My four-month-old fends for himself--or is it itself, as Saletan suggests. Is my four-month-old even a complete, separate human being? He/it must be. After all, he/it makes his/its own food, shaves, reads, solves differetial equations. My son doesn't rely on his/its mother's breast (he/it has no use for maternal antibodies). He/it doesn't need nurturing. He/it doesn't require that we comfort him/it or change his/its diapers. Sure, some moralist will call what we do "neglect" or "abandonment," but we like to call it teaching self-reliance. In fact, we're still not sure we want to keep him/it. Our conscience dictates that humans don't have rights until they reach sexual maturity. Until then, they are underdeveloped humans that we call "children." Abortion, in my mind, should be legal at least up to that point. Or maybe up to the point where children are viable enough to hold down a job and provide for themselves.

Ha. Hardy little guy.

As a pro-lifer, I don't understand how you guys on the other side of the fence don't see the time component involved in gestation. To you, a person is a fertilized embryo. Can it think? No. Can it breathe? No. Does it have a heartbeat? No. And most importantly, is it physically capable of living outside the body of another human being? No.

I think that fetuses are proto-humans. In due time, they will be born and then they will have the rights of all humans. Until that time comes, their rights are necessarily dependent upon the choices of the host, the women in whose bodies they are residing. Let's say that a pregnant woman tries to commit suicide, but survives. Do you think she should be charged with attempted murder? I can see that you must, but I think that's crazy. Until the fetus is fully gestated and can live outside the womb, its rights are subordinate to the adult woman's. I just can't see this any other way. The promise of human-ness, at a future time, isn't enough.

The infant you describe is a baby. while yes, it is dependant on the parents for the vast majority of its needs met, it is not reliant on the mother for either blood circulation nor respiration. At 25 weeks or so, a fetus gains this capacity to live and survive being able to use its own set of physiologically appropriate responses.

Until this point exists, there is no reasonable or in this country legal, way to prevent a woman from exercising rights to her own body. It is not illegal for mothers to smoke, or drink, or not execrcise, or not take care of themselves, etc. Do you see the folly in that, how that cannot be possible? The rights of the fetus dont trump that of the mother, period.

Your belief system is also your right as a person. I dont agree with you beliefs and likely never will, but the system in which we are in is designed to accomodate people with differing viewpoints. The majority isnt always right, as a matter of fact, the document that outlines your rights is heavily waited toward protection the minority. Including the smallest minority of all, the individual.

You have a right to believe that abortion is wrong. You do not have the right to infringe upon the rights of others, however. So given your belief and the framework under which we both operate, you have to figure out how to reduce the rate of abortion, while simultaneously not trampling on the rights of women.

You have shown an admirable ability to complain, pontificate and point fingers, but I noticed you were a little light on solutions there...

kacrowde:

I don't understand how you guys ... don't see the time component involved in gestation... Can it think? No. Can it breathe? No. Does it have a heartbeat? No. And most importantly, is it physically capable of living outside the body of another human being? No... I think that fetuses are proto-humans. In due time, they will be born and then they will have the rights of all humans.

We see the time component as irrelevant. The relevant fact is that embryos are human (i.e. members of the species homo sapien). This is a genetic fact. What you are doing is, as a human, inventing additional criteria that other humans must meet in order to receive due consideration (e.g. time spent gestating, certain organ functions, level of dependency). We could spend all day brain-storming criteria that people must meet in order to be considered human. That part's easy. The hard part is coming up with the justification for each criterion. Suppose we address the criterion which you assert the most important: viability. The point of my original post, of course, is that no infant can live on his own outside of the womb without huge amounts of care. The mother goes from a passive role as the sole provider, to an active role, usually with some degree of help from others. You fault the child for not being developmentally ready for the outside environment.

But I don't think viability is truly your most important criterion. I think location is. Where is the baby is more important that who, what or even when is the baby. Your theoretical proto-human does not undergo some fundamental metaphysical change when he descends the cervix and passes through the labia. He is still the same being. Only his location has changed. Ultimately, the time element is irrelevant to you as well.

Ghost,

I think you and your ilk are stupid and should not be allowed to breed. Lucky for you guys no one has made it their mission to try and stop you. FREEDOM OF CHOICE! You made yours now step aside and allow the rest of society to make theirs.

William Diaz:

The infant you describe is a baby.

Your tautology proves nothing.

William Diaz:

while yes, it is dependant on the parents for the vast majority of its needs met, it is not reliant on the mother for either blood circulation nor respiration.

I had no idea going on a respirator would put me in danger of being reclassified as subhuman.

William Diaz:

At 25 weeks or so, a fetus gains this capacity to live and survive being able to use its own set of physiologically appropriate responses. Until this point exists, there is no reasonable or in this country legal, way to prevent a woman from exercising rights to her own body.

I guess premies (i.e. proto-humans) can be aborted up to the time they no longer rely on machinery? And I'm all for women "exercising rights" on their own bodies, but I do have serious objections to them "exercising rights" on the body of the fetus inside of them. (I kind of like this euphamism: I need to exercise rights on that ant colony in my front yard when I get home.)

William Diaz:

So given your belief and the framework under which we both operate, you have to figure out how to reduce the rate of abortion, while simultaneously not trampling on the rights of women.

If only the North could have had your enlightened attitude. They should have sought to reduce the rate of slavery without trampling on the rights of Southern farmers. I blame the War of Northern Aggression on those wacky moralists.

Your skin cells are genetically human. And they have been shown that given the right environment, they too can gestate into human beings. So the Genetically Human part as well as the "potentially person" part doesn't give you the clarity of fact that you pretend it does.

And "where" the fetus/baby is matters completely. And it is ALL that matters. Why? Because The Government's ability to act is mediated by where a thing or person is. Something that is inside the person or that requires the involuntary servitude of a person to give access, is simply off limits from government action.

And legislation restricting abortion is about GOVERNMENTAL ACTION, nothing more or less;

A 4 month old is a person, post partum. Noone contests that, although British law on infanticide as a seperate crime was an interesting moral reflection.

Being on a respirator does not equal sub-human. Lol, neither does being 101. The Terry Schiavo case was a heart wrenching one, being on the organ committee of a transplant center is another one. Being human isnt always easy.

To you, a preemie is an abstract concept. Imagine 150 gram deliveries due to uterine contractions caused by cocaine. Maybe some day they will have a technique where if mom doesnt want to carry the fetus, Dad can. I dunno, but as it stands now, viability is the issue.

Your slave analogy is a laugh riot, lol. The demonstrably wrong legal fiction that slaves werent people is obviously a violation of their rights as people. There is no right in America to deprive any citizen or inhabitant of their rights without due process and through safeguards determined by the constitution.