Originally Posted by
phiwum
You do realize that these are not scientific or medical questions, right? That's like asking since when has science determined that a normal adult human has a right to life. It hasn't and we don't depend on science to answer this fundamentally philosophical question.
(Before someone complain that philosophy does a crap job answering such questions, which is fair enough, the fundamental questions here about what rights persons have, whether right to life or right to abortion, are really philosophical questions. They are also legal questions, of course, but this context really is about what legal rights they ought to have, which is not a legal question.)
Science has never been asked to determine that a
normal adult human has a right to life. That is, as you say, a philosophical question. However, my point still stands: when a zygote/embryo/fetus becomes a person is completely a matter of personal/religious belief. Therefore, Bob the Coward referring to abortion as "murder" is a personal/religious belief not based on any science.