[AChimp]

If more people were to have "unwanted" children and actually show that sex does have a dangerous and probable consequence, than it is possible for teenagers to begin taking safer measures.

Yeah, but having many unwanted children would just cause tonnes of problems for those kids. Why should we have a glut of unappreciated, unwanted children in society just to prove that you should consider the consequences of rolling in the hay? Better education in schools is one solution, I think, and making contraceptives cheaper and more available.

Neither does it validate abortion. That is a double-edged sword. Forcing it to cut both sides.

Yeah, neither side will ever be happy, so that's why I believe in the three month compromise. Being in the middle is the best place to be. "ABORTIONS FOR SOME!"

So why simple choose the point of which the brain functions? And what determination of function is being used. Fully functioning, or partially. Is it sentient when the brain is partially functioning?

There's no question of whether or not it's alive, perse, because the cells are functioning like cells and reproducing, etc. You use plants as an example (I think it was you), and no one questions whether or not plants are alive.

I think I read somewhere that something is sentient when it becomes self-aware, so it's hard to define and more research would have to be done. I think that fetuses can be considered brain dead, except in reverse (going from nothing to something over time, rather than degrading).

Using specific functions of the brain is also hard to define. Motor ability is hardly a good judge of sentience, because animals can all move and we consider very few of them to be sentient beings. Random nerve impulses aren't a good measure, either, because at that stage, it could just as easily be the system jump-starting itself.