I don't want to read trash

@TinyViolins lol, abortion has fuck all to do with the welfare of children as they are growing up. Even if you were right (you're not), women should not get to decide what a baby's worth is as all children are of equal worth. You can't have one baby being lovingly celebrated and enjoyed and then another aborted because a woman has decided it has no worth or value to her.

Also, you seem to be advocating that abortion be used as a form of birth control. If you have an understanding that you are poor and that you don't want to have children because of this, then you use contraception like any sensible person would do. And don't start boring me with the "sometimes it fails" argument because when used properly it rarely fails.

@SW-User That's a bunch of airy-fairy BS. "all children are of equal worth" To whom? Who gets to decide what children are worth?

Furthermore, if you think a person is not sensible enough to use contraception, what makes you think they're sensible enough to raise children while making less than $30,000 a year? You're making children suffer for the sins of their parents all because you only give a damn about fetuses

@TinyViolins do you agree with infanticide?

@SW-User A fetus is not an infant

@TinyViolins So that is a no? Fetus just means unborn baby. Do you believe in abortion after the child can survive outside the womb? I'm mulling over whether we have the right to kill children or merely induce childbirth? (Given childbirth will have to occur regardless, to a living baby or to a corpse). It is usually around 24 weeks with medical care that babies can survive, though some have survived from 21 weeks, even survived abortions in later pregnancy.

This is a great video in fetal development.

[media=https://youtu.be/N2e02QdzJgg]

What do you think?

@SW-User 24-25 weeks is my cutoff for abortions, given that they have developed enough brain activity to register some semblance of awareness and possibly pain. I think it's cruel to subject sentient life to needless pain. Fetuses have been largely proven to completely lack the capacity for awareness prior to around that point.

Fortunately, the vast majority of abortions happen in the first trimester well before that point. I think abortions beyond 24 weeks should be done only as a medical necessity or if the child will be born with severe cognitive disabilities or debilitating deformities

@TinyViolins I respect you viewpoint.

"Fetuses have been largely proven to completely lack the capacity for awareness prior to around that point."

Did you watch the video? Awareness is earlier. The differentiation of pain happens around that point, which is a logical place to draw your cut off.

Babies earlier will physically recoil from abortion instruments.

My child was sucking her fist and using my womb as a trampoline at 12 weeks. You could argue this occured without consciousness but I'm loath to go down that road because when I was in school we were taught animals don't have consciousness. 🤦‍♀️

Anyway be well. Thanks for explaining your views.

@SW-User But is that physical recoiling consciously done or is it a physical reflex, like hitting a rubber hammer on your kneecap or being tickled? The numerous sources I've pored through would indicate it's the latter

Sucking is also an instinctive reflex. You could put anything near a newborn babies mouth and it will start reflexively sucking it, regardless of whether it's food or not. It's one of the few trivial facts I remember from my freshman intro to psych class

@TinyViolins the only thing I've seen was a baby recoiling from an abortion instrument before it made physical contact

Regarding the sucking of her fist and bouncing, like I said it was an argument for a long time that animals don't have a concious life

I don't think it can be a hard yes or no - with our level of understanding

@SW-User I think…
I know
A child can barely remember its development years from one day to the next.
Thank God!!! (For some)
It’s merciful that this is true.
As a teacher, however, I know that it somehow, a cruel abusive life is ingested into the spirit of a child and becomes one with the child. If a child is a victim, it reveals itself in horrible ways when the child turns 4 and 5 years old. It is painful to watch!!!! It produces anxiety in the child and negatively affects others on a daily basis. Others get kicked and yelled at. Cursed at. Multiple times a day. Daily. Others are practically handicap (unable- not unwilling- -unable) to help the child. Many try a variety of methods. I can tell you right now the statistics are 1 out of every 12 children demonstrate behavior worthy of taking the child away from their family. A human life of pain, and causing others pain, distress and harm lasts for an eternity. It makes some of us think the people having children shouldn’t be allowed to!!! But we can NOT control that. Can we at least provide them an excess amount of birth control? !!!!! And not keep them from having an abortion if they know they don’t even want the child? Foster homes are a nice option for those who don’t have abortions, but many many many unwanted children REMAIN in-adopted children …are currently un adopted, feeling unloved. Not all children are adopted!!!! I think those who are against abortion should March their butts to foster care and adopt an unwanted child. Yes, spend your caring heart and time adopting an unwanted child. They are not hard to find! There is not shortage of unwanted children!!! Go… save a life by adopting one!!! So any protester— Before they think they have the right to force someone to have a child., they should be registered to Adopt one that’s been abandoned. THAT is what caring about Life means.!!! Otherwise it’s just “advice” Adopt a child if you care so much about childrens right to life. Share your life with one. Advice and opinions are cheap! I’m sure mine won’t be taken by any “protestors”.

@Mindful I agree. I am an adoptive parent. 😊

@SW-User I am grateful for people like you. We need MORE of a movement to adopt than abortion protestors

@Mindful it is tricky nowadays because not many people choose to give babies or children up for adoption. They are fixing the foster system though to make it possible to adopt where the state determines that there is no chance of reconciliation with the family. It is a very hard situation all round 😥

I hear you as a teacher. I fully support welfare, but sometimes people do hold onto children for those payments (at least where Iive). Seems there are sometimes unintended consequences of even the good things we do with the best of intentions.

@TinyViolins Also, a fetus is an infant because it's a baby.

@TinyViolins lol it's actually hilarious that you're making out you're some kind of expert on fetal movement in the womb. A baby is sentient before 24 weeks because it can feel sensation from earlier on.

Now stfu pls.

@SW-User The legislation you're talking about explicitly made an exception for abortion, which contradicts your argument. It's saying you can treat fetuses as legal persons in the case of specific crimes while deliberately not offering the same protection from abortion. It's inconsistent even there which is the whole point I've been trying to make regarding laws that pertain to children, whether born or unborn. To say they're all of equal worth is a demonstrably false statement.

Children do have many legal protections, as I believe they should, but it's not universal. It's very common for children in the US to be denied lunch at public schools, to become victims of school shootings, to suffer abuse in government-funded foster care programs, and other federally-funded or tax-exempt organizations like the Boy Scouts, Olympic gymnastics, and the Catholic Church.

Just a few years ago, it was the policy of the Trump administration to stuff thousands of migrant children in cages while severing their ties with and deporting their parents. These children were denied beds and pillows, went weeks without clean clothes and showers, not provided with soap or toothbrushes, forced to take care of themselves since they were deprived of an adult caretaker, and their daily meals consisted of oatmeal, instant noodles, and frozen burritos.

The point is, children are not protected by society just because you believe they should be. The only real protection they get is in regards to criminal liability for their offender AFTER the fact. Even child healthcare coverage has income and citizenship limits which means that not every child is offered the same kind of protection. You're denying the stark reality of what's going on over your own ideological rigidity when it comes to the abortion debate. Just because you believe they should be protected doesn't mean that they are.

You can hurl insults all day long, but it doesn't change facts. That's what I'm here to discuss. Not generalities, not ideologies, not narrow-minded biases, not the claims you invent, but facts. And the only one you've been able to provide throughout the course of this entire discussion contradicted your own claim.

Look who's pretending to be the expert now. Being able to have an involuntarily reflex to stimuli is not considered sentience since not a single medical publication on fetal development will say they are capable of consciousness as early as 6 weeks. That's what sentience is. You have to have the awareness to understand what's happening. The claim that they are fully developed at 18-20 weeks is another fabricated lie of yours since the earliest that a fetus has ever survived outside of the womb is at 21 and a half weeks.

@SW-User Furthermore, you never addressed any of the claims regarding child poverty, mental health, maternal health, or how 400,000 children in foster care are now supposed to find homes with the wave of unwanted babies soon to come. Banning access to safe abortions only makes all of these existing problems worse.

Would you be happy handing over most of your paycheck to the government to cover the costs these pregnant women will now have to incur to raise a newborn?

Don't try to brush it away by telling them to get a better job especially when you've already experienced economic recessions and pandemic shutdowns in your lifetime. The jobs you're talking about might not even exist, especially for rural women hundreds of miles away from economic hubs. What is a woman supposed to do when she can't afford the costs of an unwanted pregnancy?

@TinyViolins Actually re the six week consciousness. There is one study where they stuck electrodes into the brain of a dying embryo and find brain waves consistent with conciousness, adult sleep pattern waves

Obviously it is hard to determine, but your making an assumption based on a lack of evidence

If we haven't even determined what consciousness is, that's a big claim your making

@SW-User You're also citing a study from 1955

@TinyViolins yes - they don't let you stick electrodes in brains of dying embryos or fetuses anymore

I don't know why, if they're just a clump of cells

The point remains we are very limited in our understanding, of biological systems and biological redundancy, even of what we mean by consciousness

The only study we have suggests recognisable brain patterns very early on

@SW-User What I was trying to imply was that you're relying on outdated technology and techniques. Needle electrodes got abandoned in favor of scalp electrodes, which then got replaced by MRIs and fMRIs to study fetal brain activity.

In addition to that, nothing in these studies suggest anything close to consciousness, which is what you stated in your comment. It only goes as far as to say that there is electrical activity that vaguely resembles sleep patterns. How can you be conscious and asleep at the same time?