There have consistently been people posting to abortion related threads who have proposed something similar to the OP. While some might have been trolling, I don’t think the current OP is.
As I said, if one accepts the premise that abortion up to the moment of birth is OK, then the conclusion is “not unreasonable” (I hesitiate to call it reasonable). Many, many people in the US support abortion on demand at any time for any reason.
Well Blalron, what if Daddy kills the kid without Mom’s consent ? Or are you suggesting that only Mom can get rid of the child?
I don’t agree with this premise. If you have a kid, you should not kill it.
But I also think that it should be illegal to raise a kid without cyanide tabs taped to their forheads too. Let the kid consent to their death, not the parent. Just don’t let the parent allow access to death to be difficult for the child. Also, always let the child be able to kill you, the parent. If you cannot raise a child who doesn’t slip one of their 2000 cyanide tabs into your drink at some point, or who doesn’t take them themselves at some point, you should never have had a child in the first place – you as a human being were incapable of translating an inherent purpose for both their life and your own. My opinion on the matter is that parents are too lazy to place the pressure upon themselves to hmake sure that the giving of life is meaningful, such that you can falsify it. Parents just rely upon “social norms” to justify their laziness, and the fact that they do treat children like objects.
This brings to mind a shitload of jokes I probably couldn’t repeat in GD.
Please describe these criteria in more detail.
Okay so we should be capable of killing all people in a coma? In fact under your reasoning we could terminate the life of any person, regardless of age, who for some reason or another, brain damage, accident, or some other event, no longer has “self-awareness”. So if you got into an accident and slipped into a coma thereby losing your “self-awareness” and consequently you lose your personhood and are no longer a person by virtue of your own reasoning, and your parents can terminate your life at this point despite the fact the doctor has indicated your coma will not be a permanent or lasting condition. This is what you believe in?
Heck, if you skip consciousness and go for ability to sustain life without the assistance of the mother, I know a guy who stands to be aborted in his 170th trimester.
I’m sure many would agree that the point at which an organism gains “human” rights as opposed to those afforded to, say, the chicken I ate for dinner last night, is somewhat arbitrary. If I can justifiedly kill and eat a chicken, I should be able to do so to an organism with measurably even more primitive brain function. Birth, nor for that matter conception, does not magically bestow any special status on the organism.
However, the OP apparently states that personhood is strictly tied to “conscious memory”. This I find just as arbitrary: Clearly an 18 month old organism does not have no memory at all since it recognises people and can even communicate verbally, albeit basically. Does the OP mean long-term memory? If so, does severe amnesia suddenly make me fair game?
Furthermore, I am a little disturbed by this appeal to “precociousness”. Does the future A student deserve life in place of the average? A brave new eugenic world, surely?
I agree that the magic cutoff point is arbitrary, and we might extend it past birth, perhaps for a few weeks, say. But I would err on the side of caution and limit it to birth, or a few weeks before. Two years is certainly past the cow, pig, or perhaps even chimpanzee stage in terms of brain function and “personhood”.
my son was born in the 30th week, 2 months early. He required an incubator for five weeks and was fed formula through a GI tube in his nose. 10 minutes after his birth he held my index finger and stopped crying, smiled (sort of) and went to sleep. He’s 20 Months old now but at 1 year old he remembered his grandmother who he’d only seen during his first month home from the hospital. Anyone who can possible start a thread like this one has no children, has probably no intention of having children and renders his opinion on the topic pretty inapplicable through disassociation.(IMHO)
On the topic of abortion, I believe its a viable option only to prevent a catastrophic birth defect (someone whos quality of life would be nil) or to prevent death of the mother. Abortion is NOT a viable means of birth control. I mean, if you can’t figure out a rubber, you don’t need to be fuckin’ in the first place!
Hey, please, get out there and try to spread this idea. Best thing that could happen for us pro-lifers.
You don’t have to go to ancient Rome to find infanticide as a form of birth control. In poverty-stricken countries people will still kill babies they cannot afford to keep.
The responses so far have been fairly tame. This guy should have several new places through which to defecate by now.
Blalron, we`re probably not too far from this anyway. The sentences issued to those who kill babies seem to be getting more lenient by the month, and the cases of infanticide seem to be on the rise.
To speed up the process, be sure to elect very liberal politicians who will in turn appoint very liberal judges. 
What if the baby was suffering from a smorgasboard of birth defects and was facing a miserable life, devoid of any reasonable intellect and full of extremely expensive medical care?
I think the OP’s “let any mom kill any kid until it’s two” position is indefensable, but I think there are some situations where the situation is more complex…
I think we have shown that at 18 months the average human has “personhood” even by the OP’s standards. Even after a few weeks, the average neonate can do things most animals never can.
However, his thesis that newborn babies are less conscious than the pigs we kill and eat for breakfast is essentially sound.
Right, and Ive tried to argue in the past that if youre going to allow late term abortions then why not take the next step and allow the parents to kill the newborn? Let the parents inspect the baby and then let them decide if they want to keep it. Of course, the line will always keep moving to the left and pretty soon the cuttoff age will be 1 month, then 6 months then 1 year, etc. Thats why Im an opponent of late term abortions. It`s too close of a call sometimes and society becomes de-sensitised to it. Then, we begin to allow infanticide in certain circumstances (like birth defects, retardation, etc), and then before long it becomes an elective procedure.
Agreed, U_C, the slope can be so slippery in either direction that a definitive flag, no matter how arbitrarily placed, is all we can agree to abide by.
For the sake of caution, let us leave it where it is.
There is a difference between killing an otherwise viable baby and witholding extreme life support measures to a severely handicapped infant. I wouldn’t classify the latter as “killing”, and so I agree with you on this point.
I though we agreed that you couldnt’ torture the child???
I seriously hope the OP is joking. If not, humanity just reached a new low, boys and girls.
If you are serious, OP, I beg you: get sterilized. Please. We’ll take a collection and pay for it.
This made me think… at wich point an abortion results in the expulsion of the fetus and until which stage it is reabsorbed by the mothers body?
I ask because I think that would make a reasonable time lapse to allow abortion.
Oh yes, the OP doesn´t seem to know much about babies; heck, I don´t know much about babies but sure as hell they are very concious weeeell before their second birthday