Reply #12: Some Basics:

[REP]

1. If the fetus is deserving of protection, it is deserving of protection no matter how it was conceived (rape, incest). Allowing exceptions for how the pregnancy came into being shows concern not for the fetus, but the 'morals' of the woman.

2. Every single pregnancy increases the risk of death or serious disability to the woman (source: CDC, Williams Obstetrics). How much risk is too much, and who decides? How much disability is okay? Permanent kidney failure? heart damage?

3. Fertilization, you say? Is that when the spem enters the ovum, loses its tail, or when the blastocyst implants in the endometrium (which is the medical definition of pregnancy)?

4. If 'souls' are in issue, ask for proof that they exist. In the case of monozygotic twins, where the fertilized egg splits and becomes two fetuses, did the soul split as well; if not, where did the extra soul come from? In the case of chimera (where two zygotes fuse into one fetus), does the resulting fetus have two souls or does one soul go away?

5. What about hydatiform moles? They're the product of a human ova; they are human ...