If somebody shoots a pregnant woman and she dies

@Pikachu oh a fetus can hear and feel the mother and environment

@revenant

So can a cat. And a cat has considerably more self-awareness and cognitive development. Is a cat a person?

That is to say, are you attempting to include "can hear and feel" as meaningful qualities of personhood?

@Pikachu the essence of a cat and the essence of a human being is not the same

@revenant

What is this "essence" and how do you know a fetus has it?

@Pikachu my conscience tells me

@revenant

Interesting. Not particularly useful to anyone else as a metric for humanity though.

Let's explore that conscience with this question:

You're a firefighter and you're responding to a fire at a fertility clinic or some such.
You enter the building and you see on your left, a 3 year old girl and on your right a tank full of hundreds of fertilized embryos ready and intended for implantation.

Do you save the little girl or do you save the embryos?

@Pikachu girl . She is living and the fertilised embryos do not have much of a chance considering.

@revenant

No they're fine. Protected by the tank and can be implanted into waiting and willing wombs promptly.

What we're doing here is making a scenario where everything is equal. You can save the embryos exactly as easily as you can save the girl and they have equal chances for survival.

In short, your only consideration in this hypothetical scenario is whether you consider the embryos to be persons with the "essence" of humanity. If you do then certainly you must save a hundred human lives over just one.

Would you like to change your answer or stick with the little girl?

@Pikachu nah....life is about choices. And hierarchies .

@revenant

So you're saying that the one born girl is worth more than the hundred other human essences?

@Pikachu in that case yes

@revenant

So then we're in agreement that they are not people, yes?

@Pikachu the heart has not formed and started beating yet and there is no host

@revenant

OK so a heartbeat is the thing that makes it a person.

Well does your answer change if we turn those embryos into fetuses?
Let's say the tank is now full of a hundred fetuses at around the stage of development where abortion is still legal.

Now would you save the fetuses over the little girl?

@Pikachu yeah well here I am stuck ! some people report soul entering the flesh early and others claim it is later on.

@revenant

What does your conscience tell you about the human essence in the little girl vs the fetuses?

@Pikachu told you already. ahahah...the girl had already chosen her parents whilst the embryos are still waiting for theirs !

@revenant

I don't understand what you mean.

So is the value of the fetus (or the child) in that it has a parent?

@Pikachu I know you do not. Girl has already started her destiny but the embryos are kind of at still zero mark.

@revenant

So destiny is the value of a person and it only begins when you're born? Interesting.

So what we've established so far is that a fetus without a parent is not the same as person and since they lack a destiny, they're also not the same as a person.
...so should we consider them persons?

@revenant Your conscience on the matter is just an emotion and has no more bearing on whether or not you're right than being happy or sad about something.

@Straylight well yeah but it is my life's choice