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Originally Posted by Latenter
As far as when we can determine that a fetus is a person, I think there needs to be a hard, scientific definition.
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This is what we need, but the problem is that fetal development is a gradual thing. Any line that's drawn will be imprecise and somewhat arbitrary. It might make sense to develop a series of legal definitions of personhood, each more restrictive than the last, to govern what can and can't be done at a certain stage of development. (e.g. a class I fetus can be aborted for any reason, a class III can be aborted only if the mother's health is at risk) Of course, this just makes the line-drawing more complicated, and although it may be more representative of biological reality, I'm not sure it's a better moral solution.
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Originally Posted by Latenter
I never claimed that this is the point where a fetus can survive without outside help. I know it's not fully developed, but it's human. A full grown cow, with complete brain and everything I'm ok with killing, eating even. It's just the point, to me, where a person (and not their support system/organs) begins.
The reason I make the distinction, (I don't make any laws so all of this is my opinion) is that you don't count your arm as a separate entity from yourself, even if cut off. The difference between biological mass and an individual life is due to the brain/nervous system. That's why the mad scientists talk about brain transplants.
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This is part of the problem with defining 'human'. If you rely on CNS development, you invite comparisons between humans and other animals. There's a point at which a human fetus is less developed than an adult cow. If you accept this metric (for example) as a justification for abortion, then you can also apply it to humans that are severely mentally retarded or injured. If an adult human has lower neural functioning than a cow, does he lose the right to life? I think most people would say no. Any rule we create governing abortion has to hold in other situations concerning people with diminished capacities.