Quote:I understand the point you are trying to make, but again, it seems unnecessarily vitriolic to refer to the fetus as a “violator.

I'm sorry you feel it's vitriolic  i simply consider it accurate 

Quote:I’m saying that the fetus is not, and cannot be culpable, contrary to how you’ve colored your rhetoric, intentional or not. I’m not saying that is your position; I’m just explaining how it sounds to me.

And i'm saying does not matter if culpable the result is the same i consider it's presence  violation . I am sorry if i misinterpreted you words . But i'm afraid i don't consider my words rhetoric.

Quote:I will retract the word ‘innocent’ with regard to the fetus.  It was imprecise and smells a bit of an appeal to emotion in retrospect.

 Fair enough i will not hold you to that word 

Quote: I just mean that in situations of unwanted pregnancy, the fetus is not capable of making a moral decision about its presence.

And mean that it does not matter as it does not alter the violation by presence or the drawing upon the woman's resources without her consent .

Quote:Comparing a fully developed, self-sufficient, adult parasite of another species to the fetal stage of human gestation is a false analogy.

 It would be a  false analogy if i were trying to ontologically compare the two more i was pointing out that both organism feed off an unwilling host while themselves being driven by instinct not conscience malice. But both are violating the host and the host has every right to remove them . 

Quote:That creature (ew, btw ?) does not carry the potential for personhood.

Never said it did but that was not what i was arguing .But i don't put much stock in potential arguments every chunk of coal could be a potential diamond should i freeze to preserve it . In a human sense i refer back to my argument from cloning fetuses .

Most humans are aborted (by nature) some time after birth. Only a tiny minority are aborted before birth.

(August 6, 2018 at 4:48 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: A fetus in the womb is not truly separate from the mother carrying it.  Starting from falsehoods only leads to absurdities.

Okay. Sure. Not separate, but clearly distinct.

(August 6, 2018 at 4:48 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: A fetus in the womb is not truly separate from the mother carrying it. Starting from falsehoods only leads to absurdities.

Falsehood? Lol no one is saying a fetus is *physically* separated from the mom. Obviously one is inside the other's uterus. What we are saying is that he/she is another human being other than the mom, not a body part of hers.

If being a collection of human cells was enough to qualify something as a human being, my cheek scrapings would qualify as a human being. HeLa cells have human DNA, does that make them a human being? Surely there is more to being human a human BEING than having human cells.

(August 7, 2018 at 9:32 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: If being a collection of human cells was enough to qualify something as a human being, my cheek scrapings would qualify as a human being. HeLa cells have human DNA, does that make them a human being? Surely there is more to being human a human BEING than having human cells.

I guess your cheek scrapings won't generally have the potential to turn into a human being, but neither does the other collection of cells if it's already considered a human being. So maybe it's to do with the ability to survive, but again, maybe those cheek cells could be kept alive in the right conditions. Those baby cells would die off too if not kept correctly.

(August 7, 2018 at 9:32 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: If being a collection of human cells was enough to qualify something as a human being, my cheek scrapings would qualify as a human being. HeLa cells have human DNA, does that make them a human being? Surely there is more to being human a human BEING than having human cells.

They will try and argue that it has unique DNA .This is unconvincing refer back to my clone argument and the argument of difference by degree . 

They will appeal to it's homeostasis .And opponent can simply point out it's codependent  

They will point to brainwaves but even from a neurological perspective that does not equal awareness

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Quote:Okay. Sure. Not separate, but clearly distinct.

But distinct enough for it to matter

There is enough heresy in this thread to gag Jesus . . . .

So while I don’t condone infanticide this does bring up a few interesting ideas: what is personhood? And are babies “persons” in the same way older humans are?

And yes, if you rely on personhood as your justification for abortion then it could be argued that infanticide is morally permissible. But I think that’s a less interesting discussion. This is partially because I abhor killing anything, and infanticide is particularly difficult to justify.