Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.

The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica.

But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.”

For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria.

Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.

  • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    So if they’re not people, then what are they?

    Fetus. Could grow into a person if nothing goes wrong and the mother wants it to, could end up as a really heavy period after a week. Welcome to basic biology, since you missed it in school

    Says the guy calling me a Nazi because I hate genocide.

    I didn’t call you anything, learn to read. Also: not a genocide. Your kind best stop trying to dilute the value of that word by applying it incorrectly

    • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      How is a fetus not a person? Every human being is a person. Sticking with an extremely broad definition of person is the only way to prevent a slippery slope towards justifying killing people further and further along in development. Trying to call certain human beings not people is a genocidal tactic.

      I didn’t call you anything, learn to read.

      Fine, compared me to Nazis. The parallels with Nazism are much stronger on people who deny humans their personhood, though.

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        How is a fetus not a person?

        You can’t actually be so stupid as to not be able to spot the difference between a clump of cells and a born human, so don’t pretend to be.

        Things that might become other things are not treated as though they are fundamentally the thing they might become.

        Sticking with an extremely broad definition of person is the only way to prevent a slippery slope towards justifying killing people further and further along in development

        No, it’s not. Fetus isn’t a person, it requires parasitization of an already existing person to continue existing, it is very much not the same as a born human. The only people who try to equate the two are weirdos like you.

        Fine, compared me to Nazis

        I didn’t do that either, learn to read usernames

        • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          First off, I’m sorry I mistook you for the other person. I’ll take back those claims.

          Second, we are all “clumps of cells.” A fetus just so happens to be a really, really small one at a particular stage of development.
          Third, a parasite is, by definition, a member of a different species than its host. Therefore, a fetus is not a parasite.
          Fourth, almost everyone on earth depends on other people to continue existing. The ones who don’t are hardcore survivalists. Are they the only ones who get a right to life?

          • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            we are all “clumps of cells.”

            Maybe you are, you’re certainly showing the intelligence level of one, but most people are far more than that. They’re lived experiences, personalities, and all the other shit. By your logic a caterpillar is a butterfly, and that’s silly

            Third, a parasite is, by definition, a member of a different species than its host

            1. That’s a link to a cancer website, and it doesn’t even load, so the attempt at Cherry-Picking is extremely poor, do better with your fallacies or you’ll bore me

            2. parasite. noun. par·a·site ˈpar-ə-ˌsīt. : an organism living in, with, or on another organism in order to obtain nutrients, grow, or multiply often in a state that directly or indirectly harms the host - well wouldja looky there, doesn’t require a different species at all and, in fact, applies to a fetus too!

            Got any more bad points to try and make because you don’t understand basic biology or are you ready to admit youre ignorant and just go learn some shit? Nobody will be mean to you for admitting your ignorance and becoming a better person. Shit, we’d actually probably respect you then, unlike now

            • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              In one respect, they are similar: a caterpillar is the same species as the butterfly which it becomes, just like fetuses are to humans. In another sense, they are significantly different: no human society regards a butterfly’s life as highly as a born human’s. What moral ramifications are there for stepping on a butterfly that wouldn’t be relevant if it was still a caterpillar, and vice versa? If there are none, then it makes no sense to compare the two on that basis.

              1. Here are the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Wikipedia (citing a scientific textbook on archive.org that isn’t currently available, but apparently it was at some point) stating that a parasite is a member of a different species. Since the link won’t work, here is the definition given:

              An animal or plant that gets nutrients by living on or in an organism of another species. A complete parasite gets all of its nutrients from the host organism, but a semi-parasite gets only some of its nutrients from the host.

              I suspected you wouldn’t settle for a non-medical source for something with a precise technical definition, which is why I used that page.

              1. If we’re just throwing whatever labels we want onto words like “parasite,” then what’s stopping us from using the same label for disabled people? Or born babies? Or children who still depend on their parents? Or people who depend on the structure of society in general? Since we’ve already slipped down the genocide slope of deciding that fetuses are parasites, why shouldn’t we go a little further for the good of the human race? They’re a burden anyway, right?

              I won’t be mean to you, either, if you admit that killing innocent people is wrong and so is erasing personhood from human beings. If nobody here can admit that, then their disrespect means nothing to me.

              • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                2 months ago

                In one respect, they are similar: a caterpillar is the same species as the butterfly which it becomes, just like fetuses are to humans

                Ok so you DO understand, nice

                they are significantly different: no human society regards a butterfly’s life as highly as a born human’s

                And I was wrong. That’s irrelevant, what value we place on a butterfly relative to us isn’t important at all to me pointing out your logic would mean a caterpillar is a butterfly. All that matters is the way in which they are alike, which you agreed with. This is what mental gymnastics looks like, and it’s obvious to anyone not entrenched like you.

                What moral ramifications are there for stepping on a butterfly that wouldn’t be relevant if it was still a caterpillar, and vice versa? If there are none, then it makes no sense to compare the two on that basis.

                Nope, my point was simple that calling an earlier stage of a lifeform exactly the same thing as the later stage is silly. You wouldn’t call a caterpillar a butterfly, you wouldn’t call a fetus a person.

                I suspected you wouldn’t settle for a non-medical source for something with a precise technical definition

                Weird that you’d do that. Looks more like you hunted a specific definition that specifies cross-species requirements so you could try to well ackshully someone. Failed miserably because it’s easy to google what words mean.

                if you admit that killing innocent people is wrong

                I won’t, because your definition of “people” is faulty and I don’t want to say anything you’ll take wrongly. Its wrong to take a life in most situations, a fetus is not that.

                people is wrong and so is erasing personhood from human beings. If nobody here can admit that, then their disrespect means nothing to me.

                It pleases me to know bitter idiots like you are, in fact, a dying breed who will be remembered as the stains on history you are 🙂

                • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  That’s irrelevant

                  If this is irrelevant, so is your caterpillar argument.

                  mental gymnastics

                  You can’t even define what a person is and you’re accusing me of mental gymnastics?

                  Looks more like you hunted a specific definition that specifies cross-species requirements so you could try to well ackshully someone. Failed miserably because it’s easy to google what words mean.

                  Right, it’s very easy to Google what words mean. That’s why I found three different definitions. Sticking with one you found from a dictionary in the face of three more authoritative sources is odd - especially since the same page cites the Britannica article I linked in the last post. From the same page, this definition sounds like it lines up better with your ideology:

                  a person who lives at the expense of another

                  Anyway…

                  I won’t, because your definition of “people” is faulty

                  But you can’t explain why…

                  and I don’t want to say anything you’ll take wrongly.

                  …or what you think a person is. Would you like to share that, or are you going to continue hiding behind ambiguity because it’s easier to attack something you can actually understand?

                  It pleases me to know bitter idiots like you are

                  I suppose that’s one benefit of refusing to explain your arguments. Can’t be stupid if you never say anything at all!

                  in fact, a dying breed who will be remembered as the stains on history you are 🙂

                  Ironic, since pro-life people give birth more than pro-choice people.

                  • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    2 months ago

                    If this is irrelevant, so is your caterpillar argument.

                    Wow, you’re completely incapable of basic reasoning. I mean, I’d have assumed as much, but I tried to give you a chance to prove you could think. Ah well, my mistake.

                    You can’t even define what a person is and you’re accusing me of mental gymnastics?

                    Those are unrelated, again. You can’t define antidisestablishmentarianism and you’re accusing me of genocide?! Same energy.

                    Sticking with one you found from a dictionary in the face of three more authoritative sources is odd

                    Not really, given that it’s the commonly used definition and we’re not talking in a medical setting here. I used it colloquially, not professionally, so I’m grabbing the colloquial definition. You want to use the medical one because it specifies a different species and makes my colloquial use of the word technically incorrect (the best kind), but I refuse to give a fuck

                    But you can’t explain why…

                    Oh, look, here’s the relevance: by your own logic if a fetus is a person then a caterpillar is a butterfly. If you cant grasp that then I fear for anyone who has to be around you any time you operate sharp objects.

                    Ironic, since pro-life people give birth more than pro-choice people.

                    Yeah, forcing births through regulation does that. It also tends to produce people who vehemently disagree with and hate you. Rightly so, you monster