A fetus shows first signs of brain development is the 3rd-4th week, by the 5th week it has distinguishable sections and by the 6th you can measure first electrical activity - they grow pretty fast.
Considering physical birth as the moment a fetus becomes a person with their own distinct right to bodily autonomy, i.e. the magical vagina theory, is wholly inconsistent with science. I do not believe that there is a meaningful difference between killing a baby 5 minutes before it is "born" versus 5 minutes after, and by the way, neither do you, because that would be colossaly stupid, on top of morally repugnant.
Bodily autonomy does not refer to how autonomous the baby becomes in regards to the mother - it doesn't become fully autonomous until it can fend for itself, but we're not aborting 5 year olds. The term refers to the right to retain your bodily integrity, self-govern and self-determine. You have rights in regards to your body, not another's body, and if the two intersect then we have a problem. I'm sorry to all the mothers temporarily inconvenienced by poor life choices. Once again, perhaps we can come up with a cut-off point that minimises loss and/or suffering of sentient human life, but "5 minutes before birth" ain't it, chief.
I fully understand that you can reason yourself into a position like this based on personal principles or beliefs. That's perfectly acceptable, but if your view on the matter is fundamentalist, don't present it as anything else. I hope you're aware that your position is just as unscientific as magic holy book hocus pocus. In fact, in this scenario, magical hocus pocus appears to be closer to the truth, if only by accident.
If you want to be this nihilistic, I can just as easily say that you and I are in fact mere clumps of cells with meat-calculators inside our skulls that create the illusion of personhood to make us feel good and grant us imaginary rights when in reality we're only reacting to stimuli - that's perfectly plausible and makes the entire discussion of who is or is not a person completely moot.
The crackpot theories promoting moderater discovered he can use the word 'science' as a magical property noun.
You cant be all that dumb to not have gotten the gist of this conversation after the 15th thread, where someone cried in effing world pain 'listn to moi' anger, that someone should stop killing them babies.
The argument is multi layered - but all in all means, that people who have serious emotional problems when thinking of other peoples babies will never get what they want - which is a male patriarchy state more or less.
Also eff you for trying.
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Here is the argument layed out.
- Women will do abortions. Women will go through extraordinary lengths not to have a thing develop within them, if they dont want it. So you have to find a remedy for that. Because they are killing themselves as well at extended rates if you make it illegal. (Internal bleedings, ....) But at this point all the freaking nutters cheer, because eff those women, they were 'sinners'. What a fun concept.
- If you make it illegal, the practice doesnt go away, it only gets limited to 'folks with money' who will do it anyways (higher 'cost for the family' if you are also monitoring reputation)
- You have to give women a sensible timeframe for when abortion is allowed, that includes 'I was unsure if I was pregnant for two months' and then some buffer (to contemplate the decision), because otherwise you are really showing emotional cruelty and hicking up the despair factor. Which probably would increase the wish to get an abortion anyhow.
- Abortions are needed as a fallback for when contraception doesnt work, other wise you are literally guilt tripping women into being more abstinent 'in case something goes wrong'. You especially need them, because women in the workforce (productivity increase ('best brains' across genders)) are mandatory for your societies to function, since the invention of the pill. Basically, if you turn it back, you'll crash the economy.
- On a philosophical level, showing 'humanity' needs a human counterpart, a fetus is not human, if it hasnt developed all needed facilities for being human (self realization, abstract thinking...) the fetus is not able to live independently, which makes the 'magic vagina' (resign your moderator position, do it today) position actually viable, because you are not 'saving' their live without significantly impacting the life and the independence to decide, of their host. Legislating into 'that' (sovereignty over your body) is highly problematic. But we still do it, in the last trimester.
- A baby, once born is not able to live independently. Which means all you have to do to 'get rid of it', is to do nothing. If you want to create more pathologic outcomes, where women will first bind themselfs into tight cloths, and then abandon their babies, without caring for them, youd ban abortion. Which would lead to them actually becoming murderers in societies eyes. So although you'd probably reduce occurrences, you'd increase pathological outcomes.
- For that not to happen too often, nature baked in an emotion for 'child schemata' if something looks like a baby - it becomes 'cute' and you get lovey dovey about it, thats the thing that makes you care. For some people this emotion is so overbearing, that they want to regulate into other peoples bodies, just so they can save lovey dovey babies.
- Even plants feel 'pain' (
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...onic-scream-stems-cut-water-short-supply.html (yellow press)), although its certainly a different kind, as they lack 'brain functionality'. But as a reaction to stimulus, it serves a function.
- Thought experiment. If someone didn't know what life is, conceptually, how cruel would it be to take it away. Lets say, they feel pain, and everything - how cruel would it be to take it away. Not how illegal, how cruel.
- The real mindfuck is how on earth you end up with the notion that all life is sacred. Its even in the sentence, sacred. Whatever the law uses as justification for 'killing somone should be illegal' never uses a concept of sacred, and there are exceptions (f.e. self defense, survival, ...).
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So in the end, you end up with a concept that, in essence you will never be able to end in practice. You might reduce casecount, but doing so would severely increase harm for the remaining people. Pretending, that you'd end the practice, would seriously harm womens standing in life societally (Once they become pregnant - they now have ONE societal duty, so if you want a career, you better dont.). And you would destroy your societies ability to function as well economically (Productivity decrease (more women falling out of the workplace at inopportune times, women having more children in general, ...).)
Children not dying early (women having more children), also is a man made issue to some extent, because we should be pretty good by now to prevent early childhood mortality. The better we get there, the more children a mother statistically has over her lifetime. Think about all the babies! So much babies zafed! So at some point, you are simply over optimizing from a societal standpoint.
And if your only solution to all this is chastity - go eff yourself? (Humans acting against natural urges, kind of never was a model for success. Look at your priests. (Practice there ensures, that the church attains more wealth over time, and serves as a reminder to your sheepish flock, that chastity is possible! In the olden days you basically did this, to not have vendattas, and blood fudes all over the place.))
And on top of that, there is pretty much an overpopulation issue we are dealing with, if you are looking at this world wide.
Or simply said, if you are stuck on the emotional feedback level of 'baby cute, must save baby' - you can pretty much be a moron for the rest of your life - society will accept that in this case, but you havent understood the first thing about anything. Seriously.
Bigger picture: You will never get what you want. People will play with your emotions politically, but you will NEVER get what you want.
Which btw - is what? Save all the babies?
In the US currently you have 1.46 abortions for every 100 people. Is that too much? What would be a 'better figure'?