Good rational take on the issue. I'm wondering of some of those who argue that life and personhood begin at conception would be persuaded by the ancient Hebrew law, which held that life begins at "quickening," or about 20 weeks, but legal personhood does not begin until birth. I see this supreme court leak as a deliberate attempt to polarize the population and herd straying liberals back into the fold for the midterms.
As a morally repugnant response to your query: in Canada, there is no controlling law regarding abortion. Zero. Zip. Our Supreme Court struck down our abortion law as unconstitutional in 1988 and Parliament failed in its one attempt to pass a new law to replace it a year or two later (it deadlocked in the Senate).
As a consequence, a fetus has absolutely no status in Canadian law. It isn't recognized, it has no voice, no standing, nothing. Your scenario, where a 9-month pregnant woman is assaulted and the fetus dies? It results in exactly your outcome. Assault against the woman, probably aggravated assault, but the fetus is a legal nullity. No charge can be brought regarding its terrible fate.
From time to time, backbenchers in the Conservative party have attempted to introduce bills that would address this by allowing such a charge to be filed. At every attempt it is shouted down by the left as a dangerous and unacceptable intrusion upon a woman's sacrosanct right to abortion on demand. Conservative party leaders and hopefuls must, upon demand of the left and of the press, vow never to introduce legislation regarding abortion. If they do not they are savagely attacked by those same actors.
Canada is utterly unable to acknowledge that our legal stance on abortion makes us an extreme outlier in democratic societies. Such is life in the great progressive north.
As an interesting aside, when I.M. says "shouted down" I think he means literally. In our congressional hearings there is no "shouting". In Canada they shout at one another almost, or certainly raise their voice. Also, In Canada, apparently heckling from non-MP's is allowed, but the Speaker of the Parliament (is he or she called something different there?) acted almost like a referee and when the heckling got to loud they put a stop to it. I found watching Parliament interesting recently.
You're not wrong in that heckling is a fairly common occurrence in Westminster style parliamentary democracies, but in this case I was using it figuratively. Abortion is a third rail of Canadian politics, at least for the right. Any attempt to touch it leads to howls of outrage from our elites, our media, etc. that the right to an abortion is sacrosanct and how dare any Conservative propose a measure that might just be a stalking horse to taking away or even putting the slightest of limits upon that right.
Every Conservative leader has to go through the performance of vowing that he will not allow any legislation concerning abortion to be introduced were he to become prime minister. The language he uses must be unambiguously clear else he is accused of harboring a hidden agenda. Such is the Canadian left and Canadian culture, which is predominantly left. We almost make California look sane.
Our new Supreme Court "justice" cannot define a woman. If she, a woman, cannot define a woman, how can she define the legal status of the unborn?
In the states, it really doesn't matter what the people think. All that matters is pandering to the minority and advancing the progressive opinion. For example, there have been elections banning gay marriage that have been overturned. So really, the people have no say in any of this.
Finally, there are two states that are moving to essentailly make murder legal up to 28 days after birth. It is framed under "pregnancy complications." Not sure how you can have "pregnancy complications" after a child is born, but what do I know?
Your thought experiment is a bad approach because the underlying premise is that moral judgments and legal standards should be determined by subjective reactions rather than objective realities. Trying to define a person by considering our feelings about whether the baby is "alive enough" is part of how we got into this abortion morass in the first place. Yes, we should agree on a definition of a person, but not according to how we feel about babies in the womb. Objective, not subjective.
Courts have already routinely been deciding these issues. Roe may be in jeopardy, but there have always been pregnant women dying under different tragic circumstances.
indeed, and this provides something of a window into out societal mores, but, and this is a non-trivial but, the question of "is this a thing we should leave to courts to decide?" remains.
It was decided judicially because some people did not like unfavorable political outcomes. Others did not like that there were different political outcomes in different jurisdictions. Some people also figured that if the Court settled it, it would be settled for all time. How poorly they anticipated the near non-stop wrangling -- legal and extralegal -- that followed for nearly a half-century.
Never mind the extreme politicization of the courts. Not that that began with Roe, but Roe certainly cast a long shadow.
The courts are (or are supposed to be) deciding these cases based on statues in the case of criminal matters or prior decisions in that state in the case of tort claims. And btw that means these matters are often decided by jury.
I'm not sure how many state statutes speak to crimes involving babies in the womb, but what's your point? Should we revisit all those decisions to criticize them? Or to learn from them and see their consequences? And do you really think this is an area where, if we aren't legislating, we need to start doing so? Maybe, but maybe not.
it is true that many places in the US, if a pregnant woman and her unborn child die, there are TWO counts of manslaughter brought on the perpetrator. So IF our law can prosecute for that , doesn't it mean that they acknowledge that the baby is alive, and not just cells, but a living human being. If a baby has a heart beat it is a living being. I hope the courts will stop acting like this isn't true.
No one questions that the fetus is alive. That is not the point. And it is called a fetus, not a baby. Please don't use language in a deliberatively misleading way.
Ill call it as I see it, its a baby. It has a heartbeat, it can survive outside the womb long before 40 weeks gestation. You are trying to distract from the fact that a baby is a living thing. THAT is your issue, but I don't have to agree with you. Killing a living baby is murder, not sure how you can argue that point, but you are free to think what you want.
Using abortion as contraception is LAZY... again free country, you think as you wish, but thanks for playing.
No, what reversing Roe v Wade is doing is putting out back in the states hands. Why is that so hard for you to admit? Also wondering why you think it's OK to kill a baby???? It's a free country in that we all get to vote on how this all goes down. Killing babies is wrong, if you don't want to have this be an issue don't get pregnant, and assume you can use abortion as birth control. Stop whining and watch what happens. You don't even know if scotus will follow through. If you don't like that murder is wrong, that's your problem. you're free to go else where, take your pussy hat with you as you leave.
This is an excellent point. In the past the law has come down on the side of whether or not there is a positive expectation of a child. In other words, the fetus has status through the mother. You are right that this is a conversation we need to have so that we have codified in law whether the fetus itself has personhood separate from the expectations of the mother.
Well, the ancient Hebrews were distinguished from their neighbors, inter alia, by their refusal to leave unwanted children outdoors to die, or to sacrifice them to demons. So if they knew then what we do now about how babies develop, I expect they'd be revolted by abortion at any age.
In Judaism ensoulment is at 40 days and the fetus has no legal standing until it begins to emerge from the womb. Birth is the moment of legal personhood.
I always attributed the concept of "quickening" to Thomas Aquinas. I did not realize it was rooted in Hebraic law. I believe quickening refers to a mother's first awareness of the baby moving inside her. I don't know about anyone else, but I felt all of my kids moving inside by 14 weeks at the latest. Regardless, as I said in a comment below, I am a pro-life absolutist who can be credibly accused of invoking the precautionary principle, but I also realize we live in a fallen world. The real test is if both sides can even begin to find common ground (I thought we had achieved that in our rejection of partial-birth abortion, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer).
I believe your experience is one of the reasons most countries restrict abortions to the first 12 weeks. I think there are quite a number of pro-choice people who would be willing to have the conversation about survivability, which is of course possible earlier and earlier in a pregnancy. If pressed, most people I think would be forced to admit that no fetus should be aborted when it has a chance to survive outside the womb. That may be the way the country could come together to address this huge gulf between camps.
I don't know how common ground can be found when there seems to be total exclusion of honesty and integrity in the debate. I deed reasonable debate is disallowed. Anyone who attempts to apply reason is demonized. How can we find common ground with when we declare anyone who dares question as evil? Yet that is exactly what's happened.
We can't even phrase the debate on anything truthful. Even the activist, revisionist champion of all things good for women, justice Ginsberg, in her analysis of RvW made it clear it is not abut the rights of women, or even about abortion, but mostly about protecting doctors and empowering federal domination of states. Her analysis is fascinating and she notes that as a ruling RvW is very weak and an example of what the court should avoid. She also notes that if the loud mouth members of congress shouting about it REALLY cared about women's rights, the would propose and debate legislation to protect specific rights and has not. Few would categorize RBG as anti-female or conservative.
The other key point in RvW which fails scrutiny but is excluded from debate is that it declares the male involved in conception has no rights with respect to the conceived. This was a primary point of the original case as the father wished to assert some input into the decision. The court said "no". Don't dare raise this question today.
Ultimately the question - NOT answered by the court in RvW - is when the conceived becomes subject to rights and equal protection of the law. While once it was allowed to discuss this it is now blocked.
Even the premise of this controversy is dishonest. The "leaked decision" is being dishonestly characterized by all sides, and any factual recount is shouted down.
We can never have a constructive conversation until we realize that the two sides have completely different underlying assumptions about how the world works. Until we address those underlying assumptions we will always just be shouting unconvincing things at each other.
If we were to have an honest, sincere conversation, I think we'd find some common ground. At least with respect to law. I am not saying it would be an easy conversation. Not necessarily converge, but we might better understand each other.
But that conversation is not allowed. And I have come to realize that the current "crisis" over RvW is another purely fabricated crisis and the goal is deepening divides, to ignite hatred and fear, all with the purpose of "saving" the mid-term elections for the "blue wave" that seems so unlikely in the face of real economic hardship brought directly by the absurd energy and transportation policy changes, the logical consequences of COVID extremes, and the radical expansion of federal spending that is devaluing the currency. Much like the picture in 2019, the current conditions are causing even the faithful to question their loyalty to The Party, especially those who still value self sufficiency (which is a lot).
Abortion is a divisive, emotional topic. A perfect distraction. A perfect "game changer". Pay no attention to the man behind the current. Focus on the flames.
I realized that this "leak" is not random nor is the timing. The powder has been packed over the last year or two and this "leak" is the igniter setting off an explosion of division and hate. The NY legislature passing a law that seems (and is characterized by "their" media as such) to support post-term abortion (after birth). Predictably the reaction is polarizing and sometimes extreme. The powder is packed, RvW is the igniter and the "leak" closes the circuit. How dare TRUMP's court overrule the foundation of women's rights!
Non of this is about the decision itself. I wish folks (all of y'all) would read RBG's analysis and comments on RvW. While not my favorite justice of all time, in this analysis she raises a lot of interesting points and her conclusions are it is a bad decision, weak legally and not protective of women's rights.
For that matter I'd like folks to read the leaked document and Robert's statements. His explanation makes far more sense given his record. I doubt the court would have taken up a direct challenge to RvW under Roberts (who has always found a way to avoid that). Not until now, when they may be forced. While justice Thomas says he can not be intimidated or bullied, I am not so confident this is true of the court as a whole (or of Thomas when the safety of his family is threatened for real).
True, but that only gave them a picture of what a dead person or animal was like. Kind of hard to understand what the living creature was doing behind closed doors, so to speak.
Hebrew. The judaeo-Christian religion is a significant reason why the west has been a boon to humanity. Now weтАЩre at this moment...as an anti abortion absolutist, IтАЩd be very interested to see the textual basis for the тАШHebrew ruleтАЩ. ThereтАЩs lots in the OT about manslaughter vs murder, but I do not know how they would come up with that parameter from the OT.
Not all Hebraic law was based on scriptures. Much was based on tradition. (But there is a ritual abortion in the OT performed by a priest when a woman is suspected of being unfaithful to her husband, which is I think why abortion is legal in Israel today.) So I think there was precedent for the idea of "quickening" being the beginning of "life" at that point. And there certainly was a system whereby legal personhood was determined--that is, the woman already alive was considered to be a legal person, but the unborn child was not, but upon birth became a "person" with rights equivalent to the mother. So, for example, if the pregnancy was killing the mother, her right to live superseded the child's right to live up until birth. The mother could waive that right if she wanted the child to live more than she wanted to live herself, but the decision was hers.
Aristotle not looking great here IMO....тАЭThe point of quickening, as described by Aristotle, was the moment at which the life in the womb became human, as opposed to its previous vegetable and animal states. Aristotle believed that quickening took place at forty days for males and eighty days for femalesтАЭ
Good rational take on the issue. I'm wondering of some of those who argue that life and personhood begin at conception would be persuaded by the ancient Hebrew law, which held that life begins at "quickening," or about 20 weeks, but legal personhood does not begin until birth. I see this supreme court leak as a deliberate attempt to polarize the population and herd straying liberals back into the fold for the midterms.
here's a useful thought experiment:
a woman is 9 month pregnant.
she is attacked, struck repeatedly in the abdomen and the unborn is lost as dead tissue.
is this to be treated as simple assault and battery just as such an attack would be treated against a man or a non-pregnant woman?
are we to grant the unborn no rights in this scenario nor attach additional penalties to this act? (because it lacks legal personhood)
because i suspect that to do so would grievously offend most people's sense of justice and morality.
now take that slider back 2 weeks to 8.5 months pregnant.
is it any different?
8 months?
otoh, if you're in a car accident and hit a woman who is 5 weeks pregnant and she miscarries, should that be manslaughter?
perhaps these issues start to help up zero in on just how we can define this for all occasions.
it seems to me that we need a general case answer, not a patchwork of tactical fixes.
we're going to have to grasp the nettle and create a knowable legal definition of "person" to do that.
As a morally repugnant response to your query: in Canada, there is no controlling law regarding abortion. Zero. Zip. Our Supreme Court struck down our abortion law as unconstitutional in 1988 and Parliament failed in its one attempt to pass a new law to replace it a year or two later (it deadlocked in the Senate).
As a consequence, a fetus has absolutely no status in Canadian law. It isn't recognized, it has no voice, no standing, nothing. Your scenario, where a 9-month pregnant woman is assaulted and the fetus dies? It results in exactly your outcome. Assault against the woman, probably aggravated assault, but the fetus is a legal nullity. No charge can be brought regarding its terrible fate.
From time to time, backbenchers in the Conservative party have attempted to introduce bills that would address this by allowing such a charge to be filed. At every attempt it is shouted down by the left as a dangerous and unacceptable intrusion upon a woman's sacrosanct right to abortion on demand. Conservative party leaders and hopefuls must, upon demand of the left and of the press, vow never to introduce legislation regarding abortion. If they do not they are savagely attacked by those same actors.
Canada is utterly unable to acknowledge that our legal stance on abortion makes us an extreme outlier in democratic societies. Such is life in the great progressive north.
As an interesting aside, when I.M. says "shouted down" I think he means literally. In our congressional hearings there is no "shouting". In Canada they shout at one another almost, or certainly raise their voice. Also, In Canada, apparently heckling from non-MP's is allowed, but the Speaker of the Parliament (is he or she called something different there?) acted almost like a referee and when the heckling got to loud they put a stop to it. I found watching Parliament interesting recently.
I.M. : did I describe it accurately?
You're not wrong in that heckling is a fairly common occurrence in Westminster style parliamentary democracies, but in this case I was using it figuratively. Abortion is a third rail of Canadian politics, at least for the right. Any attempt to touch it leads to howls of outrage from our elites, our media, etc. that the right to an abortion is sacrosanct and how dare any Conservative propose a measure that might just be a stalking horse to taking away or even putting the slightest of limits upon that right.
Every Conservative leader has to go through the performance of vowing that he will not allow any legislation concerning abortion to be introduced were he to become prime minister. The language he uses must be unambiguously clear else he is accused of harboring a hidden agenda. Such is the Canadian left and Canadian culture, which is predominantly left. We almost make California look sane.
Wow. Learned a lot aboot Canada this year. ( that of course was in good humor eh? ЁЯША)
Feel free to rib this Native Tex for her тАЬyтАЩallsтАЭ.
On a serious note: I weep for Canada and Israel and a couple other countries and their people.
This is heartbreakingly sad.
Our new Supreme Court "justice" cannot define a woman. If she, a woman, cannot define a woman, how can she define the legal status of the unborn?
In the states, it really doesn't matter what the people think. All that matters is pandering to the minority and advancing the progressive opinion. For example, there have been elections banning gay marriage that have been overturned. So really, the people have no say in any of this.
Finally, there are two states that are moving to essentailly make murder legal up to 28 days after birth. It is framed under "pregnancy complications." Not sure how you can have "pregnancy complications" after a child is born, but what do I know?
Your thought experiment is a bad approach because the underlying premise is that moral judgments and legal standards should be determined by subjective reactions rather than objective realities. Trying to define a person by considering our feelings about whether the baby is "alive enough" is part of how we got into this abortion morass in the first place. Yes, we should agree on a definition of a person, but not according to how we feel about babies in the womb. Objective, not subjective.
Courts have already routinely been deciding these issues. Roe may be in jeopardy, but there have always been pregnant women dying under different tragic circumstances.
indeed, and this provides something of a window into out societal mores, but, and this is a non-trivial but, the question of "is this a thing we should leave to courts to decide?" remains.
is that an outcome we want?
It was decided judicially because some people did not like unfavorable political outcomes. Others did not like that there were different political outcomes in different jurisdictions. Some people also figured that if the Court settled it, it would be settled for all time. How poorly they anticipated the near non-stop wrangling -- legal and extralegal -- that followed for nearly a half-century.
Never mind the extreme politicization of the courts. Not that that began with Roe, but Roe certainly cast a long shadow.
The courts are (or are supposed to be) deciding these cases based on statues in the case of criminal matters or prior decisions in that state in the case of tort claims. And btw that means these matters are often decided by jury.
this seems a circular argument.
most of those came from courts.
statute is silent in the US on the time at which cells in a uterus become a person with rights.
I'm not sure how many state statutes speak to crimes involving babies in the womb, but what's your point? Should we revisit all those decisions to criticize them? Or to learn from them and see their consequences? And do you really think this is an area where, if we aren't legislating, we need to start doing so? Maybe, but maybe not.
it is true that many places in the US, if a pregnant woman and her unborn child die, there are TWO counts of manslaughter brought on the perpetrator. So IF our law can prosecute for that , doesn't it mean that they acknowledge that the baby is alive, and not just cells, but a living human being. If a baby has a heart beat it is a living being. I hope the courts will stop acting like this isn't true.
No one questions that the fetus is alive. That is not the point. And it is called a fetus, not a baby. Please don't use language in a deliberatively misleading way.
Ill call it as I see it, its a baby. It has a heartbeat, it can survive outside the womb long before 40 weeks gestation. You are trying to distract from the fact that a baby is a living thing. THAT is your issue, but I don't have to agree with you. Killing a living baby is murder, not sure how you can argue that point, but you are free to think what you want.
Using abortion as contraception is LAZY... again free country, you think as you wish, but thanks for playing.
You say it's a free county... yet you want to impose your beliefs on me and other women who don't share them. That's not ok.
No, what reversing Roe v Wade is doing is putting out back in the states hands. Why is that so hard for you to admit? Also wondering why you think it's OK to kill a baby???? It's a free country in that we all get to vote on how this all goes down. Killing babies is wrong, if you don't want to have this be an issue don't get pregnant, and assume you can use abortion as birth control. Stop whining and watch what happens. You don't even know if scotus will follow through. If you don't like that murder is wrong, that's your problem. you're free to go else where, take your pussy hat with you as you leave.
This is an excellent point. In the past the law has come down on the side of whether or not there is a positive expectation of a child. In other words, the fetus has status through the mother. You are right that this is a conversation we need to have so that we have codified in law whether the fetus itself has personhood separate from the expectations of the mother.
The Talmud declares the fetus is not counted as human for the purpose of such jurisprudence until the beginning of emergence from the uterus begins.
What does the Talmud say about the rights of slaves?
What's your point?
Well, the ancient Hebrews were distinguished from their neighbors, inter alia, by their refusal to leave unwanted children outdoors to die, or to sacrifice them to demons. So if they knew then what we do now about how babies develop, I expect they'd be revolted by abortion at any age.
In Judaism ensoulment is at 40 days and the fetus has no legal standing until it begins to emerge from the womb. Birth is the moment of legal personhood.
Great point.
I always attributed the concept of "quickening" to Thomas Aquinas. I did not realize it was rooted in Hebraic law. I believe quickening refers to a mother's first awareness of the baby moving inside her. I don't know about anyone else, but I felt all of my kids moving inside by 14 weeks at the latest. Regardless, as I said in a comment below, I am a pro-life absolutist who can be credibly accused of invoking the precautionary principle, but I also realize we live in a fallen world. The real test is if both sides can even begin to find common ground (I thought we had achieved that in our rejection of partial-birth abortion, but that doesn't seem to be the case any longer).
I believe your experience is one of the reasons most countries restrict abortions to the first 12 weeks. I think there are quite a number of pro-choice people who would be willing to have the conversation about survivability, which is of course possible earlier and earlier in a pregnancy. If pressed, most people I think would be forced to admit that no fetus should be aborted when it has a chance to survive outside the womb. That may be the way the country could come together to address this huge gulf between camps.
I don't know how common ground can be found when there seems to be total exclusion of honesty and integrity in the debate. I deed reasonable debate is disallowed. Anyone who attempts to apply reason is demonized. How can we find common ground with when we declare anyone who dares question as evil? Yet that is exactly what's happened.
We can't even phrase the debate on anything truthful. Even the activist, revisionist champion of all things good for women, justice Ginsberg, in her analysis of RvW made it clear it is not abut the rights of women, or even about abortion, but mostly about protecting doctors and empowering federal domination of states. Her analysis is fascinating and she notes that as a ruling RvW is very weak and an example of what the court should avoid. She also notes that if the loud mouth members of congress shouting about it REALLY cared about women's rights, the would propose and debate legislation to protect specific rights and has not. Few would categorize RBG as anti-female or conservative.
The other key point in RvW which fails scrutiny but is excluded from debate is that it declares the male involved in conception has no rights with respect to the conceived. This was a primary point of the original case as the father wished to assert some input into the decision. The court said "no". Don't dare raise this question today.
Ultimately the question - NOT answered by the court in RvW - is when the conceived becomes subject to rights and equal protection of the law. While once it was allowed to discuss this it is now blocked.
Even the premise of this controversy is dishonest. The "leaked decision" is being dishonestly characterized by all sides, and any factual recount is shouted down.
We can never have a constructive conversation until we realize that the two sides have completely different underlying assumptions about how the world works. Until we address those underlying assumptions we will always just be shouting unconvincing things at each other.
If we were to have an honest, sincere conversation, I think we'd find some common ground. At least with respect to law. I am not saying it would be an easy conversation. Not necessarily converge, but we might better understand each other.
But that conversation is not allowed. And I have come to realize that the current "crisis" over RvW is another purely fabricated crisis and the goal is deepening divides, to ignite hatred and fear, all with the purpose of "saving" the mid-term elections for the "blue wave" that seems so unlikely in the face of real economic hardship brought directly by the absurd energy and transportation policy changes, the logical consequences of COVID extremes, and the radical expansion of federal spending that is devaluing the currency. Much like the picture in 2019, the current conditions are causing even the faithful to question their loyalty to The Party, especially those who still value self sufficiency (which is a lot).
Abortion is a divisive, emotional topic. A perfect distraction. A perfect "game changer". Pay no attention to the man behind the current. Focus on the flames.
I realized that this "leak" is not random nor is the timing. The powder has been packed over the last year or two and this "leak" is the igniter setting off an explosion of division and hate. The NY legislature passing a law that seems (and is characterized by "their" media as such) to support post-term abortion (after birth). Predictably the reaction is polarizing and sometimes extreme. The powder is packed, RvW is the igniter and the "leak" closes the circuit. How dare TRUMP's court overrule the foundation of women's rights!
Non of this is about the decision itself. I wish folks (all of y'all) would read RBG's analysis and comments on RvW. While not my favorite justice of all time, in this analysis she raises a lot of interesting points and her conclusions are it is a bad decision, weak legally and not protective of women's rights.
For that matter I'd like folks to read the leaked document and Robert's statements. His explanation makes far more sense given his record. I doubt the court would have taken up a direct challenge to RvW under Roberts (who has always found a way to avoid that). Not until now, when they may be forced. While justice Thomas says he can not be intimidated or bullied, I am not so confident this is true of the court as a whole (or of Thomas when the safety of his family is threatened for real).
It is all about November, kids.
The ancient Hebrews didn't have sonograms.
They did, however, have animals, and miscarriages, so they were likely to be completely familiar with fetal development and its stages.
True, but that only gave them a picture of what a dead person or animal was like. Kind of hard to understand what the living creature was doing behind closed doors, so to speak.
It is rational and thus can not be allowed :-)
I wonder what texts this decision is based on?
Here's Alito's draft:
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-874f-dd36-a38c-c74f98520000
Or are you talking Hebrew texts? That would be interesting...
Hebrew. The judaeo-Christian religion is a significant reason why the west has been a boon to humanity. Now weтАЩre at this moment...as an anti abortion absolutist, IтАЩd be very interested to see the textual basis for the тАШHebrew ruleтАЩ. ThereтАЩs lots in the OT about manslaughter vs murder, but I do not know how they would come up with that parameter from the OT.
Perhaps the Midrash or Talmud? Wish we had a rabbinical scholar among us!
Not all Hebraic law was based on scriptures. Much was based on tradition. (But there is a ritual abortion in the OT performed by a priest when a woman is suspected of being unfaithful to her husband, which is I think why abortion is legal in Israel today.) So I think there was precedent for the idea of "quickening" being the beginning of "life" at that point. And there certainly was a system whereby legal personhood was determined--that is, the woman already alive was considered to be a legal person, but the unborn child was not, but upon birth became a "person" with rights equivalent to the mother. So, for example, if the pregnancy was killing the mother, her right to live superseded the child's right to live up until birth. The mother could waive that right if she wanted the child to live more than she wanted to live herself, but the decision was hers.
Fascinating subject! Here's some additional commentary with references:
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/quickening
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/abortion
Aristotle not looking great here IMO....тАЭThe point of quickening, as described by Aristotle, was the moment at which the life in the womb became human, as opposed to its previous vegetable and animal states. Aristotle believed that quickening took place at forty days for males and eighty days for femalesтАЭ
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/quickening
Aristotle and other ancient thinkers probably noticed that most animal fetuses were astonishingly similar early in development
That cracked me up! I guess the ancients, like some current cultures, consider male children more valuable/superior than female children ~ ЁЯЩА.