I’ve never heard that, but I’m guessing it still has to be attached to the mother. If you detach it from both, it won’t last long. (You can cut a heart out and it will continue beating for a while too. Did that in biology class with a frog heart once.)
And the unborn embryo/fetus has to be attached to the mother.
Most organs retain part of their biological functions and keep some level of function even after the organism itself has died, depends on its metabolic needs.
Heck, hearts keep beating on snakes even after the snake itself is dead, out, not going to return. The heart eventually stops, though. On a similar vein, horses’s muscles keep kicking and guts keep sliding and moving for a short time after dead. Does not make them a separate entity of the organism.
The placenta may be the same way, it may still do some gas exchange/digestive process after the fetus has died, but it is not a separate entity. It has no organs of its own. It was developed by the fetus. It WILL die without ever be capable of reproducing itself.
It is not a separate biological entity, not matter what you think.
Yes, and the embryo/fetus created the placenta. It is not a separate biological entity, despite what you say. Go read an embryology chapter (general embryology, does not have to be a human text). Come back later.
I would say they both develop out same biological mass. One part develops inot an embryo/fetus and the other into the placenta.
While those are certainly possible answers as to why fetuses should be protected, they aren’t ones as to why fetuses should be treated as things they are not yet, while us adult humans shouldn’t be, which seemed to be the specific problem JHC brought up which you disagreed with. If that fetuses will, one day, be living, breathing, thoughtful beings, and so should treated with respect now while they are not, what is to stop us using the same logic to say that humans will one day be dead, and that we should be treated with all the respect shown a corpse? It’s a silly thing to say, but it seems perfectly in keeping with the logic given - that’s why we need to know the reason behind it, so that we can know whether there’s an exception that needs to be made, a reason why the logic doesn’t extend that far.
The blastocyst, which goes on to develop into an embryo. The placenta is an organ, it is recognized in biology as an organ, not as a separate identity. You’re the one that keeps insisting it is a separate entity, when in reality, it is not. It is not composed of other organs nor is developing multiple organs. It serves as a respiratory/digestive/endocrine system to the developing mass (if you insist of removing the potential organism part, be it human, dog, cat, cow, etc.).
A placenta is human life in the same way an arm is human life. A fetus is a human life, or at least the early stages of one. “Human life” and “A human life” are distinct.
It’s a silly thing to say, therefore the logic is silly. Therefore, why bother understanding the “reason” behind something so silly?