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akuma587 on 10 September 2008
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Grey Acumen said:
akuma587 said:

This is pretty much my assessment, when the child can survive outside the womb.  That is when you can without reservation say that the child is "alive." 

I mean by a very technical definition, every egg and every sperm is alive, so I really don't see why people draw the line at conception.  So technically you are killing future babies using condoms or taking birth control!  The logic kind of defeats itself eventually.

The other strong case is for when brainwave activity begins (somewhere around the end of the first trimester).

Development begins at conception, but "life" doesn't begin until much later.  Technically, the cells were always living, so just saying that they are alive doesn't do the trick.

I call bull on that. Most religions that actually make issues against abortion don't extend their beliefs to non humans. Heck, many of them don't extend those principals to humans outside of their religious affiliation. I haven't consulted my sperm, but I've never found a priest tiny enough to baptize them so I'm going to have to assume they have no religious affiliation of their own.

Besides, under that line of thought, not having rampant promiscuous sex would be the same thing, since sperm and egg cells are constantly being generated and dying off. I'm not sure if I recall this correctly, but I believe women actually have a finite number of egg cells that are cycled through, and menopause is the point at which egg cells are no longer being generated. Could be totally wrong or oversimplifying that point though.

To further that line of thought though for those that aren't religious, if you actually are attempting to defend egg and sperm cells on their own, you'd also need to not use soap, and die from starvation, since you can't eat animals, or plants which are also alive.

 

I don't disagree with your point personally, but I can understand where those who believe conception is the beginning do. Most people are attempting to protect a human life. No egg or sperm cell is going to spontaneously generate into a human on its own. Neither has the potential to become a human on their own, but once the connection is made and teh egg is fertilized, a human life can be made.

 

What you are saying is my point, that simply saying life begins at conception is kind of an arbitrary decision because both the egg and sperm were alive before then.  The logic doesn't follow through and should be based on a different set of criteria.

Development begins at conception, but "life" as we define it does not begin there.

 



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