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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

You and I require shelter, nutrients and the right conditions... does that mean we are not human?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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idiotic remark

How so?

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Lots of people can't survive outside the womb without assistance. A man who has been hit by a car, and is lying on the side of the road bleeding to death, cannot survive outside the womb without assistance. Do we then say, "Well, he's no longer human, let's just leave him there."?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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Neither is a embryo/fetus, its inside a woman for a reason.
it cannot survive without the mother until full development.
I would rather lay an egg...than go thru another pregnancy

Lots of people can't survive outside the womb without assistance. A man who has been hit by a car, and is lying on the side of the road bleeding to death, cannot survive outside the womb without assistance. Do we then say, "Well, he's no longer human, let's just leave him there."?

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And that is wholly agreed. 

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We create our own shelter. We obtain our own nutrients. We alter our environment to create the right conditions. THAT makes a human.

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if you dont see it, Im not gonna help you.

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Ummmm good luck finding someone willing to have you stuff a bleeding 200# man up inside her snatch so he can get 'assistance'.

That was a REALLY bad analogy marc.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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And that is wholly agreed. 

So why then does being inside or outside the womb have any bearing on whether or not you are human.

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Abortion is the killing of a human being.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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The humans that I know have circulatory systems, lungs, brains (though they are often not used), and many other various and assorted organs and characteristics. A fertilized egg has none of those things. The only thing that a fertilized egg has is the "potential" to become a human.

Is a person in law school a lawyer? No, but that person has the "potential" to become a lawyer.

Whether you are talking about fertilized eggs, or law students, or any of millions of other possibilities, the "potential to be" is not the same as "being".

How many humans inside the womb do you know?

Just because the humans that you know have things like lungs and circulatory systems doesn't mean that those things are necessary to be human. If you had grown up knowing only Caucasian people, would that mean that only Caucasian people were human? Would that mean that all non-Caucasian people were not human? People are using arbitrary definitions in order to exclude the unborn from a definition of being human that doesn't fit those definitions (for the purposes of justifying abortion). What differentiates one organism from another is, ultimately, its DNA. From the moment that the sperm cell enters the egg, all the DNA says "human." To pick any other point in that organisms lifetime makes no sense.

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Now, define a human being. Honestly.

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

So then anyone interfering with the development of that "organism" is clearly a murderer and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Am I reading you correctly?

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I, personally, don't know any humans that don't have a circulatory system, lungs, etc. How many humans do you know that don't have those necessities?

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Here is what someone recently posted on DNA: "A single stomach cell or a wart is not a human on its own because they can never be more than what they already are." Sound familiar? Stomach cells and warts both contain HUMAN DNA...yet even you said that that stomach cell or wart is not a human. In the same way a fertilized egg may contain human DNA just like that stomach cell or wart cell, it has not yet become human any more than that stomach or wart can be said to be a complete human. You also qualified your statement with "on its own"...that single ferfilized egg ON ITS OWN is not going to become a human. On it's own it will never become more than what it is...a fertilized egg...nothing more.

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To say that a fertilized egg is a human because they have human DNA is like saying iron ore is a locomotive since they both contain iron. According to your "logic" they are one, and the same thing.

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Again, the "potential" of something is NOT the same as something that it may or may not eventually become.

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So then anyone interfering with the development of that "organism" is clearly a murderer and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Am I reading you correctly?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

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So then anyone interfering with the development of that "organism" is clearly a murderer and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Am I reading you correctly?

No. Throughout history societies have made certain classes of people exceptions from being considered fully human legally and have denied them their rights accordingly. There have been numerous justifications for this and in each case we, as a society, must decide whether those justifications are valid or not. If you believe in reproductive rights for women then the unborn must be one of those exceptions.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

Do we then say, "Well, he's no longer human, let's just leave him there."?

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

An organism which posses the DNA to categorize it as a member of the genus Homo.

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ORIGINAL: Marc2b

It will not grow legs and arms, which your average fertilized egg will.