@Alderian: thanks you i clearly made a mistakie there - though i state that many people wouldn't even consider adoption as part of the issue.

I don't have any facts to back up this ascertian, i haven't even talked to my friends about it; but i think many peopel would see it as a choice between abortion and having a child which you raise yourself (to avoid the emotional difficulties of adoption which are not to be understated)

And that's the problem. They don't even think of adoption as an option.

Yes there is an emotional pull to keep the child once it is born after all the bonding done during the pregnancy. But giving the baby up to a family that can properly provide for the child is in the best interests of the child.

And keeping the child may be selfish in the short term, but in the long term, keeping a child when you are not in good financial shape can drastically lower the quality of life, not just for the child, but for the mother and father.

So do what is in the long term best interest for both the baby and the parents.

or don't put yourself in the position of having to give up a child by avoiding fallng pregnant in the first place.

I agree with you on the rational long term best interest of those concerned, but that doesn't mean it is easy to overcome our biology and emotional attachment and it is hard to think objectively about what the long term best interest will be when we're not great at predicting the future at the best of times...

"But, I would argue that us using our natural talents including our brains and our hands is itself completely natural. Would you have us living in trees picking fruit? ...or perhaps living as the Amish do? Not that there's anything wrong with those ways of living..."

I figured that that would be the counter argument. :D Like Orathaic said, it is also part of our nature to have the debate over what is moral and what isn't. I am not against technology at all. I think that progress is vastly overrated, as Humans are still working the same amount of time now as we were way back before all these innovations. I am able to play Dip with people around the world though, if that's worth anything. :D

My point is this, Did the Germans think they were doing the wrong thing by killing the Jews and trying to create a master race? Do KKK members think they are doing the wrong thing by killing blacks? You can add a bunch of other examples, but these were the 2 that jumped into my head. I am hesitant to endorse any activity that involves the killing or dehumanizing of a certain group of people for ANY reasons. In the majority of cases, these decisions are made out of convenience (such as slavery) rather then looking at the ethics behind the situation.

"or don't put yourself in the position of having to give up a child by avoiding fallng pregnant in the first place."

Yeah, that's what I tell my sons (4 boys no girls) because if they knock up a girl they get all the responsibility and none of the decision after that.

@Hunter49r, a cousin of mine got an abortion early on - when she was 18 and living with her mom and had just broken up with her alcoholic boyfriend (a month before she realized she was pregnant). She went on to graduate college, is gainfully and happily employed and happily married with two children - who are well adjusted and well taken care of. She sees the fork in the road and the path that she took and the one that she avoided, and she doesn't regret her decision (though she fully realized/realizes the gravity of the decision). I can totally see why. Had she gone down that other path she would have had a radically different and far less successful and less happy life... and the children she now has - who are wonderful - would not even exist. See - even well before she became pregnant with the children she has, they were potential children as well.

Nature (genetics and hormones), left to its own, can abort fetuses when conditions are not right... but nature fumbles about and only knows about conditions today... is there a famine - today. Our knowledge, our insight (though imperfect) gives us a longer view... we can see ahead years... this sort of insight is what drives us to go to school, for example (or build houses, etc.)... we know what happens if we don't do something - and if we do. Had nature (our genetics and hormones) had this longer view it would surely abort this child of the absent alcoholic father while the mother is uneducated and unable to support herself and would have to quit school and work a menial job. Yes she was not in a famine at the moment (but only due to the kindness of others), but the choice, to someone with a longer view than her hormones had, was clear. You do your best to do what is best. I do not think that leaving things to chance (hormones) is the best way to run a life. Granted that given our ability to make choices that sometimes people make unwise ones... but that should not be a reason to avoid making decisions when you have the power to do so. I understand that the response to that is that she already made her choice (via hormones, once again) by having sex... well sure, that was a choice... but would you suggest that once a choice is made one should never ever reverse direction? That would make for some pretty poor outcomes wouldn't it?

@Orathaic: I meant after an embryo forms. Before that, the sperm/egg does not have a full set of DNA, and it is obviously impractical to force every sperm to join to an egg. (In fact, it would be impossible, as there are a lot more sperms than eggs) But once there is an embryo, which has full human DNA, it is on the path to birth, and no one has the right to stop that path.

I have two theoretical friends. One lets their yard grow on its own... never waters, never prunes, never weeds. There are some very nice trees there... and about a thousand saplings crowding each other and looking like a tangled brown thicket rather than a green yard. ...and every year in the summer, numerous plants die due to lack of water and other care. The other friend removes saplings when they start growing in places where he doesn't want a tree, he prunes trees every year, he pulls weeds and he waters. The difference in yards is dramatic. Both friends made a decision to plant their yards in the first place... the first friend stopped making decisions after that point... the second friend continued making decisions - some of them ruthless in regards to uprooting currently healthy but unwanted/unneeded trees (because the end result would have been unhealthy to the overall yard). Which friend is the wisest? Which friend shows the most care and compassion for the health of his yard and the plants in it? Which yard is the healthiest?

So now potential human lives are trees?

it's called an analogy.

People make decisions all the time about potential futures. And with each decision other potential futures are abandoned. Your reproductive strategy is legitimate: have many children and let chance weed them out... many species follow this approach successfully. I believe, for me, it is better to be more selective and have a better opportunity at raising my children well. ...besides the better life it gives my family and myself, I believe it also is more responsible for its affects on society in general.

"...but once there is an embryo, which has full human DNA, it is on the path to birth, and no one has the right to stop that path. " and what is so special about it's own DNA? DNA does not a human make, it is merely the recipe for life and when it is not cooked correctly it does not produce a human - it is not enough to define a unique human being either as identical twins shares the exact same DNA (because sometimes once the embyro forms it splits in two or more. So if i split an embryo into many pieces (artificially) should each be accorded it's own full human rights as if it had a soul of it's own?

Further to the DNA arguement, we have human chimeras occuring naturally - this is when you have some cells in the body which have different DNA. Usually sibling DNA which is similar enough that it overcomes the immune system responce (it is much better to get a sibling to donate an organ because their antibodies are more likely to match yours...) This happens when two embryos fuse to form one which will then only develope into one person. (or an embryonic cell is contaminated with DNA of the mother for some reason)

So in this case if it ok if i take all the embryo cells and fuse them together into one life (which i then implant into a surrogate womb) is that ok? can i morally take all potential abortions and build a frankenstien with many different sets of DNA forming a chimera - but again presumably only one soul...

I know i keep using the word soul, but it seems that people think DNA is comparable to the idea of a unique individual which would be analogous to the mystical idea of a soul. So here i am trying to contrast the differences between what DNA can actually mean and show how it is not an equivalent idea.

(conjoined twins are of course a possible result of this imperfect process going a little bit wrong - where conjoined twin are identical but have not two seperate complete bodies)

@orathaic, seems to me, for all the reasons you state, the idea of a soul is flawed at best (beyond the fact that there is no actual evidence of the thing). The very reason that a chimera is one person whereas conjoined twins are two people points up that it has nothing to do with unique genes or even physical separation... I suggest it is all due to our brains. That is the source of our "soul" (our personality, really)... Conjoined twins are two people because they have two separate brains... a chimera is one person because he or she has one brain. "soul" = personality (which comes from the activity of your brain). A zygote has no brain... and thus no personality... thus no "soul". An embryo, similarly. A fetus past 30 weeks gestation - when sensory input begins being processed in the developing brain, perhaps. Though I don't imagine that a fetus in what is essentially a sensory deprivation tank (the womb) (and has known nothing else) would have much personality to speak of (far less than my dog, for example)... but then I can't say that I know for sure. After all, some things may be hardwired in during that last trimester before birth. So... I have some doubts and queasiness about third trimester abortions (though I support the right on principle)... but I have zero qualms about earlier abortions. No human is dying in an early term abortion... no self-aware, cognitive being is being destroyed... it is not far from pulling the plug on a brain dead patient. Granted the fetus *could* develop into a human... but, as with the brain dead patient, there is no person(ality) there. It is the difference between deciding not to build "Data" (the android in Star Trek) after fabricating the first couple of parts of his planned skeleton, say... and killing him after he has become self-aware. The first may be a sad thing for our *dream* of what could be - but does no real damage to what actually *is*... the second clearly destroys what *is* (a person).

I guess, to be fair to the original post, I should provide a direct answer to that question as I've been beating around the edges of the question. I am a materialist - and thus, unlike obiwan, don't see a mind-body separation. Without the body (more exactly, the brain) there would be no mind. ...to me an individual is individual because of their brain (and the sensory inputs and hormones acting upon it). I don't have an exact definition of "human" - but it certainly requires a functioning brain. It is, in my view, downright silly (and rather grotesque) to assign (imagine) humanity upon things that have no thought, no self-awareness, no individuality, no free will. I'm not sure where to draw a line (though birth is a reasonable, though arbitrary line to draw) but a growth, whatever it's genetic content, is not a human if it lacks a brain. IMO.

'Conception?
A week?
First heartbeat?
Brain forming?
Viability?
Birth?
18 years old?

All "arbitrary"... but you need a starting point...'

Well apart from the fact that most women don't know they are pregnant in the first week. And the fact that a woman could starve herself and induce the termination of her pregnancy (so it is rather stupid to ban something which is almost certainly in the control of the woman in the first place - but feel free to try and make her feel bad about it if you like...) - never mind that starving yourself does damage to yourself aswell.

Yes there are lots of lines, the 18th birthday is arbitrary (are you suddenly mature enough to drink, vote and smoke tobacco the moment you turn 18? ) it is useful to have such a line for various changes in the legal status of our citizens. However these are all arbitrary lines, so we draw one which seems fair to us at the moment - based on our understanding of the world.

Should sentient life be protected? most probably, if it is trying to kill me i might think otherwise.