What is the defintion of Human life?

Question

Most people would agree that human life should be protected yet many of our ethical controversies in this country and the world stem from our inability to come up with a good definition (abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, stem cell research, genetic engineering). Let's deal with the underlying question What is Human Life?

Answer 1

A unit of awareness

Answer 2

Technically, life starts at conception. I would argue that it is viable when it has its own heartbeat.

There are those who couldn't survive without the care of others and they are fully grown. Why not give equal oppertunity to an innocent unborn child? Where are all the equal oppertunity people out there?

This is the religion and spirituality forum, not the scientific, so ethics has a huge part of your question. Ending that life is murder, especially if it's for the convenience of the parents. We put dehumanizing definitions on it to try to remove the guilt but every woman I have talked to who had an abortion carries some guilt with her. We cry bloody murder when a group of armed criminals get shot by police just because one was on his bachelor party. He made a poor choice of friends and paid the price for it. Yet, who cries out for the innocent and helpless who scream silently in a horrible death?

Answer 3

Our country's laws cannot consider any religious/spiritual questions about when life begins or ends. It has to deal on cold science alone. Towards that end, an individual human life has been defined in the USA as beginning at BIRTH; that is when the individual has the protection of our country's constitution.

Interestingly enough, a person is considered dead when they are (a) brain dead, showing no electronic brain activity, and (b) cease heart and lung function. Most important, in the law's eyes, is the presence of upper brain function. The body's functions may run on "automatic pilot" (in the cerebellum), but if a CT scan shows no upper brain function (where thoughts and emotions occur, in the cerebrum) then the person is considered "gone".

I find it hypocritical on our government's part, to weigh two different factors concerning the beginning and ending of life. An unborn child has a heartbeat 22 days after conception, and measurable brain waves within 40 days.

Answer 4

Human life begins when a life-form is 'viable' - i.e. it would survive if born early. Hence premature births are human life, but I would say that an embryo or a stem cell - which has no brain and no mind and no emotions and no self-awareness - is not.

There is no point in being 'absolutist' about this, otherwise pro-lifers could come round and picket your house each time you wear briefs which are too tight and might threaten the existence of your sperm. See how ridiculous the arguments could get, in theory?

Common-sense should decide, and the wisdom of the medical profession.

Answer 5

I believe it begins at the fertilization of an egg and continues throughout development until the body dies.

Abortion is killing an innocent human being.
Capital Punishment is killing a guilty human being.

Euthenasia is killing yourself to end suffering.


Genetic engineering, Stem cell research, both become problematic and beyond our comprehension of law. There must be research on both these practices that I haven't done to decide.

Answer 6

Recently, researchers at Advanced Cell Technology of Worcester, Mass., succeeded in obtaining stem cells from mouse embryos without killing them.

Most stem cell researchers use embryos that were created but not used in in vitro fertility treatments to derive new stem cell lines. Most of these embryos are slated to be destroyed, or stored indefinitely, long past their viable storage life. In the United States alone, there have been estimates of at least 400,000 such embryos.
Medical researchers widely submit that stem cell research has the potential to dramatically alter approaches to understanding and treating diseases, and to alleviate suffering. In the future, most medical researchers anticipate being able to use technologies derived from stem cell research to treat a variety of diseases and impairments. Spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease are two examples that have been championed by high-profile media personalities (i.e. Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox). The anticipated medical benefits of stem cell research have added a certain amount of emotion and urgency to the debates, which has been exploited by proponents of embryonic stem cell research.

Answer 7

As you probably know the answers you will get here will be quite diverse. I believe human life begins at conception.
Attempts to dehumanize us by referring to an unborn baby as merely a fetus has led us down a dangerous path. For me, Human life is God created and should be treasured and valued as such. No person should be playing god and deciding when someone's life is valuable enough to be allowed, or is not valuable enough and is therefore terminated.

Answer 8

It's hard to define on an "ethical" level-but where I work life is officially "over" at either the brain level-where you are "brain dead" but are still artifically kept "alive" (blood to organs) or the cardiac level-where you are no longer breathing or have a pulse.People have no issue harvesting organs for their loved ones-but have issues with stem cells-I don't get it.

Answer 9

That is a good question. It has a different definition for different people. According to the Bible as I read it starts with the first breath after birth. The passage that says "and he breathed life into him" is what I believe is the answer..

Answer 10

I'd call it the ability to make more such life at maturity. But the questions to which you allude do not hinge solely on the definition of life per se; there are moral issues to wrestle with also.

Answer 11

~Life is a condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
*An entity with the above properties is considered to be a living organism, that is an organism that is alive hence can be called a life form.