24 weeks

[empip]

Did someone suggest daughters are easier to bring up ??

...Malthus's key insight was simple but devastating. "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio," he observed. But "subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio."
In other words, humanity can increase like the number sequence 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, whereas our food supply can increase no faster than the number sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. We are, quite simply, much better at reproducing ourselves than feeding ourselves.
Malthus concluded from this inexorable divergence between population and food supply that there must be "a strong and constantly operating check on population"...

Or was it

...Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will shew the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second.
By that law of our nature which makes food necessary to the life of man, the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal.
This implies a strong and constantly operating check on population from the difficulty of subsistence. This difficulty must fall somewhere and must necessarily be severely felt by a large portion of mankind...

Which may be the same thing.
The 'cull' will come upon us- all - 7 billion on Earth soon - just too many.

 

[Shytalkz]

As some wise old sage once said:

When you have a son, you worry about one willy in town; when you have a daughter, you worry about every willy in town

I have two of the latter, unfortunately (but at least one of them is being sensible...so far)

 

[JohnD]

you have two willies?

 

[Space cat]

By the time that she'd been through the medical and counselling process, she was 21 weeks and beyond the limit ---

Now that sounds familiar. I can remember similar stories from the early days of legalized abortion of doctors putting off and putting off before finally informing their unfortunate patients that it was too late - and with a smirk on their faces too!

I am still not with the pro-life camp, ---

I also have no time for pro-lifers who don't know the difference between a baby and a blastocyst but ---

I don't believe that it has any "feelings" per se and is not a sentient being in the accepted sense.

I'm not sure about that one. Somewhere along the line the blastocyst folds itself over to form the alimentary canal and, where the edges fuse, it begins to form nerve cells. Up until this point I agree with you but some time later a brain will appear and the unborn baby - because that's what it is now - will be able to think, in some primitive way, "I am here." From this point on, abortion without good reason looks like murder to me.

 

[Shytalkz]

Yeh, I have to say my feelings and thoughts are not based on the neurological aspects of it, but, ok it develops a brain and there are obviously some inate forces at play, but it's not capable of cogent thought, or even conscious thought; if it was, presumably we'd all have some memories of slopping around in the amniotic fluid and periodical pokes in the eye from Dad (or whomever in some cases)?

It's a hard one.

 

[JohnD]

but presumably it does not have human consciousness while its brain is smaller than, say, a sheep's, which we cheerfully kill?

 

[billyo]

kids hey,who have i'm

 

[Space cat]

but presumably it does not have human consciousness while its brain is smaller than, say, a sheep's, which we cheerfully kill?

I've heard it said that a fly doesn't have enough brain to know it's alive. At the penultimate other end of the scale, a chimp has enough brain to be able to work out what another chimp is thinking. Somewhere in the middle is the sheep.

Now I do eat sheep because I belong to an omnivorous species and that's the way things work. Vegans are entitled to disagree with me. But it doesn't follow from this that I would eat a baby on the grounds that its brain is less well developed than that of the sheep.

but it's not capable of cogent thought, or even conscious thought; if it was, presumably we'd all have some memories of slopping around in the amniotic fluid and periodical pokes in the eye from Dad (or whomever in some cases)?

I think your logic is false. It's based on the assumption that if you can't remember thinking something then you never thought it. Most of us will have difficulty remembering much before the age of about three but we were thinking much earlier.

 

[JohnD]

nor me, I am genetically programmed not to eat babies

but does the argument about brain development hold water in deciding when it counts as Human?

 

[Shytalkz]

I think your logic is false. It's based on the assumption that if you can't remember thinking something then you never thought it. Most of us will have difficulty remembering much before the age of about three but we were thinking much earlier.

Take your point and that may be true, but just as it seemingly has a smaller version of our brains (or in Joe's case much larger ), why does it then render it beyond the point of being aborted? I'm playing devil's advocate in asking why, if it in theory is capable of thought/feelings is it less acceptable to abort it than during the time when it's not recognisable as a human form, when, either way, it's unlikely to know what's happening to it?

 

[Space cat]

does the argument about brain development hold water in deciding when it counts as Human?

That, I believe, is the million dollar question and the key to the whole abortion argument.

On the one hand we have those in the pro-life brigade who think a single cell is human. Frankly I doubt their true motive and suspect it has less to do with the rights of unborn babies than with a subconscious belief that sex shouldn't be for free! Some of them are equally opposed to contraception. At the other extreme is 'a woman's right to choose' which, taken to its limit, becomes "It's mine until it's born and I'll do what I like with it."

So when exactly does a blastocyst become human? I would suggest that an answer based on brain function is at least consistent with the legal definition of death. When your brain no longer shows any signs of activity your body can be buried or burnt or carved up for spare parts. Can we not apply the same rule to babies but in reverse? I leave it to the experts to decide at what age brain activity begins.

I'm playing devil's advocate in asking why, if it in theory is capable of thought/feelings is it less acceptable to abort it than during the time when it's not recognisable as a human form, when, either way, it's unlikely to know what's happening to it?

Being recognizable as a human form (or not) is a red herring. Come to think of it, in its early stages it looks more like a red herring!

 

[vinty]

Life begins at the moment of conception. A womens egg and a male sperm individually are biological dead ends but once they combine a separate human life has been created.
To argue that it is ok to kill an unborn human being before 24 weeks but should it should be illegal one second after 24 weeks is absurd, what is the difference between a child at 23 weeks and 6 days and a chlid at 24 weeks, apart from being a day day older it is still the same individuall.
The most honest solution would be ban abortion completely or have no time limit at all. As for a return to back street abortions, so what, if something is illegal and inhuman then it should be treated as such.

 

[vinty]

Yeh, I have to say my feelings and thoughts are not based on the neurological aspects of it, but, ok it develops a brain and there are obviously some inate forces at play, but it's not capable of cogent thought, or even conscious thought; if it was, presumably we'd all have some memories of slopping around in the amniotic fluid and periodical pokes in the eye from Dad (or whomever in some cases)?

It's a hard one.

Are new born babies capable of cogent thought, their brains wont be fully developed for years to come, so why are we not not allowed to kill them.

 

[JohnD]

.... As for a return to back street abortions, so what, if something is illegal and inhuman then it should be treated as such.

H'mmmmm.

 

[imamartian]

Yeh, I have to say my feelings and thoughts are not based on the neurological aspects of it, but, ok it develops a brain and there are obviously some inate forces at play, but it's not capable of cogent thought, or even conscious thought; if it was, presumably we'd all have some memories of slopping around in the amniotic fluid and periodical pokes in the eye from Dad (or whomever in some cases)?

It's a hard one.

Are new born babies capable of cogent thought, their brains wont be fully developed for years to come, so why are we not not allowed to kill them.

Some people older than 20yrs (or 30yrs or 40yrs) are not capable of cogent thought.... so can we kill them?