Pro-choice people, when do the unborn become people and have rights?

Question

I'm truly curious as to your thoughts, I'm not trying to argue or condemn. We see in court cases, that people who kill pregnant women are sometimes charged with two counts of homicide, one for the woman and one for the unborn. So when does an embryo/fetus become a person? I've never understood why a "woman's right to choose" can trump the rights of the person whose life depends on her choice. Again, I'm just trying to understand, not offend.

Answer 1

when they come out the vag

Answer 2

I believe that when its heart starts beating it becomes human, so about 5 weeks...

Answer 3

When they turn 21...

18 in Texas.

Answer 4

i agree nobody has the right to choose whether or not they get to kill a baby

Answer 5

When it can survive on its own outside of the womb.

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EDIT to your follow-up:  Most abortions are performed prior to twelve weeks. Most fetuses under 24 weeks cannot survive on their own. There is no definitive line of delineation, however most medical experience shows that it is rare for a baby to survive who is less than 22 weeks or weighs less than 500 gm. Even fetuses between 26 and 28 weeks will have difficulty surviving because of differentiation in central nervous systems and respiratory systems.

However, I would question whether a 22 week old fetus being delivered and then hooked up to a multitude of machinery, pumped full of life-giving aide, is actually viable. It cannot survive on its own (the key here) outside of the womb. Technology is forcing it to live and performing all of the functions it cannot.

Answer 6

A 25 week fetus is already in the third trimester and cannot be aborted, except to save the mother's life.

I think abortion law is just about perfect, just the way it is.  After all, people have been arguing about this issue for thousands of years.  We've reached a practical compromise that balances the real issues.

Since Christians cannot substantiate the existence of either immortal souls or their imaginary God, they certainly have no right to force the rest of us to live by their rules.  America is a secular democracy and it is our system of laws, not superstitious religion which decides these issues.  The human species has already had one Enlightenment, when it became necessary to evict superstitious religion from our civil government.  The days of unsubstantiated superstition having a presummed right to manipulate our lives are over.  Since believers cannot provide even one shred of reasonable evidence that their God actually exists, they certainly have no right to inflict their superstitious beliefs on the rest of us.  Again, it is law, not superstitious religion, which determines the rights of all Americans.  Christians enjoy a perfect right to practice their own beliefs as they wish.  What Christians do NOT have is the right to force non-Christian Americans to live according to their ancient unsubstantiated superstitions.

Answer 7

You say you aren't looking to argue or condemn, but you are.  Having an abortion at 25 weeks IS murder and no doctor will do it which is common knowlege so if you're not looking for an argument, why throw that in?  

If a fetus can live outside the womb then it is a baby.  Most abortions are performed under 12 weeks and some won't even do it at that stage in which case it can't under any circumstance survive outside the mother's body.  

For the most part the people wanting to outlaw abortion want it done for religious reasons.  In this country we have a separation of church and state which means while to someone in a church this is a baby with a soul, to another person it is just a clump of cells.