Debate: Does the fetus have rights?
Side: Yes.

You certainly could still have said that neither was moral.You're right- I probably should have clarified that.Except what you think should be legal in such a case.I believe that it is implied that I favor legislation that matches my stance on the issue.That is what I thought, so I wanted to give you the opportunity to clarify. As an aside, I am not really interested in asking what the current law is, I can easily find that myself - my main concern is what people think the law should be and only tangentially what they think is moral.Fair enough, so basically I gave you what you were looking for in a roundabout way for both of us.Are you claiming an objective morality?Not objective, more an aggregate of the subjective rather than a specific individual oneyour assertion that fetal rights should be analogous to animal rights is what brings them within the scope.No, it really doesn't. I assert that they should have rights equivalent to animals- I am not interested in pursuing an exhaustive discussion regarding the relative rights of various animals here.Humans are definitively animals. There are usages of the word animals which are intended to refer to non-humans and I read your statement to mean that, but it is certainly based on a given perspective.If humans have preference because of additional brain function, can a cat be preferred over a goldfish for the same reason?I contest the fact that brain function, specifically, is the reason we assign ourselves more rights. We assign ourselves more rights because we're the species that is in the position of power to do so. Our brain function may be what gave us that position, but that doesn't necessarily make it the basis for assigning rights. If we were not the dominant species, and faced predation from a superpredator of some kind that we couldn't effectively combat, any discussion regarding the rights of that superpredator would be immaterial, as would any consideration of a human right to 'not be eaten.'Unless it gets away - then you wouldn't perform the test. Or, maybe a person would consider it more moral to undergo the pain and treatment for rabies than to kill the animal to test it to see if they can forego that (less-than-lethal) cost.Perhaps, but this would rarely be applicable to animals that aren't fully capable of killing an adult human without the aid of a disease. Remember that we're talking about an unprovoked attack (I already stated that I don't believe it is right to kill an animal for attacking when provoked excepting immediate self defense), which just plain doesn't happen in animals that are too small to cause serious injury to humans; they'll typically only attack if cornered or their young are threatened. The rate of unprovoked small mammal attacks by non-rabid individuals is infinismal.Also, do you care to address the other questions that arose:I took those as hypotheticals to illustrate the complexities rather than direct questions, as these aren't questioning the animal rights status of the fetuses; if a fetus is considered to have human rights, we're comparing human to human. If animal, animal to animal. If none, none to none. The overall balance is the same either way, is it not? I was under the impression that this thread was specifically regarding animal rights vs human rights in the context of assigning animal rights to a fetus.I don't mind attempting to address them, I just see them as being off-topic.Can someone abort one child to preserve the life of its twin?Sure, if the alternative is both dying, and emergency c-section/induced labor is not an option (due to other complications, insufficient gestation for viability, etc).What about just to give it a much better chance?Recall that aborting one of a pair of twins completely removes one possible outcome- the outcome where both fetuses survive. As such, I would support this only if the remaining fetus' new chance of survival was notably greater than the combination of the chances for either to survive, plus double the chance of both surviving. A 20% outlook for each individual would boil down to a 4% chance of both surviving, a 32% chance of at least one surviving, and a 64% chance of both dieing. Aborting one would need to raise the outlook for the remaining fetus to 36% to have the same chance of any children surviving, and removes the possibility of both; as such I would need a much better prognosis than 36% for the remaining fetus- bare minimum, 40%.I should state that I HATE using actual percentages here. If we are to legislate based on percent chances, then we also have to regulate the methodology used to generate those chances. Medical regulations in the US are already a nightmare, and thats another argument entirely. I prefer using more specific circumstances (as I've touched on before) of actual threats, rather than a percent chance of something that may not occur at all, just because of that.There are also complications that could affect both the mother and the child - what balance should be drawn there?I addressed this long ago. The mothers life trumps the life of the fetus, but non-fatal injury to the mother does not. If we're going to get it down to percentages, I reiterate that I hate using percentages here for the reasons I just noted. That said, If forced to offer percentages, I would use the same methodology as I did above- with the 'value' of the fetus' life being considered half that of the mothers.What statistical probability is required to be considered life-threatening?I am not interested in the statistical probability of something being life-threatening. I am concerned with actual complications that threaten the mothers life. The beginning of a complication that can potentially threaten ones life is not sufficient reason for an abortion. The complication actually threatening ones life and necessitating medical intervention is one.Case in point: The overall chance of dying from a gunshot wound, assuming one is in a developed country and medical attention is received in a timely fashion, is about 5%. The people who actually die, though, don't die due to winning the 5% lottery; a bullets trajectory is not random, but is determined by physics; they die because a vital organ or artery was struck, causing them to die despite medical efforts, or more quickly than they could be applied. I'm not interested in the 5% statistic for gunshots. I'm interested in the actual state of the patient; a patient that has been shot through his or her hand has an infinismal chance of dying from it. If the shot passes through the heart or aorta, they are almost certain to die.Severity; not statitistics.