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

Fair enough, as long as there's equal parity of reproductive rights, with both parents being able to opt out (or not) within the same time period after a conception occurs.

 

At what age can a born child even fathom the very concept of being alive? Why should a newborn or toddler be considered a person if they can't even contemplate and reflect on their own existence?

 

The minute it starts to see, feel, and hear on it's own it is learning about life. Babies don't have to be philosophers. But they can think and feel.

A fetus has no basis for thoughts or feelings...

Newborns and toddlers are considered persons because they are born, not dependent on another body to sustain their life....and I mean physically connected, NOT "caregiver" feeding it...

 

At around the age of two, children start learning about the world. The concept of being alive starts when they start having thoughts of their own.

The ability to be alive however, starts the moment they've been born. The ability to see, hear and feel, but not necessarily think just yet.

 

As long as there is the potential for death from complications of gestation, then the Mother has final say. And as ANY and ALL pregnancies can result in the death of the mother, it is her decision until that umbilical chord is cut.

The day a stranger dies from complications of another woman's pregnancy, we can revisit that opinion.

 

Not the same thing. Its her body and her decision even if she is in another mans castle.

 

All fetuses are human beings, and therefore persons.

 

So anyone with disabilities that prevent hearing, seeing, feeling, is killable as a non person?

Newborns are completely dependent on another person.

 

In the thirteenth century, Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that a soul enters the body at 40 days after conception for males and 80 days for females. That became church doctrine for many centuries, and abortion before that time of ensoulment was not considered a mortal sin. The belief that life begins at conception apparently has its origins in an 1869 decree by Pope Pius IX that abortion at any point in pregnancy was cause for excommunication

 

So what? You have no point to make here. It is indisputable that all human lives begin at conception.

 

Nope , that's not the way it works

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
The minute it starts to see, feel, and hear on it's own it is learning about life. Babies don't have to be philosophers. But they can think and feel.

A fetus has no basis for thoughts or feelings...

Newborns and toddlers are considered persons because they are born, not dependent on another body to sustain their life....and I mean physically connected, NOT "caregiver" feeding it...

Newborns
"""not dependent on another body to sustain their life""" ...uh, duh, there is a big difference between being inside a woman, being attached to her PHYSICALLY and using her body to sustain it's life AND the FACT that ANYONE can sustain a newborns life.

I'm sorry you are confused about pregnancy, let me know if you need more help understanding what it is...

 

Eye contact

 

So what?

 

needs to be born, like in the bible, take that first breath of life

what does the bible say about abortion....

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html

 

See? There are many adult humans who cannot see.
Hear? What about adults who are deaf?
Hellen Keller obviously wouldn't apply as human according to your criteria.
"feel"? In what sense of the word? Fetuses can feel.

 

The woman is physically connected to the fetus too, I'll point out.
It would go both ways.

A pregnant woman with polio, in an iron lung machine, is both physically connected to another human being, and dependent on someone else.

Could you explain why the person they're connected to and the person they are dependent on have to be the same person?

 

Let me give just one more example. Conjoined twins who share the same heart.
Both physically connected and dependent on the other.

Well that's a case where the connection may be life-long and permanent. A woman with a fetus is only going to be connected for a couple months.

Do you think it should be legally okay for one twin to kill the other twin?
Maybe go to a black market surgeon to perform the separation, and make sure only one of the twins get the heart.

Think it would be okay if the other twin fell into a temporary coma and couldn't give their consent?

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
The minute it starts to see, feel, and hear on it's own it is learning about life. Babies don't have to be philosophers. But they can think and feel.

A fetus has no basis for thoughts or feelings...

As usual you cherry picked the post to make it appear to say what you want it to....and it didn't.

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
Newborns and toddlers are considered persons because they are born, not dependent on another body to sustain their life....and I mean physically connected,

And I'll point out that the woman does NOT depend on the fetus to sustain her life...the fetus depends on the woman to sustain it's life...so it does NOT go both ways.

The fetus is NOT sustaining her life.

Uh, duh, that's usually how it works in pregnancy...only one, though, is a person.

Good GAWD!....A woman can live on her own without the fetus, a fetus cannot live on it's own without the woman....


It's pretty DAMN BASIC science...

 

I work with kids from messed up homes all the time. You can apply your logic to the thousands of lives in patient care centers today....you have no moral high ground. You want to go in there and gas them because it would be convenient for a lot of folks? I would think not. You have not quite yet bought into that concept.....but yes. it is coming! Respect for human life has nothing to do with a developed intellect. Women are born with both a great blessing and a great responsibility. They have the ability to bring life into the world. If they want to demean the process they shirk the responsibility. Men have an equal responsibility. Unfortunately it is easy for them to duck out and leave the gal holding the bag. The answer??? Family. Plain and simple. Fathers (men) need to love and cherish their daughters. They need to be protectors and teachers. They need to model love for their daughters so daughters will know what it really is. Then they will understand the responsibility that goes with their ability to bring life into the world.

 

There's a difference between developed intellect, and having any kind of conscious existence. It is ridiculous to try to equate actual, feeling, thinking persons with a pre-consciousness fetus. It's like trying to give rights to somebody's appendix to not be removed. Sure, it is comprised of living cells, but since it has no mind of its own, destroying it is not immoral except with regards to the person it is attached to. Same for a pre-conscious fetus.

 

Excuse me... But your

""" Plain and simple. Fathers (men) need to love and cherish their daughters. They need to be protectors and teachers. They need to model love for their daughters so daughters will know what it really is. Then they will understand the responsibility that goes with their ability to bring life into the world"""

..sounds mighty like promoting incest.

 

Legally speaking, Human =\= Person.

In fact, Humans are technically subject to Laws while Persons are technically subject to legalities.

For example, John Smith Johnson is the lawfull name of a human.

-JOHNSON, JOHN S.
-John JOHNSON
-J. S. Johnson
-Johnson, John Smith
-etc... are all legal manufactures based on (but not lawfully representative of) John Smith Johnson. They are personas of John Smith Johnson that only technically exist on paper, much in the same way that Corporations do.

Im not a lawyer and Im not fluent in 'Legalese', but If you research 'sovereign citizen court cases won' on any media but google, you'll find some interesting rulings.

(disclaimer: Im not advocating for the sovereign citizen ideology: its fundamentally flawed resting on the translated name 'king-slave' such as it does, but thats the common terminology applied to this sort of knowledge and the most reliable way to research it that I've yet found)

There are also some interesting (not in a good way) games that the Bush administration played regarding the relationship of difference between persons and humans as it applies to abortion. The short version is: they made it easier for abortion 'leftovers' to be used for research purposes while promising their constituents they wouldn't by talking about humans and legislating persons.

There really is an entirely different language being spoken in our court rooms...

 

There is a soul and it often resists the abortionists knife. So....you ignore my comment about comatose people. Why do we keep them alive? I know, because there is a chance they will regain consciousness. So it is with the unborn. If they are not cut to pieces they most definitely experience consciousness. It is interesting how you play God.