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When does life begin?
spool32
Contrary LibraryRegistered User, Transition Team regular
Contrary LibraryRegistered User, Transition Team regular
Just to get this out of the way in the first sentence, I am throwing down the strict on-topic gauntlet and daring you to pick it up. Is it possible to have a discussion about this core question without devolving into an abortion thread? I hope so! Perhaps there can't be a right answer, and it all comes down to belief. Or perhaps someone feels he can say definitively and defend the proposition. Either way, I'm curious to hear what you all think.
To begin, here's the report on MI's new effort to define life. Obviously they have an agenda, but forget about that for the moment (or go here to say something about that agenda), and let's address the question itself: when does an organism become a person? When does life begin? Societies have defined it as anywhere from the instant of conception to the beginning of brain activity to the beginning of learned behavior, to 'viability' outside the womb and all the way up to a 'quickening' that happens days after birth. Or, are the beginnings of life and person-hood different moments in time?
What say you all - when do you mark the beginning of life, and why?
To begin, here's the report on MI's new effort to define life. Obviously they have an agenda, but forget about that for the moment (or go here to say something about that agenda), and let's address the question itself: when does an organism become a person? When does life begin? Societies have defined it as anywhere from the instant of conception to the beginning of brain activity to the beginning of learned behavior, to 'viability' outside the womb and all the way up to a 'quickening' that happens days after birth. Or, are the beginnings of life and person-hood different moments in time?
What say you all - when do you mark the beginning of life, and why?
spool32 on
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But that answer leads to another question: "How do you know when independant thought begins?"
For which, I have no answer.
Everything else is far too grey to make a hard-and-fast rule that doesn't place ridiculous restrictions on mothers, or prioritize the life of a fetus over the life of its mother.
Though, if you ask me, life begins at 40. Abortions should be legal up until then.
A baby, even before the moment of conception, is composed of a sperm cell and an egg cell. Both of them are, by any scientific definition, alive. They aren't independent organisms, but they're certainly alive. During gestation the developing child becomes an independent organism gradually and I'm not sure that, prior to birth, there is an easy point to draw a line at and call one side 'parasitic growth' and the other side 'human being'.
The only way to make "when does life begin?" an interesting question is to impart some extraneous meaning to the term 'life' beyond strict definitions, and then the baggage you choose to load will likely determine your answer.
Personhood certainly doesn't start at conception, or even at birth. What I've read of child developmental psychology seems to agree that babies are not in any meaningful way more self-aware and conscious than any other primate; less so than some. But they're certainly alive.
Sperm and eggs are alive, for instance, as pointed out by ronya. An embryo is technically alive for all intents and purposes, but when does that collection of cells become a new person? That might be better.
Or not.