[Aliantha]

So far I've got the impression that if a child isn't a child, then it's ok to get rid of a 'clump of cells' but if that clump is considered a child then it's not ok to get rid of it.

One could give analogy after analogy about where something begins and another ends eg. a circle. Hate to quote The Lion King here, but there is a circle of life. What goes around comes around. Even the Budhists believe that...along with the fatalists and all the other ists.

I guess until such time as we live in a Utopian society, where everyone lives by the same moral/religious/ethical code, there'll always be differences of opinion on these sort of issues. Human beings live for conflict, and none of us have ever learned how to love thy neighbour without judging them. The biggest issue I see here is that one side judges the other, and there's no real middle ground.

I've grown to realize that you can never judge another person till you've walked a mile (or a thousand) in their shoes. You can never understand they choices they make about these kinds of issues unless you've lived their life. You will never know what it's like to choose whether your 'clump of cells' becomes a human being or not till you've had to face the choice for whatever reason.

Understanding how someone can abort their 'child' isn't something anyone can have any concept of unless they've had to make that choice, and anyone who hasn't had to face it doesn't have a right to condemn those who have.