AIBU to think a foetus is alive before birth?

[Mmmchocolatebuttons]

I had a discussion with someone, who believes that a foetus is not alive, until the point they are born. They also asserted that this was not an uncommon view. I have a hard time believing this so I'm putting it to the AIBU poll.

To be clear, I'm pro choice, but I do believe that, for example, a 30 week foetus is factually, scientifically considered to be alive.

Surely, even if you're pro-choice all the way up until birth, you accept that the foetus is alive?

YABU = A foetus is not alive, until birth.
YANBU = A foetus is alive in the womb.

How does not being able to track it in a normal pregnancy negate the fact that it happens and that's when life begins?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10083

If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around does it make a sound?

Well, obviously it’s ‘alive’. But it’s not capable of survival without being ‘incubated’,by a woman for x amount of time.

An amoeba is alive. 🤷‍♀️

I don't know how many times I have to explain to you that the majority of fertilised eggs are not via IVF and many don't even implant. You can also pick your gender via IVF but surely you understand that doesn't mean you can say "people can choose the gender of their embryo" as a standard fact about pregnancy as a whole. Don't be so silly.

I'm gonna leave you to argue with the other posters who claim it's later because you're just demonstrating really well how there's no consensus

Don’t be silly. IVF can identify sex of the embryo but there is no way to tell from looking at an embryo what sex stereotypes, if any, the baby might decide to identify with. And if they like blue does that mean they have a masculine gender or not given the sex stereotype associated with males might change?

Oh god, don't show horn the trans issue in here, you know full well I meant the embryos biological sex but you knew what I meant by gender coloquiallt in that context. See, at least we agree words do have different scientific and lay-person meanings and sometimes they matter.

If you mean sex then say sex. We are all grown up here.

I'm amazed that 13% of voters don't believe that a foetus is alive!

Some women who've had abortions are in denial. The pro-life crowd come out with nonsense about 6-week-old embryos being "innocent babies", so some women go in the opposite direction and convince themselves that a foetus isn't alive or even human.

Hey if people can call every fertilised egg a human I can use the colloquial term for sex that the majority of these "sex" scans are named and advertised as. Take it up with all th clinics calling them gender scans if you feel so strongly about it.

There really was no reason to do this. They changed a status quo that was working reasonably well (although I don’t think pills by post is a good thing at all, that should have been changed tbh)

The status quo wasn't working well. Women are still being reported to police and investigated for having abortions. Even within the current limit.

MNs posters aren't the scientific community.

Thank god for that

A foetus is by definition alive. If it wasn't, it wouldn't grow. However, it isn't capable of independent life until late in the pregnancy. This shouldn't affect a woman's right to choose.

What about people who are born and need medical machines to live? Those who are attached to iron lungs aren't independent.

You leave a newborn on its own and don't nourish it, it would survive. A newborn is noway independent? Many people are born disabled who will need to be cared their whole life?

I'm not sure what people think "alive" means!
Sperm = alive
Ovum = alive
Zygote = alive
Embryo = alive
Blastocyst = alive
Foetus = alive
All alive. Independence, awareness, personhood etc are totally different.

It’s a really interesting question that you pose and I’m not sure I have a good answer. My view is that the foetus is in a sedated state in the womb and when they are born that state is reduced and they are able to be consciously aware (awake). But you are right that there is no magic switch at birth. It challenges my thinking to reflect on it.

A skin cell or gamete is a unit of life, but unlike a zygote or embryo it isn't classed as an organism, because it doesn't meet all the criteria mentioned elsewhere in this thread. So it's not a human life. But I agree that the distinction is less clear when we are comparing single cells (e.g. sperm cell and zygote). I suppose one of the most important aspects that distinguishes them is potential.

Ooh, that's an interesting idea! DS was born via c section, and was definitely alive before he was born.

I briefly contemplated abortion, once I found out I was over the cut off point for abortion pills, it just wasn't an option. I had an 'early' scan (that showed I was a lot further along than I thought I was) to make sure DS wasn't hanging around in one of my fallopian tubes. (I had a painful kidney infection, and they wanted to check nothing else was going on.)

Knowing what a surgical abortion entails, I couldn't have done that unless something was seriously wrong.

I think generally the “accepted” position on when a foetus “becomes a person” is the point at which it would survive outside of the womb but I might be wrong but there is no real consensus.

Nice answer.

About half (?) of babies have to be prompted to start breathing.

I am clearly not saying that newborns shouldn't be helped to breathe! But, perhaps, we might consider that life begins (for purposes of this discussion) when a baby takes its first independent breath.

I realise this is also controversial, I'm basically thinking of 'viability' as a baby's ability to survive outside the womb.

Since no baby breathes in utero, none of them have independent life until they get out.

Oh, bloody hell, now you're opening the argumentative door to stem cells 😂 Every time you have a tooth out, you're murdering human cells with potentials!!!

It is pretty much the legal definition of when a baby becomes a legal person so not that controversial at all

Oh, is it? Thanks!