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 Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 3:25 pm
sachiko_sohma WatersMoon110 Giving Legal Personhood to unborn humans is a rather tricky thing to carry out. For one thing, when would Legal Personhood begin? At conception? At viability? At implantation? I believe once it becomes and embryo and starts to really form then it should be counted as a person. You can tell at that point that it's not just a mass of cells but a human starting to form. Well, according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia In humans, the embryo is defined as the product of conception from implantation in the uterus through the eighth week of development. So, are you talking about implantation (which can't really be detected or recorded)? Or about some time in the first eight weeks of pregnancy? Or did you mean when it reaches the stage of "Fetus" at eight weeks? And maybe just said "embryo" by mistake?
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Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:23 pm
WatersMoon110 divineseraph A woman does not cause miscarriage, just the same as a mother does not cause pnumonea. Abortion can only be compared to miscarriage in the same way dying of age and dying of murder can be compared. Both cause a death, but one of the deaths is not intended. Nobody is at fault in a miscarriage, unless drug, alcohol or other neglect was involved. I'm not going to go into that as it would be another debate as of what counts as neglect. Fair enough. divineseraph And a child cannot catch pnumonea and die unless they are born... Nobody can ever get harmed unless they are born. May as well abort every fetus, to save them from dying after they are born. Are you saying that birth defects, being strangled by the umbilical cord, terminal deceases and conditions, and abortion aren't "harming" the unborn human? Unless you mean that they (probably) don't feel any pain until they are born (or at least 20 weeks -- according to most doctors/scientists I have read on the internets)? Are you even reading what I post? It's all about the intent. A man can fall down a mountain and land in a fire pit filled with glass and boiling lemon juice. That doesn't mean that the owner of that cliff commited a murder. And admittedly, there may be safety laws in effect, but it's an example. Abortion is intended killing, while a birth defect or miscarriage is not.
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Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 5:39 pm
WatersMoon110 Conren WatersMoon110 Conren WatersMoon110 Giving Legal Personhood to unborn humans is a rather tricky thing to carry out. For one thing, when would Legal Personhood begin? At conception? At viability? At implantation? I think it should start once the pregnancy is known. Maybe the mother should have the option of reporting the existance of her offspring while pregnant, but if she chooses to abort then it should be manditory for the abortionist to report. (I'm not fully sure how this would work) That's a little vague. I don't think you can change "Legal Personhood beings at birth" to "Legal Personhood begins whenever the pregnant woman reports it to begin". What about women who don't know they are pregnant until 6 months? Or who don't know until they give birth (this happens very rarely, but I think it does happen)? What about women who think they are pregnant, but actually aren't? Yeah, you're right. How about at implantation? Well, the issue with that is that Legal Personhood is granted through (rather a lot of) paperwork. So someone needs to know that the unborn human exists for it to get legal rights. I suppose this could be accomplished through mandatory monthly pregnancy testing (though this would be both a hassle to enforce and a violation of privacy). Not to mention the whole miscarriage issue, including the estimated 1/3 of unborn humans that miscarry before the woman is even aware she was pregnant. Legal personhood is pretty well define and it doesn't mention anything about paperwork having to be filed first before someone gets personhood. I think paperwork is just to recognise someone's personhood. So an embryo could technically have personhood, while the paperwork can be done afterwards when the human's existance is actually discovered. WatersMoon110 Conren WatersMoon110 Also, I am not sure I see the benefit to adding all this confusion and paperwork by declaring unborn humans to be Legal Persons if abortion is still legal. I mean, I was under the impression that most people wanted unborn humans to be declared Legal Persons in order to give them access to the "Right to Life" (I might be mistaken though)? Partially yes. Not even wanted unborn have any rights. While although they may not need any, it would be nice to treat them as equals, legally speaking. I do, to some extent, agree. I think that unborn humans are equal to born humans (in a non-legal setting). I just feel that giving them the same legal rights would be a whole lot of extra work for the government agencies in charge of that sort of thing, with very little benefit (the benefit mainly being that the poor women who have lost a pregnancy could get a death certificate for their unborn human). I wouldn't feel so bad, they are paid to do that. Also, as it stands now, no one can usually be charged for homicide for causing a miscarriage unless the child breaths at least once (speaking of a random act of violence, of course). I would like that to change. WatersMoon110 Conren WatersMoon110 Isn't causing the death of another person unintentionally "involuntary manslaughter"? I mean, if unborn humans were considered Legal Persons, would it seem somewhat logical to consider miscarriage the unintentional death of another person? Well it would be more similar to a freak accident. What is the law when dealing with freak accidents? Well, if more than one person was involved, I believe there often is a police investigation into the person who didn't die. And, if you are talking about things like a kid running out right in front of a car, there can be charges (like involuntary vehicular manslaughter), though usually only a small fine, if any punishment. If you mean like someone getting struck by lightening, or another so-called "Act of God", then there isn't any investigation needed. Perhaps miscarriage would be classified as this if unborn humans were declared to be Legal Persons? That would solve that bit of the problem. I was more reffering to the first or second one. But the third one sounds better. I didn't think of that one.
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Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 6:00 pm
WatersMoon110 sachiko_sohma WatersMoon110 Giving Legal Personhood to unborn humans is a rather tricky thing to carry out. For one thing, when would Legal Personhood begin? At conception? At viability? At implantation? I believe once it becomes and embryo and starts to really form then it should be counted as a person. You can tell at that point that it's not just a mass of cells but a human starting to form. Well, according to Wikipedia: Wikipedia In humans, the embryo is defined as the product of conception from implantation in the uterus through the eighth week of development. So, are you talking about implantation (which can't really be detected or recorded)? Or about some time in the first eight weeks of pregnancy? Or did you mean when it reaches the stage of "Fetus" at eight weeks? And maybe just said "embryo" by mistake? No I mean embryo, you know before the fetus and after the zygote stage. Whatever. Whatever is before fetus and after zygote (when it's starting to form and no longer just cells).
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Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:14 am
Some may ask when exactly life begins, but the current standard is arguable too. You may ask-"when sperm meets egg? when the embryo implants? At 8 weeks? At the heartbeat?"
However, I remember a case in which similar questions were posed at the current standard of birth, when taking on partial birth, or D&E abortions. Basically, the question was- When is born, born? When the child is removed from the mother? What if one arm is left inside? How about the head? The lower half of the body? A single toe? In these cases, in which the child is not completely born, can it be killed and still not be considered a person?
When personhood starts will always have nitpicks as in "When EXACTLY", on both sides. So how about making it REALLY simpe and just have it so that it's ALWAYS a person.
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 9:57 am
Conren Legal personhood is pretty well define and it doesn't mention anything about paperwork having to be filed first before someone gets personhood. I think paperwork is just to recognise someone's personhood. So an embryo could technically have personhood, while the paperwork can be done afterwards when the human's existance is actually discovered. I suppose that the paperwork could still be done after birth (either a birth certificate or a death certificate), and the unborn human could be said to be a Person at all stages, even when not yet known. I think that would solve the main issues caused by unborn humans not having legal personhood (miscarriages being give death certificates, double homicide if woman and unborn human are killed) but without all the problems. In the UK, they declared the octopus an honorary vertebrate (as only vertebrates are covered under animal cruelty laws there). Perhaps unborn humans could be declared "honorary legal persons" until birth? (I've been thinking about this for a good week)
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:20 pm
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Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:38 pm
sachiko_sohma WatersMoon110 sachiko_sohma I believe once it becomes and embryo and starts to really form then it should be counted as a person. You can tell at that point that it's not just a mass of cells but a human starting to form. ...did you mean when it reaches the stage of "Fetus" at eight weeks? And maybe just said "embryo" by mistake? No I mean embryo, you know before the fetus and after the zygote stage. Whatever. Whatever is before fetus and after zygote (when it's starting to form and no longer just cells). This is random, and I don't mean to, like, pick on your or anything. But I just realized that this means that you believe personhood starts at implantation. But, this sort of leaves this odd, bit where an unborn human is at the fertilized ovum/zygote stage where it isn't a person. I guess I just don't see why that particular stage of development makes an unborn human into a person. I can see the justification for three stages: fertilization (when the two sex cells combine and a new set of DNA forms), viability (when the unborn human is able to survive without the woman who is carrying it, even if it is still depending on her), and birth (when the human is separate from the woman). I was just wondering exactly what your reasons were for saying that implantation should be the beginning of personhood? It's not an opinion I've really come across before, and I would love it if you wouldn't mind sharing more about it! *smile*
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:28 pm
WatersMoon110 sachiko_sohma WatersMoon110 sachiko_sohma I believe once it becomes and embryo and starts to really form then it should be counted as a person. You can tell at that point that it's not just a mass of cells but a human starting to form. ...did you mean when it reaches the stage of "Fetus" at eight weeks? And maybe just said "embryo" by mistake? No I mean embryo, you know before the fetus and after the zygote stage. Whatever. Whatever is before fetus and after zygote (when it's starting to form and no longer just cells). This is random, and I don't mean to, like, pick on your or anything. But I just realized that this means that you believe personhood starts at implantation. But, this sort of leaves this odd, bit where an unborn human is at the fertilized ovum/zygote stage where it isn't a person. I guess I just don't see why that particular stage of development makes an unborn human into a person. I can see the justification for three stages: fertilization (when the two sex cells combine and a new set of DNA forms), viability (when the unborn human is able to survive without the woman who is carrying it, even if it is still depending on her), and birth (when the human is separate from the woman). I was just wondering exactly what your reasons were for saying that implantation should be the beginning of personhood? It's not an opinion I've really come across before, and I would love it if you wouldn't mind sharing more about it! *smile* I'm sorry, i'm getting confused I think. What i'm trying to say is after it's been implanted and starting forming into a human. Even if it might not look human right away, it probly won't really look like a human until 60 days but between the 4-5 week you can tell it's starting to form ),then I believe it has a soul. By then you already know that it made it past fertilization (just be cause the egg is fertilized, doesn't mean it will implant to the uterous, techically your not pregnant until it implants) and it made it past the first 20 days (when the head of the embryo has started to form though you can't tell yet it's a head of a human but i'm using my medical dictionary to try explain what i'm talking about). O.k. so basically 20 and up I believe it has a soul (maybe before then it has a soul, who knows. All I know that souls is what gives use life). Sorry, i'm just really bad at explaining things. sweatdrop
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Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:19 am
sachiko_sohma I'm sorry, i'm getting confused I think. What i'm trying to say is after it's been implanted and starting forming into a human. Even if it might not look human right away, it probly won't really look like a human until 60 days but between the 4-5 week you can tell it's starting to form ),then I believe it has a soul. By then you already know that it made it past fertilization (just be cause the egg is fertilized, doesn't mean it will implant to the uterous, techically your not pregnant until it implants) and it made it past the first 20 days (when the head of the embryo has started to form though you can't tell yet it's a head of a human but i'm using my medical dictionary to try explain what i'm talking about). O.k. so basically 20 and up I believe it has a soul (maybe before then it has a soul, who knows. All I know that souls is what gives use life). Sorry, i'm just really bad at explaining things. sweatdrop Ok, I think I see what you are saying. Personally, I am not fully sure when I believe the soul enters an unborn human (maybe at fertilization).
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2007 5:59 pm
A thought recently occurred to me: Is abortion another form of birth? Reading the Webster Medical Dictionary this is what it said: Webster Medical Main Entry: 1birth Function: noun 1 : the emergence of a new individual from the body of its parent 2 : the act or process of bringing forth young from the womb I think it could be said that one who is aborted is born and may qualify for a birth certificate.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 12:18 am
Conren A thought recently occurred to me: Is abortion another form of birth? Reading the Webster Medical Dictionary this is what it said: Webster Medical Main Entry: 1birth Function: noun 1 : the emergence of a new individual from the body of its parent 2 : the act or process of bringing forth young from the womb I think it could be said that one who is aborted is born and may qualify for a birth certificate. A birth certificate and a death certificate might be a bit much. I mean, it doesn't have a name, they don't check it for gender, let alone size and weight. There just isn't the information needed to document such a thing, let alone the desire. I don't think that miscarriages should get a birth certificate either, though I feel that a death certificate might give the parents some closure.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:52 pm
Would um, giving it a name be too much? mrgreen
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Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 1:16 pm
Conren A thought recently occurred to me: Is abortion another form of birth? Reading the Webster Medical Dictionary this is what it said: Webster Medical Main Entry: 1birth Function: noun 1 : the emergence of a new individual from the body of its parent 2 : the act or process of bringing forth young from the womb I think it could be said that one who is aborted is born and may qualify for a birth certificate. My medical dictionary ( Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, which is new and updated for those who think old dictionaries don't count. That happened in a debate once rolleyes ) is a bit different. My says-Abortion: The spontaneous or induced termanation of a pregnancy before the fetus reaches s viable age. The legal definition of viability-usually 20 to 24 weeka-differs from state to state. anyways it's more a form of death then birth, your medical dictionary decribed birth more then abortion. Viable-capable of living and developing normally,as a newborn infant,a seed,ect...(techcally the fetus is a live and human so I personally see it as a person. I don't care what the law says, the law don't make people/humans..that has to with science/biology/anatomy,ect... and if you believe then God but not everybody believes in God). Fetus is basically latin for unborn offspring (there is more the deffintion but I don't feel like looking it up).
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:44 pm
Conren Would um, giving it a name be too much? mrgreen That's something that's up to the man and woman involved, not really up to the State.
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