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[brianwspencer]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

I used ":=" which is geek-speak for "does not equal". You're a musician and not a geek, so that is my bad. lol

oh ok! then THAT is what i am not understanding at all. potential is potential is potential.

alive is alive.

so how do we insist on saving one and not the other when we cannot gaurantee that the other is not potential for human life?

maybe you've explained that a dozen times already and i just havent understood where you've explained that,

[brianwspencer]

Originally Posted by Bababooyee

Well, I am arguing that a zygote is a human life with potential. IOW, it is a human at a specific stage of normal human development. Just as, for example, a toddler is a human at a specific stage of development and has the potential to develop into the next stage (eg an adolecent-->teen-->adult-->senior citizen) under certain (and generally "normal") circumstances. This is manifestly different than a "potential life". IOW, a zygote is a human being (with potential to develop into the next stage) and bacteria is bacteria (not a human at all).

ok, i understand that argument perfectly now. this, however, illustrates that from the get-go we are not even approaching this from the same place -- so the discussion was at a standstill from the very first post.

i don't believe that a zygote is a human at a specific stage, and i don't think that the comparison to toddler-stage humans really works. though i DO see how this argument can be made and why it is compelling.

i just don't believe that to be true. it's the age old question of when it becomes a human being. i can't give you an exact answer, but i tend to gravitate towards when it can survive outside of the mother's womb.

glad it took me over an hour to understand you, killed some great time at work