Thursday, January 19, 2006

Americans are slow developers

Ran across this from Albertus Minimus:
Abortion. You know, the thing is, if the supporters of abortion could tell me when a human life begins, then there would be no real problem about it. After all, in essence this is not a religious argument but one based on reason: at some point after conception, according to those in favour of abortion, the status of the creature changes from non-human to human.

Now, in Britain we say that's at 24 weeks. In America it's only at birth. In Germany and France 12 weeks, Italy 13 weeks and Sweden 18 weeks. So from this I am forced to conclude that proto-Germans and pre-French turn into real German kinder and teeny French enfants a week quicker than Italians become mini bambini. The Swedes are pretty late developers, taking five weeks longer to change from being a bundle of cells into a full-on human being - it's probably the cold that slows them down. As for we Brits, it must be the weather, or the diet or something, but it takes us a full three months more than the Germans and the French (no!) to become little John Bulls. Finally, it's almost embarrassing to mention this, given that I have quite a few American readers, but I must sadly inform you that Americans are the tardiest of all: you don't turn into human beings until you're actually born. I can only conclude that it's a result of too many burgers.

Not even then, apparently. Even in the process of being born, we're not human until the mother and/or the doctors say we are.

This alone warrants a spot on the sidebar for Albertus. And I think I need a burger.

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