Answer me, and then I will demonstrate the relevance before I'm done, and soon enough.

Pro-Life laws and policy are actually sectarian and therefore unconstitutional. Obviously, in so far as each side strives to influence policy in opposite directions, each side seeks to impose their logically conflicting and therefore reciprocally incompatible beliefs upon the other. So, what is the truth? Who is right? At most, only one side or the other. And though there is no absolute certainty, the preponderance of evidence is clear, demanding responsible action.

 

Class struggle appears to be a major real factor in the dispute: If they can't simply jail all dissidents, then they'll seek to foul up national policy in their all too often just somewhat ill-gotten purse strings, typically irresponsibly penny wise and pound foolish, inflicting upon us all, rather than universal coverage for abortion upon demand, instead, the many far greater ongoing expenses of more mouths to feed on the welfare rolls. Too many spokespersons of the worst Wall Street plutocrats who entirely well capable of affording for themselves and their families, gold and platinum plated healthcare with dental, Chiropractic, all options of reproductive care and so much more, now continue to profit so scandalously from having brought the world economy to the brink of ruin, standing hardly above blaming the poor most hard hit, now groan and lament at the very suggestion of burdensome reregulation in order curtail abuse or taxes in order to help cope with the damage.

 

And amongst their various running dogs, useful idiots and cranks on the march, the depraved dittoheaded Pro-Lifers in particular, actually prefer fantasy unborn babies, to real life people suffering in desperate need, among so many other things, of reproductive rights and services. And so I confess that simply cannot take the Pro-Life position seriously and I even find it pernicious and offensive. Therefore, I cannot claim to respect their opinions, nor is that owed them. Yet Pro-Life apologist propagandists have much succeeded in relentlessly undermining the morale of Pro-Choice by emotionally blackmailing of us ever so tactfully to turn the other cheek instead of openly challenging barking mad fairytales of sapient zygotes, consciousness in the womb or "sleeping" potentiality thereof, whatever that means, from the moment of conception! So, where is the rational Empirical evidence to support such extreme paranormal claims and fervent cherished conviction? The Pro-Lifers heartlessly and senselessly guilt-trip and seek to oppress distressed and confused women in crisis, denouncing abortion as murder, whereas clearly an actual murder requires an actual victim, not a potential or an essence, whatever that means.

 

As a legal matter of constitutionality no less than of rational Empirical scientific investigation, without religion, Pro-Life demands or assertions regarding alleged civil rights of the unborn and particularly against abortion, simply have no leg to stand upon. "It's a life!" they scream. So, exactly what does it mean to employ the very word: 'life' as a noun that way? Indeed, the slippery obfuscatory pseudoscientific so-called genetic view posits that the initial recombination from two prior sources into a genetically unique individual zygote at fertilization marks the beginning of life in general, and therefore human life specifically. But they can't seriously seek to define humanity by DNA alone, or else then your toenail clippings, never mind a living cultured skin graft, would all each qualify as individual members of the club, or else identical twins could not be recognized as separate people! Indeed, for together with such obsequious focus upon the moment of fertilization or conception, all such is the typical abuse of the very word: 'life,' in order by implication, to sneak in precepts of the soul and/or Aristotelian potentiality/essence via the proverbial back door. Though however logically moot, by actually inaccurate and misleading evocation of a so-called beginning of life, and by exposition upon DNA howsoever equivocally fulfilling the role of essence and also appearing in a stage of veritable potentiality, by such linguistic leading upon the very word 'life' that has one literal meaning in science but carrying so much more baggage, mythologicaly, the pseudoscientific so-called genetic argument vaguely invites false inference of potentiality and of the soul.

 

But one among many problems with Aristotelian potentiality, is the arbitrariness of choosing any one aspect as essential, and therefore any one developmental stage as penultimate. Indeed, life, biological activity, is continuous all throughout the entire process of procreation, generation by generation, actually beginning in the primordial ooze with the transition from prebiotic evolution into biological evolution proper. Semantics aside, fertilization or conception, so called, actually being no more than the inception of the development of a new individual of whichever species, is another matter entirely. Indeed, literally speaking, if life only means biological activity, then the pseudoscientific so-called genetic view doesn't even really argue against abortion at all. Indeed, for anyone oblivious to such implicit Teleology, which is Theistic, where are the very Aristotelian notions of essence and potentiality even implied? All of that is how the slippery obfuscatory pseudoscientific so-called genetic view often seems so innocuous to many literal minded Rationalists even blithely regurgitating all such Sophistry and thereby helping promote exactly such virulent anti-rationalism.

 

(It's much like unto those old movies produced under censorship of the Hayes Act, substituting the subject of marriage for the strictly forbidden topic of sex, to the effect that some movie goers had the impression that no hint of sex ever arose, whilst other movie goers where left convinced that there was constant talk of nothing else!)

 

Moreover, quite naturally, miscarriage, or: spontaneous abortion of exactly such "helpless" zygotes, occurs, usually quite undetected, constantly, all the time! And yet that doesn't seem to bother the Pro-Lifers much at all. After all, we don't intervene only to save people from violence or mishap, but also from entirely natural causes. So, if zygotes are actually to be considered people just like everybody else, why such manifest inconsistency on the part of the Pro-Lifers, if they really believe what they say they do? Why, if I actually believed such an absurdity, I'd demand, as a dire emergency measure, the spiking of the public drinking water supply with medicine to prevent miscarriage!

 

But returning to reality, safe, legal abortions covered under universal health care, can only be better that coat hangers or the back ally, not to mention the disastrous Global Gag Rule, never mind infant mortality and even infanticide as in days of old. Abortion is a good thing. And in the words of PZ Myers: "Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." Indeed, there remains no other viable general hypothesis. And therefore clearly, at conception, no person as yet exists in order to suffer or be murdered, because only and never earlier than into the third trimester, will requisite fetal developmental neurology have progressed as minimally necessary for the natural processes underlying awareness and personality at all, never mind whatever necessary input of experience. A zygote, no more than an amoeba or a brick, simply cannot do it, as yet lacking the requisite biological equipment or: "wetware". Relax: A zygote is not a person.

 

Indeed, even up through the first two trimesters "The limited neural system of fetuses cannot support such cognitive, affective, and evaluative experiences; and the limited opportunity for this content to have been introduced also means that it is not possible for a fetus to experience pain." Indeed, even the completely brainless jellyfish displays at least peripheral nociception, being the neural processes of encoding and processing noxious stimuli, and all manner of autonomic response thereto. Indeed: "fetuses cannot be held to experience pain. Not only has the biological development not yet occurred to support pain experience, but the environment after birth, so necessary to the development of pain experience, is also yet to occur." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1440624 Therefore, any woman considering abortion has absolutely nothing whatsoever to feeling guilty about.

 

All hence, for purposes of long overdue scientific ontology before the law, indeed retaining no personal recollection of that fateful day, I implore of the Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, a medical determination upon the burning question, pivotal upon so many issues of law and policy, from future revisitation of Roe v. Wade to deadlocked Universal Health Care and the disastrous Global Gag Rule:

 

Was I conscious at the moment of my own conception?

 

 

Please sign online petition at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/surgeon-general-please-break-the-healthcare-deadlock 

 

And come to think of it, was there any homework assigned that day?

 

Yes people can talk out of both sides of their mouth.

 

My point was using the genetic argument in a legal sense.  Life doesn't have a strict beginning.  However, in the US, the constitution gives certain rights to all human beings.  It is the job of the judicial branch to rule on what qualifies as a human being.  From a legal standpoint, you have to be able to differentiate between who is and isn't a human being.  Using the genetic argument is just arguing that one way to differentiate between human and non-human, and consequently different humans, is DNA.  I know the argument doesn't work because of twins.  But as far as toenails go, yes those ARE human.  But they are only a part of what is already a collective being.  This use of the argument DOES NOT say that anything containing human DNA is A human. 

 

 

And this is my point.  Whether or not the argument is a conspiracy to sneak in belief of a soul is irrelevant because the argument fails right here.

 

 

From a legal standpoint, indeed recognizing evey possibility of competition from other conceivable criteria, my general recommendation remains to join in helping to continue progress in the ongoing effort advancing sapience as the criteria of person and civil rights under law by continually reinforcing precedent of scientific ontology via authoritative expert testimony.

 

 

I dislike your run-on sentence.

It strikes me that you might actually suspect that my own usage comes in a slightly different sense, that of capacity for consciousness.

Yes, however I employ one usage and not the other.

They lose some rights

The permanently vegetative patient presents a classic doctors dilemma of triage, as to what their chances are, best allocation of resources, and who can be saved, who can make best use of the organs, and so on. Indeed, at a certain point, a patient may arguably have a better chance in cryonic suspension than continuing to deteriorate in a coma.  

 

Obviously, unless one actually cleaves to sentimental esoteric Aristotelian notions to the effect that potential babies are like unto a preexisting consciousnesses merely temporarily asleep, all because they bear likewise essence or soul of consciousness, otherwise from the formal stance, none of that is actually even remotely problematical.