All about the name

Recently someone asked me if my name meant I was pro-life. My reaction was along the lines of "what the... what are you... oh, I see what you mean. No."

I think the "embryo==human" stance of most pro-lifers is overly simplistic. This is due to my personal understanding that "me" is not some disembodied soul; it's a network of neurons firing in intricate patterns. This means there's no lightbulb moment where the embryo becomes human, so a more sophisticated approach is needed.

Going back to enlightened self-interest, a key reason to be anti-murder is that I could be next. As the "I" in question is a bunch of neurons, drawing the line at the start of humanlike neuronal activity makes sense - the embryo thinks, therefore it is.

If I recally correctly, that happens around the end of the second trimester, although adding a safety margin might be valid. I'm fairly sure that this doesn't qualify as "pro-life" by any normal definition... As a moral relativist, I'm open to reasoned debate on this.

Oh, and 'Lifewish' is just a really lame play on 'deathwish'.