Quote from: The None Blonde on December 20, 2009, 07:05:32 AM
If you chose to read my post, not what you wanted to see... you'd see I said the FINALY say should rest with the effected body... not just them, but surely those it effects have the right to have a say... its our bodies, our right.
As for laura, well, you say when a child is a person? same thing no?
You need to clarify embryo, foetus, and child... this is murky, and not helping.
Which is the very conundrum that keeps us all form agreeing on an obvious solution.
In the view of a person who believes it is a child, abortion - except in obvious self defense - is murder.
That's why it's very difficult to get such people to consider pro-choice arguments.
The thing is, all but the hard core political activist pro-choicer will concede that sometime in the late term the fetus should be considered a child - at the least when it gets to the point where it can survive outside the mother's womb if delivered pre-maturely.
so, for us normal people who are not all-or-nothing political activists, whether we are pro-life or pro-choice or something in between, we SHOULD all be able to agree that after 23,24 weeks - lets say the third trimester (26 weeks) for a verbal shorthand - we are speaking of a "child" just as much as we are speaking of a fetus.
How much further back than that one goes is a matter of disagreement.
for me, just to clarify my future remarks, I prefer quarters over trimesters (which is - both are - a wholly arbitrary scale which has no basis in biology)
10 weeks, 20 weeks, 30 weeks
It has been determined that there is measurable higher brain function in the fetus by 10 weeks...some suggest as early as eight weeks.
That, in my opinion, is the measure of "person" and not simply fetus. After 10 weeks, we are speaking of a fetus but also of a child, in my opinion and when I refer to that being I will commonly call it a child.
Before that brain activity it is a fetus (far enough back an embryo) and I, for one, am willing to accept broad latitude for the mother in terminating the pregnancy.
Past 10 weeks, I would only accept a termination in extraordinary circumstances which were court approved.
Past 20 weeks, only in defense of the mothers life, or to prevent permenant physical disability. At 20 weeks or shortly thereafter, a child is viable outside the mothers womb.
Past 30 weeks, I would make abortion for any reason other than those two a criminal offense, punishable at least as manslaughter. I concede that 20 weeks is an arbitrary distinction but I'm following the 10-week pattern. It's no more arbitrary than "trimesters"
So, in short, when I say "child" I refer to a being with brain function which MAY indicate self-awareness and definitely indicates the ability to feel pain.
