Abortion: Defining where the line is

[danaeris]

OK, so I'm going to do my best at a layperson's attempt to understand some science that is not in my field so that I can apply it to my life. Please correct me if you know more about this stuff.

Some of the sources I'm reading on brain development imply to my ignorant eyes that synapses formed in the brain may have a direct connection to learning, experience, memory, formation of personality based on experience, etc.

To me, that seems like an essential part of being conscious, being alive. Since brains don't finish maturing until age 21, we can't use the whole brain as a measure. But I thought, if synapses are what I get the impression they are, then when they start forming is when the living experience begins.

If that's the case, then I can posit that in my view, a fetus becomes a human when those synapses begin to form, which is sometime in the mid to late second trimester.

I think the difficulty with the whole abortion debate is not only that we don't have a full scientific understanding of the development of a fetus from conception to birth, but also that we haven't defined what makes humans so damned valuable, nor when a being transitions from being tissue to being alive to being conscious.

Most people would agree that an adult human's life is definitely worth more than the life of some animal (yes, some of you may disagree, but work with me here). Although some animal lovers would go through pregnancy and the disruption to their life to save an animal's life, most people would consider it reasonable to choose to not go through the inconvenience and let the animal die. On the other hand, if I was told that my friend Bob would die if I didn't go through pregnancy for 9 months, would I do it? Would you? Most people would, I think, or at least, would believe that they ought to even if they didn't have the moral "whatever," strength, etc. to go through with it.

Somewhere between an animal and my friend Bob (and actually, this may not be a spectrum, exactly), there's a line that each individual person draws. Once you've found that line, the question is, what about the being on one side of the line makes their life more valuable, more worth going through discomfort, life disruption, etc. than the beings on the other side of the line? Answering that question may help you figure out where you think the line should be drawn as far as abortions.

Chimpanzees are turning out to be way smarter than we thought. A brilliant chimpanzee is smarter than a severely retarded human, iirc. Should we go through pregnancy for such a being? If not, what makes them different from the human that makes you draw the line there?

Have at, but please play nice. I mean it. If you can't handle the heat, take a break or leave the discussion entirely.

Comments are being screened just to keep it coming slowly and avoid any particular nastiness.

Comments

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

It isn't just the formation of synapse. Cockroaches have synapses. It's the number of connections and the patterns in which those neurons are connected. These interconnected bits of stuff (images, sounds, feelings, and so on) build associatively, by experience and extrapolation.

One could argue that brains don't finish maturing until age 21. I'm not sure that's relevant... the brain is constantly forging new synaptic links, and losing old, unused ones, for as long as you're alive. One could just as easily peg the magic number to be 6, by which age most of the basic patterns that determine personality et al are in place.

I don't think that the abortion debate can be solved by science. The debate is very emotional, at least for those loudest about it. The emotions involved are not about theoretical arguments about when life, identity, humanity, or whatever begin. They're about who the debater identifies more with... the fetus/potential child or the mother.

Science can settle certain theoretical arguments surrounding the line between an animal that may become human and a human. But that won't settle the emotional argument.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You're entirely right.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

They're about who the debater identifies more with... the fetus/potential child or the mother.

I'm not sure about that, I like the think that I identify with both equally. They are both living human beings, deserving of our love and care. It comes down to who gets affected more. And the foetus is affected more (for most pregnancies) than the mother would be by an abortion/non-abortion.

If the mother's life is at risk, then it's another matter, and another balance.

[auros]

A couple of comments, noting that I actually did study this stuff (CogSci degree, and all that).

Having synapses is not enough to have sentience -- plenty of invertebrates have synapses. You start being able to detect brain activity that resembles other mammals around the end of the second trimester or the beginning of the third (and, equally important, you start seeing responsiveness to stimuli, like voices, in the third trimester).

I definitely think sentience is the key factor in giving an entity moral standing. I would consider "turning off" an AI, in a manner that wiped out its memories and sense of itself, much more morally serious than killing a second trimester fetus. Killing a cat would be somewhere in between the two, and killing a chimp worse than that. The second trimester fetus is perhaps as sentient as a starfish, and a parasite.

I also think people should have the right not to bear a child if they find out ahead of time that it will have a severe mental or physical problem. If you're not ready to have a kid because the burden will be too great and you won't be a good parent, then abort; similarly if it turns out that the amount of work will be more than expected originally, and thus be beyond what you're capable of. (This goes along with the fact that adopters don't want the "damaged" kids. If they have the right to turn down difficult adoptees, why should we blame biological parents for making the same choice?)

I'm rather in favor of the "Gattaca" technology -- I think a few people would use it to screen obsessively for nonsense like hair color, but the vast majority would simply use it as an opportunity to remove really nasty stuff from their families. (e.g. Juvenile diabetes and cholestorolemia run in my family; the former's made my younger brother's life miserable since he was six, and the latter has given me a much-increased risk of heart attacks. And then there're the "it kills you after the age where you breed so there's no selective pressure to get rid of it" diseases, like Parkinson's.) Fears that removing such diseases would be harmful to diversity are, I think, rather overblown.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

So, here's a theory: perhaps the biggest advantage to being a mammal is that mother's milk allows infant mammals to continue developing outside the mother's body. In humans in particular, it allows brain formation for some time after birth -- it's simply impossible to have something of our adult brain mass be born whole from a pelvis geared to walk upright.

From what I've read, the brain continues to rapidly grow synapses for about 8 months after birth, at which point it begins pruning synapsis that it doesn't use any more.

There's a perfectly reasonable argument to be made that a baby may be alive but isn't human until it's reached negative total synapse growth... at about 8 months.

Anecdotally, it's one that fits with my experience. Before the 6-8 month range, a human baby may as well be a kitten. Incredibly adorable, but pretty short on the things that mark human-level sentience, like signs that its repetitive, animal-like noises may develop into language someday.

Note that I'm emphatically NOT advocating any radical changes in abortion law that the absurdists among us might suggest could go along with the theory that human life begins after birth.

[aberrantvirtue.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating, about the negative synapse growth. I never knew that.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

Yeah. auros can probably speak to it better than I can, but from what I understand about cognative development, children spend 8 months through a couple of years pruning away synapses for skills they don't need, like vocal tones not used in the languages spoken around them. That's why languages are more easily learned by the really young.

It's almost as if, metaphorically speaking of course, childhood is more the process of learning how not to do things rather than learning how to do them.

[aberrantvirtue.livejournal.com]

Wow, if that's the way it works, I can see some real disadvantages to how we currently educate children (at least in this country). It seems it would make more sense to expose them to skills that might come in handy later in life (like languages or music, or what have you) as a compliment to the skills they already are learning, as opposed to focusing so specifically on...

Wow, okay, I'm so excited that I need to go make a post about this. :)

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Having been the parent of a 6-8 month old in the not-too-distant past, I would tend to disagree. They start to respond with active pleasure, dislike, discomfort, disinterest, interest, etc, by about six weeks, not six months. By eight weeks, it is usually possible to play a game with a baby to get them to laugh, and be rewarded with a laugh. They're learning, there, and they're interacting. Even if my gut reaction to this idea were less negative, I don't think the evidence supports it.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

My cat does all of those as well, if you replace "laughter" with "purring", which is a pretty equivalent biological response. Further, he did at 6 weeks as well, IIRC. My cat does not have human-level sentience.

I'd like to repeat and emphasize that I'm not drawing any conclusions about fetal/baby rights or abortion law based on the theory... and that even if the theory is true, writing abortion law strictly on the basis of it would lead to absurd and unconscionable results, and I do not advocate it.

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

writing abortion law strictly on the basis of it would lead to absurd and unconscionable results

Ah, but isn't that the rub though? What's unconscionable to one, may be a reasonable accomodation to another.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

Ah, but isn't that the rub though? What's unconscionable to one, may be a reasonable accomodation to another.

I'm confused by your point here.

The reason for having a discussion is to present differing opinions. I doubt anyone here will honestly argue for the particular "absurd and unconscionable" idea I was alluding to (that there could be some sort of post-birth "abortion" option that wasn't considered murder), but if you'd like to, feel free.

Or, perhaps you're suggesting that, because someone could take that position, the legality of abortions as it stands in the US now will inevitably lead to people being willing to off 5-year-olds on whim?

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I echo karenbynight's sentiment that the things you describe don't demonstrate sentience. Kittens aren't physically capable of laughter, but they are definitely capable of a great deal of cleverness and learning - they play games, they respond, they figure out how to open drawers and elicit human attention, they hiss when they are angry, they purr when they are happy. The difference is that their ability to learn maxes out at the level of a ~1 year old human, wheras the human's does not.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Well, several people have stated that they find cats more deserving of protection than an unborn child. So there's some relevance there.

If I remember correctly (and my degree did not cover this, so I'm no expert here) the brain goes through several stages of evolutionary development. The first level is the brainstem, which corresponds loosely to a reptile brain; the next level corresponds to a mammal's brain, and the last to a human's and to some apes. (I think I missed a step, but I can't remember what it was.) Perhaps the cutoff we're all looking for is the part where they start exhibiting what we would call mammalian behaviour. Sentience is the next level up from that.

The mammalian level of brain development, again IIRC, begins midway through the second trimester of pregnancy. There's some there before that, but mostly, the real growth happens in the second and third trimesters. It's one of several reasons why drinking alcohol is more serious at that point in a pregnancy - it increases the probability of alcohol affecting the higher brain functions that make us human.

Is my (admittedly very tired) brain leading me down the wrong path, here?

I should point out that for me, this discussion is entirely academic, since I will never be able to feel that a child becomes a child at any time other than at conception. Still, some interesting points here.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

I would say that we're more interested in the stage where the brain becomes human than when it becomes becomes mammalian. Cats we can and do euthanize at animal shelters for human convenience. Cows we euthanize and eat. Even monkeys get used as medical test subjects. Clearly, humans have much more of a right to life in our society than mere mammals do.

[ubbaken.livejournal.com]

The religious argument against abortion is pretty self-evident.

I don't think the goverment should have any role in restricting a choice like this, unless they will step in at all levels of the decision (ie-lifetime of medical care, possible school costs, food, etc [different of course in the case of putting the baby up for adoption). This is a significant factor in determining the ability of the mother/parents to have the child and raise it to a certain standard. The government is there to secure unalienable rights, not to curtail them. It's position has to be 'pro-choice'. Of course, this isn't how government has been working...ever...so there you go.

But I am personally against abortion in all forms, even in cases where the mother's life is in jeopardy. Thats a natural chance inherent to the act, to balance life. My reasons have to do with the idea of abortion, as it relates to the thoughtless and careless acts of this generation. There are soo many ways to reduce the risk of pregnancy to near zero for sex. Before that, though, there is the idea that you really should know what stage of life you're in and know whether it is something you are looking for at that point. Also, with the 'morning after' pill, cases involving non-consentual acts can be taken care of at the point of fertilization, almost. I really believe that people are just not having smart sex (on more than the pregnancy issue...but not in this comment). Abortion is a way to procrastinate or deal with things later. To not be proactive about the issue. To not wait until such a big issue is solid in one's mind, or to not follow through with a well thought out (or apparently not so much) decision.

Rape/non-consentual instances aside, for the woman's choice idea - the woman made the choice to have sex under some circumstance. Even with birth control there is a slight risk. Once she has sex, she makes her choice. Again, that is null and void in coercion, rape, and other forms of malicious acts against women.

I think it's part of a bigger phenomenon in society that idealizes things. The thought process like if the person does not want a pregnancy that it won't happen due to some reason. That if a decision is made to have a child, it will grow up healthy and possibly not have all the flaws they see in themselves. As a society we fail to acknowledge the small percentage of possible unfavorable outcome in order to remain in ignorance and be 'optimistic'/unrealistic.

So, yeah, those are the main thoughts I have on abortion.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

First, let me say that I do not force this view on others who disagree with me. Still, for me it is a deeply held belief.

One of the reasons I did not go back on the pill after my daughter was born was because I read several articles suggesting that the pill does not always inhibit conception. The suggestion was that sometimes (one article said as much as half the time for some, very fertile women) the pill will allow ovulation but then prevent implantation. Effectively, this allows conception to occur but instead of allowing the fertilized ovum to lodge in the uterine lining, it would be expelled and die.

I couldn't handle this idea. The thought that I might accidentally abort a child of mine is abhorrent to me. To me, once conception has occurred, there's a baby there who is dependent on me for absolutely everything. My job as its mother is to protect it to the best of my ability while it grows increasingly more independent of me.

Now, I realize that about one-third of pregnancies end not long after conception, through spontaneous abortions (otherwise known as miscarriages.) I can handle that. It would hurt, not physically very much, but emotionally a part of me would die. Still, I can handle it; that's part of womanhood and motherhood. What I can't handle is being the direct cause of that miscarriage. So I will not be going back on the pill, ever. My husband and I will use other methods to ensure we don't breed like rabbits.

So, to answer your question: for me, the line is at conception. I can handle that other people would see this line differently, and I can accept that there needs to be a mechanism in place for those people to terminate if they feel it is necessary. But for me, no matter the circumstances of conception or how I might feel about the timing of the pregnancy or anything else, that is my baby's presence showing up in those two blue lines, and I will do what it takes to be a good mother to it.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Now, I realize that about one-third of pregnancies end not long after conception, through spontaneous abortions (otherwise known as miscarriages.) I can handle that. It would hurt, not physically very much, but emotionally a part of me would die.

You do realize that most of the time you wouldn't even know about it. If the fertilized egg never implants your period shows up on time just like is always does. If it implants but gets dislodged within a few days your period might be a little late and a little heavier than usual but have no other noticeable effects. In fact, since you were trying to concieve for a while it has probably already happened to you, perhaps even more than once. In many cases this is the body's way of weeding out a weak embrio that wouldn't mature into a healthy baby anyway, which certainly seem to me like a GOOD thing rather than something to mourn.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Yes, I realize that, though I would be more likely to know it than most because I always, always know exactly when I've ovulated. I get a little cramp, and the sides alternate. As far as I know, I've never been wrong. (Of course, I have no way of proving that.) I got pregnant with my daughter the first time I felt that cramp after coming off the pill. I told my best friend the next day that I was pretty sure I'd conceived, and I was right. I recall feeling it only once while I was on the pill, at a time when I was not in a position to get pregnant. So honestly, I don't think I've ever miscarried, not even the earliest kind of miscarriage.

I know it might actually be a good thing to lose embryos with problems. But I will still mourn my baby if I realize it's happened. It was still a life lost, it was still a part of me and my husband that I won't see grow up. I mourn all the outcomes that might have been.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

"...nor when a being transitions from being tissue to being alive to being conscious."

The whole problem with the abortion debate is that a line cannot be drawn at any point based on logic or even raw moral feeling. A human life, like any life, is a process, not a state. That process undeniably begins at conception.

Now, this doesn't mean that I think it is undesirable to draw a line somewhere. I just believe that the line is unavoidably arbitrary and will always be the subject of debate. Almost everyone will agree that there is a point where a fetus is obviously a child. Almost everyone will agree that there is a point where an embryo is "just cells".

If we believe in the inherent value of a human life, but also believe that a woman should have the right to stop the process at some point, we have to place that arbitrary line as early as possible. The developing human is a distinct entity.

I've heard the argument that an embryo is "just" a parasite... but of course a parasitic organism is still a seperate creature, and squeamishness about the idea of such a critter moving inside oneself doesn't change that.

[cos]

If we believe in the inherent value of a human life, but also believe that a woman should have the right to stop the process at some point

What if we believe that, whatever the value of the fetus/embryo/baby, a woman can't be legally obligated to use her body as its life-support system? Then the line is not at all arbitrary. She simply cannot be legally forced to do so. If it can survive without her, maybe we can obligate the state to make sure it does, and the line where we do that might be arbitrary, but that's a different matter. She still gets the choice of whether she wants to carry a pregnancy to term and have a child and become a parent.

That's what I believe.

My Line

[arcticelf.livejournal.com]

I draw the "alive" or "human" line at the state of pregnancy where if an early birth occured, the child would survive. This is a bit grey due to the risks invovled, but most NeoNatal ICUs can keep a pre-mature baby alive some where after 7 months. This line also keeps getting earlier in the pregnancy as medicine advances.

As for abortions, sometimes nescacary, but not pleasant...

AE

Re: My Line

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Thought experiment:

Would the line move, then, if some artificial womb technology allowed the transplantation of an embryo out of the mother? Understand that I'm not suggesting such a transfer as a replacement for abortion... but if the tech existed to make a embryo/fetus viable outside the mother at any time, would that push the line earlier for you?

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my apologies for not really answering any of your questions. :)

I can't get pregnant to save a chimpanzee!

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

My apologies, but I can't rely on the scientific in the case of the unborn. Too much personal experience at this point - having a small white energy ball in your belly that you know is an undifferentiated chakra system makes science seem rather quaint as a way of determining the presense of a conscious human being. Once science find the soul, then it'll be useful in answering these questions. In the meantime, I'll go by what I've learned from living, and what makes sense to me.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Once science find the soul, then it'll be useful in answering these questions. In the meantime, I'll go by what I've learned from living, and what makes sense to me.

Some of us don't make a distinction between the two - what I learn by living IS science. Not in the sense of being controlled reproducable experiments (though if they could be that would thrill me immensely) but definitely in the sense of being methodically analyzed observed phenomena (to the best of my ability). To me science IS religion.

[yiab.livejournal.com]

A brilliant chimpanzee is smarter than a severely retarded human, iirc. Should we go through pregnancy for such a being?

i know that there are a whole bunch of people who would say that we shouldn't have to go through it for the chimp but we should have to for the human, and when asked to explain why, their reasoning basically boils down to either "god tells us so" or a form of species loyalty. from a genetic standpoint, the species loyalty actually makes some sense - genetic similarity is what determines whether or not we should help, not intelligence or anything else.

Drawing a line

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Someone once told me that they would draw the line at the point where the fetus becomes viable outside the womb. At that point, the pregnancy is giving it a leg up on life, not life itself. Therefore, at any point previous to that, an unwanted pregnancy should be aborted. At any point after that, labor should be induced.

it's a different question

[cos]

On the other hand, if I was told that my friend Bob would die if I didn't go through pregnancy for 9 months, would I do it? Would you? [...] Answering that question may help you figure out where you think the line should be drawn as far as abortions.

Nope. "The line" as far as abortion, in public debate, is a legal line. The line you're describing here is one of personal philosophy - in what circumstances would you think you "should" go through something like pregnancy for the sake of someone's/something's life.

The key to the legal question of abortion is not what people's individual judgements are in different circumstances. It is at what point it becomes justifiable to legally compel people to choose in a particular way.

A good analogy is this: Say a close relative of yours, perhaps a sibling, needs an organ transplant, and you're the only viable donor they can find right now. They could keep searching, but it could take a while, and your relative might die. Would you do it? I think a majority of people would. But do you think it is right for the government to legally compel you to do it? I certainly don't!

I believe that when it comes to a matter of how you use your own body for the support or benefit of someone else, it must remain your choice, no matter how morally clear that choice might be. That's true even when the other person is clearly a person, with just as much value as you. It's certainly true when it's a bundle of cells that has the potential to eventually become a person but isn't yet. But it's true despite that.

In light of this, I think the question you pose, does not really apply to the political debate about legal abortions and choice. It only applies to the personal decision a woman needs to make - if she's allowed to make it.

Re: it's a different question

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

A good analogy is this: Say a close relative of yours, perhaps a sibling, needs an organ transplant, and you're the only viable donor they can find right now. They could keep searching, but it could take a while, and your relative might die. Would you do it? I think a majority of people would. But do you think it is right for the government to legally compel you to do it? I certainly don't!

Of course, this analogy fails in that you didn't have anything to do with your sibling needing an organ transplant, while you were intimately involved in creating the need of the foetus to live off of you.

A better analogy would be if you CAUSED your sibling to need an organ donation (say perhaps you were play fighting, and accidentally hit him in the kidneys too hard.

Should the law then compel you to save your siblings life? That's a lot more grey.

Re: it's a different question

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Should the law then compel you to save your siblings life? That's a lot more grey.

I don't think it's grey at all - the answer is a big fat blinking neon NO. Would I do it if it were my sister? Hell yeah. In a heartbeat. But that's a LONG shot from it being OK for some government dudes to MAKE me do it. They can make me give money, they can make me give time (in the form of community service or even jailtime) but they cannot make me give away a piece of my own body. I'm registered as an organ donor. I think being an organ donor is really important and I'm always trying to encourage my friends to become organ donors as well. But, as important as I think it is, it needs to ALWAYS be voluntary.

[x-hypatia-x.livejournal.com]

I have a question: what are you considering as the "line"? For instance, whether someone would go through pregnancy, etc., to save Bob is not the same question as "Do you have a moral obligation to do this for Bob?" and neither question is the same as "Ought the law force you to do this for Bob?"

[caiteag.livejournal.com]

So straight out I should say that I value an animal's life as much as a human life. Plain and simple. And, if I am completely honest, there are some human lives that I value less than an animal's life.. and yes, I mean ANY animal.. not necessarily one of my pets. I believe that animals are inherently better creatures than most people are.

I should also state that my personal stance on abortion is that the choice must be available to women, as it is NOT the government's job to tell anyone what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. However, I do not believe I would ever have an abortion. I was adopted as an infant, and had my biological parents decided to have an abortion I simply would not be here.

To answer your question, would I go through an unwanted pregnancy if it would save the life of a chimpanzee? Yup. I would go through an unwanted pregnancy to save the life of an alligator or a kitten too. Would I go through an unwanted pregnancy to save the life of a friend? Yup. Would I go through an unwanted pregnancy to save the life of Paul Bernardo? Probably, but only because I don't believe i could ever have an abortion... not because I wanted to save his life.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

In your post referencing this one, you say that Pro-Life folks play it safe for the fetus/baby, and Pro-Choice folks play it safe for the woman's right to choose.

Actually, I'm pro-choice, and I'm as concerned about the baby as the mother. There are some situations that no child should be born into. It's a matter of faith, but I'm secure that the afterlife, whatever you believe it is, is significantly preferable than some home situations, for both the baby and for society.

I probably wouldn't exist at all if abortion had been readily available in Iowa in the 60s. Not even aborted; my parents' hasty marriage would never have happened if my older sister had been aborted instead. As it was, Mom was poor, and catholic, and female... adoption wasn't an option due to the social stigma of pre-marital sex, which, in the 60's, magically went away when you went down the aisle -- it was accepted that a blushing bride could easily produce a baby in six months when it took older women nine.

I'm very happy to be alive, but when I consider my parents, my sister, the abuse, the likelyhood that that abuse is being perpetuated on my young nieces, the way they treated my grandma before she died... I can't help but think that my parents' not being parents would be a good thing for the world as a whole. Maybe they'd have grown up a little before being put in charge of young lives. Maybe they'd have only hurt themselves, and not perpetuated the evils they themselves went through in childhood to future generations.

Maybe legal abortion helps to prune family trees in which child abuse and mental illness flourish in every bud.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Well spoken. I stand corrected. I also want to compliment you on the way you wrote this. It is powerful, clear, and communicative. You make really interesting points throughout this discussion, which shouldn't surprise me. You've always impressed me with your perceptiveness.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'm a teacher, and my experience is that the people who shouldn't be raising kids are generally not aware enough of that fact to actually keep themselves from having any.

That's why the foster care system is still so overwhelmed, nearly thirty years after abortion became legal.

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

You're totally right there.

But, that does a better job of supporting my point than of countering it. If people who have abortions are generally the people who shouldn't be raising kids then legal abortion helps there be less kids raised in abusive houses, whether or not people who shouldn't be raising kids generally are aware enough not to have kids.

Your statement says that it doesn't fix the whole problem. True, but if it helps fix some of it... then the foster care system would be even more overwhelmed without legal abortion.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, the day after your original post the topic of abortion came up on dailykos. I posted some of my thoughts in comments there. I have been meaning to make a post about that in my own journal, where I feel a little safer exposing something so emotionally charged. So I will put my thoughts there rather than here. Eventually.

from your more recent post

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

My impression is that nearly everyone agrees that once a baby reaches 20 weeks and can be brought to term in a preemie unit, that it is a real human baby.

Did you phrase that badly and actually mean everybody agrees that *at the latest* once a baby reaches 20 weeks....?

Because if you meant it how I'm reading it, then no, not everybody agrees.

Re: from your more recent post

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

I don't think its phrased badly, but ymmv. Anyway, the way you rephrased it, unless I'm more tired than I think I am, is in fact what I meant to mean.

Re: from your more recent post

[angel-thane.livejournal.com]

Ahhh alright, excellent.

Yeah, just the way you phrased it could have been interpreted as saying that nobody thought that a pre-20 week foetus could be considered a real human baby.

But yeah, cleared up, much better, yes.