Great! Finally, someone who can use actual logic. Now, tell me, going backwards from the point of viability, at what point scientifically does the unborn child stop being a human life? Consider DNA, metabolic activity, growth, movement, response to environment, etc.
“Great! Finally, someone who can use actual logic. Now, tell me, going backwards from the point of viability, at what point scientifically does the unborn child stop being a human life? Consider DNA, metabolic activity, growth, movement, response to environment, etc.”
Well, I am not a obstetrician, so all I can give you is my layman’s opinion. From what I’ve read about the fetal development process, conscious awareness arises in the fetal brain, on average, around the 27th week of pregnancy, give or take a couple of weeks, which is about the same time as lung capacity is developed enough for the fetus/baby to survive outside the womb. Before that, the fetus is not a fully independent human apart from its mother, because it cannot breathe outside the womb, plus it lacks the consciousness and self-awareness that makes us human..a person. While it is true that a much younger fetus can respond to painful stimuli, that is merely an autonomic response...the fetus does not have a conscious experience of pain...it does not suffer pain as you and I do when we are injured. To be conservative (no pun intended), the 24th week is a good place to draw the line.
This is just my opinion. YMMV.
That is a philosophical question, not a scientific one... If it were scientific, it would have been resolved already. Many people seem to make an implicit distinction between “human life,” and “personhood.” Then, many people seem to judge killing a “human life” as less wrong than killing a “human life” that is also a “person.”
An embryo, e.g., is clearly a human life. It is less clear whether an embryo qualifies as a person. I believe this is the root of the disagreement.
Arguments about viability, the potential of the fetus, etc. are all philosophical nonsense IMO. The question would be decided easily if we could just:
1) resolve what characteristics a life must have to qualify as a person, and
2) resolve at what point a fetus attains those characteristics.
I won’t hold my breath.