I do think that killing newborns outside the womb is the same thing, and you're just fooling yourself if you think it isn't. I think newborns may be like grown animals when it comes to killing (Animals have less capabilities and less of a life, emotions, etc, but it is *grown* while a baby hasn't developed into a full being yet, w/ personality, etc, and you may not have the same thoughts of them as you would a toddler, that people have grown to love <even more I guess> or real mental will to live or understand.. as in they'd have no desire to go "I want to live, please don't" & go through emotions and lost things before they die, so the two (grown animal and baby) kind of make up for each other).

Let's try another tack, then.  

Suppose there is a great pianist or some other important figure, who needs a bone marrow transplant to survive.  They discover that only one person can possibly donate marrow to save the pianist's life, but they do not wish to.  Should it be lawful to force the other person to donate bone marrow against their will?  

Whose rights are more important?  The pianist's or the donor's?

I won't take it for granted that people will all have the same answer to my conundrum, but the issue of abortion is not a completely dissimilar one.  Roe v. Wade decided in favor of the donor.  Many religions are in favor of the pianist.  

Incidentally, the original question, as I received it, was over kidneys, and rather than a donation, it was being hooked up body-to-body.  But this seemed a bit far-fetched to me, and a lot of people in the class where we discussed it did not understand it.

Edit: Also, one-time donation, even of something like bone marrow (which you have to be put out for, as I understand it, because it is so painful) is a lot less inconvenient than full-on pregnancy, but the issue is one of bodily integrity and control.

This post was last modified: 04-24-2012 08:16 AM by Lang.

Spot on, partial birth abortion might as well be infanticide. Abortion accomplishes same result as infanticide just earlier. And God calls abortion murder  ref. I KNEW YOU IN YOUR MOTHER'S WOMB...

Sorry, is it really impossible that that is a figure of speech?  Have you never met an older person who told you they were doing things "before you were even thought of"?  I would think that an omnipotent god was capable of figurative language, and there is little to suggest that the human authors of the old and new testaments would have thought otherwise.

No, that's not a fgure of speech. Neither of the examples are. Many older people WERE doing certain things before a lot a younger people were even thought of. That's true in a literal sense, as the quote from the Bible is intended to be. God in a Judaeo-Christian conception is omniscient, so he knows and has known everything that will ever happen, not just those things that already exist.
Referring back to your earlier point, a woman underghoing an abortion is not a 'donor' (unless you're referring to stem-cell research - I got the impression you weren't). A 'donor' gives up part of themselves so it can be used for the benefit of others, not because it suits them to do so.

I dont know how to evaluate that verse any way but literally, although I am quick to add I do not take Genesis literally

Most of the time the Bible is meant to be taken literally, except for Revelations that John was describing in his language not ours

This post was last modified: 04-24-2012 08:49 PM by Shrek.

My point was that if a woman is the sole entity in charge of her body, then it does not matter if a fetus is a separate person or a separate life.  Essentially, the question is whether one person ahs the right to use another person's body as a life-support system, even against the will of the other person.  IF you wouldn't force a person to donate a kidney, why would you force someone to carry a pregnancy to term?  What's different?

My personal belief is that until the baby can manage on its own outside of the womb, it is a boarder and can be evicted by the landlady.  If the mother has decided to have the baby and the decision is then taken away from her, as for instance the baby is aborted against the mother's will, then it is murder.  But if the mother decides to have it aborted, it's her body to do with as she will.  
Alison

This post was last modified: 04-25-2012 10:48 AM by Alison.

Id favor an opt out approach to organ and tissue donation incidentally.