For those who think abortion is wrong, where do they draw the line?

[TreasonousBastard]

15. The answer is not when "life begins" because that is a process and depends largely on...

one's definition of "life".

More to the point is when human life begins, and that means ensoulment, which means you accept the idea of a soul. Although there is no scientific, or even much nonscientific, evidence of souls existing, it is a cherished belief going back thousands of years. The soul is what makes us human. It was poked into our bodies by the gods, or God. And no other creatures have one.

So, abortion becomes wrong when the soul enters the body-- killing a body with a soul is an offense to God's plan. Now the question becomes at what point does this soul thing enter the body, making it god-like, sort of.

Ancient Greeks were split on whether it was at conception (although they didn't really know much about how conception works), or at some other time, like birth, or even when movement is first noticed in the womb. Roman Catholics rediscovered these arguments somewhere around 1000AD and ended up picking the conception one, extending it to birth control, although it took them a while to get there. Protestants picked up on that, figuring that Catholics had already done the hard work.

So, while you'll never get a right-to-lifer to admit there is no soul, there is the possibility of convincing them that all those souls floating around the ether looking for a body to inhabit can't find said body until it's born. Maybe even until the umbilical cord is cut. It would, however, take a powerful preacher to overcome what the other powerful preachers implanted into their brains.

If you believe in reincarnation, which doesn't apply much in this country, killing off a soul's host is meaningless, since they will just find another one.