I guess one could call it word games but that seems to trivialize a serious issue. A human person is entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Human life per se is not. How old or how developed or how independent human life must be before it is deemed a person IS the question.
It seems to me that attempting to give a fetus rights (i.e. declare it a person) is to make all human rights conditional rather than Constitutional.
It is not necessary to destroy the philosophical and logical basis of human rights as a concomitance to an abhorrence of abortion. People (such as myself) find abortion to be an act which offends. Society can express that offense without making fundamental human rights mutable and subject to caprice.
"it's ideology that claims an 8 month fetus isn't a baby"
And it is ideology that claims it is. But then, a baby today is a baby yesterday--and eventually the fertilized egg is a baby. There is nothing wrong with that except that we generally consider ALL babies to be persons. And ALL legal persons have equal rights. Thus, unless one wishes the egg to have the rights of a person, it is perhaps best not to emotionalize the fundamental argument.
I think that is probably the intent of those who choose not to use "baby", "sweety-pie", "Momma's darlin", and so forth in discussing this issue. I doubt it is that they hate either babies or fetuses. It is more likely that they wish to address the essential argument and not to make it a popularity contest between 3 month fetuses and 94 day fetuses. After all, if the unborn are people but their rights depend on the size of their nose...then any concept of fundamental human rights by virtue of being a person goes out the window.
To make some fetuses legal persons-- but not all--would mark a society in breakdown and decay. One might as well go back to making one of the genders a legal person (up to or down to a certain age or height) and the other gender can apologise for being in the way.
If you are not speaking to the legal concerns of rights, but are merely encouraging people (if they MUST have an abortion) to do it immediately rather than later...then I cannot imagine any disagreement from any quarter.
And if you are suggesting that a woman could be forced to carry to term without granting the fetus legal person status, then that was not clear--at least not to me.
And if you are merely expressing how thoughtless, ugly, and unnecessary late-term abortions are, then I suspect that most of the public shares those sentiments.
Oh, I just noticed your "my definition requires everyone to do the grown up thing". I guess you were talking about a societal value rather than a legal assignment of the mother to a trustee and a forced delivery. My comments re: legal rights or legal persons in such a case were beside the point, I guess. |
