Mavdog:
Quote:
as for the "civil rights" of a fetus, you will have to explain how and when that occurs. does the fertilized egg have "civil rights"? how about the zygote of a few weeks? an embryo of a couple of months?
sorry, and I know this will come as a shock to you, i do not see any "civil rights" until there is a recognized person, and that is typically when a birth certificate is issued.
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You are right. I am shocked that you would apply no civil rights until after a birth certificate is available which happens days to weeks after birth...
As Chum brought up earlier, some would drag this back to eggs and sperm. I do not view eggs and sperm as having civil rights because they represent only 50% of the human genetic structure until they are united.
Should the zygote have civil rights? Rarely does a person find out they are pregnant at the zygote stage, but newer pregnancy tests are getting closer to that. Nonetheless, it is a good question.
At this point in medicine, we can take a 20 week fetus born spontaneously or taken electively alive due to true medical need in the fetus or the mother (see, there are Life options for these circumstances) and succeed at a high percentage in seeing them through to healthy childhoood. My little sister has one of these miracles who is doing very well now.
I am not proposing that we assign civil rights at the point of 20 weeks. But, I am proposing that we should not fail to assign it by then. If the medical community can take a fetus at that point and provide it with care adequate to produce a healthy 40 week term baby at 40 weeks, then we should not deny a 20 weeker civil rights.
Now, a person could counter with specific examples of fetuses who would survive to 20 weeks but who have no chance of viability outside the womb. Again, nit picking the details is like the gunshow loophole- it represents the rare exception rather than the usual scenario.