I do not believe that the human soul is contained in electric fields or any other kind of chemical bonds. So to me the question becomes when does ensoulment occur.
Chasby delights in the fact that I don't know when ensoulment occurs or even what it means. He will say that if I don't know when the fetus becomes human then I must err on the side of caution. If a fetus might be human then it must be treated as human... you can't kill what might be human. This is one of Chasby's better arguments and I have a lot of symapathy for it.
Chasby did not think this was sufficient and asked that I post the following statement, which I am happy to do in spite of the fact that he descibed this site as a "pro abortion liberal website". It's ok, Chasby, like so many conservatives, has a penchant for ad hominem.
Imagine that there are two hunters, named Gene and Gerry, who go out together deer hunting every fall. They always set up camp the night before and then they always wake up very early in the morning, while it is still dark, in order to go to each of their pre-determined locations to wait for the deer to come out before sunrise.
After having coffee, both go to their predetermined locations to wait for the deer. While waiting, Gene nods off for several minutes and then is startled when he hears a rustling in the bushes in front of him in the pitch dark.
A) Should Gene fire into the bushes and kill whatever is in there. Gene *might* kill a deer. Or . . . Gene might kill Gerry. Gene doesn't really know for sure.
B) Or should Gene call out to Gerry just to check and make sure that it isn't Gerry rustling in the bushes because Gerry might have decided that he wanted to come back to camp and have another cup of coffee before the sun came up? If it is a deer in the bushes, the deer would then be scared and run away and Gene might miss yet a trophy to hang over his fireplace for the 10th year in a row.
The OBVIOUS answer is that the BURDEN OF PROOF rests with Gene to absolutely KNOW that he will NOT take an innocent human life before Gene fires blindly into the bushes. Thinking that this rustling in the bushes it is probably a deer entirely insufficient. If Gene fires into the bushes, he may very well kill Gerry.
So the lesson here is this: If you do not know WITH 100% CERTAINTY that you are NOT killing an innocent human, you MUST act in such a manner that protects and preserves potential innocent life.
Therefore, the arguments that abortion is morally acceptable because either:
A) we really don't even know if a fetus is human or not . . . or
B) even if we agree that the fetus is human, we don't yet know if this human has a soul yet or not . . .
are both obviously false.
When in doubt, you MUST always act in a manner that preserves human life.
The burden of proof rests with those who want to KILL these innocent fetuses to prove with absolute certainty that these fetuses are not human.
IF . . . we can not prove with absolute certainty that fetuses are NOT human and that they do NOT have soulsthen we must NOT kill them. Just as Gene must not fire in the bushes in the dark unless he is 100% certain that he will not accidentally kill Gerry. It is morally imperative that we MUST err on the side of preserving innocent life rather than erring on the side of killing innocent life.
The burden of prove as to when life begins, clearly rests with those who wish for abortion to be legal. If they can not conclusively prove when life begins, then it is morally imperative that abortion not be allowed, except to save the life of the mother.
* * *
At one time, Toady, you very reluctantly agreed to either define to me when "life" begins so as to define at what point in the development of an unborn baby that abortion would change from morally acceptable to morally unacceptable. Is that at conception? Conception + 7 days? Conception + 90 days? Conception + 280 days? You then later refused to do this and denied ever having agreed to such a thing
in the first place. You obviously know that this means that your entire abortion position would come crashing down like a house of cards because you can not meet this required burden of proof. Checkmate.
However . . . whether you now refuse to do this or not, I *think* that you certainly logically agree that the burden of proof logically rests with those who wish to allow unborn babies to be killed to explain why this is morally acceptable to do so, just as the burden of proof rests with Gene, the deer hunter, to explain why he should fire into the dark at a "rustling in the bushes" that *might* be a deer or that *might* be his good friend, Gerry. When a hunter is unsure whether or not he might be taking an innocent life -- Gerry in this example -- then that hunter has the logical moral obligation to NOT pull the trigger, regardless of how inconvenient or how embarrassing it might be for him to come home without a trophy to hang above his fireplace for the 10th year in a row. All of the other hunters might tease him and his self-esteem might be lowered as a result.
Toady, do you agree with these statements above? If not, why not?
* * * * *
Since as you say, no human can ever state definitively when ensoulment begins, then it stands to reason that:
IF killing an innocent person with a soul is morally wrong . . .
THEN it is morally wrong to ever kill an unborn child at any point after conception since
you can not prove whether or not that child has a soul or does not have a soul.