Too many points so I’ll address just one. The point at which the baby is a person is not uncertain - it’s 22 weeks. That’s the point the medical community sees it as viable, that’s the earliest point they feel it can be delivered and survive. One of my children was born at 24 weeks. Babies are born at that point and they are human babies that respond like a baby. Anyone who has been in a neonatal ICU knows it. That’s why the various prolife legislation sets 22 or 24 weeks as the cutoff point. So it’s a person at 22weeks. But that’s set because of medical ability, it’s a practical limit. Its a person at 22 weeks, it becomes a person before 22 weeks.
Viability isn't the same as personhood. There is no generally agreement what actually does determine personhood. Some people will indeed suggest viability but others will suggest conception, implantation, heartbeat, full term or birth and there are (long running) arguments for and against pretty much all of those. And even viability isn't as definitive as you suggest. While there is the general point that it is considered that a baby born will survive (though not necessarily healthily or for long) but there are still variations either way based on a vast range of factors individual to a mother and feotus. Also, actual calculation of gestation length isn't certain and can be days or even weeks out depending on when and how it is determined. And with all that, as you pointed out yourself, a key factor is medical ability, which is massively impacted by available resources. If you're determining individual personhood on that basis, wouldn't you be saying that a 22 week foetus in a top class modern hospital is a person but the same foetus in a remote developing world village isn't? It's is also open to question whether personhood (however defined) should be an automatic limit on abortion, especially given even you are allowing for one exception and there are plenty of other situations where innocent people can have their lives legitimately ended in certain circumstances. It can be a relevant consideration and even a major factor, but I'm not sure we can simply say that alone determines the line. That has nothing to do with viability (or personhood), that's just an instinctive emotional response. A baby born at 21 weeks, who is technically not a person for seven days by your argument, but would probably trigger an even stronger emotional response. So can a cute kitten or puppy too.
You misunderstood my post, or maybe I was not clear. I was not claiming viability is the threshold for personhood. Personhood is not determined by viabiity. Viability just provides the opportunity for people to interact with 22 week babies because thats the earliest hospitals will deliver a baby - and that means people have personal interaction with 22 week babies and determined these are people. Its a person at 22 weeks, it *becomes* a person before 22 weeks. Its a person before its viable.
Yes, I must have misunderstood you saying the key question is "when does the baby become a person?" and when I said that can't be answered, your answer being "The point at which the baby is a person is not uncertain - it’s 22 weeks. That’s the point the medical community sees it as viable". If you're not saying viability determines personhood but are still saying personhood is the key question, I'm not sure on what basis you're suggesting viability as the hard-and-fast line for abortion. I can't help seeing you slowly talking yourself in to the same position I've reached, that there is no easy answer to this question and no simply rule that could be realistically applied across the board. That's why it's such a difficult issue to address.
I did not say viability was the test for personhood, reread my last post. Babies have been delivered at 22 weeks because they are viable. Delivery allows these babies to be evaluated and seen to be people. We have a data point at 22 weeks, at that point it’s a person. If it’s a person at 22 weeks then it became a person between conception and 22 weeks. I never said viability is the limit for abortion, I have stated I believe it’s a person at conception and abortion is murder with only one exception (life of the mother).
So, you agree with Indiana's move to go after the doctor involved in the abortion for a 10yo rape victim? How much risk of life does a 10yo have to have?
I don't agree at all. What is "significant risk"? Who judges that? The doctor? The prosecutor going after the doctor? How are other medical issues integrated into the prosecutor's decision to prosecute?
Then the entire viability point you brought up is irrelevant. You believe abortion should be illegal (other than to save the mothers life) as soon as the foetus is a person and you believe that occurs at conception. That is a very simple position that can be explained without all of the side points you added. The fundamental problem is that not everyone agrees with you on either of those points. Also, actually implementing such a policy would be highly impractical giving the wide and diverse range of circumstances actually involved.
Those are not the questions you asked me. My opinion is that abortion should be permitted only if the life of the mother is significantly at risk. "Significant risk" is subjective, but I would say more than 20% chance of death of the mother as determined by the physician (and teh physicians opinoin has to justified if reviewed by a board of physicians).
I wonder if you actually read the posts. You completely miss the point. The question was "when is it a person?", you said that could not be determined. I answered with a factual data point - at 22 weeks it is a person. How do we know that data point? We know because hospitals will deliver babies at 22 weeks, which means these babies can be evaluated outside the womb. That evaluation shows these babies are people. So at 22 weeks it is a person, therefore sometime between conception and 22 weeks, it becomes a person. 100% of people do not have to agree with me. In contentious issues like abortion, some people will never accept facts that do not align with their myopic vision. The policy that abortion is permitted only if the life of the mother is significanty at risk is not difficult to implement. As I just posted to another person, "significant risk" is more than 20% chance of death of the mother as determined by the physician (and the physicians opinion has to be justified if reviewed by a board of physicians). Only the risk to the mother is the factor to be evaluated.
I get the point, I'm missing the relevance. Your own question was actually "when does the baby become a person?" and that is the specific question I'm saying we don't have an answer to. In practical terms, "Some time between conception and 22 weeks" is no more of an answer than "Some time between conception and birth". I'm not saying they're not persons of course, but I'm curious exactly what objective evaluation and measures you're suggesting determines that as a fact? How is that relevant to the overall topic when you're also declaring (without any reasoning) that personhood occurs at conception? It's a bit like Henry Ford's "You can have any colour as long as it's black". That's what I'm trying to get you to recognise. I'm not the one claiming to have the definitive answer to this whole issue. I agree that we don't need to (and can't) get everyone to agree but we need to achieve some kind of consensus or compromise. The major issue with this kind of topic is the extremists at both ends are unwilling to even consider any compromise. It's easy to write, not necessarily easy to implement. Even if you think this would be the best overall policy, can't you at least acknowledge that there would be all sorts of difficult situations created, with serious medical situations that don't quite meet your "risk to the life of the mother" definition, complex social and psychological situations (such as the 10 year old abuse victim from Ohio who made headlines recently) and all of the illegal and back-alley situations that are know to come in to play under any kind of strict abortion laws? I struggle to have respect for anyone who claims to have the perfect answer, where all the vast and diverse aspects and complications are somehow addressed, regardless of what that answer may be. If it was so easy and obvious, we would have done it already and this wouldn't be a multi-decade and ongoing major debate. No doctor can make such a definitive measure of life expectancy for an individual patient, and no competent doctor would when the consequences would be so significant and definitive. They may well quote chances or odds to help patients (or NOK) make medical decisions, but they will always be (and should be presented as) generalised estimates rather than definitive promises.
I’ll just address the last point you made. Doctors can and do make percentage estimates. Of course they are *estimates* and not hard calculations. I’ve seen it many times. It’s interesting that your replies address a multitude of facets of the issue but you can’t seem to follow my replies when I address more than one facet. Even when I limit it to just one item you seem to see it through your own lens. Just my opinion, but it’s frustrating and counterproductive.
Yes, but they're only provided as part of the information for patients or NOK to help them make their own medical decisions. That is very different from using such estimates as a hard and fast rule permitting or refusing a particular medical treatment based alone on whether doctors say something is 19% or 20% likely. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the fundamental issue. That takes ages if we go back and forth on each and every element in isolation, especially if the answer on one element renders others irrelevant anyway. The key point is that your stated position is that personhood starts at conception and so that should be where abortion restrictions start. Nothing you've posted here really addresses that position at all. If you want to focus on one point, please choose that one.
FoxHastings said: ↑ NOPE, the Pro-Choice side does not , and HAS NOT, pushed for elective abortions until birth. They accepted the limit since 1973.... Yes, there may be some who want that but they certainly are not the majority.. And THEY are not as extreme and anti-Woman as the majority of Anti-Choicers who want to ban abortion entirely. And Pro-Choicers do NOT, unlike Anti-Choicers, post thread after thread after thread proposing that. ABORTION FOR MEDICAL REASONS IF Anti-Choicers are against that then they very much wants women to die from pregnancy and childbirth by being forced to gestate even if it means dying.
A fetus becomes VIABLE at 22-23 weeks THAT DOES NOT GIVE IT PERSONHOOD !!!! PERSONHOOD COMES AT BIRTH. IF it is a person a BEFORE birth then the woman can kill it at any time since no PERSON has the right to use another's body to sustain their life.....NO one can harm another without their consent. YOU want the fetus whether it 's a person or not to have more rights than women ....why don't you want women to have the same rights YOU have????
How much risk of death a woman has to accept is something that she must have a say in. Also, death is not the only negative outcome. Plus, what the chance of death might be is something that isn't measurable like one would measure an ingredient in a recipe. The laws that Republicans are writing and have written today do not have the features that you propose.
I never said the mother has no say, even if her life is at risk she decides whether to have or not to have an abortion. The only item that is in pro-life legislation that I have mentioned is the 22 week cutoff. And as I've stated there is a pretty solid reason for 22 weeks.
Not true. I've tried to male it clear that the upper limit on personhood is 22 weeks. There is a great difference between 0-22 weeks and 0-birth (40 weeks). Trhee basic reasons I claim personhood is at conception: We don't know definitively when the baby is a person and so we must err on the side of caution and assume its a person at conception. Thats based on western legal philosophy and medical philosophy. Western law at its heart believes innocent until proven guilty, and follows the idea from William Blackstone that its better 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent be punished. The baby has not committed any crime - in fact it has done nothing at all including even asking to come into this world - and cannot be punished with the death penalty. The legal system partly recognizes this status of personhood when its made illegal for a mother to harm the baby by drinking alcohol. Second, the medical oath is based on "first do no harm". Clearly killing the baby is doing great harm. Third, the pregnancy if left to its natural course will certainly become a human being. The fact that its helpless, requires care, feeding, etc. is not valid to deny its personhood. One example is Stephen Hawking, he requires total care 24/7, can't do anything himself, he is basically a fetus that can talk (although nobody can understand his actual speech any longer). In fact Hawking will never improve, while teh fetus constantly improves.
See, that was a whole load of back and forth for you end up to agreeing with me. Only if it's the concept of personhood that is the be-all and end-all of the question though. Anyway, your arguments aren't really about personhood at all, they're just directly arguments against abortion. They're not even bad arguments, it's just taken us so long to get to them.
There is essentially zero resistance to the idea that there should be no discretionary abortions of viable fetuses. I do not believe that a count of weeks is good enough to determine whether a fetus is viable. Whether a fetus is viable is a medical decision - not a count of weeks. Plus, there is still risk to the life and wellbeing of the pregnant women even if her fetus is viable. As for who likes this viability limit, I'd point out that radical antiabortion proponent Justice Alito says every fetus “has an interest in having a life” and asking “that doesn’t change, does it, from the point before viability to the point after viability?” Those fighting against abortion do not want any impediments to how they choose to write laws against women. That comment came during oral argument for the current Mississippi case before the SC.
Viability is not the measure of personhood. I brought up viability because that’s when hospitals will deliver a baby. That point is 22 weeks. That means babies are born at 22 weeks, and that means those babies can be evaluated outside the womb. It’s clear to people who interact with them that that are people. Therefore it’s a person at 22 weeks and the point at which it becomes a person was before 22 weeks. It was a person before being viable.
Even if it was deemed a "person" ( and let's see you get an SSN for a fetus ) what does that mean? Did you mistakenly think that a "person" can use another's body to sustain it's life? YOU can't , nobody can, so why should a fetus have that super right? Did you think this "person" can harm another without their consent? YOU can't, nobody can....why do you want a fetus to have more rights than any other "person"?
I don't know what your point is here. 22 weeks is not a hard and fast rule. Birth has occurred earlier. And, birth can certainly happen later. But, more than that there is pretty much full agreement that a viable fetus should not be aborted without there being serious medical issues.
