Abortion

Correction: The conceptus is alive. Adding 'human' potentially equivocates between its species (which is, duh, human) and 'human' the moral quantity we tend to apply to people. As I'm sure a seasoned debator like yourself is aware, a distinction is commonly drawn between the two. Unless you would consider chemotherapy killing human life?

I would reduce the limit. I believe strongly in women's rights, but I also believe in the rights of the baby. 12 weeks for abortion without any good reason, 20 weeks when there are unusual circumstances. Abortions later than that should be reserved for extreme situations, such as when the mother's life is in danger.

It is not a baby. It is a mass of cells with potential. Nothing more.

Enough with the emotionally charged language.

At what point does the mass of cells become a baby then? Aren't we all just a mass of cells? To draw a line seems arbitrary to me.

Indeed...this particular aspect has been debated with Tufts who refuses to accept any opinion other than her own (or those who mirror hers) as having any validity.

At what point does the mass of cells become a baby then? Aren't we all just a mass of cells? To draw a line seems arbitrary to me.

We draw the line when the baby becomes concious.

We're happy to say computers arnt concious - thats drawing a line. No one ever in the history of the world can remember their experience in the womb. Therefore theres a high chance they wernt concious.

And anyway, since babies in the womb definitely react to external stimuli they must surely be concious. The lack of memory doesn't measure consciousness. I don't remember my first couple of years of life but I was definitely conscious for it.

A sample of bacteria in a petri dish can respond to stimuli - that doesn't imply consciousness.

Consciousness is the adaptation of identities and associations of the mind, in order to best fulfil a set of unfulfilled desires. The conceptus has no real unsatisfied desires, and so does not begin to form identities and relationships with which to best fulfil them.

At birth - on cutting of the umbilical cord and removal from the amniotic fluid - desire for feeding and physical comfort become paramount. It is with reference to these desires that consciousness begins to occur, as the mind begins to form identities and relationships, regarding how sensual experiences relate to feeding and comfort, and how motor actions (e.g. crying) can be coordinated to best meet the infant's desires. The relationships and identities that form with reference to these basic desires, combined with the psychological drives of aggression and libido, lead to the development of more complex desires, and a more advanced state of consciousness.

So consciousness really doesn't exist prior to birth; only at birth does human life begin.

The child that has just left the womb is physically no different than when it was in the womb. What has changed in that instant? What has changed in the instant of the cutting of the umbilical cord?

The child feels hunger. The child feels physical discomfort. Patterns between the satisfaction of these desires and the masses of sensual and motor experiences lead to consciousness - the formation and adaptation of identities and associations.

I have no doubt that a child in the womb can feel hunger and discomfort too.

And let me make sure I understand this - you are saying that a child is conscious only when he is actually receiving sensual stimuli and also experiencing desires?

Absolutely - experience and desire are both prerequisite to consciousness. Sensual stimuli are the only type of experience possile for an entity that has never before attained consciousness.

And of course hunger is not experienced in the womb! None of the digestive system is functional.

The lack of physical discomfort is less clear cut. Immersion in amniotic fluids provides a constant and comfortable temperature; it provides critical dampening to all motion, making only the sense of balance provided by the semi circular canal meaningful. There may or may not be moments of stress inflicted by loud noise, but any associated desires would be poorly formed, transitory, and lack the wider sensual stimuli required for development of consciousness.

Do you not see that you are already drawing arbitrary lines of distinction. You recognise that the foetus can receive stimuli and feel discomfort which are the ingredients for consciousness according to you. Yet in order to deny the foetus consciousness you have to say that those stimuli or feelings of stress and discomfort are not enough to cause consciousness. Since, AFAIK, consciousness is not something you can measure (in this context) isn't your distinction arbitrary?