(continued)
Nobody mixes eggs and butter, cooks it in an oven and pronounces it a cake. Life is more than just genetics and growing abilities. Without a functioning brain cortex, lungs, etc. a fetus will never become viable.
Lucky thing it will usually develop them, given time.
You are of the opinion that even the basic building blocks is equal to the finished product and it should have rights that make it impossible for a woman to have an abortion. I do not see it that way. That is how simple it is.
A zygote is, of course, not just building blocks. In fact, the building blocks aren't even really there yet. A zygote is something much more important, it is the *blueprint*, an *automatic* blueprint - just add the biomass, and it builds itself into a person!
Well, if there is no brain matter than the fetus would not live. The lower brain functions are needed to live. A no brain baby is dead on arrival.
Again, you miss the point.
And I do play fair. If a baby is born with only a lower brain, it is technically a person with personhood rights. Birth does that to a fetus. But that does not change the fact that from a brain birth point of view, this child is an empty shell. Now this will almost never happen, but as said, all of this is dependent on birth and viability.
"Birth does that to a fetus"?!? "Birth" is the process of moving from a woman's womb to outside a woman's womb. That's all, nothing magical. Why does it suddenly confer rights?
Well, because a zygote is not yet a human being.
Didn't say human being, I said human.
Because you have to make a choice, the rights of the mother or the rights of the ZEF. You cannot have both because that would rob women of their right to self determination. A zygote does not have the ability to determine anything. It does not know it exists, if does not have a "self" and is totally and utterly dependent on the blood, oxygen and food from the pregnant woman. After birth it has viability and can be fed by anyone, the mother no longer has a right to determine life or death for that newborn.
So the whole pretense of "viability" and "personhood" and "human being" being the requirements are all just a big construct to create a loophole for killing babies. Gotcha.
But when it is in the womb, and early in the gestational process, it is the woman and only the woman who has the right to decide what happens with her womb, with her body and with her life. The zygote has none of these abilities or rights.
Yes, you keep telling me the present legal state of things. I know the present legal state of things. It's wrong, and I'm interested in changing it.
And I have given you my "true answer" several times. It is none of my business. I want women to have the right to self determination especially when it involves their uterus and their "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
And it really doesn't matter that a zygote isn't a person, does it? I mean, sure, it helps soothe your (and the woman's) conscience...makes it more palatable. But if it was discovered tomorrow that a zygote *is* a person with thoughts and the ability to suffer, you'd still support a woman's right to abortion, wouldn't you? Because to you, a woman's right to choose whether or not to accept responsibility for her actions trumps everything else. Tell me I'm wrong.
-AJF
(Because I am making a joke/cynical remark). Everybody has a soul who has a functioning higher brain IMHO.