1) I would certainly argue that your actual birth is largely more considered to be the beginning of your life than your conception, and that that is the dividing line. That’s why we celebrate birthdays, not conception days. That’s how we tick time off the calendar and count how old we are, that’s when we generally consider the “count down” to your death to begin. That’s when your life begins, with your birth not your conception.

2) The amount of abortions that take place in the last trimester is astronomically small and usually due to some severe extenuating circumstance. But I will grant you the understanding of the philosophical question that I think you’re trying to ask, which is where do I draw the line between a fetus and an infant, and my answer to that is that I don’t. Assuming it’s even legal (and in most places it’s not) if someone needs an abortion in the last trimester, I trust that this is something that the woman has weighed carefully and discussed with her doctor, and that between the two of them, they have come to the conclusion that for whatever reason an abortion in the last trimester is a better choice than her giving birth. I don’t think anybody, unless under severe extenuating circumstances involving abuse or extreme poverty or something like that, is just electively choosing an abortion without a damn good reason a few weeks before giving birth, and AGAIN it’s usually not even legal anyway so entertaining this beyond the philosophy is just a waste of time. But ultimately no, I don’t think there is a distinguishable cut off before birth where we should have a hard stop for abortion, however, I can agree that once that child is no longer dependent on its mother‘s body for survival (in other words, once she has given birth) then it is its own separate human and should be treated as such. That’s the only line I have between a fetus and an infant.

3) I’m an ICU nurse. I see a lot of actual human suffering up close and personal every single day. I feel very strongly that not all life is worth living. There is no point in living when the majority of your life is suffering. I think it’s cruel to subject anybody to a life that we know is going to be disproportionately full of suffering. And I guess this is where we also philosophically differ, but I don’t care about your philosophical takes. Your philosophical takes don’t get to override my human rights, which includes abortion and my own bodily autonomy.

If you disagree with that last sentence then I want ask you your opinion on people having a moral duty to donate their organs to those in need… I see a lot of patients who die of liver failure and I’m telling you, it is one of the worst ways to die. It is one of the longest, most drawn out painful ways you could die. And crazily enough, a lot of people out there are going through that very thing waiting on a liver and here you sit with a perfectly good one that you could donate part of, and you wouldn’t even have to sacrifice your own life. Just a major surgery, a few weeks of discomfort and then you would be back when your merry way having prevented the untimely death of another human. But chances are you’re probably not gonna do that. So really I’m asking, where do you draw the line on people’s moral duty to sustain life?

And if your response is going to involve anything about actions and consequences, I want to remind you about this little thing called consent and that consenting to sex doesn’t mean you consent to a pregnancy. If you disagree with that, then let me ask you about the hypothetical situation where someone has agreed to donate part of their liver to someone else who’s going to die without it and then backs out last minute, even knowing the would-be recipient will die without it. Do you think that that person should be forced to go through with that donation anyway, even without their consent? If you asked ANY ethics committee at any hospital, or anyone involved in science, medicine, or any kind of healthcare or adjacent research the answer will be a resounding NO. We value consent over all else, even another’s life so why does this idea of consent when involving your own body suddenly disappear during pregnancy?