“Great! Finally, someone who can use actual logic. Now, tell me, going backwards from the point of viability, at what point scientifically does the unborn child stop being a human life? Consider DNA, metabolic activity, growth, movement, response to environment, etc.”
Well, I am not a obstetrician, so all I can give you is my layman’s opinion. From what I’ve read about the fetal development process, conscious awareness arises in the fetal brain, on average, around the 27th week of pregnancy, give or take a couple of weeks, which is about the same time as lung capacity is developed enough for the fetus/baby to survive outside the womb. Before that, the fetus is not a fully independent human apart from its mother, because it cannot breathe outside the womb, plus it lacks the consciousness and self-awareness that makes us human..a person. While it is true that a much younger fetus can respond to painful stimuli, that is merely an autonomic response...the fetus does not have a conscious experience of pain...it does not suffer pain as you and I do when we are injured. To be conservative (no pun intended), the 24th week is a good place to draw the line.
This is just my opinion. YMMV.
And I would submit that breathing aside, everything you state about that fetus can be applied to a month old infant. The *can't survive outside the womb on its own* argument falls flat as well, because if someone did not put food into the baby's mouth, it would die. Even a two year old can't survive on its own.
Age is a pretty poor criteria on which to base whether a person is human or not.
If it has human DNA and is growing, then it is a human being and it is alive. If you stop that process, aka kill it, then you have murdered.
So the 22 week old *object* that is delivered and put in NICU is what then? Is it a baby? Is it a *fetus*? Is it human or not?