Does life begin at conception? I think it does.

[dotcoma]

I used to be pro-choice, but I thought about it for a while, and the privacy issue no longer makes sense to me. If you truly beleive life begins at conception then you have no right to privately destroy that life. It is like taking someone's life in your basement and claiming prosecution would be a violation of privacy in my opinion.

So what are you feelings on this controversial social issue?

[Gorgo]

Why don't I have a right to destroy that life?

[tinybear]

Why do you say you have that right?

[bishop]

your analogy of killing someone in your basement is a stretch.. the zygote is a part of the woman's body. it belongs to her body. does she not have the right to choose whether/not this entity stays within her and grows until birth? the crux of the issue as i see it is whether/not the woman has the rights to control her own body.

how do you define life? i think that question supercedes the one you've asked in this thread. is life defined by a clump of cells, or by something that thinks, has a conscience, etc? the classic characterization of when life begins was at the quickening, when the fetus would kick around in the mother's womb. that sort of event is undeniably human.

what about a zygote? even further, a sperm and an egg could also be termed alive, by the same notion as a clump of cells could.

i completely oppose late term abortions, but i support early term abortions. my definition of life (regarding this topic) must differ from yours.

[Gorgo]

I don't think I did. I was asking Dotcoma to back up that statement. Who says that I don't have a right even if I "believe" that life begins at conception.

[dotcoma]

Quote by: Gorgo Why don't I have a right to destroy that life?

Because you do not have a right to destroy human life.

Quote by: bishop your analogy of killing someone in your basement is a stretch.. the zygote is a part of the woman's body. it belongs to her body. does she not have the right to choose whether/not this entity stays within her and grows until birth? the crux of the issue as i see it is whether/not the woman has the rights to control her own body.

But the zygote is indeed an early form of a human being that is indeed alive. I think this is quibbling over details.

I do support emergency abortions and such, but this idea of "whoops time to kill it" does not sit well.

how do you define life? i think that question supercedes the one you've asked in this thread. is life defined by a clump of cells, or by something that thinks, has a conscience, etc? the classic characterization of when life begins was at the quickening, when the fetus would kick around in the mother's womb. that sort of event is undeniably human.

Life for me is defined by breathing, needing resources, etc.

what about a zygote? even further, a sperm and an egg could also be termed alive, by the same notion as a clump of cells could.

Right, I do not get too specific. I logically know that it is human life. By killing it I am denying it the right to life.

i completely oppose late term abortions, but i support early term abortions. my definition of life (regarding this topic) must differ from yours.

Yes, we do indeed have different opinions on the definition of life.

[Gorgo]

Circular reasoning - I don't because I don't. Why dont I?

Quote by: dotcoma Because you do not have a right to destroy human life.

[dotcoma]

Quote by: Gorgo Circular reasoning - I don't because I don't. Why dont I?

I did not think I would be arguing about why you do not have the right to kill other humans. Do you have a point, or are you questioning the very reasoning behind not allowing murder in a social system?

[Gorgo]

It is illegal to kill other humans under some circumstances and not others.

It is at least counterproductive (if you care about your own life) to kill humans under some circumstances if not others.

Why do you say I have no "right" to kill humans? I have no right to kill any humans at any time? If I do, what gives me the "right" to kill humans? If I don't, what keeps me from having that "right?"

[dotcoma]

Quote by: Gorgo It is illegal to kill other humans under some circumstances and not others. It is at least counterproductive (if you care about your own life) to kill humans under some circumstances if not others.

Under all actually..

Why do you say I have no "right" to kill humans? I have no right to kill any humans at any time? If I do, what gives me the "right" to kill humans? If I don't, what keeps me from having that "right?"

You do not have such a right because of the chaos that would exist in such a society.

[Gorgo]

Chaos exists now because some people kill other people now?

[dotcoma]

...

Gorgo, you are taking this topic way off track, but I will briefly answer your question. The state kills people that violate the rules and murder.

People kill other people in self defense in their own homes. This has absolutely nothing to do with people killing innocent life. This is where chaos would come from. If we permitted everyone to take the law into their own hands we would have no respect for anything but our immediate needs (more so than we already do).

[Gorgo]

So, since it is legal to have abortions, then some people have "the right" to have abortions?

[dotcoma]

Quote by: Gorgo So, since it is legal to have abortions, then some people have "the right" to have abortions?

No, it is why I am against abortions. I think it is a violation of our ethics and it puts our regard for humanity into question.

[bishop]

I do support emergency abortions and such, but this idea of "whoops time to kill it" does not sit well.

how about in cases of incest? and, if yes, how does that differ with an individual using birth control to erase an accident?

Right, I do not get too specific. I logically know that it is human life. By killing it I am denying it the right to life.

i happen to see value in the details. i would argue that the zygote is a cluster of cells that has the potential to grow into human life - and i see abortion as an immoral act only if you wait and let it continue to develop (hence why i'm opposed to partial-birth or any mid/late-term abortion).

the other issue is whether the woman has dominion over her own body. the fetus is not an entity unto itself. it is, for all intensive purposes, a parasite of sorts that depends on its host for survival.

this may be off-topic, but.. while people like to frame the debate about abortion purely around its morality or lack thereof, the reality of it is that utilitarian arguments concerning abortion are equally valid. i repeat, they are just as valid as the moral arguments. the issue imo, is one of choice, where the woman has the right to own her own body and choose between her morals and utilitarian concerns. that is the essence of freedom imo, both spiritual and legal.

[Gorgo]

Now you've changed from "rights" to "our ethics." Why do you think abortion is a violation of my ethics?

Quote by: dotcoma No, it is why I am against abortions. I think it is a violation of our ethics and it puts our regard for humanity into question.

[SeanG]

I have been gone for some time, and am still quite busy (any free time I get I work on a newsletter I do for my co-workers introducing them to my commentary on science and news). I know the following post is long, but I do not post it to debate about it, I am posting it so that those here in this discussion can use the information herein to better deal with this important topic.

[SeanG]

Excerpted largely from Pro-Life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments

• When Does Life Begin?

1.) “It is uncertain when human life begins; that’s a religious question that cannot be answered by science.”

An article printed and distributed by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL [the original, and still largest pro-“choice” organization]) describes as “anti-choice” the position that “human life begins at conception.” It says the pro-choice position is, “Personhood at conception is a religious belief, not a provable biological fact.”

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News said on July 3, 2000, "No one knows when human life begins." He made no distinction between biological life and any other kind of life. Mr. O’Reilly then went on to ask a guest if [i]"is an embryo in a [petri] dish a human life?" Sen. Hatch's claim that "an embryo in a petri dish is not a human life"?

1a.) “If there is uncertainty about when human life begins, the benefit of the doubt should go to preserving life.”

[Side-note: one of the reasons the Supreme Court allowed the legalization of abortion is that they weren’t sure of when life began.] Suppose there is uncertainty about when human life begins. Analogies: If a hunter is uncertain whether a movement in the brush is caused by a person, does his uncertainty lead him to fire or not to fire? If you’re driving at night and you think the dark figure ahead on the road may be a child, but it may be just a shadow of a tree, do you drive into it or do you put on the brakes? If we find someone who may be dead or alive, but we’re not sure, what is the best policy? To assume he is alive and try to save him, or to assume he is dead and walk away? Shouldn’t we give the benefit of the doubt to life? Otherwise we are saying, “This may or may not be a child, therefore it’s all right to destroy it.”

1b.) “Medical Textbooks and scientific reference works constantly agree that human life begins at conception.”

Many people have been told that there is no medical or scientific consensus as to when human life begins. This is simply untrue. Among those scientists who have no vested (monetary) in the abortion issue, there is an overwhelming consensus that human life begins at conception. (Conception is the moment when the egg is fertilized by the sperm, bringing into existence the zygote, which is a genetically distinct individual.)

Dr. Bradley M. Patten’s textbook, Human Embryology, states:

• “It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and the resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of a new individual.”

Dr. Keith L. Moore’s text on embryology, referring to the single cell zygote, says:

• “The cell results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of a human being.” He also states, “Each of us started life as a cell called a zygote.”

Doctors J. P. Greenhill and E. A. Friedman, in their work on biology and obstetrics, state:

• “The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life.”

Dr. Louis Fridhandler, in the medical textbook Biology of Gestation, refers to fertilization as:

• “that wondrous moment that marks the beginning of life for a new unique individual.”

Doctors E. L. Potter and J. M. Craig write in Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant:

• “Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition.”

Popular scientific reference works reflect this same understanding of when human life begins. Time and Rand McNally’s Atlas of the Human Body states:

• “In fusing together, the male and female gametes produce a fertilized single cell, the zygote, which is the start of a new individual.”

In an article on pregnancy, the Encyclopedia Britannica says:

• “A new individual is created when the elements of a potent sperm merge with those of a fertile ovum, or egg.”

These sources confidently affirm, with no hint of uncertainty that life begins at conception. They state not a theory or hypothesis and certainly not a religious belief – every one is a secular source. Their conclusion is squarely based on the scientific and medical facts.

1c.) “Some of the world’s most prominent scientist and physicians testified to a U. S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception.” (I guess the Congress of the United States commits the fallacy of authority, huh Big Steve.)

In 1981, a United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee invited experts to testify on the question of when life begins. All of the quotes from the following experts come directly from the official government record of their testimony.

Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, stated:

• “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception…. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of a human life…. I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent an incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty… is not a human being. This is human life at every stage….”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down’s syndrome. Dr. LeJeune testified to the Judiciary Subcommittee that:

• “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic:

• “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School:

• “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”

Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School:

• “The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view as simple and straightforward matter – the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological [familial, age, or medical advances], political [pro-choice], or economic goals [cannot finish school].”

A prominent physician points out that at these Senate hearings, “Pro-abortionists, though invited to do so, failed to produce even a single expert witness who could specifically testify that life begins at any other point other than conception or implantation.”

1d. “Many other prominent scientists and physicians have likewise affirmed with certainty that human life begins at conception.”

Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the pro-life cause. Nevertheless, he affirms unequivocally, “The basic fact is simple: Life begins not at birth, but conception.” Dr. Bernard Nathanson, internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist, was co-founder of what is now the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL [Dr. Nathanson helped start the entire pro-choice movement]). He owned and operated what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the Western hemisphere. He was directly involved in over sixty thousand abortions.

Dr. Nathanson’s study of developments in the science of fetology and his use of ultrasound to observe the unborn child in the womb led him to the conclusion that he had made a horrible mistake. Resigning from his lucrative position, Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was deeply troubled by his “increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.”

In his film, The Silent Scream, Dr. Nathanson later stated, “Modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community, indistinguishable in every way from us.” Dr. Nathanson wrote Aborting America to inform the public of the realities behind the abortion rights movement of which he had been a primary leader. At the time Dr. Nathanson was an atheist. His conclusions were not even remotely religious, but squarely based on the biological facts.

[SeanG]

Dr. Lundrum Shettles was for twenty-seven years attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Shettles was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility. He is internationally famous for being the discoverer of male- and female- producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of preborn children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles staes:

• “I oppose abortion, I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest – that human life commences at the same time of conception – and, secondly, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian.”

The official Senate report on Senate Bill 158, the “Human Life Bill,” summarized the issue this way:

• “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a humans being – a being that is and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.”

• Does It Matter?

In a statement form the The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, Director of Media and Policy Daniel McConchie said:

• "Stem cell lines are quickly becoming marketable items. Once some integral human parts can be bought and sold, we run the risk that democratic societies will decide that other weak and defenseless members of the human race in those societies can be utilized for profits as well."

Jews and Blacks were once said by the courts to be less than human, I wonder if we are headed down that path again?

• Appendix… “How Long o’Lord?”

Six-months after the Roe v. Wade decision, Dr. Peter A. J. Adam, a professor of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University, conducted an experiment in which he cut off the heads of twelve live aborted babies, pumped blood to their brains and kept them alive by machine to observe them.(1) Responding to criticism, Dr. Adam defended his experiment by commenting, “Once society’s declared the fetus dead, and abrogated its rights, I don’t see any ethical problem…. Whose rights are we going to protect once we’ve decided the fetus won’t live?”(2)

In a series of experiments conducted at Stanford University, Dr. Robert C. Goodlin cut open the chests of live aborted babies and observed their hearts directly. “The thorax [chest] was opened and the heart was observed directly,” he explained. All the babies died within eleven hours.(3)

In three studies at the University of Manitoba beginning in 1973, Dr. Francisco Reyes cut open the stomachs and skulls of 149 live aborted babies. The first study involved the delivery of live, normal babies whose abdomens were cut open and their sex and adrenal glands examined. The second study involved 79 babies aborted alive and later killed by heart puncture. The third study involved 116 babies also aborted alive. Their skulls were opened and their pituitary glands removed. They also were later killed by heart puncture.(4)

According to a June 1972 Reuters News Agency report, testicles were successfully transplanted from a six-month-old aborted baby into a twenty-eight-year-old Lebanese man. The donor baby was then killed.(5) In 1974 Dr. Bela A. Resch cut the hearts out of aborted babies and observed them beating outside their bodies for hours.(6) In 1980Dr. Martti Kekomaki cut open the stomachs and severed the heads of several live aborted babies.(7) He later remarked, “An aborted baby is just garbage and that’s where it ends up. Why not make use of it for society?”(8)

Two days after being elected into office, Bill Clinton legalized Partial-Birth abortions. This procedure requires a birth to be induced in the second or third trimester. The child is born breech (feet first), allowing all but a few inches of the child’s skull to be birthed from the canal. The baby is then rolled over so the stomach is facing down. A blunt cutting instrument is then inserted into the base of the child’s skull and an incision is then cut. A suction instrument is then inserted into the baby’s skull for the reason of extracting the brain tissue. This procedure is done on a live baby that would be considered a human (and Constitutionally protected) if it slipped out of the mothers womb a mere three inches. The baby is heard crying and the hands clench into tiny fists in agony due to the operation. After the baby dies from this procedure, she is then turned over and other parts are then harvested, as needed.

Footnotes for Appendix
1) Medical World News, June 8, 1973, p. 21.
2) The Stealing of America, by John Whitehead, p.p. 52-53.
3) Cited in The Abortion Holocaust: Today’s Final Solution, by William Brennan, p.p. 58-59.
4) See: F. I. Reyes, J. S. D. Winter, C. Faiman, “Studies on Human Sexual Development, I. Fetal Gonadal and Adrenal Sex Steroids,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (July 1973): 37:1, 74-79; F. I. Reyes, R. S. Boroditsky, J. S. D. Winter, C. Faiman, “Studies on Human Sexual Development , II. Fetal and Maternal Serum Gonadotropin and Sex Steroid Concentration,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (April 1974): 38:4, 612-617; J. A. Clements, F. I. Reyes, J. S. D. Winter, C. Faiman, “Studies on Human Sexual Development, III. Fetal Pituitary and Serum, Amniotic Fluid Concentrations of LH, CG, and FSH,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (January 1976): 42:1, 9-19; J. A. Clements, F. I. Reyes, J. S. D. Winter, C. Faiman, “Studies on Human Sexual Development, IV. Fetal Pituitary and Serum, Amniotic Fluid Concentrations of Prolactin,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (February 1977): 44:3, 408-413; Garry I. Warne, Charles Faiman, F. I. Reyes, J. S. D. Winter, “Studies on Human Sexual Development, V. Concentrations of Testosterone, 17-Hydroxyprogesterone and Progesterone in Human Amniotic Fluid throughout Getsation,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (May 1977): 44:5, 934-938; Garry I. Warne, Charles Faiman, F. I. Reyes, J. S. D. Winter, “Studies on Human Sexual Development, VI. Concentrations of Unconjugated Dehydroepiandrosterone, Estradiol, and Estriol in Amniotic Fluid throughout Gestation,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (December 1978): 47:6, 1363-1367.
5) Reuters News Agency, June 12, 1972.
6) Bela A. Resch, et al., “Comparison of Spontanious Concentration Rates if In Situ and Isolated Fetal Hearts in Early Pregnancy,” American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 118:1 (January 1, 1974): 73-74.
7) National Examiner (August 19, 1980).
8) ibid., 20.

[RickSp]

Who was it that said "the conservatives believe that rights begin at conception and end at birth"?

I have no issue with the assertion that life begins at conception. That is not at all the same thing as suggesting that individual rights as a sentient human being begin at conception.

Exactly when a fetus is sufficiently developed to be given consideration as an independent being is not clear cut. I generally agree with traditional Catholic teaching as articulated by St Augustine who suggested that abortion should not be regarded "as homicide, for there cannot be a living soul in a body that lacks sensation due to its not yet being formed." Abortion was allowed until the "quickening" at roughly 116 days, which happens to be roughly the first trimester, the period defined as allowable in Roe vs Wade. This was church policy for over 1500 years until the late 19th century. At least in this case I side with tradition.

Beyond the first trimester the issue becomes more difficult. After that point the life and health of the mother should certainly be given as much or more consideration than the fetus who is still entirely dependent on her.