Originally Posted by djplong

I rarely trot this out because it's such an unpleasant memory.

Have you ever had to clean up a miscarriage? I have.

I've had to console my wife, burying my own feelings at the time, and clean up the mess when she miscarried some 3+ months into a pregnancy.

To equate that 'level of development' with a full-formed child is a matter of opinion.

Was it alive? Yes. Was it human? Call it a "work in progress" - all the ingredients were there. Technically speaking, the medical term is "spontaneous abortion".

Was it the same as a child at birth? No.
Was it the same as a fetus at 8 months? 7? No.

If memory serves, something over 98% of all abortions occur in the first trimester. Once you get past that, there are usually complications, medical reasons and other extenuating circumstances.

Someone spoke of when the heart beats - yeah, and it's a single chamber heart at the time with more in common with a frog than a FULL-DEVELOPED human.

Again, the ingredients are there and, in 2 out of 3 cases, if properly nourished through it's *technically* parasitic stage you get a baby in the end (estimates are that 1 out of 3 pregnancies end in miscarriage, very often with the woman barely knowing she was pregnant or perhaps mistaking a 'heavy period' for an early term miscarriage).

I'm betting that people are more sick and tired of the hyper-partisanship. The "I want everything on my list or I take my ball and go home" attitude. That's the attitude of spoiled children, not mature adults who realize they have to live in a world with people who do not share all their beliefs or priorities.