[Kobrar44]

nuanced difference between a fetus and a baby.

What do you think is a difference between a baby and fetus? I'm not saying there isn't one, because there is, but I'm curious of what significance it is to you and how you understand it.

[Bobboau]

one is an independent living entity and the other is not.

[Luis Dias]

I'd hardly call a newborn "independent". The mere thought is pretty funny. "Ooooh there he goes, not even a bye bye kiss??" "Gotta go Dad, destiny is waiting for me! The game that is!"

[Bobboau]

well then you have a really contrived definition of independent, don't you? especially given the context of my sentence.

I don't take kindly to disingenuous equivication bull**** from conservatives anymore than I do JSWs.

[Kobrar44]

one is an independent living entity and the other is not.

Is it not living, independent or not an entity at all?

[Luis Dias]

You get me wrong, I'm not against abortion although I do think the US is pretty crazy extremist in this regard by allowing late abortions. As I said previously, many people who do know me would giggle at your implication of me being anywhere "right wing". I'm not, I'm pro-choice and believe that my country's legal situation is much better than the US's. My point is simply that your word was innacurate, there is no such thing as an "independent newborn", the human newborns are born too young, in comparison to other animals, to allow the huge size of their brains to come out successfully. This implies massive dependence to their mothers, they are born blind, unable to walk, obviously still breastfeed (a trait that is shared amongst all mammals, obviously), all sorts of lack of competences that are required for calling them "independent".

Possible facetiousness aside, I also do understand that by being born, a baby has the new "ability" to become adopted by another parent, an ability that every unborn is completely lacking. But if you leave this ability out of the analysis, an unborn of 8 months vs a newborn is that really different in its being?

[Bobboau]

Maybe I mistook your tone. What you said sounds very similar to a very common and dishonest debating tactic in a form specifically used often by pro-life conservatives in America.
Newborn babies are dependent on A mother for long term survival, they are independent of THE mother for minute by minute survival. I think you get my meaning.

There is a nuance in the later parts of a pregnancy that I will admit to, unfortunately the cultural climate in America is such that such subtleties are very difficult to explore. It is possibly THE most divisive and polarizing issue in the country.

Is it not living, independent or not an entity at all?

It's living in the same sense that your spleen is living, which is an odd but not entirely unheard of usage of the word. It is certainly not a person which I think is the bigger question.

[Mikes]

The goal of a fertilized egg is to reach a place on the wall of the uterus which it then destroys, yes destroys, so the mother starts bleeding in that spot ... which eventually results in the formation of the placenta. The fertilized egg then commences to grow into a fetus which will do it's best to suck everything it needs out of the mothers bloodstream.

For all intents and purposes it's a parasite and if it wasn't for birth the mother would die a tragic death because of it.

That it becomes something else (a Baby) at the moment of birth is irrelevant while it is still a fetus in the same way  that a caterpillar is not a butterfly and most certainly can not fly any more than a fetus could live without acting as a parasite towards the mother.



Reproduction is actually pretty scary when you think about it and the actual biology has little to do with the naive romantic portrayals of most religions...

... but at least humans aren't one of those charming species that forcefully have to penetrate the females adbomen, breaking skin and causing permanent damage, in order to achieve fertilisation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_insemination) ... or that have an imperative impulse to literally keep screwing until they die after they reach their first mating season. (http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/07/why-a-little-mammal-has-so-much-sex-that-it-disintegrates/ ... although ,... possibly some human beings appear to aspire emulation of that little rodent... )

 Gotta be glad for the little things, eh? ;-) What I find really scary however is the thought of what "pro life zealots" would preach if human fertilisation worked anything like the above ... on the other hand, in cases of women with dangerous pregnancies, rape as the cause of the pregnancy, or utter inability to raise/support children (financially, emotionally or otherwise) ... the effects are pretty similar I guess.

[Luis Dias]

You know, whenever I hear this kind of rethoric, two very distinct reactions form inside of me. First, the sci fi lovecraftian nerd inside of me goes "yeah doh", of course this is such, we all saw Alien, which is *the* movie that distinctively "lovecrafted" pregnancy and motherhood into this horrible depiction of parasital formation inside of you, eating you from the inside and trying to break out. Everything is *as terrible* as you mention.

OTOH, my other reaction is of pure disgust. That is the kind of rethoric that a conservative will grab in order to demonize you. That is the kind of rethoric that placed Planned Parenthood at these dire straights it is in right now. Basically you are equating an infant to a xenomorph, eating women from the inside. It's a kind of, and I'll borrow leftist terminology here, a very conscious Otherizing of the unborn so you can in good consciousness toss it to the garbage bin (after extracting useful organs, etc.).

I understand how that kind of talk might be psychologically and politically useful (at least internally inside the Left), but then it does indeed fly in the face of the sheer wonder of witnessing a human birth, where you realise it's not a parasite, it's actually an adorable human being. I cannot see how you can reconcile both "visions", but then that's not my problem. I do warn you that such rethoric is incredibly counter-productive in the wider debate.

e: just for clarification, I posted this before you added half of the content of that post! It does reiterate many things I say here though.

[Mikes]

You know, whenever I hear this kind of rethoric, two very distinct reactions form inside of me. First, the sci fi lovecraftian nerd inside of me goes "yeah doh", of course this is such, we all saw Alien, which is *the* movie that distinctively "lovecrafted" pregnancy and motherhood into this horrible depiction of parasital formation inside of you, eating you from the inside and trying to break out. Everything is *as terrible* as you mention.

OTOH, my other reaction is of pure disgust. That is the kind of rethoric that a conservative will grab in order to demonize you. That is the kind of rethoric that placed Planned Parenthood at these dire straights it is in right now. Basically you are equating an infant to a xenomorph, eating women from the inside. It's a kind of, and I'll borrow leftist terminology here, a very conscious Otherizing of the unborn so you can in good consciousness toss it to the garbage bin (after extracting useful organs, etc.).

I understand how that kind of talk might be psychologically and politically useful (at least internally inside the Left), but then it does indeed fly in the face of the sheer wonder of witnessing a human birth, where you realise it's not a parasite, it's actually an adorable human being. I cannot see how you can reconcile both "visions", but then that's not my problem. I do warn you that such rethoric is incredibly counter-productive in the wider debate.

e: just for clarification, I posted this before you added half of the content of that post! It does reiterate many things I say here though.

That's a quite good analysis and frankly I did not have a rhetoric goal at all, but rather blurped my sincere thoughts on the matter. So "guilty" of that I guess.

On the matter of reconciliation however ... I think reconciliation comes natural for anyone who deliberately wants to be a parent.

i.e. Personally I do not have a problem with acknowledging the biological facts while at the same time projecting my hopes and dreams on the outcome of the grissly biological details: I.e. the wonderful bundle of joy that is a child.
I also can't see how anyone who does not acknowledge that duality would be able to make informed decisions in difficult circumstances, i.e., for example, a case where a pregnancy unduely endangers the life of the mother.

Furthermore I fully understand that other people might have other views ... and they are welcome to them, as long as they keep their views to their own bodies and don't start telling other people what they are allowed to do or not to do with their bodies. That's where the fun stops.

[Kobrar44]

It's living in the same sense that your spleen is living

You know that is not correct and I don't think I need to explain that. I will if you need me to.

It is certainly not a person which I think is the bigger question.

In a very different way your regular nonperson is not a person. It is even way more than a potential person. It is a 100% guaranteed person, unless it dies or suffers heavy damage on the way. You can't call it a person yet? It's still the same entity.

For all intents and purposes it's a parasite and if it wasn't for birth the mother would die a tragic death because of it.

For all intents and purposes it's a common way of developing a basic functional body amongs mammals. Difference with parasites is very obvious.

That it becomes something else (a Baby) at the moment of birth is irrelevant while it is still a fetus in the same way  that a caterpillar is not a butterfly and most certainly can not fly any more than a fetus could live without acting as a parasite towards the mother.

It does not become anything really, that's the thing. It simply ends its prenatal developement and "its life begins", which is a purely philosophical statement.

[Mikes]

It's living in the same sense that your spleen is living

You know that is not correct and I don't think I need to explain that. I will if you need me to.

Is a lump of 3-5 cells a "living person" is a sperm and an egg a "person" ... where do you draw the line and why? When does something become "living" ... and that is "living" on it's own and not just as a part that belongs to a larger organism, like indeed, a spleen.

Please do explain and make sure to point out why exactly you draw the line where you do and not at any other arbitrary stage of development.

[Kobrar44]

It is not a person in the same way an elder is not a youngster. Since the very beginnig, ever since the genes of mother anf father merge, from which point the cell is undoubtedly neither mothers or fathers and prepares for the first split, that's where my line ends, but its obviously of nonzero width.

[Flipside]

At which point does bread become toast?

[Bobboau]

You know that is not correct and I don't think I need to explain that. I will if you need me to.

I don't know that. explain.

In a very different way your regular nonperson is not a person. It is even way more than a potential person. It is a 100% guaranteed person

no it isn't.

You can't call it a person yet? It's still the same entity.

correct you can't call it a person yet. it is not the same entity as what it could be.

[Scotty]

My big deal with being pro-choice comes from the concept of bodily autonomy.

[swashmebuckle]

At which point does bread become toast?

I did my doctoral dissertation on this, and the exact moment is actually when God commanded the stork to inseminate the yeast, unless we suppose that bread doesn't have free will.

[Mikes]

It is not a person in the same way an elder is not a youngster. Since the very beginnig, ever since the genes of mother anf father merge, from which point the cell is undoubtedly neither mothers or fathers and prepares for the first split, that's where my line ends, but its obviously of nonzero width.

 If you have the sperm and the egg on their own ... how wouldn't it be just as much of a "crime" to prevent them from meeting? After all, they would become the same baby that you propose above.

Sperm + Egg make fertilised cell, then cell makes more cells ... right? At none of these stages we have anything resembling a "baby" or even a "fetus" or anything even having a single nerve cell let alone nervous system or personality or any capability to feel or sense a thing. Hence: Explain how your reasoning is not arbitrary.

[Luis Dias]

It's a slippery slope. I think my views on this matter have always been more or less in line with Carl Sagan's (http://www.2think.org/abortion.shtml).

[deathfun]

At which point does bread become toast?

The moment where you have found that it has been in the toaster for long enough to pop out and slather sweet butter on top of it, seeing it melt and seep into the wheat as you pour honey all over it and mixing two glorious things together to create this massively delicious creation on your plate