this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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A body having a pulse is not what matters.
Cancer cells are also genetically human and also alive.
If it isn't sentient, its life is irrelevant.
If it isn't sapient, furthermore, it does not matter as much as the sapients its existence imminently effects.
A fetus is neither.
A baby, once capable of surviving without parasitically siphoning off the body of a host through a direct persistent flesh attachment, is either sentient or shall imminently be if left to its own devices
(Whereas a fetus without a host, when left to its own devices, shall imminently be dead and never to attain sentience nor sapience)
Those are where the lines are drawn.
I've not seen many neonates capable of surviving without external intervention. Yes, there is more involvement that an umbilical cord, but left to its own devices, a neonate will not survive.
it meets the definition on the minutes to hours basis.
a fully grown sapient human with experience and valuable expertise who is otherwise ready and able to immediately benefit their community, if "left to their own devices" naked on the surface of the moon, will also die in moments. However, with the use of equipment, with the ability to depend on machinery to survive instead of the active blood supply of another sapient being, such a human can survive.
similarly, a neonate can survive with the aid of equipment without burdening a single exclusive host.
Agreed, a neonate can certainly survive longer than a fetus without support.