Your analogy only works in the case (an it is not uncommon) where the fetus has some defect that can be fixed by surgery, and if not, it will die. Such as heart valve issues, etc. In this case, the fetus, not being able to dictate its own desires because it cannot talk nor is it even conscious, must rely on the mother and father to make that decision for it. Just like OV, who is in a coma, must now rely on his next of kin to make that decision for him. Unless, of course, he had a living will written while he was lucid announcing his desires in such a case. I do not see how this relates to abortion at all. The only analogy would be pulling the plug on OV while in a coma, even though there was a good chance he was going to come out of it at some point, simply because you were tired of having OV around eating all of your lunches. And poor OV, he seems to have unwittingly become a proxy for the abortion war!
While not addressed to me, I will take a stab: Of course I am not a fetus. I am not a senior citizen, teenager, adolescent, child, toddler, baby, or fetus. Yet at each of those phases in my life, I was a human being with a brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, spinal cord, nerve endings, hair, toe nails, shit, piss, penis, ******* (which defines me if you ask my wife), etc. These are all just labels to give a generalized place in our development. And with each stage I am granted more freedoms and more rights. My son has a right to life. He doesn't have the right to vote because he is only nine. I argue the embryo gains its right to life when it passes in to the fetus stage. It is now fully human, albeit a small one. Size and cognitive ability have no bearing on human rights to life.
I've acknowledged there is a difference . Actually that's my whole point. You are the one that wants to lump all fetuses together.
Not at all, you are once again adding complexity to, I assume, make this easier for you. The goal is to get you to understand that: 1. It isn't about life. (Otherwise we'd force an individual to get treatment). 2. One individual can choose to end another individual's life. (The fact that you [or others] need to complicate it by saying one isn't this, or that, is your refusal to accept two equal situations equally, due to a bias). 3. Since it isn't about life, and an individual can end another's life, abortion isn't actually this really big difficult discussion But keep complicating it if it helps you.
No, you missed the point. You say there is a difference, so X. Someone else says no difference, so Y. Others give it a time, 9 weeks, 27 weeks, 35 weeks. Something very arbitrary. My point is that it doesn't matter if there is a difference, or isn't a difference. I lump all fetuses together as "human" and recognize as Norris said above, varying stages of life. It just doesn't alter anything, and why should it? Why make it complicated.
because as a society we should value human life. I agree the pro life people are overboard and the pro choice people are overboard. as usual the truth and solution is in the middle.
It is a very uncomplicated situation. Injecting complexity into the situation doesn't mean the decision is now more morally acceptable. Trying to make it seem difficult because making a decision would be taking the easy way out is being sanctimonious.
A person has a right to life, you cannot force it on them if they do not want it. A fetus/newborn/one year old has zero ability to communicate this desire. Therefore, to willy-nilly end it because you don't want to be burdened with this life your willful actions created, is asinine. You have the right to vote. I cannot force you to vote, nor should I. And if I end another person's life without an acceptable exemption (self-defense, defense of another, etc) I am now under the power of Law to be prosecuted and imprisoned/executed. With abortion, as with murder, there would always be exemptions (rape/incest, direct imminent threat of death/irreparable harm to the mother). Abortion is not a difficult decision if you do not think a fetus is a human with the right to life. Am I bringing my emotions into this? Of course, I am not a robot. But if individuals are to have rights, and if a fetus is determined to be a fully functioning human, then its rights must be defended. But at this point, I think we are just talking past one another. I am fairly comfortable with my view, and if the 9 weeks is because of the word fetus, it is a semantics issue. Brain activity, whenever that starts, is my cut off, and from what I have read, that is between 12-14 weeks. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later.
we don't let people kill their children out of their womb. i'm assuming there is a reason the law exists no?
In what way? Because someone keeps repeating that it does, and that matches your view, and so you agree? Or is it because one is an adult and the other isn't? My scenario provides basic proof that: 1. Life is not the ultimate issue 2. Others can end another's life How do these two things not relate to abortion?
you can make it uncomplicated if that makes you feel better. that still doesn't change the fact that the day the kid comes out of the mother has nothing to do with ability to live on it's own. my children were 5 weeks premature and breathed on their own and surely would have survived even many many years ago. if there had been one of them instead of two they surely would have been born full term. by your theory it would be a ok to kill that kid as long as it's in mom even at the point that it could survive on it's own.
so as long as you are a sole provider you can kill someone? we don't even let people do that to their pets. and let me be clear. i'm not anti all abortions.