Poll: “Pro-Choice” - Yes or No?

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I'm for abortion. Let women decide for themselves. Let doctors weigh in on the science of fetus development. Everyone else can butt out.

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AGREED

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BUT I DON'T! Not until born.... Sorry! That's kinda the whole point, ya know?! 

Yes. This is the point at issue. I think a foetus is a person, you don't. This is the crux of the argument, and everything else is secondary.

But I'm not sure this necessarily resolves matters: for instance, why is a newborn a person and a foetus not one? Isn't this terribly arbitrary? If it's okay to kill a foetus at a late stage of prgnancy, isn't it okay also to kill a newborn if there are good reasons for doing so? And if not, why not?

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Do you recognize that when a foetus is in the mother, it is growing and developing to be an individual person not needing to be connected to another to gain life?

why is a newborn a person and a foetus not one?

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Do you recognize that when a foetus is in the mother, it is growing and developing to be an individual person not needing to be connected to another to gain life?

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Sort of. I do see your point - a foetus is dependent upon its mother to live. But then, a newborn baby is also dependent upon other people to live (principally, in most cases, its mother). In fact, all of us are dependent on other people to live to varying extents. So the idea that only an "individual person" is worthy of life doesn't really work for me. I just don't think anybody is that much of an individual.

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A newborn doesn't have to actually BE CONNECTED to the mother's body to survive via an umbilical cord. A newborn survives via the help and care of others, not via being force-fed nutrients via a tube connected to another person.

Sort of. I do see your point - a foetus is dependent upon its mother to live. But then, a newborn baby is also dependent upon other people to live (principally, in most cases, its mother). In fact, all of us are dependent on other people to live to varying extents. So the idea that only an "individual person" is worthy of life doesn't really work for me. I just don't think anybody is that much of an individual.

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A newborn doesn't have to actually BE CONNECTED to the mother's body to survive via an umbilical cord. A newborn survives via the help and care of others, not via being force-fed nutrients via a tube connected to another person.

Assuming, of course, that the newborn isn't breastfeeding - in which case being "force-fed nutrients via a tube connected to another person" is pretty much exactly what's going on. 

Yes, of course a foetus exists in a state of dependency on another person which is in some ways quite unique; not least because its survival is wholly and entirely dependent upon that other person. But the broader point is that I reject the idea that independence - or even independent survival - is what constitutes a person. This seems to me like dangerously individualistic thinking. If we think instead of human beings as intrinsically interdependent, I think it becomes much harder to argue that a foetus is not a person simply because it is connected to and wholly reliant on somebody else.

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I think if the couple is strong then they can make the choice together, however, I don't think that Men should be telling women what they can do with their bodies.
I know the argument that the fetus has rights but we have more than enough unwanted children int he world as it is.

There are enough other issues to be worried about .

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Saying a baby in the womb is not a real human being is some of the most faux science I've ever heard. Can we now just pretend things we want to be true are true because it's convenient? That's crazy.
I am pro-choice but ONLY when it's necessary. A woman who aborts for convenience sake sounds like a murderer to me.
I am talking about late stages of pregnancy, by the way. Once a baby can function on it's own it is a person regardless of being inside or out.

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There are enough other issues to be worried about .

Certainly there are plenty of other issues to be worried about, but worrying isn't rationed - and a bit more worrying won't kill you! (Take it from me).  More to the point, I don't think abortion is unrelated to the other problems we should definitely be worried about. In fact, it seems very connected: if we don't have a society that values the life and welfare of the most vulnerable and helpless, then why should we expect to care for - say - the poor or homeless or abused? Or those 'unwanted children' (a terrible phrase) that you allude to? If we as a society privilege individual choice and individual autonomy even when it overrides the welfare of another person, then do we not risk becoming a society of naked  individualism and self-interested violence? 

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If the newborn is suddenly stopped from suckling on the tit, it DOESN'T die. Not at all the same thing.

Assuming, of course, that the newborn isn't breastfeeding - in which case being "force-fed nutrients via a tube connected to another person" is pretty much exactly what's going on. 

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Not until it's ready to be born.

Saying a baby in the womb is not a real human being is some of the most faux science I've ever heard.

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If the newborn is suddenly stopped from suckling on the tit, it DOESN'T die. Not at all the same thing.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to prove. I've already admitted that the dependence of a foetus on its mother is in some ways unique - mostly in the sense that the foetus is dependent on one person whereas a newborn baby can in theory substitute another person for the source of its nutrients, warmth, shelter, etc.

Still, I'm really not sure where this gets you. I'm still not persuaded by the suggestion that a foetus isn't a person just because it is wholly dependent upon another person quite simply because I think everyone is dependent on other people. The fact that a foetus is dependent (at least immediately) on one person whereas I am dependent on hundreds of them doesn't seem to me to create a qualitative difference between the foetus and me. It places additional weighty responsibilities on the mother, to be sure, but it does not - to me - mean that the foetus is simply part of her any more than I am part of my employer just because I rely on him for my wages, or my milkman because I rely on him for something to put on my cornflakes.