> Pieces like that are utter hogwash.

But it's /well written/ hogwash! You don't have to like it, but I think it deserves respect.

I think that the piece is intended to be /art/, not an argument.

>Why? Because I can write a piece like that about ANYTHING. I can easily sit down and scrawl out some claptrap about the poor baby who's mom decided to follow the "religious right" and not have an abortion. Now the baby's a crackhead who's molested by her uncle and beaten by her mom, and so on.

Good point, with respect to abortion. But I'm not entirely sure where I stand on that issue, so I'm not going to debate it.

[Snips a paragraph about "heart strings" arguments not being valid. I more or less agree with the points in this paragraph, but that's not what I want to talk about.]

> It's pretty obvious that pieces like this are not overburdened with facts. An embryo cannot love it's mother.

Questionable.

> It doesn't know who it's mother is.

It depends what you mean by that. Obviously, an embryo cannot know its mother's name, or what she looks like. However, it may instinctively know that there's supposed to be someone to care for it and protect it.

This relates more specifically to the next point.

>It doesn't have a functioning brain, so it doesn't know ANYTHING.

I attended a lecture sometime last year by a guest speaker from the University of Alberta biology department, who was speaking on fetal development (one of our Grade 12 biology topics). Apparently, an embryo develops a fully functioning brain in the first /two months/ after conception. Following this, the brain may grow larger and become more complex; however, the basic structure is all there -- and functioning -- in two months.

Incidentally, (according to the lecture) most women don't even become aware that they might be pregnant until about three months. However, it is most critical for the mother not to get drunk (or whatever) in the first two months since this is when the baby's brain develops.

The point is, though, that I don't think it's valid to justify abortion by saying that an embryo is incapable of thinking or feeling, because there is at least some evidence that this is not true.

>If a grouping of embryonic cells can love it's mother, then a grouping of fingernail cells can love you equally, so stop biting them.

But you and I are no more than a grouping of cells either. And while we're on the topic, fingernails, unlike embryos, are made up exclusively of /dead/ cells. So I don't think that this comparison is particularily valid.

>In fact, when writing MY tearjerker, I can go one better than this paper and include factual accounts, such as the mother who didn't want her kid anymore, and solved the problem by popping the baby in the microwave. Coroners estimates put time of death at around 5 minutes after the microwave was turned on.

This, in general, /is/ a valid justification for abortion. -- Not the tearjerker bit, but the fact that a child would in some cases not have a reasonable chance at a good life if it were allowed to live.

Again, I'm not sure where I personally stand on this issue so I'm not going to spent much time on this issue.

> One of the first things we learned in my logic class was what arguments NOT to use in a legitimate debate. Emotional appeals were at the top of the list.

-Space "Realizes he's posting in a doomed thread..." Bar