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When Did It Become a Baby?

When Did It Become a Baby?

  • When it was still in the womb

    Votes: 11 73.3%
  • When it was the sac even though it was out of the womb

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • When they pierced the sac and it started breathing

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • When they cut the umbilical cord

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • It never is a baby… A blob of tissue, moved by electrical impulses, that can be extinguished

    Votes: 1 6.7%

  • Total voters
    15

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Not watching the video. The theological question is when does the soul enter the fetus. Ensoulment - Wikipedia gives an overview. That is utterly tied to the abortion issue. The other factor is of course who decides because we don't know the answer to that question. We can accept or reject various theological exegesis but none are scientifically provable. Related to that question of who decides is that in our country that values freedom, to what extent should the beliefs of a religious minority be enforced on the majority to the extent that women are suffering and even dying because of the decisions of that minority.

Personally I find some conception advocates totally hypocritical because they are not truly "pro life" with the need to address what a true pro-life means. The Catholic church does have a conception to death theology and I give them props for consistency. But many but not all others don't.

Personally I really don't like abortion but don't want to impose my belief. And as someone who considers himself pro-life, I would want a sea change in many areas: sex education, health care, attacking poverty so people don't make choices based on lack of health care and money. And I would encourage pregnant women who don't want a baby to make the child available for adoption making that choice not a financial one by paying all expenses during pregnancy. I would also make birth control free. But finally as we've seen, women demand the freedom to choose for themselves and I think we need to honor that before viability.

So I'm both pro-life and pro-choice.
The question isn’t about abortion, but simply when is the baby a person in the video you don’t want to watch. A video of a beautiful baby being born.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Yes, you can. Just let women make their own decisions with their doctors, and their God.
Don’t force your ideology onto them by choosing politicians who wish to push forward theocracy. Instead vote for politicians who let women make their own choices. Then, you and the Gestapo government are not involved. :D:sunglasses:

“Don’t like abortions? Don’t have one.” :shrug:
But the question isn’t about abortion but rather when, in the process of the video, was it classified as a baby
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Why did you leave out the Biblical* approach to when someone counts as a person?

As a reminder, this is:

  • For male children: 30 days after birth
  • For female children: never



*The method directed by God for counting of people, according to the counting of the tribes of Israel in Numbers 3.
Because it is a question of when one believes it is a baby. It isn’t a question about religious beliefs
 

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I’d choose my wife over my unborn child. The wife would choose herself over the unborn child.

Most people would not agree that the unborn child gets priority. I am not saying that majority=right but just wanted to state that it is an extreme view that you have, even among “prolifers”.


This implies even in the circumstance of unwanted contact that produced the baby. That is also an extreme view that I think is wrong.

I believe the unborn child is that; a child. So perhaps that makes my reasoning bad, as I do not deny the personhood of the person being aborted. But, aborting a baby to save your own life is literal self defense. Do you not believe in self defense?
It's too bad that the vast majority of abortions are not due to the concept of self defense.
 

wellwisher

Well-Known Member

The question comes from the video
I like the idea of the abortion age limit being based on the youngest premature baby, that can be sustained by science. The record for premature baby is 21 weeks and 1 day. The baby was sustained and became viable.

Science is the criteria used for transgender. Those needed changes for transgender cannot occur without the help of science. People cannot will to be a different sex in terms of a type of natural metamorphosis, into the desired physical characteristics. This was only made possible by breakthroughs in science, that allow such surgery and medications.

If it is not science, then we need to rethink transgender and welcome transgender, but only if the person who chooses to change, can do so without science, like the unborn of today is expected to get job before declared viable.

Death is not defined as the end to life, if science can revive you. If you die and science revives you, are not called legally dead, but rather dead is extended by science, back to alive. Science decides the legality of life and death.

Nobody wants to murder babies, however, advances in science are changing the definitions of alive or dead babies. Once the unborn can be grown from fertilization to full scale, abortion may be called murder, beyond certain exemptions.

The women's right to her body may not be a good criteria unless this right to body standard applies to all people's bodies, If you have to pay taxes, you do not have 100% right over your body. Your are a part time slave to the state. Slavery is illegal. The right to your body, like women want, should mean no part time slavery to the state; taxes are optional and taxes become user fees.

Alimony is a type of slavery, that is forced mostly on men. If you are not married, there is no legal obligation to the ex, yet the state force the male to be the ex-wife's slave; slave a second job. The ex wife may have to earn the alimony, by being this maid. Sex is optional. That is the only way so we all have full rights over our bodies. But if the state can take a way that rights of some, it can for all.

All I am doing is fairness and not lobbying for extra rights for females. But rather males and unborn get less rights, such as a say in abortion. If the female decide to keep the unborn, the males become a slave. That is not equal rights to your body. A women's idea of female rights are all the advantages but non of the liability or full fairness.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
when-did-it-become-a-baby
That depends on how one defines baby. Most of us use several definitions, each a metaphor of the most literal definition, which is usually something like, "a very young child, especially one newly or recently born."

People also use the word to refer to a fetus, although when somebody says, "She's expecting her baby in mid-March," they might be referring to the fetus now or might be referring to that the fetus as becoming a baby at birth.

Other uses of the word are also metaphorical:
  • "My baby does the Hanky-Panky" refers to a girlfriend.
  • "He's the baby of the family" might refer to the youngest sibling at any age or stage of development.
  • Baby steps or a baby grand piano just mean small.
  • "His '68 Mustang is his baby" refers to an object of great value.
But my greater point is this: it doesn't matter what you call a human being from zygote to live birth and beyond (including calling it a human being when it is only a few cells in size) for purposes of making moral judgments about abortion. There is the hope by many that if we can call the conceptus by a name like human being, person, baby, child, or citizen that it then becomes wrong to abort it because it fits into that class. Also, if they call the procedure murder, that makes it immoral or at least more reprehensible.

That's some people's opinion, especially Abrahamics, but I and millions more like me don't share those values. So, asking somebody like me when it becomes a baby gets a wishy-washy answer like this one: for me, at birth, but I don't mind anybody calling their fetus their baby; for you, whenever you say. If you want to call it a baby at conception, I don't mind, and it also doesn't influence my decision on the morality of abortion.

I find the procedure off-putting if the fetus is capable of understanding what is happening to it, which is probably at no stage before birth, or is capable of suffering great pain, which may also never occur before birth, but if it does, it would be third trimester. Either of those is enough for me to oppose abortion at that stage. That's a subjective call, like all moral judgments.

The other moral issue is who gets to make the decision - the mother or the state acting on the church's behalf to enforce its religious values on a supposedly secular society. That's an easy one for a humanist, as he generally advocates for freedom and the bodily autonomy of the pregnant woman.

Notice that I didn't include her doctor. The doctor doesn't make the decision, either. The doctor may advise her and assist her in getting an abortion, but (s)he doesn't have a vote except whether (s)he wants to be involved.

I didn't vote because none of the options reflected this opinion.

Here's a related question: When does the woman become a mother? Should I refer to the pregnant woman as the mother as in, "the mother makes the decision." Many do, but what if she loses the pregnancy to abortion or natural miscarriage, has no children, and is asked, "Are you a mother?" Most would answer no.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Your beliefs about when it's a baby aren't informed by your religious beliefs?

Would your beliefs about when it is a baby, isn’t is also influenced about a persons non-religious beliefs?

But the question is simple… in reference to the video… when did you believe it was a baby.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
A "baby" refers to a born human.

A "fetus" refers to an unborn human after a particular developmental milestone has been reached - specifically all major organs are present.

Prior to that you have an "embryo" where there is little resemblance to human and more of a mass of tissue or a cluster of cells depending on how early in development we're talking.
OK… but in video, the baby is in the sac but outside of the womb… is it a fetus or a baby?
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
Would your beliefs about when it is a baby, isn’t is also influenced about a persons non-religious beliefs?

Pleass try to rephrase your question in a coherent way.

Secular beliefs are available to anyone, religious or irreligious.

There aren't many things where we can say "since no gods exist, therefore I should do _____." OTOH, there are plenty of things where we can say "_____ is a good idea regardless of whether gods exist or not."

But the question is simple… in reference to the video… when did you believe it was a baby.
A baby is a child who was recently born. This is what the word means.

Where do you think the line between "unborn" and "born" occurs? Like give the specific point in the video. This shouldn't create any weird problems for you, (edit - forgot to complete my sentence) because you think it's a person before and after anyway.

I find it interesting (telling?) that you had to go to extreme lengths to find a video where the line of "born" is unclear. Was this because a typical birth leaves the semantics too cut-and-dry?
 
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9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
OK… but in video, the baby is in the sac but outside of the womb… is it a fetus or a baby?
You seem to have trouble with the idea that birth is a process instead of a binary state change.

Medically, the switchover from fetal circulation to neonatal circulation occurs with the first breath. The change from fetal to full neonatal kidney function takes up to 2 weeks, apparently (from what I could glean from a quick google).

Nutritionally, when we look up information about nutritional needs for babies, it's all about breastfeeding and formula (plus purees for older babies), nothing about fetal nutrition via the umbilical cord.

So when you say "is it a fetus or a baby?" the right response is "in what sense?"

... and like for a lot of semantic quibbles, I have the feeling that if you give enough detail so that what you're asking is clear and unambiguous, the answer will be obvious.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
The question isn’t about abortion, but simply when is the baby a person in the video you don’t want to watch. A video of a beautiful baby being born.
When a fetus becomes a baby is all about abortion. To pretend it's not is disingenuous. "When did *IT" become a baby" is a question of ensoulment because "it" is a statement of fetus, not a person, but a "baby" is a person.
 

VoidCat

Use any and all pronouns including neo and it/it's
it is a baby. Since it's outside the womb. However... that said

In terms of when the soul enters the body, I believe that part of the soul enters the body at first breath and part of it develops in the womb. But it isn't a full human soul until first breath. I'm thinking parts of the soul develop as the person ages and develops. A young child doesn't have the same mature soul as an adult does. The soul to me has many parts that develop over a course of time. I'm still figuring out everything here regarding my beliefs in a soul, so a lot of my beliefs are subject to change. It makes sense at this time to me that a soul develops over time rather than all at once if there is a soul. After all our brain and consciousness develops over times.
 
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Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
A baby is a child who was recently born. This is what the word means.


I am probably not making myself clear. The video shows a baby still in the sac of the mothers womb and then they broke the sac. When did it become a baby. Was it when the sac was pierced and the baby started to breath. Was it after they pulled it out of the womb? Was it still a baby when in the womb before they did the c-section?

I hope that clears up what I am talking about.
 
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