I feel like on some level wanting a fetus to be a baby makes it so, which isn't very scientific and very importantly only works for the person whose uterus it is in. Emotionally it underlies all the right ways to treat people, though; if someone loses a pregnancy that could have resulted in a baby they really wanted, it would be wrong and bad to tell them that wasn't a baby, even if physiologically it would've been hard to tell from any other vertebrate embryo. A pregnancy that someone doesn't want or can't have right then doesn't carry that emotional weight of expectation, so the developmental reality is more important. An embryo has human genes, sure -- roughly twice as many as each of the millions of sperm that inevitably die in its making -- but without parent investment it's really not a person. I am definitely in favor of inventing outboard gestation, though, and am really curious what people would choose to do if given a magically equal choice between that and abortion.
no subject
I feel like on some level wanting a fetus to be a baby makes it so, which isn't very scientific and very importantly only works for the person whose uterus it is in. Emotionally it underlies all the right ways to treat people, though; if someone loses a pregnancy that could have resulted in a baby they really wanted, it would be wrong and bad to tell them that wasn't a baby, even if physiologically it would've been hard to tell from any other vertebrate embryo. A pregnancy that someone doesn't want or can't have right then doesn't carry that emotional weight of expectation, so the developmental reality is more important. An embryo has human genes, sure -- roughly twice as many as each of the millions of sperm that inevitably die in its making -- but without parent investment it's really not a person. I am definitely in favor of inventing outboard gestation, though, and am really curious what people would choose to do if given a magically equal choice between that and abortion.