pug846

L. Noctivagans said:

Not to speak for Monkeybot, especially since last time I saw a monkey, it threw its feces at the person standing next to me, but your rebuttal seems to take the form of “nu-huh.”

Why should we grant the rights to something because it has the potential to become something else that unquestionably has those rights?

This argument taken to it’s logical conclusion would require rights to be granted to the embryo at the moment of conception. Is that your position? If not, why not?

Second, I’m a law student. In a couple of years, I will become a lawyer. Shall I be granted all the same rights as a lawyer? My cousin is 12. She has the potential to become an 18 year old. She should have the rights of an 18 year old? A 21 year old? Should my 12 year old cousin be given the same rights as a 21 year old? If not, why not?

And Jagged, as a formerly abused child, you're a fucking moron.

L. Noctivagans

pug:
The word "potential" is loaded. Perhaps we should be using the word "nearly inevitable".

My position is, tentatively, once the embryo has implanted in the uterus wall, it's a unique enough individual with enough of a "potential" to make it to childhood to warrent it getting protection.

Particularly since a zygote isn't like a tapeworm; you don't just go swimming and wake up the next morning with the sucker in your intestine. With the exception of rape and incest, you have to willingly and consentually engage in a pre-meditated act to risk getting pregnant. Thus, you should be responsible for your own actions. Even if that responsibility is just carrying it to term and filling out the adoption paperwork.

That's not a bad argument. Took me a bit of thinking to come up with a rebuttal, and it's still kind of shaky. Hey, it's 4am, what do ya want from me?
Anyway. The rights you're referring to are 'granted' rights (and the USA seems to have a strange fetish for arbitrary numbers in granting such rights). However, "life" is one of the inalienable rights. Everyone, regardless of age or profession, has three big rights: Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happieness. The language of the document that hints at those rights implies that they exist from the moment a someone is 'created' (with the use of the word "creator" as a reference to where they come from). I'd like to define 'created' differently than 'born'; 'created' should mean when the living thing in question attains genetic uniqueness and a shot at being born, ie conception/implantation.

Yeah, I know, it's shaky. But my base point is "life" should not be considered a right someone gives you when you attain certain criteria. Life should be a right given to every unique individual, whether they're born yet or not.

<note: Please don't use the language in the above sentence to bring up the topic of human cloning. I don't know enough to argue anything on that front, and while you'd win, it'd be a cheesy win and I'd pout.>

Monkeybot

And I think you're arbitrarily attributing significance to it.

Why should I stop my life, gain a zillion pounds, endanger my health (yes, pregnancy and childbirth can STILL be dangerous, even in this day and age), then raise a child for the next eighteen years (or go through the emotional pain of giving it up for adoption) ... just because this tiny little blob has the "potential" to become a human being? In other words, why does the potentialness of this fetus outweigh MY right to control my fertility, and to prevent unnecessary medical risks to my person?

Also, I'd like to ask about contraception - many birth control pills DO cause what you would consider an "abortion" -- they prevent a fertilized egg from sticking to the uterine wall. Are you against this too? Does this fall under your idea of "responsible" or "irresponsible"?

Would have become. Not is.

I think we're coming at this from very different angles - I just don't see why every egg ever fertilized HAS to be brought to term. This is not a given in my world. I think you should make a more convincing case for why "potentialness" should count so much (and why it should count more than a person's right to control his or her fertility). As it is, it just seems like you take for granted that "potentialness" automatically confers rights upon the fetus, when many of us have considered that angle and rejected it.

L. Noctivagans

Once again, this tiny little blob is not like a tapeworm. It doesn't just spontaneously appear in your uterus. If you don't want to stop your life, gain a zillion pounds, and endanger your health...DON'T GET PREGNANT. It's really not that hard. If you're on the pill and he's got a condom, you're pretty much in the clear. Hell, if you're just on the pill, you're pretty much in the clear.

Take some personal responsibility here, people. You just created a being with its own individual set of genetic code that in the next nine months, unless you chop it into pieces and suck it out with a hoover, will grow its own organs and its own brain and have thoughts and be sentient. If it's not already (brain activity starts at 40-43 days, reference posted in that other thread on abortion, I'm too tired to look it up again).

YOUR lack of foresight should not be a capital crime, punishable by death, for the kid growing in your uterus. "Oh, I fucked up, let's kill an innocent individual and not have to face the easily forseeable consequences of my actions." 9 months, then fill out adoption paperwork. How hard is that really? Hell, I'd prefer you have the kid, then abandon it in the wildnerness to die than abort it. At least then the kid has a teensy chance of being raised by wolves and living a fulfilling life.

Ya know, I'm pretty sure my most recent post said that implantation was a requirement.

Disgusting. Let's forget that this cluster of cells (which we're going to sentence to death because it started dividing without my written permission) will, if we let it divide long enough, be a baby. Let's not think about that. Right now, it's just a vaguely-human-looking cluster of cells. Killing it is perfectly acceptable.

While we're at it, a baby isn't sentient yet. It will become sentient, but let's forget that and say it's ok to strangle/drown a baby too. Since it's not sentient yet.

We don't ever have to think about what we're doing to someone's future. Oh, no, the present is all that really matters. Which is probably the same goddamn thought process that got you pregnant in the first place.

This shit doesn't happen spontaneously, people! Personal responsibility! You're responsible for the kid getting a shot at a fulfilling existence! If you shirked any other responsibility by KILLING the person to whom you owed that responsibility, it'd be morally abhorrent. "Family Planning" means actually PLANNING, not "Oh, shit! I didn't want a baby! Get it out! Get it out!"

pug846

L. Noctivagans said:

I assumed you meant something along those lines, but I didn’t want to argue against a position you hadn’t explicitly adopted.

You still run into the same problems. Nearly inevitable of course means the percent chance that the birth happens is incredibly great. 2 problems.

One, during the early stages of a pregnancy, especially if you want to consider “unique genetic material” as the barrier point for granting rights, then the “nearly inevitable” line is fairly low. I don’t have the numbers offhand, but there are a large number of “natural” abortions that take place that most women never know about. I want to say close to a third end in a natural abortion, but I don’t have the numbers in front of me. Assuming the number is around there somewhere, you’ve de facto set the bar incredibly low for the definition of “nearly inevitable.” More damning to your case, you haven’t avoided the child example. I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I would be willing to bet a white, 12 year old, upper middle class female in America, has a better chance of surviving to 21 than a zygote has of becoming a child, even after you subtract out the chances of it being artificially aborted. Shall we start allowing them to drive now?

Second, what percent chance allows “nearly inevitable” to work? It seems whatever percentage you pick is self-serving. 99%? 90%? 75%? In general, one of the reasons the pro-life position is so attractive is that it tries to avoid the mushy middle, but not allowing for an “arbitrary line” to be drawn where a person is formed. But your percentage is just as arbitrary. Certainly in 500 years ago the odds were much lower than they were today. Does that mean abortion was acceptable back then?

All rights are “granted.”

The constitution grants those rights; rights don’t just exist magically out there. They’re human constructs. If you don’t agree with that statement, I’d rather we not hash that out here since your argument fails for other reasons anyway.

Second, we are withholding my cousins “liberty” by not allowing her to drive. The government is allowed to take away any of those rights as long as they provide due process of law. Shall my 12 year old cousin now be able to drive because we’ve taken away some of her liberty, not allowing her to drive which anyway you slice it is restricting the behavior of someone, i.e., their liberty, because she is a potential 21 year old?

And I think you realize this, but to draw a happy bright line around these three rights is completely arbitrary.

Of course you do; this is the position we’ve been arguing. But you are simply asserting your case here again. You aren’t making a new case. Many pro-choice people, including myself, believe we should bestow the “Right to Life” on someone until they’ve reached certain criterion. In reality, so do you: you think something deserves protection when it has unique DNA. I simply don’t think what makes us human is differing DNA strands. I think things like brain activity, etc. are much better markers. When someone’s brain shows no activity, I don’t believe they are still something worthy of protection because they still happen to have their own unique DNA code. (Ignoring for the moment the fact that twins have the same DNA.)

It does seem that you are being inconsistent with when you believe life begins. Could you please clarify since you’ve taken different positions depending on what the argument calls for?

Monkeybot

Tell that to a rape victim, my friend.

No, you're really not in the clear. Some medications interact with birth control pills and cause them to lose effectiveness. Some brands of birth control cause unbearable side effects in women. (I myself have experienced debilitating depression and nausea as a result of one brand -- and there are numerous others as well, such as weight gain, high blood pressure, and even stroke.) Condoms can wear and tear in transit. They can also be damaged by various lubricants. Even vasectomies have been known to fail. I'm sorry, it's not as cut-and-dried as you'd like it to be.

But even if you are right, even if all unwanted pregnancies are the result of "irresponsibility" (a claim I think is grossly inaccurate and insulting), it's a red herring. Parental responsibility has nothing to do with what the rights of the fetus may or may not be. If abortion is wrong based merely on how careless the parents were, then clearly it is not wrong in all circumstances (such as rape). If it is not wrong in all circumstances the fetus has no intrinsic rights. After all, if the fetus were deserving of full human rights, and HAD to be brought to term no matter what, it would be so in every circumstance, including rape, correct?

This to me indicates that parental responsibility is irrelevant to the question of what rights the fetus has. Yes, people should be responsible, I think we can all agree to that. But it does not follow that a mother should be punished for what you deem "irresponsibility" by being forced to carry a child to term. In other words, let's divorce the idea of fetal rights from your invective about personal responsibility.

This leaves us with discussing the intrinsic rights of the fetus itself. What you need to do is show that "potentialness" equals "human" and is deserving of the same rights. I simply do not think the case has been made for this, either by you or by other pro-lifers.

I'm sorry, I'm trying to reconcile this statement with...

What difference does implantation make? It is still has a "unique genetic code" BEFORE it implants. If it implants, which it "inevitably" will, it will "inevitably" become a human being, barring spontaneous abortion or miscarriage or whatever. Isn't this distinction just as arbitrary as the distinction between day 270 and day 275?

Why?

Ignoring your totally emotive language, I don't have a problem with this. I do not attach the same significance as you to the "potentialness" of a cluster of cells.

Caring for a baby is not invasive and medically dangerous the same way carrying a fetus to term is.

I'm sorry, all I can say to that last bit of invective is . You clearly have not been in the position of using birth control only to have it fail, or of being taken advantage of while drunk/drugged, or of being raped in other ways. It seems very easy for you to self-righteously condemn all women who seek abortion as "irresponsible," but this contributes little to the actual discussion at hand, other than to insult and degrade women who have had to make very difficult choices in their lives. You also seem to ignore that point -- that abortion is usually NOT a decision that is easily made, it is an emotionally trying experience and usually does not come lightly. So please. Stop acting as if most women don't put serious thought into the decision to have an abortion. It only belittles those who have gone through this experience and makes you look arrogant and simpleminded.

L. Noctivagans

Pug:
You realize that it while it might only have a 60% chance of developing, hell, even if you only give it a 10% chance, that's a 10% better chance than aborting it. And what happens if it's not one of those 10%? It dies anyway. So either 100% die, or 90% die and 10% live. Which is better?

Perhaps your analogy would work better you replace the word "drive" with the word "exist". Driving is trivial. Existence really isn't.

Whatever the natural odds are, the odds of surviving an abortion are *0*.

So without the Constitution, murder is ok? Rape is acceptable? Theft is hunky-dory? Torture and mutilation of a live human is a-ok? I don't know if I can argue against that. It's more nihilistic than even my worst days.

Great. So what due process is the fetus getting? And since when is a mother count as 'the government'? If I deprived you of your right to life without your consent, people'd get pretty pissed.

How about saying, right now, that she'll NEVER be allowed to drive, even at 30. Because it's just potential, and as long as it's just potential it's acceptable to take that right away PERMANENTLY at any time.

I don't know how to defend "Life is a desireable condition to be fostered" as a position because it just seems to self-evident. Life is good. Right? Killing is bad. Right? I don't understand how to defend that. It boggles my mind that someone would attempt to tear it down in the first place.

Again, my mind is boggled. If a Right to Life can be granted or withheld based on arbitrary criteria, isn't that a slippery slope? Couldn't someone say, with just as much authority as you, that illegal immigrants don't have this Right to Life? Or that non-Christians don't have it? Or people under the age of 7?

~~~
Monkeybot:
I keep forgetting which thread I posted which argument in. Is it the other one where I said I don't know enough about rape and/or incest to form a position? I know I mentioned rape and incest in BOTH threads, I just don't remember what the context was in this one. It'd be much easier to debate this if everyone just stuck to a single thread.

How about "not having sex"? Does that work? Ooh, horror of horrors, I'm advocating that you not engage in potentially risky behavior that's fun! Nevermind, you should ALWAYS be permitted to have fun, even if you're risking multiple lives in the process. Now grab that bottle of vodka and jump on your motorcycle.

It's really NOT THAT HARD to not get pregnant. If you're that worried about it, if the statistics are really that bad, how about you keep your pants on instead? Is that so tough?

Why? You created the sucker, now you take care of it.

If you want to do the deed, you should be prepared to face the consequences. If you're not, hows about we don't do the deed? Or would that be restricting your right to engage in potentially-lethal irresponsible behavior? Or maybe it just requires self-discipline. Either way, it's an eeeeeevil suggestion. Sex is apparently a more protected right than life.

So the innocent child should be punished instead?

THIS is what's disgusting. The willingness of people to permanently sacrifice the future (and someone else's future to boot) for a bit of temporary convienience in the present.

My 401K plan is *potentially* my retirement money. But since it's not yet, I'll go ahead and raid it and spend it on a new TV. But that's not irresponsible, it's my *choice*.

The chance of it being a human later rises from "maybe" to "inevitable" with implantation. Lots and lots and lots of teensy factors can keep the egg from implanting. Once implanted, the list of things that keeps it from growing gets considerably shorter.

So I'll say it again:
You just created a being with its own individual set of genetic code that in the next nine months, unless you chop it into pieces and suck it out with a hoover, will grow its own organs and its own brain and have thoughts and be sentient. If it's not already (brain activity starts at 40-43 days, reference posted in that other thread on abortion, I'm too tired to look it up again).

Try to think about it without 'reconciling' it with something mostly unrelated.

At one time, YOU were just a 'cluster of cells'. I'll bet you're really happy your parents didn't think like you do and got significantly attached to the cluster of cells.

So? What does that have to do with whether or not it's ok to kill it? It's not anymore sentient than a fetus is. And it's just as much of a hassle to take care of. So is it ok to kill it?

It apparently comes more lightly than the decision not to have sex, since, worldwide, it's the most common form of birth control.

We don't ever have to think about what we're doing to someone's future. Oh, no, the present is all that really matters. Which is probably the same goddamn thought process that got you pregnant in the first place.

pug846

L. Noctivagans said:

I thought we were making progress, but you’ve completely skirted the issue now. We are dealing strictly with the “potential” argument here. We are trying to decide if we should grant a fetus (embryo, etc.) the same rights that we would grant a one day old child simply because it will “inevitably” become a one day old child. If it only has a 10% chance of developing, then you’ve lost your “potential” argument, yes? Do you concede that the potential argument is a poor one?

No, it isn’t trivial. I was simply using YOUR argument that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness [are] inalienable rights.” You seemed to want to add special significance to these rights and “driving,” as I previously mentioned, deals with “liberty.”

Again, you are simply moving the goal posts here. You made an argument. I’ve refuted it.

You started by saying, and I’ll paraphrase: X should have the same rights as a one day old child because it will inevitable develop into a one day old child.

I retorted by showing you that it isn’t so inevitable, but even if we were to assume it was inevitable, accepting this argument would dramatically alter the way we currently grant rights.

You’ve now countered with something that is totally irrelevant to the argument here. Do you concede here that you’ve failed to support your “inevitable” language?

Actually, since murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, then without a legal document, then it wouldn’t be illegal to kill someone.

If you want to argue that rights come from something other than human agreement, which of course doesn’t mean they have to only be granted by the US constitution to be valid anywhere, please start another thread. But no, I don’t believe rights come from anywhere but human agreement. If you want to respond to this point, please take it elsewhere as I would rather not derail this thread.

The fetus is getting the same due process rights as anything else that is in the same situation.

I believe at the early stages, a fetus (or embryo) doesn’t deserve any more rights than any animal; I don’t believe it is a person and should be granted rights.

But again, you are completely ignoring the point. I’ve simply used the exact phraseology that you’ve (implicitly) used. X ought to be granted the same rights as Y if X will inevitably become Y. You are begging the question when you say “it’s acceptable to take that right away permanently at any time.” I’m not taking the right away, but never granting it in the first place. I’m not taking away my cousins “right to drive,” because I don’t believe she can qualify for that right until she is 16 years old.

No, I don’t accept that “life is good,” without some sort of qualification. I think protecting the rights of persons is “good,” but we simply don’t agree on what makes a person a person. Do you believe it is okay to kill cows for food? If not, why not? Life is good, right? Killing is bad, right? Assuming you don’t care, you don’t care if cows are killed because they aren’t persons worthy of protection. I don’t believe early term fetus’s and embryos are persons and therefore aren’t entitled to the same protection as humans.

Our disagreement isn’t on the value of the life of a person or whether or not killing people is “good.” Or disagreement is when a thing can be labeled a person. You seem to be confusing my position.

But you continually ignore that you have your own criterion: unique DNA. You are acting like the pro-choice side has criterion and the pro-life side doesn’t, but that’s clearly ridiculous. Of course there has to be criterion otherwise to call something a person would be utterly meaningless. If a child points to a rock and says, that’s a person. You would correct them. You would have to lay out some sort of criterion so you could tell rocks apart from people.

The real argument should be what makes a person a person. You seem to think what’s important is a unique genetic code, which I think is incredibly arbitrary. I believe things like a higher level consciousness is much more relevant to what is deserving of rights. If we were to come across an alien specie in outer space, in deciding how to treat those aliens, I would look for signs of a higher consciousness in order to determine whether we would be justified in using the aliens as merely means to our ends or whether I would be in favor of granting them rights. I think THAT is what makes us human and when I say the word person, that is what I mean.

When someone dies, how do we know? Do we take a blood sample to determine if they still have unique DNA or do we check things like heart rate and (more importantly) for higher level brain waves?

Monkeybot

But you see, rape IS extremely relevant here. Where is your moral outrage for the rape victims who kill THEIR clusters of cells? Why aren't you lambasting them?

Either the fetus has intrinsic rights in both situations or it has them in neither. If you are truly so outraged at the termination of a potential life, that should extend to potential life that was not created by choice. The fact that you are willing to cave (or at least modify your views) in the situation of rape suggests the issue of fetal rights is not as cut-and-dried as you seem to think.

Oh please. Either a couple is diligently trying to create a child or they're a bunch of drunk motorcycle-ridin' hedonists who fuck as if there's no tomorrow? Fallacy of the Excluded Middle, anyone?

Now wait a minute. Before you told me that "It's really not that hard. If you're on the pill and he's got a condom, you're pretty much in the clear. Hell, if you're just on the pill, you're pretty much in the clear." This implied that you think birth control + condom = responsible sex. Now, apparently, NO sex is responsible unless the couple is expecting to conceive a child.

This is called shifting the goalpoasts.

Furthermore, the fact that you are changing your own views on what constitutes "responsible" sex suggests that maybe it isn't so black and white to begin with.

Um... because preganancy should not be used as a punitive device?

Anyway, you missed the point - what I am asking is, are you claiming that a fetus' rights depend on the manner in which it was conceived?

Ah. My mistake. I thought you didn't view pregnancy as punitive. I see I was wrong.

Do you see anything inherently unfair in your implicit claim that women ALONE should be punished for what it took two people to create? Why aren't you calling for an equally dangerous medical procedure for men, to scare the love o' Jesus into them?

First of all, that's totally unrealistic.

Second of all, you're making a big assumption -- that bringing the child to term is the only way to face the consequences. I for one view abortion as a perfectly acceptable way of taking responsibility for one's initial poor choices.

Nice emotive language. Someone already called you on the use of your word "child" -- it is inaccurate, as the fetus is not yet a "child," and your use of the word "innocent" is totally disingenuous - I might as well describe "innocent strands of wheat" that get mushed up and turned into bread, or "innocent trees" that get cut down to make paper. Arbitrarily conferring the status of "innocent" on something does not automatically give it rights.

Total non sequitur.

Well... yes it is. Actually, I don't have a problem with you spending your own money however you see fit. It isn't my job to play judge and heap scorn and condescension upon you for your financial choices, however stupid and reckless they may be. Sure, I may have my opinions on your choices, but to actually reach into your life and rob you of the power to make your own decisions???? Now THAT would be wrong.

You're not addressing my point - whatever happened to "unique genetic material" being a factor in the morality of abortion?

Is the only deciding factor now the likelihood of fetal survival?

Actually, I would be open to arguing trimesters -- I wouldn't have a problem compromising on, say, no abortions during the third trimester except in cases of threat to the mother's health (which many late-term abortions are anyway).

I'm sorry, was I trying to reconcile it with your other (apparently unrelated?) arguments about personal responsibility?

I don't know if I would have been capable of caring at the time, and if my mother had aborted me, I certainly wouldn't be around to care about it now.

Let me get this straight.

If you have (what L. Noctivagans defines to be) irresponsible sex, that has everything to do with 'whether or not it's ok to kill it.'

But issues of medical danger, and physical damage, to the mother are NOT relevant???

You're not taking all circumstances into account.

If I wanted to get rid of a baby, I could easily give it up for adoption, or, as you suggest, abandon it in the wilderness.

If I want to get rid of the fetus, I have only one choice: abortion. It's not possible, on a practical level anyway, to have it surgically removed and placed in an incubator to gestate. At the moment there is simply no way to get rid of a fetus and have it live (unless, again, you are talking very late-term here).

In other words -- there are many ways to get rid of a baby other than killing it. There are NO other options with a fetus. This is a false comparison.

Stats?

Sometimes, abortion is simply the most available form of birth control. I can't speak for every country in the world, but for example in Japan, birth control pills used to be ILLEGAL.

As I said before -- fallacy of the excluded middle. Not to mention an extreme charicature. Tell me, are you against ALL sex that isn't intended for procreation, or is it only the people who are unlucky enough to get pregnant that earn your wrath? Please, get back to me when you're ready to acknowledge that even responsible people make mistakes.

Garbles18

The topic of this thread is whether or not abortion is moral. In one of your responses to that OP, you said:

I responded with:

Once we agree on whether or not a fetus would be conscious of the fact that they are alive, then we can move on to the ramifications of that point on whether or not abortion is moral.

The reason I told you to stay on topic is because you continue to accuse me of believing that if X is true, then a fetus, two year old, or me should die.

Example:

At no point did I imply that it was okay to kill someone without brain functions. This is the reason you were told to stay on topic.

If you feel that this topic is too distracting from the OP, then we can move it.

As to the rest of your post:

You say that we don't know, but you want me to believe that having brain waves equals being conscious of the fact that you are alive despite the fact that you have no evidence of that. According to your logic, every living being on this planet might be conscious of the fact that they are alive just because their nervous systems have the ability to process information.

It's simple. Show some evidence that a fetus has the brain power to know that they are alive even though they lack the brain power to do a multitude of other things.

I am claiming that a fetus does not know it is alive based on the fact that I was once a fetus and I did not know I was alive until sometime after birth. I also base my claim on the experiences of people I have discussed this topic with. My claim is not extraordinary because it is based on ordinary experiences. If I told you that I went to the store yesterday, is that so hard to imagine? No. But I say I didn't know I was alive when I was a fetus and now I have to prove it? That doesn't make any sense.

Why should I have to disprove every extraordinary claim people make? There is no evidence that leprechauns are real, just as you have no evidence that fetuses are sentient.

You may view my anecdotal evidence as poor, but it's better than the zero amount of evidence you offer. If you don't like my claim, why don't you ask other people. How many people do you know that knew they were alive when they were a fetus?

Seriously, this is just bad debate tactics here. I never said that life begins at two years old. Don't put words in my mouth.

If you are being serious, then I would ask if you knew you were alive since that was the point I was trying to refute. If you are not serious, offering claims you KNOW not to be true does not help us to arrive at an honest solution. Is your goal in arguing with me to actually settle my claim, or just offer any number of erroneous ones and expect me to dispute them?

I don't agree. I have heard people claim that they had memories in the womb, but I have never heard anyone claim that they knew they were a living, breathing being while in the womb. Maybe there is someone out there that developed so fast in the womb that they were sentient before they were born. But that would certainly be a very, very small number of people on this planet. Richard Dawkins is supposed to be real smart. Why don't you ask him if he knew he was alive when he was a fetus?

Here you are putting words in my mouth again. Show me where I said that fetuses don't think or feel pain. I never moved the goalpost. My initial response to you was:

How do you get, don't think or feel pain, from this? Furthermore, the only evidence you offered was that fetuses have brain waves as early as 40-43 days after conception. You have not offered any evidence that having brain waves means you have the brain power to know you are alive.