Inconvenient.
Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
1. If it isn't human, what is it?
2. If it isn't alive, what is it?
And before we get sidetracked into a fruitless discussion of soul, I'd like to point out that those two questions were asked by a prominent atheist who came to his own inescapable and rather uncomfortable (to him) conclusion about abortion. You must either redefine "murder" as something other than the taking of a human life or you must concede the point.
Inconvenient.
Billthedrill wrote:
“Regarding your statement on abortion, I have two questions for you concerning the unborn child:
“1. If it isn’t human, what is it?”
You use the word “human” in your first question as an adjective. Using the word “human” as an adjective to modify other nouns, there are human beings, human artifacts, human events, human corpses. The “unborn child” in your question
is either a human embryo or a human fetus. Using the modifier “human” does not answer the question of whether terminating the growth of a human embryo or fetus is murder. That question requires additional information within a fully-defined context.
“2. If it isn’t alive, what is it?”
Being alive is a necessary but not sufficient condition to being a creature endowed by its Creator with human unalienable rights.
By the way, my argument that the statement “Abortion is murder” is a lie means that those who argue that “all abortions are murders” is a lie. I have not argued, nor have I eliminated the possibility, that some abortions — such as the termination of a fully-formed viable fetus — may constitute a homicide.
JNS