[ukie55]

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.

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.

[TampaDude]

“And I would submit that breathing aside, everything you state about that fetus can be applied to a month old infant.”

100% WRONG...a one-month-old infant is conscious, as can be empirically proven by the alpha wave complexes (the indication of human consciousness) in that infant’s brain wave patterns. A fetus does not exhibit such alpha wave complexes prior to the third trimester.