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Now, let’s get this thing cranked up. How do you define personhood?
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Sentience.
(total self-awareness...something no other animal besides humans have and is measured in alpha brain waves which are present even in those who are in a coma and are not brain dead)
Although there really is no need to define it. That decision is only up to one person, the host (pregnant woman) of the parasite (fetus).
Note: I'm not using the word parasite in a derrogatory manner. It is merely an accurate biological description of the parasitic relationship between the fetus and the pregnant woman. A fetus is a non-human because it does not have sentience.
Some things are often confused with human life so let me make a short list of things that are not human life.
- a beating heart
- reflexive actions (sucking thumb, response to stimuli, kicking, etc)
- the shape of a human being
- fingers, toes, arms, legs or other body parts
- human dna
None of these alone or even combined constitute a human life but even if the fetus did have human life (defined only by sentience/alpha waves) it would not give it any claim to the body of the host/pregnant woman. Nobody on earth has any claim on our bodies but ourselves, not even something that may be living inside us, even if it is a human.
I don't have any moral compunction what so ever about abortion. In my eyes it's akin to having a wart, a tumor, or a tapeworm removed or having a limb amputated. It's no more or less important.
I've thought about becoming an abortion doctor just so one of the services I offered would be free abortions to those under 18 without any notification of parents, guardians, husbands, boyfriends, etc. I'd even offer a free ride to and from the clinic if they lived nearby.
And I'd sleep well at night knowing I did the right thing in helping salvage real existing human life, not merely the potential for one. I put the lives of the living above those who might live later.