When Does Life Begin?

Columbia ^ | William Ryan

[Question_Assumptions]

I'm the same genetic person I was at day one to the day I die.

While I think there is some basic truth to your position, it's really not that simple. There are people who are two genetic people (called "chimeras", "fused twins", and "mosaics"). You can find an interesting article on that here. Regular twins can also create problems for your statement, as can quite a few science fiction scenarios that might not remain fiction forever.

Basically, the truth is that it was the point where you became a distinct individual but the distinction isn't entirely genetic, nor does it have to be at all. For example, at the moment an embryo breaks in two to form identical twins is the point at which each becomes a distinct individual, even though neither is genetically distinct from the other. Then there are co-joined twins, which create some interesting tests for what defines one individual or two.

On the other end of the spectrum, blood transfusions, bone marrow transplants, organ transpants, forms of cancer, and even possibly gene therapy in the future may alter the genetics of a person long after they are born, in part or in whole. So basically, genetic consistency and distinctness can be a weak hook to hang an argument on.

I'm pointing this out not to disprove that a fertilized egg is a person. I believe that, too. I've simply been in some very deep and complex abortion debates and that's the sort of left hook that pro-choice debaters are going to throw at you if you tangle with the smarter ones. Be ready to deal with them just in case.

(As a final aside, chimeras are why we also should not assume that a negative genetic test in cases like sex crimes proves that a person is innocent -- a single person can have two sets of genes.)

[Question_Assumptions]

And you are both correct. At no point is the cellular material involved not alive. Live began long ago. That's not the question. When you ask the right questionk, the answer is a lot more clear.

[Chode]

though the egg has half of the needed parts, it's still just living cells, where the sperm is truly alive with a purpose and drive and the ability to move and reason on it's own.

when that enters the egg it is becomes whole... and alive with a purpose of growing and maturing to full term.

if that's not life... what is???

[Random Access]

When the kids get their own apartments and move out.

[RobbyS]

I read recently that twins do compete in the womb, to the extent that one will "absorb" the other entirely, and that the competition continues afterwords. One twin always seem to be dominant.

[Thywillnotmine]

Compare this wonderful definition of the beginning of life to the sickening things that are happening around embryo research. Lifesite news reports that the Canadian Institute of Health Research has approved a project for stem cell research which will use 'donated fresh embryos', meaning embryos which have been created in a lab, not been frozen, but rejected for implantation.

[MHGinTN]

Contacted by the woman’s representatives and touched by her plight, Lejeune testified there is indisputable scientific evidence that human life begins at conception. “I asked the judge to make the decision of Solomon and give the embryos to the parent who wanted them to live,” he recalled. Lejeune’s point was that an embryo has a human nature from the very beginning and should not be treated merely as “matter.” Convinced by Lejeune’s testimony, the judge ruled in the woman’s favor. But the state’s highest court later ruled that the embryos were not human beings. That decision was in turn upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court ...

I live in East Tennessee, not far from the courtroom where this hearing took place. Having studied this case and the testimonies (I used Le Jeune's testimony in a book), I'm now convinced that had this wonderful geneticist centered and focused his argument upon the difference between an organ (or subunit thereof) and an organism, this defense of embryo-aged human beings would have been a world changing one, stopping the degredation into the pit of dehumanizing humans at their earliest age.

[MHGinTN]

“All scientists know when life begins,” Lejeune stated. “If the scientic establishment had told the truth, then the Supreme Court would not have said in Roe v. Wade that science does not know when life begins.” This wonderful man is mistaken in this ... the subpreme court knew what they wanted to rule and where they wanted the society to go before even hearing the testimonies in Roe, and they knew they were fomenting a gross lie but it fit the direction they wanted America to move.

[RobbyS]

The safer word is, after all, not individual but person. However, there is a deep-rooted prejudice, based on Cartesian philosophy I think, that personality is simply a function of the brain, which is supposed to generate thought independently of the rest of the body. That is also simplistic, but scientists love to oversimply things just as we all do.

[MHGinTN]

I wonder, do you know when the human spirit takes up residence with the alive embryo or fetal aged human organism? [Note please, I'm not asking about the soul of life, I am asking about the human spirit.] Do you know who might know the answer to this?

[csmusaret]

That was not an umbilical cord; it was a bungee cord. They will be back.

[RobbyS]

Depends of how you see the relation between spirit and flesh. Platonists and other idealists seem to think of the person as inhabiting the body. Realists, like Aristotle think of it as the form of the body and the two as inseparable. Immortality of the soul is a platonic nation, and was denied by Aristotle and most realists. A doctrine most firmly established in orthodox Christianity is the resurrection of the body, which is most compatible with realism, as it treats the soul and body as complimentary and that a disembodied soul would therefore be incomplete until it was in some fashion rejoined with it,
to become very like the man Jesus.

[MHGinTN]

And what of human spirit?

[chuckles]

....."When the kids get their own apartments and move out"....

Not TRUE! They all come back, at least mine did. I'm getting fat and decrepit. I think my life is nearly over. There's even talk of taking in the in-laws.

I'm not even sure I believe in "Life After Birth" anymore.

I think I was aborted at birth and came back as an ATM.

[Question_Assumptions]

Personhood is essentially the trickier question of when the human individual can't be casually killed by another human individual like a plant or animal. In my experience, it's easier to address the two as seperate issues than as a single issue, since one of the favorite tactics of abortion advocates is to confuse and flip between the two so that nothing can be nailed down. The issue of personhood is a bit more complex but boils down to there being only two non-arbitrary points where a human becomes a person -- fertilization and about two years of age. See Michael Tooley's (in)famous essay In Defense of Abortion and Infanticide for a good pro-abortion argument of why that's the case, though Tooley picks the wrong point to support abortion.

[RobbyS]

Soul is spirit, the nonmaterial part, or aspect, of the human person. Materialists reduce everything to chemical reactions, which is, IMHO, just question begging, because chemistry is a human creation.

[Victoria Delsoul]

“The trick is to continue with experiments that will cure diseases but without violating the embryo,” he said.

Indeed.

[RobbyS]

I think they also --deliberately-confuse legal personhood with the person. Positivism allows us to define and redefine things to suit our needs. Legal personhood IS something that the law can create: one can arbitrarily say that a corporation is a person because it is useful to say this. Our system allows the courts the power to vest meanings in words, meanings that sometimes contract the evidence of our senses. The court says that a child of human being is not a human simply because it is useful for the child not to be human. Talk about priestcraft!

[MHGinTN]

Actually, you assertion is in error. Each human is a spirit with a soul of life. All living things have a soul of life; only humans among the life forms on Earth have a spirit. Paul offers a New Testament blessing that God sanctify completely the body, soul, and spirit.

[Question_Assumptions]

The game that they generally play, in my experience goes something like this:

It's not a human life. It's part of the mother. It's not alive. Etc.

Pro-life person proves it is human, is alive, isn't part of the mother, and so on.

Well, the woman has a right to abort it anyway, because it's a parasite. (or some variation of that theme)

Pro-life person demonstrates other examples of parental responsibility and so forth, based on the already proven premise that it's the equivalent of a baby.

But it's not a human life. It's part of the mother. It's not alive. Etc.

They never actually concede a point and simply recycle the same arguments round and round in a big circle. They do the same thing with life, personhood, etc. They can waste a whole lot of time on silly tangents like neuron growth, myleanation, etc. that ultimately have nothing to do with personhood. The reality is that many people pick a point where they want the embryo or fetus to be a person and then work their way into an excuse to make it true.

The way around that is to stick to small, atomic, easy to defend steps and then snap them all together into a tight package that they can't knock down at the end. Once you understand all the small parts and the role they play in the whole, it becomes easy to spot when they try to change the subject, avoid a point, and so on. Making sweeping statements are good for an overview but not very good at changing minds, in my opinion. In fact, one thing I despise about the modern talk radio and talk television formats is that they confine arguments to maybe 10 minutes but often closer to 2 minutes and you can't make a comprehensive and persuasive argument about abortion in that short of a period of time. The best you can do is preach to the choir.