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Do you know for certain when there is a soul present with the body of the being alive in the womb? If you cannot tell at what age this soul becomes resident with the organism growing and thriving in the womb, then why slaughter them for cannibalistic intent?

It's generally agreed upon in this society that the "soul" "leaves the body" when a person's brain stops functioning for the last time. Brain-death is the generally accepted "definitive" criteria for determining whether a person has died or not.

The concept of a person dying simply does not apply before there is a brain to stop functioning.

(Unless you have a different criteria that you use to determine when a person has died than the rest of us...?)

p.s. There is a legitimate debate over whether brain death should mean cessation of higher brain functions, or all functions down to the brain stem, or something in between. I actually gravitate toward a more stringent definition such as brain-stem activity. But an embryo that doesn't even have neurons yet, let alone a brain stem, simply cannot be said to be "a person who has died". Not unless you are willing to redefine "death" to absurd extremes.

You offered (quite logically it would at first first appear), "The concept of a person dying simply does not apply before there is a brain to stop functioning." You cited that notion to support a notion that there is no soul present before there is a brain functioning. Of course, the association between brain function and 'being alive' is a man-made construct, useful if contemplating 'when to harvest' organs, but of course these organs still have life in them else they would not be transplanted.

And that life in them originated while in the womb, being constructed by the newly conceived life building the body for survival in the air world. The question then becomes, "Is there soul of an individual in the organs which are alive even if transplanted into another being?"

For a meaningful answer we ought consult the information program which constructed the organs to start with. And that program was set down when the sperm and ovum united to form a new set of DNA identity.

The debater desiring to support the notion of 'no human being at embryo or early fetal age' will plead that 'DNA is a molecule of biological instructions giving not a hint to an individual soul involved.' And then this same debater will jump instantly to the conclusion you offered, that a functioning brain is the only rational indication of an individual soul being present with this body of alive parts.

I would (and often find it necessary to) respond with the following analogy. The functioning brain is like a newly constructed piece of machinery in a building filling up with machinery ... the machine shop is the business, one or another machine is but a single useful tool for the expression of 'machine shop'. When did the business become 'machine shop'? If the owner of 'machine shop' decides to sell or dies, going out of business happens usually before the machinery is sold off or sinks into rusty disrepair. Some machines may be quite useful in other machine shops. Will taking one of these machines into another shop make that shop the business of the deceased or out of business owner? While the original machine shop functioned at a less 'efficient' level, new machinery may have been added along the way while parts were being manufactured inside the shop, but when that new piece of machinery came on line, the business really took off.

Make of that what you will, Jenny, but it is not correct to assume that the soul is not present until a completely functioning brain is in place ... a newborn's brain is not yet complete for final operational capabilities and you wouldn't advocate that these little ones are not yet possessing a soul.

And one last thing: the newly conceived human builds an organ for survival (the placetal encapsulation/amniotic sac) very early in the lifetime begun at conception, and then proceeds to function building the body of organs to be used when in the air world. That first organ is cast off at birth, but it was the organ necessary for sustaining and organizing bodily life functions while in the womb, and this well before the brain comes on line to carry out the bodily life function signalling. After a while in the construction process occurring in the womb, the brain comes on line and begins to function primitively at first, then with more sophistication as more cells are added to the brain.

With your approach to assigning a soul present, we could argue that premise right down to the formation of the first neuronal cell of the new life and assign soul to the arrival of the first neuronal cell. But that would be a silly syllogism, don't you think? Silly because we would be asserting something we could not have enough information to support such an assertion.

But an embryo that doesn't even have neurons yet, let alone a brain stem, simply cannot be said to be "a person who has died". Not unless you are willing to redefine "death" to absurd extremes.

It's not so much a matter of defining *death* as *human*. Of course, it isn't murder to kill something that is not human but why should the embryo not be considered *human*? It's alive (growing) and usually has the normal number of chromosomes. What's not *human* about it? If it's not human, what is it?