1) From Ohio Doctor: “as early as six weeks, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus and it doesn’t have a heart.” 2) Per Leeds study: [cardiac organs] “remain a disorganized jumble of tissue until around the 20th week.” 3) Any “sounds of so-called fetal heartbeat” are obviously other organs intercepted during ultrasound.
Argue anti-abortion with facts. Don’t make up shit.
Cuckservatives lie in order to give human attributes to fetuses
Fetuses are God’s children begging to be let out
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Abortion Debate: Why is Fetal Heartbeat a thing... cuz it’s not?
Actually, it is a "thing" and it relates in law to defining the moment when a fetus is a human being. Which indeed is why the courts and the law have tied themselves up in knots since Roe v. Wade trying to avoid defining when life begins.
Hence why, at first, abortion was banned after the third trimester. Then the limit was refined to viability. Then, as viability has regressed to earlier and earlier stages of gestation, the limit has regressed to earlier and earlier in time.
Thus it is also why, now, some states have begun to use the "heartbeat standard" as the point after which abortion is not legal. All human beings have a heart. If the law can be compelled to recognize a heartbeat as definitive of a human being - the point being that most women will not know they are pregnant till after the point in time when a heartbeat is detectable - then abortion will be effectively banned.
What the courts do not want to codify is the idea that the life of a human being can be taken - sanctioned by law - absent cause. A child being guilty of no crime save the fact of its conception, which itself it did not cause.
Suffice to say, embody that idea in law and the consequences would be profound - and very bad. So the courts - as Roe v. Wade effectively took the question out of the hand of legislatures - are turning intellectual handstands to set a standard while avoiding the central question of when a fetus is a person.
Indeed, the pro-choice argument is rooted in an intellectual conundrum. If the fetus is not a human person from the moment of conception, at what point - EXACTLY - does it become human? What, scientifically, legally, and morally, is the difference between the child one second before that EXACT moment, and one second after it? What are the implications if the law defines a date and then it turns out - after further scientific analysis - that it got it wrong?
The courts are using an evasion. The fetus - from the moment of conception - cannot be anything other than a human person. It will not be a duck or a horse. Logically, a thing cannot be other than what it is at any stage of its development. Because if it can be, then scientifically the fetus has an equal potential to become an elephant as a baby.
So the courts have fallen back on a semantic difference. We call a fetus a fetus, a baby a baby and a boy a boy and a man a man - even though, at every point in that continuum it is the same thing. An individual human person. The fact that we give different names to the same being at different points in time does not change the essential nature of the being. It is what it is and cannot be anything else at any point in that continuum.
This then being why the point at which abortion is permitted is, slowly but surely, falling back earlier in time. Again, it having started at the first trimester and having since, in law, been refined as "viability," as the courts have periodically rewritten the standard. (Again, also remembering, legislatures - Federal, state or local - since Roe v. Wade, are excluded from drawing the line.)
Long way around, it is why fetal heart beats matter. Logically and philosophically, if the heartbeat is definitive of a human person, abortion is murder by virtue of it being the taking of the life of a human being who is not guilty of any crime at the will of another being. The law has only avoided stating that fact by relying on a semantic fiat - and a shifting point in time - that bears neither scientific, nor logical nor moral scrutiny.
I’d say anti-choice has paradoxes too. If the moment a sperm tail wiggles into an egg is “a person” then it must be that both an egg and sperm tail separately are people. It’s not instant conception of a human being.
And as the doctor quotes above, the “fetal heartbeats” are bullshit. If we follow the heartbeat standard it’d be second trimester. Which is fine since 99% abortions are in first 15 weeks.
Well, okay, name the exact second that a fetus becomes a human being. What is the scientific and moral difference one second before that instant and one after.
By the way, it already is the second trimester in some states. As noted, the standard shifted from third trimester to viability and viability has receded to earlier and earlier in pregnancy thanks to various scientific and medical innovations.
That is the point. If humanity is defined by the medical standard of what constitutes a human life, then what else is a heartbeat? Do you know any live humans who don't have one?
The problem with your last point, of course, is merely a solipsism to avoid setting any standard that is not related to mere convenience. Which is to say that you assert choice as a value over and above life. This again conducing to little more than an ethic of power.
When the “life” is an embryo or fetus that’s dependent on another’s body- yeah legal rights matter. Does anyone have rights over another’s body? Your son can’t force you legally to donate a kidney. You’re for giving fetuses more rights than actual persons.
Actually, in certain circumstances, for limited durations, they can.
Not really the point though. The life that was created was not responsible for its creation. Your argument is that we absolve those from taking responsibility for the consequences of their actions and let the innocent pay the price.
Again, you conduce to an ethic of power and convenience where the value of life is relative. Were the child responsible for imposing himself on the parent, it would be one thing. It is quite another when the child - a living person - is not responsible for the circumstances of its conception.
No, it is not. There is no absolute bodily autonomy. You may NOT use cocaine. You may NOT drive drunk. You may NOT rob a bank.
You have set up a legal standard where one is NOT recognized in law. All rights - bodily autonomy emphatically included - are in balance and compromise.
Okay, if the embryo is not a human - again, at what point, specifically and concretely, to the second, does it gain human status. What is the difference one second before that moment, and one second after. Recalling that if you get it wrong, you lay the predicate for legalizing murder.
If this be ideology, then show me the specific scientific and philosophical moment at which human status is attained and the protection of that person's "autonomy" is given some protection in law?
What does any of that have to do with a person’s body? I’m talking your skin, blood, etc. The govt doesn’t have right to make you get a vaccine does it?
Apparently it does. As I can tell you with three children, they would not have been allowed to go to school unless they were given certain vaccinations against measles, etc.
Besides, your body is used to do certain things. To speak of autonomy in terms of mere biological function is to not say very much. That said, as with capital punishment, under certain circumstances even that can be forfeit.
That’s a bit different. That’s prerequisites for entering a public space. Which may be the case with Covid. But still, the parallel is the same. You want to force a woman to carry a fetus... versus actually forcing vaccinations or organ donations.
So, in the case of abortion, the cause is a human life, created by no act of its own, guilty of no crime and dependent upon those whose actions gave it life. Your rights and "bodily autonomy" can be circumscribed and even forfeit subject to certain circumstances in law.
It then becomes a question of what the law ought value. Is autonomy to be retained at the cost of an innocent being because it is inconvenient for those who conceived that being? If yes, then what ethical standard - and legal standard - have you set for law and thus society?
Sure... and when the life becomes a “person” is the ever growing debate. But if it’s a fertilized egg why not sperm? I think brain activity and a nervous system is better evidence of a person.
So I ask again, if not human from the moment of conception, at what point - specifically and precisely - in time does it attain that status? What is the scientific and moral difference one second before that moment in time and one second after?
Be specific and precise. Define the relevant characteristics and at what point they are attained. In that connection, how can it be anything other than human?
No one said anything about species. The question is about when, in your conception, the fetus becomes an individual worthy of the protection of its rights.
So one more time, if not human from the moment of conception, at what point - specifically and precisely - in time does it attain that status? What is the scientific and moral difference one second before that moment in time and one second after?
Be specific and precise. Define the relevant characteristics and at what point they are attained. In that connection, how can it be anything other than human?
Obviously if human, it is a person in its own right. Unless now you are asserting a difference between human and person. If so, please also define that distinction.
Anti-abortion beliefs have nothing to do with the heartbeat. It doesn't even have to do with the wellbeing of the fetus at all. They are the exact same people who are against providing any type of free healthcare to pregnant women. There's only two reasons why someone is anti-abortion: they're a powerful figure who is exploiting the public's emotions to manipulate them for votes and/or money. Or they're the suckers who have been brainwashed and had their emotions exploited. The exact same thing applies to anti-immigration and people who deny climate change.
I think they believe embryos have souls. If I believed that I’d be fighting to keep them alive. This is really a proxy argument on whether a god exists.
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You are not a thing either. Yet here you are, talking about a subject you know nothing about.
The issue is not biology - it's laws. The laws protect the unborn as well as the mother. Killing a pregnant woman carries an extra sentence. If the foetus is no longer "protected," then the fact she was pregnant, carries no extra sentence - or meaning, for that matter.
Yeah and you still can’t wrap your small brain around it. You calling it an “unborn” or a “child” or a “person” is em bing attributes onto an embryo that just aren’t there.
Yeah that is still not true. If you want to argue that the heart beat doesn't count because its not fully developed fine, but its a fetus, of course its not fully developed and its a stupid argument (You know it is just as every argument for abortion is which is why your trying to claim it doesn't count as a person, but you cannot actually explain why).
But lets go with your idiotically stupid argument, fine, its not fully developed so its not a heart. Human brains don't fully develop until about 23 years of age, so no human under the age of 23 has a brain then. Is that your argument?(feel free to ignore this argument or try to explain why your reasoning is applicable to fetus's but not anything else because you need to justify to yourself why killing a fetus is okay and your still a good person despite believing in abortion).
No, we haven't. You said their is no heart beat, I pointed out their quite literally is a detectable heart beat, your argument then is that it doesn't count because its not fully developed so its not a real heart and thus even though it is beating its not a real heart beat. I then countered that with pointing out that a person is not "fully developed" until age 25 or so and therefore by your own rational their is no such thing as a human being below the age of 25. Their was no sub argument, that was a direct refutation of your argument and you are now trying desperately to wiggle your way out of your shitty argument by miscatagorizing what is happening to give you plausible deniability so you don't have to own up to the fact that what you stated was incorrect on a factual level and irrational on a logical argumentative level.
Except again, that is incorrect as the data shows. Your argument is if it is not fully developed it doesn't count which means that again, their are no human beings until the age of 25(and by extension you by your own rational would be legally allowed to abort any one under the age of 25 which of course is insane and you know it which is why you keep repeating the same failed argument because you have nothing else).
If your therapy was effective then why do you ask these questions with insulting language? You aren't debating the abortion issue and the invalidity of a heartbeat. You are using this as an opportunity to use the term cuckservatives. My assumption is that you are trolling and not really interested in the answers.
I may be trolling but it’s still an important issue. I keep hearing bs arguments from anti choicers. When they really should just say “I think the embryo has a soul imbued by god.” It’s a sucky legal argument but at least it’s truthful.
I guess you’re right. I’d say you’re a small % of the abortion debate. But at least you respect a woman’s right. Be assured abortions aren’t as common as the right wing makes it.
I didn't think that they were very common. I understand why you might say that because those who oppose abortion will imply that they are used flippantly as a form of birth control.
both sides are dishonest in their arguments but i suppose that is the human condition
Just say you're a chick that feels safer saying such bs as a dude - Abortion is murder you don't want to deal with pregnancies then keep your legs closed - have some damn accountability
is a fetus only that until it's born? i think the argument is that you can abort a fetus and that has a heartbeart but it's not gonna have a heart beat for awhile
As the great Janet Porter says: "When a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected". I guess more and more states are adopting laws to protect unborn babies. Let's hope that this trend continues
Oh I care about my wife’s rights. I may out “trolling” rhetoric to stir the pot but it doesn’t mean this isn’t an interesting topic on a chat site. Is this not what gag is for?
Opinion Owner
+1 y
"Cuckservatives"?
Really? Are you fucking kidding me?
Your wife should kill any chances of creating another YOU.
I don't think heartbeat is a good metric since I think life develops long before the emergence of heart electrical activity. We don't really have a good definition of life, so the most conservative estimate is the best one, since abortion is 100% fatal.
Your conservative estimate isn’t justified in taking women’s rights away. However, like hospice care, brain activity or nervous system activity has been used as evidence. When does that show up in a fetus?
As an aside in many cases we also give women the right to kill children after they are born. All they have to do is claim postpartum depression and in many cases they're not sentenced to anyting.
"You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you."
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