Opinions of a Wandering Waif

This is an article that examines what makes life meaningful.  It was posted at my board, in a discussion about abortion and personhood. 

IMO, the article establishes, in its own terms, very clearly, that a fetus cannot be a person, before 24 weeks:

A quick answer is that we need receptors in the skin to detect threats to tissue and those receptors need to be connected to parts of the brain that can interpret the threat. The receptors, the connections and the relevant parts of the brain are all developed by about 24 weeks gestational age. Thus the fetus can feel pain after 24 weeks but not before. You can perform this same trick with respect to other sensations such as vision, hearing, taste and so forth.

[…]

My retort to the idea that the brain does it can be stated simply – whatever it is that nervous tissue does I am quite certain that it does not feel because cells cannot feel. Only persons can feel.

[…]

The beginning of explicit intent is there in the act that now picks out specific stimuli and organises the various responses into a form of action. Initially, it is the stimulus and caregiver that controls the infant’s action through interaction and reward. The intent is explicit for the caregiver but also implicit in the scenario. As the infant increasingly absorbs the rules of the game she is able to shift her focus from the toy to the caregiver and to herself thus stepping between different points of view within the act. The infant begins to emerge to herself as she absorbs the implicit intent of the action and adopts the viewpoint of each external element.

The outline of an ‘I’ (or a self) develops. It is this ‘I’ who experiences.

[…]

I think Derbyshire is also saying that until the concept of “I” develops, the critter is on shaky grounds in its bid for personhood, too. 

I remember reading of some cultures that don’t consider a born human a person until after the age of 3.  And in Judaism, we may not ritually mourn the death of an infant, less than a month old.

Arguing that a woman has no right to rid her body of a parasitic clump of insensate cells is misogynistic.  After 24 weeks, there is a sliver of a chance that there is concern for the fetus, but before that, and most certainly to claim its personhood at conception, is just bullshit to cover the misogyny. 

—emphasis mine ~ waif

banditoincognito:

In no specific order of importance, here are some facts about the pro-choice movement that pro-lifers and on-the-fencers should know.

1.) Pro-Choice does not SUPPORT abortion, but rather the option to have it. Pro-choicers do not force anyone to do anything unlike in pro-life, where unless it’s…

More’s the pity that Pro-choice does not support abortion. Because of that stance, access to abortion is being more and more limited. 

If you want to keep abortion safe and legal, you fucking better well support it.

I am pro-abortion so that women can have the choice. ~ waif

(Source: allthehorcrux, via boots-on-newts-deactivated20120)

thecityhorse:

padaviya:

You have likely seen the image above. The photograph of a 20-week old fetus was taken by Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson. Another of his photographs graced the cover of Life magazine in April of 1965:

Nilsson’s images forever changed the way that people think about…

… wow. 

I don’t know why I find this so suprising, it shouldn’t be in the slightest but to find out the photo’s everyone has seen used in support of pro-life agenda, the fetus in womb sucking his thumb is actually a dead, aborted fetus whose thumb has been placed their for aesthetic purpose…

wow

would this qualify as irony?

i think so.

Keep up the pressure on YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com

Thanks to activists like you, YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com have taken down almost all of the deceptive ads for CPCs on their sites. But we’re not at 100 percent yet. As long women continue to use YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com to find reproductive-health centers, we won’t stop until all the misleading ads are removed.

YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com monitor their Twitter accounts closely and have thousands of followers – so we’re taking our campaign to Twitter.

Tweet at YellowPages.com and SuperPages.com and urge them to remove all the misleading CPC ads.

@SuperPages @YPmobile Deceptive anti-choice ads hurt women - it is time to remove ALL misleading CPC ads from your site! @NARAL

You should read the whole Q&A with the reverend, it’s wonderful.  Here are a few favorites from his answers:

Q:  You’ve talked about the right of a woman to make a choice. Does the fetus have any rights?

A: First, let me say that the religious, pro-choice position is based on respect for human life, including potential life and existing life.

But I do not believe that life as we know it starts at conception. I am troubled by the implications of a fetus having legal rights because that could pit the fetus against the woman carrying the fetus; for example, if the woman needed a medical procedure, the law could require the fetus to be considered separately and equally.

From a religious perspective, it’s more important to consider the moral issues involved in making a decision about abortion. Also, it’s important to remember that religious traditions have very different ideas about the status of the fetus. Roman Catholic doctrine regards a fertilized egg as a human being. Judaism holds that life begins with the first breath.

Q:  What about at the very end of a woman’s pregnancy? Does a fetus acquire rights after the point of viability, when it can survive outside the womb? Or let me ask it another way: Assuming a woman is healthy and her fetus is healthy, should the woman be able to terminate her pregnancy until the end of her pregnancy?

A: There’s an assumption that a woman would end a viable pregnancy carelessly or without a reason. The facts don’t bear this out. Most abortions are performed in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Late abortions are virtually always performed for the most serious medical and health reasons, including saving the woman’s life.

Q:  Some in the anti-abortion camp contend that the existence of legalized abortion is a sign of the self-centeredness and selfishness of our age. Is there any validity to this view?

A: Although abortion is a very difficult decision, it can be the most responsible decision a person can make when faced with an unintended pregnancy or a pregnancy that will have serious health consequences.

Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.

So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.

carnivaloftherandom:

waifsworld:

liberal-lad:

hishighnessricardo:

…

No one is pro-abortion. Those of us who support the right for women to be able to have an abortion also overwhelmingly support measures that would reduce the number of abortions that happen. We support better sex education (for all ages), improved access to…

Bullshit.  I am fiercely pro-abortion. If we do not take a stand and support abortion, forthrightly, it will cease to be a choice.  Access to abortion has been vastly diminished in recent years, precisely because we shy away from being pro-abortion and instead opt for the weasel word, “pro-choice.” 

Fuck that.  I am pro-abortion so that women can have a goddamned choice. ~ waif

Damn skippy. Or, y’know - how about the government stops making an entire gender’s body and agency, an object of political debate. Cuz, y’know, that’d be awesome. I mean, when’s the last time a man’s self-determination re: procreation, was an article of political debate? Oh, right - other than as an article of racism, NEVER. 

Yeah, Ms. Random, how about that, indeed!  Well said.  Brava! ~waif

(via sisterhoodispowerful)

3rd term abortions have actually never been available except in situations of grave medical danger. It was a term coined by “pro-lifers” in 1995, and the procedure does not fall under the medical definition of an abortion. The idea that women were on a whim deciding “Hey, I’ll get an abortion…

Here’s the link to the study released about the fetus feeling no pain before 24 weeks. ~ waif

Help @NARAL stop the lies. Call on Congress to end misleading CPC ads. http://bit.ly/aK54Qa #p2 #fem2

naomiwaxman:

sluthaditcoming:

kungfucarrie:

“What the research did indicate to me is how multifaceted the issue is and how the word [abortion] came over time to stand for so much more than the termination of a pregnancy,” she says. “It really came to stand for a debate about the place of women in the world.”