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Kevin, to answer your questions 1-5 above, I don’t think anyone argues
that a fetus isn’t living. Sure it is, just like a virus or a chicken or a
mushroom is living. The question is whether a fetus has an awareness or
conscious of itself or has a soul.

We KNOW through science and observation that living, breathing babies, and
adults, and VIABLE fetuses have a separate awareness and consciousness.
Which is why infanticide and murder are crimes.

But I don’t think anyone can argue reasonably or prove that a clump of
cells the size of a thumbnail (heartbeat or no) can have a consciousness or
self-awareness of any degree.

If you want to argue that a clump has a soul, that is fine, but you cannot
legislate that I believe it has one, and you cannot require that I submit my
body to any religious theory whatever. You cannot require that I nurture a
clump of cells that I do not believe to have consciousness until it is able
to live on its own.

It’s as if I required you to grow a tumor for a year in order to serve my
spiritual needs. Imagine that I believe a great God, Tumora, exists, and
that in order to serve him, I need you not to treat a cancer you’ve
discovered in your lungs.

I don’t care if it is in your best interests or not; Tumora needs you to
nurture this tumor.

I don’t care if you don’t believe in Tumora or not; I believe that your
tumor is sacred to Tumora and that you’re committing a crime by getting
radiologic/chemotherapy.

I don’t care whether you believe the tumor has a soul or not; Tumora needs
it.

AND I don’t care about your ability to make a decision to believe in
Tumora or not — I believe in Tumora, and to use your own words, “if
you’re unsure about when life begins, why chance it?” If you’re not sure
Tumora exists, why chance it?

I am worried enough about your IMMORTAL SOUL and your chance to go to
Tumora’s heaven, that I will take away utterly your options to rid yourself
of this tumor, and make sure that you obey His will.

Can you see where I am coming from on this? Murder is different from
abortion because the first takes away a consciousness that can be seen and
be proven to exist. The second takes away a consciousness that may or may
not exist according to various religious opinions and theorys.

I’m not talking about 3rd trimester abortion, which contrary to the belief
of many, is rare and undesirable for 99.9999999% of all mothers who get that
far. No woman who gets that far in a pregnancy has a (very dangerous,
expensive, painful) operation for a frivolous reason — these are the
fetuses that have no brain or no spinal cord and will die within minutes of
being born.

And I don’t believe children are cancerous tumors, in case that isn’t
clear.

I simply believe that unless you can make a PROVABLE case that a nine-week
old fetus has consciousness and viability, you are in the realm of personal
spiritual choice and responsibility, and that that must be left up to the
person within whom the clump is growing. If you can’t trust her to make her
own personal choices and deal with God or Tumora in her own way, how can you
trust her at all?

Hope this all makes sense. Best wishes to you.