Josseli Barnica is one of at least two pregnant Texas women who died after doctors delayed emergency care. She’d told her husband that the medical team said it couldn’t act until the fetal heartbeat stopped.
Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.
The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.
But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”
For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.
Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.
How is a fetus not a person? Every human being is a person. Sticking with an extremely broad definition of person is the only way to prevent a slippery slope towards justifying killing people further and further along in development. Trying to call certain human beings not people is a genocidal tactic.
You can't actually be so stupid as to not be able to spot the difference between a clump of cells and a born human, so don't pretend to be.
Things that might become other things are not treated as though they are fundamentally the thing they might become.
Sticking with an extremely broad definition of person is the only way to prevent a slippery slope towards justifying killing people further and further along in development
No, it's not. Fetus isn't a person, it requires parasitization of an already existing person to continue existing, it is very much not the same as a born human. The only people who try to equate the two are weirdos like you.
First off, I'm sorry I mistook you for the other person. I'll take back those claims.
Second, we are all "clumps of cells." A fetus just so happens to be a really, really small one at a particular stage of development.
Third, a parasite is, by definition, a member of a different species than its host. Therefore, a fetus is not a parasite.
Fourth, almost everyone on earth depends on other people to continue existing. The ones who don't are hardcore survivalists. Are they the only ones who get a right to life?
Maybe you are, you're certainly showing the intelligence level of one, but most people are far more than that. They're lived experiences, personalities, and all the other shit. By your logic a caterpillar is a butterfly, and that's silly
Third, a parasite is, by definition, a member of a different species than its host
That's a link to a cancer website, and it doesn't even load, so the attempt at Cherry-Picking is extremely poor, do better with your fallacies or you'll bore me
parasite. noun. par·a·site ˈpar-ə-ˌsīt. : an organism living in, with, or on another organism in order to obtain nutrients, grow, or multiply often in a state that directly or indirectly harms the host - well wouldja looky there, doesn't require a different species at all and, in fact, applies to a fetus too!
Got any more bad points to try and make because you don't understand basic biology or are you ready to admit youre ignorant and just go learn some shit? Nobody will be mean to you for admitting your ignorance and becoming a better person. Shit, we'd actually probably respect you then, unlike now
In one respect, they are similar: a caterpillar is the same species as the butterfly which it becomes, just like fetuses are to humans. In another sense, they are significantly different: no human society regards a butterfly's life as highly as a born human's. What moral ramifications are there for stepping on a butterfly that wouldn't be relevant if it was still a caterpillar, and vice versa? If there are none, then it makes no sense to compare the two on that basis.
Here are the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Wikipedia (citing a scientific textbook on archive.org that isn't currently available, but apparently it was at some point) stating that a parasite is a member of a different species. Since the link won't work, here is the definition given:
An animal or plant that gets nutrients by living on or in an organism of another species. A complete parasite gets all of its nutrients from the host organism, but a semi-parasite gets only some of its nutrients from the host.
I suspected you wouldn't settle for a non-medical source for something with a precise technical definition, which is why I used that page.
If we're just throwing whatever labels we want onto words like "parasite," then what's stopping us from using the same label for disabled people? Or born babies? Or children who still depend on their parents? Or people who depend on the structure of society in general? Since we've already slipped down the genocide slope of deciding that fetuses are parasites, why shouldn't we go a little further for the good of the human race? They're a burden anyway, right?
I won't be mean to you, either, if you admit that killing innocent people is wrong and so is erasing personhood from human beings. If nobody here can admit that, then their disrespect means nothing to me.
In one respect, they are similar: a caterpillar is the same species as the butterfly which it becomes, just like fetuses are to humans
Ok so you DO understand, nice
they are significantly different: no human society regards a butterfly's life as highly as a born human's
And I was wrong. That's irrelevant, what value we place on a butterfly relative to us isn't important at all to me pointing out your logic would mean a caterpillar is a butterfly. All that matters is the way in which they are alike, which you agreed with. This is what mental gymnastics looks like, and it's obvious to anyone not entrenched like you.
What moral ramifications are there for stepping on a butterfly that wouldn't be relevant if it was still a caterpillar, and vice versa? If there are none, then it makes no sense to compare the two on that basis.
Nope, my point was simple that calling an earlier stage of a lifeform exactly the same thing as the later stage is silly. You wouldn't call a caterpillar a butterfly, you wouldn't call a fetus a person.
I suspected you wouldn't settle for a non-medical source for something with a precise technical definition
Weird that you'd do that. Looks more like you hunted a specific definition that specifies cross-species requirements so you could try to well ackshully someone. Failed miserably because it's easy to google what words mean.
if you admit that killing innocent people is wrong
I won't, because your definition of "people" is faulty and I don't want to say anything you'll take wrongly. Its wrong to take a life in most situations, a fetus is not that.
people is wrong and so is erasing personhood from human beings. If nobody here can admit that, then their disrespect means nothing to me.
It pleases me to know bitter idiots like you are, in fact, a dying breed who will be remembered as the stains on history you are 🙂
If this is irrelevant, so is your caterpillar argument.
mental gymnastics
You can't even define what a person is and you're accusing me of mental gymnastics?
Looks more like you hunted a specific definition that specifies cross-species requirements so you could try to well ackshully someone. Failed miserably because it’s easy to google what words mean.
Right, it's very easy to Google what words mean. That's why I found three different definitions. Sticking with one you found from a dictionary in the face of three more authoritative sources is odd - especially since the same page cites the Britannica article I linked in the last post. From the same page, this definition sounds like it lines up better with your ideology:
I won’t, because your definition of “people” is faulty
But you can't explain why...
and I don’t want to say anything you’ll take wrongly.
...or what you think a person is. Would you like to share that, or are you going to continue hiding behind ambiguity because it's easier to attack something you can actually understand?
It pleases me to know bitter idiots like you are
I suppose that's one benefit of refusing to explain your arguments. Can't be stupid if you never say anything at all!
in fact, a dying breed who will be remembered as the stains on history you are 🙂
Ironic, since pro-life people give birth more than pro-choice people.
If this is irrelevant, so is your caterpillar argument.
Wow, you're completely incapable of basic reasoning. I mean, I'd have assumed as much, but I tried to give you a chance to prove you could think. Ah well, my mistake.
You can't even define what a person is and you're accusing me of mental gymnastics?
Those are unrelated, again. You can't define antidisestablishmentarianism and you're accusing me of genocide?! Same energy.
Sticking with one you found from a dictionary in the face of three more authoritative sources is odd
Not really, given that it's the commonly used definition and we're not talking in a medical setting here. I used it colloquially, not professionally, so I'm grabbing the colloquial definition. You want to use the medical one because it specifies a different species and makes my colloquial use of the word technically incorrect (the best kind), but I refuse to give a fuck
But you can't explain why...
Oh, look, here's the relevance: by your own logic if a fetus is a person then a caterpillar is a butterfly. If you cant grasp that then I fear for anyone who has to be around you any time you operate sharp objects.
Ironic, since pro-life people give birth more than pro-choice people.
Yeah, forcing births through regulation does that. It also tends to produce people who vehemently disagree with and hate you. Rightly so, you monster
Wow, you’re completely incapable of basic reasoning.
Why is it relevant? All you're saying there is literally just "This argument is absurd, it's vaguely similar to your argument, therefore your argument is absurd."
You can’t define antidisestablishmentarianism and you’re accusing me of genocide?!
I didn't know antiwhatever was relevant to the debate. However, the definition of personhood is. And you don't seem to know what a person is.
I used it colloquially, not professionally, so I’m grabbing the colloquial definition
What did you think of the other colloquial definition I provided for you? Like I said, it seems to line up more with your ideology, it's even simpler than the one you gave, and it can justify killing anyone you want to!
a person who lives at the expense of another
I don't know if it bothers you that it uses a word you don't understand, but hey, up to you.
by your own logic if a fetus is a person then a caterpillar is a butterfly.
Again, you're arguing from an illogical comparison. You haven't explained why a fetus isn't a person, and I have explained why it is. I mean, you've called me and my idea stupid, but that doesn't make your actual judgement of it any clearer. Would you like to tell me so we can discuss it? Or do you just want to keep trying to chisel away at my definition like the world's worst sculptor? The fact you're this intent on not directly answering a very relevant question, along with this implication that I'm a bad person for wanting to protect life, are kind of weird, don't you think?
forcing births through regulation does that.
Pro-life births are higher in Democrat counties, too.
It also tends to produce people who vehemently disagree with and hate you.
It tends to produce people who vehemently agree with me, too, And people who are ambivalent. It really just tends to produce people in general.
Rightly so
That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
you monster
And to think, you're the one who called me bitter. Projection, thy name is gamermanh.