(P6: Users: don't try this at home, which is to say I've disabled the ability for users to post web links because I can't stop them from being promoted to the front page. I live with the repercussions of my actions or inactions, so here ya go)

I have been doing research in ancient texts for 30 years, mostly classical and biblical Greek texts. While doing this research I have had the abortion issue in mind because of its current place in the news and election process. The key question I have been asking myself all this time is “when does a fetus/embryo/infant become a living soul”. Anti Abortionist who “love” the Bible seem to think it is at the point of conception, however, It seems from ancient text that the answer to that question was when the infant becomes self aware. Further inquiry led me to discover that psychologists today make that to be between 15 and 24 moths old. There is a cute little test to help determine it. It seems that in antiquity a child was considered to have a soul when he or she was able to think “I AM”. Interestingly that is also the name that the ancient Hebrews said that Moses heard God call him self on the sacred moutn. “RSV Exo 3:14 God said to Moses, "I Am Who I Am." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, `I Am has sent me to you.'"

Exerpt
Before they're 15 months old, babies don't seem to recognize themselves as themselves in the mirror. These young babies stared at their reflections and may have found the face familiar to them, but they didn't react differently when they saw the red spots on their noses. By 24 months, every baby tried to touch or wipe his/her nose. These babies knew that they were the same as the baby in the mirror! They had reached a new level of self-awareness.

Here is the url where the test is located.
http://www.talaris.org/spotlight_embarrassed.htm