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What separates a embryo or a fetus from a person is defined by nature and not by human law or religious dogma. It's very simple really, it's the womb. It's not a person until it is a separate entity no longer directly dependant on the mother's bodily systems to support it. While in the womb, it is still a part of the mother's body, and incapable of independant life. It is similar to a hand or a finger. Is it alive? Yes. But if you cut it off it dies quickly, unable to sustain itself or be sustained by someone else.
My opinion on this topic and the related issue of abortion is similar to how Thurgood Marshall looked at capital punishment. If we can not say that we will always be certain that ONLY the guilty are put to death, capital punishment has to great of a legal and moral risk – the death of the innocent. I've read from the "scientific" community various opinions on when a fetus is actual "alive" or a "complete human being". And I found that they are NOT in agreement. With that in mind, it is too much of a risk to oversimplify the issue as some people do with the "scientific approach".
Being a father and having "witnessed" the development of my "unborn child". My belief that it is far to simple to look at life as that which is no longer directly dependant on the mother's bodily systems to support it is even stronger. I watched this little tiny "pea" have a heat beat in just the first few WEEKS. I watched his brain, eyes, form. I watched him move and listen to him hiccup and kick inside my wife.
And just because some can point to the wrongs done by the Catholic Church does not make the popes opinion any less valid. That's like saying if we found out Einstein was a murderer that the Theory of Relativity is not valid.
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Just how are you a "full and complete" human being when you are shapeless
I can only assume that those that feel this way do not believe in an after life? What are we if we have no bodies – before OR after life? Shapless? But are we less human after we die and become spirits? If you believe in this concept that is.
How sad to look at our "existence" in such a "mechanical" way?
After a child comes from the womb it is still dependent its mother and her systems. Before similac there was breast milk – the BEST form of milk for a child so says the medical industry.
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So the soul enters the body, or is created, at conception in your opinion?
So if not during conception or during gestation then when? The moment the doctor slaps it on the behind?
This is what I mean by this is too much of a complex issue to be oversimplified
