Welcome to Gaia! ::

I agree about emotional tactics and reactions...but there is no way to divorce reason from emotion entirely in this situation.

We need values to set, otherwise, reason will only tell us what will happen in a given situation, it won't tell us which one is better. Even if you set it as least harm done, it can be argued either way. Our emotions and our values are what make the reasonable choice reasonable in this situation.

I'm sorry? You seem to be missing at least one word there, and for the life of me, I can't figure it out...

Heh. I think I maybe have one:

"Unborn humans exist only because of the action of the pregnant woman (in cases of consensual sex, because this falls apart in cases of rape). Removing of the unborn human, before viability, results in the death of the unborn human. Because the pregnant woman's actions resulting in the creation of the unborn human, and removal would result in the death of the unborn human, the pregnant woman should then be obligated to carry the unborn human until viability."

*grin* I don't happen to believe that (obviously), but I think that it isn't emotional in nature. Do I win a cupcake (we have no cookies, only cupcakes, so I can't win a cookie)?

And the response to that would be, "STIs aren't human." and that gets countered with "Why is human life more valuable?" And one gets right back to the emotional basis that human life is valuable because it is human.

Darn. I was close though.