I am finding the use of the Bible as a weapon as an assault on God. It seems the fashion to use Bible quotes, sometimes out of context to support a political view. It is like they are indirectly (or not) saying that God is one political party or the other. To me, it makes Christianity cheapened.
The second part of that is these same individuals are alienating others, rather than attempting to include others. Often it comes out as, you are not Christian because you don’t believe such and such.

You are confusing property with people.

If you damage someone’s property, there is an assessment of the amount of damage you have caused, and you would have to repay it. No one would attempt to count the number of the blossoms that you damaged. Instead your damages would be calculated based on how many apples this orchard normally produces and what the price for apples is likely to be this year. That doesn’t prove that every blossom becomes an apple, only that over a large population of blossoms you can predict how many apples likely will be harvested.

My example of blossom and apple was simple and straight forward. It posed the question, when does the blossom become an apple? If you use your current analogy, you would say that a blossom becomes an apple when it is fertilized.

Your whole arguement is based on a simple premise. Personhood begins at conception because that’s when the growing process starts. My question is very simple – why there?

So far, the only response that I’ve heard is “because I say so”.

I could say just as easily that personhood begins when the fertilized egg subdivides because many don’t and never grow.

I could also say that personhood begins when the growing blostacycst embedds itself in the uterine wall, because many don’t and never grow.

I could also say that personhood begins when the heart is formed and starts beating, but that fetus can’t survive outside the mother and many don’t.

I could also say that personhood begins after the first trimester when the risk of miscarriage has passed, but the fetus still can’t surviv outside the mother and some don’t.

I could also say that personhood begins when the fetus is able to survive outside the mother, but that leaves personhood as a medical definition which is somehow uncomfortable.

I could also say that personhood begins when the fetus takes their first breathe of air on their own. I think that everyone including the law agrees with at least that definition.

As far as “tough choice”, I can’t speak for how women approach this, but as a father I can tell you that it is all about expectations. It is a big deal because of what that fetus could become, not what it is. By the way, we have no argument that every fertilized egg has the potential to become a person, just as every unfertilized egg and sperm have the potential to become a person.

This is the same agruement you’ve made about life in the womb. You are a bright and thoughtful person but I stand amazed at the simple and silly agruements “created” to defend abortion by MANY bright and thoughtful people.

And another thought….if it isn’t a life then why is the decision a “tough choice” that must done in consultation with family, clergy, and others? Whats the big deal Jeff, why all the fuss?

Life begins at conception and runs through death. A pregency that goes wrong and miscarries or is still born is no different then someone passing away from cancer at the age of 49. They both end the same and are allowed by God. To your comment about God not having more concern for life because so many don’t make it to birth would need the same comment to be directed at God for the person passing from cancer at 49….

As to the legal process, cases have been prosecuted againest those who have “killed” children in the womb. They are in jail for murder. Drink drivers, etc………It is hypocrital of the law to say that one child is murdered if struck by a drunk driver and the other aborted by the “choice” of the mother at the same stage of pregnency….at least conceed tha

Life starts at conception and contiues through our death. Death occurs by acceident, naturally, tragity, sickness or any other form sometime after conception…weather in the womb or outside of it. We should interfer at no point in the natrual process after birth it is murder, prior I’d suggest, is the same.

No one, you are anyone else, has proof of when God determines that a fetus is a person with a soul. You and the rest of your pro-life cohorts have simply decided that conception is the time and refuse to even consider that perhaps you could be mistaken.

If you read my posts, I pointed out the problems with the your claim that God endows a fertilized egg with personhood, and then allows many more of those “persons” to “die” than ever are born through failure to implant in the uterine wall. If God cherishes life in the way that you say He does, you would have thought He would have constructed a more reliable system to convert that fertilized egg into a baby.

If you read my posts, I pointed out that there is plenty of support in the Bible for the thought that we are God’s ideas with a spiritual existence before we’re born. There’s nothing that identifies the moment at which that spiritual idea has consciousness in human flesh.

I don’t know when that moment is and I don’t presume to be able to tell anyone else.

As far as legal protections are concerned, though there have been many attempts by pro-life folks to extend legal personhood to the fetus, so far that hadn’t occurred, but the caselaw here is fuzzy. A Michigan appeals court has ruled that a woman can use deadly force to protect her fetus even when her own life might not be in danger. It’s called the “defense of others”. The manslaughter bills that have been passed by a few state legislatures include explicit language which says that the law does not confer pesonhood or any rights to the fetus.

I agree with you the life begins with fertilization in the same way that an apple begins when a bee spreads some pollen in an apple tree flower. But the fertilized flower is not an apple and a fertilized egg also has a long way to go before it becomes a person.

You pointed out no problems biblically, you merely preformed mental gymnastics to support your veiw. (I did read you posts) As to pointing out the problems with it physiologically your veiws fall into the same catigory.

To classifiy my comment “life isn’t an agruement” as offering “some comfort to those with similar beliefs” is as gretuatious as you’ve accused my statemnt of being. Here’s what I ment. Life isn’t an arguement it is a fact. It either is or isn’t a life. Like a true false question that would read like this; “at the point an egg is fetilised it is either a life or it isn’t…true or false.” The answer is true.

One simple question of logic Jeff. If it isn’t life then why all the “preventitive” measures? Why pass out condems, why all the “education” why RU1, or what ever it is. In fact why the “spounge” episode of Sienfeild? Jeff what in the world are they trying to prevent if not an unwanted child?

Let me say this again. Male mets female, hopefully they get married. The male feitilizes an egg and in about nine months a child is born. If the fertilized egg isn’t a life then where did the “live” child come from?

As to the comparison of the slave owner, poor example, though I understand your point. That was wrong. I would never hold someone in slavery…..as to the logic of this agruement its pretty sloppy. If the north believed 2 + 2 = 3 and the south believed the corret answer to be 4 and a war was fought over it and the war was won by the north and laws were passed that 2 + 2 = 3, I’d agree the law of the land would be the answer is 3 but the correct anser is still 4. Now the slave owner is wrong to his grave but your logic and agruement is faulty.

Life is not an arguement and it does begin at conception. There is no other way to create life except to fertilize an egg. Even if cloning is possible it starts with a fertilzed egg or a product of a fertilized egg.

Legally this is true also. A women is “with child.” (where did that term come from) The child is not agreed to be a child by your point of view but the woman is choosing to have it. She is hit by a drunk driver and the “mass or clumb of stuff” as you’d call it, I and the mother will call it her child, is injured and the pregency is terminated due to the crash. Jeff the drive in many cases is serving jail time today for manslaughter or murder….why if this is not a child?

At the end of the day, your claim that life begins at conception is an article of belief. Platitudes like “life isn’t an argument” may offer those with similar beliefs some comfort, but it does nothing to resolve the differences we face.

I will state again, this issue won’t be resolved to your satisfaction because the only way that you will be satisfied is if everyone agrees with you.

You are like the southern slave owner who will never be able to see an African American as a human. It didn’t matter who won the Civil War or what laws were passed. He took those attitudes to the grave with him. 150 years later and we are still dealing with the echoes of slavery.

We will also need to take this issue to the grave with us before there will be any hope to resolve it.

The fact that you can’t imagine how someone could support a woman’s right to choose abortion is the best example of why the issue won’t be resolved in our lifetime.

You will never be able to accept my point of view and I will never accept your point of view.

Our kids WILL resolve it mainly because it will be more important to them to figure out how to get along than it will be to win this unwinable argument.