Here are a few links to go along with our conversation from the other night, “when does life start?” I think it’s important to preface by saying, this isn’t to argue if abortion should be allowed, or the morality of taking a life at various stages of development, but more so to establish a base so a conversation could take place.
Here is an article from the American College of Pediatricians addressing when life begins:
https://acpeds.org/position-statements/when-human-life-begins
A few quotes are:
- Even authors who philosophically lean towards not attributing the same value to human life at the one-cell stage as they do to later stages of development admit that “As far as human ‘life’ per se, it is, for the most part, uncontroversial among the scientific and philosophical community that life begins at the moment when the genetic information contained in the sperm and ovum combine to form a genetically unique cell.”
- The American College of Pediatricians concurs with the body of scientific evidence that corroborates that a unique human life starts when the sperm and egg bind to each other in a process of fusion of their respective membranes and a single hybrid cell called a zygote, or one-cell embryo, is created.
Here is an article from the National Library of Medicine:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36629778
A key quote:
- Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions around the world assessed survey items on when a human’s life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view.
Here is a very pro-life video (bias), but talks about a study that was done.
I had a previous conversation with a pro-choice relative and he liked to look at pro-choice leaning sites. I wish I could recall which sites he used, but one may have been ACOG:
The problem I found was, he constantly conflated the idea of a separate life with a “viable life”, and always talked about biology and science in reference to government policy. The issue I find with conflating the two, when referring to the science, is they should be separate. The science behind when a new distinct, human life begins shouldn’t be dictated by potential policies made by governments. It should be separate, and then policy can be made based on the science.
Again, this isn’t to argue if abortion should or shouldn’t be allowed, it’s to establish when life begins. This isn’t to argue that if a life is viable in terms of surviving outside the mother’s womb, it’s to establish when life begins. I feel it is important to first establish when life begins, and then make policy afterward. There needs to be an intellectually honest base as a starting point.
To end, I’ll give you an example. As a non-believer of God, early on, I used to hold to the idea that “It’s just a clump of cells.” When looking into this subject further, I had to admit that was a dishonest view based on wanting to allow abortion. As an adult, I’m also a clump of cells, just further in my development. After that, I used the term “fetus” to try to disassociate the life in the womb from being a real “baby.” The issue with that is the etymology of fetus is offspring, or young:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/foetus
To stay intellectually honest, I had to acknowledge I was using that term to lessen the value of the life in the womb. After further thought and research, I acknowledged what is in the womb is a distinct human life. A life separate from the mother and father, one that has its own DNA, its own development and its own life. After that, I started holding the belief “What is inside the womb is a distinct human life, at a different stage of development than I am, and needs to remain in the womb until a certain level of development is achieved, and I AM OK with women killing that human.”
To conclude, the topics of viability, politics, policy, etc., are all deeper topics than I was covering here. This was only to establish an honest baseline for further discussion. It is a distinct human life. The problem with a lot of people in society is they don’t want to even acknowledge that, since it would have implications for their moral stance, their ideas for government roles in society, etc. To understand the struggles with this topic, I feel it is important for everyone to start from the same starting point, one that even the scientific majority acknowledges.