(11-12-2012, 05:38 PM)kandrathe Wrote: Two mothers are impregnated nearly the same time. One has complications in her 8th month and delivers a living baby 3-4 weeks pre-mature. You are saying that the one baby is a citizen, and the other has the rights of a puppy due entirely to their position. It has nothing to do with gestational age.
Yes.
Except for the puppy bit - hilarious though it is as a sound byte, I quite specifically said that a fetus can have partial, but not full, rights, in a way *analogous* to that of an animal, not *identical* to an animal's rights. It's not an all or nothing proposition, wherein babies are either full citizens, or nonexistent.
Quote:For me, babies are afforded human rights regardless of the whims of their parents. They are not puppies.
Whims. Right.
If we're going to be reifying our arbitrary definitions, then allow me to stand on convention: Before birth, fetus. After birth, baby. Mixing the two is, unless I am greatly mistaken, deliberate pro-life prevarication, trying to export our value system for the word "baby" onto the word "fetus."
Shall we then open murder investigations with miscarriages? Accuse mothers who did not take optimal care of their miscarried fetuses with criminal negligence causing death? They're not puppies, but they aren't able to live by themselves, either. I think they get their human rights at birth, and to move it back before that point is to dangerously conflate their lives with that of their mothers. (Or their embryonic vats, either way.) This is a value judgement, how I think the laws should be applied to best preserve justice.
-Jester