Those are only 3. Practically every medical textbook on earth used to teach the subjects of embryology, fetology, developmental biology, and OB/Gyn freely acknowledge that we are human beings from the time we are concieved. What else could we be. The fact that we are immature does not make us something else.
Your post seemed to be challenging something other than poor science. The references that I provided didn't provide any revalations that Chip's didn't provide at the beginning. What you were doing was engaging in a logical fallacy known as a circumstantial ad hominem. You were attacking sources rather than the information itself. Information is what it is without regard to where it comes from. It is either right or wrong. You were doomed to fail in any effort to prove that the information was wrong so you irrationally attacked the source and the one who posted it.
Then again, you are in the wrong. There are reasons that the roe v wade decision is correctly called one of the worst supreme court decisions ever made. The majority in the court had an agenda and fabricated whatever they needed to fabricate in order to justify their decision. Much as you, and most pro choicers must do as the facts simply don't support your position.
One must wonder whether you have ever actually read the opinion of the court that your feelings agree with. Science states that it (the unborn) is a human being. The court never said that women have the right to kill a human being for reasons other than self defense, because they never would have been able to justify their decision constitutionally. In order to justify their decision, they had to assume that unborns are neither alive, nor human beings.
From the roe decision:
Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents' interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life.
"Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term." Pp. 147-164.
For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Pp. 163-164; 164-165.
In assessing the State's interest, recognition may be given to the less rigid claim that as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone.
The Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life.
Those striking down state laws have generally scrutinized the State's interests in protecting health and potential life, and have concluded that neither interest justified broad limitations on the reasons for which a physician and his pregnant patient might decide that she should have an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy
As we have intimated above, it is reasonable and appropriate for a State to decide that at some point in time another interest, that of health of the mother or that of potential human life, becomes significantly involved.
We repeat, however, that the State does have an important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman, whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life.
With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability.
The fact is that whenever the child was mentioned by the court, it was called a potential human life. In order to justify their decision, they had to assume that it was not a human being because they knew perfectly well that to admit that the child was alive and human was to admit that it was a living human being and in the eyes of the law, all living human beings are persons and all persons in this country are entitled to the protection of the 14th amendment.
The court based its "claim" that unborns are not, in reality, human beings on the fact that there exists some disagreements among scientists, theologians, and philosophers on the topic of when a living human comes into being. They admit that they simply do not know.
From the roe decision:
Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
The statement in red leads one to wonder: when a new species is found in the rain forest, or when a body is lying on a hospital bed, are theologians or philosophers called in to determine what species a thing is, or whether or not it is alive or dead? Of course not, because only science is qualified to determine what a thing is and whether or not it is alive or dead. The argument that because there exist no agreement between science, theology, and philosophy that the facts are unknowable is at its foundations specious.
They (the majority) freely admit that they are making a decision in a state of uncertainty and are thereby flagrantly violating both their ethical and judicial responsibility to never make a decision when in a state of uncertainty when the decision may result in great harm. I would call 40 million human beings killed without the benefit of judicial review great harm, how about you.
Finally, in the majority decision, justice Blackmun acknowledges that should the question of personhood of the unborn ever be legally answered, that roe would be finished.
From the roe decision:
The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Perhaps at the time of roe, no body of legal precedent could be cited that supports the argument that the unborn is a person within the meaning of the 14th amendment. Now, however, there is a fairly large, and growing body of legal precedent for the personhood of the unborn at any stage of development.
There are people in prison today having been charged separately and specifically for the death of unborns. In this country, you can't even be charged for criminaly homicide, much less tried, convicted and sentenced for any form of criminal homicide unless you have, in fact, killed a person.
The judge states clearly that if legal precedent exists establishing the personhood of the unborn that roe would fail because the right of the unborn to live would trump any right or claim that a woman may make.
If your feelings follow the court, in the light that legal precedent now exists establishing the personhood of the unborn, if you were being intellectually honest when you said it, it stands to reason that you should now be anti abortion on demand.
