Welcome to Gaia! ::

I had saw this in a Lifer's signature the other day.


I had found this preposterous, afterall, I have no problem with a fetus being considered a person. And trying to argue whether it is or not is entirely pointless, because 'person' is about as subjective as 'good' or 'evil'. In fact, I don't believe in helps a Pro-Choice argument to try to convince someone that a fetus is not a baby or a person. Why?
Well, lets think about it. A person is protected by legal rights, but also has to follow the law or else those rights can be taken away. If a fetus is occupying a woman's body against their will, it is violating her rights, and by extension, the law. At that point, the woman's rights override that of the fetus, and she can remove it.

Besides debate-wise, trying to convince an everyday person that their unborn baby is really an non-sentient clump of cells is useless, and most likely will just make them mad. They'll think "Pro-Choicers don't care about babies! They called them clumps of cells! My baby is not just a fetus!"
Really, I think what we have to focus on the most to advocate the legalization of Abortion is not the fetus itself, but the rights of the woman, that if you start taking away a woman's basic human rights, you are violating the constitution. That is Un-American!

Anyway, what does anyone think about this? Should personhood of the fetus even matter in this debate? Do you agree with me when I say that if a fetus has the same rights as a person, it could help the argument?

(P.S. Yay, my first topic! 3nodding )

Laws of the Government. By law, we have the right to do what we want with our bodies, as well as the right to protect ourselves.
Unless Pro-Lifers would like to make things like Self-Defense illegal, abortion, by this argument, should be legal at any and every stage of pregnancy, seeing as viability or sentience doesn't even matter.

Well, viability would matter, since you're supposed to use the least force necessary, so a viable fetus (and I'm talking better than 50% chance survival as determined by ultrasound) should probably be removed by c-section or induction rather than abortion, unless one of the above would result in the death of the mother.

But then, 50% chance survival, you're talking the last 2 months, probably no more than that.

3nodding

Someone in the debate thread, on the Pro-Life side actually, brought up the point of protecting yourself and your bodily domain not necessarily meaning that you have to kill your "attacker".

Which is actually why I disagree with elective abortion past the point of viability. You can stop the fetus from violating your uterus via induced labor or C-section, therefore abortion should be used as a last step and only if necessary. However, there's no way to rid the uterus of the fetus without killing it early on, hence why abortion is the only method (and it does result in death of the fetus) of preserving bodily domain. The abortion pill essentially just forces your body into early labor and you "pass" the embryo (it's not quite a fetus when you're allowed to take the pill).. the embryo isn't viable, and hence, the embryo dies.

It's kind of like Poetic's "passive vs. unpassive abortion" arguments.

whee I giggled when I saw that. "If Pro-Choice is Pro-Death, Than Pro-Life is Pro-Death x 2!"

Somebody doesn't quite understand McFall vs. Shimp. Lifers seem to miss the part where the case says that a born person cannot use another born person's body against the latter's will. Personhood is irrelevant. Furthermore, why should personhood make a difference? The point is that your body is being used, against your will.

Personally, I don't consider a fetus a person at ANY stage, because it's not an individual being (since it depends on the person carrying it). But that's my opinion.

Exactly.

I've seen this user's sig before and every time I think "wow, that's an outright lie attempting to sway the ignorant... how underhanded! how very pro-life!"

On many occaision I've considered PMing this person to be like 'wow, talk about lying propoganda in your sig,' only to know that any PM exchange attempting to dissolve ignorance will be met with outrage and "I DON'T CARE BABY KILLER" because like most pro-lifers this one will likely want to remain ignorant rather than know the falsities in his/her beliefs. Oh willful ignorance!

Personhood is irrelevant: Bodily domain will always permit abortions on demand (and post viability, personhood becomes relevant only to determine if pregnancy is ended with abortion, or induced labor/C-section on demand)

Personhood, however, is an interesting argument. The entire pro-life movement is contingent upon the belief that a fetus is a person (and that women don't have equal rights, but that's another story), if a fetus is not a person the pro-life movement has absolutely no reason to argue abortions are 'wrong.' As such arguing personhood is a quick and dirty way to strike pro-lifers at what they consider their best argument.