Thread by @AuthorViviana

No, because a fetus can't make choices. 'Existential' is the process of growth from dependency - to a liberated state. To have freedom and responsibility - which take a measure of self-awareness.

A mother is always existential, a fetus is dependent on HER existential choices.

https://twitter.com/j__kay/status/1127792014207008768

Furthermore, @j__kay those who try to protect fetuses don't do it to give them existential rights.

Allowing babies to be born who aren't wanted and can't be taken care of doesn't give them existential rights. It forces the fetus into a situation that harms them. It's abuse.

2/2 So pro-lifers both FORCE a fetus into a situation that a responsible adult has assessed is bad for it AND they take away the existential freedom of the mother. Who can make her own decisions.

They've imposed FORCE twice & removed two existential freedoms from the equation.

It's also an irrational assumption that a human being exists BEFORE it's born and thus you can kill it before you have given it life.

For example: who is a person?: the result of loving care, nurturance, bonding, and experiences. (or lack thereof) We are the RESULT of life. 1/3

That means "we" can't exist without first being born. So we aren't killed by NOT being born. Because there is nothing yet developed to kill.

Once we're born, we have a chance to BECOME something that can be killed. WAR is murder. 2/3

Abortion is merely prevention. Nobody is yet there to be murdered. An embryo is merely a potential.

Life is the only thing that creates a person. Not an unthinking, undeveloped biological force. The biology creates the POTENTIAL. But the actual human is created by life. 3/3

I know that humans exist because of life. They develop from a limited, dependent infant to a fully functioning personality.

"Soul" I do not know. There is no evidence it exists. So I can't protect a soul that I can't determine exists. I can only protect the 'person' I meet. 1/5

For someone to SIDE with the "undetermined" soul of the baby, and REJECT the fully determined person (the woman struggling to not be a mother) - that's asinine. And immoral. If there was a god, god would call that immoral. God doesn't give preference to potentiality vs actuality.

Even calling it a fetus is not correct. The embryo is usually the size of a pinkie nail in most abortions. It doesn't have more needs than the fully developed, living, struggling woman who is making that decision. SHE has needs. She deserves empathy and respect. 3/5

"We" don't exist. A developing body exists. There is an embryo that doesn't have ears. Or doesn't have lungs. Or doesn't have toes. And over time, that body grows INTO a developed opportunity to BECOME a human being. The human being isn't there. 4/5

The human being is a process of LIVING in this world. We "become" who we are when we're named, loved, when we get to express something, make choices, experiment. That's "who" we are. And it doesn't exist until the baby is born. Only toes grow in the womb. A person grows in life.

A person develops because a mother allows it to GROW IN HER BODY. No person exists without this mother's choice, active participation, & even the health is determined by her. If she doesn't have an abortion but smokes, the baby is f-ed. It's SHE who determines the baby's future.

Once the baby is born it won't develop correctly unless it's held, fed, given warmth, given safety, & bonded with. If a baby is born but dumped in a dumpster, it becomes no one. Without her love, it can become a danger to other humans. She has a FUNDAMENTAL role in giving life.

You can't force a mother to give life. She can give birth, but that child won't develop correctly or happily without the necessity of her role. Someone has to fill it. IMO the person who forced her NOT to get an abortion would be responsible to love that child and GIVE it life.

You don't have life just because you're born. You have life because you're RAISED by someone. You won't survive a single DAY if no one feeds you and takes care of you. So you don't get the right to life automatically by being born. Someone still has to GIVE YOU that gift.

You're not created by being an embryo. At the time of being an embryo you're the creation of an unthinking, random biological process. The sperm that HAPPENED to meet the embryo is not yet YOU. And it will not become you until and unless your mother GIVES you life after the womb.

Your mother didn't have to give you life. She chose to. You are a creation of her CHOICE. You owe everything to the fact that women have choice. That a woman chooses or chooses NOT to give life rests on her free will. Abortion preserves CHOICE and CHOICE is future life.

Forcing a baby to be born is a disservice. It's not helping give that soul a happy life. Just "damning" the soul an alternate way.

UNLESS the pro-life person says, I want to take this baby and give it a good home. Pro-lifers being adopters would make perfect sense.

A Catholic side note: why would an omniscient God send a baby to limbo by giving a soul to someone he knows already will have an abortion, effectively damning that soul? Isn't the God who sends a soul to a woman he KNEW didn't want it just as responsible for damning it?

Why would it be a surprise to God? Or even a test? Wouldn't he anticipate the future & know the result? Everything in her future will be different bc she has an abortion. Isn't the future WITHOUT a baby already set up by God who already anticipated that she wouldn't have it?

Or alternately, if God sends a soul into a potential life, and the soul isn't born (from being still-born, aborted, or miscarriage) why would limbo be in effect? Wouldn't there be a contingency plan? God takes the soul back & compassionately sends it to a new potential host?

In reincarnation, abortion would be like saying to God: I can't give this soul a good home, send it to a family who CAN take care of it. Which would be controversially responsible.

God waits for your acquiescence. And if you don't provide it, sends that soul somewhere else.