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.

As evidence that science considers human embryos, well human embryos, look at the differing legislation on experimentation on embryos. You can do much more experiments on animal embryos than human ones. With animals there is relative freedom until the third trimester, which has stricter regulation. With humans, experiments can only be done in the first 14 days after which the embryos must be destroyed and they cannot be transferred to a womb.

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

I have frozen blastocysts (5-6 day embryos) left over from IVF and for practical and legal reasons, I'll probably have to agree to them being "discarded and allowed to perish" as the fertility clinic puts it.

Each blastocyst might have the potential to grow into a healthy baby, but this is far from certain due to the surprisingly high rate of chromosomal abnormalities in human embryos. Also, not all healthy embryos manage to successfully implant in the uterus, as it's a complex process.

Nevertheless, embryos are human lives. They just aren't sentient beings.

Yes, an embryo is alive from the point of conception, even if no one knows it exists. If it fails to implant in the uterus, then it dies. A high percentage of human embryos die at a very early stage of development, but this does not mean that they were never alive.

Even if you believe a foetus should be a legal person, why does that extend to it having a right over somebody else’s body and autonomy? Legal personage is a very specific right, and assigning it to the unborn creates the opposite position: no legal person has the right to use another legal person’s body for their own gain. I can’t demand one of your kidneys because I need it; a baby doesn’t get to demand my uterus and blood supply because it needs it. As a legal person it can absolutely be removed from my body and have its own autonomy, without restriction.

But if you know they only might go on to become a human why equate a blastocyst with human life when you don't sound like you think the clinic will be killing them, or do you?

I agree they're alive the same way the cells in my kidney or my lungs are, but if a high % won't develop into a human I can't understand the logic of equating it with one if you're not going to for example say a % of sperm go on to fertilise an egg and they're alive as sperm so they're equivalent to human life.

To me it's really interesting from a religious angle - I'm Catholic, I believe abortion is killing a baby, but I don't believe it's the State's place to legislate against it, because:

(a) not everyone agrees with my beliefs; (b) sometimes it really is the least worst option (Patau, Edwards, the person pregnant or their family would be irreversibly and severely harmed by giving birth);
(c) we don't legislate against other sins like jealousy, disrespecting our parents or adultery, why hone in on this one?

It's a really nuanced debate morally though in terms of at what point abortion becomes unpalatable to society as a whole. Some, like me, agree it's always wrong. Others, that it's ok up to a certain point. And still others think that killing a perfectly healthy 39 week baby is acceptable.

I don't think we'll ever reach consensus, so we should probably vote on it and go with the majority option.

Yes I believe a 30-week gestation foetus is alive. My general thought is that if it’s viable, it’s alive. A 7-weeker has a heartbeat but it could never survive outside the womb so I wouldn’t class it as ‘alive’ for that reason.
im pro-choice and have had two children.

@Soupsavior

Yes, alive in the same way that organs are is probably the best way to describe how I see it.

Separate was probably the wrong choice of word on my part. What I meant was that I see the foetus as being a unique, individual entity of its own from conception. It's fully a part of the mother's body, so not "separate" but it's a secondary being - if that makes sense - rather than being the exact same entity as the mother.

So from your argument we should not legislate against murder because some people might disagree with you and be fine with it?

Would you think killing a child with Edward’s, Pataus or Down’s syndrome after birth is fine too?

Human embryos are already human. They're just at an incredibly early stage of development. I think the clinic is trying to tread the line between recognising this fact, while also acknowledging that letting an embryo "perish" is in no way the same as letting a baby die.

Make no mistake, a discarded embryo will die, because unless it is cryopreserved within its first few days and kept in this state of suspended animation, its only chance of survival is to successfully implant in a human uterus, then to continue to develop.

A small percentage of cryopreserved human embryos do not survive the freezing and thawing process and in my mind, that's the only grey area between life and death. But I think that grey area is mainly our own lack of certainty about whether a particular embryo is still alive. If an embryo is thawed and then does not show any signs of life such as re-expanding or hatching - then it is dead.

Why don't you think the state should legislate to protect their lives?

But if they won't all or even a majority go onto the develop into humans though, that's where I get stuck. There's so many if this of that this embryo will go onto develop. I totally understand and respect every woman to make her own choice for her own pregnancy when it counts as a human and a baby, but from a scientific standpoint I can't agree with a blastocyst being described as something with is going to develop into a human instead of a group of cells which possibly could but in most cases doesn't.

Human embryos are human. They aren’t some other species!

They are already human, but they may or may not go on to develop to the stage of being sentient beings.

I have to admit the fact that many embryos don't progress beyond the first few days or weeks of development does make me feel less guilty about having to discard mine.

I'm not saying they're puppies, I'm saying they won't all or even a majority of them go onto be a human so I'm asking for clarification. They may go onto be a human but the majority won't. Human organ cells also are only human cells, not another species, but you're not gonna argue that my kidney is a human life.

Human cells sure but they may not even go onto develop into anything resembling a human, may not even develop a heartbeat for example so I find the oversimplification of calling them just human confusing.

Why are people so obsessed with beating hearts, consciousness and independence equalling life? Mildew is alive. My kidney is alive (but neither conscious, with heatbeat or capable of independent life). Flowers are alive. Bacteria are alive. I cannot believe people find this a difficult concept!

Your kidney contains your unique human DNA. A blastocyst will contain it's own unique human DNA. We could tell it's sex, eye colour, hair colour, what diseases it might be predisposed to - all things that are unique to that individual living organism.

The fact that a large number of them fail rather than successfully grow into a baby doesn't alter their humanity. Think of turtles for example. Most newborn turtles don't make it to the sea. Most of those that do get eaten very quickly. An egg has between a 1, in 1,000 - 10,000 chance of reaching adulthood. But we'd still call a baby turtle a turtle even thought it's unlikely to survive. With a Cod, it's less than 1 in a million (and then we eat them 😭).Opposums give birth to more babies than they have nipples and those that don't find a nipple (which they then attach to whilst they continue growing) die. Chance of survival doesn't mean we don't see those animals as what they are, why should it be different in humans? So a very early human might not have much chance, but that doesn't stop them being human. We should just accept that most humans die before birth.

With humans it's roughly 30-50% of fertilised eggs if allowed to continue, will grow into a live baby. So not that bad tbh.

Ok but how is that a useful distinction? Should we adjust mortality rates to be totally skewed by the majority of these deaths that occur before birth? Should they have human rights? What is the purpose in applying this definition that has a useful and positive application.

I think you're mistaken there, that's about the rate of fertiliser eggs that become a blastocyst, which still needs to implant and then if,.if, if, potentially could become a live baby not will.

No of course we shouldn't. You're back to confusing human life with human rights. You're saying they aren't human because they might not survive. Clearly they are.

I'm saying they're human cells for example or a human blastocyst or whatever stage they're at is different some the oversimplified just calling them "a human", because then how do you not confuse them with humans who do require human rights? Why don't their deaths count? Of you're going to say because they're not quite the same as other humans, that's exactly what I'm saying. Likewise the whole argument of whether things are alive or not isn't helpful unless you've got useful framework of how you intend to apply that definition.

You're right, a lot fail at that stage, but more of them successfully implant with a natural conception. The odds are lower than I said (which was based on implantation of blastocysts and no miscarriage), but they aren't terrible. Most humans never make it to birth granted, and most of those losses will never even be known.