Eileen does this once a week, I think. Maybe it's time again.

I'll bet it won't stop him continuing to make the claim. "Culpable deniability" you know.

Those who have already read most of this can just skip over it - because as you say, I've posted much of it before.

First I'd like to take issue with your ( and many other people's) claim that "it is very difficult, for example, to support the argument that there's a profound physical difference between an infant 1 hour before birth and the same infant 1 hour later." Take a look at the changes that occur in one system only  and it might give you a clue as to what birth really consists of and the wonder that it actually is. I've described it as a form of metamorphosis in the past and that's exactly what it is.

Cutting the umbilical cord does not cause an insect-like metamorphosis, I'll grant. The major change is from a developing entity which is a part of a woman's body to an independent organism which is self contained. Prior to birth we have a human entity, growing and developing toward organism status, which draws its nourishment, oxygen, and has it's detoxification of blood, and homeostasis maintained by the organism it is a part of. This source before birth is the only source available. A fetus is not an air breather, the born organism is.

Now to cut off the usually predictable response from Abortion Opponents - at this point the claim normally is that "you are changing all the time during your life, from toddler to teen etc..." and in other words to equivocate on the word 'change'. To change from an entity that draws its nourishment from a source that cannot be replaced to an entity that can draw its nourishment from many different sources, to change from a non-air breather to breathing air, and to be able to survive in a previously hostile environment, seems to be a change in its nature to me and the change in nature can certainly be called a form of metamorphosis. The change at puberty similarity, while following logically within the context of the relationship to society argument, is not relevant to the central question, as the individual undergoing puberty was already self sustaining biologically and living on its own when the change took place.

If the post birth entity were the same it could live in an anaerobic environment. It can't. Claiming a fetus is the same as a neonate is like claiming a zygote is the same as a neonate and visual inspection alone is sufficient to show the falsehood of the claim in the first instance. The dynamic life forces and functions are totally different. When you attempt to pass off this mystical junk in the guise of actual scientific truth you not only do science a disservice you also show yourself for a fraud.

We aren't talking about physical impairment when we talk about failure to successfully negotiate the changes needed to turn a fetus into an air breather. We really are talking about a substantial change in the nature and raison détre of the entity.

Losing a limb or kidney - or having an organ or organs or brain that do not function adequately is a physical impairment. An entity that is burdened with inability to oxygenate blood, AND to circulate blood properly AND to digest food AND to detoxify the body AND to maintain blood pressure and other homeostatic functions AND etc etc and having these things performed by the entity it is a part of, is not suffering from a physical impairment - it is a different entity from what we consider 'human beings' to be although it would certainly meet speciation criteria. They are indeed as different as tadpole and frog. Since metamorphosis simply means an "extreme change which occurs between life stages", it's an apt description of the changes that a fetus goes through in birth.

Membership in the human society is not a biological but is a social concept, and nobody except a fool - or a sophist - claims membership in the human society is dependent on a biological change. Now there are certainly sufficient biological changes in the fetus at birth to make a valid comparison to a metamorphosis process but that is not the basis of membership in the human society. Rather membership in the human society is based on a consensus that exists in society that recognizes the arbitrary nature of assigning any point on a continuum as a defining point but nonetheless recognizes that without a successful birth process any potential membership in the human society inherent in the developing fetus by virtue of it's human genome and the fact it is alive, will remain unrealized and for this reason humans have never granted membership in the human society before that successful transition is realized.

Now while the "exactly the same" claim is always relegated to the five minutes before birth it is then used, as a part of a beard fallacy, to extend the claim that the zygote is also the same being. Two joined cells floating in a uterus is not a human being - as abortion opponents contend. A zygote or blastocyst in a petrie dish is not a human being. An embryo or fetus is developing into a human being but has not reached that designation yet. Take a glance at an embryology or fetology textbook and note the biological changes necessary to change from a needs supplied fetus to an air breathing independent human being. The two are not exactly the same - any more than a corpse is exactly the same as the person it once was. They have gone through a change in state similar to a metamorphosis.

Eileen