But life is not limited to humans. You can't argue for/against human life and just ignore every other form of life. Especially if a major point is when a non-human life becomes a human life.
Debating whether it's ok/not ok to kill a fetus based on the argument of whether it's a human life is erroneous.
The argument should be is it ok/not ok to kill any life. And if so, what lifeforms fall under "ok to kill" and which ones "not ok to kill"
@psood: You would seem to say to any human and/or human fetus from fetilization is not ok to kill. All other life (if not self-aware) is ok to kill
You've misunderstood me. What I meant was that many of the responses so far seem to tacitly acknowledge that questioning the immorality of abortion is ultimately a question about what makes any life sacred (the question you state isn't being debated). In my first post I brought up Douglas Hofstadter's notion of "Hunekers" as they relate to the perceived magnitude of all living beings' "souls" and to our intuitions about why it's OK to swat mosquitoes, etc. I've not made any explicit claims about what is "Ok to kill" and why, only prospective allusions, but I have tried to delineate what the various assumptions are that those engaging in the debate tend to be working with. That is, those who believe in the existence of an immortal human soul that enters and leaves our bodies by decree of Divine Will defer to a very different set of justifications for their moral beliefs regarding abortion than those who believe subjective being relates directly to a continuum of biological growth and development. With regard to those who believe the later I've said the immorality of abortion seems to be measured on a scale that slides along a hierarchy of presumed subjective being, with early stage abortions perhaps being compared to the immorality of swatting a mosquito (extinguishing a "small soul") and late stage to killing a young chimpanzee (extinguishing a soul closer in size and qualitative sophistication to a"full person's").
I brought up the self-concept because it is widely recognized as the locus of our psychology and the most distinguishing feature of human consciousness. I also raised a point about the role of this concept in justifying the torture of dogs in the past, calling it an inhumane rationalization, so I'm not sure how you've concluded I 'm claiming "All other life (if not self-aware) is Ok to kill." In fact, I called attention to it precisely to allude to the question of what it is about consciousness prior to the development of self-awareness that we value morally. I assume you didn't read the entire thread before posting?
I said 24 weeks because that's when a foetus can hear..
That's when it can start experiencing meaningful external stimuli..
Before that.. what do you suppose the brain is doing?
Oh, OK. I'm confused because earlier you indicated you believed a fetus wasn't a full person and expressed confusion about why people aren't as concerned about cutting hair and having tumors removed as having abortions, and now you've said the "cut off point" is probably around 18 weeks because that is when the "fetus" begins to hear more like fully developed people. So if it's the unborn "fetus" that's hearing you're referring to rudimentary audiological processing in a nascent nervous system at 18 weeks past conception, correct? Or did you mean to say "infant" and "18 weeks old" and refer to an essentially fully functional human auditory cortex, ear structures, etc.?
Regarding your question about what I suppose the brain is doing: I think, at least with regard to sensory experience, the subjective states of the newborn and late-term fetus both are probably highly chaotic, as they've had limited exposure to the environmental stimuli that plays a fundamental role in shaping the anatomical structures that undergird our perceptions of sense data. Nevertheless, the clear capacity of the newborn to experience fear and react to pain may indicate that some of the "groundwork" of the human will to survive is present in the late-term fetus (and that could justify strong moral concern).
