FAIRLY legal? It either is or it isn’t. And it is.
Oh please. The term baby has several meanings…both medically descriptive and, for lack of a better term…social use.
I expect that since you leaped in here to point out the erroneous use of the term baby in this thread, you will do the same in this thread or any other thread where a poster uses the term “baby” in a non-developmental fashion?
It’s fair to say that the term “baby” seems perfectly understandable to the folks in that thread and other threads where people discuss their unborn baby. Interesting that you have a problem with that term here.
Why golly…you better fire up that email client and tell Dr Sears, probably the most famous pediatrician in the good ol USA that he doesn’t know his embryology. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the heads up.
Why shoot fire, those morons over at BabyCenter are doing the same thing…look at all the references to “your baby has grown…” etc…
The problem was with the phrase “three month-old baby” which no reasonable person would take to mean a fetus. When someone asks you how old you are do you measure from th time you were born or the time you were conceived? The political use of “baby” for fetus or embryo is simply a cheap, semantic tactic designed to define a fetus into personhood.
Yes, many expectant parents will refer to a developing fetus as 'baby" because they intend to have it and are preparing themselves for the eventuality of a fully developed and born infant. It’s a term of endearment and pre-natal attachment but that doesn’t make it medically, biologically or legally correct. Doctors will use it too, if a woman intends to have the baby, but, again, it’s a colloquial use of the term not a medical one.
Some people call their pets or their cars their “babies.” Does that prove that dogs and cars are babies? give me a break.
Diogenes
Were one to read that phrase isolated from context you’d be right but pkbites specifically said "Bah. I’ll bet a 3 month old baby feels plenty harmed while it’s being sucked out of it’s mothers womb."
I think it’s safe to say that one need not be an unreasonable person to infer that by “baby” pkbites meant “fetus”. In fact, the context is so clear that I’d go so far as to say that alternative interpretations are unreasonable.
That depends. I think (although I can’t find a cite, this is purely anecdotal) that it is quite common practise in Japan to count ones ages from ones conception.
Personhood? Personhood?!? Why would a pro-lifer want to define a fetus into personhood. Personhood only matters to pro-choicers. Since Pro-lifers defend human lives and not persons (due to the fact that the term ‘personhood’ exists solely to ensure that pro-choice arguments run with a minimum of conflation) I must disagree with your contention that pro-lifers call fetuses babies solely to score points. Could it be that pro-lifers view them as equivalents?
**
To a certain degree I agree with that statement. People don’t generally phrase their description in exactly the same parlance as was used earlier. A pregnant woman might say something like “my baby is 3 months along” etc… rather than refer to a “three motnh old baby”
However, in the context of this thread, especially with the followup post…it’s clear what meaning for “baby” was intended.
**
Interesting that you have this insight into the way that all parents (who use that term) think.
Nice strawman. I didn’t claim that the mere use of the term “baby” established its identity in a legal or embryological fashion. I stipulated that plenty of folks (including parents, doctors etc) use the term to describe a developing zygote/embryo/fetus…(as in the mere use of the term to describe a z/e/f shouldn’t get people out of whack)
I really don’t care how pro-lifers view them. The problem is when those pro-lifers want to force everyone else to see it the same way.
I have no idea what you think the distinction is between a “human life” and a “person,” but a fetus is neither. It may be human tissue but so is a fingernail.
I am as unequivocably pro-choice as anyone I know or have ever read about.
I acknowledge that people who oppose abortion on pro-life /do-no-harm grounds have a basis for argument that does not exist for people who are against homosexuality and which exists only on the most tenous basis for people who are against (let’s say) the smoking of marijuana.
Generally we hold that it is permissible to intervene where harm is done. You (pro-life) folks point out that it doesn’t require a particularly wrenching twist of the brain to perceive a way in which it could be said that abortion does harm. It kills an embryo or fetus. The embryo or fetus is human.
We (pro-choice) folks point out that harm is done if abortions are prohibited.
Since it does not necessarily hold that the proper role for the state is to keep its hands off whenever the issue is complex rather than clear-cut, and since we are in essence claiming that the issue is complex with degrees and possibilities of harm being scattered all across the terrain here*, I’d like to apologize to pro-life people if it seems to you sometimes that we are saying that the issue is simple and obvious and that your concerns should be dismissed as irrelevant.
I do not think your concerns are irrelevant or dismissable. I think that as far as the behavior of the state is concerned, your concerns are outweighed and overruled, but that’s different. I would certainly hope that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the individual pregnant women who make the reproductive decisions take those same concerns into account when they weigh the matters in their heads. I believe such decisions to be life-and-death decisions, decisions of great majesty and importance, decisions not to be made lightly. Decisions that should rest with them and them alone, for all that, not because all of that is not true.
- As I am not the designated spokesperson for all pro-choice people and we are not a monolithic lot ourselves, I’ll give a brief mention to the contingent of pro-choicers for whom it is a simple cut-and-dried decision because to them it’s “sneeze city”, just tissue, no issue, strictly a function of bodily sanitation. Wipe and dispose. I do not think they constitute the majority of people with pro-choice sentiments but I could be wrong about that, too.
Your post is exactly what I am talking about. “Not that I necessarily follow that line of thinking.” in not a very strong condemnation of those cowards who would shoot someone with a sniper rifle or plant a bomb, is it? It’s more like you’re turning a blind eye because he’s getting the job done but in a dirty manner. If you thought you had a halfway decent chance of finding out which groups supported this kind of terrorism, would you go out of your way to clean up the mess they cause to Christianity?
As far as what they should do to prevent something that they think should be against the law but isn’t, the only proper path to take is to attempt to change the law.
They are not “taking other actions”.
They are terrorizing and murdering men, women and children.
In an ironic sort of way… I think most pro life folks that I’ve seen on these boards would agree with that statement… (although some might include non violent picketing as part of the political process).
The only people that I’ve seen on the boards suggesting that one must use all forms of response, including violence have been some pro choice folks (zwaldd and Diogenes the Cynic in a previous Pit thread, I think…and apparently Blalron seems to be suggesting a similar line of thinking here) that say if pro life folks don’t do that…they are not serious about their philosophy…or are pacifistic cowards.
- John Dunne, Meditation XVII
Donne was talking about death in that meditation, but I think that sums up in general why people feel they need to "meddle.
Diogenes
Well, since the latter term is utterly worthless I see no reason to waste the pixels formulating a distinction. However, if you must have one how about this:
A person is a synonym for newborn. A human life is the product of conception.
The difference between a human conceptus and a fingernail is as obvious as the difference between human life and A human life. I know you’re aware of this difference since I myself (as well as several other pro-lifers) have explained it to you in past threads.
Whether a 3 month old fetus “feels harmed” by such actions is debatable. I contend that it does not and cannot at that stage be able to feel harm in any meaningful sense of the word.
At what age does the, “fetus”, feel the harm of abortion?
4 months? 5 months? 6 months? 7 months? 8 months? 9 months?
A year and half, when the mother is tired of hearing it cry?
At what age does the victim not feel harm while it’s life is being snuffed out? You seem to insist on being qualified to determine this. Now tell us!!!
An utterly arbitrary and meaningless distinction.
I’m aware of your attempts to fantasize a difference. I don’t recognize that one exists. Tissue is tissue.
Fine! If everyone is this touchy about abortion, we’ll just all agree to let the darn fetuses mature fully before harvesting them from their pods! No, wait, they’re not grown in pods! They’re grown in people (yep, women are people, remember?)!
90 percent of abortions occur in the first trimester. Virtually all of the rest occur in the second. Only a fraction of one percent occur in the third, and then only for compelling medical reasons. So this poor-suffering-fetus thing is pretty much a straw man. If “feeling” is your criteria then I’m sure you have no problem with abortions that occur at the zygote or embryo stage.
[soapbox]BTW, if pro-lifers really wanted to stop abortion they would support the morning after pill which prevents ovulation, thus prevents conception. Because a lot of pro-lifers have it their heads that emergency contraception is an “abortion pill” (which it emphatically is not) they have made a concerted effort to prevent it from being readily available at many pharmacies.[/soapbox]
And at what age is “tissue” a human being? You seem to insist to have the authority to determine this. So, tell us. I’ll bet you say the age is somewhere before whatever age you are now!
I’ll bet you consider yourself more than just “tissue”, don’t you, Cynic. I’ll bet if someone stuck a gun in your face and claimed you were just “tissue”, not worthy of a chance at life, I bet you would disagree!
It’s a person when it’s born. It’s a human being when it’s no longer inside of another human being, who has rights of her own. As long as it’s in a woman’s body, it’s part of her body, and her rights have to supercede the rights of a fetus. After all, we know for sure that a woman is a person. The personhood of a fetus is a matter of opinion. The rights of an entity which is undisputably a person trump the rights of something which some people merely like to think of as a person.
Soooooooooo…if a woman is 3 months pregnant and someone socks her in her belly and she lives but the, um, “fetus” dies, there is no crime right? Except for misdemeanor assult of the woman. Right?
I take it then that her “opinion” that her baby (fetus) was a person is not valid, and the person doing the punching can not be charged with any kind of homocide. What if the act takes place while the woman was walking to an abortion clinic?
I meant to add:
Then is there not only no crime, but does she owe the perpetraitor money for “services rendered”. 