If the intervention is to the detriment of the mother's health/life- no you don't have an obligation to the fetus even at 40 weeks. The woman in this story died prematurely because the state decided that her non-viable fetus was of more value than her life. They could have let the pregnancy continue as she wasn't…

I think, also, that while no one is going to agree on an exact time legal "personhood" should start, we can agree it starts before the baby is born.

'I'm very much pro-choice, but a 28-week pregnancy is very, very far from a "collection of cells" - this case (in 1989) was from a time where the viability limit was significantly later than it is now. The limit of viability is now 23 weeks, and at 29 weeks, you have a >90% chance of survival and >50% without…

Nope. It does not start before a baby is born. Don't pretend you speak for everybody.

No, we can't agree it starts before the baby is born.

It's a huge problem. Let's use an SVU type example, stalker bf pushes pregnant gf down the stairs and while she is only minorly injured a miscarriage results. If you say he's guilty of homicide, does the same apply to a woman who trips over a loose carpet on a set of stairs? It's a terrible catch-22 that requires a…

Yet another extension of the male dominated governments deciding that they own a woman's body once she becomes pregnant. Her health and well being is of no concern to these self-appointed guardians of life who will, without a flinch subject a woman to surgery against her ail and even risk the mother's life to save the…

A woman should not be forced into a surgery she doesn't want either. A C section is major surgery, just because they are common, doesn't mean the risks should be ignored.

OK, so the first breath thing is in the bible too? I didn't know if they changed the rules in there. So then I really don't get it. Where the hell did that belief come from?

I do not agree personhood starts before a baby is born. There is no "baby" to kill until it's born, it is a fetus, and fetuses don't have rights the same way any other nonviable mass of cells don't have rights. A perfectly objective line would be that a baby is a baby once it's an actual baby, by which I mean the…

And I swear I heard something that, until Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jerry Falwell, Evangelicals tended to believe life began at birth, not conception (the latter was a Catholic thing). I need to find a source for this.

It's enough to make you nostalgic for a time when the

As soon as sperm meets egg, to so many, a woman transforms from a person to an incubator. It scares me that people we are supposed to trust - doctors, government, the justice system - allow this.

If I were the husband of a woman in Carder's position where the hospital was violating the rights of my wife's autonomy over her own body and giving non-consensual surgery...I honestly think it would come to blows or I'd draw a weapon. I have no idea how I could possibly react rationally to something like this....…

Thats what I don't get. Even if we go with the Bible, it says "first breath" not "when sperm meets egg".

while no one is going to agree on an exact time legal "personhood" should start, we can agree it starts before the baby is born.

This isn't a quantity decision. This is a quality decision. A human decision. And a fully-viable woman being forced to give birth to a baby that may not be viable and that might kill her is fucked up.

There is a certain irony in the US decrying the situation of women in the Middle East, yet there are seemingly no civil protections for pregnant women in the USA. Somehow if you are poor and pregnant, you are more marginalised than most women globally.

Yeah but the woman was slutty and CHOOSE to have that baby that will probably kill her right?!