Yes, that’s the point: we don’t know objectively where to draw that line, because that line doesn’t exist in any identifiable biological sense. “Personhood” is a social construct, not a scientific fact.
So yeah, we as a society have to make an arbitrary decision about where we think it makes the most sense to draw that line.
What Voyager said, perhaps with extra severity for having caused irreparable harm to the mother-to-be in the death of her child.
Yes, I said “child”, because if the pregnant woman considers her wanted fetus to be a child right from the get-go, then I’m considering it that way too. Socially speaking, it’s entirely up to a pregnant woman whether she wants to consider her early-term embryo/fetus a person or not, and other people should respect her choice. Personhood is a social construct, as I said, and in early pregnancy it can depend on a variety of individual circumstances that don’t have to be consistent over time or from one individual to another.
But legally speaking, as Voyager also said, declaring an early-term fetus to be officially a person is opening up a completely impracticable can of worms, because legal status is supposed to be consistent. Should parents-to-be need to get a conception certificate to document their embryo’s existence, as we require birth certificates for born persons? Should all miscarriages be investigated like any other untimely death from unknown causes? Legally assigning a fetus full personhood status is something that’s impossible to carry through consistently.
Speaking of being unable to carry definitions through consistently, you can’t possibly be serious in saying that the fetus is a “child” because the mom says so, or you’d be saying the mugger should be charged with murder.
What would be consistent would be recognizing that the fetus is an irreplaceable possession with (in this case) tremendous sentimental value. I dunno how the law works regarding that, but it seems reasonable to apply such law to a destroyed fetus too. Of course this would also mean that if the person doesn’t value their irreplaceable possessions, then the person is free to destroy them or have them destroyed if they wish.
I’ve heard this POV expressed that the fetus is a human at the will of the mother. In a age of legal abortion it does make sense. A fetus that will be aborted, if it is somehow harmed or killed by someone, no harm no fowl as far as the fetus goes as that was never a person. However if the mother did plan to keep the child, and it is thus harmed/killed, the fetus could be considered human and murder/manslaughter charges could apply. This would also legally allow abortions as the mother wanting an abortion has never given human rights to that fetus.
This is basically old testament law, the killing of a fetus was basically a property crime against the woman which was a civil fine. There was no hint that it was a taking of a life in that, nor any rights for the unborn acknowledged.
Such a concession would demolish the pro-choice argument for all but the most ardent abortion activists. First, the situation is hardly unique. Every person on this earth is here because we spent time in our mother’s womb. Humanity cannot survive without such a period of time inside a woman.
Conceding personhood would present the “choice” for what it is: on one side you have the killing of a person while on the other you have the inconvenience of the mother who (putting aside the rape exception) has consented to sex and the possibility of pregnancy.
Looking at this balance of harms, there is really no dispute in my mind where the greater harm lies.
The “but the baby is an intruder or trespasser so it can be killed” argument is absurd as it makes wrongdoers out of all humans who have ever lived.
Roe itself would have come out differently with such a concession. There the balance was the woman’s choice versus a mere potentiality of human life and held definitely not to be a person. That makes the balance more difficult, but one as I have said before is for legislation, not any constitutional right.
According to the supposed logic of your argument, every human who ever entered somebody else’s house is a trespasser, and everyone who ever had sex was a rapist. You’re claiming that whether I want someone inside my house, or inside my body, makes no difference whatsoever.
But that’s the point. I don’t think we need to denigrate the embryo into “something less than” in order to legitimate the killing of it. She is mom, she is woman. It’s her body, it’s her potential child. It’s really not just a clump of cells, just tissue; if she wanted it and someone aborted her pregnancy without her consent, that would surely be a crime. But it’s also a part of her body and she gets to consent or decline consent and choose to abort regardless of the fact that what she’s aborting is a human living person just like us.
It’s not its lack of personhood or its lack of being human or it’s lack of being independently alive or whatever that makes it OK for her to do this. It’s who she is that makes it OK for her to do this. She’s in charge.
Sanger was asked to speak at a rally of the women’s branch of the Klan, and she went out of curiosity. When asked about it, she said the women of the Klan were very single minded in their thinking.
Anyone who thinks about this for about twenty seconds would realize that the all male, anti-women Klan would never let a women speak to them at all, ever. But the anti-abortion movement is not above lying to get their desired results.
There’s also the anti-abortion argument that the mother has no say in whether to continue with the pregnancy, as pregnancy is “nothing” and the fetus has the right to use the mother’s body because “God put it there.”
We do that in many areas. We draw arbitrary lines on spectrums delineating one side from the other. There is not scientific reason why a zillion sand particles is not a heap, but a zillion plus one is, it is a social construct that we have chosen.
Is there a scientific definition of an adult? Can you use science to tell the difference between a 17 year old the day before his birthday and an 18 year old the day after? Can science tell us what has changed that turns a child into an adult?
I believe that a fetus should have exactly the rights that the mother wishes to extend to it. If she wants to consider it to be a “person” with all the rights that a person should have, then she should be able to press charges against someone who causes harm to her wanted child. She should be able to initiate an investigation into a miscarriage, and hold any parties responsible to the same as though they had killed a newborn. Also, if she wants to consider it to be an unwanted burden on her body and her life, and wishes to discard it, I absolutely support that decision as well.
There is only one person in the world who is actually equipped to make the decision, and I actually rather resent those who will never have to make such a decision trying to take it away from her.
You are welcome, though one “pro-lifer” told me “Snopes is not a reliable sight.” He could not refute my claim that the Klan would never let a woman tell them what to do, or listen to her.
Good for you, but you still don’t understand the value of Planned Parenthood. Get an understanding of how much good they do, even by your standards, and starting pushing birth control education, access, and (non abortion if you must) PP funding on your fellow pro-lifers and we’ll find some common ground.
Something occurred to me last night; what of the men who have gotten these women pregnant, they have to stand by and watch the women kill their children who may have been born. I’m not a man, but it occurred to me, what of their rights?
Do I have a right to your body? If I have sex with you, does that mean that you may have to give up your bodily autonomy to me for 9 or so months?
I do think that the father is about the only person other than the mother who’s opinion means anything, but their opinion should be in no way binding upon her actions.
If we men have the right to stop a woman from removing the fetus within her, should we also have the right to force her to remove the fetus? After all, we might want to avoid child support.
Likewise, if a man could prevent an abortion, shouldn’t he be responsible for 100% of child support?