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But when we come to a case where two people's rights conflict with each other things get sticky. Sure people have the right to control their body to a degree. But they don't have the right to go around hitting others because that violates the rights of the other person. Your rights to control your body are limited by other people's rights to their own.

Then people say that the woman's rights come first because the child is violating her body and they go and cite rape laws. Well for one thing, I find it discussing to compare an act of sick violence to an innocent and unawares child merely trying to cling to life. Secondly there is a huge difference in INTENT. The reason a woman is allowed to use lethal violence against a man attacking her is because he is willfully attacking her and she is acting in self defense. Legally it does make somewhat of a parallel with the laws on trespassing. I don't, and should know the details of the laws better, except I expect it varies, but I know that it is legal to kill a burglar when your life is in danger, but people can also be sued when harm comes to trespassers on their property when the property owner themselves was not being attacked. It seems to me like intent to do harm should be taken into consideration when deciding if it's ok for a person to kill another simply because that second person is trespassing.

I think this too is a good topic for a different thread. There are many reasons that I believe the laws are essential. First off, in many cases of incest and abuse, at least one of the parents doesn't even know it's happening. By aborting the child and not telling the parents the clinics are actually helping the abuser hide the evidence and continue their crimes. If the parents themselves are the abuser then parental consent wouldn't be an issue since they'd probably be the ones bringing the daughter in for the abortion, again to hide the evidence of their crimes.

Most cases where teens get abortion however, have little to do with abuse by parents or relatives. Legally there is often still abuse since it’s considered child abuse for any adult to be having sex with a teenager. In these cases most tends don’t tell their parents simply because they’re ashamed. I was involved in some of the legal proceedings for a law on the topic in Vermont (which the freakin crazy democrats fought like mad to not even allow a vote) In that case one powerful testimony came from a mother whose daughter got an abortion without her knowledge. Since the girl was underaged they couldn’t access her medical records without parental permission. As a result they gave her the abortion, and various medications without finding out that she was very allergic to one of the medications. She went home, and the degree of followup they did to make sure she was ok was to call her cellphone and when they got no answer they did nothing. But the reason there was no answer was that the girl had passed out and was literally dying on the floor of her room. Luckily her mother came home, rushed her to the emergency room, and saved her life. The girl later got pregnant again and went to the clinic with her mother who tried to talk her out of the abortion, but preferred to be there with her daughter since she couldn’t change her mind. The clinic this time didn’t actually LOOK at the medical records and attempted to prescribe the same lethal drug a second time, but were stopped by the mother.
Teens aren’t very mature or responsible and this is why parents need to be involved in most cases. The law that was proposed in Vermont had a clause for exceptions. All a girl who felt that they really couldn’t involve her parents had to do was to contact a judge who would meet her at a place of her own convenience if needed. The intent was that the judges would be pretty lenient and allow exceptions for most cases brought to them. But that most girls who were simply were ashamed to tell their parents would generally be better off for having them involved.

I may actually move this to another thread, if you don't mind me quoting you.

You're right that I would not want to, nor argue to ban abortion in cases like your mother's. But it's a fine line since the degree of danger to the life of the mother varies. In Kansas I've heard the debate growing about a late-term abortion practitioner who used the "health reasons" clause to justify performing abortions on women for who health reasons may be things like losing her bikini-worthy tummy, or how the pregnancy would affect her social "health". Also, when the risks to the mother are just a chance I think she should still be well informed to decide if a 5% chance or 20% chance of serious harm or death to herself is worth a 100% chance of death to another.

But, really, these abortions are such a small percentage of the current abortions performed that it's ridiculous how much many Pro-Choicers try to make them the entire reason to allow abortion for everyone. While some pro-lifers would try to ban medical abortions too, I think all pro-lifers would agree that a distinction could be made and that it would be better to allow only this fraction of abortions than to continue allowing them for any reason at all.

You mean like Charlemagne and Hitler? Yes.

If you mean things like our supposed primal ancestors? Since i don't believe in evolution, or even regard it as a form of science, I'd honestly have to say, thats your opinion.

And in all honesty, I fail to see how it has a philosophical meaning. I cant even see how people PUT a philosophical meaning to it. The only way that could be is if they are trying to break it down into two separate words Human and Being. Even then I fail to see the philosophy in it, not only that, you havn't really given the word philisophy, you've only succeeded in presenting a false anilysation of a word.

True, but they were close enough that we most likely bred them out of existence (along with just killing them off).

I think that I would consider some of the more intelligent extinct other hominids to be "human beings" and "people" but I guess it really doesn't matter. *grin*

I agree.

I should be like, fined or something for the amount that I drag all threads offtopic. I'm so bad. *grin*

The self awareness and sentience and etc are still in and of themselves philosophical arguments, and have no place in the biology of the debate. Human Being is literal, and more biological then say..."person." The word "person" can be both literal and philosophical, as the word itself dosn't necessarily have to describe a human being. (As an example. I play allot of the Elder Scrolls series. I ALWAYS play as a Khajit. Khajit, though not human, are still considered people...though...it is a fictional setting.) Yet, more often then we actually realize, we use the word "person" in place of the word "human" Because, lets face it. Its just plain weird to say "That human over there" as apposed to "That person over there."

I've talked about and debated my beliefs with so many people its actually physically sickening for me to do it now. No, sorry. Even if a new thread was started I wouldn't be apt to talk about my personal beliefs on the subject.

A secular school, a school of any kind other then the one dedicated to teaching the specific religion for that matter, is the worst place to learn about religion.