Probably because pro-"lifers" keep obsessively bringing the subject up. Then why are dolphins and apes also considered as people? They certainly aren't human, but yet considered as people. Something tells me it has nothing to do with belonging to the human race, but instead an overall general attribute.
If it really doesn't matter whether an abortion kills a child or not? Why can't you just agree that it does.... and then we can move on an debate the other aspects? Or do you actually like being shown the pictures, definitions and legal cases which are chipping away at your denials? I would like to see some evidence to support this claim please. Okay... Not sure how you've reached that conclusion... but.. Okay.
If you want to call it the Queen of England, be my guest, but whether we agree to call it a child or not has no affect on the ethics or morality of abortion. Your argument depends on it, mine doesn't. This mentality is really no different than people using the Dred Scot case to prove that black slaves were property. You made the mistake of believing personhood is based on human exceptionalism, and not a global attribute found amongst a handful of other species. Switzerland recognizes the great apes as beings. New Zealand granted basic rights to five great ape species in 1999. Now, in 2013, India officially recognized dolphins as persons. Just goes to show the subjectivity of the personhood; a subject which pro-"lifers" think they hold the high ground in.
You say that^ Yet you won't actually say that you agree with the fact that an abortion kills a child. Or using Roe as proof that an abortion doesn't kill a child? Where? Show me. Though they are not HUMAN beings, I would agree that they actually ARE beings. A child in the womb is "a HUMAN being." And here in the U.S. Corporations have long been held as Constitutional PERSONS. Your point is? Subjective aspects of other types of 'personhood' aside, it all comes down to the same thing. Our laws say that a "person" is "a human being" and a child in the womb (even in the first days of their life) IS one.
Historically it has been at birth. At that point the fetus can sustain its own life without physical attachment to the woman. No one has a right to life at the expense of another.
We call it a fetus because that's what it is. And it has nothing to do with "looking like me". If you take a person, burn him over 95% of his body, chop off his arms and legs, paint him bright neon green, and teach him to communicate with tongue clicks, we would still consider that a person. Why? Because they were born.
The man in your avatar, Rick Santorum, said he considers CONTRACEPTION to be "dangerous"......yet I would guess you think he is "mainstream", right?
Using vague language is a disservice to our discussion. Why not just call it a carbon based life form? I don't see how that would be possible, considering you are the one using a law to support your belief, much like the slavers did with Dred Scot. If the government states that a tomato is a vegetable, then it is a vegetable, right? Did you not argue that a zygote is a person because it is a human being? Just checking to make sure my perception is correct. Just the subjectivity of it all. If corporations can be people and if non-human animals can be people, what does that tell you? And once, our laws stated that slaves weren't people but property.
And they said the same thing about "(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)s." Once again, the target group and term changes but the argument does not. This is actually a worse argument because you are now acknowledging that your definition of personhood is merely based on geography. Which means that a child delivered prematurely at 5 months is a "person" whereas a 9 month old a mere 5 minutes from delivery still is not. Where is the logic in that? By this criterion, personhood just becomes a race to see how quickly one can escape the womb. In which case it's actually better to be born early before one is even able to sustain oneself than to utilize the entire intended gestation period to develop fully. Because one is more likely to be protected under law as an under-developed premie with potential health complications than a fully developed healthy child. Pretty sick, indeed.
Say it with me now ... "a child in the womb (or any other land animal) is a carbon based life form." In at least that one - LEGAL - context. It would be a vegetable. What you are either missing or you are in complete denial of - is this. A 'human being' in the womb is a child in MORE than just the legal sense (as defined in Fetal Homicide Laws). They are children (young member of their species) in the BIOLOGICAL sense too. A human being in the zygote stage of their life is "a human being" and as a human being, they are (by legal definition) a "person". That is correct. That is also what makes it possible to charge someone with MURDER for illegally killing one. I don't think your perception is the problem. How can you be smart enough to perceive that it would be so 'wrong' to call a tomato a vegetable... but you can't perceive that it is just as 'wrong' (absurd) to legally define a child in the womb as something less than what IT is?
Not sure what word you used that got censored. The arguments are not the same at all either. Those in favor of slavery never showed with any objectivity why a black person should be a slave of a white person. They had no case, because the entire institution of slavery was based on money, control, and keeping those whom the elite considered less than savory from ever being able to move beyond their caste. Slavery and abortion are not related topics and you discredit yourself every time you comically try to compare them. No, my definition of personhood is based on the traits of a person being present. A person is an independent entity. A fetus is not. That right there eliminates any chances of personhood. And you're right about your analogy. The 5 month premature child, once born, becomes a person because it is no longer an dependent entity. The child in utero till 5 minutes before birth is not a person because it has remained a dependent connected part of it's mother's body. It's not just geography, it's the entire basis of your existence. People don't live inside other people. But hey, if you're so concerned with personhood, head on over to my thread and answer the two questions in the OP. http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=320020
Because in changing locations, you're also changing the very nature of your existence. In a womb, you're a dependent. Outside of a womb, you are independent. Also, saying it's just "location" is horribly misleading. Being inside and outside of a womb are not interchangeable "locations". Being in or outside of one signals more than just the fact that you "moved".
You see, no matter how much you want to debate about the usage of the word, this discussion is entirely irrelevant. It is just another side show attraction, although the most popular one, on the way to discussing abortion rights. We should be analyzing the merits of the unborn instead of trying to define them. Because even if we agree that the unborn are people, there is still no moral problem in aborting them. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, which is upheld as the authority of the Enlgish language, a child in the biological sense is one which falls between birth and puberty. However, I know this will not disuade you from continously having to misuse the word to redefine the unborn. As you have already stated, recognizing the unborn as a child is a part of your overall strategy. How does the saying go again? Something about bringing a horse to water, I think. If the destruction of a zygote is murder, then shouldn't we prevent people from having children naturally in the first place? An untold number of "children" die during procreation when they either fail to implant or are destroyed by the woman's immune system, certainly, for such a supporter of "children's rights", you should advocate a better way to have these children survive implantation. I imagine you view sex as much of a moral abomination as abortion. Why should these poor "children" be put at risk? In the realm of culinary, a tomato is upheld as a vegetable, so that may have some traction. However, the only time when the unborn needs to be called a child is within the confines of the abortion debate.
Playing the "Personhood" card derails any further discussion, as the sets the debate into the realm of opinion rather than established reality. \One person decides a cell is a person (extreme example), the next decide a born human is a person (another extreme)......the middle ground no longer exists for discussion. The discussion ends before it can begin.
I don't think the idea that a born human is a person is extreme, because that's what it always has been. "Person" has always meant "man, woman or child," even though some people tried to change it for their slavery agenda, and now others are trying to change it for an anti-choice agenda. We don't have to change the meaning of "person" to restrict late term abortions.
Yes, but many pro-choicers here believe abortion should still be allowed, even if it is a person. So there is still room for argument.
Just the Plan B pill, which can also happen to be used to abort a 6 week old fetus, not just zygotes for which the pill was intended.
