DescentBB

Duper wrote:A true athiest has no morals.

Actually, not quite. Morals are actually based on what a person believes, and when that person believes that anybody else is nothing, that person's sense of good and wrong are based on what benefits themselves.
Well, it would still have the same outcome as you'd expect though. It just means that for a creature like that, greed is righteous.

I'm presuming that by 'atheist', you mean someone that sees nothing special about what's normally deemed living, and think that you're the only one with a 'soul'. Otherwise, what you just said is flat-out false!

Jeff250 wrote:And what about abstinence? When I reflect to myself, the thought of my parents having abstained and me having never lived is horrible!

Funniest line in the entire debate so far, bar none!

But darling, we MUST have sex tonight, think about the poor child we could be murdering by abstaining!!!!!

Jeff250 wrote:I don't want to see Christians throwing around categorical statements like, "Only religion can explain morality," or "True atheists don't believe in morals," on the DBB any more, unless they are prepared to at least answer some of the problems in modern ethical inquiry. Otherwise, it's just plain irresponsible.

Argh! This entire thread is about to get derailed into a VERY interesting discussion just as I'm going to be out of pocket. yeah, we've had the discussion before, and not to long ago I believe, but we've had the abortion debate before as well.

So, just a few quick comments:
rephrase "Only religion can explain morality" as:
"In order to support any kind of morality, you have to argue that it is backed by some absolute authority"

Without some authority behind morality, any disagreement between individuals are just matters of opinion. Without some authority behind it, we can kill the guy who rapes the 13 year old girl, but we can't say we did something "right" and he did something "wrong".

It IS possible to try and come up with non-theistic authorities for morality, but they generally end up sounding pretty religious anyway.

no time, need MUCH more on this, but no time...

[edit]Please note: there is a VERY big difference between saying that Athiest don't have any morals (something I would never say) and saying that most Athiest don't have any backing for their morals. Of course, most Religious people haven't actually thought it through either.[/edit]

Thanks for a better explanation than I could give, Jeff.

Duper, I know Athiests with far better morals than the far majority of Christians.

I would just like to throw in that I don't believe at all that atheists have no moral standards. There are standards in our nature and through our socialization that simply help us to survive and live well in our community and society.

Yet being atheist may make you more receptive for throwing all \"higher standards\" overboard and considering the world and humans as mere complicated machines you can do with and to whatever you like, because nothing really has a meaning.

But if most atheists would look for the source of any of their more abstract ethical values, I believe they will inevitably end up with some religion, particularly in areas of the world that had been \"Christian\" for a long time.

Btw, a Christian is a Christian because he has understood that he will never manage to comply to the ultimate moral standards (of God), and leaves it to God to save and justify - and change - him. The latter of course requires active participation of the Christian, but - while personal effort is something that is available to every human being, a Christian has better support and therefore higher chances to achieve more in this area.

Bottom line: Primarily a Christian is not a better person, but a saved person. He is called to become a better person, but that definitely does not mean he can condemn others. Maybe their attitudes, but not the people, just like God hates the sin and not the sinner.

Jeff,

I think there is a difference between preventing something from happening, or destroying someone who is already there. Please draw the line where it makes halfway sense.

The life that is in a sperm and ovum is just a possibility. The life that is in a conceived child is already a reality.

Btw, you could continue to argue whether you would have been a smarter person, had your parents had intercourse a day earlier, making a \"better\" sperm meet the ovum ... but would you still be you then?

Has it ever occurred to you that many things you take for given and absolute (like time-space relativity) probably only exist for you because of your being limited? Maybe there is no time and space with God, out of our dimensions. Do you know that there are certain physical effects on the sub-atomic level that deny time and space? Do you know that engineers have already transmitted matter in no time to another location? You are making a very common mistake: You are comparing God and what he can do to your so very limited understanding of the world/universe (I am just as limited, that's simply in our and our universe's nature). I'm gonna tell you something: God could open your eyes about something, and you'd just suddenly and completely understand, and you'd understand that all the thoughts you have had about it before were completely void and useless.

Skyalmian,

for me, saying a baby in a mother's womb \"belongs\" to her like a matter she can throw away and destroy at will is hybris. The baby doesn't belong to her. It has been entrusted to her. Her right as a mother is to nourish and caress and educate it to give it a good start into life. My sister (4 children) has a wonderful poem at a wall of her flat: \"A child doesn't belong to you. It is the product of life's desire for itself.\" The poem goes on, telling the parents who they are supposed to be for their children in a very pleasant way. When I was way younger, and didn't have a child myself, I thought with some pretty judgmental Christian mind that this was such a esoteric poem. Today I know better, and I understand it better. I simply didn't have children at that time. Some things you cannot understand if you haven't experienced them.

Anyway, the belly belongs to the mother, but not the baby inside. So the mother can decide not to conceive a child by using contraceptives. Most children are not results of rape. If she wasn't willing to take that little bit of discipline and prevention on her, she has no right to let the baby pay for her stupidity.

Btw, this whole \"what about rapes?\" arguments are such a bloody sanctimoneous nonsense. Most women who abort a child do it because it makes their lives more convenient. Many, so I've read, get forced by relatives or friends/husband to do it, which imo puts the guilt mainly on them. Few have been raped in comparison, and those who have might still carry their baby and give it away for adoption if they just cannot love it. Better than to kill it.

Diedel wrote:I think there is a difference between preventing something from happening, or destroying someone who is already there. Please draw the line where it makes halfway sense.

If we're talking about destroying someone in the present, then we're no longer talking about potentially destroying someone in the future, so then this issue won't be resolved until we resolve the human life issue.

.

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Testiculese wrote:Thanks for a better explanation than I could give, Jeff.

Duper, I know Athiests with far better morals than the far majority of Christians.

I'm not talking application. I'm talking definition.

Jeff250 wrote:

Diedel wrote:I think there is a difference between preventing something from happening, or destroying someone who is already there. Please draw the line where it makes halfway sense.

If we're talking about destroying someone in the present, then we're no longer talking about potentially destroying someone in the future, so then this issue won't be resolved until we resolve the human life issue.

Don't you understand the difference between a possibility and a reality, or don't you want to understand it?

By not having intercourse you destroy nothing, because it is not there in sense of having been created and having an assured destiny and certainly a life.

With abortion you destroy a future that in a sense is already there, because the child, if not being killed, will inevitably develop into it - apart from disease or accident, which we cannot (easily) control.

There is very much a difference, and some people's way of pulling everything so much into the abstract here that it becomes meaningless or there is no way to draw a meaningful line doesn't help the matter, it only helps to apologize their evil attitude in the matter.

Actually it infuriates me, and all I understand is that people want to defend and keep their gruesome stance on the issue no matter what. You will find your judge one day, believe it or not.

Diedel wrote:Don't you understand the difference between a possibility and a reality, or don't you want to understand it?

The reality of the situation is that there's only a possibility of a foetus growing up to be an adult, just like the way there's only a possibility of intercourse creating an adult. The difference is that one has a greater possibility than the other, and that one seems easier for a person to percieve.

Bet51987 wrote:Nonsense? You sound fine preaching from the pulpit like most men do but can you put yourself in the 13 year old girls shoes?

Bet, give it a rest. No matter how hard you try, you are NOT going to be able to make people like them think that the consequences of a 13 year old carrying a foetus from rape are more deserving than ending the life of the foetus.

Diedel wrote:By not having intercourse you destroy nothing, because it is not there in sense of having been created and having an assured destiny and certainly a life.

With abortion you destroy a future that in a sense is already there, because the child, if not being killed, will inevitably develop into it - apart from disease or accident, which we cannot (easily) control.

I've seen this line of thought before in this thread. We shouldn't abort a fetus because it is somehow its natural destiny to develop into a human life. I thoroughly reject this line of reasoning because of its appeal to destinies or final causes. Destinies and final causes just aren't a part of the furniture of our universe. They just don't exist.

Moreover, let's suppose that it is the natural destiny for a fetus to develop into a human life. It still has yet to be shown that what is natural is what is good, that we should prefer for something to reach its natural destiny rather than not. So another argument is still necessary to show why we shouldn't disturb natural destinies.

And, of course, if you don't appeal to some sort of special destiny in a fetus, then it again becomes unclear how terminating a fetus is fundamentally different from using contraception or from abstinence insofar as it prevents future human life.

If I was a chick and I got pregnant, and I already made up my mind to get an abortion, I'm not saying that that choice is correct or incorrect, this isn't about the morality of abortion ok? So let's not start that argument. My point is, if I was already going to have an abortion, then I would wait and have one of them late term partial birth ones, right?

Come on, it just makes sense. Because if you do it in the 9th month you've saved like all that money you would have had to spend on tampons and condoms. Pretty smart, huh? And if abortion really is murder and life begins at conception. What the ★■◆● difference is it going to make if you're a murderer in the 1st month or the last month. Might as well have a partial birth abortion and get your money's worth out of your mortal sin.

Thats just my opinion though, and its not worth much because, I am not a woman. I will never have to face that decision. I say, pro-choice/pro-life, you cant really make a decision like that or condemn any decision a woman makes until you walk a mile in her uterus.

Abortion isn't covered by a lot of HMO's. Hilarious. Again this isn't a moral argument or debate, just my noticing of logical absurdity. While the procedure of abortion isn't covered, when I take a baseball bat to my girlfriend's stomach and scald her internally when I force her into a boiling bath tub to cause a miscarriage, and she starts bleeding internally and doesn't stop for a week, they are more than happy to cover the $10,000 bill for an emergency room visit then. But somehoe the $850 procedure that could have avoided the incident isn't covered. HMO's, go figure.

I changed my major like every week at college. But god love my dad he always supported me in the career choice du jour that I made. My sophomore year I started out wanting to be an accountant. He goes \"Justin, you go to school do what you want and be the best damn number cruncher there is.\"

The week after that I changed to philosohpy and he goes \"Justin, you go to school do what you want and be the best damn thinker you can be.\"

Thanks dad. During my junior year I talked to a recruiter for Planned Parenthood, and decided to pursue gynecology. When I told dad, sure enough, he said, \"Justin, you go to school do what you want and be the best damn baby killer you can be.\"

Then a tear came to his eye and I go, \"Dad did I disappoint you?\"

He replied, \"No, its just that I am so proud of you for following in my footsteps.\"

I said, \"But you work for a trucking company.\"

He goes, \"I know, I know, but there was an incident in '65 when I had to use a coat hanger and boiling alcohol on your mother. I really am proud of you son.....Oh and I am a Vietnam Vet, so I have killed more than my fair share of babies.\"

SilverFJ wrote:Come on, it just makes sense. Because if you do it in the 9th month you've saved like all that money you would have had to spend on tampons and condoms. Pretty smart, huh?

Yeah. Except for the huge amount of pain and suffering!
Plus, most guys don't like to go out with pregnant chicks.

SilverFJ wrote:Abortion isn't covered by a lot of HMO's. Hilarious. Again this isn't a moral argument or debate, just my noticing of logical absurdity. While the procedure of abortion isn't covered, when I take a baseball bat to my girlfriend's stomach and scald her internally when I force her into a boiling bath tub to cause a miscarriage, and she starts bleeding internally and doesn't stop for a week, they are more than happy to cover the $10,000 bill for an emergency room visit then. But somehoe the $850 procedure that could have avoided the incident isn't covered. HMO's, go figure.

Hmm... So you're thinking that I should get unlimited funding from a HMO for anything as long as there's a pssibility I might want to porposefully injure myself?
Because that's what it sounds like.

TIGERassault wrote: Yeah. Except for the huge amount of pain and suffering!

I've noticed this before Tiger that you have absolutly no concept of sarcasm..however in-your-face it may be.

TIGERassault wrote: Plus, most guys don't like to go out with pregnant chicks.

...because they never have. As soon as they've indulged, a hormoneless female seems rather bland

.

Bet51987 wrote:I can't give it a rest because its not just about protecting the innocent rape victim anymore. Its about protecting my rights as a female and that part, has caused me to change my opinion of many people here.

No Bet, I mean it; give it a rest. Even the other people in this argument think they would be doing more for females by standing their ground. Because they believe that 50% of abortions are killing females. And making two girls go through a full 6 months extra of pregnancy each is not even close to equal to killing a girl, let alone to killing a boy too.

Bettina wrote:Its about protecting my rights as a female and that part, has caused me to change my opinion of many people here.

Sorry about that Bettina, but I feel that you would think even worse of me if I didn't stand up for what I believe to be an issue of protecting the innocent. Our motivations are similar, But, as TigerAssult pointed out, we just disagree on how many innocents are involved.

To expand on TigerAssult's point, in China, abortion is becoming a major women's rights issue, but not in the way we usually see it argued in America. In China they have strict limits on how many children a couple may have. Since families still see having a male child as very important, it is very common to selectively abort the first child if it is female. Of course, this is distorting the normal male to female ratio and it's going to come back and bite them later.

Kilarin wrote:Of course, this is distorting the normal male to female ratio and it's going to come back and bite them later.

Actually, I'm not too sure that it would. China's biggest problem is overpopulation, and a distorted ratio like that would reduce the pop. count even more.

TigerAssult wrote:Actually, I'm not too sure that it would. China's biggest problem is overpopulation, and a distorted ratio like that would reduce the pop. count even more.

True, it does, but it ALSO leads to a LOT of unhappy males.

Kilarin wrote:True, it does, but it ALSO leads to a LOT of unhappy males.

To be honest, I can't see that being much of a threat. It won't cause a civil war because the people also know that they can't fight against it, it's just a way of life.

Bet51987 wrote:I was born free. Not free with restrictions and I take exception to those who think otherwise.

Bettina

Being born free doesn't justify murder. Whether the life is inside of you, or outside. A fetus is not a parasite.

nm

Diedel wrote:A fetus is not a parasite.

Err... Actually, that's completely wrong. It might not look like a flea or a worm, but it's still a parasite.

TigerAssult wrote: It might not look like a flea or a worm, but it's still a parasite.

Assuming we use definition number 1

an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment.

Then a human fetus living in a human mother doesn't count.

and if you want to use definition number 2:

a person who receives support, advantage, or the like, from another or others without giving any useful or proper return, as one who lives on the hospitality of others.

It covers a lot of people past the birthing point.

Kilarin, now you're just getting into useless semantics.

I say if a mother doesn't want a fetus, if it's so alive and human it can leave home early and take care of itself. You know, get a job, and maybe actually survive outside the environment of the mother. ★■◆●, if it really needs a little help I'll recommend some good stocks.

If it can't make it out there as a fetus, leeching off the mother, then it's STILL THE MOTHER. And no more ethically innapropriate than trimming your fingernails.

SilverFJ wrote:If it can't make it out there as a fetus, leeching off the mother, then it's STILL THE MOTHER. And no more ethically innapropriate than trimming your fingernails.

So do you support:

A: Killing infants that are post birth but incapable of living without leeching off the mother?

B: Do you believe that it is ethical to kill a Siamese twin that depends upon its twin's organs for survival?

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Bettina wrote:A pregnant women drives too fast and hits a tree. She survives but her fetus does not. Do they charge her with manslaughter? Murder?

Even if they count the fetus as a person, the legal issues would be no different than if someone sitting next to her had died in the wreck. So probably not even manslaughter unless they could prove wanton reckless disregard for life.

What about this one though? A pregnant woman, knowing that she is pregnant, continues to drink to excess and her child is born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrom.
Should she be charged with child endangerment at least?

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Bet51987 wrote: If she knows she is pregnant, chooses not to have an abortion, is at the fetus stage, continues to drink to excess knowing it may endanger the fetus, then she should be thrown in prison forever.

Its about choice... and she made hers.

Bettina

My daughter's (we adopted her) natural mother, tired doing that, but didn't like throwing up.

So do you support:

A: Killing infants that are post birth but incapable of living without leeching off the mother?

B: Do you believe that it is ethical to kill a Siamese twin that depends upon its twin's organs for survival?

Oh please.

A: No, because it can survive without the physical chemistry of the mother amd is therefore now a separate organism.

B: Siamese twins? Where the ★■◆● did that rediculous thing come from? That has nothing to do with this other than the scenario of having to chose one to die save the other one, which can be a (rarer) scenario with a mother and child, but once it's outside the mother it has nothing to DO with the issue.

I mean, ★■◆●, are you Catholic? Where do you draw the line? No condoms? No birth control? Is the fact that I'm a sinner for sending of all my little soldiers to die on a multi-daily basis? I better get ready for hell, I tell ya'll. With that attitude you could say the fact I take Lithium is evil because I'm altering things in my body from the way God wanted them to be... Truth is when I'm unmedicated I'm a miserable paranoid spazz, and in the same light in the abortion issue the procedure itself can help cause a lot less anguish for people. Some people just AREN'T ready for a child. And if you come back with that \"well don't have sex then\" comment that just annoys the ★■◆● out of me, you're just another conservative drone and I don't care.

SilverFJ wrote:

Kilarin wrote:A: Killing infants that are post birth but incapable of living without leeching off the mother?

A: No, because it can survive without the physical chemistry of the mother amd is therefore now a separate organism.

The production of milk is physical chemistry. If you don't happen to have a cow or goat available (consider any society that didn't raise herd animals), or if the kid had problems with lactose, then the child is absolutely dependent upon his mothers physical chemistry for life. Not really much different then getting nourishment through the Umbilical. In both cases the mother pre-digests the food then provides it to the child in a form the child can use.
(A Wet Nurse is just switching mothers and doesn't really change the issue)

SilverFJ wrote:B: Siamese twins? Where the **** did that rediculous thing come from? That has nothing to do with this other than the scenario of having to chose one to die save the other one, which can be a (rarer) scenario with a mother and child, but once it's outside the mother it has nothing to DO with the issue.

It came because your criteria seemed to be that anything that was dependent upon another's organs or "physical chemistry" for survival, is not an individual but just a part of that other person. This ties directly and obviously into the question of whether Siamese twins are both persons. In many cases one twin may have sufficient organs to survive on their own, but the other is dependent for heart, lung, kidney, or some other functionality being "leeched" from the stronger twin. If being dependent upon another's organs for survival makes you not a person, then many Siamese twins may not qualify as people.

Attempting to define what is and what is not a person is a tricky affair because it can have implications way beyond the case we had in mind.

SilverFJ wrote:I mean, *****, are you Catholic?

Me? Have you been following this debate? That's not meant as an insult, I'm just curious if my stance could actually be confused with a Catholic one by anyone who had read it. I'm certain the Catholics in the audience will be quite quick to clarify the difference. But perhaps you are referring to one of the other posters?

SilverFJ wrote:Some people just AREN'T ready for a child. And if you come back with that "well don't have sex then" comment that just annoys the ***** out of me, you're just another conservative drone and I don't care.

Drone's come in many flavors.
But, just to clarify, yes I AM in favor of Birth Control, but, since I disprove of sex outside of marriage, I doubt if that will make you any happier.

The production of milk is physical chemistry. If you don't happen to have a cow or goat available (consider any society that didn't raise herd animals), or if the kid had problems with lactose, then the child is absolutely dependent upon his mothers physical chemistry for life. Not really much different then getting nourishment through the Umbilical. In both cases the mother pre-digests the food then provides it to the child in a form the child can use.

I'm keeping this at home. Societies such as that don't have high-tech abortion clinics either. If you want to talk about what goes on in Rawanda, there's a lot more pressing issues dealing with the living and breathing people there that are a lot more dire. But if I cared, honestly, about such things I would send my check over there. Unfortunately I'm a spoiled rotten apathetic American who has no idea what happens outside this country other than what mass media tells me.

It came because your criteria seemed to be that anything that was dependent upon another's organs or \"physical chemistry\" for survival, is not an individual but just a part of that other person. This ties directly and obviously into the question of whether Siamese twins are both persons. In many cases one twin may have sufficient organs to survive on their own, but the other is dependent for heart, lung, kidney, or some other functionality being \"leeched\" from the stronger twin. If being dependent upon another's organs for survival makes you not a person, then many Siamese twins may not qualify as people.

I personally say cut off the blueberry twin if possible to make the other one healthier and/or save it's life, should the situation call for it.

Attempting to define what is and what is not a person is a tricky affair because it can have implications way beyond the case we had in mind.

That's sort of the whole reason for this debate isn't it? Is a fetus a person or not a person? I believe no.

Drone's come in many flavors.
But, just to clarify, yes I AM in favor of Birth Control, but, since I disprove of sex outside of marriage, I doubt if that will make you any happier.

That's all good, we're two different people. And as for the Catholic thing I was just being sarcastic. Sorry if I come off as hostile, if we were actually speaking face to face you could tell my tone was playful.

--

Please keep the \"absolute morality\" stuff in the God and Absolute Morality thread (just split) and the \"abortion\" stuff in this thread.

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Lots of scattered points to address here:

A while back, roid tried to be dismissive by saying \"it's all about religion\". He used this as an excuse to ignore the arguments that were actually posed, which is total weaksauce. But he's right to notice religion matters -- any thinking person's beliefs on any issue should be informed by their underlying religious or philosophical beliefs. (Non-thinking sheeple just believe what they're told, but thinking people should actually be consistant.) Of course my religious beliefs influence my position on abortion, BUT that doesn't make them meaningless or easily dismissable. Sure, if I give the argument \"God says X in the Bible\", you can say \"well I don't believe the Bible\" and be done with it... but if I say \"we should protect the innocent\" and you want to argue, you'd better be able to address that point without getting stuck on whether I derived it from the Bible or from somewhere else.

A while back, Jeff250 asked about Bible passages relating to abortion, and posted the now-famous strong support / weak support images. There are no Bible passages that say \"thou shalt not abort after 8 weeks\" or anything of the sort. But the Bible does support the argument Kilarin gave: we should protect innocent people, and at least some unborn are innocent people. There are at least three specific individuals the Bible speaks of before birth -- Jeremiah, Jesus and John. There's also a passage detailing the punishment for causing birth defects by hitting a pregnant woman, which is the same standard as for injuring your neighbor. These give us the idea that at least some of the unborn are people. There isn't an exact moment stated at which personhood is attained (like conception, 8 weeks, brain waves, or consciousness) but it does make it quite clear that personhood begins sometime before birth. And the Bible is filled with passages about protecting the innocent; if you care, search for words like \"widow\" and \"fatherless\". That gives us both halves of Kilarin's argument.

Now, let me make it clear: the argument doesn't really depend on the Bible being true or authoritative (Jeff250's recent arguments don't even remotely challenge this position.) I used the Bible to illustrate it because Jeff250 asked, and because the Bible is the place where I happened to learn concepts like \"protect the innocent\" and \"the unborn are innocent people\". But those concepts are not limited to the Bible, and arguing about the Bible totally misses the point. Argue the concepts, not the source I happened to get them from.

Testiculese and others argued that the unborn don't warrant protection until they reach a reasonable developmental stage, that before such time they shouldn't be considered \"people\". He suggested brainwaves should be the dividing line, which is surprisingly similar to Kilarin's statements. I'd prefer to err on the side of caution by setting the date earlier (possibly as early as conception), but I can respect that position. Skyalmian argued that they shouldn't be considered \"people\" until birth because the woman is the \"creator and destroyer\" until then. I found his explanation of birth as the moment when the fetus becomes \"an individual... its own person\" to be seriouisly lacking; Kilarin did a good job addressing that. Bettina has argued that a 13-year-old rape victim is also an innocent in need of protection. I agree. This brings up two questions: at what point her child itself becomes an innocent in need of protection, and how we balance those two needs. Those questions are still worthy of discussion.

I think that calling a human fetus a person at the first brain wave is a little premature. To be fair, I think we'd then have to call every animal that has more sophisticated brain activity than that fetus a person too, which I don't think we want to do. We need to get away from concepts like the soul or even the human \"essence,\" whatever that might be. There's nothing outrightly special about a human fetus's brain wave that makes it any more precious than, say, an animal's, except for any potential empirical differences, like differences sophistication. So I think that anyone who assigns personhood to a fetus that's less developmentally advanced than some adult animals needs to explain why those animals aren't persons too (or concede that they are) without appealing to metaphysical rubbish.

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Bet51987 wrote:

Lothar wrote:Bettina has argued that a 13-year-old rape victim is also an innocent in need of protection. I agree.

I would like to know what you meant by that quote.

There's no hidden meaning, if that's what you're asking. I just meant to summarize the point you'd made, because it related to the point I was making. I hope my summary was fair.

how would you protect her. Would you give her some time to abort or would you protect her by providing support?

If my own daughter got pregnant (that is, fertilization had already occurred), whether by rape or by choice, I'd help her take care of her child (my grandchild) in whatever way I could. I'd also help her with counseling and anything else she needed. I wouldn't want her to get an abortion, even a very early pill-induced abortion, but I can see how other reasonable parents would disagree. I think your 8 week deadline or Kilarin's 40 day deadline would be perfectly reasonable legal deadlines for other parents to work with.

Jeff250 wrote:I think that calling a human fetus a person at the first brain wave is a little premature..... every animal that has more sophisticated brain activity...

As I've said pretty much every time this debate has come up, I'd rather declare personhood prematurely than declare it too late.

At some point late in the pregnancy, once viability is achieved, we're dealing with a creature that can meet ANY reasonable definition of personhood that a newborn can. If we're going to draw a legal line based on personhood, it seems reasonable to me to draw the line early enough that we're not risking killing actual persons in marginal cases.

If we decide on brain function as a reasonable deciding factor, I'm not worried about animals with more sophisticated brain functions. We're not going to get measurement errors in telling the difference between a cow and a human, or cows growing into personhood between the time we decided to kill them and the time we finished making the burger.