Question to pro-choicers: what traits does a fetus need to be considered a person?

I have no idea what you mean by "moral value".

I don't believe they are wrong, at 23 weeks a fetus is viable, able to be sustained outside of the woman's body. You can't change science.

 

No, but that statement sure highlights the FACT that you could NOT address the rest of his thoughtful post :





"""""""""""""Like Fox said, that's a nonsense question, as a fetus can't be a person, by definition. People are born, by definition. That's how all human societies have defined it over all of human history.

If you want to change that, you'll have to do better than "BECAUSE I SAY SO!". You'll have to demonstrate why your new system is vastly superior. That will be difficult, being that your new system is so confusing. Biology is messy, and it's not kind to pro-life beliefs. Birth was chosen because it's very practical, because it's such a clear dividing line. Make that clear line fuzzy, and all heck breaks loose.

So, would you care to rephrase the question so that it makes sense?

I agree that sentience is not a good dividing line, being that's fuzzy as well, and it raises bad issues of whether born people are really people. That's why I don't talk about it, except to refute bogus pro-life claims about it. I don't talk about viability for similar reasons.

DNA, of course, is a non-issue. Basing personhood on DNA is scary eugenics thinking. What happens if someone decides your DNA is inferior?""""""""

 

Absolutely not. Sucking is a reflex action.


...and that doesn't make it a person with rights.

 

Irrelevant and shows you have no good answer.

What about them?

They are BORN persons who need artificial means to survive.

 

Why do you say it's inconsistent to value an adult bald eagle over a single-celled zygote? You haven't demonstrated any inconsistency on my part. You're tossing out more bogus claims and refusing to back them up in any way.

Like I said, you'll have to do better than "BECAUSE I SAY SO!", but it's all you've given us so far.

And are you going to address the actual issues I brought up? Nah, you won't, because you can't.

 

Moral value means it is something that is immoral to destroy on its own merits. Persons are considered to have a very high amount of moral value. Non human animals are typically considered to have less, but not none. A preconscious fetus has none, like somebody's appendix.

You can change science when we're talking about technology. When we have the ability to grow embryos into babies outside of the female body, it will not change their moral value. Babies born at 23 weeks do die on their own, it's just technology that keeps them alive. It shouldn't suddenly become illegal to destroy embryos once we can grow them outside of the female body.

 

"Significant Brain Function" .. The reason I use this as my bar is because if a living human does not have this - the plug is pulled and the dirt nap begins. The patient is clinically dead according to the coroner's definition.

Significant Brain Function is rather well understood and well established. Without getting into a lot of technical jargon - which I can do if you like - it is when the wiring of the brain is completed and the brain then lights up like a xmas tree. The patterns can be easily recognizable by an EEG - Electroencephalogram.

Those that claim "there is electrical activity before this" either lack understanding or are being disingenuous. Every cell has measurable electrical activity. There is a big difference between this and significant brain function.

Prior to this point it is considered impossible for the fetus to feel pain or have thoughts/ sentience.

 

Well morals should have nothing to do with it since morals are fluid and change from person to person and even then people's morals change from day to day and general morals change from era to era …. a flimsy thing to base laws on..

 

It can be a person from the instant it is conceived.

That doesn’t matter. No person has the right to use the body of another person against their will.

 

Perfect response to that nonsense of an OP.

However , Anti-Choicers see a way around that.

By taking away women's right to their own body they can declare that a woman, like a slave , is not a full citizen so can be forced to sustain the life of anyone they choose.

 

You may consider it a person any time you wish. As long as your opinion is never allowed inside someones uterus.

Follow up question: Of those kids that will never see the inside of a loving home and never feel what it is like to be cherished, what attributes do they have to have for you to consider them worthy of you caring about them?

 

If the adoption market is any judge, we already know what attributes those are: basically any baby that's healthy & perfect, oh, and that's not too brown.
But even then, the U.S. was importing a lot of babies from Guatemala before the Recession, so I guess even many of these brown babies were wanted.

Why are we allowing healthy & perfect babies to be aborted?

Why did the U.S. have to import babies from Guatemala if there was a surplus of babies nobody wanted?

P.S. does personhood depend on whether they are wanted?

 

The US was importing babies? Like goods??

How do you know they're healthy and perfect and why do they need to be IF ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS ??????????

Why are you asking such a silly question?

 

Because the cuteness factor wears off quickly once they are born. The level of caring diminishes as the level of needed care increases. That's why people claiming to care about these precious little lives only care when it requires no effort on their part. That level of caring only exists when the baby is in the womb. Interesting how babies in the womb get all the attention while those in the system are invisible.

 

Not only that, people were paying $30,000 for them. Technically they weren't being sold, these were just "adoption fees".

 

Here, the state will pay you to adopt.

 

So you think women should be forced to gestate so someone can make a profit on babies?

Now, be brave and address the rest of the post you cherry picked:


Katz:

How do you know they're healthy and perfect and why do they need to be IF ALL LIFE IS PRECIOUS ??????????




Katz

Why are you asking such a silly question?

 

I'm pro-choice myself, but before 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, death rates from abortions launch into orbit due to complications from surgery and other factors such as stress, trauma and hormonal imbalances.

The fetus is human the moment the egg gets fertilized. However, it is not a life I intend to value over the already living mother. Especially not if the mother herself does not want the child, and I am not interested in forcing a mother to conceive a child let alone take care of a child she does not want. Hence "pro-choice". I am for the mother to be able to choose at her leisure if she wants a child and feels ready for it, or not.

I would also suggest people start taking care of the 2.5 million homeless children in America before you start worrying about the ones who haven't even been born yet.
https://www.air.org/center/national-center-family-homelessness

 

Interesting concept. Perhaps, from a religious perspective of course, one might feel that God has given the choice to not allow NARAL members to have life. The same logic you promote can be followed here.

 

So if we want to use our own intelligence why don't we start culling some of those 2.5 million homeless? It's your logic!

 

I like your post and agree with you except for your abortion death rates, they don't soar after 12 weeks. Most abortions are done by week 18 and women aren't dying from them. They were when abortion was outlawed.

 

Yakamaru said: ↑
I'm pro-choice myself, but before 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, death rates from abortions launch into orbit due to complications from surgery and other factors such as stress, trauma and hormonal imbalances.

The fetus is human the moment the egg gets fertilized. However, it is not a life I intend to value over the already living mother. Especially not if the mother herself does not want the child, and I am not interested in forcing a mother to conceive a child let alone take care of a child she does not want. Hence "pro-choice". I am for the mother to be able to choose at her leisure if she wants a child and feels ready for it, or not.

I would also suggest people start taking care of the 2.5 million homeless children in America before you start worrying about the ones who haven't even been born yet.
https://www.air.org/center/national-center-family-homelessness

What! NO where in that post did the poster advocate for killing homeless people. And there is no logic in saying they did.

 

Did you read what I wrote, or are you just assuming my position and course of action based on nothing more than your predetermined assumptions?

Never did I ever state we should harm them. In fact, I stated the opposite: Take care of. As in, find a home for them. Try reading next time?

 

I read your post perfectly. It appears you use the premise there are 2.5 million homeless children, so that justifies culling children from the womb. Since you are playing God with life (as you explain the unborn is human life) your logic might seem to say we should burn the candle at both ends then we would make for a better world!

 

A soul.

And thus lies the crux of the issue- a subjective, unprovable, untestable dynamic.