The same cannot be said for infants. They don't experience the world as an adult does, but they are biologically independent entities with direct perception of the external world and the choice to focus on it as they learn more and their especially mental development of choice and knowledge progresses. They are a "someone".

Viability is does not mean 'person' and is not the source of rights; viable means it's a potential human being not yet born, but with a good chance of surviving normally if it is born. That does not give it advanced personhood with rights. The line is drawn at birth.

With no basis to ban abortion there is also no basis to ban it after an arbitrary time limit before birth. Of course it should be done as soon as practical -- for the woman's own self interest. But the woman's body remains her body to choose if and when to do it it regardless of the rationalizations we here constantly about a potential person being "human", always ignoring the woman's rights and the source and nature of the concept of 'rights' itself.

And in practice almost all abortions are early, with very late term abortions being for reasons of health. Discoveries of pregnancy, developing health problems of either the woman or the fetus, changing life circumstances, and the time to gather information and decide do not always occur conveniently immediately after the beginning of pregnancy, and no one has a right to interfere with that.

What you need is the conceptual understanding of the basis of morality and its political corallary 'rights'.

Correct, though the same could be said for infants. So where do you draw the line? The moment when a viable 'potential human' comes off of maternal life support sounds arbitrary to me, because viability is not based on that moment. I concede that it's a major event for all parties involved, though.

EWV, I know I seem obstinate, but honestly I'm enjoying and am refreshed by your systematic logic. I do not see women as "breeding stock" and I believe that unwanted pregnancy should be terminated immediately, especially in the face of any rape, coercion or incest. I am just concerned about the definition of Human and its relationship to the definition of Human Rights. "No one has to prove that a fetus does "not legally have rights as a human".
The burden of proof is on he who arbitrarily asserts it does." is going to come up again, eventually, in the cases of machine intelligence and (possible) alien life. I believe you are right in principle, but I take the pragmatic approach that if you're going to abort, it's best to do it early. That's all. As for 'Standing by" your own arbitrary "statement" -- asserted as if it were not "just opinion"': Sorry, it was just an opinion. If I had meant more I would have provided supporting arguments. Again, I do like your thorough logic. Emotionally charged issues should be worked out carefully to the point where opposition parties cannot provide adequate rationale, in order to get them to see other sides.

We don't have rights because we can "kick ferociously". Nor are claimed "human" responses and awareness from a fetus anything other than imagination. None of it makes a fetus a "someone", i.e., a person, with "rights" before birth and none of it justifies the barbaric forcing of women to bear children they don't want.

The basis of rights in the facts of man's nature is not "just an opinion". See "The Objectivist Ethics" and "Man's Rights". If you like Ayn Rand you should at least know that much.

"Standing by" your own arbitrary "statement" -- asserted as if it were not "just opinion" -- that the unborn potential human being has "rights" and a woman's body is a "shared apartment" that "must be considered a shared commodity", is obscene. That dismissal of the moral right of a woman to her own body, with the demand to impose the force of government to sacrifice women to your feelings for alleged "rights" of the unborn is, as Ayn Rand put it, unspeakable.

The concept of 'rights' is a moral concept based on the facts of the nature of man as a person. See "The Objectivist Ethics" and "Man's Rights". Rights are a characteristic of man by his nature. The concept cannot be arbitrarily applied to entities that do not have those characteristics on which his rights depend. Fetuses do not have those characteristics. There are no "fetus' rights" to "weigh". The concept does not pertain to fetuses.

You equivocate between "human" as an adjective -- as in 'human cells' or 'human fetus' -- versus a 'human person'. In arbitrarily insisting on "rights" of the unborn, you treat the concept 'rights' as a floating abstraction without regard to the concept's meaning in reality, emotionally attaching it to a fetus as if "rights" were 'intrinsic' to anything called "human", which is mysticism, in contrast to an objective characteristics of human persons. It is based on nothing but feelings and anti-conceptual imagery, with complete disregard for the meaning of the concept 'rights' and the facts on which it is based.

No one has to prove that a fetus does "not legally have rights as a human".
The burden of proof is on he who arbitrarily asserts it does. That can't be done because the floating concept notion of 'rights' is conceptually meaningless, divorced from referents in reality. But the policy of "rights" for the unborn does have meaning in reality: the barbaric practice of forcing women to bear children they do not want, in stark violation of their rights as real, live human beings. Metaphors about "shared apartments" do not change that stark reality.

You don't appear to have any understanding of why any of us have rights, least of all the women you demand to treat as "shared commodities" as you regard them as shared breeding stock "commodities".

Before my kid was born, he would start kicking ferociously when I sang to my wife's tummy.
After birth, he would start kicking and laugh his ass off if I started singing. He recognized my voice and didn't do it for anyone else. I have no reason to believe that was not the same 'human' response. He would have been no less aware at 8.5 month than at birth plus a week, if something had grabbed him and killed him. IMHO, at 9 months and for at least some time less, there is 'someone' there.

I realize this issue is hotly contested primarily because it can be interpreted in many ways. Politically I am somewhere between Libertarian and Conservative, and also take issue with some of the anti-religious statements Rand made. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to take a middle ground here, and will simply suggest that abortions should be allowed, but limited to first or second trimester, which would at least somewhat appease the "they're killing babies!" faction.

"A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born." Sorry, but as much as I like Ayn Rand, this is just an opinion. I stand by my earlier statement, that as a (total or incomplete) human being, the fetus has rights too, and the mother's body must be considered a shared commodity after conception. The fetus' rights should be weighed in also. So far I have seen no one provide concrete evidence that a developing human fetus should not legally have rights as a human.

Almost all late term abortions, including throughout the third trimester are for reasons of health not previously established.

The governor did not say that the child would be killed after birth as a follow up on abortion. They were talking about cases of unviability or extreme deformity. What kind of extraordinary measures are taken or not taken to keep permanently severely incapacitated patients of all ages alive is an every day occurrence that has nothing to do with abortion.

The child is a person when it is born. That does not require mathematical precision for person-hood. That the fetus is "alive" in its parasitic state before birth does not mean it is alive as a child and therefore a person.

The push for late term abortion has to do with the woman dilating . Only when fully dilated can the cranium go through the birth canal undamaged.
It is much more valuable for the sale of the brain and pineal gland.
It is ridicules that a woman couldn’t decide to be a mother or not up to the last minute. BTW some aborted fetuses are born alive and then killed.

As to Virginia's laws, I am basing this from an interview by the governor (a former pediatrician...) who happily explained that under the new law, if the mother decides to terminate the child after birth (presumably, but I would not guarantee it, and if she supposedly determines that the child has serious defects, which in China is often considered as being born female), that's perfectly fine.

Since there is no obvious mathematical formula that determines person-hood with any precision, it does fall into the category of philosophy, which is a bit less defined. For example, when I cut open a leather-like egg of the newborn shark in my tank and helped the newborn shark come out of the egg, it was quite obvious to me that the shark was alive and living prior to my cutting of the egg. I would apply the same courtesy to a human.

An artificial birth is a birth, not the day before birth.

The difference between birth and pre-birth is fact not "illogic". The difference is not wiped out by dismissing it as a difference regarding only the time across "split seconds". The nature of the entity is different in essentials before and after birth, regardless of the time it takes or the method.

The "gradual" development -- over (normally) 9 months -- is all pre-birth. For the entire time period it is a potential human being, not a person.

There was no Virginia legislation that would have (it did not pass) allowed "killing the child after birth" and that was not celebrated. The bill concerned third-trimester abortions, not infanticide (which is how it has been falsely hyped by activists). There was a commemoration and celebration of the NY law that also pertained to abortion, not infanticide. It changed the law allowing third-trimester abortions when the life of the woman is threatened to when the life or health of the woman is threatened.

If our "elimination may be considered" it will likely be because of gang civil war or, if "legally", because of socialized medicine rationing -- not because of protecting the rights of women from being forced to bear children they don't want or which threaten their own health and lives.

I am glad your former girl friend survived her unusual birth. She was clearly wanted.

She was born/delivered artificially. Just like any child that is @-1 day can be born/delivered artificially. I don't think that the process of cutting the umbilical cord is the defining difference between a human and, as you called it, a "parasite." Now, to set the stage correctly, let me say that I am not religious and my views are not based on religion. Furthermore, I do not consider a sperm and an egg, united or not, to be a human being. But it is illogical to declare that the "human" process does not happen in the womb, but only in a split second when whatever it is comes out of the womb, by whatever method. Clearly, it happens gradually and within the womb. And in the latest version of Virginia legislation, killing the child after birth, if desired, is not only permitted, but celebrated. This is just too far. I am seriously concerned that in a decade or so my elimination may be considered.

She was a child after she was born. The time inside isn't relevant to that.

Would you like to tell that to my former girlfriend? She was born at 6 months. She’s doing fine now, but she would surely like to hear your assessment and evaluation of her.

There is no "child @-1 day". The biologically parasitic entity in the womb, which doesn't even eat or breath, functioning parasitically is not a child in the external world. This has been discussed many times here.

Please explain the difference between a child @-1 day vs a child @+1 day?

The concepts of 'consent' or 'dissent' do not apply to a fetus at all, for the same reason it has no 'right' to be born: It is a pre-human potential, not a person.

A person in a coma is not a fetus that has not yet become a person. People who are sick do not lose their rights because at some instant they "here now cannot speak". This requires conceptual understanding beyond the percpetual state of staring at a momentary event. There are legal procedures concerning presumptions, prior written statements of intent (a "living will"), and legal power of attorney.

No part of a woman's life is subject to your opinions. Whether in your "opinion" you "would set" 20 weeks or anything else is irrelevant. You have no idea and no right to intrude in when a woman discovers she is pregnant, it's medical state, when or why she decides she does or does not want to bear a child, when she may discover a changed medical state in a fetus or her own health, and when she chooses to act to stop the process. It is none of your arrogant business.

As Ayn Rand put it, ""A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the not-yet-living (or the unborn).

"Abortion is a moral right—which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?"

The stages of development are a natural biological process, not a "miracle". Every process must occur by some means. Emotional imagery over videos is not a conceptual argument for rights of a fetus.

However disturbed you feel about stopping the process, it is nothing in comparison with unspeakable barbarity of forcing women to bear children they don't want, sacrificing an actual human being to emotions over a potential new person.

A fetus does not react to anything in the same manner as adults do. It's a passive stimulus, not an awareness of pain identified conceptually and accomplished by "ouch". The raw feeling of pain is not the basis of morality and rights. All kinds of lower animals experience pain. "Pain receptors" are not why we have rights and are not why anything is "human".

That a fetus is a potential human being is biological fact, not opinion. Human beings do not become fetuses.

A fetus is not "excluded" from having human rights, it does not qualify to be included. The concept of rights is based on the facts of what human beings are, and cannot be arbitrarily ascribed to other entities. Nor can the rights of the woman be wiped out because you prefer something else, emotionally tying a floating abstraction of 'rights' to a fetus and less, and giving that priority over a woman's life.

The concept of human being -- "man", philosophically -- was identified and defined by Aristotle thousands of years ago. Ayn Rand showed why and how the Enlightenment idea of natural rights applies, properly conceived. It has nothing to do with "shared apartments". Did you get those notions before or after you read Ayn Rand's "Man's Rights"?