To be frustrated that it's impossible to have a discussion on abortion ethics....

[coconuttella]

On one side there's those who believe an embryo has fully human rights from conception, and on the other those who believe the foetus has no rights at all until birth.

Both sides seem to put forward their position forcefully and dogmatically as though they're stating the obvious, and anyone who thinks the ethics surrounding it may be a more complex is shouted down, especially by some on the pro-chioice side who seem to view anyone who doesn't agree with their stance as a misogynistic slave of the patriarchy.

Personally, I'm not in either camp and find the ethical questions complex, with this being brought home the other evening when I was reading that Incas didn't regard babies and toddler as having human status until the age of 3-4 (where they had a ceremony to mark this rite of passage) and no longer totally dependent on their mothers and past the most perilous time wrt child mortality. It made me question again my thoughts on when we should a human should acquire rights, and frustrated me that any discussion on this immediately degenerates into a slanging match.

Can you not even rationalise how pointlessly arbitrary and stupid that is? So the exact same baby to you can be in its mother's womb and then 1 minute later be born, and somehow all the brain activity and other biological functions that had been going on for the last however many weeks meant absolutely nothing until that baby suddenly comes out of a vagina means nothing??

That is so missing the point. Have you even listened to anyone except yourself talk?

Oh right okay so what am I missing then when you say life begins at birth? What is your rationale behind that if what I have said is completely missing the point?

Do explain.

I think it's more the case of not wanting to believe it, hairymary. Because you don't want to think that you're aborting a living human baby. It's uncomfortable.

I don't believe it because I don't believe it. I have no issue with doing it either way. It doesn't make me in anyway uncomfortable.

Thankfully the law considers that life begins at 24 weeks so abortion isn't allowed after that point, except for medical reasons

Does it? Are you sure? Another pp has just told us that everyone knows a fertilised egg is alive.

Not recognised by the law, though, otherwise IVF would be illegal. The law says 24 weeks so that's the only thing that matters practically.

The law is what it is because of beliefs around the viability of the fetus outside the womb.

For cherries, who thinks "" everyone knows"....
www.wired.com/2015/10/science-cant-say-babys-life-begins/

The law says 24 weeks is the cut off for abortion, but does not state that it is when life legally begins.
Legally, life begins at birth.

Well really that areticle is talking about socio political concepts of when life begins in more a philosophical concept, and I concede that okay, it's more accurate to say that once the fertilised egg has implanted is more accurate but it is a living organism that cannot rightly be deemed either just the mothers or just the fathers cells; it's a separate entity.

To be honest either way no one Could argue that scientifically as you were that a well developed fetus is in any way not alive. ...

Are you aware that babies see, hear and dream in the womb?

How do you know this? @CherriesInTheSnow

How is it possible to know this? Dream?

Humans are born without speech and are totally helpless. What do they dream about if they have no understanding of language? Of life.

I dream sometimes in a different language. I learn't this language.

The law is impassive, it's not any indication of when we can judge in reality that life begins, but only where the law (currently, in our country) deems it necessary to legal state that life has begun.

Elendron scientists can see from brain wave activity of more developed fetuses that strongly suggest babies are going through a sleep wake cycle of sleep which includes REM.

They know with even more certainty that babies can see and hear in the womb.

but it is a living organism that cannot rightly be deemed either just the mothers or just the fathers cells; it's a separate entity

It isn't a SEPARATE entity at all, that being the entire bloody point!

You need to take back your notion (and accompanying insults) that it is an objective fact that a foetus/zygote/embryo is alive. This is a matter of debate and always has been.
The arrogance of thinking you have solved an issue of millenia! How big is your head?

All human life could be abundant in sperm @CherriesInTheSnow

Yet most of it is wasted daily. With no care in the world, but a quick feeling of release. Like clean drinking water, a most useful resource on this planet, needed to sustain life itself, released from the tap.

It's about bodily autonomy. Nobody has a right to anyone else's body regardless if the person needs it for life.

Now morally, I'd say around the time of viability should be the cut off. But pragmatically , a woman should have the right to decide whether they want their own body to sustain another's life.

Can you point to those studies @CherriesInTheSnow?

Of course it's separate. As in, genetically it is seperase meterial.

As I've said which you are keen to not understand, the debate about the viability, validity and value of an unborn life is what is so hotly debated.

It's absolutely ridiculous to say that a 32 week old fetus etc is not biologically living.

If you think a embryo is alive then you also think a sperm is alive. It is "alive" in the same way. I presume you want to give rights to sperm as well then?

I'm just putting my toddler to bed now Elendron, just Google babies dreaming in the womb, or something similar - a quick scan suggests this starts at about week 23 :)

It's absolutely ridiculous to say that a 32 week old fetus etc is not biologically living

No it isn't. It is a very valid viewpoint held by millions of people.
I can understand you have a different opinion, are you so unable to appreciate the same in others?

Did I say anywhere that I want to give unborn babies rights?

Did I say I am pro life? No.

I don't really care, tbh, its just that your position is ludicrous and arrogant in the extreme.
You seem completely unable to tell the difference between opinion and fact.

But there is opinion and there is fact.

I might agree with you (though I obviously dont) that maybe a different idea of life, like maybe a soul, isn't present until a time like birth. It doesn't change the fact that a fetus is living, if you are accurately defining both "fetus" and "living".

What a bizarre and quite frankly, chilling turn this discussion has taken.

Next we will be told that extra kicking by the baby in the uterus will mean that they are good at football.

What would babies dream about if they didn't understand language.

Sleep wake cycles are not an indication of dreaming. Please do not obfuscate the discussion with a blatantly immature reasoning.

HAHAHA

Okay.

Goodnight

Elendron if you find it chilling that's fine, I find it interesting science.

My point as I specifically said when I posted that wasn't to be emotive or pro life in any way, it was to point out that a late term fetus has the same biological and neurological funations as a newborn, hence why I found the distinction and idea that "life begins at birth" so arbitrary.

Ai didn't put any emotion into those facts, if you are reading anything "chilling" into them that has nothing to do with me.