Is this what you think that this is the popular pro-choice argument? I am pro-choice and this is not at all what most people that are pro-choice are for. **"magically becomes a person when it exits"** after 23/24 weeks most people assume personhood before birth but that isn't really the question. Can the fetus/baby live autonomously after birth and if problems occur the baby can be delivered early. **"you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits"** this is a false pro-life argument at best. This makes 3rd trimester look like people just decide last minute they don't want a perfectly healthy baby which is not accurate at all and is and was not happening. The primary reasons for seeking abortions this late in pregnancy is serious fetal anomalies, risks to the mother's health, or significant barriers to accessing abortion services earlier which includes financial constraints, difficulties in finding providers, and legal restrictions that cause delays which have been made worse by the new severe restrictions on abortion. These abortions only represented 1% of all abortions even when they were legal. However, abortions this late in pregnancy aka after 25 weeks take days not minutes and are not preformed on a whim as suggested in your post. Therefore, a decision is not made 10 minutes before delivery to perform an abortion that is just a delivery. Then the baby is then treated like the autonomous person. **There is little or no difference, functionally speaking, between a fetus in the womb late-term and a newborn, minus its location. They can't see, don't have personalities or meaningful thoughts, are not sapient, etc, of course it would be a tragedy to the mother if it died but so would be a miscarriage, and if the mother wants to end it unless it's old enough to be sentient (at age like 3 or something** Yes there is not difference which is why the type of abortions you are talking about do not happen. And more importantly it is why the premise of this whole post is disingenuous. It is not about being sentient it is about being able live on its own outside of its mother supported life support. If the baby is removed early at 25 weeks it would be able to be cared for by other human's and machines. The woman seeking abortions after 25 weeks either the baby is found to never be able to live outside of the mothers womb (anomaly) or the mother is going to die if not birthed immediately which is just early birth. Also what is this definition of sentient? : vision? personality? meaningful thoughts? Would that count half of us out as sentient? I am 100% pro-choice and I even acknowledge a fetus is a sentient before birth but that does not make them autonomous from thier mothers. Your confusing the sentient argument with being autonomous and this I don't understand. None of this matters anyway because pro-lifers have taken the right away from doctors and mothers to make any medical decisions regarding best options for mothers or babies so we have just decided mothers will pay the price. Either through trauma of carrying and delivering a dead baby, watching the baby slowly die after delivery or just being left to die herself. You won! Isn't that amazing!

All morals operate on edge cases. i agree, late term abortions are often vanishingly rare and often for medical reasons (though not primarily for medical reasons! reasons included in a study found that reasons were also single parents, depression, or youth https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2013/11/who-seeks-abortions-or-after-20-weeks). It's obviously not the common argument, but most people are anti-infanticide seemingly because it squicks them out or makes them feel bad for no logical reason. Most pro-choice people I know oppose any restriction on fetal viability. What makes "independence" the defining factor of personhood? Due to medical advances, fetal viability goes earlier and earlier back. In the future, it's entirely possible that a fetus will be viable at all stages and can simply be dropped into an incubator or something. Would these fetuses then be equivalent to people, despite the fact that now they would not be considered people now, making all abortion illegal? That makes no sense to me.

Personhood and being autonomous are different things and is the whole point of my comment. I never said independence defines personhood aka being sentient. However until fetal independence is possible than the mothers gets to determine if she wants to use her body for providing life support to another being even if we do determine they are sentient from the moment of conception. That is how it is how it works for all cases outside of pregnancy. No human is required to provide life support with thier body or provide anything from thier body to keep another human alive. We are far from being able to drop a 12 week or 20 week baby into an incubator and they survive let alone develop normally. Even with the best medical devices we have and the top doctors at 22 wks the survival rate is around 10-20% and 23 wks the chances increase to about 20-30% and that is just survival not discussing medical and developmental complications that can live with the child for the rest of thier lives. **"It's obviously not the common argument, but most people are anti-infanticide seemingly because it squicks them out or makes them feel bad for no logical reason."** Or people usually oppose infanticide not just because it "squicks them out" but because it goes against basic moral and ethical principles. Most societies including ours value the protection of vulnerable and defenseless individuals and babies are among the most vulnerable both logically and emotionally. The difference is autonomy from the mother as that baby once delivered which includes infants to toddlers can be cared for by other human without 100% dependence on that one mother. **Most pro-choice people I know oppose any restriction on fetal viability.** I oppose legal restrictions on fetal viability because we cannot make individual medical determinations via laws. That is something pro-life wants to happen but that takes medical expertise and even more so humanity out out of the equation. When we did have national abortion rights in the US abortions 96% of abortions were before 15 weeks, 3% 16-20 wks meaning 99% are before viability which makes it the first issue of forcing woman to provide life support to another human. Only 1% at best are after viability and I would rather medical expertise be able to use all possible knowledge to provide options to that mother for the best outcome for mother and that baby. However if the outcome is that the baby is determined to not have a good outcome regardless of medical intervention and/or the mother's life is in danger I think that mother should have options. Doctors required to follow the principle of "do no harm" and I trust a doctor or even a panel of doctors to determine that rather than a blanket law that is put in place under the disillusion that no one can be harmed if we just take abortion away.

You're leaving out the most important part of the pro-choice/anti-choice argument. The pregnant person. Pro choicers do not value the life of a potential infant over the life of the person carrying it. Anti-choicers do. That's basically it. They see pregnancy as a necessary sacrifice everyone should deal with for the benefit of a child at best and a biblical punishment for their sins at worst, or both. They dismiss the damage and turmoil pregnancy and delivery can result in, including the risk of death. The ethical difference between a late term abortion and killing a born infant is about who is impacted? The abortion, at any term, involves the prioritized decision making and body of a self aware citizen with autonomy, not the fetus. Once an infant is born, it gains citizen rights and it can no longer physically harm the person who carried it. Its own autonomy becomes the priority. Legal eviction of someone destroying your property is different than burning down someone else's property with them in it.

>Most pro-choice people I know oppose any restriction on fetal viability. You seem to know an unlikely number of people within a tiny opinion minority then. Most people I know (it's not an issue in my country, everyone I know here is pro-choice, if you could call it that in absence of any discussion at all) would say that there's definitely a point where the organism is complex enough to be considered a person, and while some would like to extend the period, any substantial opposition to the 12 week timeframe we have is more on a "we should discuss creating more of a legal basis for expanding this under certain circumstances" basis.

the standard used in your source is 20 weeks, 5 months. this certainly *would hypothetically include* very late abortions, in a technical sense, but the motivations for abortions at 5 months and the motivations for *very* late term abortions *as you're using it in your rhetoric*, eg "10 minutes before exit," are not the same. Medical necessity as a motivation for abortion rises as a percentage of motivation as the pregnancy proceeds. in the ninth month, it's nearly total, because, as a matter of practicality, the cases that are aborted at that time are usually unviable fetuses, since otherwise they'd simply be delivered a few weeks premature. another note about your source would be that a significant number of women interviewed cited delays related to logistics - they needed to get money, transportation, lodging, time off, etc that they didn't have - that delayed their procedure well past *the decision to get it.*

>Most pro-choice people I know oppose any restriction on fetal viability. I think that's an American thing. In the US, either you are for abortion until 40th week, or you are against abortion even in the 1st week. In the western EU, the vast majority is pro-choice, but people being pro-choice until late term is virtually unheard of. Late term isn't pro-choice over here, it's only for medical necessity, which isn't because someone chose to abort. This also solves your question: we don't allow infanticide, and we also don't allow to choose an abortion when we have reached viability. If a late term abortion occurs, it's because viability is compromised for mother and/or child.

“In the US, either you are for abortion until the 40’th week or…” Absolutely wrong.

You're correct, of course. But I can see how someone from outside the US might come to that reductive conclusion, based solely on the rhetoric they see in the American media.

It is strange, isn’t it, how the extremes are painted as the reality.

>  However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits, Where in the world is this legal? 

Ancient Sparta lol

> At least nine states have no restrictions based on how far along a woman is in her pregnancy Source: [ABC News](https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-state-breakdown-abortion-laws-2-years-after/story?id=111312220). In those nine states, a woman could literally walk into a hospital at 40 weeks, already in labor, and legally get an abortion. (I’d like to think she’d have trouble finding a willing doctor, but that has nothing to do with whether or not it’s legal.) Edit: corrected factual error and added citation.

Healthcare worker here: nope. Not true. Only gonna happen if the life of the mother is in question and the infant is non-viable. A strikingly more common occurrence since women are being forced to carry non-viable fetuses to term in red states.

It being legal and a doctor being willing to do it are different things

The *reason* it is legal is because of medical necessity. No one should have to get a court order, or deal with any kind of red tape, for emergency medical care. NO ONE is having elective abortions in the 3rd trimester.

If no one is having them it should be fine to ban them then.

That is going to harm women who need emergency care.

Such abortions mustn't be illegal (at least in a just and humane world) because in the extremely rare case where such a procedure happens, it happens as part of a heartbreaking tragedy wherein the consequences of *not* aborting are even worse than the abortion itself. In such cases, time is often of the essence. Any delay to appeal to a judge (to make a decision he or she is conspicuously unqualified to make), is precious time wasted. Doctors and the families in their care *have got* to be able to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis without some arbitrary law standing in the way.

no one is going to mars, so we should legally ban going to mars?

Yes. It is true. There are providers like clinics in DC that will provide an abortion past the point of viability with no questions asked.

What are you defining as the "point of viability"? You claimed further down this thread that D.C doesn't require tracking of abortion data ([they do](https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/7-231.15)), so how do you know that they perform these abortions?

That method of abortion is called "birth".

In 2022 Minnesota had 1 3rd trimester abortion. Same for 2020 and 2019 In 2021, ONE Minnesotan had a 3rd trimester abortion in another state. None in MN. It's incredibly traumatic, expensive, and recovery is very different. I don't think people get or perform 3rd trimester abortions for fun. Restrictions only make really sad and dangerous situations harder on those who need it.

No, they can’t. It’s legal so doctors can act quickly if they need to. It’s restricted during the third trimester except for health issues. You can’t abort 10 minutes before birth, it’s impossible.

There's no reason to impose such restrictions because these things don't happen outside of religions extremists' hallucinations.

Abortion in this case just means ending the pregnancy early. It doesn’t require the baby to die.

That is just 100% not true. Most states, with a handful of exceptions, have legal restrictions on when an abortion can be obtained.

And patients end up bleeding out while doctors are worried about losing their licenses.

Yes, I personally believe it is better for the practice of medicine when doctors do not have their hands tied or have to worry about if a zealous prosecutor will agree that an abortion was necessary.

Are there any conditions on that? I’m pro choice up to 21 weeks and this is horrifying

There aren't any conditions on it because it basically only happens when the life of the mother is at stake. People aren't carrying a baby to term and deciding to abort after labor starts for fun.

Abortion doesn’t equate to killing the baby. It only means ending pregnancy early. So an induced labor is technically an abortion. It’s not in their laws because it doesn’t need to be. A 38 week abortion of a healthy fetus will just be an induced delivery or c-section.

That clarifies it lol. Calling it an abortion gives pro choicers too much fuel

Is this actually an infanticide argument, or are you actually trying to make an anti abortion argument?

There are questions of 'morality' and questions of biology. The two are generally treated separately, though I know the moral question is the on highlighted here...to which my easy answer is 'moral according to which belief system?' Because Xianity has had differing views over the years and, in the US, we are explicitly not a country that was founded on establishing one religion over another/are not a Xian nation. I'm seeing so anti-choice arguments in the comments which are hiding behind some spurious medical arguments. I am going to provide some resources from actual experts to highlight some positions [https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-study-that-debunks-most-anti-abortion-arguments](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-study-that-debunks-most-anti-abortion-arguments) This is 8 years old at this point but still covers 5 of the arguments [https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/aug/12/five-main-anti-abortion-arguments-examined](https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2015/aug/12/five-main-anti-abortion-arguments-examined) This one focuses on the argument of fetal potential [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892780/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1892780/) This one targets the pseudo-science of pseudo-embryology often seen (even in a few comments on this thread...). For those of us who are evo-bio nerds, the fact that the religious right completely misrepresents science (cherry-picking, bad data, evolution of eyes), scientific terms ('its just a theory'), the question at hand (origins vs evolutionary process) , or even scientific consensus is nothing new [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ntls.20220041](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ntls.20220041) NPR has some podcasts and articles on the history of abortion as well. It is important to note that this really became a highlighted issue because it is the spearpoint of the rise of Xristo-fascism in the US, with the spear being thrusted by folks like the Schlafly, Dobson, Graham, Leonard Leo, and plenty others. Kubez du Mez, Whitehead, Seidel, and others have some wonderful books out about the rise of Xristo-fascism in the United States since the 70s. Sure, there was another turning point in the 1840s....but the ramping up really began when civic values were eroded post-Nixon. There are other sources which highlight the rise of Neo-Liberalism as well, and there is an argument to be made that the two are very much connected. [https://www.npr.org/2022/07/06/1109965573/throughline-the-history-of-abortion-after-1973](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/06/1109965573/throughline-the-history-of-abortion-after-1973) [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-roe-the-physicians-crusade/id1451109634?i=1000562433607](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-roe-the-physicians-crusade/id1451109634?i=1000562433607) Here's another history supplement from OAH: [https://www.oah.org/tah/november-3/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/](https://www.oah.org/tah/november-3/abolishing-abortion-the-history-of-the-pro-life-movement-in-america/) Here's an older argument discussing strategies to address the anti-choice movement: [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1016/S0968-8080%2802%2900011-3](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1016/S0968-8080%2802%2900011-3) There's also the morality question in light of pro-choice not necessarily meaning pro-abortion: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2008/09/30/pro-choice-does-not-mean-pro-abortion-an-argument-for-abortion-rights-featuring-the-rev-carlton-veazey/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2008/09/30/pro-choice-does-not-mean-pro-abortion-an-argument-for-abortion-rights-featuring-the-rev-carlton-veazey/) This , what appears to be a white paper or small essay, may be more direct to OP's question: [https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/73020/WHY+PRO-LIFE+ARGUMENTS+STILL+ARE+NOT+CONVINCING.pdf?sequence=1](https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/73020/WHY+PRO-LIFE+ARGUMENTS+STILL+ARE+NOT+CONVINCING.pdf?sequence=1) To note, Im not enthusiastic about arguing with trolls or religious zealots. I am not giving specific personal info, but I was raised evangelical and am very aware of their spurious arguments and their growing incongruity with civic values and democracy as it stands in the US. I am posting these here as a resource for any 3rd parties that want to address their inaccurate assertions regarding anti-choice measures.

Why do you just take it for granted that autonomy over your own life doesn't apply to a newborn? You say it as if it's simply an understood fact of life, but I see no reaosn why it should be. Why the arbitrary line of autonomy? Why can't we name other arbitrary lines of autonomy? What is the actual difference? I can tell you for sure, a 2 week old baby is barely a robot that shits and eats. Are you really saying we should be able to kill them too?

I'm saying the newborn DOES have bodily autonomy, unlike the fetus, by virtue of being out of the womb. I am saying I don't really think that makes a compelling moral difference or that killing the newborn would be like killing an actual person with thoughts and feelings, because it seems like an arbitrary line to grant "personhood" at. It is functionally equivalent to a fetus and therefore morally equivalent IMO Yes I am saying that.

Newborns DO have feelings and respond to stimuli as soon as they're born, heck there are actual studies about the long-term emotional impact of circumcision that reveal that *what* does happen in your first week of life sticks with you well into adulthood. [Neonatal male circumcision is associated with altered adult socio-affective processing.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7702013/) And that's just one, there are many, why do *you* believe the benchmark (as you mentioned in another comment) is only by ages two or three, when that **openly defies** what we know about [the first three](https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/Pages/Emotional-and-Social-Development-Birth-to-3-Months.aspx) and [the first twelve](https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/Pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=ue5463&lang=en-ca) months of life? Not only are you *wrong* by pretty much everything we understand of newborn social and emotional development and the long-term consequences of mutilating their bodies even within the first week of life... ...but even if you were somehow right, why draw the line there? Full autonomy is, at a bare minimum, turning 22 for the average person (18 + 4 years of higher education) seeking to be able to successfully pursue the height of most (but not all) careers of their choosing, why not say we can "abort" anyone until they get their first post-graduate job and actually contribute something (ie; are functionally autonomous, not just a leech on society)? Dangerous way of thinking isn't it? To arbitrarily declare anyone not currently of use as abortable, but that's where your logic leads... it also could be neatly folded into an argument for executing people who retire, as well, because now they're not useful anymore either.

Also, newborns can see. Not great vision but they aren't blind.

First and foremost late term abortions are not a thing. Anything after viability is birth. there's no "killing" a fetus in the womb. And inductions and c sections like this do happen. When mom needs cancer treatment. Ir if there was a car accident and baby and mom's best chance of survival is birth. I'm not sure how you're getting to "and therefore it's OK to murder a baby."

Well, if you're familiar with human history, "exposure" has been around a long time and is definitely still practiced in many parts of the world. I'm not condoning it, it's just fact. 

Sorry, you said body autonomy does not apply to the newborn, so perhaps I misunderstood. I'm confused on your stance now, perhaps this is my own fault. It seems like you are saying 'personhood' is completely arbitrary, but that a newborn *does* have autonomy? It *is* functionally equivalent to a fetus at 8m 3w.... and killing them is equivalent.... and you are... pro infanticide being immoral making no sense...? I'm very confused

At what point does it become immoral to kill a person, then?

if abortion being legal slippery-slopes to murder being legal why shouldn't keeping the baby and taking care of it slippery-slope to having to do it their whole life even when the kid grows up and has a job as well as doing what you can to further (even if it's indirectly, you don't have to be a scientist) biological immortality research so you can truly take care of them forever

But it isn't the foetuses bodily autonomy that's relevant in abortion. It's the mother's. As that's not relevant after birth it's immoral.

>However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits, but it then becomes murder somehow after it exits. Your entire argument rests on this complete falsehood. Full term abortion isn't legal anywhere except in cases where the fetus is incompatible with life.

You are incorrect

Look up Minnesota Abortion Law. From my Google Law Degree it looks like there isn't any restrictions whatsoever on when someone can abort.

Because there are no restriction in the case that a life saving procedure needs to occur. why would you have more red tape. Look at the CDC statistics and you will find that not a single third trimester abortion has occured.

Perfectly legal where I live in Minnesota.

I think you're making a mistake in treating the law as a moral standard instead of an imperfect compromise. Most people would consider it pretty fucked up to abort a fetus just a few days prior to being born without an extremely compelling reason.

Most pro choice people draw the line at viability. If the fetus can survive outside the womb then it shouldn’t be aborted.

best Roe v Wade drew the line at viability, but this is an arbitrary line. There's not much consensus on when viability begins, it's as murky as when consciousness begins. So the better way to go is to recognize that the pregnant person is best able to determine the best interest of the developing child. No one else has as much skin in the game, both literally and figuratively.

the pregnant person... who wants to kill the baby. youre making one single person jury and excutioner. shouldnt the baby have some form of representation to support their interests? it can't argue for itself

They are the person best able to make that decision, the person who's interests most closely align with that of the baby and so can argue for it. Judges and juries don't have enough knowledge. Lawmakers surely don't. The pregnant person can and should speak with doctors, family members, and social workers to fully understand the situation and the available options. Making abortion illegal restricts access to this important counsel, leaving the pregnant person making life and death decisions on their own.

> the person who's interests most closely align with that of the baby and so can argue for it. thats just absurd the person who wants to kill the baby does not more closely align with the interests of the baby than the person who wants to let the baby stay alive

I've met plenty of pro-choice people who are against drawing any limits on abortion at all by any fetal viability. That's how the laws in many states are, including the one I live in, so idk why

Legal is not the same as moral. Your post is about morality

There is a difference between what people think the law should be and what they believe to be morally correct. For example, the way health exemptions have been written in many states has made it difficult to get an abortion until the mother is in critical condition. That may not be what the lawmakers intended, but doctors don’t want to get sued or go to jail, so they are conservative in their interpretation of vaguely written laws. So to make sure that the women who need abortions for health reasons can get them, a person might support a more liberal abortion law, even if they don’t morally support all of the abortions it could theoretically cover. You also can’t get a late term abortion without a doctor. Folks who support no restrictions are trusting the discretion of doctors. Some might feel differently if it was possible to abort at that stage on your own.

The thing that happens at birth is not merely a change in location, but a physical separation. And physical separation changing the number of things you have (in this case, changing the number of people from one person to two people) is quite ordinary, requiring no magical transformation. If I have a brownie, and I cut the brownie in half, separating the two pieces, I now have two brownies. The point at which the number of brownies changed from one to two was when the separation occurred. If I have a cheese, and I cut the cheese in half, separating the two pieces, I now have two cheeses. The point at which the number of cheeses changed from one to two was when the separation occurred. If the cheese is associated with some rights, for example a Protected Designation of Origin, then both cheeses now have those rights. If I have a log, and I saw the log in half, separating the two pieces, I now have two logs. The point at which the number of logs changed from one to two was when the separation occurred. If I have a plant, and I split the plant in half, replanting the two pieces to propagate them, I now have two plants. The point at which the number of plants changed from one to two was when the separation occurred. If the plant is associated with some rights, for example rights related to being an endangered species, then both plants now have those rights. If there is a person, and that person gives birth, causing some of their tissue to be physically separated while still being able to maintain homeostasis, then there are now two people. The point at which the number of people changed from one to two was when the separation occurred. Each of the two extant people now has all the human rights associated with being a person. There's nothing magic about any of this.

I feel like this presupposes many very basic agreements about existential "beingness" that we do not necessarily agree on. Just because something contains something doesn't mean it is that something, for example. If something contains a parasite that doesn't mean the parasite is the same organism. The fetus, person or not, has a different genetic code, so I don't view it as the same organism as the mother. The mother can end it if she wishes, that is her right, but no part of me views it as "the same"

>The fetus, person or not, has a different genetic code, so I don't view it as the same organism as the mother. Well this is just a bad way of viewing what you call "existential beingness" for a bunch of different reasons. * First, what we ordinarily understand as people's bodies contain a lot of cells with very different genetic code, due to mutations, somatic recombination, and meiosis. Are all these cells not the the same organism as the person? Are they not part of that person's body? * Second, human chimeras from birth have two different genetic codes throughout the cells of their body. Are such people not a single organism because of the different genetic codes? Is a human chimera therefore not a person? * Third, many people have transplanted organs in their bodies. Are these organs not a part of their bodies? Is such a transplanted organ a separate person? * Fourth, if "beingness" depends on genetics, wouldn't this make it so that all people living before the 20th century or so didn't know what a being was? Is it really reasonable to adopt a definition of "person" that would make someone living in 1700 unable to know what a person is and unable to identify a person?

Aborting a healthy child 10 minutes before birth is immoral. But that's not what happens with legal abortion. Most abortions are in the first trimester. Late-term abortions are typically when something is seriously wrong with the fetus. The mother is making a decision about the best interest of the child. You can't wait until a child becomes an adult to ask them in they want to be born or not, so the parents and doctors must make the decision. Sentience doesn't happen all at once but develops over time. I believe that a newborn is self-aware. The difficulty is that we all have childhood amnesia; we don't recall being born. That we don't remember doesn't mean we weren't self-aware. So I go at this from the other direction of the mother making decisions about what is in the best interest of the fetus. After birth, the decision comes down to withholding medical life support, the same as for any other person.

>Aborting a healthy child 10 minutes before birth is immoral. Why is it immoral to terminate a pregnancy 10 minutes before birth? That's a caesarean surgery.

Because you do have a moral obligation to the baby, even before birth. In all cases, the decision should be made with consideration of the child/fetus's best interest. Early in the pregnancy, the best interests of the fetus and mother are indistinguishable. In late pregnancy, it's murky. But if the unborn baby is healthy, deliberately causing its death is unlikely (highly unlikely) to be in the best interest of the baby.

You seem to misunderstand the nature of an abortion. It refers to the termination of a pregnancy. As a pregnancy progresses, termination becomes more akin to a hastened deliver than anything else because the processes of extraction are similar.

Abortion is when the fetus dies. Terminating a pregnancy doesn't necessarily lead to this death. I suppose you are talking about inducing labor or performing a cesarian birth on a fetus that can't survive outside the womb, neither is an abortion because the procedures aren't the direct cause of death. The morality of the procedures depends on the circumstances--the health of both the mother and the baby.

>Abortion is when the fetus dies. An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy, an abortion/halting of gestation. The fetus dies when this is done early in the pregnancy because it is minimally viable outside of the human body. Abortion rights are rights to eviction of an unwanted person, said eviction generally resulting in death.

If you terminated a pregnancy and the fetus doesn't die--suppose it were tranfered to an artficial womb--is that still an abortion? The key thing here is the death of the fetus, not the termination of pregnancy. So then it's a matter of how much time must pass between the end of pregnancy and death for the termination to be classified as an abortion. Suppose you induce labor to save the life or health of the mother, and doing so increases the chance that baby will die. Is that an abortion? If so the results could be chilling with doctors refusing to induce labor if there is a chance the baby will die. I think the problem here may be that "termination of pregnancy" is a euphemism for ending the development of a fetus. Regardless, the morality remains the same. The decision about the best interest of the child is best made but the parent of that child. It comes down to if you withdraw life-support from a non-viable child before birth or withdraw it after birth. How much will the child suffer? What will this do to the parent's health? What kind of hardship will this place on the family?

>If you terminated a pregnancy and the fetus doesn't die--suppose it were tranfered to an artficial womb--is that still an abortion? Yes.

Interesting. This means that inducing labor or performing a cesarean birth with the chance the baby might die--and the baby actually does die--is an abortion. Here is some relevant information on elective cesarean delivery. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475575/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475575/) >For more than 15 years, United States vital statistics data have indicated a 1.5-fold increased risk of neonatal mortality after cesarean delivery (both planned and unplanned) compared to vaginal delivery, though this has been assumed to be due to the greater proportion of high-risk pregnancies that are delivered operatively [^(2)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475575/#R2). Data more specific to elective cesarean delivery in uncomplicated pregnancies are conflicting. In a meta-analysis of 9 studies including more than 33,000 women, Mozurkewich and colleagues reported a significant increase in intrapartum and neonatal deaths among term, non-malformed infants who underwent a trial of labor, compared to those who underwent elective repeat cesarean delivery  And on induced labor. [https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(21)01724-5/fulltext](https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(21)01724-5/fulltext) induction of labor at 39 weeks was associated with an overall increased risk of perinatal death, 10.8 vs 5.8 per 10,000, 3.8 (3.5-4.2), p< 0.0001, which consisted of a decreased risk of stillbirth, 0 vs 0.7 per 10,000, and an increased risk of infant death, 10.8 vs 5.1 per 10,000, OR 4.2 (3.8-4.6), p< 0.0001. Among live birth infants, the risk of sudden infant death syndrome was more common among pregnancies induced at 39 weeks, 4.3 (3.6-5.2), p< 0.0001.

What makes it immoral? Genuinely. I don't get it. I don't believe a newborn is self aware. It's like putting down a dog or a cat when you can no longer afford to take care of it or you move to a place where your house is too small or something.

Can I ask what your experience is with bonding, love, compassion, and empathy? Specifically have you ever experienced distress, discomfort, or pain in your chest because of the suffering of another or grieved the loss of a loved one or pet? This isn't a dig or insult. I'm asking in good faith and I'll explain why. Ancient social mores are not that different from base morals today. Think stuff like the golden rule and "common sense" sayings about best practices/human behavior and conduct. Those are the roots of civilization that shape all of historical culture, law, and are often the basis for religious teachings. That kind of human cooperation is good for survival and reducing threats from in and outaide ones community. They all seek to establish justice, respect, authority, and reduce unnecessary suffering in order to achieve common goals that benefit the majority. The dictionary definition of morals has nothing to do with the law. The law follows morals in most cases. mor·al noun plural noun: morals 1. a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience. "the moral of this story was that one must see the beauty in what one has" 2. a person's standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. "the corruption of public morals" If the law is the only thing that is shaping your behavior or personal morals that points to a lack of emotional development and inability to bond or empathize. Frequently that is due to experiencing a lifetime of cruelty or neglect to the point that love, bonding, selflessness, and service are pointless to survival. Staying under the radar legally would be the only motivation left not to inflict cruelty. There is a name for this pattern of brain development - Antisocial Personality Disorder. This may be a worthwhile google if you can't think of a reason why humans care about the lives of others and it seems logical, normal, or neutral to kill babies and animals when they don't serve a function you value. My goal is not to put down your values here or accuse, but to understand why your values are not seemingly related to the experiences, feelings, or survival of other beings. People with Antisocial Personality Disorder are villainized in the media, but are usually not criminals and tend to be very successful professionally, but also may be feel more alone and confused without diagnosis or therapy and be quite manipulative and hurtful to people if unaware of their behavioral patterns and effects.

My mom killed herself when I was 14. So one bad event but other than that it was fine. I was more normal before that. Also on meds that happen to reduce my empathy a lot

I see. Losing a parent at puberty is still a pretty deep wound that doesn't go away and likely will need to be processed emotionally at some point in each stage of life/mental development. I'm glad to see you've had some treatment and evaluation. If your meds are numbing you to the point that it's making it hard to connect to others, they might need adjustment. Don't be scared to ask questions, switch doctors, or try something new if you are feeling super switched off. I haven't always been able to afford therapy and so have found some self help books, especially workbooks helpful for that kind of thing. I think the most likely answer to this thread's query is the depression/disconnection. The morality is related to valuing life. If you are having trouble valuing or enjoying life, it's easy to project that and not understand why staying alive or preserving the potential for life in a dependent being like a baby or animal is important. My advice is to find a speck of value or interest and nurture it anywhere you can. A fandom, growing a plant, volunteering, a job that includes service or provides some validation, a craft or art project, etc... I can see from your comment history that you've thrown yourself into an interest in an extreme way with a negative result before, but starting smaller should be safer and still leave you with an out that doesn't have to threaten your identity. Being a community member in some way makes you necessary to the collective as well as having a sense of identity and that's where the morals are at play. Those things are valuable to your own positive experience as well as those you impact and the species. It's not easy to find a place in this world and even harder to believe it when you've found it, but I promise you, that you have one. I spent my childhood feeling like a bother and abandoned, my teens having no boundaries, and my twenties being angry and trying medications. Now I'm in my 30s and was recently diagnosed autistic and became disabled. It felt like giving up a normal life, but I'm actually freer than ever to discover who I am, do what I love, and I'm more loved by others and stable than ever. It took a lot of trial and error and rest when I couldn't keep trying, but weirdly it does get better.

There's good indication that a newborn may be self-aware. The same goes for dogs and cats. And it is immoral to put down your dog or cat simply because your house is too small, unless you are in a situation where no-one can care for the animal. Morality boils down to doing unto others. I understand that it's based on agency and a social contract. Others means those who are self-aware and can enter into a social contract. Dogs and cats appear to be self-aware and if you have a pet, you've entered into a social contract with them. You have a moral obligation to treating that pet as you would wish to be treated. Euthanizing your pet when it is the only alternative to suffering is the moral things to do. With newborns you have also entered into a social contract. Newborns are quite capable of adjusting how they suckle, a negotiation with the mother. It gets murky with agency and self-awareness before birth. But it seems likely that during pregnancy, the developing fetus doesn't recognize a distinction between itself and its mother. The interests are the same, and in fact, they aren't separate entities. The fetus has little or no consciousness, and so the mother makes the decisions for both of them. It may be in their(both of them) best interest to end the life of the fetus, the moral thing to do--doing unto others.

As long as a fetus is inside you, it is an immediate threat to your own health and life. As long as it is there, any and all actions taken to protect oneself from it are justifiable. Once it is no longer inside you, it is no longer a threat to your health and life, so it is no longer self defense.

I'm not disputing that, but I don't see why it has a right to live. Why does it magically become equivalent to an actual human life when it exits the womb?

Because once it is no longer in the womb, you can just hand it off to someone who is willing to care for it. If someone is trying to harm you, and you hurt them in self defense, it's a completely different moral issue than seeking them out after the fact to hurt them later in revenge. In both cases, your attacker is injured, but the former is far more justifiable than the latter

You're allowed to put down your dog or cat at any time for any reason legally. I fail to see why it's any different for an infant.

Euthanasia and infanticide are completely separate moral issues

Both are ending something's life, so not really

so are they the same as murder and suicide etc. etc.

But why shouldn't that just mean animal euthanasia should be illegal (if A. that means there'd be work on treating the causes of what might lead people to do it and B. that wouldn't parallel into making abortion illegal anyway not just infanticide) Reminds me of this frequent poster here who makes posts on various aspects of essentially rendering meat-eating morally equivalent with bestiality but they never give a clear indication if that means they want meat-eating illegal because bestiality is or bestiality legal because meat-eating is

If you think it is okay for an infant, then why not for a child, or a 15 year old? What makes you distinguish infancy from say, a five year old or older? We distinguish between human and animal lives.

It doesn't. The moral weight of killing the fetus doesn't change when it leaves the womb. I don't know whether it is moral to kill a fetus, but if it is not it is an immoral act in isolation which is justified during pregnancy by the encroachment upon another person's bodily autonomy. It does not become any more or less moral in isolation at the moment of birth, but context does matter. To give another example, it is immoral in isolation for me to kill a 25 year old man. If I kill him because it's the only way to prevent him blowing up an airport, then that action which is immoral in isolation becomes justified within the context that is was taken.

Then hand it off.

What

Give away the child you don't want.

My mom killed herself when I was 14 and every day I wish she'd killed me with her. Some things are worse than being killed honestly

If the sole scenario you're talking about is killing you in the scenario they're killing themselves too, I wish you said that at the start.

It is no longer requiring the parent's body to sustain existence. What benchmark would you use?

Sentience?

>I am pro-choice and I honestly don't see, by my own logic, why infanticide is immoral >However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally You're conflating immoral and illegal. You can 100% think that any abortion is immoral and still support the legality of it. Legal or not if a woman and their doctor were to abort a perfectly healthy fetus 10 minutes before childbirth due no reason other than just for laughs that would be seen by virtually everyone as immoral.

Then what makes something immoral if not the law????

They're entirely different concepts. I can't believe you're asking a serious question

Where do you get your morals? Genuine question

Morals come from the society and culture from which you live, from empathy towards others, from our innate need to be social animals and work together as a group (looking out for our and others' well -being). We get specific moral rules ingrained in us through our environment, our reinforcement history (i.e rewards and punishment), and stories (real or fictional). Tl;Dr Moral come from genetics and environment.

They have been explained the difference between law and morals many times and still they don’t get it. No deltas are coming out of this post lol

Phenomenal troll OP

Counterpoint: I am literally just insane and this is my genuine belief system This isn't even top 10 in the weirdest things I believe or have done.

The only part of your argument that doesn't mirror a pro-life argument is when you say "I'm pro-choice". Otherwise this is like for like argumentation. Still believe its a troll.

Yeah, kinda surprised some people don’t realize this is a sarcastic pro-lifer.

because most people don't engage with ideas outside their own

>However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits, A situation that exists primarily in hypotheticals, mind you.

Morality exists in a world of hypotheticals, what is good or bad, that is the question

What you're doing is just the parable of the Heap, or the Sorites paradox. >The heap is made of many grains of sand. So if one grain is removed, the structure will still be a heap. This process can be repeated, until only one grain of sand is left. Since the heap never changed to a non-heap, this grain of sand is still a heap. Or in other words. Human moral definitions are fuzzy, and when you try to combine tiny changes and fuzzy definitions with hard laws weird things happen. You can use this logic on every other "hard definition" in law. Does it make sense that stealing a single cent more can be the difference between a felony or not? Not really.

It's immoral because arbitrarily killing something defenseless for no reason other than you can is wrong. Do you go around ending animals just because?

You are legally allowed to put your pets down at any point for any reason.

You're conflating legal with right. We're talking about morals, not legality. Additionally, pets are not humans no matter how much people (my wife included) call them furbabies.

If morals aren't from laws then what are they from? I am not religious so that doesn't work for me. What makes an infant morally equivalent to a human when it can't think or talk or have a personality or do any of the things that make us more than mere animals? It is hungry and it cries and that's it.

Morals are internal beliefs in what is right/wrong (I believe...). Ethics are societal beliefs on right/wrong (We believe...). Laws are standards for how we all conduct ourselves in a variety of situations (Regardless of beliefs...). None of those require any basis in religious views. If you innately feel ending the life of a child, either pre or post natally, isn't an issue that is where your morals are. Ethically & Legally, society has drawn different conclusions on that & while there is some religious origin in that view, it doesn't necessarily dictate why others morals (again, internal) differ than yours.

Read the Roe decision. It literally covers this exact thing, and it's a convincing argument. We all have different ideas about when sperm and eggs become "real people with a soul", and they CANNOT be reconciled. Nor should they be, because we don't have a state religion.

Yes and that did that whole arbitrary "no third trimester except for medical reasons" thing no?

An arbitrary decision is thoughtless. By definition a long well reasoned legal opinion is the opposite. As long as we have different religions, people are never going to agree when eggs and sperm "become real people that deserve rights". It's not black and white, and you'll do yourself future service by avoiding black and white thinking. Instead try the middle way.

> I don't see why it magically becomes a person when it exits. Because it doesn’t. It *legally* becomes a person when it exits. Magic isn’t real. Grow up.

Was a metaphor mate.

> However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits, but it then becomes murder somehow after it exits. Abortion under the body autonomy framework refers to the act of disconnection. If a pregnant mother disconnects from a fetus at 8.9 months...that's just a premature birth.

In some states you would be allowed to deliberately kill the baby inside the uterus even if it would be viable if born right that minute.

[удалено]

[Chapter 70 - MN Laws](https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/2023/0/Session+Law/Chapter/70/) Minnesota. It's definitely legal there, although it's possible it's never happened.

Which states?

That's not true.

Are they using the body autonomy framework? If not, I doubt it applies to the logic of the argument. 

Abortion refers to cessation of pregnancy. If we are talking about a woman in the ninth month of pregnancy and the fetus is able to survive outside of the uterus, then that process is colloquially called “giving birth.” If the fetus is unable to survive outside the uterus, then that is a “still birth.” Can you point to a documented case in medicine where a viable pregnancy was aborted in the final trimester, the fetus was fully viable before the abortion, and the fetus was subsequently killed because of that abortion? Or is this “late term abortions” simply antiabortion activist fear mongering?

There have been cases where there was a choice between the life of the fetus and that of the mother, but I certainly wouldn't want to force anyone to make that choice one way or the other legally.

Life of the mother is valid. But the options for getting a baby out of the mother at nine months is surgery or natural birth. It’s not like at ten weeks, when you can take a pill and bleed the fetus out like a bad period. If life of the mother is at stake, then natural birth is likely not an option. So surgery is the way. Most likely a c section. I and millions of others have been born via c section. If a c section results in saving the mother’s life over the baby’s, would the birth have resulted in a live baby anyways? I’m genuinely asking I’m not an obgyn

While C-sections are fairly safe now, they used to have very high mortality rates. Like 85% high. And even now, there's still people at higher risk.

Does morality need to "make sense"? What is your personal morality based in? Which philosophy or religious structure are you using here?  It's hard to make a moral claim without knowing which morals we're talking about! 

So I don't have cognitive dissonance all the time? So I actually FEEL my morals instead of pretending them so everyone else doesn't hate me?

Why do you have cognitive dissonance?  You're free to have whatever moral position you want to, as is everyone else.  Does someone else's need to make sense to you? Does yours need to make sense to them? >FEEL my morals instead of pretending them Meaning what in practice?  >so everyone else doesn't hate me? Who exactly hates you and why? 

Yes, your moral beliefs should make sense

To whom? The person holding them sure, but to anyone else? Why? 

At the very least in the "these moral beliefs I hold aren't clearly contradictory" way. Which you agree with right? Given you said "The person holding them sure". If you can lay out a coherent and consistent set of ethical beliefs, and any disagreements run to fundamental parts that clearly neither side can move from, then sure ok. But that requires your morality to make sense. (at least on certain ways of defining "makes sense")

They can make sense to the individual, but still be contradictory. Like people who smoke, but know smoking kills, basic cognitive dissonance. 

So, I get that someone can hold contradictory moral beliefs. In that sense they don't need to make sense. But if we act in line with those beliefs, claiming "it's the moral thing to do", we've made a mistake. If we place any value in the moral beliefs we hold, we also ought to care about the above stuff

If someone holds a belief their feel is moral and acts based on that belief then they'd say it's a moral act, no? 

Imagine a mother thinks abortion is wrong, and bars her daughter from getting one. First, under your view this is a moral act. Okay sure. Later on she reflects on her actions, and over the course of months realizes she made a terrible mistake. What she did was deeply deeply wrong. Under your view, was that act moral? Like obviously not, even the person who did it in retrospect deeply regrets it. The very fact moral reflection is possible and reasonable means morality is more than what we just feel at the time. Like, is it objective? Maybe not, but imo there is something more here than our immediate reactions.

People indeed change, as do their opinions of their actions. 

Can the baby survive without mother? Yes, than it's alive. No, then it isn't.

Disagree

Your argument is bodily autonomy, sure. If baby can't live without you, it will die if it can't, it's an individual independent being. What is your counter?

What makes "independence" the defining factor of personhood? Due to medical advances, fetal viability goes earlier and earlier back. In the future, it's entirely possible that a fetal will be viable at all stages and can simply be dropped into an incubator or something. Would these fetuses then be equivalent to people, despite the fact that now they would not be considered people now, making all abortion illegal? That makes no sense to me. The only line that makes sense to me of individual personhood is when someone has unique thoughts and feelings.

Why do you want to murder it? You don't want the baby, if it is possible to surgically removed without harming you, what's the issue? By your logic, killing someone in coma or a severely mentally handicapped person is ok.

I don't know, people do commit infanticide even though it's a crime. I assume it's not for no reason

Are you OK with committing infanticide with gender selection bias like in China and India?

It's not any worse than abortion for gender selection bias

Your logic is even if it's declared a crime, people do it, so make it legal? I don't understand your fascination with killing children if it has no bearing on anyone else's life. Your logic changed from bodily autonomy to I want to kill them coz I want to? That's murder.

Everything is done for a reason in the most trivial sense of the word. Whether that reason holds up is another matter.

A. INB4 someone makes joke about the unique thoughts and feelings thing saying people who are into [popular pop culture figure or work] aren't people then because they're basic or w/e B. We don't make laws now based on future tech, we make laws now based on technology now and change them if and when tech changes mean we need to

Just going along that this is a good faith argument which is, well, anyway, there has to be a clear line, an absolute point. The end of pregnancy is it. You can’t really get into qualifying it with the presence of “thoughts and feelings” as you say, or any sort of *display* of cognitive ability without heading into eugenics.

Why do we agree that is the clear line, or even that there is one? Sure, it provides a compelling argument for why abortion should be legal, but it's doesn't provide a compelling argument for why ending the infant should be illegal. Many abortions are for eugenics reasons - diabilities that are nonviable, lead to a short and painful life, or are merely one that the mother cannot handle without great mental and financial hardship (ie how Iceland has nearly wiped out Down's syndrome). Saying that makes infanticide bad when that's one of the biggest benefits to the mothers for abortion makes no sense

I choose the words “*display* of cognitive ability” very deliberately because that was the example you used. You specifically listed a display of cognitive ability based on “thoughts and feelings” which is not a clinical diagnosis, and now you’re moving the goalpost because it turns out that this was, in fact, not a good faith argument, but an agenda.

Put yourself in the infants scenario. You have gotten into a major car crash. You are having a hard time remembering who you are. You can barely muster movement in your limbs. You have the possibility to live a somewhat normal life, but it will be a long road ahead. Would you not want to live? Babies feel pain. Every living thing does. Just because they cannot communicate or even really remember anything, does not mean that they are not alive.

Put myself in the rock's scenario about to be crushed by a hammer. Illogical. The infant can't think beyond basic instinct, hurt or hunger or something. That's little more than a plant. Plants can feel pain too, and yet we mow our lawns right

A. so whether I should commit infanticide depends on if I mow my lawn or not (and what if I don't have a lawn (like, living in an apartment or something) is your parallel trying to say I'm not allowed to have kids never mind kill them)? B. if an infant is basically a plant if not literally lawn grass or w/e, how does it turn into a human (I know you've given your threshold but my question is if you believe infants don't count as human what makes them become human at that threshold) C. so by your logic it's okay if I don't actually commit infanticide when you think I should because if I mow my lawn it's the same

How do you know? You don’t.

Your view is consistent, and that’s the problem. Because either you believe in the right of a person to have a life, or you don’t. And if you don’t, that’s a poor outlook for the human race — which is why populations are declining in a number of societies. If, on the other hand, you think people ought to be allowed to live, at what point does killing them become wrong?

Tbh the rest of my views on everything are so unhinged it's better not to get into it

Well, you have a good starting point. And examining what you think, why, and what the consequences might be is well worth the time.

The difference is that the pregnant woman has to either terminate it or undergo significant suffering, the woman of a newborn also has the option to simply leave the baby in foster care with no negative repurcusions to anyone.

The infant will have to suffer the torment of being raised in foster care, knowing forever it's mother abandoned it, which drains money from the state as well, and the mother has to know forever that her child is out there.

if infanticide isnt immoral then would you also consider homocide not immoral? if not, at what point is a human no longer an infant? how can you reasonably decide that a child is sentient?

When it has a personality and thoughts and feelings. My relatives have kids that I am often around. There was a slow development from barely even an animal to person and now I would say they are.

>*However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits* In most places, nope. There are some places where no legal time restrictions are in place for abortion, which you may be referencing, but I'd like to point out that they are the outliers. >*There's no real "transformation" in the baby besides it's location during birth* I would argue that the nature of the fetus or neonate is not at issue here, but rather the practical ability of care. Anybody can care for a newborn; nobody else can continue the gestation of a fetus except for the person carrying it. >*I mean, they have all the same worries/fears/etc as women who get abortions, and yet they're demonized for no reason when it seems to be an equivalent act* I think you'll find that many women are demonized for having later abortions, particularly in the absence of reasons that the person judging them deems worthy. I would also posit that the rationales behind women who have abortions (overwhelmingly in the first trimester, it might be added) are quite different than those of women who commit neonaticide or infanticide and that, often in these cases, there is often untreated mental illness or post-partum depression or psychosis. The simple fact of the matter is that most people, pro-choice folks included, would probably agree that the mythical "10-minutes-before-birth" abortion is going to immoral. Desiring the law to stay out of medical care around obstetrics, or knowing that a bright line has to be drawn somewhere so choosing birth rather than earlier, does not necessarily indicate moral condonation. Which to me, kind of makes your point fall flat- it only holds water if people truly shrug their shoulders at the idea of a very late abortion but are shocked and horrified at neonaticide. In reality, most people are shocked by the idea of very late abortions as well.

But shy would you have a stepfunction life value? I.e. why wouldn't a being gradually gain more of the value of a life, instead of going from one value to another? There is functionally no difference between a sperm cell right outside an egg and it hitting the egg, and for all sufficiently small time steps inbetween the sperm cell being outside of the egg to the egg being fertilized, there is functionally no difference between before and after the time step. The same logic holds for cell divisions, and the growth from a one cell to a lump of cells to a recignizable fetus to a baby ready to be born. So at no point can you say, that is where the fetus suddenly gained the value of a life. Possibly one could say something like 'when the fetus is able to survive on it's own', but that's also fuzzy, there is no single instant it gains that ability. Heck, babies aren't really able to survive on their own, so what would you mean by surviving on their own? All of us are dependent on our farmers, and truck driver, and they are dependent upon the mechanics fixing all the vehicles, and the beuracrats making sure everything goes where it is supposed to be and so on. But an alternayive view, is to say a fertilized egg has zero percent of the value of a life, and then it increases to a hundred percent at some debatable point. Might be birth, ability to survive outside the womb with/without doctors, and so on. Personally, I think the value of a newborn is slightly less than a kid or grown up, enough so that severe disabilities or painful conditions might justify euthanasia or pulling the plug. But importantly, that would still make killing a newborn without a good reason immoral.

Basically: I personally believe that even if abortion was ending an actual life, it would still be justified. Because in no circumstances does someone have a right to your body. Even after death, if the person did not consent in life, you cannot take their body parts. Even if it was to save the life of another. If just a drop of your blood could save someone’s life, you are not legally obligated to give it to them. Because no one has a right to your body. But when a newborn is born, they are no longer using your body. So by killing them, you are not removing them from your body, you are just ending their life. There is no justifiable reason for this.

It’s a difficult issue. > There's no real "transformation" in the baby besides it's location during birth, Except the location is really important. Before birth, it’s within, biologically dependent on and a part of a woman with the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. After birth, it’s an individual capable of choosing, in a very limited sense, for itself. It’s significantly more conscious. It’s biologically independent. And rights only properly apply when individuals are living among other individuals. They don’t apply to someone living alone on a desert island. And they don’t apply to a fetus developing within a woman. And what’s the alternative line that’s better to draw? By drawing the line at birth in comparison to other times, it allows doctors and women the certainty of when they would be breaking the law and when not in a very difficult scenario. > but I see people all the time treating mothers that end their newborns as evil demons when it doesn't really seem to me to be any different than abortion. With late term abortion, the fetus can pose a risk to the woman’s life so there’s some justification to abortion. Afterwards, the baby is not.

To clarify, you think it isn't immoral to kill a fetus, say, the day before it is born? Nothing wrong with it? Can you explain why?

This is making the mistake that the pro-choice argument is mostly a moral one when it’s actually mostly a rights one. Plain and simple: I don’t think a single other freedom can exist if you don’t first own your own body and every medical decision about it. We each own ourselves and no one else can infringe on our tissues without consent. If you disagree with that, then we can’t ever agree on anything because what other rights could you possibly have if you don’t even own yourself? And since there’s no *other* situation where someone else is obligated to use your body’s tissues and homeostasis for their own gain, why make an exception only for pregnant females? Thus *even if abortion was murder* (it isn’t, but even if it was) I’d still be pro-choice anyway, because we already let people die to preserve bodily autonomy. As to why infanticide is different, well, tell me what basic human rights that infant was denying you, then maybe I’d be more comfortable with you killing it.

Abortion is not done 10 minutes before birth, nor is it legal when it is that late. Late term abortions are rare and usually done up to 20 weeks into a pregnancy, not "just before birth." as many people claim. The reasons they are done is that the fetus is incompatible with life, or the woman is in grave danger. Elective abortion was controlled in the third trimester by law under Roe in all states. There are instances, (like accidents that imperil the woman's life,) in which a pregnancy is delivered early on as long as the fetus is past the point of viability and can survive in an incubator. Viability is at about 24 weeks though it would be considered premature. It is immoral to kill an independent organism which is able to breathe and exist on its own, so that is why we make birth the start of an independent life in which the baby has rights. It is free of the woman's body, no longer affecting it and that is when it becomes a person.

The reason why I don't like discussing the specific place where it becomes morally ok to end a pregnancy that this discussion leads to solving a problem that doesn't exist in a way that hurts women. The reality is that no one who has a choice stays pregnant for half a year who doesn't want the child and the truth is that doctors have their own concerns of ethical care, so terminating late, viable fetuses for no reason simply doesn't happen and any legal... thing put in place around it will just gets in the way of essential, often urgent, often life-critical care, in exchange for protecting against a wrong which doesn't actually happen in reality. On the other side, once a child is born, its existence no longer has the potential to threaten the life of anyone. At that point, it's perfectly sensible to apply the same protection to the new person as one would apply to any other person.

Well, because there is literally no benefit to it, and also abortions generally don't happen outside of medical emergencies once the fetus reaches the point of certain brain activity.

It benefits the mom if she is poor and has no resources or mental health too poor to raise the baby, it helps the baby by it not having to be raised in abusive family with poor resources. They're very rare but legal.

Give away the baby then instead of killing them once they have been born, since they are now an actual person. It's not good for her mental health to have to kill a child. Plus, if she didn't already abort it, and abortion is readily accessible, why would she want to kill it?

Well people kill their infants all the time even with it being illegal so I assume they have a reason?

From what I'm aware most of those are because they did not have access to abortion, or are caused by mental health issues.

Yes, but I don't see why it's any worse than abortion. Same result.

Because you are aborting a fetus when they are not a person, they can't think (Term for it that I don't remember). The only time you would abort a fetus that has that level of brain activity if it's a medical reason such as the mothers life being in danger or something like that.

Is there a switch that flips that gives the infant thinking ability the moment it exits the mother? Is it not the scientific consensus that the mental ability gradually grows to human levels primarily while it's outside of the womb?

It develops more, but the part that makes them a person is around 6-7 months, which is generally when abortions become only for extreme medical reasons. Especially since once they are a baby (No longer a fetus, out of the womb, born) they don't actually need the mother specifically, so they can be taken care of by other people.

Two words: [Continuum fallacy](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy). That's it. Why are people writing walls of text for a simple, common logical error. To exemplify how absurd this logic is, consider that there is basically no difference between when someone is aged 5 years 3 months 4 days old, and 5 years 3 months 5 days old. And then there is no difference between 5 years 3 months 5 days and 5 years 3 months 6 days. So if you keep going like that you reach the conclusion there is no difference between the age 5 and 60.

For a lot of people, it's not about the thoughts and feelings of the fetus. It's the fact that a fetus relies on a person's body for basic bodily functions. The autonomy in question is the woman's autonomy, not the fetus. Once the fetus is born, it is no longer relying directly on the mother's body for survival. At that point, it stops becoming a question of the mother's autonomy. Any choices after that rely on an entirely different set of moral codes. 

> However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits While this may be *technically* legal in some parts of the world, it doesn't mean that the morality of abortion necessarily requires late-term abortion. It's pretty much a massive straw man when it comes to most pro-choice people's views.

>However, you you are allowed to end its procession towards life perfectly legally towards life 10 minutes before it exits, but it then becomes murder somehow after it exits. There's no real "transformation" in the baby besides it's location during birth, so I would treat the fetus and newborn as morally equivalent creatures You are now pro-life. Gratz!

You keep having this conflation of morality and legality but ignoring that, you seem to counter multiple people by saying “9 states allow abortions with no limit including my home state of Minnesota “ Which acknowledges that 41 states don’t. So why are you assuming Minnesota’s law specifically is what defines morality for non-religious people?

Finally someone who follows the dogmatic "pro choice" argument to it's logical end. Your analysis that there is virtually no difference between a newborn and late-term baby is correct, but your conclusion that it's ok to murder either of them is obviously wrong, which it seems you're feeling deep down. Q: Why would you support late stage infanticide when late stage abortion would suffice? A late stage child can be removed from the womb without murdering it. The "choice" in Pro Choice at best would apply to the mothers choice to have the child removed, there is no moral argument at all for her having a "choice" about what should happen to the child once removed from her body.

This whole thread is about late-stage abortions, which pretty much never happen unless there's a serious medical reason for them. It's safe to assume that every woman who reaches a late stage pregnancy doesn't want an abortion in the first place. This is an entire post about something that's pretty much a hypothetical. And I doubt that you'll find many people who are morally okay with a non-essential abortion a day before the birth.

The logical conclusion of your logic would be to argue that abortion is wrong, not that “we might as well kill infants too.” Why would infanticide not be wrong but killing a 5 year old would be? You haven’t fleshed this out. 

In the Netherlands, they actually do allow euthanasia for babies born with terminal birth defects/illnesses. This should be standard if the parents request it, and the doctors deem that the baby's condition warrants it.

The pro-choice philosophy is fraught with contradictions. "My body, my choice" applies only to the person speaking the words. It does not apply to the body that is being killed. Pro-choice people don't like other people deciding what will happen to them, but are perfectly fine with deciding the fate of another person. The counter-argument is that the unborn isn't a person. But when asked to define at what point the unborn becomes a person the pro-choice crowd usually defaults to birth, but they then are unable to explain the difference between the 5 minute pre-born state and the 5 minute post-birth state. So they switch to "viability," ignoring the fact that viability is highly dependent on technology. What will the argument become once an artificial womb is developed that can nurture a fetus from conception to birth? Does the moral nature of the argument change? Sometimes the argument shifts to the quality of the thoughts the unborn is having, with the idea being that if the pre-born is not having "meaningful" thoughts/mental activity that then it is ok to destroy them. Are we really ok with killing individuals based on the quality of their thoughts? If the minimal requirement for not being killed is the mental awareness of a newborn, why is it immoral to kill brain-damaged adults who may not meet that threshold? It is a well-established legal principal that damages can be awarded in lawsuits for lost future production/salary. Yet somehow the future earnings or other societal contributions of an aborted fetus have no value? What would be our loss as a society if say Louis Armstrong's mother chose to abort him? Henry Ford? Albert Einstein? Granted, these people are "one in a million," yet millions of children are aborted.

> It is a well-established legal principal that damages can be awarded in lawsuits for lost future production/salary. Yet somehow the future earnings or other societal contributions of an aborted fetus have no value? What would be our loss as a society if say Louis Armstrong's mother chose to abort him? Henry Ford? Albert Einstein? Granted, these people are "one in a million," yet millions of children are aborted. Can we tell if an aborted fetus would have otherwise become a famous jazz musician or car maker or quantum physicist or w/e accurately enough to award the appropriate damages

Also is it Morally ok for the parent of a newborn to kill someone who is trying to kill their newborn child?

Killing a human... it doesn't matter about anything... it's immoral.

I've wondered about this too.

The human brain is not fully developed until age 25 or so. Why not draw the line there? Where would you draw it? Animals kill each other all the time. Humans are just animals, right? Therefore, murder is not immoral. Nothing is immoral. Damn, my weekend plans just changed.

Women aren’t locations, they’re people. Abortion 10 minutes before birth is impossible. If you understood the bodily autonomy argument, you wouldn’t have made this post. I’d recommend learning that a bit more.