Legal Death, Legal Life, Personhood and Abortion

Very nice essay Razd. Well and logically presented. My only quibble would be with the legal definition of "life". I tend toward the point where "human" can be defined, if you limit it to "the point when the neocortex is functional and fully formed". After all, if anything, higher cognition is what separates us from the other primates. This occurs roughly at the end of the second and beginning of the third trimester. Which also happens to be roughly the point where a fetus can reasonably be expected to survive outside the womb with some assistance, as you noted.