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This article, and all research along similar lines (of which there is plenty), also explodes the myth that adoption fixes everything. Many unwanted babies are born after gestation in the inhospitable womb of a mother who doesn't care what effects her drinking, drug-taking, junk-food-eating, partying-all-night-to-deafening-music has on the developing fetus. Much of the resulting damage is irreversible.

Sadly, you make a good point. What you say is, however, an argument for removing children from the custody of such mothers once they are born. One might also use it as an argument to regulate mothers' behaviors--another controversial issue. It is also used by those who favor legal abortion.

"Up to about 25 weeks, whether or not it's sucking its thumb or has personality or all that, the fetus cannot survive outside of its mother. So is that life, or not?" (Yet, it cannot survive at 25 weeks yet...)

"That is a moral, ethical, and religious question, not one for science." (It most certainly is! - If science can't face the fact that we exist and are alive in the womb, and therefore can be killed on a woman's whim, it is being intellectually dishonest to say the least!)

"Things can behave and not be alive." (Prove to me the fetus is NOT alive)

"Right-to-lifers may say that this research proves that a fetus is alive, but it does not. It cannot."
WHAT?!?!?
Did this person realize the utter stupidity of that statement?
A fetus is a living human being at its earliest development...when exactly does it become 'alive'?
If it wasn't 'alive' we wouldn't he able to KILL IT!!!!

"Fetal research only changes the abortion debate for people who think that life starts at some magical point," maintains Heidelise AIs, a psychologist at Harvard University. "If you believe that life begins at conception, then you don't need the proof of fetal behavior." For others, however, abortion is a very complex issue and involves far more than whether research shows that a fetus is alive. "Your circumstances and personal beliefs have much more impact on the decision," she observes.

This is relativism at its worst...
Again, how twisted can these people be? A magical point? It that the buzz word for conception? Complex issue? For people who want to rationalize abortions.
At conception you exist....you start there and continue to develop. PERIOD. The debate for pro- abortionists is about how old fetus must be before it can or can't be killed.

"The research is much more relevant for issues regarding viable fetuses--preemies." Simply put, say the three, their work is intended to help the babies that live--not to decide whether fetuses should."
WAIT! I thought the fetuses weren't alive to begin with....so if they're not alive how can this research have anything to do with decided "whether fetuses should" live.

Holy Cow... I am SO aggravated right now.....