When Is Human Life A Human Being?

http://www.freebritannia.co.uk ^ | 6/16/2003 | Marvin Galloway

[MHGinTN]

In a recent article for First Things, Maureen L. Condic, PhD, Assistant professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah, presents a convincing argument for meaning of the death protocol (used when organ harvesting is anticipated) to also be used when contemplating prenatal life. She has stated accurately that, “… the loss of integrated bodily function, not the loss of higher mental ability, is the defining legal characteristic of death.”

...

To paraphrase Dr. Condic’s assertion: to be alive as an ORGANISM, the organism is functioning as an integrated whole, rather than life being defined solely from an organ, a form within the organism. …

In order to accurately apply the meaning of the death protocol offered in Dr. Condic’s article, we will have to show how an embryo is more than a mere collection of cells. We will have to show how the embryo is in fact a functioning, integrated whole human organism. If the embryo can be defined on this basis, the definition of an alive, individual human being would fit, and the human being should be protected from exploitation and euthanasia.

What is the focus of the transition from embryo age to fetal age are the organs of the fetus. It is generally held that the organs are all in place when the individual life is redefined as a fetus. The gestational process during the fetal age is a process of the already constructed organs growing larger and more functional for survival. But during the fetal age, the not yet fully functional organs are not the sole sustainer of the individual life. The placenta is still drawing nourishment from the woman’s body and protecting the individual from being rejected as foreign tissue. If we are to apply the notion of a functioning integrated whole to define individual aliveness, the organs necessary for survival must all be included. Since the primitive brain stem and other organs such as primitive lungs, to be relied upon at a later age in the individual’s lifetime, are not yet fully functional, some other organ will have to be responsible for the functioning whole.

[Nix 2]

A HUMAN LIFE is when it can't be a fish, nor a fowl, nor an insect, nor a reptile, nor a whale, nor a porpoise, or any other living thing, as long as the child exists in any form from one cell until maturity when it's born.
When someone can prove to me that two humans can give birth to cats and dogs, I might then reconsider my position.

Human Life begins when a human egg is fertilized with human sperm. Any other thing could not survive.

[TheCrusader]

"Mama - you have a strange god who kills 40% of all humans beings (your definition of a fertilized egg) before they even get to be a fetus. What a cruel god you have."

"The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away". In our selfish quest for our 'right' to determine and control human life, we forget about God's rights. Your post is silly, at best. God eventually ends all human life as we know it, and 80 years is no different to Him than 80 seconds or 80 billion light years. Creation belongs to God, not us. And what He does with it is His business. Only a self-serving buffoon could pretend to know the mind and spirit of God and make a moral judgement on His will.

[Tailgunner Joe]

Would you support a ban on abortions during the last trimester?

[verity]

When the stork arrives?

[TheCrusader]

"If we are to apply the notion of a functioning integrated whole to define individual aliveness, the organs necessary for survival must all be included.""

Does this mean that a man, (such as Robert Tools), who was walking around with an artificial heart, was either dead or inhuman while he was breathing, walking, and talking? Or do you define a man-made heart as a human organ?

[MHGinTN]

In XBob's numerology, the months five and six in gestational age must also be in the third trimester because 21 week aged babies are now thriving outside a woman's body, albeit with help from medical science. That same science is not far from being able to conceive and gestate an individual human being without ever being placed inside a human body. I wonder what those alive individuals will be called?

[jwalsh07]

My definition of an individual human being, is when he can sustain his own life with his own organs. That is sometime in the last trimester.

Peter Singer will be glad to hear it. He's been looking for converts to extend abortion post partum by a few years and your definition takes us up to about 6 or 8.

[XBob]

21 - "Human Life begins when a human egg is fertilized with human sperm. Any other thing could not survive."

Then which of the identical twins or triplets which are created after sperm and egg unite are not alive?

[XBob]

As I said, you believe in a strange god, if you believe he kills 40% of his 'innocent' people, as they are created.

[MHGinTN]

Twin what, Bob?

[XBob]

I do not think viable fetuses should be aborted.

[Hank Kerchief]

ensoulment does take place at conception

How many souls are given at conception?

Hank

[MHGinTN]

At least one, Hank.

[XBob]

So - put an artifical hart in the embroyo and make it alive.

Please get me some ham and 2 sunny side up chickens and grits for breakfast when we go out for breakfast.

[Hank Kerchief]

ensoulment does take place at conception

How many souls are given at conception?

At least one, Hank.

So, if it turns out to be identical twins, or triplets, or quardruplets, does the soul get split, or a new souls just added on?

Hank

[XBob]

I should have said 'generally' fetuses become viable in the third trimester. However, you are correct, and as science and technology advances, the 'viable' fetus becomes younger and younger and eventually, the 'baby in the bottle' will come to reality, just as predicted by Aldous Huxley in 'Brave New World', and what the individuals will be will be determined by the amount of alcohol in the bottle (or what ever the modern version will be).

[Tailgunner Joe]

And for those "reproductive rights" crusaders who would violate a law against aborting "viable" fetuses - What crime should they be charged with, and with what penalty imposed?

[MHGinTN]

With each individual human embryo the Creator has arranged there to be a human soul. Not a rabbit soul, not a mosquito soul, not an archaea soul, a human soul. Did you mean to ask about spirit, instead?

[XBob]

sorry, you are wrong about my definition. With it, almost no one in the world is an individual, as no one can survive totally alone, those loaves of bread don't magically get into their wrappers and on the shelf all by themselves.

[geege]

Or when the baby is born???? So when egg and sprem come togeter it's not human......ah hah....sure