Abortion Leading Global Cause of Death in 2021 with 43 Million Killed

Source? The link you provided doesn't seem to mention that...

-Meta

 

Actually, if we're talking developing fetuses, then they do contain human DNA and they are also made up of living cells and eventually living tissue. Whether that makes them ~a human~ depends on how you define what a human is, but its not at all a stretch to say that they are alive and of human origin. The real question though is what type of life are we talking and what type of life should be considered under the law? Biologically, they are alive, but from a conscious perspective their mental life has yet to begin before a certain point. So while I say that a fetus is a living thing, that is not to say that ending that life should be deemed murder or otherwise prohibited based on that. As even your common skin cell is alive and contains human DNA... so clearly such weighty determinations shouldn't be made on that basis alone... but to say they aren't/weren't alive or that they aren't human isn't really accurate.

-Meta

 

Actually, both life and human DNA exist within distinct entities before that point.
Every sperm cell is biologically alive and also contains human DNA.
So too does every egg cell.

-Meta

 

As always, whether or not abortion should be counted as the killing of a child depends entirely upon where one defines the moral cutoff line of where a still-developing being should be considered as such. Personally, I think its a stretch to refer to a single-cell organism as a child... and an even bigger stretch to weigh the rights of that kind of entity above the rights of a fully developed human being. I do believe there comes a point though, where the rights of both ought to, morally-speaking, be considered about the same. But one really needs to think thoroughly on such matters. To consider it all in mere black-and-white terms as many tend to, will not result in much of anything other that perpetual disagreement and nonsensical outcomes. There are in fact, a full spectrum of potential answers here. Points at either end of the extremes should be avoided. Points without any sort of meaningful justification or logical rationalization should also be avoided.

So when it comes to the law, my view is that Pain Perception and or Mental Life/Consciousness should be considered as the gold standards for determining the legal cutoff. i.e. I believe that one of the following gestational cutoff points (or ranges) and justifications should be used:

-Thalamic Afferents (Week 20): Because its been theorized that connections between afferents may be capable of pain transmission
-Thalamocortical Fibers (Week 23): Because a fetus cannot suffer feel or perceive pain without Thalamocortical Fibers
-Thalamocortical Fibers (Week 29): Because a fetus cannot suffer feel or perceive pain without Functional Thalamocortical Fibers
-Pain Perception Dvmnt (Week 23-29): Because a fetus cannot suffer feel or perceive pain without Functional Thalamocortical Fibers
-Pain Perception Dvmnt (Week 20-29): Because this is the period in which a fetus develops the structures necessary for pain perception
-Mental Life (Week 29): Because fetal consciousness cannot and has not been observed to occur before this point
​

Others however seem to really favor the cutoff of Viability (Week 24) as the standard instead... a very popular choice... which is fine by me, because when we get right down to it, that cutoff still lines up nicely within the ranges based off of Pain Perception and Mental Life/Consciousness.

We actually had a Ranked vote on this a couple years ago and the following is a compromise proposal compiled based on all the votes:

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/pf-abortion-reform-compromise.550627/

I would hope that something like this would be a suitable middle ground that both sides could agree on. Or at least a new starting point for some serious (and reasonable) mediation. I do understand there are a folks out there who like to use the whole abortion issue and other topics like it as a sort of wedge issue to intentionally divide folks for whatever reason, but for the rest of us it just seems kind of silly to me that anyone would want to debate the same thing endlessly for years, decades even, without ever coming to some sort of mutually agreed upon resolution...

-Meta