[who_would_fardels_bear]

I believe that Roe v. Wade is based on defining a fetus as NOT being a legal person. So whether or not you can prove a fetus to be a human being, so long as you can define it as NOT a legal person, then you can deny it rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Of course all sorts of non-human entities such as corporations, old houses, etc. can be granted personhood in order to support and save them.

Fetuses are denied legal personhood in order to justify their murder. Blacks were denied personhood in order to justify slavery. This is why some pro-lifers equate abortion with slavery.

If you can get a pro-abort to agree that its not a question of when a fetus becomes a human being, but instead when a fetus becomes a legal person, then you may be able to make them realize how completely arbitrary the Roe v. Wade decision was.

You might also scare them into ruminating about how easy it would be for governments to declare them as not being legal persons in some nightmarish fascist fantasy liberals have from time-to-time.

According to liberals, we are supposed to be very concerned about the rights of the terrorists being held at Guantanamo because we could be treated like that in a future Bush administration. But what if aborting fetuses todays is used later as a justification for post-birth-abortions of enemies of the state?

[swilhelm73]

You might also scare them into ruminating about how easy it would be for governments to declare them as not being legal persons in some nightmarish fascist fantasy liberals have from time-to-time.

Well, if you read the work of Peter Singer and other cutting edge leftwing ethicists, humanity is defined as merely being of use to others. Currently they mean that in a socially interactive sense, but it is hardly a long walk to arrive at the argument that humanity should be defined by relative material worth to society (which led directly to the worst sins of communism)...