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.

[Paulus Invictus]

Please explain what life is first. Lessee now, how's this: "life is that property of humans that makes it possible for them to take in food, obtain energy from it, grow, develop and to eventually die. A living human has a specific DNA structure in each cell, is animated, had the appearance of human beings, has the physiological characteristics of humans and is viable at conception."

When does all this begin? At conception when embryonic cells are fertilized and begin to grow geometrically into millions of differentiated cell structures that ultimately define the human body and a baby is the result of the miracle of life.

Harvesting baby parts from aborted or ill babies is as heinous as abortion itself.

[Nix 2]

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

Did you really mean to ask this? Because you obviously didn't stop to think about it...
They are human, they are the result of HUMAN EGG and HUMAN SPERM. Therefore,they can ONLY be human. Twice or thrice gifted, maybe more...and need not be identical either.
Monkey sperm and human egg just wouldn't be the same....ya know?
Life is a wonderful mystery. All human life before seven weeks is female. Wonder how many raging feminists and/or NARAL tell the undeniably stupid that they are murdering a little girl if they murder it before the seventh week?
PROVEN female before 7 weeks. Now how do you suspect anyone would know that and still claim there is no human life there?

[XBob]

twin chickens or are they twin eggs?

[Hank Kerchief]

With each individual human embryo the Creator has arranged there to be a human soul.

But when? I thought you said it happened at conception. Now you seem to be changing the story. When exactly does it happen?

Hank

[XBob]

At least one, Hank.
-

Ah - twin souls.

[Jeff Gordon]

The baby (assuming he's leans conservative) really won't be fully independent until he's eighteen or so (dems never outgrow dependence).

The US Constitution specifies the age at which a human candidate becomes fully human capable. The framers of the Constitution realized that the nation needed fully human capable people to lead the nation as POTUS.

[XBob]

you are the one insisting on making it a crime. If you do, according to many on this thread then what should be the punnishment of their god for killing 40% of the fertilized eggs.

Please ask them first - what should be their god's punishment?

[XBob]

you are the one insisting on making it a crime. If you do, according to many on this thread then what should be the punnishment of their god for killing 40% of the fertilized eggs.

Please ask them first - what should be their god's punishment?

[XBob]

38 - "With each individual human embryo the Creator has arranged there to be a human soul."

so every other identical twin has no soul?

[MHGinTN]

Technically speaking, we have biological evidence of a new individual human life when the first cell divides (mitosis) to form two cells. The effort at survival begins when one of those two cells divides (so there are three cells present) and the construction of the placental organ starts (the embryo builds that for its own survival; many think that because the placenta is cast off at birth that it is a construct of the woman's body, but it isn't, in fact).

[MHGinTN]

With a pair of identical twins there are two individuals (pair = two), two individual souls.

[XBob]

so - all souls and all of us are female? Interesting - I guess I should be able to have lots of fun playing with myself.

[jwalsh07]

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.

Bob, maybe you can't survive without Super Wal_Mart but I sure the heck can.

[Tailgunner Joe]

I know what they think. I'm asking you.

You said that abortion was okay because the fetus wasn't an induvidual. If you think killing "viable" fetuses is wrong, then what should be the penalty?

Most pro-aborts use arguments like these but don't really care whether the fetus is a person or not, and believe in abortion on demand.

[XBob]

51 - "With a pair of identical twins there are two individuals (pair = two), two individual souls."

So, then one cell (a zygote) has two souls?

Very interesting.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Thanks...nice!

[XBob]

51 - "With a pair of identical twins there are two individuals (pair = two), two individual souls."

So, then one cell (a zygote) has two souls?

Ah - and they are both Female. Does that mean your god is female? (And god created man in his own image)?

[Nix 2]

Anyone who truly believes in G-d, even when it isn't *convenient,* would not agree to an abortion in the first place if the truth was ever told to the lot of them. Isn't that one of the reasons everyone's kids are having a devil of a time learning anything in the propaganda palaces the government calls public schools?
Maybe a better question for you is what happens to the souls of all the murdered innocents?

[Nix 2]

Male and female, He created them...

Read the whole thing. Half a truth is as good as a lie.

[XBob]

53 - man is a social animal.

"Bob, maybe you can't survive without Super Wal_Mart but I sure the heck can."

Strip naked and live in the woods, alone.

Even our famous modern mountain man 'Eric ...,' raided the dumpster.