A lung doesn't have a heartbeat and its own set of chromosomes.

OK. Still the point was about 'physical dependence', and I suppose you now agree it's not really an issue.

I suppose that I could borrow your technique here and demand that you produce citation, but I won't because I know that you are correct on this point (just as I was correct about Plato's condemnation of homosexuality, although you would not admit that).

The citations are easy to get. Plato had more than one opinion about the topic, no peremptorily made claims. Anyway, Plato doesn't define Greek culture, which didn't agree with him. (He was also against democracy, for instance, which doesn't mean we should also be.)

It's not a problem for me because I don't advocate either legal abortion or legal infanticide. I think they're both immoral.

Which is my point--it's a question of morals, not logics. Personal choice. You consider them equivalent because you want to -- it's your morals. Those who don't consider them equivalent are just as right.

Although I do wish that pro-abortion advocates would have the courage of their convictions to admit that the two acts (abortion and infanticide) are morally equatable, and I think it speaks volumes about their motivations and ingenuousness--or lack thereof--that they will not publicly admit it.

And I wish anti-choice advocates would have the courage of their convictions and admit that they do draw a line too, about where human life begins; they just don't agree with pro-choicers about where this line should be drawn. From a legal perspective, one of the minutiae.

Abortion and infanticide are not morally equatable; which is the point I made. They only are for those who choose to equate a fetus with a baby. For those who don't, it isn't. The point about abortion and infanticide is that different cultures have drawn the line at different places, just as you should expect for topics that are not clear-cut.

Heh, you must live in quite an intellectually rich environment indeed if you consider "legalistic sophistry" to be emotionally laden. And that's a compliment.

Indeed. Profesionally, I'm a linguist. And I do accept your comment as a compliment. Heh.

And no, I'm not going pretend to be so "objective" that I won't call slavery shameful (i.e. the same tortured logic that pro-abortion advocates use, that once upon a time designated slaves as "3/5 of a person") , or even the legal decision that rendered corporations to be legal "persons."

Plato would disagree with you. Anyway, I will point out, of course, when your arguments are emotionally laden and when they are logical. I hope you don't mind. (See 'tortured' above, which doesn't describe the actual logic and how well it works, only your reaction to it.)

Look, I could play the same game and call your equation of slavery with abortion "shameful". But why should I? In what way would that help make my point clearer? So I won't do it.

The point is simply that abortion is not slavery, and equating slavery and abortion when it's so easy to distinguish fetuses from Blacks necessitates further elaboration. To me, you're comparing apples to oranges.

Trying to purge evaluative language--most especially in the field of ethical philosophy--is itself partial and evaluative, and no use of any term in a discussion denotes "activism."

That's your opinion. To it's an attempt to show respect for your oponent, especially when you know that your emotionally loaded terms might offend him/her. (Remember how you felt attacked and reacted condescendingly when others here didn't, as you put it, 'purge their evaluative language' in their first reactions to a post of yours in another thread?)

Well! You should have written this at the beginning of your post, since with this you summarily and imperiously dismiss my entire argument.

I don't dismiss it--I agree with it. The definition of personhood has indeed been used in history to wrongly disenfranchise people. Why should we discuss this further?

The shameful history of mis-use of the term "personhood" is absolutely relevant and was the entire point of what I wrote.

No, it's not. It simply proves that the misuse of the term "personhood" has happened in history, not that this is the case for abortion. You still have to make the case that a fetus is a person--which is not at all obvious in any way.

After all, there are things in this world that are not people--I suppose you'll concede that about ova and sperm cells? So "personhood" must be defined legally. The fact that it has been wrongly defined in other cases in the past doesn't eliminate this necessity.

So actually you do have to offer your definition of personhood. That is the crux of the discussion, not any historical misuses of it. Past misuses are exactly that -- past.