EB,

Well 'being' is just another way of saying "person" so the distinction seems to be when a thing is indeed fully human or just a human's parts. And that distinction seems to be taken place at conception.

Thank you, so my suggestion that you were question begging is fully substantiated.  You are differentiating sperm and eggs from the newly formed zygote on the basis that zygotes are "beings" (i.e. persons) - in other words, your premise contains your conclusion.  Try for something less circular.

What makes an embryo qualify as a human being while a simple sperm doesn't is due to the scientificly confirmed fact that there are no additional steps needed to qualify as a full human being while a sperm still needs to join with an egg.

That statement relies on the assumption that humans are 'persons' from the moment of conception.  Take an alternate tack, i.e. mine - that humans become 'persons' only when they are capable of performing certain functions - and it seems like an embryo has a whole lot of 'steps' left to make it a person.  Now you're not obliged to accept my view point, but you also cannot make an argument which contains the assumption that your desired conclusion is the correct one.  That is called (wait for it) "Begging the Question".

All of which should be obvious to someone in the medical profession.

The spurious support you claim from the science of human biology is only relevant if you have certain non-scientific beliefs already.  Just because they're non-scientific does necessarily mean they're wrong, by the way, but pretending that your position can be entirely substantiated by a brief review of embryology is disingenuous - other assumptions are required in order to interpret those facts the way that you think they should be interpretted.  That is what is obvious to this member of the medical professions.

And actually by your own criteria, it seems you would indeed have to extend 'personhood' to animals that are clearly not. Provided if you actually had any pretense of consistency, but we've seen you haven't. That's one of the reasons why your reasoning can be identified as faulty and arbitrary.

This isn't really worth responding to, but briefly, you seem (as i suggested) to be unable to distinguish between the statement "Things without brains cannot be persons" and the statement "Things with brains must be persons".  i seem to remember that you had a similar level of semantic blindness when it came to the difference between the generalizations that you made about Liberals and the statements i made regarding "pro-lifers".  The gap between "Liberals are all biased" and "Most 'pro-lifers' are not murders" should be obvious, but since to you it apparently isn't i can only assume that you either have some deep-seated and regrettable reading problem (as, oddly, you have recently accused me of having), or you ignore what i actually write, preferring to respond to a distorted version of it which either plays better to your personal prejudices or happens to fit with whatever pseudo-humorous come-back you already have prepared.

Hmm, that wasn't quite as brief as i intended.  Ok, here's the brief version: While some species of Apes may qualify as persons under my stated criteria, i have not said anything to suggest that the majority of animals should.  Backing up your statement with some quotes might be an idea.

Not hardly, as you have explicitly admitted such things as "feeling pain" isn't an important criteria (one wonders why you mention it at all), nor that anything you have said to be important need be displayed 24/7.

i mentioned it because it is part of the medical criteria for assessing brain death (which the majority of people consider to be the end of personhood), and thus seemed relevant.  i concede that there are a tiny minority of people who will not demonstrate this criteria while still being persons.  Are they the exception that proves the rule?  i'm not sure, but since many of the individuals who your criteria would include as persons are clearly not persons from my point of view, i would dismiss the idea that either of us currently has all the answers as narcissism.

As for the 24/7 thing, that has plenty of parallels in other rights, which we've been over before.  Someone who is entitled to vote does not display the mental capacity which entitles them to do so 24/7, nor does the person who is entitled to drive, fly or make independent decisions about who they are going to spend the rest of their life with.  These rights do not lapse, however, while they are asleep.

And as your reasoning seems to be on the basis of subjective feelings rather on anything of objective worth, the only thing that is clear is that you have simply decided to be pro-abortion and will do whatever it takes to rationalize what you want.

That's a very easy slur to throw around.  While it is truly amazing that you find my arguments unconvincing and are extremely convinced by your own, i could just as easily make the reverse accusation to you - that you have decided to be anti-abortion and will now rationalise it however you want (because from my point of view, surprise surprise, all the evidence is there).  In this way is our debate not advanced at all.

It's a bit of a let down that you think I'm at such a petty level to believe who ever goes longer in the thread is the "winner".

i had no idea that my opinion meant so much to you.  i had a fairly clear memory of you doing just that once before, but having spent (an entirely inadequate) ten minutes trawling through our backlog of old debates i am unable to find it.  Perhaps i am doing you a disservice.

Perhaps.

"Are you the best person to assess the solidity of your own reasoning?"

Well given that I was once pro-choice and these are the pro-life arguements and reasonings that changed my mind, I would have to say I'm better qualified than some as I examined them from a more objective position.

i assume that you bow to Dan Barker on all matters evangelical then?  For that matter, most atheists used to be Christians.  Lots of people switch their beliefs over time, but again, they can't all be right.  You are naturally predisposed to find your own arguments convincing and to look preferentially for facts which support them.  That is not just you, it's all of us.  Doesn't mean that there's no right answer, but it does mean that i find your trumpetting of your own position as being "supported by solid logic" particularly irrelevant.  Of course you would think that.

Then to even acknowledge "music" exists is contradicting for you, as there is indeed no nonarbitrary materialistic difference than nails on a blackboard or the crash of thunder. "Music" doesn't exist in your materialisticly reduced world view.

Ever hear about a little thing called frequency?  Volume?  Pitch?  Next you'll be suggesting that i can't say the colour blue exists without a contradiction, although what interests me is whether you think souls see in colour?  Or at all?  Since we know that defects in the genes, eyes or brain can render someone blind either to certain colours or to all visual input, it would seem a little bizarre to claim that each of those people actually has a soul which can see perfectly well, but just wont do so until it is released from the body, but equally bizarre to think that certain souls can be colour-blind.

"You may be right that having the phenomenological experience of "what it is like to feel x y or z" demands an answer..."

It's only a phenomenon in your belief system. Frankly your world view seems plagued by phenomenons. Think that's indicative in some way?

Phenomenological, EB.  As distinct from phenomena.

Only because you've made up your mind before you ever approached the question.

Riiiiight.  So the fact that you can't answer many questions about the soul indicates nothing except that you have sensibly been influenced by the balance of evidence but do not have complete knowledge of the workings of our immaterial minds, but the fact that i can't answer this question about the qualitative experience means that i made up my mind before i approached the question.  

*yawn* Yes, do go on with your examples of materialistic results being contingent on materialistic causes. That's toooootally the same as proving immaterialistic results are contingent on materialistic causes.

Once again, you are begging the question.  It's you who thinks that the mind is a different kind of substance from anything else.  i say that the mind is like violin music, or for that matter, the light emitted by the bulb - it is non-physical in the sense that it is not an object you can pick up, but it is contingent on certain physical objects and ultimately reduces to them.  Hence the violin music analogy.

"Your God sounds like Kim Jong-Il.  Does Jehovah's apparently massive over-compensation for a chronic insecurity complex bother you at all?"

I would have to conclude artists such as Shakespeare and Leonardo must have had some kind of insecurity problem if I did. Thankfully I know such reasoning is in the realm of irrationalism and vindictivness.

You can't want revenge on a being who you don't believe exists.  And i don't think that mosts writers or artists produce great works primarily to 'glorify themselves'.  Someone who did i would be forced to conclude had problems.

He didn't tell them what made people equal; he asked and they answered. In fact it seems it was the 2nd Graders doing most of the argueing. Perhaps you need to reread it.

i did re-read it, to see if there was less intellectually-dishonest manipulation by leading questions than i remembered.  Actually, there was more.  It is really not a very impressive vindication of your position to have some craven advocate stand up in front of a bunch of little kids and subtly push them towards his desired conclusion.  Still, being religious i suppose blatant indoctrination may offend you less than it offends me.

And you've indeed advocated abortion is a complex issue almost every time it's brought up.

The issue is complicated.  Your argument is what is simple, and that's why it doesn't impress me.

If a child was 40 weeks along and due to be born on Wednesday, Tiller was happy to abort them on Tuesday.  Is that in fact the kind of choice you think women should be able to make?

Not true. A 30-second google search turned up Tiller's actual policy, and the Kansas state law on post-viability abortions:

http://www.drtiller.com/elect.html