Abortion/Consciousness/Life

[Whateverist]

Same with children.. lil varmits are dependant on me and I can stop feeding them and looking after them at any time. It's my life and not theirs. If I choose to do something else in my life, if they're lucky, they survive. [/sarcasm back atcha ]

Some would advocate that children can still be aborted right up until they are of legal age. Many teenagers turn out to be walking abortions.

[Losty]

I disagree no one else's right to life trumps my right to my body. Why should a fetus be granted special rights that other people are not given?

Yeah, what about my rights to the territory I stake out with my sperm-flags. I'm not sure a woman has any right to just yank them out.

Whatevs+Losty=best friends for life

[Chas]

You made the choice - you are the one who has limited your right.

Chas, get real. By insisting that I make a choice within your time frame you are limiting my rights to my body. Whatever reason I might have for waiting is my business. There's no point in a woman's pregnancy that you get to tell her "oh sorry you made the choice not to abort so no until birth your body is an incubator property of the state". My body is mine and mine alone. I am the only one who gets to make choices regarding my body and I am the only one who gets to decide when I make the choices.

Please address the question of personhood.

[Losty]

Lol. I love you Chas. I have addressed the question numerous times by saying personhood is irrelevant. No person fetus or otherwise has a right to my body, not even if their life depends on it. Therefore, personhood is irrelevant. Just because you don't like my answer, doesn't mean I didn't address the question.

[Chas]

Lol. I love you Chas. I have addressed the question numerous times by saying personhood is irrelevant. No person fetus or otherwise has a right to my body, not even if their life depends on it. Therefore, personhood is irrelevant. Just because you don't like my answer, doesn't mean I didn't address the question.

So, if personhood is legally set at 7 months, you still maintain it is OK to abort at 7½ months?

I don't see how you can maintain that personhood is irrelevant.

[FatAndFaithless]

Even if person hood was defined to start at conception, it would still be the woman's right to abort.

[Chas]

Even if person hood was defined to start at conception, it would still be the woman's right to abort.

No, it wouldn't. It would then be murder. That is the crux of the argument.

We need to have a legal definition of personhood to ground the abortion debate. When something is legally a person, then that person has the same protection as other persons.

Fundies want that to be conception, others seem to settle on birth. Neither of those is as nearly defensible as a point somewhere between brain/nervous system formation and viability.
That is, somewhere in the 6 - 7 month region.

I think we all agree that once a baby is born, that it is legally a person.
And that it matters not whether that birth was at 9 months or 8 months or 7 months of gestation.

So, is an 8-month-old fetus a person?

[FatAndFaithless]

Again...the bodily autonomy position is completely independent of the person hood argument. You define person hood to be whatever you like, it will still be irrelevant to the argument from bodily autonomy.

[Chas]

Again...the bodily autonomy position is completely independent of the person hood argument. You define person hood to be whatever you like, it will still be irrelevant to the argument from bodily autonomy.

That seems a rather, um, ill-conceived position.

I am not saying my definition of person is correct, I am saying there already is a legal presumption of the meaning of person.

How does "bodily autonomy" make murder legal?

Our most basic right is a right to life. All other rights are contingent upon that one.

[FatAndFaithless]

If that's how you're going to view it, there's really no point in going further.