When does life begin?

Question

Does it begin at birth? At conception? Somewhere in between?

Robin Hood: are you that witty at the drive-in window also?

Answer 1

Up until the very end of the 19th century the Catholic Church, the gold standard for such things, held the notion that 'life began at the 'quickening', or when the fetus began to move...about the fourth month. The church had held this view for several centuries. Abortion, to the Church, was considered a 'woman's issue' and so wasn't, to the Church, much of an issue at all. Abortion in the US only became an issue in the decades after the US Civil War when the medical profession actually became a profession that included childbirth as part of their training. Prior to that midwives did the job..again, a 'woman's issue'. However, a lot of quackery came into the picture and among the various 'snake oils' on the market were pills and potions that were claimed to bring on miscarrage....the birth control of its time. The problem was that there may well have been a miscarrage, but the woman often died of the poision that these snake oils were loaded with. So states passed laws outlawing these things to protect women from being killed by these unscrupules criminals. That's probably a lot more than you needed to know, but the 4th month rule still seems the most sane to me and R v Wade seems to confirm that.

Answer 2

Since you cannot be a little bit pregnant, it seems to me that life begins at conception when you have all the genetic material in place. There is also the discussion of the soul which is said to take up residence when this happens. Pregnancy happens about a week later when implantation occurs. At that point the mother has become the host for another being. If life doesn't begin at conception, then I believe that it is all ready there at implantation, because parts of the conceptus have to actively invade the endometrium. All the mother does is provide for the possibility.

Answer 3

I believe life has various beginnings. As a living entity it begins at conception. I do not believe that it has life as we know and expect at that point. I believe life as a human begins when the child is fully developed within the womb and functioning. At the point the child leaves the body of it's mother is the point life begins. Now there are thousands of exceptions to this. Laws governing the term life is a complicated issue. A man stabs a pregnant woman and her and the baby die. I believe the murderer is guilty of two murders, the mother and the child. A mother and father decide to have an abortion at any time during the prenancy is not murder.

Answer 4

Since you're asking this in politics, I think you mean the legal definition.

The legal definition is "somewhere in between."

Human life is legally considered to begin when the full range of brain waves are active. I'm not sure on the timing, but the abortion laws reflect this period of time. Whenever the time actually is, it has to have higher-level brain function. The argument is that until that point, you cannot make a distinction between the embryo and a human being. What makes us human is our brain--our intellect, so arguably you have to have that function to be considered 'human.'

As far as any other aspect of your question, it belongs in the philosophy section, under ethics.

Answer 5

I will say only this, ask the woman who has had a child aborted. Then ask this same woman the same question the next time she gets pregnant but miscarries her unborn child. Ask her why she mournes the child she picked names for, bought clothes for, painted a nursery for and talked quietly to every day for the four months she carried it. Furthermore, ask the father of both of these children he never met, but however fleetingly, based his future on, placed his hopes and dreams in, because to him they were all that and so much more. I know, there are those of you out there that are much much too intelligent to need to ask a question such as the ones above. Your almighty logic allows you to rationalize most everything, and you may just at that.

Answer 6

Life begins when a spirit from the nether realm is sucked out of the 11th dimension and into the fetus being formed inside the womans womb.

Either that or it's when the Flying Spaghetti Monster touches the fetus with his noodly apendage and sparks life. You can tell because when babies are born all the marinara sauce comes with them.

Then End.

Answer 7

There is such a grey issue here. Some believe that because the union of the egg and sperm contains the DNA for an entire being unique unto itself, conception. Others believe after the foetus' sex differentiates, usually by the third month sex becomes physically evident. Others think at the time the life is able to function on its own. That can be anywhere from the 6th month to the 9th.
Personally, I think it begins at conception, what are the chances of duplicating that exact combination of genes?

Answer 8

the OFFICIAL definition, according to the Internal Revenue Service (which we ALL have to deal with) is AT BIRTH. If a mother to be carries a foetus 8 and a half months and it is born dead, NO EXEMPTION. If it survives even a few seconds after being born, she gets to claim that exemption. Religion may see it differently and everyone has a right to their opinion, but from a purely practically financial point of view, the answer is AT BIRTH.

Answer 9

After turning 21.

Answer 10

I think it begins when you can first detect brain waves. The sacred part of the human being is the mind. After that abortion is wrong.

Before that I think a fetus is a mass of cells. Killing cells isn't the "life" you're referring to. If I punch my arm I'll kill millions of cells. Is that desecrating the sanctity of life? Am I a mass murderer? I don't think anything magical happens when a sperm enters an egg. It's just cells combining. Until a painting has been painted it's just paint. I think we become art when our minds begin to function.