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.

I voted YABU because I was on the FWR thread and have read all the opinions. You've misrepresented the debate, @Mmmchocolatebuttons.

Nobody said a thriving foetus is dead.

They've said, in various ways, that a biologically 'living' thing is not necessarily a 'person' or may be considered to have a right to life if its mother chooses to stop incubating it.

To put this more brutally, a foetus is parasitical. Parasites typically belong to another species, which doesn't apply here, but it is true that the foetus is dependent on the woman's resources and will die without them. It even alters the woman's body, as parasites do to their hosts.

We're entitled to choose what lives in our bodies.

A foetus is alive from conception.

I’m pro choice but pretending that a baby at full term isn’t alive is ludicrous.

There's been zero misrepresentation. One of the tangent that thread went off on is that you can't kill a fetus because it's not something that's alive in the first place. When asked further about this, a couple of posters doubled down on this concept that a fetus is not a living organism until it is born. This has nothing to do with its worth, or the moralities of the abortion debate, but whether it was actually a living organism.

Rather than derail the thread more on this interesting side issue (which frankly only has tangential links to abortion), the poster sensibly started a fresh discussion.

It was also suggested that in order for something to be alive, it would need to have a death certificate to say when it's dead, which means no other animal or plant on this planet is alive by that definition.

It's entirely possible to (erroneously) believe a fetus isn't alive and be anti abortion. It's also possible for someone to agree that it's alive, but that due to women's rights being the primary factor be ok with abortion.

Course it's alive. I won't bother on having an abortion debate on here at all though. Just turns into nastyness and getting banned.

No I don’t think that. I don’t know a great deal about the subject but by awareness I mean conscious thought. I understand that a foetus responds to stimulus but that conscious thought is unlikely to be present before 24-28 weeks depending on development. In my layman terms I classed that as alive but not aware.

Of course a foetus is alive when its developing in the womb. But its not capable of staying alive independently.
Its not a person until it has separated from the mother and drawn breath.

I voted YABU for your goady thread.

If it wasn't alive then they wouldn't have to terminate its life. There wouldn't be any need to stop its heartbeat when its at a longer gestation before the pregnancy is induced to terminate.

Of course a foetus is alive. And of course abortion involves killing it. Crazy to say otherwise.

The issue is personhood. Is a foetus a person before 20 weeks or so? I wouldn't say so. It's human, but not a person.

So I suppose if you can convince people that babies in the womb are 'unalive' you might be able to gather more support for termination to term? Is that the angle activists are going for maybe? Kind of like the 'bunch of cells' argument worked to legitimise termination to 12 weeks, and then 'viability' legitimised termination to 24.

I haven't misrepresented the debate. The person I was arguing with did not mention anything about personhood.

I fully accept everything you've said.

Thanks, @Babyboomtastic and @Mmmchocolatebuttons. I clearly missed a couple of the more outré replies in the other thread. Thinking back, I may have scrolled past the one about a death certificate - one poster said nobody holds a funeral for a miscarriage and I moved swiftly on, shaking my head and muttering "They do!"

Yes, the death certificate post was a weird one!

A foetus is a part of the women carrying it so is alive by default. Once a foetus is able to be separated from its mother it becomes a baby and is alive in its own right.

But they still feel pain as the nerves are developed before birth. How can they be unaware? What do you think happens at birth that would make them conscious and suddenly aware? That doesn’t make any sense

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

I would say a foetus is alive from the moment of its creation. Whether someone would consider it a 'human life' at that point is up to them. In the absence of abortion or miscarriage, it's going to develop into a human life, so it seems reasonable to call it a human life from the beginning.

But even if it's not considered a human life, it's still a living entity from the moment of conception.

I can’t believe anyone - especially a woman who’s been pregnant! - haven’t they felt the baby kicking - can believe that a baby’s only alive once it’s born!

TBH I’d assume that they are just plain thick - and/or have been reading all sorts of rubbish on dross-type social media.

I think PP has a point that it's difficult to pinpoint though. You would say it's alive from the moment of its creation but science hadn't actually figured out a way to detect or determine the exact point of conception yet so it's a bit like the analogy of the tree in the woods -is alive until anyone knows it there? If it's conceived and miscarried earlier than a women even knew she was pregnant, was it alive in the same way as a life or in the same way as other cells are "alive"? Likewise saying in the absence of abortion is a massive IF. Whenever conception happens theres a million if, if, if between the point it's a few cells and developing into a. Human life, and such a large proportion don't go on to develop into that human life. It's so vague and unknown that everyone's going to have their own personal opinion.

Yes sorry same here. Got to be incredibly thick to think a baby isn’t alive whislt in the womb.

Of course a foetus is alive. That is a completely different question to whether you think it is or should be a legal person (which I do).

How would a foetus being a legal person work though - what stage would you have it?

because whilst a foetus is alive it isn’t independently so and you would have to decide when

@Soupsavior

If it's conceived and miscarried earlier than a women even knew she was pregnant, was it alive in the same way as a life or in the same way as other cells are "alive"?

I would say the latter - alive in the way that cells are alive.

There's a difference in how people tend to view 'life' as opposed to 'being alive'. 'Life' is seen as being more complex/developed, whereas being alive is a seen as a more basic state.

A foetus is alive in its most basic state from the point of conception, because at that point it becomes a separate entity in its own right. I suppose at its earliest it could be considered non-human or pre-human.

So it's alive in the same way as organs are? I agree with you but I would disagree it becomes a seperate entity at conception given it's alive because it's part of the mother's body the same way her organs are.

Surely it's got to be a human as it is a living organism comprised of unique fully human DNA, and is how we all are early in the human life cycle.

A sunflower seed is the seed form of a sunflower. A sunflower sapling is the sailing form of a sunflower. They aren't pre sunflowers. A developing duck egg contains an embryonic duck not a pre-duck unknown organism.

I can see why some people try to argue that a human embryo/fetus isn't alive and isn't human, because for some it's too uncomfortable to be ok with abortion if they acknowledge what it is, but that doesn't stop it being an accurate description.

Whether it's alive or whether it's human isn't the issue. That's obvious and settled science. The moral issues come in balancing the rights between the living organisms.

It’s alive. But not viable.