Unless...
Even though science deniers like sf argue differently, a human is not seperately alive from the mother until viable. If the fetal development is only to the point that if born it would be medically and legally dead then the fetus is medically and legally dead.
The "miracle" of life is a process that is not complete at fertilization and requires intensive support from the mother in those species with live birth. The fetus is on an extreme form of life support which burdens and endangers the mother and until viable is not really alive in any sense that would make it a rights bearing individual. To demand that a woman be enslaved for the purpose of bearing the fetus and stripped of rights to control her own medical decisions is obscene and not supported by any science.
Dunderheads, like sf can find some out of context definition that says it is alive and focus solely on the semantics. But the real issue here is not biological, but medical, legal and ethical. A potential life cannot and should not trump an actual existing life.
Definitions are contextual and imperfect. The knowledge you might glean from a dictionary is limited and experience attaches many caveats and nuances. They are at best understood as guiding more like an unanchored buoy than a post planted firmly in the ground.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ticize-treatment-brain-dead-patients/4394173/
				
			Even though science deniers like sf argue differently, a human is not seperately alive from the mother until viable. If the fetal development is only to the point that if born it would be medically and legally dead then the fetus is medically and legally dead.
The "miracle" of life is a process that is not complete at fertilization and requires intensive support from the mother in those species with live birth. The fetus is on an extreme form of life support which burdens and endangers the mother and until viable is not really alive in any sense that would make it a rights bearing individual. To demand that a woman be enslaved for the purpose of bearing the fetus and stripped of rights to control her own medical decisions is obscene and not supported by any science.
Dunderheads, like sf can find some out of context definition that says it is alive and focus solely on the semantics. But the real issue here is not biological, but medical, legal and ethical. A potential life cannot and should not trump an actual existing life.
Definitions are contextual and imperfect. The knowledge you might glean from a dictionary is limited and experience attaches many caveats and nuances. They are at best understood as guiding more like an unanchored buoy than a post planted firmly in the ground.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ticize-treatment-brain-dead-patients/4394173/
			
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