[Vision2020] Re: Nick's pompous lecturing continues........

[Chasuk]

On 4/12/06, ToeKneeTime at aol.com <ToeKneeTime at aol.com> wrote:

"You blurt that I avoid honest debate."

You _do_ avoid honest debate.  Your own words prove this:

"The conceptus should be regarded as a person, as a human, because it
resulted from the union of two humans, two people.  If unmolested it
would continue it's development as a human being.  For you or any one
to set an arbitrary developmental level as the point at which they are
deserving of human rights, is to set yourself up as God."

You state this dogmatically, as axiomatic, without any debate possible
from this starting point.

For myself, I don't believe in God. As a self-confessed atheist
agnostic heathen infidel humanist [pick-your-non-theistic-label], 
what method do you suggest I use to answer weighty questions?  I use
logic and scientific reasoning.  I could flip a coin, I suppose.  My
reasoning tells me that a blastocyst is not a human being.  Blastocyst
isn't a euphemism, any more than stamen is a euphemism when we are
talking about the male organ of a flower.  Both are precise words
describing precise things.

My children are my greatest joy.  There is no hyperbole in that
statement.  A baby's laugh is one of my favorite sounds.  if I truly
believed that a fetus or a blastocyst were equivalent to babies, then
I would be 100% opposed to abortion, including for reasons of rape or
incest.  However, after considerable soul-searching, I came to a
different conclusion than you did.  The conclusion is open to
revision, whereas it would surprise me if yours were.