Abortion derail from the Active Shooter thread

[Zymologist]

...if you ignore little details like location w.r.t. the mother and direct connectivity via the umbilical cord.

There are good arguments against abortion, so why do you and your fellows keep trotting out dishonest garbage like the above?

Are you saying that the above differences are significant enough to merit killing the fetus?

[RumTumTugger]

A "foetus" is an unborn baby

It's the Latin word for unborn baby isn't it?

[Roy]

Killing an innocent unborn baby does not need to be made to "seem worse" to any civilized person.

Then why do you keep doing it?

[JimL]

I would wonder what Roy and Jim think of their wives ultrasounds, unless they haven't been their yet. Quite frankly, ultra sounds and ob exams during pregnancy are done to find out if the baby is growing and if the heart is still beating at a normal rate. So....umm.....while you can technically say "fetus" it doesn't change that a "fetus" is still an unborn baby, and very much alive.

Actually I am agnostic on the subject since the science doesn't really answer the question. I therefore agree with the courts decision to leave such medical decisions up to the doctor and the patient. The charge that pro choicers are in favor of baby killing is the pro lifers way to demonize those who disagree with them, but it isn't the ground upon which pro choicers stand.

[Roy]

Because the default image invariably associated with the word "baby" is a child that has already been born..

In what world?

In this world, based on the example that I cited and which you deliberately deleted from your reply.

What pregnant woman have you EVER heard call what is in her stomach a "foetus" on a consistent basis?

Just because foeti are often referred to as babies does not imply that "baby" means foetus.

[Jedidiah]

Your post seems to agree with me that the concept of personhood is not a meaningful one. This whole line of argument is empty.

[Jedidiah]

...if you ignore little details like location w.r.t. the mother and direct connectivity via the umbilical cord.

There are good arguments against abortion, so why do you and your fellows keep trotting out dishonest garbage like the above?

It is not at all dishonest. It is simply giving the lie to the claim that before birth there is no human being. It is a baby and simply traveling through the birth canal does not change anything except in a debated legal definition.

[Jedidiah]

Then why do you keep doing it?

Because folks like you keep trying to avoid admitting what abortion truly is, killing a child.

[Roy]

I would wonder what Roy and Jim think of their wives ultrasounds, unless they haven't been their yet.

Not been there yet and at my age increasingly unlikely to get there.

Quite frankly, ultra sounds and ob exams during pregnancy are done to find out if the baby is growing and if the heart is still beating at a normal rate. So....umm.....while you can technically say "fetus" it doesn't change that a "fetus" is still an unborn baby, and very much alive.

I've never said otherwise.

My point is that writing "baby" to mean "foetus", especially when omitting the qualifier "unborn", is as misleading as writing "fish" to mean " sea horse". Even if technically true, it presents a false picture - and when done deliberately in order to elicit an emotional response it is dishonest.

Roy

[Roy]

In what world? What pregnant woman have you EVER heard call what is in her stomach a "foetus" on a consistent basis?

Also... stomach?

[Roy]

Are you saying that the above differences are significant enough to merit killing the fetus?

I'm not saying anything of the sort.

But I was wondering how long it would take before some-one assumed that atheist->abortion advocate.

I doubt you'll be the only one.

[Roy]

It's the Latin word for unborn baby isn't it?

No.

[Catholicity]

Not been there yet and at my age increasingly unlikely to get there. I've never said otherwise.

My point is that writing "baby" to mean "foetus", especially when omitting the qualifier "unborn", is as misleading as writing "fish" to mean " sea horse". Even if technically true, it presents a false picture - and when done deliberately in order to elicit an emotional response it is dishonest.

Roy

Not exactly. A human baby, whether prenatal or neonatal is still a human baby, but merely a different stage of life and growth. Lots of things fall under the umbrella term "human" and of course we can further classify this as "baby" "child" etc. A sea horse is a species of fish, where as a fetus is NOT a species of baby, but a baby in a developmental stage, or a prenatal stage. This is not the same and its very dishonest to imply that developmental stages of a human are identical to multiple species of fish. Whether by you or the person who taught you to believe it is.

[Roy]

It is not at all dishonest. It is simply giving the lie to the claim that before birth there is no human being. It is a baby and simply traveling through the birth canal does not change anything except in a debated legal definition.

And once again you've neglected the severing of the umbilical cord, and the switch to using lungs and mouth.

What you wrote was untrue, your revised attempt is equally untrue, and your pretence of having said something else is all too typical.

I would have a lot more sympathy for pro-lifers if they argued their case with something other than fallacies and falsehoods.

[Roy]

Not exactly. A human baby, whether prenatal or neonatal is still a human baby, but merely a different stage of life and growth. Lots of things fall under the umbrella term "human" and of course we can further classify this as "baby" "child" etc. A sea horse is a species of fish, where as a fetus is NOT a species of baby, but a baby in a developmental stage, or a prenatal stage.

I think we are in basic agreement but not in synch. I'm not claiming that fetuses are different species.

I'm saying that the word "baby" almost always refers to human offspring post-birth - as evident from Google images - and that while a foetus may be referred to as a baby, that isn't the most common meaning of the word, and using "babies" to refer to foetuses is misleading.

If I wrote that "I smashed a baby with an axe", you wouldn't think I was referring to a small piano, would you? Same problem.