The abortion debate has recently re-emerged in this thread
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=348250
so I decided to make a bump in this thread so the topic can once again be redebated and centralized in one place.
I've always wanted to make a serious post in response to Jaydubya's position but have always feared it will be buried by the cavalcade of discussion any abortion thread would entail or tl:dred but I guess since I'm bumping this thread, people will give it a read.
The crux of the modern abortion debate and decision to assign rights to zygotes is that zygotes are alive and human. It is not sufficient to just be alive, since there are many living things that do not have rights. It is the simultaneity of being alive and human that entails rights. Its also important to note that alive can have multiple definitions.
With this premise in mind I think my position can be best explored by a series of hypothetical examples.
Consider a man Bob. Bob is 20 years old, can think and is the average joe. Bob gets shot in the head and dies. Most biologists would attest the bob still contain living cells within him, however, noone would say he's alive since he still has living cells. It is his inability to undergo neural activity that makes us classify him as dead. His cremation would not entail his death but rather the initial gunshot wound. With this example I establish the premise that life, in the human sense, entails possession of neural activity, and is not merely the possession of living cells. A person cannot be simultaneously dead and alive.
Note: I recall reading an argument of yours jaydub that rejects a consciousness based definition of life by stating that anaesthetizing them and subsequently shooting them would not violate that man's rights. The fallacy is that no anaesthetic will completely remove neural activity from a human, and if it does, then the gunshot wound is redundant since he is already dead.
From here the next argument that would be made by the general pro-zygotic rights side would be that which discusses the removal of a potential human life. It will become a human, therefore it has rights. However, assigning rights based on potentials will wholly be arbitrary. In this case it will be chemically arbitrary. What makes a zygote have more right to live than a semen and an ovum but 100 pm apart? The response would be genetic. Only if it is genetically human does it have rights. The problem here is that a genetic definition is problematic. All who understand evolution should know that the amount of genetic material in a species can vary within the species (otherwise increase of genetic content would be impossible). Do we deny the right to life to all humans who do not have the right amount of genetic content? To make a distinction based on genetics is to commit the same fallacy that has been committed historically several times over. Against the jews, the blacks, the females. You say it yourself that personhood should not exclude any living human being, yet a solely genetic definition of life does just that. Therefore, assignments of rights to things that can become humanlife is wholly arbitrary. The condemnation of contraception is just as valid as condemnation of the termination of a zygote. Assignment of rights should not be rooted in arbitrarity.
I think in your initial argument jaydub, your argument established a basis for what it means to be human and what it means to be alive. You also made an argument about potential human life. I think I've responded to these arguments and made refutations to your refutations of counterarguments. I would love to hear you response.
To summarize: Being alive is not just having living cells. No human can simultaneously be dead and alive, therefore any definition of alive must entail the opposite characteristics of death. i.e. possession of neural ability.
Being human is not a genetic distinction. To do so would undermine human life. The sorites paradox as it is applied to a man slowly being replaced by robotic parts is also important to consider.
The potential human life argument is inherently flawed since it arbitrarily lends itself to condemnation of any forseeable timeline which could produce a human life. This restricts human rights in and of itself.
