After birth abortion?

[Mermaid]

The FACTS are that my uterus is my business and my business only.

This is mansplaining at its finest. It's like if you look up mansplaining in the dictionary, this picture would be there.

[vorlon13]

Scripture is clear it is also NOT a living human being either.

[Mermaid]

My sister was almost aborted when my mom found herself pregnant with her at 19 to a drug dealing, abusive boyfriend.

My sister had nothing to do with the circumstances she was put in. It wasn't her fault. She didn't ask to be put in that situation. She was a completely innocent bystander to the crappy situation she was put in. The notion that my sister was somehow an intruder who was violating my mother's body is absurd.

Thank God for my pro life aunt who took my mother in and was the only person who told her not to abort. She saved my sister's life.

I am happy you are grateful, and that your mother made that very very personal choice to have the baby.

That is the key word. Choice. That was her choice.

---

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.

I will go along with the reason for time limits on abortion: The mother's body is required up to a certain point. After that period, abortion is not legal. Before that, the baby is not an autonomous being. You get the choice to make your very private decision about your own body.

[Catholic_Lady]

No one's right to LIVE is someone else's "choice." My sister's sure wasn't, but whatever. I'm not gonna argue this BS.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

No one's right to LIVE is someone else's "choice."

Love yer, CL, but that's just naïve.

Boru

[Mermaid]

No one's right to LIVE is someone else's "choice." My sister's sure wasn't, but whatever. I'm not gonna argue this BS.

No, seriously, I actually respect your opinion about this. I felt the need to share my own perspective about it.

For what it's worth, I am pretty grateful that my mother didn't choose to abort my sisters, too. That doesn't change my opinion that someone else's pregnancy is absolutely none of my business.

[Natachan]

The autonomy is how I draw it as well. But my main point wasn’t the abortion one, but that the issue of personhood was an interesting idea. I’m not sure if an infant is a person, not in the same way that an adult is. Is personhood something you’re born with? What makes a person anyway?

[Mermaid]

The autonomy is how I draw it as well. But my main point wasn’t the abortion one, but that the issue of personhood was an interesting idea. I’m not sure if an infant is a person, not in the same way that an adult is. Is personhood something you’re born with? What makes a person anyway?

my bad, I misunderstood the question. I think my answer is the same.

[Nay_Sayer]

The FACTS are that my uterus is my business and my business only.

[Mister Agenda]

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 . 

Identical twins are a problem for that argument as well. Are they less human because their DNA is less unique? Is it okay to abort one of them? If not, genetic uniqueness is not an argument anti-abortionists really believe themselves.

---

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.

Like lots of things to do with humans (and other organisms), I think it's a spectrum. Something that is merely a fertilized egg is clearly not a human being. Something that can pass a driver's test clearly is. At exactly what point the organism went from being a microorganism to a person is a judgment call that depends on what criteria you use. I'm not sure a newborn infant is clearly a person in the same sense that someone capable of graduating kindergarten is, but it's well on its way and the bodily autonomy argument is moot at that point. I think ethically at that point infanticide is unjustifiable unless it's a 'Sophie's Choice' (for example; in some circumstances, parents could literally be faced with the choice of risking starvation of the children they already had if they tried to raise one more).