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When Does Human Life Begin?
In an earlier post, I said this:
As I explain to my students, a human fetus is unambiguously a human being, from the moment of conception. It is a human organism. There is no proper debate on this; there is only ignorance.
What there is debate on is whether all human beings have rights, or whether all human beings are persons. I suspect most students want to play it easy and not take on that debate. But I wish they would. I’d prefer a straight disagreement to all this sneaky sophistry.
But what about the fancy scholarship explaining that it’s ambiguous when human life begins? Like this here article someone mentioned to me, “The Facts and Doubts about Beginning of the Human Life and Personality” by Asim Kurjak and Ana Tripalo? (The internet suggests that it has not been cited a lot, but does get downloaded regularly.)
Let’s talk about that.
The first thing is to clear up the bad philosophy about what a human being is.
Some Irrelevant Philosophy: What Is a Human Being?
“Facts and Doubts” observes:
Proper answer to the question “How to define human life?” is complicated. Nowadays dilemmas consider the respect of human life from the birth to death involving not just biology but other sciences also. Philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology, law and politics evaluate this topic from different point of views. Integration of all would result proper definition.
Well, yes–in theory, if you could integrate all these things that would probably result in a better definition of human life.
But for Heaven’s sake, why? Why is that the issue? “Man is a rational animal” and “Man is the image of G-d” and “Man is an atman that is ultimately one with Brahman” and “Man is just a lump of matter” are just not relevant to the question of when human life begins. It’s all a distraction. Here’s the thing: Before a sperm and egg come together, there are only two people there, a man and a woman; when a little baby is born she is a new little human organism. And the question is: When in this whole process did the new little human organism begin to be there?
The key word: organism. If we want to talk about the value of a human life, then we need to be prepared to talk some philosophy or theology or make some law. But the only answer we need to the question of when human life begins is the basic biological one: When does that new little organism of the human species start existing?
This straightforward staying on topic is what “Facts and Doubts” avoids. “Facts and Doubts” spends some time waxing eloquent on Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Hippocrates, and more. It then concludes:
It is clear that the answer to the question “When has the human being actually come to life?” could only be given by combining the cognition of different religions, philosophy and various biological scientific disciplines.
Precisely incorrect. This question can be answered by middle-school biology.
“Facts and Doubts” goes on to propound some uninformed generalizations–“religion favours irrationality,” and “religion tends to keep its truths in a form of metaphoric expressions, preferring qualitative.” It makes a grand philosophical statement that the author seems a bit unqualified to make: “Each discipline [religion and science] should preserve its principles, its separate interpretations and its own conclusions. In the end, both of them represent different components of the one and indivisible culture of mankind.”
“Facts and Doubts” concludes thus:
The question when a human life begins and how to define it could be answered only through the inner-connecting pathways of history, philosophy and medical science. It has not been easy to determine where to draw the fine line between the competence of science and metaphysics in this delicate philosophical field. To a large extent, the drawing of this line depends on one’s fundamental philosophical outlook.
This, like other failed attempts at philosophical profundity, is a change of topic from the focus of the article. “Facts and Doubts” is mostly about embryology, which actually is relevant to the question “When in this process did a new little human organism begin?” Not at all relevant to that question is how we should philosophically define a human being. Take your pick from Aristotle, Heidegger, Confucius, Shakespeare, the Bible, or Buddhism. But a new little human organism is what we’re supposed to be talking about here.
At the Latest, a Human Being Still Begins Very Early
Let’s continue with something simple and important:
There is a moment very early in pregnancy after which there is no possibility of ambiguity. “Facts and Doubts”:
Genetic uniqueness and singleness coincide only after implantation and restriction have completed, which is about 3 weeks after fertilization. Until that period, the zygote and its sequelae are in a fluid process, are not physical individual, and therefore cannot be a person.
So no later than that. From this point at the latest, we have a human being in the womb, and the question is not “When does human life begin?” Here we have actual philosophical questions like “Do all human beings have value?” and “Do all human beings have rights?”
To those who claim to value human life and give as a reason for abortion the supposed ambiguity about when a human being begins:
OK, so that means no abortion starting at about 3 weeks or so. I think I speak for most American pro-lifers when I say “OK; we’ll take that offer!”
Does He Begin Even Earlier?
What about any ambiguity before that point?
“Facts and Doubts” says there is rather a lot of ambiguity:
Today, one largely accepted opinion is that until the 14th day from fertilization or at least, until implantation -the human embryo may not be considered, from the ontological point of view, as an individual. There are at least five main reasons in favour of this opinion:
- Before formation of embryonic disk embryo is “a mass of cells genetically human”, “a cluster of distinct individual cells” which are each one “distinct ontological entities in simple contact with the others” (18)
- Until approximately the 14th day after fertilization, all that happens is simply a preparation of the protective and nutritional systems required for the future needs of the embryo. Only when entity called embryonic disc is formed can develop into a foetus and thence into a foetus. (19)
- Monozygotic twins phenomenon or chimeras can occur. In fact, this seems to be the strongest reason why the embryo is denied the quality of individuality and as a proof that the zygote cannot be an ontologically human being. In approximately one third of cases the embryo divides at about the two cells stage and in the other two thirds the inner cell mass divides within the blastocyst from day 38. Occasionally, the division takes place from day 8-12 but usually it is not complete thereby forming conjoined identical twins on two-headed individuals.
- Co-existence of the embryo with its mother is a necessary condition for an embryo belonging to the human species and this condition can be obtained only at implantation (13). However, there is evidence that development of human embryo in vitro can continue well beyond the stage of implantation, and that mouse embryos implanted under the male renal capsule can reach the foetal stage. It is also argued, or at least implied, that so many human embryos die before or after implantation that it would be lacking in realism to accept that the human individual begins before implantation.
It is well known that high percentages of oocytes, which have been penetrated never, proceed on to further development, and that many oocytes which do, are thwarted so early in their development that their presence is not even recognized. Up to 50% of ovulated eggs and zygotes recovered after operations were found so grossly, abnormal that it would be very unlikely that they would result in viable pregnancies. It is also suggested that 30% of conceptions detected by positive reactions to human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) tests abort spontaneously before these pregnancies are clinically verified. The scientific literature is not unanimous on the incidence of natural wastage prior to, and during, implantation in humans, varying from 15% to as much as 50%. The vast majority of these looses are due to chromosomal defects caused during gametogenesis and fertilization. (20)
Genetic uniqueness and singleness coincide only after implantation and restriction have completed, which is about 3 weeks after fertilization. Until that period, the zygote and its sequelae are in a fluid process and are not physical individual and therefore cannot be a person.
- The product of fertilization may be a tumour, an hydatidiform mole or chorioepithelioma. Though the mole is alive and of human origin, it is definitely not a human individual or human being. It lacks a true human nature from the start and has no natural potential to begin human development.
What do we make of these reasons?
(Hint: Jump ahead to “The Third Reason Is Actually Interesting” if you want to just look at the best reason!”)
Well, at Least One Reason Sucks
Let’s dispense with the last one first, a simple exercise in irrelevance. So sometimes the biological mechanics don’t quite work out and we end up with a thing that isn’t a human organism–a thing which “lacks a true human nature from the start.” That has no bearing whatsoever on when an actual human organism begins.
Unfortunately, “Facts and Doubts” is poorly written, and it’s hard to be sure what the authors mean sometimes. Later they say:
The start of the embryo-chorionic circulation changes the source of nourishment to all intraembryonic tissues. The survival and further development of the embryo become dependent on the circulation of embryonic/foetal blood. If the embryochorionic circulation does not develop, or fails, the concept is aborted. The embryo cannot survive without the chorion (placenta) and the chorion will not survive without the embryo. A vascular degenerated chorionic villi constitute the hydatidiform mole.
That almost makes it sound like the hydatidiform mole really is a human organism and then just dies. But let’s cut to the chase and borrow from some more readable writing, in this case from Wikipedia:
The occurrence of a molar pregnancy can be attributed to the fertilized egg lacking an original maternal nucleus. As a result, the products of conception may or may not contain fetal tissue. These molar pregnancies are categorized into two types: partial moles and complete moles, where the term ‘mole‘ simply denotes a clump of growing tissue or a ‘growth’.
A complete mole is caused by either a single sperm (90% of the time) or two sperm (10% of the time) combining with an egg that has lost its DNA.
. . .
In most complete moles, all nuclear genes are inherited from the father only (androgenesis). In approximately 80% of these androgenetic moles, the most probable mechanism is that an egg with an empty nucleus or no nucleus is fertilized by a single sperm, followed by a duplication of all chromosomes/genes (a process called endoreduplication). In approximately 20% of complete moles, the most probable mechanism is that an empty egg is fertilized by two sperm. In both cases, the moles are diploid (i.e. there are two copies of every chromosome). In all these cases, the mitochondrial genes are inherited from the mother, as usual.
Most partial moles are triploid (three chromosome sets). The nucleus contains one maternal set of genes and two paternal sets.
In other words, we really are talking about something that is not a human organism from the start: It doesn’t have enough DNA. Except sometimes when it has too much DNA, in which case either it’s not a complete organism or it’s a complete one that can’t survive.
Regardless, none of this is a reason to doubt that, when the biological mechanics work properly and a sperm and egg come together for a complete fertilized egg, the result is a tiny human organism.
Not Impressed with the First Reason Either
The first reason is a citation of When Did I Begin-Conception of The Human Individual in History, Philosophy and Science. I was able to pull up some–only some–of the relevant text on Google Books. One reason (pages 137-139) claims that, in some very early stages after conception, there are these distinct cells that don’t form a single organism because they aren’t closely connected and they more or less fend for themselves for nutrition.
This is not a good reason. If it’s the same cells that work together a little later as a new baby, then it’s already a new baby now. Unique nutritional needs at a unique stage don’t change what a thing is. They don’t change that when the baby is 1 day before birth, 1 day past birth, or at any later time.
Some other of the cited pages talk about twinning, but we’ll get to that and, anyway, I couldn’t even see all the pages.
But there was an interesting argument that turned up very briefly on page 146 of When Did I Begin?
What Argument Is That?
If I’m not mistaken, it’s one I also saw in “Facts and Doubts.” It’s kind of interesting. It’s something like this:
Part of the fertilized egg’s cells become a placenta, not a human being. Therefore, until they are differentiated there is no human being present.
This appears to be a clever bit of sophistry, or maybe just missing the point. It is not a necessary condition for something to be an organism that no part of it becomes something else. Part of a caterpillar stops being part of the organism so the organism can mature into a butterfly. A snake sheds its skin.
What makes something an organism is all of it being there, not all of its parts being permanent.
How About the Second Reason from the “Facts and Doubts” List?
It’s hard to nail down.
The idea is apparently that the embryonic disc does not start until a couple of weeks after fertilization, and the embryonic disc is (or develops into) the real human being. The argument cites a source by one Ann McLaren which I could not find online, not even through a university library. Related, however, is this article in the journal Bioethics by D. Gareth Jones and Barbara Telfer, “Before I Was an Embryo, I Was a Pre-embryo: Or Was I?” The PDF is online, and it cites McLaren. On page 35, we read:
These events take place during the early part of the second postfertilization week, at about the same time as the inner cell mass undergoes reorganization into two layers, epiblast (giving rise to embryonic ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm) and hypoblast (giving rise to extraembryonic endoderm) which together constitute the bilaminar embryonic disc, as in Figure lc.
Our last argument was: Some parts are discarded, so this isn’t the whole organism. This may be a new argument: The part that clearly is (or develops into) the organism is not yet there, and therefore neither is the organism.
That’s a better argument.
But the embryonic disc does not come out of nowhere; it comes from the cells of the fertilized egg. So maybe this is just a retread of our last bad argument after all. It sure looks like a retread as we look over Jones and Telfer from page 35 until a quote from C. R. Austin on page 37.
But another way of looking at this argument turns up on page 39 with citations from MacLaren and two others. The idea seems to be that until that embryonic disc develops there’s just not a distinct thing there yet. It’s acknowledged that what the distinct thing comes from is totally there, but the thing itself apparently is not.
And why is that so apparent? More or less just that you can’t look at the thing and see its boundaries yet.
Jones and Telfer helpfully clarify on page 40:
The argument that the early embryo prior to about two weeks gestation is conceptually different from the 3- or 4-week embryo rests on various dominant characteristics: much of it gives rise to the placenta and supporting tissue, it is neither a coherent nor a spatially defined entity, and its early developmental potential is unrestricted. While these features can be treated independently, there is considerable interplay between them.
Now that’s helpful: Jones and Telfer are also trying to figure out what the argument here is, and in the process they identify the lousy argument with which we’ve already dispensed, plus two more:
–that there is at this early stage “neither a coherent nor a spatially defined entity,” and
–that “its early developmental potential is unrestricted.”
How do we respond to this argument? Jones and Telfer have some suggestions (page 46):
What is significant, morally and biologically, is the whole, regardless of whether some parts of the whole will or will not continue through into postnatal existence. They are all essential for prenatal existence, without which there would be no postnatal existence.
It is the whole that is the individual-human-life-to-be. The preembryo/embryo is becoming an individual in this sense. We are not interested in cells, as such, but in the whole composed of cells becoming organized in particular ways.
This is correct. What we’re interested in is whether there is a complete organism here. It appears that there is for one simple reason: Everything that is necessary for the functioning of the organism is there, and it is functioning to build a birthable little baby.
I conclude that the second reason from the “Facts and Doubts” list is suggestive and philosophical at best, philosophical and ridiculous at worst.
And the Fourth Reason from “Facts and Doubts”?
There is some bad writing here, and on top of that, the fourth reason is more of a hodgepodge of different stuff. Let’s look at them one at a time.
- I’m not even sure what is the point of their mentioning this. They say that “Co-existence of the embryo with its mother is a necessary condition for an embryo belonging to the human species,” and that “this condition can be obtained only at implantation.” I’m pretty sure a fertilized egg co-exists with the mother before it’s implanted. Do they have in mind some special sense of “co-exist”?
- They appear to be claiming that some early stage–the “human embryo in vitro”–can sometimes continue after implantation. I’m not sure what the point of this is, other than to say that development does not always follow the same exact pattern–which is not relevant to whether the thing developing is a human organism.
- They say that “mouse embryos implanted under the male renal capsule can reach the foetal stage;” their point presumably is that it’s possible for the developing thing here to develop in non-standard or non-viable ways. But we already knew that, and it’s not relevant to whether the thing developing is a human organism.
- They claim that “so many human embryos die before or after implantation that it would be lacking in realism to accept that the human individual begins before implantation.” That’s ridiculous–the survival rate of a particular kind of thing has no bearing on whether something of that kind is a human organism.
- They mention that some egg cells penetrated by sperm cells don’t develop properly. Another fallacy: Either such an egg was properly fertilized by its sperm, or it wasn’t; if it wasn’t, it’s not an organism; if it was, then, again, a low survival rate has no bearing on whether a thing of that kind is a human organism.
- They say that a lot of “eggs and zygotes” are “so grossly abnormal that it would be very unlikely that they would result in viable pregnancies.” Still ridiculous–the survival rate of a particular kind of thing has no bearing on whether a thing of that kind is a human organism.
- They mention that a lot of conceptions “abort spontaneously before these pregnancies are clinically verified.” Same mistake, again: The survival rate of a particular kind of thing has no bearing on whether a thing of that kind is a human organism.
- Finally, it looks to me like they fall back to their second reason with some remarks about “singleness” corresponding to “Genetic uniqueness.”
But the Third Reason Is Actually Interesting!
They correctly say that their third reason is “the strongest reason why the embryo is denied the quality of individuality and as a proof that the zygote cannot be an ontologically human being.”
At a certain early stage, the little thing can split into two! If each one of the things becomes a human being later, which one was the human being before the split? Neither can claim to be that person! Therefore, there was no human organism there before.
Right?
Wrong.
Let me first state that there’s a real philosophical issue here: It’s true that neither of two identical twins has a unique claim to being the same being as the original fertilized egg. I don’t have any explanation. I can’t answer that one twin is the original and the other a clone; or that both twins occupied the same space and time and body; or that there are actually three people there, the pre-split person and then both post-split people.
I don’t think we can dodge the puzzle by saying that the people come about later, without any philosophical puzzles, and there’s just the organism first. There are also two organisms later, just as there are two people later; if you’re interested in a broader category, there are even two things later. Any way we look at it, two things started off as one thing.
Weird.
But not relevant.
(I never said they were very nice banana trees. Those potato plants off to the side seem to be doing well at the moment.)
To be precise, it’s not relevant to the question of whether there is an organism there. The possibility of twinning does not mean there’s no organism beforehand. I once had a banana tree in a pot, and now I have two trees in two pots. The second stalk grew from a chunk of the underground rhizome that came off during a pot transfer. I could say that, since it was only a smallish chunk, it’s not the original organism. But what it is and what the original stalk is were both parts of the same original organism.
And, anyway, what if it had been a 49% chunk of the rhizome? Or exactly 50%?
The point is that sometimes an organism splits into two and, while that raises a philosophical puzzle about which thing is what (and where and when), it does not raise any puzzle about whether there was an organism there in the first place.
Patrick Lee and Melissa Moschella are correct in a Public Discourse article:
However, from the fact that A can split into B and C, it simply does not follow, nor does the fact at all suggest, that A was not an individual before the division. Conceivably, A might cease to be and give rise to B and C, or A might be identical with B or with C. When a flatworm is sliced, the result is two living flatworms. It is obvious that a new individual is generated by the division of parts from a single whole. The fact that the division of a flatworm produces two flatworms in no way shows that prior to that division there was not actually a single flatworm. The evidence indicates that this same type of event occurs with most monozygotic twinning in human beings. That is, in most monozygotic twinning a single embryonic human being exists until the splitting of some cells from this first embryo, and this division generates a second embryo. Thus, monozygotic twinning casts no doubt at all on the fact that the human embryo is a distinct, whole, albeit immature, human organism from conception (fertilization) on.
But What Is an Organism Anyway?
Is there any ambiguity about that?
Sure–don’t ask me to tell you for sure what viruses are.
But is there any relevant ambiguity? Not that I know of. The first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia article mention some ambiguities in the concept of an organism that doesn’t, so far as I can tell, even apply to the fertilized egg–with the possible exception of that twinning possibility discussed above.
Meanwhile, Wikipedia describes a fertilized egg well enough with phrases like “autonomous reproduction, growth, and metabolism.” (It’s about as autonomous as a pre-born, or even a post-born, baby, isn’t it?) Three definitions at Dictionary.com seem to describe a fertilized egg well enough, for example, “any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.”
A Human Being Begins at Conception
It looks like the science is settled. It is possible to debate whether all human beings matter, but I see no need to debate when a human being begins. He begins at conception.
Published in Abortion
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Should we enact the death penalty for women who seek abortions? If so, why? If not,, why not?
Are there some circumstances in which an abortion should be permitted? Some people suggest that if a 14 year old girl is raped by her father, she should be allowed to get an abortion. Some people suggest that if a doctor thinks a pregnant woman will die without an abortion, she should be allowed to get an abortion.
If human life really does begin at conception, and it seems very clear that it does, why should any abortions be permitted?
In theory, I’m willing to consider lots of things. (Have not considered this one yet; I might find interesting reasons against.)
In practice, heck no. I reckon for the foreseeable future we start with things like recognizing where human life is, building a culture of life, protecting more of it, and punishing the doctors who do illegal abortions.
Does she have the right to kill her father if she thinks that will make her life a bit better?
If not, whence the right to kill her baby?
In theory, yes. In practice, at least in the case of ectopic pregnancies–heck yeah.
Of course, it’s standard pro-abortion strategery to come up with painful cases and conclude from them that all abortion should be permitted. It’s bad reasoning. I can dream up thought experiments where killing all sorts of people makes sense, and yet the vast majority of killings are still pretty dang wrong.
I would permit some abortions ( Rape, Incest ) for political reasons. I agree they are murder also. However:
A: Politically it is (currently) impossible to ban abortion for Rape or Incest.
B: If you permit abortion in case of rape or incest, it may be possible to ban all other abortions. I want to ban as many abortions as politically possible.
C: If you ban as many as possible now, the Overton Window may shift in the future.
As far as punishing the mothers who abort their children, I think we need to leave that to God’s discretion. It is a political loser. Politically, it is better to punish the medical team that performs the abortion.
Yes.
I understand political practicality. I get that. But I think we need to focus on the principle of the issue.
If we think that someone who pays someone to murder another person deserves the death penalty and we also think that an unborn child in a woman’s womb is a person, it logically follows that if a woman pays a doctor to murder her unborn child, she ought to be subject to the death penalty.
It’s fine to talk political pragmatism. But I don’t think we should sidestep the principles at the heart of this issue.
From a practical political perspective, it makes sense to say that abortion in the case of rape and incest should be legal. But from a principled perspective, it seems that women who seek abortions under those circumstances should be put to death just like other murderers. Unless we think that, somehow, abortion isn’t actually murder. But I see no reason to think this.
My concern is that if we do not do some temporary compromises, that we will lose politically and all abortions will be permitted. I am following the idea of medical triage — save the lives you can save now.
I do agree that logically and morally, you are correct. But I do not want to fail to save the 97% in a vain attempt to save the final 3%. Better to save 97% than to save 0%. God is going to judge us whatever we do. Maybe we need to pray for wisdom, discernment, and guidance.
You’re defining conception as fertilization? I’ve heard it used to mean implantation.
I didn’t realize that there was a period of weeks between fertilization and implantation. When does the medical profession consider that a pregnancy has begun? When does the first trimester begin? Fertilization or implantation? When can a pregnancy test show a positive result?
Assuming there are no other relevant differences. (And maybe there are, at least sometimes.)
Good thing to check on. That’s how I’ve understood the term more or less all my life, though I’ve heard of alternative definitions.
Merriam-Webster nods to both definitions; Dictionary.com defines conception as a fertilization thing.
Well, don’t quote me on any answers to any answers to any of that. But at least those folks who talk about ambiguity seem to think there can be some weeks.
Implantation occurs about day 6. A sensitive pregnancy test will be positive a day later. This is before the missed menses.
I agree that a unique human life begins at conception. I’ve never thought the question “when does life begin” makes sense, as life was present before and after conception; there was never a point in the reproductive process when life wasn’t present.
I think it’s reasonable for people to debate the point in development at which we should recognize that no one, including the mother, should be free to abort the unborn human. I also think this generally comes down to a subjective matter of values, and not a matter we can settle objectively in any compelling way.
This post is why I posit that abortion be framed in terms of “justifiable homicide” or not. In law we permit/excuse the taking of life in many circumstances, e.g. self-defense, coerced killing, uniformed combatant. “Heart-beat” laws imply no pre-existing life. But what they really are is a definition of justifiable homicide based on time as opposed to circumstance. So, too, the “viability” laws. Abortions for rape, incest are more classical “justifiable homicide” decisions due to the un-consented hijacking of a woman’s body by first the man and then the child. Abortions for the health of the mother are “justifiable homicides” based on self-defense.
It just amazes me how far some will go to justify killing babies. What a monstrous world we live in. The Prince of Lies surely does rule this world.
He is a force to be reckoned with. But he’ll lose in the end. I read ahead.
Dude–spoilers!
the game is fixed!
Since I hope The Judge considers me a son by adoption, I am hoping for a whole lot of nepotism…..
This appears to be a physiologic discussion only. But for the purpose of recognizing — as we Americans do in the Constitution — there would be a relevent incorporation of what makes humans divine and a review of the nature of humans that places them between God and the animals. Your conclusion that life begins at conception applies equally to animals as it does humans. In that sense you are, I believe unintentionally, discounting the nature of humans and humanity. I believe there can be no assertion that an assemblage of cells is in the image of God without discussion of the incorporation of the Soul into the raising up of the physiologic entity from merely physical to the physical and spiritual. To ignore and place over-emphasis on the physiologic is to idolize the physiology and discount the spirit which indeed comes from God. Humans who assert that they can create life by putting an egg and a sperm together are ignoring the part played by God and the creation of the Soul, which exists outside time.
No.
Sure.
And that’s the conversation we need. In this post I’m just shoveling aside some distractions.
when discussing this with a person who is pro-abortion, I always walk backwards. I start with the birth of the child and say is this a person 10 minutes before birth, 2 week before birth, 1 month before birth and so on.
Cogent. Expansive. Erudite. Philosophical. Biological. Theological. Biblical. Brilliant.
Charitable. Kind.
It is almost impossible to deny that a fetus, at every stage. is a living human-what else is it?. Yes it is temporarily dependent on the mother, but so is neonate-their survival rate without human assistance is zero as well (although that didn’t bother Gov. Northam nor Senator Boxer). The problem is the shift to arguing when “personhood” exists….a very different and perhaps more sinister argument.
If a pregnant woman consumes a large quantity of alcohol and suffers a miscarriage, she murdered her unborn child by poisoning the child. If we are being consistent, women who do this should be subjected to the same punishments that other murders are subjected to. All miscarriages should be investigated based on suspicion of murder at least manslaughter or aggravated assault.
Well, this is one topic that could be discussed after establishing where human life begins.
That’s like saying we should investigate everyone who died after drinking tea because sometimes tea is poisoned.
Miscarriages happens for zillions of reason, and in a zillion cases they are innocent.
It’s often hard to use a word or phrase in one precise and technical sense without simultaneously freighting it with all of the associations it may have in every application.
In this instance, if we concede that a single fertilized human cell is a “human being,” then we should also recognize that a single fertilized bovine cell is a cow, a single fertilized canine cell is a dog, a single fertilized porcine cell is a pig, a single fertilized cetacean cell is a whale, and so on.
I’ll be interested to see how and if this informs the abortion debate.
Well, Hank, that is true. A single fertilized cetacean cell is indeed a whale, albeit one at its very earliest developmental stage.
Agreed. I am doing something similar to what SA is doing, laying rhetorical groundwork.
Yes, of course.
It doesn’t.
It’s just shoveling aside sophistry about when human life begins.
The real debate is over whether all humans matter.
I’m not laying rhetorical groundwork.