[demecleze]

You seem to miss the point entirely. If someone were to kill a known pregnant mother at any stage of the pregnancy everyone would be sure to mention she was expecting. Why would this matter if the 'glob' of cells was insignificant?

The truth is that pregnancy indicates a probability that the 'glob' of cells will become a human being and this probability increases as the pregnancy progresses.

There are many people against genetic engineering of an embryo or fetus, but what does it matter? It's not a person only part of the woman's body, it's her choice right? No it is not, the choices she makes regarding the embryo have a high probability of impacting a human beings life.

An egg alone will not become a human being, a sperm will not but an embryo does. It is part of our life cycle, which means it will probably become a person if left alone!

It's like a person in a burn ward who is comatose and burned up beyond recognition without any organs left. Let's say they are in some regeneration chamber, they will not have their memories but they will recover. Using your reasoning it would be OK to pull the plug, because they are not recognizable as human. In fact that hypothetical person would be in the same position as an unborn child.

Maybe you say it is the mothers body so it's her choice. Well what if we had birth chambers the negated a woman's role as carrier, then would abortion still be legal? I bet most who agree with abortion would say yes.

The reason: it is about not wanting a child so legally killing it, not about a woman's body.

And I am an atheist and highly educated by the way. I do not get told what to think by anyone.

[Ed Current]

Ethic of Reciprocity - Every person shares certain inherent human rights, simply because of their membership in the human race.

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12, "And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." Luke 6:31

Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League Homepage - James Matthew (Matt) Wallace, aka The Compleat Heretic; a Secular Humanist atheist and a pro-life advocate. A nontheistic and nonreligious opposition to the life-denying horror of abortion"... because life is all there is and all that matters, and abortion destroys the life of an innocent human being."

As I contemplate the Declaration of Independence on the anniversary of its signing, I am chastened by the tragic fact that too many Americans are denied their "unalienable rights" of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Ironically, these same rights are used as an argument for alienating these oppressed and persecuted Americans from their rights as human beings. These Americans are the more than one million preborn children violently killed annually by abortion.

The day will come when we as a people will live out the true and full meaning of our dearest creed: All human beings are equal under the law. We will no longer deny the humanity and the human rights of preborn children. Freedom will cease being corrupted into the right of a mother to slaughter her innocent and helpless child within the sanctum of her body. The inhuman and barbarous genocide that is abortion as birth control will end. On that day, all Americans will be free at last.

Some Information on LFL

In 1976, when she became pro-life, Doris Gordon founded Libertarians for Life "because some libertarian had to blow the whistle."

As libertarians, LFL's interest in the abortion debate is in everyone's unalienable rights. LFL's reasoning is philosophical, not religious. Some LFL associates are religious; others, such as Gordon, are atheists.

LFL focuses mainly on two central points: personhood (what "person" means, and why all preborn children are persons); and parental obligation (how parents incur it). From our answers we conclude that prenatal children have the right to the protection of the law.

Libertarianism affirms the central, inalienable right of all persons to be free from aggression (the initiation of force or fraud). Nonaggression belongs in every code of morality. LFL also affirms that from conception to death, we are persons with the right not to be killed. The killing of an innocent person, as in abortion, violates this right.

LFL further affirms that, under libertarian principles, parents owe their dependent children, born and preborn, care and protection from harm. Even if abortion were merely a case of "abandonment" or eviction, as some wish to rationalize it, it would still be wrongful death.

Dependent children are like "captives" of their parents, for they are in the parents' control. This is not voluntary for the children, but it is for the parents. Therefore, when parents choose not to provide care and the children get harmed, the parents have initiated force, and they are accountable.

Abortion, then, violates two rights of children: the right not to be killed, and the right to parental care and protection. Even when pregnancy is due to rape, both parents still have the general obligation not to kill or further endanger their innocent preborn child.