And sentient or not, no one disputes that a tree is alive.Those are all merely trappings of age. Live long enough, and a person comes to lose those once again. They are still a person. Just as sure as you’re still a person when you fall asleep. Or if you were in a coma. You can be positively identified without doubt genetically as a human.It's not solely a religious issue. It's a constitutional matter of peole being killed without due process. Religion has little to do with it. If religion is what is needed to motivate someone to make the morally just, and legally correct decision on the matter; I won't mind. Just so long as they arrive where they should.It is what it is. I'm not a woman. I don't intend to have children either. It really has nothing to do with me. So I'm not necessarily freaking out about it either way.
But the state getting involved with abortion (a ban, for instance) strikes me as an overreach. Restrictions? There should be some. But I don't like that much government interference in peoples' private lives. It feels gross. Disgusting. In opposition to what America supposedly cherishes: our beloved freedom. As much as abortion is generally a sad, undesirable thing, it's also necessary, and most importantly, NOT MY GODDAMNED BUSINESS ...
I can't stress that last part enough. Want to be pro-life? Don't get an abortion. Stop telling other people what to do. Particularly since the pro-life movement is very much religiously motivated (not pragmatic, intrusive and theocratic). That's my sincere opinion on the matter.
Depends on how you define a "person". I find it difficult to define a person as a very tiny organism that lacks consciousness and has never even held consciousness... From what I've read, consciousness forms around 20 weeks or so. So before that, it can hardly be called the killing of a person. After? Maybe so.
It is different between a being that has never experienced cognition and one that has. A plant does not experience cognition and never will. Therefore, we've no compunctions about killing plants, insofar as the killing of the plant is in itself morally reprehensible.
A goldfish, while stupid, is capable of very simple thought. It knows it needs food. It knows when it's subjected to undesirable temperature. A pre-conscious fetus has less awareness than that goldfish. In fact, it has no awareness at all. Are we going to go on a crusade to save the lives of goldfish?
It's absurd. At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with life. It's all about power. Nothing else makes actual sense to me.
Few also will dispute that cutting down trees is necessary for the development and maintenance of our human societies. We call those people tree-huggers. And rightly so; while there is nothing wrong with trying to conserve trees for pragmatic purposes, or even on moral grounds, to forbid the chopping of all trees is an absurdity.
Abortion is not something I like, but it's necessary in many cases, and ultimately it is not my choice what another does. Do I think there should be limits? Of course. But ahead of that 20 week mark, I don't think it's my concern, and it should not be the concern of the law either. Not one bit.