Abortion & Politics: the basics

[Final-Fan]

the-pi-guy said:
As much as I've seen people try arguing that you'd have to prove a fetus is a person scientifically, the issue is you can't.
The way that science in that domain works, is a person creates a definition that satisfies some requirements. If you wanted to define life, which is really what this issue here is, then you have to look at what we consider living.
An elephant, an apple tree, and some living single celled organism, how can you define life in such a way to include all those things and ignore things like rocks, that are clearly non-living?

So, maybe 10 scientists each come up with their own definition of life. All definitions cover the same cases, except there might be a few edge cases where there are differences.
Like Viruses. There are debates over whether viruses should be considered alive.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/

Maybe a few of those definitions of life say viruses are definitely alive, and a few more of the definitions are kind of a grey area, and the rest say viruses are definitely not alive.
Who is right? Every one of them. As long as their definition was satisfactory, it isn't wrong.

So no, science can't be used to argue pro-life or pro-choice viewpoints.

The answer isn't to illegalize abortions. People are going to get abortions regardless. The answer is whatever minimizes abortions.

Science can tell us about the characteristics of the fetus at various stages of development, though, which informs our understanding and perhaps lets us decide on whether it is a person.  It's as true that there's no absolute scientific definition of whether something is a person or not as it is true that there's no absolute scientific definition of whether something is green or not.  That's a judgment we as society make, which science informs but does not dictate.  Similarly, science can tell us whether a person in a coma is brain dead or not, but only we can decide if that means the "person" is dead even though the body might be sustainable. 

As for this:  "The answer isn't to illegalize abortions. People are going to get abortions regardless. The answer is whatever minimizes abortions."
That sounds like it could be the reasoning under which some lawmakers try to regulate abortion clinics out of existence while still legally allowing them.