Roe v Wade is on deck

[Elixir]

No. Personhood is a word. It refers to an ill/defined, unquantifiable, undetectable quality ascribed by most humans to most other humans. It has no external objective reality.

I'll put you down as simultaneously believing that granite outcrops are persons and also that bilby is not a person.

You’ll put me down any way you can, obviously. Even inventing ridiculous beliefs for me to hold.
But you can’t/don’t address the harms/benefits equation. Mouthing empathy for fetuses is righteous sounding. You’re good at that.

 

[Toni]

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

Is a 30 week delivered fetus someone?

Once delivered, it is a baby. This is not difficult to understand.

So location is what makes a human entity a person versus a nonperson?

Once delivered, it is separate from its mother and no longer dependent upon her heart, her lungs, her kidneys, her blood and breath and all of her organs to live.

Until then, the needs of the mother are primary and the needs of the fetus are secondary.

So delivery it and separate it from the mother.

So you propose that legislators, who have demonstrated quite explicitly just how ignorant they are about biology, pregnancy, women’s bodies, and rape should dictate to a woman what medical procedures she must or cannot have, because she is pregnant?

 

[Emily Lake]

No. Personhood is a word. It refers to an ill/defined, unquantifiable, undetectable quality ascribed by most humans to most other humans. It has no external objective reality.

I'll put you down as simultaneously believing that granite outcrops are persons and also that bilby is not a person.

You’ll put me down any way you can, obviously.

If you dish it out, at some point you really ought to be prepared to take it.

Even inventing ridiculous beliefs for me to hold.

It's not ridiculous. Seriously, I made a very reasonable and rational post asking you about boundary conditions on a continuum. It's not a difficult concept. I assumed that you would be willing to concede that you can draw a line somewhere and say "everything on this side is definitely not a person" and you can draw a different line and say "everything on this side is definitely a person". I assumed that you would at least be honest enough to acknowledge that there are clearly some reasonable lines on one side and the other, so that there's a limited range of uncertainty in the middle where we can talk like adults about that range where it's not clear.

You, however, chose to respond with a childish "oh it's just a word, and it's not well defined" tap dance and dodge. You chose to respond in bad faith. I didn't make you do it, you did that all by yourself. I presented you with an opportunity to discuss the topic like a rational and respectful adult, you made the decision not to do so.

And the logical consequence of your sophomoric approach is that literally no human can be referred to as a person, and literally every rock can be referred to as a person, because you have chosen to allow no actual meaning to the term.

But you can’t/don’t address the harms/benefits equation. Mouthing empathy for fetuses is righteous sounding. You’re good at that.

I've addressed the harms and benefits. The problem is that you have taken an extreme position and you are unwilling to even consider any other position for discussion. If you take the position that a 30 week developed fetus is a non-person and can be terminated on a whim with no moral or ethical consideration, then there's no real discussion to be had with you.

You are an outlier, and you hold an extreme position.

 

[Emily Lake]

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

Is a 30 week delivered fetus someone?

Once delivered, it is a baby. This is not difficult to understand.

So location is what makes a human entity a person versus a nonperson?

Once delivered, it is separate from its mother and no longer dependent upon her heart, her lungs, her kidneys, her blood and breath and all of her organs to live.

Until then, the needs of the mother are primary and the needs of the fetus are secondary.

So delivery it and separate it from the mother.

So you propose that legislators, who have demonstrated quite explicitly just how ignorant they are about biology, pregnancy, women’s bodies, and rape should dictate to a woman what medical procedures she must or cannot have, because she is pregnant?

No, and I'm getting really tired of these dumbass interpretations.

But hey, let's go ahead and dive in on your riposte.

You want to complain that legislators - by which you clearly mean republican legislators - are totally ignorant about women's bodies and biology, so they shouldn't be allowed to dictate to women what we can and cannot do with respect to other living beings inside of us. Okay fine. But once they're separated from us, by your own logic, those other beings are persons who have the right to not be murdered.

The only difference is location: Whether the 30wk safe being is inside a womb or outside a womb. If that 30wk safe being is delivered prematurely, it's a person - and it merits protection to keep it from harm. If that 30wk safe being hasn't been prematurely delivered, it has no personhood and can be treated as a parasite and eliminated at will. So deliver it. The mother doesn't have to keep it, she doesn't even have to see it. But since it's unacceptable to you to limit abortions for viable fetuses, then make it not a fetus - make it a baby. Induce delivery and remove it from the mother. Now it's an independent human. Problem solved. If mom decides in the third trimester that she doesn't want to have a baby, she doesn't have to be responsible for that baby - she can deliver it prematurely and let medical staff deal with its life and place it for adoption.

On the other hand... you also have a pile of predominantly democrats who are so ignorant of biology and women's bodies that they want to force women to compete against males in athletics, they want to force women to share prison cells with males, and share intimate spaces with males against our will or consent. I'd be quite happy if you would speak up against that legislative ignorance in addition to your insistence that near-term infants can be killed on demand.

 

[Elixir]

I've addressed the harms and benefits.

If by “addressed” you mean dismissed, yeah.
Try this easy quiz:

Do you believe laws should be made on the basis of

A: providing more benefit to people than it does harm to them, or

B: on emotional appeals to vagaries like “personhood” or “decency”

For all your complaints and claims to “having addressed”

 

[Emily Lake]

I've addressed the harms and benefits.

If by “addressed” you mean dismissed, yeah.
Try this easy quiz:

Do you believe laws should be made on the basis of

A: providing more benefit to people than it does harm to them, or

B: on emotional appeals to vagaries like “personhood” or “decency”

For all your complaints and claims to “having addressed”

I think laws should be made on the basis of A. I also think that third trimester fetuses are people for all intents and purposes, and thus the harm to them should be considered.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But since it's unacceptable to you to limit abortions for viable fetuses, then make it not a fetus - make it a baby. Induce delivery and remove it from the mother. Now it's an independent human. Problem solved. If mom decides in the third trimester that she doesn't want to have a baby, she doesn't have to be responsible for that baby - she can deliver it prematurely and let medical staff deal with its life and place it for adoption.

Any procedure in the third trimester is likely to be invasive. But your nonchalant take of, "induce delivery and remove it from the mother" sounds like you aren't exactly appreciating that process too much.

Does the idea of the state inducing delivery not sound reprehensible to you? I'm not very familiar with birthing, but part of me thinks that it isn't unreasonable to suggest inducing birth before the body is ready to make with the birthing process comes with greater risk to both parties.

 

[southernhybrid]

Wow! You guys have been arguing about this for 4 years! Has anyone ever changed their mind? I don't have enough time to waste to read all 242 pages of posts.

Okay. I'll waste a little time too. In my experience working in a maternity clinic, there were more than a few women who would have done their fetuses a favor by aborting them, but almost nobody wanted to give up a live baby. I only had one patient who did and she was quite rational, feeling that someone with more money and education then she had, might do a better job of raising her baby. Actually, I think she was a pretty good mom to the one child she already had. I always wondered if she regretted her decision years later.

Even the worst, most messed up women, and teenagers wanted their babies once they were born, even if their pregnancies were unplanned, they were living in dire poverty, or the pregnancy was the result of rape at the age of 14. Sometimes abortion is a good thing for the fetus regardless of when it happens. I hope those babies were cared for and raised well, but I have my doubts.

Anyway, my point is that very few women want to give up a live baby, while some women feel the need to end a pregnancy. Come to think about it, that's a pretty small minority too. And, most women don't even have that choice these days.


I'll check back in about four more years to see how things are going.

 

[Elixir]

I think laws should be made on the basis of A. I also think that third trimester fetuses are people for all intents and purposes, and thus the harm to them should be considered.

“third trimester fetuses are people” sounds deceptively reasonable. What if the prospective patient’s “fertilization date” is uncertain? Are you okay either way going with the patient’s best guess? What if they lie? Prison?

Anyhow I don’t know of anything beyond genetic structure that makes a fetus a human. The parents and family might have some investment in the fetus as “a person”, and I think that counts a lot. But does losing it compare to the loss of a friend or relative, or any of your peers, or even a newborn? I think not.
But-
Even allowing the dubious assertion that the fetus is of equal value to your bestie, the little bit of data I’ve been able to gather indicates that the situation you want to prevent is so vanishingly rare as to be literally swamped by the number of people’s “besties” who have been taken from us due to abortion laws.
So please- no more of this crap about what I believe. Come up with some data that can help support your harm/benefits assessment. I find abortion laws to be a net harm, regardless of the intent of their advocates. In fact it’s not even close as far as I can tell.

PROVE ME WRONG

 

[Toni]

Only if you accept that a fetus in the third trimester is someone.

Is a 30 week delivered fetus someone?

Once delivered, it is a baby. This is not difficult to understand.

So location is what makes a human entity a person versus a nonperson?

Once delivered, it is separate from its mother and no longer dependent upon her heart, her lungs, her kidneys, her blood and breath and all of her organs to live.

Until then, the needs of the mother are primary and the needs of the fetus are secondary.

So delivery it and separate it from the mother.

So you propose that legislators, who have demonstrated quite explicitly just how ignorant they are about biology, pregnancy, women’s bodies, and rape should dictate to a woman what medical procedures she must or cannot have, because she is pregnant?

No, and I'm getting really tired of these dumbass interpretations.

But hey, let's go ahead and dive in on your riposte.

You want to complain that legislators - by which you clearly mean republican legislators - are totally ignorant about women's bodies and biology, so they shouldn't be allowed to dictate to women what we can and cannot do with respect to other living beings inside of us. Okay fine. But once they're separated from us, by your own logic, those other beings are persons who have the right to not be murdered.

The only difference is location: Whether the 30wk safe being is inside a womb or outside a womb. If that 30wk safe being is delivered prematurely, it's a person - and it merits protection to keep it from harm. If that 30wk safe being hasn't been prematurely delivered, it has no personhood and can be treated as a parasite and eliminated at will. So deliver it. The mother doesn't have to keep it, she doesn't even have to see it. But since it's unacceptable to you to limit abortions for viable fetuses, then make it not a fetus - make it a baby. Induce delivery and remove it from the mother. Now it's an independent human. Problem solved. If mom decides in the third trimester that she doesn't want to have a baby, she doesn't have to be responsible for that baby - she can deliver it prematurely and let medical staff deal with its life and place it for adoption.

On the other hand... you also have a pile of predominantly democrats who are so ignorant of biology and women's bodies that they want to force women to compete against males in athletics, they want to force women to share prison cells with males, and share intimate spaces with males against our will or consent. I'd be quite happy if you would speak up against that legislative ignorance in addition to your insistence that near-term infants can be killed on demand.

I wrote what I wrote without any regard to either political party or gender of the legislator. Surely you are aware that some are shockingly ignorant about basic female anatomy, conception and reproduction, much less health conditions, risks, best practices, and much more. This is why I believe that such issues should be governed by medical professionals with specific expertise and knowledge as well as those individuals well grounded in medical ethics.

A fetus, if it exits the womb alive must be afforded the best possible care, including, on occasion, being allowed as peaceful and pain free a death as possible if death is imminent.

 

[Elixir]

most women don't even have that choice these days

Sure they do. Probably less do with the rise of plastic coat hangers, but where there’s a will there’s a way.
Factoring that into the harms/benefits ratio doesn’t help the fetal personhood cause much.

 

[Emily Lake]

But since it's unacceptable to you to limit abortions for viable fetuses, then make it not a fetus - make it a baby. Induce delivery and remove it from the mother. Now it's an independent human. Problem solved. If mom decides in the third trimester that she doesn't want to have a baby, she doesn't have to be responsible for that baby - she can deliver it prematurely and let medical staff deal with its life and place it for adoption.

Any procedure in the third trimester is likely to be invasive. But your nonchalant take of, "induce delivery and remove it from the mother" sounds like you aren't exactly appreciating that process too much.

Does the idea of the state inducing delivery not sound reprehensible to you? I'm not very familiar with birthing, but part of me thinks that it isn't unreasonable to suggest inducing birth before the body is ready to make with the birthing process comes with greater risk to both parties.

It absolutely sounds reprehensible to me. Killing a health baby who presents no known risk to the mother also sounds reprehensible to me. My preferred approach remains the same as when we started this discussion: RvW rules that allow unfettered access in the first two trimesters, but limited to medically indicated terminations in the third trimester. But apparently some people here think that's a horrific imposition and we can't force women to have kids they don't want, even if those kids are developed enough to reasonably survive outside the womb... and since some people have taken the position that *location* determines personhood and that if the kid is *inside* the womb it's not a person... this is my very much not preferred alternative.

The situation here right now is that some members here have taken an extreme position that only recognizes personhood when the infant is no longer physically connected to the mother. This creates a situation where two kids at the same developmental stage are subjected to dramatically different treatment, based solely on their location. One of them gets treated as a baby that merits protection from murder and efforts to maintain its life, but the other is treated as if it's a disposable lump of flesh with no value - and in some cases even gets described as a parasite to be cleansed at will.

Nobody here has taken the extreme position that a zygote is a person from day one - we all recognize that as an extreme and irrational position. Similarly, none of us are arguing that a fetus within the first two trimesters is a full person that merits protection. But the other extreme - yeah, those are the people I'm arguing with. And if their definition of personhood only applies when the kid is physically separated from the mother, and they're entirely unwilling to even consider reasonable limitations on rare events at all... I'm pretty much left with creating the separation they so irrationally demand.

 

[Emily Lake]

Wow! You guys have been arguing about this for 4 years! Has anyone ever changed their mind? I don't have enough time to waste to read all 242 pages of posts.

The argument may have shifted.

We now have a number of people who are stridently arguing AGAINST Roe v Wade.

Interesting times.

 

[Emily Lake]

I think laws should be made on the basis of A. I also think that third trimester fetuses are people for all intents and purposes, and thus the harm to them should be considered.

“third trimester fetuses are people” sounds deceptively reasonable. What if the prospective patient’s “fertilization date” is uncertain? Are you okay either way going with the patient’s best guess? What if they lie? Prison?

Anyhow I don’t know of anything beyond genetic structure that makes a fetus a human. The parents and family might have some investment in the fetus as “a person”, and I think that counts a lot. But does losing it compare to the loss of a friend or relative, or any of your peers, or even a newborn? I think not.
But-
Even allowing the dubious assertion that the fetus is of equal value to your bestie, the little bit of data I’ve been able to gather indicates that the situation you want to prevent is so vanishingly rare as to be literally swamped by the number of people’s “besties” who have been taken from us due to abortion laws.
So please- no more of this crap about what I believe. Come up with some data that can help support your harm/benefits assessment. I find abortion laws to be a net harm, regardless of the intent of their advocates. In fact it’s not even close as far as I can tell.

PROVE ME WRONG

I'm really tired of your strawmen.

Fertilization can be uncertain, but it's usually uncertain within a matter of days, not weeks. Would you like to argue that instead of 26 weeks, we should set the bar at 27 or 28 weeks, just so we're giving sufficient cushion for that uncertainty?

Genetic structure is what makes our species a species, so I don't even know what you think you're arguing with that bit of inanity.

Nobody has suggested that a fetus has the same value across the board as anyone's bestie - but I guarantee that for some people, both male and female, their developing baby is the most valuable person in the world to them. That you so casually dismiss that is pretty abhorrent.

 

[laughing dog]

It absolutely sounds reprehensible to me. Killing a health baby who presents no known risk to the mother …

There is no such thing. All deliveries pose known risks. The risks may be small, but they are known to be possible.

 

[Elixir]

but it's usually uncertain within a matter of days

Still uncertain.

Would you like to argue that instead of 26 weeks, we should set the bar at 27 or 28 weeks

Not a fan of your bars, period. They’re obviously capricious (or you wouldn’t offer multiple “bars”) and not a fit basis for determining criminality.

Nobody has suggested that a fetus has the same value across the board as anyone's bestie

No?

The person whose behavior you seek to constrain isn’t just rare, they’re virtually nonexistent. Yet abortion laws cause pain and suffering and even death, and that’s an inevitable cost of legislating reproductive healthcare.
I’m sure the cost in Europe is much lower, more like the US under RvW.
We shall see if it maintains against the wave of conservatism they’re suffering.

Meanwhile it’s totally disingenuous to CLAIM that abortion laws don’t elevate a fetus’ value to that of a “bestie”, while arguing “personhood” for 3rd trimester fetuses out of the other side of your mouth.
Even bringing calling up that question denies your adherence to any rational or data- based harms vs benefits evaluation, so you can just drop that pretense.

Bring the data, or own your position regardless of its foundation or lack thereof.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But since it's unacceptable to you to limit abortions for viable fetuses, then make it not a fetus - make it a baby. Induce delivery and remove it from the mother. Now it's an independent human. Problem solved. If mom decides in the third trimester that she doesn't want to have a baby, she doesn't have to be responsible for that baby - she can deliver it prematurely and let medical staff deal with its life and place it for adoption.

Any procedure in the third trimester is likely to be invasive. But your nonchalant take of, "induce delivery and remove it from the mother" sounds like you aren't exactly appreciating that process too much.

Does the idea of the state inducing delivery not sound reprehensible to you? I'm not very familiar with birthing, but part of me thinks that it isn't unreasonable to suggest inducing birth before the body is ready to make with the birthing process comes with greater risk to both parties.

It absolutely sounds reprehensible to me.

So we are in agreement that the state forcing inducement of birth in a woman is reprehensible.

What I don't understand is why you are supporting the state forcing inducement of birth in a woman. The argument of personhood seems off as the woman is absolutely, without doubt, a person. And you aren't particularly caring about that woman or her health or her well being. Put that woman in a locker room and you'll bellow till the cows come how about her well being and rights to be protected from dangling bits of a transgender person in the same locker room.

But put her in a hospital and all of a sudden, she is a villain. who deserves to have the state intervene in her uterus, forcing her, with medication, to give birth..

 

[thebeave]

It absolutely sounds reprehensible to me. Killing a health baby who presents no known risk to the mother …

There is no such thing. All deliveries pose known risks. The risks may be small, but they are known to be possible.

Aren't there risks in aborttions as well? Particularly, 3rd term?

 

[Jarhyn]

It absolutely sounds reprehensible to me. Killing a health baby who presents no known risk to the mother …

There is no such thing. All deliveries pose known risks. The risks may be small, but they are known to be possible.

Aren't there risks in aborttions as well? Particularly, 3rd term?

Live childbirth is always a higher risk.

 

[laughing dog]

It absolutely sounds reprehensible to me. Killing a health baby who presents no known risk to the mother …

There is no such thing. All deliveries pose known risks. The risks may be small, but they are known to be possible.

Aren't there risks in aborttions as well? Particularly, 3rd term?

Yes. But no one is arguing that someone must take that risk.