It's the woman's body, it's the woman's choice. Forcing a woman to bring to term a pregnancy she doesn't want is barbaric, I don't care what the cirumstances are that led to the pregnancy.

Ragnar,

It's the woman's body, it's the woman's choice. Forcing a woman to bring to term a pregnancy she doesn't want is barbaric, I don't care what the cirumstances are that led to the pregnancy.

I think geegee has a point. The question of abortion involves the possibility of two lives. If, for instance, women occasionally sprouted a third arm off the front of their foreheads after having sex, you wouldn't likely find many people who disagreed with a woman's choice to have that third arm removed. This is, in fact, pretty much the way things are when you consider STIs (or STDs or whatever you call them). If a man or a woman contracts a disease as a result of their sexual activities, the only affected life is that of the person who is infected (and, perhaps, those he or she has infected in the interim).

But in the case of abortion, there is the possibility of another life involved. This other life is not something as annoying as a third arm. It is, in fact, a completely separate life altogether.

With that being said, if somebody could prove to you that life began at conception, would you agree that taking this life to fit the convenience of the mother would be even more barbaric than forcing a women to carry what many consider merely an extra lump of flesh to term?

...of course it would be cool to have that third arm. Imagine how much money you could make in the NBA!

I know life begins at conception. It's a fact of biology.
Great!

It is also a fact of biology that it is not yet a human life. It is first a zygote, then an embryo, then a fetus, then a human. It becomes a human when it can survive outside of the mother.
This all depends on how you define survival and how you define fully human.

symbiosis
A newborn can hardly survive without its mother or other sort of intervention. Young children even as old as three or four wouldn

You know that's not what I'm saying, and you are being purposefully dense. If you can't see the difference between a zygote and a three year old child then you are an idiot, and possibly a danger to yourself and to others.
Pardon my stupidity. But you are the one who claims that one becomes human upon birth. You provide no evidence of or reason for such a conclusion. You merely state save the points of dependence upon the mother and development from conception onward. I point out that both dependence upon the mother and human development begin before birth and continue afterwards for several years. I pointed out that relying upon those mere factors can result in some bad types of thinking taken to the extreme. If you took my response as flippant or insincere, I apologize. This was not my intention. Can you provide a reason to accept your conclusions given my statements regarding human development and dependence? Can you tell me why, if both dependece and development continue from conception through adulthood, birth is the constituting facor of our human-ness?

Biology.
Which specific biological sources lead you to this conclusion? Please elaborate, because as you have already pointed out

"Deception+lust/sex(not love)=rap/rape. Rape always, has to do with lustful control and perverted dominance, over another individual, who is simply seeking acceptance, kindness, gentleness, and compassion. This criminal individual, could care less about the consequences of his cruel and deviant actions, as long as he can get away with it, and not be seen as the true criminal that he is. In an age of perversion, such as this age /era is, the victim(the female) is the one who is blamed, for the sexual drunkeness of the conman, male. It takes two to tango, it is said, by those who support all manner of brutality to females and children. However, I say, that the two that are doing this occultic filth, are the conman's deceptive way and means, and the conman's weapon/tool, his very own body. If he had never had any contact with her mind, body, spirit, and soul, she would not, in fact could not have ever been endoctrinated into his painful, humiliating world, and atmosphere. The dangerous pregnancy, and abortion, add more wax to his burning candle light of monsterous wickedness."  

Sincerely,
Wholly Polterguist

I find the concept of abortion as a method of birth control barbaric. Then again it isn't my body, and I certainly will not presume that I or any legislative, executive, or judicial body has a right to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. But I believe a willing father should have his fair share of consideration in the matter.

On a side note....abortion is one of those issues where many conservative christians show their hypocrisy. One can be pro-life ONLY if one opposes abortion and the death penalty.

To answer Sasquatch, basic biology shows that a human fetus does not really resemble a human. In the very early stages it is genetically similar to a tadpole...

I think that you mean "phenotypically" similar.  It is 100% human from a genetic standpoint.  Brain development does not seem to get very far before the third trimester.  It is only in the third trimester that the word "unborn baby" becomes fully appropriate, although the fetus does have some recognizable body features before then.  Of course, many parents take a less clinical view of such matters after pregnancy is discovered, and it is quite understandable that so many people would vigorously oppose abortion.  I've known a few atheists to be as strongly anti-abortion as those on the religious right.  I don't understand that attitude in an atheist, but I accept their sincerity.

And I am still asking when LIFE BEGINS?  Never mind for now whether the woman has the right even though it is her body, or whether the brain has a certian development at a certian stage, etc.  My question is this, when do we KNOW that LIFE actually begins?

And I am still asking when LIFE BEGINS?  Never mind for now whether the woman has the right even though it is her body, or whether the brain has a certian development at a certian stage, etc.  My question is this, when do we KNOW that LIFE actually begins?

I disagree with you that this is your question.    Obviously, LIFE begins with the production of sperm and eggs.  Then we have the zygote--a fertilized egg.  Most of these die perfectly natural deaths, but zygotes are sacred to some religions, which may see their formation as the point at which a human soul gets attached to the apparatus.  (Why not half-souls for sperm and eggs?  I dunno.)  A zygote has no more awareness or consciousness than any other cell in your body.  Then there is the embryo, which is just the result of cell division.  Here, suddenly, many deeply religious people become more deeply concerned with preserving this stage and having the government throw host organisms--i.e. mothers--in prison who don't want their bodies to incubate the process further.  Then--about 8 weeks into pregnancy--a fetus appears.  This fetus may not have enough of a brain to think a single thought or experience any sensation, but already there is an army of adults out there who want the womb sealed and protected from any desire of anyone--the owner of the womb included--to stop the process from going to full term.  At the end of the second trimester, enough of the brain begins to develop that the organism might have some experience of pain and other familiar sensations, although it almost certainly lacks the conceptual development of most adult non-human mammals.  That is the point that the Supreme Court of the US has said that the government has a right to take an interest in the pregnancy.

Now what is your real question, geegee?  It isn't when LIFE begins.  It is when SOCIAL LIFE begins.  It is when the developing fetus begins to have civil rights.  That is when it should be given legal protection from the actions and behavior of others, including mothers.  This is not an easy question to answer, and you won't find all atheists in agreement on this point any more than you will find all people of religious faith in agreement.  So the real question is when you think the government should step in.  We might approve or disapprove the moral choices made by individual women, but when does the government (society's legal representative) have a legitimate interest?  This is the question that the Supreme Court decided (for better or for worse) in the Roe v Wade decision.  They did not express a moral opinion.