Personhood and Abortion Rights

[_Jersey Girl]

This is really silly...It is already possible to sustain a fetus at any age in the whom. To a person that does not want to keep their child, they we terminate it's life or potential for life if they want to.

What does this ^^^even say?

[_Themis]

potential for life

That exists as soon as a women hits puberty, but that doesn't tell us much about person-hood and abortions rights.

[_DoubtingThomas]

DT - You may find this article interesting given your views on the omniscience of science:

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/science-c ... fe-begins/

It has the advantage of being freely accessible, too.

I guess it all depends on how you define human life.

[_honorentheos]

DT - You may find this article interesting given your views on the omniscience of science:

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/science-c ... fe-begins/

It has the advantage of being freely accessible, too.

I guess it all depends on how you define human life.

I thought the article you linked to captures the problem well. It just happens to be behind a pay wall to read the full thing. How it stated the problem, which also happens to be reflected in your OP title -

Most of us would agree that all persons should be assigned the full spectrum of human rights, e.g. rights to life, bodily autonomy, property, etc. But what is a person anyway? When does the human organism developing inside a woman become a person?

- are the better questions. It's been discussed on the board before.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=49301

[_honorentheos]

With the best of technology, a 20-week-old fetus may occasionally be kept alive, but without it even a 36-week-old fetus may perish. In the future it will probably become possible to sustain a human organism in a special artificial incubator from fertilization for a period of nine months, making viability a moot point.

This is really silly...It is already possible to sustain a fetus at any age in the whom. To a person that does not want to keep their child, they we terminate it's life or potential for life if they want to.

A right to choose to abort a pregnancy has been tied to the number of weeks after conception when the ability of a fetus to survive premature birth is high, defining when the law should consider the fetus to be a person with at least some rights. It's been moving closer to conception as the ability of modern medicine to help a prematurely born infant survive has improved. The article argues this is a flawed metric for assigning personhood given the potential technology and modern medicine could advance to the point a mother's womb becomes unnecessary to the process. Would a fertilized egg that was conceived in a lab and gestated to birth at 38 weeks be a person? I think most people would agree the answer is yes. But I'd guess many would also be a bit squeamish about it's implications.

Supposing in this scenario that a power outage occurs and the artificial womb shuts down, effectively ending the ability of the fetus to continue developing. Say it happens around 17 weeks in, long after there is a heartbeat and the sort of things pro-lifers try to force as evidence a woman is killing a baby when they end a pregnancy early but within the period legally allowed today. Is it an act of God and treated like a miscarriage? Or could the event that caused the power outage lead to murder or manslaughter charges if it proved to be human-caused such as a person blowing a breaker trying to use the toaster, the microwave, and blow dry their hair on the same circuit as the artificial womb?

[_subgenius]

Nice to know that you believe I’m a God, but, nope. Try again.

you are confusing "god-like" with "God".

[_canpakes]

Nice to know that you believe I’m a God, but, nope. Try again.

you are confusing "god-like" with "God".

Nice to know that you believe I’m god-like, but, nope. Try again.

[_Markk]

A right to choose to abort a pregnancy has been tied to the number of weeks after conception when the ability of a fetus to survive premature birth is high, defining when the law should consider the fetus to be a person with at least some rights. It's been moving closer to conception as the ability of modern medicine to help a prematurely born infant survive has improved. The article argues this is a flawed metric for assigning personhood given the potential technology and modern medicine could advance to the point a mother's womb becomes unnecessary to the process. Would a fertilized egg that was conceived in a lab and gestated to birth at 38 weeks be a person? I think most people would agree the answer is yes. But I'd guess many would also be a bit squeamish about it's implications.

Supposing in this scenario that a power outage occurs and the artificial womb shuts down, effectively ending the ability of the fetus to continue developing. Say it happens around 17 weeks in, long after there is a heartbeat and the sort of things pro-lifers try to force as evidence a woman is killing a baby when they end a pregnancy early but within the period legally allowed today. Is it an act of God and treated like a miscarriage? Or could the event that caused the power outage lead to murder or manslaughter charges if it proved to be human-caused such as a person blowing a breaker trying to use the toaster, the microwave, and blow dry their hair on the same circuit as the artificial womb?

Purposely terminating life, and removing it from the womb, whether in the first stages of life, or later stages... is different from a accidental power outage. We can justify anything we want and we all do it to different degrees...I guess it comes down to what we can live with as a person.

We can P-hack for any data that will comfort our conscious' for a correct decision. Your benchmark as to what a child is... is different than many if not most in the world, and your evidence is no more concrete and settled than opposing views. A article online, or in a journal is not the end all evidence of the definition of life, nor is a book of faith or religion. They serve as a basis for our ideology, but in the end it is a choice. Laws give a woman the right to choose, but judges with a law degree have no more of a idea as to when life begins as you or I, they are just 9 men or women with the final say, who most the time disagree themselves.

The article stated that as medical science increases, a child can survive out of the womb at a growing earlier age, my point was and is that in the womb, barring a natural problem, a child can survive in the womb from their beginning.

If it survives it is a child, if it does not it is a fetus or less.

[_Kevin Graham]

Funny how Republicans suddenly believe in Socialism and free healthcare.

Why should my tax dollars be spent for the healthcare of millions of women who don't want to give birth? Do you think doctors like working for free you communist scum?

Isn't it funny how Republicans only care about the baby until it is born. From that point on their personal philosophy takes a violent twist: Free healthcare? "It is not my problem their Mom is poor and too lazy to work."

Maybe Democrats should call their bluff on this BS and offer to make abortion illegal after 4 weeks in exchange for universal healthcare for all. See how many Republicans quickly start to ask themselves when a fetus really becomes a "child."

[_Themis]

If it survives it is a child, if it does not it is a fetus.

That is the correct definition. A Fetus is any unborn offspring of a mammal. It is a PR move by those who want to outlaw abortions to redefine these terms to child. It doesn't however do anything with the issue of whether a women should have the right to have an abortion or not. Do you have an argument for why they should or shouldn't be allowed to get an abortion including any exceptions from the two extremes?