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Just how precious is human life?

With religious contraints removed, what now guides our ethics regarding protection of human life. Believers have concepts like sanctity of life, the existence of a soul (whatever that is), all life a gift of God. only God can take away, etc etc. So what guides agnostics in deciding when, if ever, to allow termination of a developing life? Where to draw a line on terminations is obviously a serious issue and it would be interesting to see where Agnostics draw a line. And precisely why.

Human babies start to interact at about three months, at which point they are just starting to behave like humans rather than being just cute feeders. Which seems like a sensible upper limit.

So my question is:

If, before birth there is a medically proven risk of, or after birth there are obvious signs of, severe genetic defects, AND the mother wishes it, up to what point should we legally allow life to be humanely terminated?

(I'm restricting it to genetic defect issues, which incidentally affect about 5% of embryos, I know there are others like rape, economic, social etc but let's keep it focused on defects)

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alangodless 4 Feb 19
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27 comments (26 - 27)

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Human life is precious only to us, Individually or collectively.
Societies and individuals have a power to determine what is of value and what is not and of what value one thing is vs. another.
Society has a power to support its members as that body chooses.
Women have the power to choose what they wish to do with their own bodies and lives.
Societies oblige themselves to support or quash that which individuals and subgroups may do.
Right and Wrong, Without an evolutionary context will become moot, Inevitably.

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"I brought you into this world, I can take you out" Some feel that a mother has a right to do away with her children at any age. Like do away by mother's retroactive abortion would be fine by me. heh heh

A lil off topic i guess, but i use that exact phrase to threaten my kids..as a joke of course...i also threaten to eat their souls..heehee

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