Women are treated unequally around the world because they are weaker and men can dominate them, and societies are established around the idea of the man being the provider etc., and religion, and...

An unborn child is UNBORN, it does not deserve the same rights as its mother because of that, ffs. What is so hard to understand about that? It is called a birth date, and not a date of conceiving. Your life begins with your birth, not shortly your dad...

I had previously pointed out that the embryo is an individual being of the species human. That it is taught in biology class to be a human being at an early stage of the human life cycle. Weaslegirl did not contest those facts.

This is one of the stupidest things i've ever heard.
First; you have no standing point to show foetus' have conscious brains, nor that they are human
Second; evil is immoral, not amoral, nor thinking moral. To be evil one must know they are doing wrong and do it anyway. Being naive, irrational, delusionary; as you think we are is NOT evil- its being naive, irrational, and delusionary. Deliberately killing when you know it is wrong is evil. Thinking your killing the equivalent of a house fly is not the same level of evil.

By equating the two you are trivialising the murders, and enslaved people's of the world. It is an insult to their memories, and an equivocation in crime and morality that makes the true evil people throughout history alot more fogiveable.

And this gives it moral quality how?

This is just saying it is okay to value some human beings more than others. As I have pointed out already in this thread, it is this ideology which has "justified" most of the evil that has occurred in the world. It is an ideology that must be embraced to be a pro-abortioner.

I don't think conscious mind is the most critical part. I think you can have a rudimentary conscious mind and still lack all that which makes up our preferences and personhood: desire to live, cabability to suffer, understanding of future, understanding of death, cabability to feel joy and sadness... I think the question about abortion should be whose preferences matter more and who suffers more.

I'm not pro abortion, I'm anti abortion. How did choice become synonymous with evil?

No, it is a disagreement as to what constitutes a human being. Your attempt to demonize pro choice as being equal to any genocidal or discrimination ideologoy out there is extremely misguided. As long as it is unborn, the baby is a part of the mother's body. It is her right to do as she pleases with it.

I'm going to give an example to point out the ridiculousness of your idea:

Say a girl is pregnant and decides to commit suicide. She uses pills, but somehow the doctors are able to save her. Still her system has absorbed enough chemicals to kill the baby. Say she is 19. According to your concept, she should be sued for murder.

You can't have any of that without a conscious mind.
A non-conscious mind can't have a preference. The moment preferences come into play; a conscious mind exists; and it is killing. This can frequently be murder.
I'm taking conscious to be actual thoughts by the way; which differs from just sensing- a computer, moving- a rain drop, etc..
I agree that all the things you listed affect the valuation of a conscious; but that really only comes into play when you are in a theatre of responsibility i.e. chosing who will survive, being a president, etc.
Prima facie; once the baby has a conscious mind, or has the disposition (masked or not i.e. being passed out is a conscious mind- it is just not in use), it is a moral issue.
From there you can go where you will. I think then it becomes very hard to decide whether it should be aborted. I want to say no, unless it kills the mum. It is a sad reality that they have to give birth if it was caused by rape; but life can be sad. I would hold no responsibility to care for the parent though, it is societies as much as the parents. Thats a different question.
There is time before this though, when the baby is just an empty vase. Its probably not optimal to prevent it being in life- its not a morally good action, and it can be done maliciously which will make it morally evil. But intrinscically, I see no case morally to be worth while without a conscious.

In regards to it being seriously ill; I think it should still not be allowed to be aborted. Unless it is known (100%) that it would wish it would never be born; the lack of sureity is never enough to kill it

I've heard cases where a murderer was charged for the death of the mother and the baby

I don't get it. What dyu mean? Who are you responding to?

Legality isn't morality

Most babies aren't conscious until about two years old

LOL.

You really think a human being is definable?

Though I suppose all the definable characteristics people attempt to define as human are inside a fertilized egg regardless of circumstances.

I was talking to stu, I'll try to remember to quote

That depends on your definition on conscious. It is a very ambigious term; but the way I was using it is clarified in an earlier post.
For me, it is when it can "feel" and "think" as opposed to just "sense" and "wilfully move" like a computer or rain drop.

There are deeper levels of consciousness; but this is the level at which beings gain moral worth.

There are many ways to define a human being.
The one concerned with moral worth of a human is not one of dna, but one of existence as a being.
This is where deep talks about consciousness, existence, awareness, etc. become important.

The definable characteristic not found in a fertilized act is the ability to be conscious.
This is different to a person in a coma, or one who is passed out; they have the ability, it is just masked by the situation.
The foetus has not yet garnered the ability, and as such, has not yet garnered moral worth

In which case i most heartily agree!

Suppose kidneys could be donated with no negative impact whatsoever to the life of the donor, then I would say you a moral obligation to donate. However this is not the state of affairs. To force a person to donate a kidney is an act of valuing the recipient human being more than the human being that is the donor.

A separate, but important issue, is it an enforceable moral obligation i.e. a matter of justice; or a moral obligation like charity?

Yes, I just don't think conscious mind gives in itself any value or worth to life.

What makes life worth living? I think this is something that people should seriously think about. Surely life is not worth living just because we are alive or else it would be better to be tortured for an eternity than to die. I think there are plenty of cases where it is better to not to exist than to exist. I don’t see why we should force people to bring sad people into existence, if it is a net decrease in human well-being.

If we know that it doesn't give a **** or gives a less of a **** than the parents at the moment, why should we care what he might become? I don't think the future-self can retroactively care about what we do now. There were plenty of good potential for successful scientists, artists and activist that were just killed because I ejaculated while watching porn.

If her boyfriend had poisened her and she survived but the baby died he could be prosecuted for murder and attempted murder.

From a legal prespective muder is the unlawful killing of a human being. The only reason abortion is not murder is because it is the lawful killing of a human being.

http://brainerddispatch.com/news/201...r-unborn-child

Do you think the world would be a better place to live for women and children if abortion was illegal and classified as muder?

Peter Singer and Noam Chomsky on abortion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzY0L2g1f64

I think the world would be a better placed if we abandoned the notion that some human beings have more value than others.

You think say Gandhi and Osama Bin Laden had equal value as human beings?