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Jacob's avatar

"For any number of weeks after conception that’s used as a cut-off, one can ask, “Why that number of weeks?” And responding, “my subjective judgment tells me this particular point in development happens to be the right one”, is not convincing." You could just as easily make this argument for age of consent and voting laws. The fact that the specific cut-off is morally arbitrary doesn't mean it isn't good to arbitrarily pick a point within the grey area to legally enforce. Because though we don't know precisely what age people can consent to sex, we know 11 is too young and 21 is too old. We can make a reasonable estimate, and it's vital that we try to. Same applies to abortion. In the first trimester the fetus has no brain activity. At some point in the third trimester, it's cognitive function is v similar to a newborn. Thus, a first trimester ban is unjustified cos no brain capacity means no personhood yet. And third trimester is too late. So setting the limit at 14 weeks would be a reasonable non-morally abitary limit even if if the specific week is arbitary.

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Sixth Finger's avatar

Drawing a cutoff pint in a continuum is obviously difficult and requires subjective judgement. The current "pro choice" point of just prior to a full term birth is to my mind waaay too late. Perhaps the only way to set the line in a democracy is to adopt the median time favored by the electorate. My "vote" would be to have a hard cutoff at 20 weeks, when the fetus is possibly viable.

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