I was just laying in bed, thinking of all the reasons I wanted to get up, not thinking of any reasons why I didn't want to get up, but yet not getting up, so I finally just gave in and got comfortable there and my mind wandered over to something XXXXXX posted at XXXXXX today, that he and his significant other were "genetically" incapable of having a child... and of course I immediately though, no, you are genetically capable, you have both the X and Y chromosomes, you're all good with the genes, you're just not physically or biologically capable... and then that led me down a really long logical path whereby I found truth. I now realize: I am strongly against "a woman's right to choose" but I am "pro-abortion". Eh, I guess I know how that sounds, and it's not like you think. It's very logical.
Says I: Umm, ok, take me there
So he continued: After a very long trip through Western Canada, the ultimate destination of my train ride was that XXXXXX and his mate should be able to reproduce. That is, XXXXXX and his mate should be able to have their DNA combined in a test tube and have a baby grown for them. But, sh*t, why do I think humanity needs the ability to make babies without women?? So, like I said, screw it. But I'll share one little thought with you:
Part of humanity's problem is that all too often an invalid frame of reference is created and then everyone on the so-called "both sides" works within that frame of reference, without question, as though it were a law of nature or something. Here's a frame of reference: "when does life begin?" The very question limits the discussion to an invalid premise. Humans proceed to argue about when, as the question asks... but you don't seem to hear anyone pointing out that life does not actually begin. Pluck any living cell off your body right now: it is as old as life on this planet itself, perhaps older depending on how life actually got its initial foothold on this planet. That cell's life did not begin, per se, it was the product of cell division... 1 living cell divided into 2 living cells, each indistinguishable as far as which one is "new" or "old". Life ends, cells die, all the time, but life does not "begin". So, from a purely technical standpoint (and being technically accurate is the best kind of accurate, so I learned from Futurama), if you really want to talk about a human life beginning, you can't talk about when 1 or 2 or a trillion specialized cells start functioning together, you have to talk about life in the context of what makes us human... that is being conscious and self-aware and able to ponder the existence of God.... and that most definitely is not when, for example, a few embryonic stem cells are chemically transformed into heart cells and start doing what heart cells mindlessly do: contract in a steady rhythm. Now, all evidence seems to indicate that human beings are pretty much the most amazingly complex little packages that have ever come to be in this entire universe, and considering all the shit that had to go just right for us to actually be here now as we are (and that's an absolutely scientific statement), OMG even given the inconceivable vastness of the universe, I think it's definitely within the realm of possibility that we're the only creatures of our kind!! A woman can't truly create life, only GOD creates life, which he did when he seeded the initial life on this planet that gave rise to everything thereafter (that affirmation of the existence of God is pretty much just a scientific statement, it seems). So any further discussions in the "when does life begin?" frame will from here on out be seen by me as a bunch of whiney Liberals (whether they're Conservative Christians or not) that have no real mental capacity and are so well fed that they can devote energy to arguing total nonsense. And if they are Conservative Christians, then OMG what part of Genesis did you not grasp??
I'm probably totally wacked. Feedback welcome. Later, dude.
Your friend is weird, and his line of reasoning rests on some false assumptions.
For one thing, a cell is not a cell. Looked at under a microscope, there may seem to be no difference between an egg cell that was just fertilized by a sperm cell, and a cell I scraped off my cheek, but as anybody who knows anything about biology or biochemistry (and I hardly know anything about them, being a computer, econ, film, and physics nerd instead) can tell you, they are by no means the same.
So the question is not “when does life begin” even if that’s how the question is framed. What’s obviously being asked is “when does an individual human life begin?” Science says that life begins at conception, when the cell becomes the first cell of a new human. It may not fit our biases or preconceived notions, but neither does relativity or quantum theory, but in the end those theories won out because the science was all on their side.
Anybody who, with our modern knowledge, refuses to admit that individual human life begins at conception, is either ignorant or simply allowing their biases and preconceived notions to stand in the way of simply scientific reasoning.