allow that at any other stage of life. That's an inconsistent position. Now, people here are arguing that an unborn baby is not actually a human life, which I believe is proven wrong but at least does not make supporting abortion rights an inconsistent position. Believing that the unborn baby is a human life and also believing that abortion should be legal is a slippery slope into all kinds of awful stuff.

I believe that law applies only to actions by others that cause the death of the fetus and does not apply to any actions by the mother herself. However, it does create established law recognizing the rights of a fetus as a human being.

OK, I'm not sure that the law can actually make you stop drinking, but they can take your kids away from you if you don't.

Feeling pain is not a significant function of the brain/nervous system? That happens well before 20 weeks.

The government can already make women and men with children stop drinking/taking drugs because of potential harm to the child.

It's fair to say that, but we all know that a good chunk of the general population is never going to get that and thus we need some kind of definition via legislation.

A sperm or an egg are not organisms though--they don't have a complete set of DNA. A zygote does. There is a very clear biological distinction between separate sperm/egg cells and a joined zygote.

Right, but if anything, that viewpoint moves towards protection for the fetus and not away from it.

If an alien life form is advanced enough to find their way here, then they are probably going to dictate to us how we deal with them and not vice versa.

No, pro-life politicians don't need to back down from wanting abortion to be outlawed. They need to leave God out of it and they need to recognize that passing laws with exceptions for rape/incest are better than not getting laws passed at all.

Animals aren't human beings. We do have laws that regulate the killing of animals in certain circumstances, but other animals are not human beings. As for people with down syndrome, etc., they still have HUMAN DNA. All humans have differing DNA (unless they are identical twins of course). No humans are "more" or less "human" than others.

As you get farther and farther away from humans in the order/genus/class structure, the differences between humans and other animals are greater, but the baseline difference is DNA.

Human zygotes are like some very primitive forms of animal life, but still very different than plant life, but I'm not arguing for protection at the zygote stage anyway.

I think the Red Line thing will be a bigger deal than it should be because I believe there are plenty of fans who have never set foot anywhere south of Roosevelt other than the 100 yards between the Red Line stop and the Cell who are afraid to "wander around the South Side". When I was local, I lived in Oak Park and was walking to the Green Line stop anyway, but I get the sense that there are a lot of people who won't be OK with doing that.

I understand that, though plant life and animal life are very different.

I find that statement very troubling simply due to the fact that it is impossible for every sperm, or even any reasonable percentage of them, to ever be united with an egg.

I'm not defending the position that abortion should be outlawed from conception or that a zygote is a human being--I'm just noting the technicality that a zygote is some kind of life form.

Scientists will tell you that a zygote is a life form.

The difference between a liver/spleen and a fingernail/eyelash is not a moral judgment. It's a matter of whether or not a human being needs those to live.

Vital organs. I'm not talking about fingernails and eyelashes and bulls*** like that.

It's not out of the question that we reach that point in our lifetimes.

Well, scientists will tell you that it is a life immediately upon conception. The question you are getting at is when that life has developed into a human being. Even as a single fertilized cell, a human zygote is more complex than billions of life forms on the planet, but of course those life forms don't get the kinds of protections that we give human beings.

Beating heart and active brain waves occur at nearly the same time, and both very early in pregnancy. Other than actually being born, any significant physical marker that someone might use to make such a moral judgment happens very, very early in the process, often before or very shortly after a woman even discovers she is pregnant.