I know you are, but what am I?

In this nation's 250 some odd years of existence, we've had our full share of war and military expidentures. As with any war, it required from some the fullest measure of devotion and the ulitimate sacrifice: their very lives.

We honor those who have given their lives so that ours might remain secure. We celebrate holidays, establish memorials, and grant them a status of respect in our society.

Yet if you put all of those lost lives together, from all US wars, the number still falls apallingly short of the number of children aborted in the United States every year.

Not surprised? No, I wasn't either. The most recent development is the idea to clone an embryo and then harvest its stem cells.

Of course, fetuses, embryos, they aren't human. Not in the least bit. It's just a small cluster of cells...harvesting stem cells from an embryo is no problem, right?

But let's think about this. An embryo isn't human. It is formed of human tissue, nurtured on human food, and magically transforms into a human at some point after birth. It does not have the capability of setiency. That's got to be what makes it non-human.

Even though the embryo/fetus/child has human characteristics planned into him as early as the moment of conception, it's still not a human.

Is a catepillar somehow less a butterfly for being a caterpillar?

Everyone knows that the catepillar will eventually become a butterfly and will never again be able to fit into that tiny little cacooon. Yet no one suggests that a butterfly is somehow not a catepillar. It's just a name for a particular stage of development.

The same is true of pregnancy and birth. The embryo/fetus within the mother is not only a part of the mother, but the mother acts as a sort of caccoon.

Just as the captepillar stage does not preclude the catepillar from becoming a butterfly, there is no single stage at which a homo sapiens is not a homo sapiens.

Can't you just imagine the child within the womb listening with usually perfectly formed ears as a clinic doctor explains to his mother that he's really just an it. No more, no less than a blob of "itness".



Then, as the doctor prepares for the surgery, the child asks the question: "I know you are, but what am I?"