Consider two babies. One is in NICU, warm, and cared for, 8 months after conception. The other has spent 8 months in his mother's womb standing next to the NICU baby. Chop the NICU baby up with forceps and you're in jail for life. Chop the baby in the womb up and you're apparently a "hero" for women's rights. That's simply a morally and ethically absurd result. Personhood simply cannot be based on whether one baby is a foot away from another.

Status often changes very quickly. If you marry one woman one after you divorce another, it's perfectly legal. If you marry her one minute before, it's bigamy.

cassandra:

Status often changes very quickly. If you marry one woman one after you divorce another, it's perfectly legal. If you marry her one minute before, it's bigamy.

You have completely ignored the moral question with this non-sequiter answer. Yes, legal status can change quickly. But that is not in dispute. The question is, what is it about an 8" trip down the birth canal that changes a fetus with no right to life into a baby with full legal protections?

That little ol' "8" trip down the birth canal" *is* precisely what "changes a fetus with no right to life into a baby with full legal protections," because once it's made that trip, it's no longer part of its mother's body, that's why.

Late term abortion is only justified, imo, if the baby is horribly deformed/handicapped.

So, to do this procedure on a baby that would grow up to have mild retardation is not acceptable.

However, the catch is, I'm not the one who has to raise and be completely responsible for the care of that mildy retarded baby/child/adolescent/adult, for the rest of my life.

And, neither are you.

So, it gets very complicated. Still, I'm against late-term abortions, except for the conditions of extreme illness to mother and/or baby, should the pregnancy proceed.

By all means, be "against" your own late-term abortion. Personally, I would no more tell another woman what to do with her own body than I would tell, say, a cancer patient whether they should have radiation or chemo. As you said, I'm not the one who's going to have to undergo said treatment, am I?

You are completely ignoring the fundamental moral question, Billie. It simply cannot be the case that a foot of physical space is the determining factor for personhood.

"It simply cannot be the case that a foot of physical space is the determining factor for personhood."

Why not? Because you say it can't be? Because your religion tells you so?

That's why birth is the deciding factor. It's what separates the person from the mother, and they become their own separate person. It's the only clear beginning that we have.

When was the last time someone asked you for your conception date on a legal form? When do all the funerals happen for spontaneous abortions/miscarriages?

Okay, BlueEyes, I'll bite. If your argument is that a foot of sterile NICU space can't/shouldn't be the determining factor in personhood, what should? You didn't really ask a question, you made a statement of your belief.

Following that, what if I'm deployed in Iraq and I kill someone I claim is a terrorist. I'm probably fine and may even get a medal for my efforts. If I'm stationed in Pensacola and kill someone I think is a terrorist, however, I'm probably not fine and will likely go to jail or an institution for the criminally insane. Even if the "terrorist" is the same person doing the same thing, just on a different continent. Personhood cannot be based on whether one "terrorist" is a few thousand miles from another. Can it?

So, if it isn't distance, what is it? How do you define the cut off for abortion? What if the woman is three weeks pregnant and a pill can cause the woman to abort? What is she's three months and mechanical means are required? Six? Or, what if the woman is raped? Or her health is in imminent danger if pregnancy continues? What are your limits, BlueEyes? I'm curious.

apropos1:

"It simply cannot be the case that a foot of physical space is the determining factor for personhood."

Why not? Because you say it can't be? Because your religion tells you so?

That's why birth is the deciding factor. It's what separates the person from the mother, and they become their own separate person. It's the only clear beginning that we have.

When was the last time someone asked you for your conception date on a legal form? When do all the funerals happen for spontaneous abortions/miscarriages?

Why not? Because it isn't logical. The Supreme Court has decided that viability not birth is the dividing line. So it isn't the only clear beginning we have.

Exactly. A viable child within the womb of the mother can exist independently of her and thus deserves the protection of the state.

Apropos1, answer this question for me.

A woman is about to give birth. Ten minutes before her delivery she decides she doesn't want the baby and tells her doctor to abort it.

Should be allowed to do so?

If and only if you are willing to allow that can you also accept that birth is the dividing line.

What defines viability? As medical advances are made, I predict viability will get to a point to where, upon conception, we'll have viability. Further, we may get to a point where one could argue that a woman's egg is viable all on its own because it could be caused to create a living, breathing human that is gestated completely outside of a mother's womb. So, upon reaching puberty, all of a woman's eggs should be protected by the state (assuming we get there medically)?

SmagBoy1:

What defines viability? As medical advances are made, I predict viability will get to a point to where, upon conception, we'll have viability. Further, we may get to a point where one could argue that a woman's egg is viable all on its own because it could be caused to create a living, breathing human that is gestated completely outside of a mother's womb. So, upon reaching puberty, all of a woman's eggs should be protected by the state (assuming we get there medically)?

I agree that as medical science advances the point of viability will get earlier. I disagree that it will get to eggs.

If ten minutes prior to birth the physician determines the baby is anencephalic? Yes. That you presume any physician would agree to such a procedure without taking the substantial consequences (both immediate and long term) to the mother into account, and allow them to make such a decision capriciously, is both arrogant and frankly disgusting.