New Iowa Law Restricts Abortion To Before Most Women Know They're Pregnant

[LadyForCamus]

The comparison lies in the fact that I see fetuses and acorns as being potential humans and trees, but not yet actual trees. And as someone who's grown a few avocado trees from seeds, I'd say it truly becomes an actual plant when the seed finally germinates, and I'd say a fetus becomes an actual human either at birth, or if I'm feeling generous, around the same time its brain develops the ability to sense, which tends to be somewhere around the beginning of the third trimester. After all, brain death is generally counted as when life ends, so why not count when it starts functioning as the start of life?

By around twenty weeks gestation, a human fetus can taste, dream, hear its mother’s voice, experience comfort and distress, and possibly (though it’s disputed) feel pain.  Just because a living thing isn’t fully conscious doesn’t mean there is no moral discussion to be had here.  Most emotionally well-adjusted folk wouldn’t think it right to stomp out their hamster when they’ve grown tired of it.  Maybe we can give an experiential human fetus at least as much consideration as we would give a hamster.