Yet it will survive for at least a time, so it does have an existence apart from the woman's body is not a mere clump of cells. It's an "existing life." It seems to me a "continuum" is just a way to dehumanize it -- it's a life or it isn't; there aren't degrees.
If you want to put those kinds of degrees in, then how is someone who has very little awareness a "life"? Or anyone else who can't survive without intervention, such as any newborn?
Yes, perhaps so. It may even survive in the long run, though it's unlikely.
When discussing an individual 7-month-old fetus, if it survives, it's a life. If it doesn't, it never was because it never possessed the ability to survive. That is fairly simple. But the journey from A to B has many shades of gray when you're talking about the larger concept of "all 7-month-old fetuses." Each individual 7-month-old fetus will be somewhere slightly different on that continuum.
I'm not devaluing it. Again, I have not argued in favor of abortion at this stage, except in medical cases.
A fetus starts moving and interacting with its environment within three months, usually less. How "late" did you have in mind?
Terri Shaivo could move. She was in no way interested in her survival. She was simply reflexive, because some of her brain stem was still somewhat intact. Nerve ticks do not equal life. A severed tail can have nerve ticks.
Brain development indicitive of some sort of awareness and life develops somewhere around 25 weeks, as I understand it.
Insofar as it's true (the "woman's body" can't spontaneously do it, of course) that's true of any born person.
Yes. But what they were isn't terribly important. What they are now is what matters.
No, I don't think it makes you more neutral or dispassionate; it's just a different point of view from most.
Perhaps. I'm certainly not dispassionate, but I share this degree of passion with most other issues of personal agency. Neutral? Maybe not. I obviously have a vested interest in being pro-choice. But I also have absolutely no valid reason to oppose it objectively.
If I did, I am the sort of person who is willing to make my life very difficult for the sake of my ethics, and I would probably choose celibacy over risk of having to have an abortion. But as it stands, I see no reason to.