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I think there's a difference between fetus, zygote, child, baby, or whatever other term. I think when discussing this, we need to be 100% strict on defintions especially when child, baby, fetus, etc. have different defintions and thus create different statements

The terminology doesn’t help the argument, admitting it’s killing is a way better argument. Trying to rationalize scientific terms that have become buzzwords is useless. It elicits the same old tired arguments, if we say we’re killing it then it changes the argument. It’s not longer about classification and terminology it’s about law and regulation of a process we already have familiarity with. The state is no stranger to legal killing, to be fine with legalized killing and not abortion would be hypocritical. The state is able to setup a process for legalized killing it can do the same for abortion.

>The terminology doesn’t help the argument, admitting it’s killing is a way better argument. Trying to rationalize scientific terms that have become buzzwords is useless. It elicits the same old tired arguments, if we say we’re killing it then it changes the argument. It's not rationalization, it's being exact with your terminology. I assume you would not argue that killing a baby and killing a mosquito is morally equivalent, even if both are objectively 'killing'? The reason you want a degree of term precision is because there are cultural hangups with certain terms. When you say 'baby', the vast majority of people are going to imagine a tiny born human, probably wrapped up in some cloth and enthusiastically smiling around the room. Killing that 'baby' is NOT the same as killing an barely human-shaped clump of cells. Just like we have a fuckton of words for everything in our language. Even 'kill' has multiple similar terms; murder, assassination, manslaughter, massacre, slay, annihilate, liquidate, and whatever else you want thesaurus to spit out. All of these words mean slightly different things. So why stop at 'killing a baby' and not refer to abortion as 'assassinating a baby'? Because that is not what 'assassination' means. Just like 'abortion' does not mean 'killing a baby'.

It’s not really about the terminology. Killing a single celled organism or different from killing a trillion celled organism. The words are just reflecting the underlying reality that the organism in the womb isn’t the same as a fully formed human.

I’m saying it doesn’t matter call it the unborn and admit it’s killing. Trying to say “well when it’s this state as a zygote…” elicits the same tired battle lines. Shift it up, we already have a process to kill people legally.

Why? Why can't we just be okay with the fact that you're ending a life? I'd argue again that your desire to build in all of these semantic definitions is just a way to increase the palatability of abortion. That doesn't take away from the fact that it's okay to willingly end lives if they're en utero. Maybe I'm callous, but I don't think it's wise to force folks to have kids that don't want them.

If a one week old fetus is 'a baby', then we should heavily regulate sex as all unsuccessful pregnancies are manslaughter. If you can be 2 months pregnant and 'lose the baby' (as many do), you've just accidentally killed someone. You have to draw the line somewhere. And I'm assuming you're drawing it for the sake of argument at conception because otherwise wanking is mass homocide.

>If a one week old fetus is 'a baby', then we should heavily regulate sex as all unsuccessful pregnancies are manslaughter. That isn’t true. Manslaughter requires some criminal negligence. However a death cause by no law violation or criminal negligence is simply called a ‘misadventure’ legally in most places. >If you can be 2 months pregnant and 'lose the baby' (as many do), you've just accidentally killed someone. Not all accidental deaths are criminal.

>That isn’t true. Manslaughter requires some criminal negligence. However a death cause by no law violation or criminal negligence is simply called a ‘misadventure’ legally in most places. So should we investigate all miscarriages to determine if there was a criminal act?

Only if there’s suspicion a criminal act occurred. The miscarriage itself can’t be the suspicion. Other factors can be like illegal/harmful substances found in the blood or obvious signs of the pregnancy being terminated by force.

It would mean every miscarriage would need to be investigated by the police to confirm there was no negligence. In addition, millions of pregnancies end every year before the person knows they're pregnant due to failure to implant, genetic anomalies, or other reasons. Police would have to investigate every time someone gets their period to confirm there was no pregnancy.

>It would mean every miscarriage would need to be investigated by the police to confirm there was no negligence. No it would not. Only the miscarriages that would appear to be “suspicious”. Like illegal/harmful substances found in the body/blood stream after a blood test. The doctor can pass this information along to the authorities if they feel the miscarriage wasn’t natural and it was forced by the mother or someone else. >In addition, millions of pregnancies end every year before the person knows they're pregnant due to failure to implant, genetic anomalies, or other reasons. Police would have to investigate every time someone gets their period to confirm there was no pregnancy. That would be absurd and isn’t something I am arguing for. I was just pointing out the incorrect use of manslaughter.

> Only the miscarriages that would appear to be “suspicious”. OK. What determines if a miscarriage that happens outside the presence of a doctor is suspicious?

>Like illegal/harmful substances found in the body/blood stream after a blood test. The doctor can pass this information along to the authorities if they feel the miscarriage wasn’t natural and it was forced by the mother or someone else. I literally give an example in my previous comment. Did you not read that far?

Yes. Which is why I asked about miscarriages that happen outside the presence of a doctor. I.e. no blood work.

>Yes. Which is why I asked about miscarriages that happen outside the presence of a doctor. I.e. no blood work. So are you describing a scenario where a woman has a miscarriage and never sees a doctor for the after care? Regardless you’re going to need someone to determine it is suspicious. Suspicion cannot just materialize on its own.

All of you folks are acting as though I disagree with abortion. I'm arguing that it's okay to abort a fetus even though it's basically a baby (or person or human or whatever semantic shit you folks are arguing). I don't understand these comments

No I'm not. I'm arguing with the 'even though it's basically a baby' part. As the top level poster of this thread said, your view means nothing unless you define 'baby', because you are putting yourself in that position by saying killing a 1 week old would be 'killing a baby' as in English that would be universally a bad thing. If you go on the street and asked 'is killing a baby bad?', and it turns out you meant using a condom or something, I wouldn't even call that a bad faith argument, it's just either lying or a total inability to use English.

I see what you're saying. I'm not interested in arguing about potential policy. I'm simply arguing that abortion is killing a living thing. However, I see what you're saying. I think that, as long as it lives within another person and cannot live independently from that person, it is up to the mother to terminate. Science moves forward, if I month old fetus can live independently, then the mother should have it removed. But this isn't what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that abortion is killing a child. Regardless of the political framework of society, as long as abortion is legal, it's killing a living being. And that's okay. But that's what I'm arguing here. If we could reframe the concept of abortion to the elimination of a fetus prior to x week, I'd agree with it and still argue that it's ending a life

You're using the words living being. Define being. Maturbation is killing a living thing. So is swatting a fly.

Swatting a fly is equivalent to abortion in my opinion. This is what I've been saying from the beginning

Your title says baby tho. I don't think you believe a fly is equivalent to a human infant.

Is that your sole disagreement with my post? My use of "baby" in my title? Edit: because I do believe en utero children are equililent to flies (or babies, or humans, the semantics are exhausting)

your words matter - why are you flipping between "baby" and "child" and "living thing/being"?

Because they all mean the same thing. Christ dude, a child is a baby is a living thing. Who cares? I swear, you folks are assuming I'm some Christian freedom fighter against abortion. I'm wildly in favor of it, as I've stated dozens of times at this point. What is the point of these semantic games as though you're going to catch me in some kind of rhetorical trap?

"Baby" and "living thing" are certainly different, right? Like a fly is a living thing, but it isn't a baby. Maybe you could argue that "child" and "baby" are interchangeable, but most people I don't think would agree to even that.

Most people are using semantic nonsense to argue that similar terms mean different things. Can you differentiate a baby from a child? At what point does one become the other? This isn't what I'm arguing remotely. I consider them all the same and using minor differences as a point of contention is a waste of time. Killing a fetus is killing a child or a baby, who cares? At the end of the day, killing one is killing the other. But again, I'm not here to argue what the threshold of baby-ness is vs child-ness. I'm arguing that the death of an en utero *individual* (does that help? En utero form? En utero soon-to-be-person) is killing something that would otherwise experience life.

How are you going to discuss important, sensitive issues if you assume that anyone who presses you for details on your view is trying to attack or trick you? People are focusing on your word choice because *words matter* in what we're talking about. There's a big moral and ethical difference between a thing and a person, and calling things people or people things blurs important conceptual lines. It matters whether we say fetus or baby because most people tend to feel that there are important differences in personhood (or degree of personhood) between those terms.

The entire basis of your argument demands semantics lol

youre saying that baby, fetus, zygote and living being essentially mean the same thing. so here is a random question: is it acceptable to wilfully kill a 3-month-old baby? yes or no, what do you think? and if youre gonna say you dont know if i mean a pregnancy in the third month or a baby that has been born 3 months ago, then you got your answer. thats the point people are trying to make.

There's a lot of daylight between "living thing" and "baby" tho.

I agree with you. If that helps. The problem is that this subject is so ingrained with buzzwords and people arguing “gotcha” points that it’s impossible to offer a slightly different point of view. ETA. I personally don’t like the idea of abortion except in limited circumstances, but I don’t gaf what other people do as it does not affect me personally

Yeah that's what I'm learning. The number of replies that treat me like some kind of evangelist Christian sycophant are so frustrating. I've constantly reiterated my position, then I get hit with some nonsense gotcha point as though I'm arguing against abortion as a whole. It's wildly frustrating

I’ve been wanting to yell at them thru my phone.

Would you be okay with a mother killing her 3-month-old baby? My guess is you would not. Therefore you would be making a clear distinction between abortion of a fetus and the killing of a born human.

It's likely because you're making a value statement about abortion. Being pro-choice - or more accurately, supporting reproduction justice is value free. It's about getting people the support they need to make the reproductive choices that are best for them and getting out of their way. Making value statements like, "you're killing a baby but it's okay" is doing the work of anti-abortion advocates for them.

> unsuccessful pregnancies are manslaughter. This is disingenous. Pregnancies that terminate due to no fault of the mother cannot be manslaughter. They didn't do anything wrong in this case so it cannot be manslaughter. On the other hand, if their smoking, drinking, drug use, and other dangerous activities can be directly attributed to the death of the baby, a potential argument can be made that they are at some fault. However, making and proving such a direct attribution is difficult at best and likely impossible. Let's flip your question around. Let's say I want a baby and I am 1 week pregnant. While most women wouldn't know, let's say I do know since I did an early pregnancy test and I am super excited. Unfortunately, my jealous ex-boyfriend finds out. He comes around and punches me hard in the stomach, leading to an immediate miscarriage. In this situation, should the boyfriend be persecuted for murder? It's intentional. It ended a life. Most people would argue that assault will not be enough? At least intuitively, it does feel icky to just let the boyfriend go with assault and ignore the pregnancy completely. It's definitely (much) worse than just punching someone in the gut.

Well, let's say the risk of losing a pregnancy before 3 months is 50% (I don't know the stat but lets say something like that). Technically you put a baby in a position where it has a 50% chance of dying, even though you didn't kill it. You could argue that is manslaughter, if you believed like OP does that it's a baby.

>If a one week old fetus is 'a baby', then we should heavily regulate sex as all unsuccessful pregnancies are manslaughter. If you can be 2 months pregnant and 'lose the baby' (as many do), you've just accidentally killed someone. I read that 3 times and have no idea what the intended meaning is.

There’s a big difference between ending a zygote vs ending an adults life. If we say human vs person vs fetus vs baby vs child those all mean different things. It does matter bc I would agree u are killing a human life but u aren’t killing a person imo. U aren’t killing a baby but u are killing a fetus. However if u say u are killing a baby, we all know what a baby means, nobody would say draw a baby and it would be a fetus in the womb compared to a human out of the womb born at most 2 years ago.

It's okay to kill a fetus.

Ok, but is it okay to kill a baby? Is it okay to kill a child? That’s what ur stances were in the original post.

Why stop at a fetus though? Why not keep going to the preceding life form and say anytime you waste sperm unnecessarily you are killing a baby. Do you believe jerking off is killing babies? The line needs to be drawn somewhere. 

A baby is sentient. A zygote is not. They are not the same thing. Roughly a quarter of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.  Are those considered dead babies? Typically not unless it's later in the pregnancy.  Having experienced a miscarriage myself, which was quite horrible, I still wouldn't call it losing a baby. It was the loss of the pregnancy.  The loss of possibility.  There was no person yet. 

The parents that lose them often consider them babies

A subjective personal experience doesn’t define parameters

Yes, yes it does. We allow subjective personal experiences to define parameters all the time. Take, for example, the parameters of being a "mother." Some people define themselves as a mother to a child even though they never given birth. People in this thread define anyone who's ever gotten pregnant as a "mother."

If an abortion is ending a life, then every miscarriage is, too. Or it's a suicide. Or accident homicide. In other words, if you're claiming it's ending a life every time a fertilized egg leaves the womb before full gestation, then shouldn't that apply to every time it happens? (That said, it's estimated 25% of pregnancies end before the person knows they're pregnant due to failure to implant correctly or genetic anomaly. By your rule, that would mean millions of pregnant people killed a baby without knowing it.)

I think we should discuss what constitutes life. A braindead person is still dead, even though they have a heartbeat. So this means that the only thing that matters is having meaningful neural activity, and an active consciousness. A fetus has neither of these. You can't harm a being that doesn't exist to feel it. So you need to prove that a fetus is indeed alive and that abortion kills an extant individual that has enough cognitive abilities to perceive and cogitate the world around them.

>life Define life

its not alive for it to be a life lmfao

> Why? Why can't we just be okay with the fact that you're ending a life? I *am* okay with that fact. I also believe that ending the life of a developing 3mo embryo is less notable than ending the life of a newborn baby.

Ending a life isn’t where we place the moral contention. It’s ending a **person’s** life that’s the problem. At a certain point this life is just a clump of cells, not what we consider a baby. You’re right that abortion kills life but it doesn’t kill a **baby**

People place the moral contantion differently, you don't decide what other people consider a baby etc. It is all just a definition game.

Is [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Zygote1.jpg/800px-Zygote1.jpg) a baby?

I thought absolute bodily autonomy was the contention?

I hate to break it to you, but you're not the first and you won't be the last to take these positions. It's nothing new, but the logic that people like you use can be applied to sperm, which as hilariously referenced in the legally blonde movie, you would effectively be killing babies every time you masturbated. You've killed billions of babies. Congratulations. Pretty stupid isn't it

Pretty sure logic don't apply in this discussion because everything is just a definition game.

and maybe even beyond that with all the potential babies killed by e.g. the fact that you can only have sex with one woman at a time and women can't get pregnant while they're already pregnant

Why would you think there's a significant difference between any of the different portions of the lifespan of a human? Why would someone else not come along and say "well... you want to be able to kill humans as long as they are in this particular part of their life span... and I want to be able to kill them in these other parts of their life span, such as geriatric portions, and maybe even some early baby portions"? You can define all the sections in a million ways and create even new portions of the life cycle by defining them however you wish. It's still killing a human in the beginning of their life cycle.

A single cell is life. This is killing life. Now we’re all ok with murder in some way shape or form, if you’ve ever scratched yourself or bathed you’ve killed hundreds of living organisms that live on your skin. But denying this is murder is crazy

Are you eating a chicken and killing it when you eat an egg? Is an egg meat to you? To many vegetarians, eggs are vastly different from eating actual meat. Before a baby is a full human being, it's essentially a zygote, a fetus, it's not a baby yet. Many times, cells of a fetus or cells from an umbilical cord can be used for stem cell research and other scientific discoveries, much like fetal cells of other animals.

The eggs we eat at breakfast are unfertilized so it’s not a good example.

~~How is that not a good example? The eggs you buy from a grocery store are not fertilized. Most laying hens that supply grocery stores have never seen a rooster in their entire lives.~~ EDIT: I'm sorry i replied to the wrong person.

I think most vegetarians avoid fertilized eggs so that's not a great argument.

How is that not a good example? The eggs you buy from a grocery store are not fertilized. Most laying hens that supply grocery stores have never seen a rooster in their entire lives.

Correct. That's why they eat them.

I seem to have gotten lost. I could have sworn i replied to someone saying the opposite, sorry about that.

An egg is the equivalent to a menstrual cycle. It isn't fertilized

Wheres the line though? You draw the line at fertilized, not everyone does. You are creating an arbitrary definition of what you consider life and human. Some people consider stem cells a potential human also. Some people consider sperm the same thing. It is only you who is drawing the conclusion that an embryo is life. It is POTENTIAL life, but it's not life. Vegans don't eat eggs even though they are unfertilized. To them, all of it is life, all of it is an animal product. The fact that you don't view it as the same doesn't matter to them. So again, you are creating your own rules.

Biology and common sense I would suspect draw the line at fertilized. That is the only *non* arbitrary definition there even is. If someone consider a stem cell a human life, they are silly. Sperm... silly... an egg... silly. A fertilized egg is not "potential life" it is *literally the first stage of human life. The absolute, first stage of a new human life. It is all the other ideas that are completely arbitrary, based on nothing but societal ideas and etc. The science is backed by every biologist who ever lived. A fertile egg, is the single first stage of a human life.

In the early 2000s, a law was passed in the United States that banned the use of stem cells from a mother to use for research because it was viewed as potential human life. Even the ones that would be thrown away. Some people considered it to be enough alive that they didn't want it used for scientific research.

That was not why it was banned. It was banned because the public is generally scientifically illiterate and kind of dumb. The push to ban stem cells was because the right wing was dumb, and they made everyone believe stem cells all came from aborted babies. I don't really care a lot about what "some people" think, because "some people" are actually really dumb. The facts are the facts whether or not "some dumb people" believe them or not.

I am aware of what science says, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that everyone has a different personal definition of what life is and what human life is. A baby is scientifically not the same thing as a zygote. According to OP, they are the same thing. But, scientifically they are NOT. You are killing a zygote, not a human. There is a huge difference. I'm trying to bring out the point that some people think harming any life at all is bad to them, like vegans, but others make distinctions based on what they believe. In short, though, a zygote is not a fetus is not a baby. Killing a fertilized human egg should be in the same category as any other animal egg that is fertilized. It is not yet a baby. It has no consciousness. If we were talking about killing life we would then also have to include killing plants when we cut the grass, pull weeds, pluck flowers out of the ground, etc.

I'm considering potential life to be life that would continue without intervention. That intervention is human, "God", or environmental. At the end of the day, a fertilized embryo will become life without some kind of extenuating circumstance. By terminating that pregnancy, you are ending what would otherwise be a life

> life that would continue without intervention > a fertilized embryo will become life without some kind of extenuating circumstance Both of these highly take advancements in medical science for granted. C-sections are an obvious example. Many countries have between 30% and 60% of lives born by C-sections. Many of these cases would be death without such an intervention. Also, about 10-20% of **known** pregnancies end in miscarriages with estimates being around 40% if you count anything from the point of successful fertilization onward. With those numbers, “extenuating circumstances” are not the right word for it. Life happening after fertilization is far from a guarantee, even given today’s technology. It is damaging and traumatizing to think of it as such.

But so does sperm. Eventually one of the sperm will fertilize the egg and become life. So every ejaculation that gets thrown away and "wasted" is ending a life. Right? No. It's not. That's how you sound.

This just jumps into the argument we already have "Okay, so when does it become a baby?" Some say when it's born, but many babies are viable long before they're born. Some say when it's viable, but it has a heartbeat long before it's viable. Getting lost in definitions is exactly what OP is trying to avoid by just bluntly acknowledging what is happening. An abortion is killing *something* precious. We should be allowed to have them anyways, but at least be honest about what's happening. An abortion is killing something that has a very high likelyhood of being a sentient human life.

If embryos are humans, they would be the most marginalized and most endangered humans on the planet by virtue of basic biology. Any attempts to treat them remotely within the realm of equal to human children and to grant them due process on the level of even the most despised and disenfranchised would be to create an evil, totalitarian, and utterly fruitless imposition on living, breathing, walking, talking, people. It is untenable, it is unthinkable, to equate embryos to real people.

Embryos WOULD BECOME humans. They aren't deserving of the rights of a human.

Equally, a fetus MIGHT BECOME a baby. It isn't currently a baby. Killing a fetus isn't killing a baby.

Well that makes very little sense based on your whole post. When do they become deserving of the rights of a human? How are they both “potential humans” as a meaningfully separate category, but terminating them is “killing a [human] child”?

Well... they *are* humans. They *factually* and literally are humans in the first stage of the human life cycle. They aren't in a donkey life cycle, they aren't in a lily life cycle. They are humans. Interesting, if you just change a few words around and say 'blacks' instead of you saying 'embryos'... A simple word switch from one human to another human... You get something that would 100% have been said 300 or so years ago. Unthinkable, untenable, fruitless imposition on the 'normal man', no reason for due process, no reason to remotely treat them equally.... It actually would fit super well into many of the books I've read from that era of the world.

are you comparing an entire race to an embryo?

I'm comparing a principle to a principle, and a group of humans to another group of humans. Are you really using the whole "Oh I'm so offended you compared something to something even though you didn't actually say that!" retort? I honestly haven't seen that in ages it's kind of fun to see that again.

So should we be investigating miscarriages as murders? To what extent should society encourage the surveillance and patrol of these birth mules to ensure that their pregnancies are carried to term? Suppose a fertilized egg doesn’t cling to the wall of the uterus and passes with the menstrual cycle. Was that fertilized egg any less a human and no less deserving of security and protection than the fortunate one that could cling to the uterine wall? By the way, love the posturing of anti-choice advocates as the next great civil rights leaders while black women disproportionately die from poor maternal care and die with septic, dead, FETUSES rotting inside them.

It's mostly a nonsense argument that we don't know the difference between a miscarriage and an abortion. Black women have higher rates of maternal mortality not even slightly because of half half the reasons you just gave. Total myth. They have higher rates, because the *main* reason being underlying medical issues. Black people are more likely to have cardiovascular issues, if you have ever had a child you know that blood pressure, hemorrhage, and clotting are extremely important and relevant factors during pregnancy, especially during birth, and especially just after. That is the largest reason by far for the disparity.

Do you think a miscarriage after a week or so is a baby dying?

It's a baby dying but it isn't killing a baby

If a woman does something with purpose or negligence that causes a miscarriage, they're responsible for the death of the baby? So we ought to persecute the women for that. Because if they do something purposefully or through negligence and their 18 month old dies, they certainly ought to get persecuted for that.

I'm not here to argue legality. I couldn't care less what a woman does with her baby. I'm arguing that, philosophically, abortion is killing a living thing. *That doesn't mean it's wrong*. Christ, did any of you people read my post. I'm wildly in favor of abortion. I think more people should have them than not. But I'm also not playing word games to believe that abortion isn't killing something. And that's okay! You kill a fox that's trying to attack your chickens. There's nothing wrong with that

Okay, replace persecution with morally responsible. They should be viewed as morally wrong/evil as someone who does that to an 18-month-old. Do you agree? ---- And if you think miscarriages are dying babies, that means that miscarriages are the largest cause of human death in the world by a massive margin. There are approximately 23 million miscarriages every year worldwide, which is about 44 per minute. Morally, we are responsible for doing something about this, right? We can't just let 44 babies die every minute and not, as a society, do everything in our power to stop it, right?

A baby generally has very limited consciousness. Its consciousness has limited capacity but it’s *there* in babies. Fetuses in the other hand have zero consciousness. Not full consciousness like us, nor even limited consciousness like actual babies. Personhood can’t exist both without having had consciousness and the capacity to experience it again and/or currently experiencing it.

Consciousness means nothing in what I'm arguing. A human in a vegitative state is still a human. Your argument is that, without having experienced consciousness, someone isn't considered a person? What does it mean to have consciousness? Would someone with severe developmental disabilities now not be considered a person because those disabilities may proclude the ability to experience "consciousness"?

Do you think unplugging braindead patients is murder?

For what it’s worth, OP didn’t claim “murder,” they are claiming “killing.” Murder is a legal or a moral claim, depending on usage. I think most would agree that unplugging a braindead patient is “killing a person,” even if we think it’s acceptable provided the proper ethical steps are taken.

The root disagreement is about humanity versus personhood. Under this framework, a braindead patient may be a living human, but the person has died. The personhood is in/arises from/dependent on the brain. Hence braindeath is the death of the person.

I think that’s a perfectly fair point, and in many jurisdictions, a braindead person is considered legally dead upon meeting certain criteria or failing certain tests. I’ll definitely give you that. I’m more concerned with the insertion of the word “murder,” because it tends to heavily polarize a topic that is already tough to debate civilly for a lot of people. OP didn’t use it, and while I don’t agree with their central point, I don’t think it’s fair or helpful to put that word into the debate.

If that’s the case, they’ve established that “killing” != “wrong,” so to say “it’s killing a child” isn’t wrong on its face.

Oh I don’t think anyone in this thread is equating killing with wrong. There are certainly situations where reasonable people would agree that killing can be justified or even morally correct. But OP’s argument isn’t whether killing is wrong at all, it’s whether the word “killing” should apply or not in the context of abortion. Adding in terms like “murder” complicates that question unnecessarily, and starts to bring in more polarizing ideas of right and wrong that aren’t part of the initial argument, as far as I am seeing.

Make no mistake, when anti-choicers say “but you’re killing a baby,” they are absolutely saying that to necessarily imply wrongness

I agree with you completely. But OP has made it clear they are pro-choice and just believe that “killing” is a morally neutral and scientifically accurate way to describe abortion. I don’t particularly agree with that stance, and like you, I think that “killing” is a word that is very often co-opted to imply wrongdoing in debates on this topic. But whether anyone agrees with OP’s stance or not, “murder” is a word that doesn’t belong in this discussion, especially in the context of inserting it into OP’s argument.

Obviously, but you should then have a counter to the actual argument if you disagree. Just dismissing a perfectly valid argument by playing with definitions does nothing but demonstrate how weak your position is..

It’s not a perfectly valid argument.

I can only assume you don’t know what it means for a logical argument to be valid.

Eh, I'd argue that with a braindead state, the person is already gone. You'd be killing a biological remnant.

I don't think most would think it is killing a person. The person is already dead. The ability to keep living tissue mechanically sustained is interesting, but not keeping a person alive.

He didn’t call abortion murder. Do you think unplugging brain dead patients isn’t killing them?

No. Brain death is when they're declared dead. Unplugging then isn't killing because they're already dead.

Being declared dead is a legal issue. So if republicans make abortion murder are you going to call it murder because legally it will be?

They can call it murder. They already do. But it is under legally inconsistent standards because abortion bans violate due process punishing people for self defense, as well as them accusing people of killing a fetus which if it was a born person would be medically considered dead.

Is stabbing someone who is unconscious to not kill a human being?

Abortion is definitely killing human cells and tissue. I don't know I'd call it a 'human' though. Say you cut off your hand. You are killing human tissue and cells because they will surely die when not connected to your body but I wouldn't say you are killing a human when the hand dies and decays. It's part of a human, and everything living in it will definitely be killed, but does that alone make it human? A tumor can teeth and hair and is very much alive. Is that killing a human? A fetus is just human tissue and cells. How can a fetal clump of cells that may not even physically resemble an actual person be killed but a clump of cells in a tumor or an amputated appendage is not considered a human? Where do you draw the line on what is human and what isn't if you don't take consciousness into consideration?

Your argument was not that abortion is killing a human, you said it's killing a baby. A baby is not a fetus or zygote. Scientifically they are NOT the same thing. You are killing a zygote not a baby. Are you serious? Someone with severe disabilities does experience consciousness. Just because they cannot communicate with you in a traditional way, doesn't mean they aren't conscious.

That just depends on at what time in the pregnancy you terminate. Any unborn child is a fetus.

Personhood is a made up societal concept that's sole purpose *only* exists, in order to take away the rights of other human beings. There exists no other reason for it to exist other than for the one single reason you are using it now. To take away rights of human beings.

>I understand why they say that, it's more politically palatable, but at the end of the day, abortion is killing a child. Why is a sperm not a child but sperm and egg is a child in your mind. What about combining them in your opinion makes it a child, and more importantly why is whatever distinction you draw morally relevant. See I as a utilitarian don't have to draw these clear lines. I use suffering to determine whether something is good or bad so for me its more like a spectrum rather than clear black and white. We accept theres some life thats just not morally problematic to kill like plants and bacteria because without nervous systems and without sentience no one is being really harmed. When it comes to animals we have more debate. Some people are vegan, some pescatarian some vegetarian. But the debate is over how much the animal can suffer. An insect suffers less than a gorilla for example so we have laws against harming great apes but not ants. So a fetus at different points in its development cycle likely suffers similar to many animals considering their nervous system resembles different animals at different stages of the embryo. But as long as we have laws permitting the killing of pigs who have the nervous system of a human toddler more or less it seems pretty crazy to make it illegal to kill something with the nervous system of a fish.

>what about combining them in your opinion makes it a child When the sperm fertilizes the egg It's a child. That's okay. I think we place far too much sanctity on human life. Kill the child rather than allow for another waste of life in society. I don't get why this is such a big issue.

>When the sperm fertilizes the egg It's a child.  what do 2 cells have in common with a fully formed 6 year old? what traits do they share that makes it so they fit in the same category? More importantly, if they do share some traits, why is that trait relevant morally speaking?

Except it's not a child, since children need to be born first.

> uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree Yes, because a sapling *is* a tree, roots and all. What is not a tree is the pollen, or the cones, or the flowers. What is not a tree either is a fertilized flower. Also what is not a tree is the fruit that has grown out of the fertilized flower, especially when that fruit is still attached to the branches of the tree. Even when the fruit drops to the ground, it's still not a tree. Only when it becomes a tree do we recognize it as a tree.

Imagine you're growing a bunch of trees from seeds. Someone shows up and destroys the bed of seedlings. Would you say "get, you ruined my trees!"?

You are essentially arguing that the moment pollination occurs a tree has been created, because this is the moment of conception. At this point a seed doesn't exist. Feel free to do some research on the parallels between plant embryonic development and human embryonic development and you may start to understand why it is uneducated to claim a zygote is a child. In your tree analogy a sapling would be a toddler and if you had a better understanding of embyonic development you probably wpuldn't compare a sapling to an egg that has just been fertilized.

Have they germinated and produced roots and leaves? They would be ruined trees. Are they still seeds? Then no, they're not trees at all regardless of what you may exclaim in anger. Because that would be an emotional response, not a rational response. Future trees are not trees, they will be trees eventually, not today.

Define "child". >In the same way that uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree, abortion is killing a child. A sapling would be more equivalent to a toddler than a fetus.

I also think OP needs to clarify terms, especially once we start bringing in analogies. Digging up a seedling or a seed would likely be the closer comparison here.

Yeah, should be more like a seed that was just planted.

More the acorn 

Then we’re talking about an acorn, not even a sapling.

Would you kill one the day after it's born? What's the cut off point? What changes?

if you're going to use that to equate abortion to murder-of-an-already-born-baby I can flip that to say every woman who has to keep the baby has to fulfill all its wants within reason (e.g. if the baby girl grows up to be a toddler and wants to be a princess you aren't going to go look at what monarchies still exist to see which royal family has a son her age you could betroth her to) while doing everything within her power (aka not necessarily having to become a scientist) to push for research to make biological immortality possible so both her and her kid could live forever and she could take care of them forever. Otherwise where's the cutoff in responsibility to take care of the child or w/e?

No one "kills" a fetus past viability unless the life of the mother is at stake or the child will inevitably die in agony hours after birth

That's actually not true. But women don't do it past viability because they're evil. Women do it past viability because either (yes) their health is at stake, the women couldn't afford to do it earlier as abortions are crazy expensive, or the women didn't know she was pregnant until recent (which can happen if you experience irregular periods or your a child who doesn't know the signs of pregnancy).

I don't really care, I'm not here to argue against abortion. I'm arguing that abortion is okay but is still the killing of a life form. I genuinely don't understand why anyone gives a shit about the semantics of whether it's a living thing or not

It is "killing" a clump of cells. You can't insist on certain semantics with way more powerful moral implications and then act like you don't mean anything by it.

> "Abortion is either taking a shit or killing a baby" Why the fuck would you compare a medical procedure to taking a shit? That's dumbing it down to an idiotic level. Isn't it more complex than that? > "However, while I'm in favor of abortion, I also understand that it is literally killing a child." You're making a massive leap here. You're equating a fetus with a child, but isn't there a significant difference between a cluster of cells and a fully formed human being? Can a fetus survive outside the womb early on in pregnancy? Doesn't that change the whole fucking picture? > "In the same way that uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree, abortion is killing a child." A sapling is not a fully grown tree, just like a fetus isn't a fully developed child. Isn't it critical to understand these distinctions instead of lumping them together for the sake of argument? > "I hate hearing lefty folks saying that it's some clump of cells or something." Why do you hate it? Isn't it scientifically accurate that early in pregnancy, a fetus is indeed a cluster of cells? Shouldn't we rely on facts rather than emotional arguments when discussing something as important as this? Do you think simplifying the debate to "killing a child" helps anyone understand the real complexities and nuances involved in abortion? Are you willing to challenge your view with the hard truths about fetal development and women's rights?

Child: a young human being below the age of puberty or below the legal age of majority. Fetus: an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind So, let's Trolley Problem this On track one: five vats with three month old fetuses. As they cannot survive without compelling a woman to implant them in their womb, they will quickly die On track two: A three month old in a crib Which lever are you pulling?

You understand that those two definitions are not mutually exclusive, right?

Then which lever are you pulling 

>abortion is killing a child. A potential child is not a child. You are being intentionally loose with terminology to drive emotional responses. Let's move this from the context of a theoretical discussion to the only context where it matters: in a medical setting where a doctor is trying to provide important medical information to a patient and her family as they struggle to make tough choices. To what medical and psychological benefit to a patient is it to burden them with more emotional stresses as they struggle to make what is likely going to be one of the most difficult choices of their life? Which is the best way to frame the situation for the patient: "Ms. Smith, Mr. Smith, I've looked at the test results and the imagining. The fetus has a serious heart defect. We recommend terminating the pregnancy . . ." -or- "Ms. Smith, Mr. Smith, I've looked at the test results and imaging. Your baby has a serious heart defect. We recommend killing your child . . ." If the societal convention is to speak about abortion as "killing a child," many patients will hear the choice as stated in the second example even if the words used are those of the first example. So again -- to what benefit is your imprecise terminology in actual practice where real people are making real decisions that impact their real lives which are already difficult and frequently emotionally devastating? Why is your desire to be edgy and provocative more important than the emotional and physical well-being of actual medical patients, their families, and their caregivers?

Depends how you define a baby. I'm assuming you're talking solely about viable pregnancies, not ectopic or those where the fetus has an incompatible with life condition. When first fertilized, it's a zygote. Plenty of zygotes don't implant, don't result in pregnancy. It's a single cell. Then it multiples. It takes until gastrulation before there's tissue differentiation. It takes further stages for there to be anything resembling an organ. If you took those out and looked at them, they are not a baby anymore than a baby is an adult. It could become a baby, but it is not yet. There is also the fact there is no brain, no capacity for intelligence yet. It is completely reliant on the mother's system. Part of the issue is that saying it's a baby at conception ignores the entire process or the fact that just because it's a zygote doesn't mean that it will become a baby. It's the same as the fact that having a period isn't losing fetuses, because those eggs have the potential to become them doesn't mean they are. The other issue is that no, we don't say clumps of cells capable of growing independently are other sentient beings. This is because that could apply to cancer cells.

I don't get why we care. It's a fertilized embryo. Sure, many fail. That'd be ideal. Obviously many fail and result in miscarriages. I'm not arguing that fertilization results in life in some magical religious way. I'm arguing that life generally results from pregnancy and abortion is therefore generally ending life. And that's okay! I don't know how frequently I need to reiterate this but I think most people should have abortions unless they're in a financial state to actually raise a child

It seems like exactly where you draw the line at life and murder will always be arbitrary and socially constructed. Is an egg or sperm a baby? Is a condom murder because a potential life is averted and thousands of sperm are left to die? Is birth control murder because it interrupts the process after conception? Is it wrong to just never conceive because the result of no human life being lived is the same as if you do conceive then abort? Since there's no real answer to these questions I think the way we talk about it should just be based on utility. I think it's useful and just to allow it, and you probably already agree on why it should be allowed. I'm just saying that it's going to be arbitrary no matter where you put the cutoff for murder is.

Also, women's body's flush out fertilized eggs that are never implanted during their periods, is that murder?

>However, while I'm in favor of abortion, I also understand that it is literally killing a child. In the same way that uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree, abortion is killing a child. I'm okay with that, but I hate hearing lefty folks saying that it's some clump of cells or something. I understand why they say that, it's more politically palatable, but at the end of the day, abortion is killing a child. Do you mourn every time you have unprotected sex? Embryo loss [is estimated at 40 to 60% of all fertilized eggs.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443340/) If you don't have a fundamentally traumatic relationship with sex with the knowledge that your child is *more likely than not to die,* if you aren't throwing a little funeral each time you have sex with your partner, then clearly there is a distinction between the embryo and a fully grown baby. If you don't treat embryo loss as a mournful death, you can't pretend like abortion is any different.

A fertility clinic lights on fire. You’re a fireman going in to save people. Some of the patients brought their children so there are babies in the building. Who do you save first, the babies or the trays of fertilized eggs?

WTF would you try to make a point by quoting Louis CK?

Well quoting an abuser of women not a great start …    But to your view so the woman’s body decides if the pregnancy will be a baby.  A “baby” is what is born.  Its a”pregnancy” at different stages until then.  The woman’s body can decide to miscarry or fail a successful birth. This might be chemical/ hormonal decision or the decision comes from her brain … 

A baby is a newly born child. The key is that it has been born. So all abortions literally do not kill babies. Killing babies has its own term: infanticide. Prior to birth it is called a fetus. It is a fetus from 9 weeks until birth. Fetuses are not babies. Abortions kill fetuses (and less developed embryo stages).

I like the bodily autonomy argument better. There is no situation where we force someone to give up their health and body parts so someone else can survive... except pregnancy if you live where abortion is illegal or otherwise difficult to obtain.

Medically, a person is dead when brain activity stops. Most abortions are done before there is any neurological activity, so medically the fetus at that point - while living tissue - is not a living person, no more than the woman's appendix.

uprooting a sapling is uprooting a sapling, not killing a tree. its not a tree yet. its killing a fetus. if you want to call it baby, fine, no skin off anybody's ass, it doesn't change anything about how its a woman's right to do with what is inside of her own body. but it doesn't actually make it a baby in her eyes. we have a biological impulse to protect babies. we do not have that same biological impulse for something that is theoretical, or very small and alien looking, and especially something that is inside of you and must come out and is potentially harmful to your health and your life.

How is a sapling not a tree? 

I think it's better to meet half way. "Lefty" folk use all this scientific jargon, and accurate or not, I respect the desire to cut through it, embryo, zygote, fetus, whatever... It was going to be a baby, I am willing to compromise with you. But compromise with me on this: It's not **killing** a child, it is preventing a child from living. Preventing is doing a lot of heavy lifting, that "child" did not have life as we know it. If you're going to cut through the scientific jargon of embryonic stages, then I will cut through the scientific jargon of what life is, it ain't just breathing and having a heart, living is... LIVING! Doing things, going places, liking activities, enjoying stuff. I want to reiterate I understand the desire to cut through all science speak and be clear, I'm not trying to rope you in with a "gotcha" I just think it would be in your best interest (for the sake of having an accurate view) to cut through all science speak on BOTH SIDES. If you don't want to bother with what stage of life we're talking about, I think you shouldn't bother about the nitty gritty definition of life, whether it be a beating heart, lungs, a semi-functional nervous system or whatever. If you're going to call a fetus a child (which again, fine by me) then let's not call what a fetus is doing as "living" therefore let's not call an abortion "killing" there was no life (life as in the actual activity) to be taken.

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> However, while I'm in favor of abortion, I also understand that it is literally killing a child. In the same way that uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree, abortion is killing a child. I'm okay with that, but I hate hearing lefty folks saying that it's some clump of cells or something. I understand why they say that, it's more politically palatable, but at the end of the day, abortion is killing a child. There's a difference between the *colloquial* use of words like baby and child, and the actual functional stages that are used in the abortion debate. I have no problem with saying that something is getting killed, but it's at most a *potential/future* baby or child. Using terms that are functionally accurate helps avoid confusion. Different stages of development should be called by their specific terms (zygote, embryo, fetus) to provide more clarity and avoid the misunderstandings and emotional connotations that words like baby or child evoke. This precision helps in ensuring that discussions are based on accurate descriptions of the developmental stage.

I agree with you and I want to add some other points as well. the state is able to kill and regulate it with law, abortion is no different. For example if one is in favor of the death penalty then it’s hypocritical to be against abortion. The obvious gotcha is that there was due process, laws, and punishment but ultimately it was a choice because the state allows for it. I’d argue admitting it’s killing a child/baby/whatever does two things 1) acknowledges the other sides argument and flips the script a bit and 2) opens up a new discuss about when a life can be taken. The state has the ability to regulate killing it can regulate abortion as well. Create a process of some sort or whatever but it clearly is a possibility to be regulated by the one entity that has the power to kill justly. The whole pro-choice pro-life argument basically boils down to this “when does a life get rights?” Some say conception some say a certain threshold. Either way the state has the power to remove certain rights and that includes life.

Is it killing a baby, or is it killing a child? You use two separate terms during your semantic argument, which does not properly communicate things.

There's a lot of comments nitpicking the definition of the word "kill", but drawing lines in the sand for when a thing is "alive" and therefore "killable" is ignoring the real purpose behind that sentence. The purpose of saying "Abortion is killing a baby" or "Abortion is murder" is to make you *feel* that the act of abortion carries the same moral weight as murdering a newborn baby. This is extremely effective rhetorically, because the line is so naturally blurred in our minds, hence why people are able to spend so long arguing about it. But arguing about where the line exists is a distraction, because there's no answer. The answer is whatever you feel is morally right, because the real question is "Should we force women to go through with pregnancies they do not want/are dangerous to carry out, because we value women's bodily autonomy less than we value the life of an unborn baby/fetus?"

>In the same way that uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree, abortion is killing a child. This is a flawed analogy. In terms of growth and development cycles, most abortions are more comparable to destroying a seed. Maybe one that has sprouted and has a little stem with two leaves, but still not something that most people would say is a tree yet. The fact that it could become one someday isn't completely irrelevant to this discussion, but I don't think you'd be getting criminally charged with large scale deforestation if you were to eat a handful of nuts or trample some seedlings smaller than a blade of grass. Similarly, we know that a fetus may someday become a person, but demonstrating that it already is one is a difficult task and at the center of this whole debate.

> but at the end of the day, abortion is killing a child. Under whose standard? Because I mean *you* can call it that and it’s fine. Louie CK can call it that for the sake of a joke. It is totally fine to go get an abortion and say “well, I’m killing my baby today” if you do wish. The problem is that your argument here seems to just be based on arguing your right to be loose with language, or making a loose philosophical point. I’ve seen comment in this thread along the lines of “embryo, baby, child, whatever” But on this particular topic there are also **laws** being passed, and when it comes to law, or indeed medicine it is very important how specific words are used. You can’t be all “zygote, baby, child= whatever” when you are a doctor or law maker. This isn’t purely just about protecting people’s feelings on abortion, it’s about the hard definitions by which rules will be set.

>In the words of Louis CK: abortion is either taking a shit or killing a baby Why would a false dichotomy be a convincing argument? >Now, I'm wildly in favor of abortion. I think it's stupid to give children to people that don't want a child. That parent will raise a member of society that exudes trauma from its parents' disinterest, which will lead to criminality, etc. The world would be a better place if these children didn't exist. Completely irrelevant to your argument then. Also dubious reasoning that all such people are doomed to be blights on the world, but that's neither here nor there. >However, while I'm in favor of abortion Still not relevant. >In the same way that uprooting a sapling is destroying a tree Terrible analogy. The comparison would be to a seed that has barely begun germination. >I hate hearing lefty folks saying that it's some clump of cells or something. Well, that is at least accurate. You might need to explain more about why this framing is a problem for you. >I understand why they say that, it's more politically palatable, but at the end of the day, abortion is killing a child. Okay, where is your actual argument here?? You just state your thesis statement a bunch of times and use a bad sapling analogy.

First we need to define what is means to be a person. Lose your limbs? Still have your brain? Your still you. Lose your limbs and your heart, replace them both and your brain still functions as normal? You’re still you. Lose your brain but everything else is in tact you are gone. The brain is what makes a person. That is the important part. Fetus’ don’t grow all the core components of their brain and begin to utilize them till the development age of around 20-24 weeks. So, since they haven’t even grown all the parts of the organ necessary to them even have the chance of being a person, I say abortion is logically fine from 0-19 weeks.

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>at the end of the day, abortion is killing a child. It's a subjective, semantic argument that depends on the definitions of "baby" or "child" neither of which universally include fetuses. You don't offer a reason supporting a particular interpretation. You just say you don't like it when a fetus is referred to as a "clump of cells," which is an expression of preference, not any reasoning to prefer a particular definition of these terms or which one is "correct.". While you are entitled to your opinion, you haven't established any basis to the claim of semantic fact. We don't know why you subscribe to this view other than it is your preference.

You can make a really stupid but principled semantic argument that abortion is killing *a human being*, since we don't have a singular rigorous definition of what 'a human being' is, and some 'common-sense' definitions would technically include a fetus. However, you *absolutely cannot* make a principled argument that it is killing a *baby*, because 'baby' *is* a rigidly defined term that refers to a specific *stage* of human development. And that stage does not begin until after birth. So you can say it's killing a human or that it's killing a fetus. But not a baby, that's just wrong on its face.

If you kill a caterpillar would you say you killed a butterfly? I wouldn't, I'd say I killed a caterpillar. Why is killing a fetus then killing a baby and not killing a fetus? Is a fetus "really a baby" and might we say that a caterpillar is "really a butterfly"? I think that's a stretch. We can ascribe different treatments and different moral stances for things based on qualities like "inside mom" if we want to - it's our call, there is no "reality" here just how we decide to categorize and think about it. We are all just clumps of cells, but when we use that concept for the fetus we're simply saying we don't need to give the same moral treatment to "a fetus" as we do to "a baby". The very distinction in how we think of it morally IS _part of why we have different words_. That is what language does for us - it let's us group, categorize and talk about things with clarity and since we (at least you an I) think of how we ought regard the morality of termination of babies and fetuses differently isn't it then reasonable that we use different terms to describe them just like we make a distinction between the butterfly and the caterpillar?

If you step on an acron, did you crush a tree? If you hold a catpillar, are you holding a butterfly? When you look at your reflection, do you see a corpse? During a pregnancy, we may refer to the developing fetus as "baby" colloquially, but it's a different stage of development. I wouldn't deacribe one as having become a baby until it at least could in theory survive a premature birth. So while you might make the argument that an induced abortion after 24 weeks is killing a baby (personally, i would probably still push it closer to 38 weeks), it wouldn't be true for one that occurred weeks before that.

Of course it is. I’ve never heard that debated. However, I think you misunderstand where the “clump of cells” arguments usually come from. It’s not to make the idea more palatable it’s usually offered as pushback to the tendency of pro-lifers to talk about unborn fetuses as if they are sentient beings with emotions. I don’t know really any pro choicers who want to make the idea of abortion more palatable. I certainly don’t know any who argue that it is killing a baby.

Uprooting a sapling isn't destroying a tree. It's destroying something that might be a tree or might just be a snack to a herbivore. The tree doesn't exist. We can't start assigning moral equivalence between things that do exist and might exist, there's no limits to what could exist. Eating an apple is destroying a tree? Eating bread is destroying a field of wheat? How far do you want to take this? Masturbating is killing a child? Having a period is a wasted potential life?

Right out of the gate: Using an argument designed by a comedian of questionable moral standing and talent is not a great place to start. That line was designed to get a laugh, not encourage critical thought of the issue. Because of that intent, it intentionally discards a lot of complexity and nuance in favor of provoking the right emotions in the audience. That's not a great foundation on which to build a rational argument. Beyond that, your view is only a difference of opinion on the definition of 'baby' or 'child'. So let's dig into that. Why do you think the words "embryo", "fetus", "baby", and "child" are all synonyms in terms of this position? Obviously you know that there's a reason all four words refer to different things, but why are those differences not important here?

Agreed. A zygote is not a fetus and a fetus is not a baby and a baby is not a child. If we're using scientific definitions, that's just how it is.

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I think the argument about whether or not it’s killing something is moot. It’s more about whether or not a persons bodily autonomy takes priority over someone else’s right to life. Can I take your organs or blood from you without consent to save someone else’s life? No.

You seem like you want a short reply so here it is: a lack of exemptions is killing the mother. Let's excuse nuance here and just throw it down. You want it straight so there it is. Plenty of news articles about that these past few years.

It literally is a clump of cells. It's not like uprooting a sapling, it's like destroying a seed. Do you think eating acorns is deforestation? It's not "lefty" people who think this, it's anyone with a basic understanding of biology

Abortion is ending with the formation of a potential human. At that time is not a child, nor a baby. Being understanding and respectful with the reasons that push a woman to make that choice is a different conversation.

Uprooting a sapling would be killing a toddler. Abortion would be more like grinding its seeds. A sapling does not need assistance any more than it gets as an adult tree, it is formed enough that it will grow on its own why the average abortion can’t be compared to a tree at a stage where it doesn’t have roots or leaves yet. There’s a line between fetus and baby somewhere

So jerking off is genocide?

I define an abortion as separation. If an abortion happens at 9 months and the child is viable, parents will still have obligations to the child.  Very simple body autonomy argument. 

Do you also think that someone can yeet their 3-year-old off a bridge if they don't want him anymore? If not, you must understand that there's a difference between a child and a fetus.

Why is a fetus a child? You seem to offer the explanation (using your sapling/tree example) that killing a fetus is the same as killing a child because a fetus becomes a child.

Do you hear yourself?? You are okay with *killing a child* Why? Just because they are unwanted? So just because they are unwanted they suddenly have no value?? Thats INSANE

It is not literally killing a child. Stop

Having a child when you have no means to raise it properly is arguably worse.

Louis CK was the basis of inspiration for this post? Really?

I love it when abortionists are consistent and transparent.

Is killing a child the same as killing an adult?