Fetus vs. baby

[loyalsister]

The stupid question asked by pro-lifers in reference to Chelsea Clinton. Every fertilized egg that reaches a particular stage in development is a fetus. But, every fetus is not a baby.
I think a baby, in the context of pregnancy, is a fetus that is wanted and expected to become an infant.
On the other hand, a fetus which a woman does not want to have is not conceptually considered a baby to her (the opinion that matters most).

That woman does not wonder about the sex, think about names, hope for blue eyes, or consider any kind of future they want to be a part of.
The odd thing is that pro-lifers probably don't care about any of that when it comes to a woman they don't know on the subway or in the grocery store.
I have only had this discussion with like minded people. Has anyone laid it out that way for a pro-lifer?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

1. I'm not sure about terminology, but I think the important point is the development of the mind.

A mind is what makes the difference between a lump of living tissue, and a living being.

My understanding is that the earliest the might might develop is around about the start of the third trimester.

[loyalsister]

8. That's a reasonable personal definition

But, would you feel comfortable asking a woman who is going to have a late term abortion due to illness or problems with the fetus to think of it that way? It is my understanding that they are desperately trying not to think of it that way when they originally wanted it to be born?

[nomorenomore08]

18. That must be terrible, having to terminate a pregnancy you initially wanted. But the option is still

sorely needed, which just makes me even angrier about what happened to poor Dr. Tiller.

[loyalsister]

21. Have you seen After Tiller?

That documentary was also badly needed. The level of compassion that those doctors show is amazing.

[nomorenomore08]

28. I haven't. I'll have to look it up. n/t

[nomorenomore08]

17. Which is why blanket opposition to abortion has no rational basis. It's a kind of magical thinking

not much different from believing the Earth to be 6,000 years old.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. I think it's a logical consequence of believing in souls, and hence exactly as irrational as that.

I think that the defining characteristic of a person, and the reason not to kill people, is the mind; the earliest the mind could exist is about the third trimester, so I think Roe vs Wade is about right.

But if I practiced any kind of religion which taught that the defining characteristic of people, and the reason not to kill them, is that they have something called a soul that makes them special, and that enters the body at an earlier point, such as conception, then I would probably support a ban on aborting viable foetuses after that point, except when the mother's life was in danger.

I think may be why convincing people to stop opposing abortion is so hard - when you say "abortion is not immoral", what you are in effect saying is "foetuses do not have souls", which strongly hints that "there is no such thing as a soul" and "your entire religion and worldview are wrong".

[Vattel]

22. I agree.

"Baby" or "not baby" is just semantics, the real issue being when there are reasons not to kill it. My extremely tentative view is that when the fetus's brain is up and running so that it has awareness of its surroundings or of pleasure or of pain or of something, then its life should be taken very seriously. Of course that doesn't mean it has an absolute right to survive by using the pregnant woman's body. The woman still has a right to her body and so if the fetus threatens her health, or her pregnancy was due to rape, she has the right to abort the pregnancy. In other kinds of cases things are more complicated.

[nomorenomore08]

29. Not to mention something like 90% of abortions are first-trimester, long before significant

brain development occurs. But some people are so brainwashed with the "ZOMG KILLING BABIES" stuff that even the most basic nuances are lost to them.

[MADem]

2. When I have this sort of discussion it pretty much goes like this...

They: "Blah blah blah blah baby not fetus life-begins-at-conception blah blah..."

Me: "Look--it's not your body going through this pregnancy, now, is it?"

They: No...but...

Me: "NO BUTs, then--it's not your body? It's not your BUSINESS!"

I have no interest in trying to argue those things beyond that, it just never ends well. The opposing debater usually tries to bring in a Bible and Jesus/Mary/Joseph, the Pope and other appeals to authority to try to butress the case--so I just leave it at the "Nunna ya biz-niz" stage!

[hobbit709]

3. It's a baby when it's born, at which point the fetus savers no longer give a shit.

[Vashta Nerada]

4. Fetus = unborn; baby = born.

How hard is it for the religionistas to figure that out?

[loyalsister]

7. In the most clinical terminology

After it is born it is called an infant. The word baby is extremely vague, but it does usually refer to an infant. Although, adult may be referred to as a "baby" under another definition. The only consistency when applied to humans is that it does refer to a human that is alive or once was. It is not entirely incorrect to refer to a fetus as a baby if it is something someone is buying furniture and decorating a room for.

But the fetus of a host doesn't want it to be alive let alone be born does not consider it something she wants to consider as a live infant.

Language is a never ending controversy. It's probably too much to hope for opposing advocates who feel strongly about abortion to come together on such a vague concept.

[Tom Ripley]

5. Apparently those idiots can't tell the difference between a fried egg and fried chicken

or roe and fish

[rug]

9. Roe v. Wade has suddenly taken on a whole new meaning.

[Rozlee]

6. I'm trying to remember what case it was a couple of decades ago...

where a young woman died after an abortion and her parents were trying to get state regulators to investigate the doctor who performed it. They were invited to some pro-life meetings and went, hoping to get some input or dirt on the doctor. They were repulsed by the people there. Everyone told them, "I'm so sorry about your grandchild," and never expressed a word of condolence over their daughter. It was like the daughter that they'd raised her whole life didn't even rate an afterthought in comparison to the fetus she had been carrying. They went away with very negative feelings against the anti-choice crowd. Typical bunch though. Getting more riled up over the termination of a pregnancy than of a young woman's death.

[loyalsister]

26. It's as if the woman is invisible

They look through her as if her body is not relevant.

[3catwoman3]

10. Radio talk sow host Norman Goldman poses the following questions (possible slight paraphrase).

Can you freeze a fertilized egg and thaw it out and end up with a live human being?

Can you do the same thing after a baby has been born?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

15. If you could (or possibly "when we can"), would it change things? N.T.

[LisaLynne]

11. I'm thinking along the following lines:

Usually when people are pregnant, they say something along the lines of: "We are having a baby!" That to me connotes something that is expected to happen in the future. People used to say they were "expecting", in fact (i.e. "What to expect when you're expecting&quot . It's something that you expect to happen in the future (you will have a baby--at the end of the pregnancy) but does not say that it's a baby right at that moment. So ... they can twist their little minds and mutilate the language, but it really means nothing in the end. When someone is pregnant, no one actually thinks they have a "baby" as we generally think of a baby, right at that moment.

[The Straight Story]

12. I am going to approach this with some caution but will comment anyway

In a vacuum it goes basically like this: A woman has a medical condition (pregnancy) which she does not want. The condition she is gets broken down into a personal decision and referring to a part of that condition being nothing more than a fertilized egg that can cause a lot of issues (over a wide spectrum). She chooses to modify her condition. Her body, her medical choice.

Outside that vacuum it gets more complex. As you noted when some enter that condition they don't think of it as simply a fertilized egg but add the human dimensions to it - they expound on what it is to become over what it currently is.

To a casual observer they are hearing two different things about the condition. One is great hope, joy, potential, life, and is followed by announcements, facebook/twitter posts, etc.

The other is not generally mentioned, has a sense of foreboding and a lot of emotions attached to it. You aren't out talking about it to others and sharing the news so much. It is a more lonely and isolated place to be in.

People on the outside looking in wonder about the difference and why not everyone is as happy as others seem to be. They don't see it as anything more than the other good posts from friends and such who heralded their condition. Why are you different, why doesn't x mean the same to you as it does to others? They had a child and love it, or they cannot have one and want one so why don't you? What could be more important than fostering that which is growing inside you and how can you be so selfish, etc and so on.

What gets missed is that so often people only hear from those elated and wanting something and they don't get why others don't. And that probably won't change because most people don't go around talking about their personal choice when it is not seeing it all the way through and inviting all their friends to showers and such.

It is a silent, personal hell that many don't want to share for a plethora of reasons (and should not have to either).

Let women alone to make their choices and respect they, like everyone else, come in all different flavors and just because some choose something different does not make them less of a person. It makes them just like the rest of us who want to make a choice and not be given shit over it.

[Luminous Animal]

13. That was, overall, a thoughtful post but I object to the phrase, "personal hell".

In most cases, (in my experience as a pregnancy counselor), it is an even-minded pragmatic decision, where hell, personal or otherwise, does not enter the picture. In fact, in my experience, it is the male partner, when they attend the counseling, who are more apt to be distraught.

[The Straight Story]

14. Fair enough

But for the few women I have known it is, today, something they view as a personal hell when they recall it (but they are women who now have kids and wonder 'what if I hadn't then').

Decisions today can come back years later and bring up deep emotions, on any number of things (as I can attest to with my own decisions which at one time seemed to be the right ones but I now question).

My one friend has had more than one night where she anguished over what her kids would be like, look like, etc today and wonders why these 20 years later she didn't make a different decision. And I can relate as I have made decisions myself over kids that, looking back on it, make me wonder - and for some it can indeed be, much later, a personal hell.

[REP]

30. I know plenty of women who never had any "anguish"

My grandmother, for one; she lived to be 94 and laughed when she heard about the guilt and anguish she was supposed to feel at some point.

I'm another, who only feels relief and gratitude. Of course, what I'd be feeling otherwise is dead. Literally dead.

I could go on, but the point is different people feel different things, but as numerous studies have shown, the majority of women feel relief and suffer no negative long-term physical or psychological effects. The studies are in my journal.

[nomorenomore08]

19. Fantastic post. I will say one thing, you're probably more consistent in your principles than most

folks on DU, even if I find your making light of certain subjects a tad misguided.

[loyalsister]

23. Well said

That's exactly what I was getting at. A lot of pro-choice people call their developing fetus a baby. I think it's not just some dream. They speculate on how it might look. People are sometimes so excited about a pregnancy that they instantly start saving for college.

For some reason, there are people who experience that to a degree that they imagine that is how everyone will feel.

I personally can have some tolerance for a pro-lifer who has trouble imagining that difference.

When they think they are entitled to define the experience and the language surrounding it whether it is wanted or not is not for anyone else to say.

You make a good point about the fact that people don't talk about the pregnancies they decided to terminate. Maybe someone is embarrassed about the circumstances of the pregnancy. And, of course there are people who are inclined to treat them poorly. I think it also may have something to do with media. It is not discussed or portrayed in entertainment media in a neutral context. If it is part of a story. It seems like the woman is either demonized or victimized. Certainly stereotyping the experience perpetuates the damaging conventional wisdom.
Joy, relief, grief... are all ways women experience both terminated and continued pregnancies. I can't think of another instance where people consistently feel like they can label another person's biological experience to match how they might feel in the same situation. That doesn't mean there isn't one, though.

[LeftishBrit]

16. I think that it is a matter of the level of development

A fetus does not have consciousness; does not feel pain; is utterly dependent on the mother's body for survival; so in a sense is still part of the mother's body.

I would not use the 'wantedness' argument with 'pro-lifers', as they will probably hit back with the argument, 'Then if a mother doesn't want her baby after it's born, does she have the right to kill it?'

[nomorenomore08]

20. No matter what, we need to loudly insist that no one - neither rapist nor religious fanatic

- has the right to trespass on another's bodily autonomy. And the issue of bodily integrity is ultimately just as vital for men as it is for women, even if some myopic people can't see that.

[Nine]

24. Al Franken used to pose this question:

Suppose a fertility clinic caught fire and inside the building was a live baby and a freezer full of hundreds of frozen, several-cell embryos. Would you save the baby or the freezer? Of course a sane person would save the baby, and that's why an embryo is not equal to a baby. (my paraphrase - can't find his original words)

I don't know "when life begins" or if that's even the question we should be asking. I just think society is better off when women are the ones allowed to make the decisions about what happens inside their bodies. I also have no objections to reasonable, minimal restrictions such as no third-trimester abortions except under extenuating circumstances.

There was nothing remarkable in Chelsea Clinton's wording. The anti-choicers who are trying to make something of it are crackpots.

[loyalsister]

25. That's a good question

I concede that biological "life" begins at conception. The question to me is whether a woman should be required to make a biological and financial investment in a zygote. I say most definitely not.

[redqueen]

31. A woman can call her fetus a 'baby' if she wants, but it's still a fetus.

'Baby' isn't a scientific term with an exact meaning. However notice that when a woman is pregnant, no one says she has a baby, instead we say she's having a baby - eventually - i.e. once it is born, it is a baby.

If we go by the dictionary it is even less unclear.

This really isn't complicated.

[Crunchy Frog]

33. When I had my ultrasounds with my twins, the U/S screen

said "Baby A" and "Baby B". So it's not unheard of for the word "baby" to be used in a more formal medical setting.

Just adding my personal experience to the discussion.

[redqueen]

34. That is sad.

Have to appeal to the clients. Whom I suppose they assume hate science and would be hostile to scientific terms, because pro life.

[Crunchy Frog]

36. Well, most of them were done in a fertility clinic

so I think they could presume that most of the "babies" would be wanted.

I'm sorry that it makes you sad. It really didn't bother me, and I certainly don't hate science.

[redqueen]

37. I'm in Texas, where idiots have helped misogynists shut down many abortion providers.

Many if not most or even all of those idiots insist on using the term 'baby' instead of fetus, because it helps with their dipshit demagoguery.

I have less than no patiece for such fuckery.

[Crunchy Frog]

38. I'm sorry to hear you're in Texas. You have my sympathy.

[redqueen]

40. TRAP laws aren't only an issue in Texas. Missouri has it even worse.

I'm sorry to hear that the fertility clinic in your area is ok with dumbing down terms for their clients, wherever they may be.

[Crunchy Frog]

42. It was also done by a perinatal clinic that did my quad screen.

I've just been going back and looking at the old pictures. Can't recall if it was done at the OB clinic. Don't have those pics immediately available.

I was quite happy with the fertility clinic. It's one of the top ones in the world, and they certainly got the job done. All things considered, I could really care less what they have on their U/S screens.

It was in Colorado, and I think we're pretty solid on choice there, though we do have those idiots trying to push the "personhood" legislation. They haven't gotten anywhere with it, though, and the fertility clinics are not sympathetic, as it would basically put them out of business.

[redqueen]

44. Maybe that's why they aren't bothered by using incorrect terms.

They're in a state where their choice isn't threatened by people who buy into such propaganda.

[loyalsister]

47. MO could well be the anti-choice capitol of the country

A bill to require both parents to be notified if a minor seeks an abortion was approved by the Missouri House after a Democratic lawmaker withdrew an amendment for a “rape or incest” exemption.

Rep. Keith English, D-Florissant, who opposes abortion, said he put himself into the position of being affected by his amendment.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/missouri-house-endorses-second-parent-notification-for-minors-seeking-an/article_3f3c3d7e-29b9-5720-879b-a5090da1e9c0.html

Withdrawing a rape or incest exemption so a bill can pass because he might be affected by it?? Is this male entitlement and good old boys protecting themselves? I accept that that wasn't necessarily what he meant in that quote, but it is still one of the creepiest statements I have ever heard in that context.

What they ignored (or maybe not) is that the father would have power to force an abortion. The father has to be a convicted of a sex offense or domestic violence before there would be an exemption from notifying him.

[loyalsister]

39. That's a really good point

We shouldn't forget that people begin to bond with the fetus before it is born. They enjoy feeling them move and even talk to them. They want to know the sex so that they can plan accordingly. When someone can hardly wait to hold it and picture themselves doing it. That warmth that the term baby conveys in that situation probably has some benefit.

[loyalsister]

35. That's kind of my point

Obviously the most common usage is for infants and I hear it with toddlers sometimes, too. We refer to adults and even inanimate objects as babies. It's used as a term of endearment.

Human fetus is a term which has meaning we can all agree on. Baby, on the other hand, is one of the many words for which no true meaning is available. It's very easy to get into arguments about it.

It does require some imagination to consider a fetus a baby. But, I have heard people describe "young" insects as babies.

The more "baby" is used in reference to a developing fetus, reinforces a belief that pro-choicers are evil they would kill a baby. On the other hand it's hard to deny that "fetus" sounds a little cold because it is a concrete scientific term generally only used in clinical settings. To be exact, it would be a homo sapien fetus.

I suppose a person could make a case that it is cold language that ignores our tremendous superior abilities. We can walk upright and handle things easily with our hands. We can build weapons, effectively use language to mislead and manipulate people.....

Of course, few people stop and think about how misused our abilities are. Those of us who object to acts of war might call them "inhumane."

[redqueen]

41. It is not noteworthy that young animals and insects are also called 'babies'.

That fits the dictionary definition.

What doesnt fit - fetus.

Precise language isn't 'cold'. Demagoguery has conditioned people to see this one scientific term as such via unreleting propaganda campaigns.

I will not cede one inch. A baby is not a fetus.

[loyalsister]

43. It also refers to a C battery

My intention was that clinical language sounds and feels cold to many people. There are a lot of people who feel like doctors don't show compassion when they use clinical language. They use the word pain rather than "unpleasant sensory experience."

[redqueen]

46. 'Unpleasant sensory experience' is not the scientific term for pain.

'Pain' is the accurate term. Scientists measure pain.

The reason people don't like the term 'fetus' is because of this propaganda campaign, waged against the rights of women for decades now.

I will not pretend there is any other reason to refer to a fetus as a 'baby'.

[Crunchy Frog]

45. Most interesting usage I ever saw:

It was on one of those late night programs, I'm thinking Jay Leno. He had the oldest surviving pair of identical twins on, a pair of 97 year old men. They said that their older sister still referred to them as "the babies".

On another note. If you frequent parenting message boards with lots of pregnant women on them, they almost always refer to the entities inside their uteri as "babies" rather than the scientifically more accurate terms. I mostly used the term "babies" for mine too, pretty much from the time they were transferred into my uterus as 8 celled embryos. I wasn't trying to be poltically incorrect, it's just how the human psyche works (at least in many, if not all, cases).

My sons are five now, and some people still ask me how my "babies" are doing.

[REP]

32. "Having a baby" "Expecting a baby" are colloquial English for a future event

"I am pregnant and will be having a baby" and "I am expecting to give birth to a baby in 9 months" don't trip off the tongue as easily, and "I'm having a baby!" and "I'm expecting" get the point across despite being grammatically dicey.