# Pro-Choicers: What makes a person? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 28, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034 "2009-08-28T15:36:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/101 "2009-08-31T21:22:39Z")
> [@](#): > > The major problem with your question 1 here is that it counfounds decision-making. Suppose for a moment that the “quickening” (we’ll call it, to bypass the discussion of what we’re speificially testing) can happen at any point between month two and month 8. So, some women could in theory wait until the last minute, and some wouldn’t be able to, depending on when quickening happened. And you’d only know if you’d passed the point of no return if you did the test and found out it was too late. I expect that most “quickening” events occur on a regular enough schedule to make this essentially a moot point. If a fetus hasn’t developed brain wave activity by 8 months, it’s never going to, and in fact would probably have been spontaneously aborted long before that. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/102 "2009-08-31T21:44:13Z")
I’ll do this backwards > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > To be clear I am not arguing with you but YogSoth’s take on it. He departs from us in that he feels the mother should be allowed to kill the baby right up to the instant before the umbilical is cut. As such I think he is stretching the notion that it is a parasite thus at the whim of the mother out of all recognition. I merely extended that notion to try to portray its absurdity and show how it is morally bankrupt. You’re right in that I see it as a parasite. I don’t see how that’s morally bankrupt but whatever, you and I differ on that point. > [@BrandonR](#): > > My take on this issue is that up until the point where a baby can be born and survive on its own (obviously with care) it’s not a person, it’s an undeveloped grouping of cells and tissue. To me, preventing the continued development of a jumble of biological matter incapable of survival without you and only you is not murder. I used to think that way until I realized that with better technology, someday we might be able to remove a fetus from a mother so early that abortion of any sort would be shot down due to that clause. I don’t want people in 50 years to be able to use the argument that a fetus can survive in the first trimester so abortion should be illegal. I value the right of choice; the fetus’s survival has no bearing on it, that’s why abortion should be legal up until the cord is cut and the baby is out. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Thing is after the umbilical is cut the baby’s needs increase from when it was in the mother. It requires active effort on the part of caretakers to live. It requires more resource outlays for its survival (clothes at the least). Its status as a parasite continues minus the physical connection to the mother after birth. > > So, if it is a parasite its caretakers should have the choice of life or death over it by his logic. Yeah that’s basically it. Other things I frequently compare a fetus to are fingers: they are yours in every sense of the word, but they are a distinct part of your body and cutting it off should be your right. > [@BrandonR](#): > > Except anyone can feed the baby formula from a can. It’s not dependent on the (original) mother the same way an undeveloped fetus is, which is what I can assume **YogSosoth** was referring to. Once a baby is born it no longer exclusively depends on a single person for continued development. If that were the case, adopted kids would surely not exist. Not just a single person, but the person from which the fetus was created. I dont want some lawyer to be able to spuriously define who takes care of the fetus if somebody happened to help out the mother. That’s why I strictly provide that abortion should be legal up to the point of voluntary birth and the cutting of the cord. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > So, by your rationale the mother (or whatever adult that needs to expend their own resources to keep the baby alive) should be free to bash it in the head and be done with it. > > Only once the child is no longer sucking resources from its keepers can the child be said to have rights of its own. > > Pretty messed up thinking there. It might seem distasteful, but think about what the fetus will miss if it dies. Nothing. Has a fetus ever, at any moment in its brief life, been subject to thoughts like we have ourselves? Does anyone alive remember when they were born? If it wasn’t for pictures, for all intents and purposes, you did not exist prior to your first memories. It is absolutely impossible for you to know anything from that time, so if you lack it, you do not actually lose anything. People do not sit around worrying about their lack of existence prior to being conceived. I do not worry that was wronged for not being born a hundred years ago, or a thousand. I didn’t exist, thus I cannot miss it. A fetus cannot miss its life any more than you can miss not being born in the era of the Romans or the ancient Egyptians. Thus its death is not a bad thing, it is nothing, it is neutral. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/103 "2009-08-31T21:56:09Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > That’s nice. So have I. Is that relevant some how? > > I guess that’s why nobody bothers about managing third stage of labor and postpartum hemorrhaging isn’t a big deal. > > If that’s the case, then there wouldn’t be any reason not to immediately cut the cord. Unfortunately, [medical literature](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17374818) indicates otherwise. > > In any case, I notice you still haven’t answered the question. I did answer the question – when the baby is out of the mother. The cord is only attached to the baby at that point, so it doesn’t matter to the mother if you cut it or not. It will come out regardless. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/104 "2009-08-31T22:07:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I expect that most “quickening” events occur on a regular enough schedule to make this essentially a moot point. If a fetus hasn’t developed brain wave activity by 8 months, it’s never going to, and in fact would probably have been spontaneously aborted long before that. Moot or not, I still want deadlines you can plan for. If the variance is low it just makes it easier to set them. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/105 "2009-08-31T22:26:29Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > It might seem distasteful, but think about what the fetus will miss if it dies. Nothing. Has a fetus ever, at any moment in its brief life, been subject to thoughts like we have ourselves? Does anyone alive remember when they were born? I don’t think it’s distasteful (big surprise). In fact, it’s always been a comfort to me. But I think a lot of people don’t deal well with ‘What ifs?’ especially when it comes to life-altering events like childbirth. There is some amount of superstition, and a hefty dose of caution against playing God in these debates, something I’ve noticed since the very first argument that included the old chestnut ‘You just aborted Beethoven and saved Hitler!’ If that’s the crux of someone’s anti-abortion argument, then giving women reproductive freedom not only allows them to live their own lives as they see fit, it allows them to alter the entire course of history. That’s a hell of a lot of power to give man’s ‘helper.’ ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/106 "2009-08-31T22:30:38Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > I don’t think it’s distasteful (big surprise). In fact, it’s always been a comfort to me. But I think a lot of people don’t deal well with ‘What ifs?’ especially when it comes to life-altering events like childbirth. There is some amount of superstition, and a hefty dose of caution against playing God in these debates, something I’ve noticed since the very first argument that included the old chestnut ‘You just aborted Beethoven and saved Hitler!’ If that’s the crux of someone’s anti-abortion argument, then giving women reproductive freedom not only allows them to live their own lives as they see fit, it allows them to alter the entire course of history. That’s a hell of a lot of power to give man’s ‘helper.’ Being atheist, I’ve never gotten the whole “playing god” argument for, well, anything. So what if that’s what we’re doing? We do that when we execute don’t we? When we change our surroundings for more comfortable living, kill animals to eat, have sex to create life, isn’t that all playing god? If abortion is playing god, then playing god should be ok. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/107 "2009-08-31T23:18:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Moot or not, I still want deadlines you can plan for. If the variance is low it just makes it easier to set them. Right, I mean that they’re probably consistent enough that you wouldn’t have to actually do an EEG of the fetus before an abortion, or whatever: You could just count a certain number of days from the woman’s last period or from the date of intercourse. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/108 "2009-09-01T00:29:57Z")
Short answer: brain waves (as stated many times). Long answer: [“Abortion: Is it Possible to be both “Pro-life” and “Pro-Choice”?” or “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers” by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan](http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml) Excerpts: > [@](#): > > Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive. They are not human beings, of course. However, it could be argued that neither is a fertilized egg. Moneyshots are on the final page: > [@](#): > > …brain waves with regular patterns typical of adult human brains do not appear in the fetus until about the 30th week of pregnancy–near the beginning of the third trimester. Fetuses younger than this–however alive and active they may be–lack the necessary brain architecture. They cannot yet think. > > … > Since, on average, fetal thinking occurs even later than fetal lung development, we find Roe v. Wade to be a good and prudent decision addressing a complex and difficult issue. With prohibitions on abortion in the last trimester–except in cases of grave medical necessity–it strikes a fair balance between the conflicting claims of freedom and life. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/109 "2009-09-01T01:05:31Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Not elective abortions. no. > > something like 1/16 of 1% of all abortions occur in the 3rd trimester – that’s not 1/16 of abortions, it’s 1/16 of a single _percent_. > > Those very rare abortions are performed only for urgent medical reasosn, and the fetus is usually already dead or dying. > > Elective abortion in the 3rd trimester is illegal in most states (Roe allows restrictions in the 3rd trimester), and there are only like 3 clinics in the US which will perform 3rd trimester abortions even then (it might be down to 2 now. Dr. Tiller was one of them, and he just got murdered). I saw the ORielly clips on Tiller. He made it sound like it happened all the time and Tiller was just in it for the dough. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/110 "2009-09-01T01:57:25Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > But abortion rights extend beyond simple removal, especially if ‘personhood’ is established at a point after viability. Do they? > [@](#): > > Picture this. Consensual sexual intercourse where the woman changes her mind mid event. There is a person partially inside her. She has the right for removal, but does she have any rights beyond that? I think it would be hard to argue that she also has the right to terminate the life of her partner, because the partner also has his own rights. I’d like to firmly establish that regardless of the outcome, you’re conceding that she _can_ demand the removal. I’m willing to concede that she has no right of destruction over the penis or fetus or baby once it is removed from her body. > [@](#): > > Or in the case of partial birth abortion (I don’t know your particular stance on this). The fetus is already being removed. My stance is that “partial birth” is a misleading description. As I understand the procedure, it’s only ever performed when medical necessity requires. I can imagine (with difficulty) a woman seeking and a doctor performing a purely election late-term abortion, but this is so ridiculously rare that I don’t feel compelled to support a law that specifically bans it. As it stands, Canada has no such law and a purely-elective late-term abortion is technically legal here. I don’t know if it ever actually occurred, though. I doubt it. If it did, I’d find it hard to summon any outrage over it. > [@](#): > > The right to terminate a pregnancy, regardless of the status of the fetus, seems to me to extend far beyond mere privacy and control of body rights. And you’re perfectly free to feel that way, but I ask you to consider the ramifications if such beliefs get written into law. If you are female, can you picture having an unwanted pregnancy? If male, can you picture a female relative having an unwanted pregnancy? On what basis and to what extent can the state interfere? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/111 "2009-09-01T09:02:12Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > There is some amount of superstition, and a hefty dose of caution against playing God in these debates, something I’ve noticed since the very first argument that included the old chestnut ‘You just aborted Beethoven and saved Hitler!’ Technically, if we have the capability to “play God”, then deciding to use it or not use would both be playing God. It’s the power of the decision as much as the power of the actual act. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/112 "2009-09-01T12:30:11Z")
> [@Revenant\_Threshold](#): > > Technically, if we have the capability to “play God”, then deciding to use it or not use would both be playing God. It’s the power of the decision as much as the power of the actual act. There are a lot of things we humans do every day that could be called playing God. We have surgery,use oxygen, etc. Maybe God wants a person to die of a decease and we prevent it? According to the psalmist we are gods. so I would say if one believes the OT, we are not just playing god but are, Jesus backed this up when He was accused of calling God His father. To each his own, it is a belief and every one is entitled to their own beliefs, but should not force another to follow their beliefs. One should not be forced to have an abortion nor should one be forced not to because someone differs with them. Many abortions could be avoided if they had birth control or the morning after pill available to them if they wished. Some women have their tubes tied and some men vasectomies to prevent having children they do not wish to have, some religions forbid this although there were eunochs who were made so by humans according to Paul, and it wasn’t. considered a sin by him. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034/113 "2009-09-01T12:49:14Z")
> [@Dusty\_Rose](#): > > I don’t want to hijack this thread, and like I said above, my beliefs aren’t mainstream. I don’t pretend to know all of the answers by any means, all I can say is what I believe. > > I don’t know what a soul is composed of. I don’t believe it can be measured or quantified by science, though. > > And, I suppose, according to how I imagine it, it would be along the lines of a demon invasion. That it enters the body and resides there, so yes. 🙂 > > And certainly genetics and environment play a huge role in who you become. Your soul retains the deeper, larger life lessons. > > When you die, your soul goes to the other side to rest. To recharge. To review. To come back when it’s ready. That you determine the general path for your next life time in order to best learn the lessons you haven’t finished learning. The school of life, I suppose. > > I don’t believe you have to have religion. I don’t believe everyone is on the same path, or that anyone is learning the same lessons at the same time. I think that we are too deep to only have one life, or that when we die we’re just gone. I don’t think we just sit around heaven for eternity playing harps. Eternity is a really long time and that would get boring. > Can I prove any of it? No. It is what it is. No one really knows what happens when we die, this is just my belief. The only thing that makes sense to me at my core. So, Is life on the other side too? Where does it go? Where does the life of plants, animals etc. go? Where is the other side? Is it in another universe? Is life a continous thing that becomes what it was before it was in a human, plant or animal? If there is a soul, why was the punishment (according to the OT) death, not loss of soul? Your beliefs are fine with me, and you have every right to believe that way. Just as others and myself believe differently. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-choicers-what-makes-a-person/508034.md?page=5)