Pleading Ignorance?

[Chaotic Void]

I've talked with people at School, and in my family, friends etc, and I can draw a conlusion based on my findings....

Most women who get abortions, and those who aid and abet them, know full well that the 'fetus' is in fact a child. Most of them [I]don't care. :argh:

Anyways, to the question....

Is there ANY case where a could-have-been mother can honestly say "I didn't know it was a child" [better put, is there any situation they can plead ignorance] ?

MY OPINION:
Probably not... with all the controversy flying around, its impossible to plead ignorance.

[Storico]

I don't think any woman in North America, assuming she was capable of rational thought, could plead ignorance. The fetus is a human fetus, a very small human being, and most people understand that. The thing is, many say "human or not, so what?" Not all people believe that all humans deserve life simply because they exist. Many believe the opposite, or believe that the freedom to live is conditional on circumstance or emotion. I'd say that's a problem.

Judith Jarvis Thomson (http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm), for example (a fairly famous US philosopher who published the linked article 'A Defense of Abortion') has no problem saying that a fetus is a human being, and yet she still finds all kinds of reasons why it might still be okay to kill a human being.

[mossrose]

I also find it hard to believe that in other countries, say, China or India, there would be a common belief that the unborn is not already a child. In China, especially, where the "one-child" policy is policed, and women are forced to have abortions, I am betting that the pregnant woman who has her child removed by force thinks that is a child, a human, and not a lump of cells.

Someone told me once, a long time ago, and I don't know how true it is, that in Japan, when a child is born they are considered to be as many months old as they are when they are born. So, if a child is carried to term, that child would have it's first birthday in 3 months after birth. Because the Japanese believe that the child is a person at conception.

I think it would be pushed at us harder in the west because of the prevalence of "women's rights" propoganda that only the woman has the right to life.

But I agree that most women would have to be totally oblivious to think that the unborn is simply a clump of cells and not a person.