do you think a fetus has a soul?...of about 2 to 3 weeks?

Question

can it even be called alive if it does not yet have the functions of a living body

ok for the one that said that a 2 to 3 weeks is an embryo, and is not human...when does it begin to resemble a human? 4? 5 weeks? when does its organs begin to work?

Answer 1

Yes I do believe that a fetus has a soul.

Answer 2

A fetus isn't a 2 to 3 weeks organism. Is an embryo that is barely something certainly not human. If an embryo has a soul then what happens when a fertilized egg splits and two embryous are formed? Did the soul split or did it vanish? I think souls are something to be acquired in this life with our actions. Do you think Hitler had a soul? Maybe there are people in this world that don't have souls right now.

Answer 3

It's human when it is still an egg in the woman and a bunch of sperm in the man's scrotum.

Traditional church teaching has mostly been that a soul enters the body at birth, or, alternatively, at the quickening. The current Vatican doctrine that it happens at conception is absurd. And it goes against centuries of church teaching.

The real point is not some imaginary "soul". The real question is when it is a person.

Persons have rights. We do not give rights to things just because they are human. Otherwise we would have to picket dentists and call them murderers for hearltessly taking the life of an innocent wisdom tooth. Cancer doctors could be shot for denying the right to life of human tumors.

Rights of personhood are and always have been for society to grant. We recognize this when we set stages in life at which you can drive a car, vote, drink in a bar, and become president of the United States.

If America ever adopts the religious view that there is a "soul" and it exists from conception, I will start a movement for equal rights for my sperm, which is just as human as any fetus. Then I will demand the vote for the unborn. And demand that babies be allowed to drink whisky in bars. And get DMV to issue driver's licenses at the moment of conception.

Answer 4

What exactly do you think a soul is? What properties does it have? What part of 'you' resides in the soul?

If it's postulated that consciousness, or awareness, or sense of self resides in the soul, it's difficult to see how this can be reconciled with the complete oblivion which accompanies general anaesthesia. How could a straightforward chemical, injected into the bloodstream, anaesthetise a soul so that it effectively ceases to exist during this time? If consciousness, in the form of a soul, were some kind of supernatural faculty, it would seem implausible that it could be completely disabled by a chemical.

How about some of the other things which we regard as essential parts of what makes a person what they are? How about love, compassion, reason, empathy, memory, conscious thought, character, 'spirituality' and so on? Well, there is really no plausible doubt that all these things are properties of the physical brain - We can alter all of these properties very simply with alcohol or other drugs, and observe how they change in people who have suffered significant brain damage. Previously placid people become uncontrollably violent, intelligent people become imbeciles, and so on. Stimulate the brain artificially, and the subject reports corresponding mental activity, e.g. 'religious experiences'. We can see from brain research that all these things - thought, emotion, sensation, character traits and so on - are correlated with activity in the brain, and some things can be identified with specific areas of the brain.

So, if all these faculties and characteristics of what we regard as the 'person' reside in the physical brain, as seems to be undeniably the case, and they all cease when the person dies, then what is left to be attributed to a 'soul'? As far as I can ascertain: Nothing.

Therefore, no, I don't believe anyone has a soul as a foetus or at any time at all. It's just religious mythology.

Answer 5

I love this question. It is a good one. No one can really know but we can ponder and guess. Do bugs, fish, lizards, dogs, cats or chimps have souls? If not, then maybe the little fetus doesn't either. Maybe a soul is slowly formed by the experiences that we have throughout life. Or maybe aborted souls are recycled and put into new fetuses. If I was God, I would recycle the little guys. Why waste a perfectly good little soul?

Answer 6

As a retired funeral director I've been in contact with many families. At no time , when called out on a death call, did any mother or father or grandparent
ever call and ask me to pick up a fetus. They usually said, "we, I, have lost our baby. A fetus, may be a fetus scientifically , but it's a child to the parents. That experience with death and dying has had a profound affect and effect on me. If you have had children when did they become your children--did they have a soul?

Answer 7

"Soul" is just a word invented to fill in the rather large holes in arguments for claims like "an embryo is a human being".

Souls do not really exist.

Wow, the answers you got really reveal how confused believers are about this. Apparently some cannot tell "soul" from "alive", most seem to believe that "souls" are real, and someone posted a Bible quote as though it were a relevant argument. These are the kinds of people who influence our public policy? No wonder we're in such trouble.

Answer 8

When it has a heart beat, then it would be considered alive. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know how long it takes for the heart to develop. Also, just because not all of the bodily functions work from the start doesn't mean it isn't alive. I'm guessing the lungs don't start to work until the child is born.

Answer 9

It imposible to answer. Abortion is illegal in ireland. I did my Master's Degree in Law thesis on the legal status of the embryo here.

Basically, christianity teaches, or at least catholicism does, that life begins at fertilisation, the fusion of the male and female gamete to form a zygote. Some say that life begins at implantation into the lining of the womb. That's what I believe.

I don't have a clue about where the soul comes into it.

Answer 10

That little potential person has just as much possibility - and way more likelihood - of doing more "bad" than "good."

If all little children go to heaven no matter what, why is abortion wrong?

If the soul is immortal, what does it matter if it's in a corporeal body or not?

Have any of you chicks ever had to think about having an abortion in more than a theoretical way? When you have, get back to me and we can swap notes. I'm very sorry, men, but in this one and only instance I will have to leave you out of this particular discussion, but you may listen if you want :)

Answer 11

According to the Tibetan Book of the Dead ( which explains the process of reincarnation from one existence to another all the way to conception ) The moment the father and mother's essences unite to fertilise the egg, the consciousness sparks and the personality of the mind-soul begins to form.

Sort of like a block of ice thats been melted away, starts to reform when the right ingredients and conditions arise... a semi formed ice block that's brittle and fragile is still an ice block :)