A foetus is not a `potential life', it IS life. Laws are there to protect life. New laws are being made that have made it possible to prosecute someone for double homicide if they kill a pregnant woman.

Now, I have completely changed my tune on `life begins at conception' since being pregnant. I still believe that life begins at heartbeat (around six weeks after conception) but after that it's life, and that's all there is to it. If it's got a beating heart, it's alive.

Whether it could live outside it's mother is a different issue - but it's still ALIVE regardless.

Whether the government has a right to intervene in the abortion issue is also a different issue. Again, since being pregnant, my mind wavers a little on this one.

Ultimately, I'm still pro-choice. But that doesn't mean I have to like abortion, condone it, think it's right, want to do it or want to encourage it.

To all those men out there who will never have a baby, hard for you to comment with any experience. To all those women out there who might not have had one yet - same deal. It should be noted (because it's valid) that what happens to you during pregnancy is one of the most surreal and amazing things ever. Once you've experienced it, I don't suggest that your mind will change about becoming pro-choice, but you'll think about it in an entirely different way. You will. No doubt about it.

__________________
We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs, but we still can't just behave ourselves. Even if to save our own lives, we are a brutal kind. The Shins

A 6 week old embryo cannot survive without the mother. How is it a life? There is no way of knowing that a healthy baby will be born, so right up until birth, that fetus is only ever a potential life, despite the fact it's heart is beating.

__________________
Sharon Marie Tate: January 24 1943 - 9 August 1969
Forever Remembered

Actually not right up until birth at all. I am 22 weeks pregnant and if my baby was born for some reason tomorrow it would have a very good chance of survival. 22 weeks is only barely half way to birth.

Let me rephrase it another. If not `life', what would you call it?

__________________
We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs, but we still can't just behave ourselves. Even if to save our own lives, we are a brutal kind. The Shins

A 1 month old baby cannot survive without aid, yet it is still life. What has wether or not knowing if the baby is going to healthy or not got to do with it being alive. It is alive, it is growing using nutrients it is a living being.

My answer to the last quote is again 'potential life'. You have no way of knowing if you will miscarry tomorrow, do you? If you did, there is no life, is there?
By the way, at 22 weeks a fetus has stuff all chances of living. Less than 50%. Two weeks from now, though, those chances will improve.

Congrats on the pregnancy, by the way.

__________________
Sharon Marie Tate: January 24 1943 - 9 August 1969
Forever Remembered

[quote]If someone miscarries it does not mean there was no life there, it means the life died naturally it was not, brought about by the actions of the mother.

So it's okay to kill the child because it has only a 50% chance of surviving, this doesd not sound reasonable to me.

Well, no, not after a miscarriage. But before one there's life. That's a silly thing to say. If there is no life before a miscarriage, nobody would care if they miscarried - because they wouldn't have been losing a life.

Thanks.

By the way, at 22 weeks the foetus has a just fine chance of living. It may need medical assistance, but there's plenty chance there. Less than 50% is still one in two. That's kind of more than `stuff all'.

I work in medicine, and have done for seven years. I am pregnant. I have seen several babies survive perfectly well after such an early-term delivery.

Regardless of this fact, anyway, they are still alive until they die. Ergo, it's life.

Am I right in assuming that you actually don't really want children? You seem to have a particularly callous attitude towards them - which kind of spins me out for a woman. Not criticising you at all - your choices are your own - but some of your assertions are plain absurd.

__________________
We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs, but we still can't just behave ourselves. Even if to save our own lives, we are a brutal kind. The Shins

It is most certainly alive.


Everybody dies at some point, that doesn't mean they weren't alive before then. [I can't believe I have to explain this]

Exactly - how can you die if you weren't alive?

In medicine, a fetal pole (about five - six weeks gestation) is referred to as a `live' entity. Literally, the word `live'. I can quote my first ultrasound if anyone doesn't believe me.

I've asked this question before but haven't received an answer - if it isn't alive, then what is it? How would you term it's state of being?

__________________
We've got rules and maps and guns in our backs, but we still can't just behave ourselves. Even if to save our own lives, we are a brutal kind. The Shins

I am of the belief that it must be alive in some way, or else it would never be born. At the same time, it is not a life like you or me, but a different life, and still only a potential life at that. It is a life but at the same time it isn't. Hard to explain, but there you go. I do not believe it is the same kind of life as all us here debating the subject, it is simply not the same thing, and is vastly different to all of us.


Some assertions from pro lifers are absurd and misinformative, too.
You are wrong. I do want children, very much, in fact. I do not know how I will feel when pregnant, but I know that no matter what, I will not see my unborn child as a person until it is born. Most pro choicers feel the same way.

__________________
Sharon Marie Tate: January 24 1943 - 9 August 1969
Forever Remembered