When life begins is a religious issue, not a provable biological fact, right?

Question

Mormon and some Fundamentalist churches believe in personhood at conception; Judaism holds that it begins at birth and abortion is not murder; ensoulment theories vary widely within Protestantism. The religious community will never reach consensus on the definition of a "person" or when abortion is morally justified. So isn't the 'when it becomes a life' not a valid point in the argument?

at 8 weeks, it has the potential to be a human life. It is not a life yet.

Answer 1

This is the worst thing to argue about because no one can even agree upon how to define "life".

Biologically speaking, anything living must, evolve, grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce, etc... which is everything a somatic CELL does. Hence, even your sperm and ova are alive, as are cancer cells, and these are ALSO TECHNICALLY CONSIDERED HUMAN. So if we are to argue in black and white terms (as many of the pro-lifers before me seem to insist on) a pro-lifer must also want to save human cancer cells, ejaculated human sperm cells, and aborted human ova (from menstruation).

(Don't get me wrong: I'm neither pro-life, nor pro-choice.. I don't know, and am simply being devil's advocate in hopes of catalyzing such debates as these)

Biologically speaking we don't even know if there is such thing as a soul, so obviously there is no means by which we can determine when it converges with the body.

As a religious person (Mormon) I do believe in the soul but I don't believe the body is endowed with it at conception. Within the first 4 weeks of pregnancy there is a 45% chance of miscarriage due to something called "genetic non-disjuction" where the shuffling of genes causes certain germ cells (sperm and eggs) to have too little or too many chromosomes. If one of these sperm or eggs that have too few or too many chromosomes fuse, typically it causes way too many problems and the body aborts the zygote (it is not yet a fetus). The 2% or so of such cases that acutally DO lead to a live birth are representative of those with genetic aneuploidy disorders (such as Turners Syndrome, Down Syndrome, etc). With such large odds of a "natural abortion", I doubt God bestows the soul at conception.

If you do believe in the soul, and in God, and in a purpose to life, then such beliefs makes it imperative that you preserve sentient human beings lives at all costs. Since we cant definitively say when such a "soul" enters the body, then someone who espouses a belief in divinity MUST assume the soul enters at conception just to "play it safe".

No matter how strongly I think this to be what actually happens, I still can not say with empirical scientific evidence that it is what actually happens.... SOOOO we are right back at square one!..... defining what "life" is.


(By the way Asker, you incorrectly stated that the Mormon church believes life to start at conception. The LDS (Mormon) church has taken no stance on this whatsoever. There are Mormons like myself that personally believe that life starts at birth and there are others who believe it starts at conception, while there are still others who don't know and don't care to know.)

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Sha Sha Sharrona: You said that when the soul leaves the body, death occurs for the entire body and cells stop living. This is not true. I'll assume by "soul" you mean sentience or consciousness. If what you said is true, then organ transplants would not be possible because as soon as death occured, all other cells in the body (including those of the organs) would be unviable. Also consider those who are brain dead but are on respirators, aspirators, and other life-support machines: Their body doesn't start decaying, yet it is quite obvious that a brain dead person is .... dead.

No brain = No consciousness = No sentience = No existence (in all exhaustive scientific means).

Very interesting question! Really opens ones mind!


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"I have watched people die, and you can tell when the soul leaves the body" - Yes, this happens when the person is brain dead (when specifically the cerebral cortex ceases to function. The cerebellum, corpus collasum, and any other primative parts of the brain may still function, but this just means that all the functions of the auntonomic nervous system (ie. breathing, heart rate, blinking, and anything else you do subconsciously) will continue to function. Everything else that makes that person unique (his/her intelligence, personality, temperment, tastes, etc) are gone.

Answer 2

The fact is that this is a moral question. Moral questions never have a conclusive end.

the fact is that it is a life from the moment the sperm and the egg meet. It is a living, growing organism with a unique DNA blueprint and a sexual identity. Now consciousness is a different thing all together. You could easily argue that a newborn baby has no conscious thought, therefore it is not yet a person and could be aborted.

Is a person who is under anesthesia a person? No thought, no behavior, no consciousness, no activity? Could we put someone under anesthesia and then kill them because at that point they weren't a self-sustaining conscious life?

what about severely mentally disabled individuals?

The value of human life has fluctuated throughout time and throughout the world. Using your logic we could say that life has no meaning because no consensus can be made as to its value.

Just because we have poor definitions for "life" doesn't mean that we should be able to kill anyone or anything that doesn't fit into our definition and is inconvenient.

Science will never solve this argument.

By the way, Mormons don't claim that "life" starts at conception, however it's a big enough deal that they want to err on the conservative side and not go around killing gods children, if that is the case.

Answer 3

Well I think its the key point in the argument. Because killing a person is wrong. The question is when does that mass of cells become a person. I tend to agree with the Jewish perspective since the Bible clearly shows that life began with God giving the dust breath. And breath and spirit are the same words!

Yet again, if the mass of cells is able to live outside of the womb then it could also be considered a life or a person. And this particular timing has been pushed further and further back. Earlier and earlier are babies prematurely born and actually living to talk about it! (much later after the birth of course, lol)

***UPDATE***
Judaism does believe abortion in the basic sense is wrong. But there is a cases in which it is permissible. See the discussion on "partial" life and a full life here: http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_o/bl_simmons_birthcontrolabortion.htm

Answer 4

O.K. Start with some facts.
Where did each and every person come about. This reminds me of the story of the Birds and the Bees. We all comprehend pollination, right?
Lets look at algae, It is living. Perhaps too simple; O.K. how about bacteria, gathered and placed in a contained environment. Hum, that is considered living. So how about a virus, that needs a host to survive. Yes indeed, this is alive as well.
Any gardeners out there? A seed placed in an environment suited for growth, sprouts, from a seed, needs nutrients, care, can not survive with out some tender loving care. Is a plant alive, of course it is. In fact, for a farmer, plants can even be insured, hail damage, flood, etc...
When does life begin?
For those who argue that abortion is not the taking of a life; I ask you, What would happen if the abortion did not occur?
Oh my, a baby would be born.
As every person who has ever walked on this earth began growing at the moment of conception, Logically, Scientifically, Life begins at conception.
Oddly, some Scientists harvest these growing babies from their mothers womb so rich people can rejuvenate their youth at the price of an-others life.

Answer 5

This is from the site below in dictionary.com

The American Heritage Science Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This pregnancy (prěg'nən-sē) Pronunciation Key

1. The condition of carrying developing offspring within the body.

Before a woman commits abortion she is pregnant. A living person is inside of her. You don't have an expectant mother getting an ultrasound for some living inside her that is a non-human being.

So "when it becomes life" is a very real and valid arguement whether religious or non religious.

Answer 6

I would say that "when does life begin" is a provable biological fact. Science may not be able to define what exactly life is, but they can tell when a cell is "alive" and "dead." I think its obvious that at the moment of conception, the embryo is "alive" at the cellular level. The combination of DNA from the mother and father give that single cell a unique human genetic code. Therefore, I would argue that life begins at conception based on those scientific facts. But I have no clue when that embryo is given or develops a "soul."

Answer 7

I'd use the term "philosophical", which may or may not extend to a particular religion. There is no strict scientific definition of when "life" begins. Do we know enough that we can say a rock is "not alive" and a penguin IS? Sure. But the line completely blurs when you're talking about reproduction. Life isn't such a discrete measurement. It's like trying to declare the exact point where a "cape" becomes a "peninsula".

Answer 8

Religion has absolutely nothing that matters to say on the matter.

The very fact that the religious can't even agree on when a collection of cells becomes a person (not when it becomes living) should show that it isn't a religious issue.

As for when a fetus becomes a person, that is something that we can agree on provided we can come up with a definition of person. When a fetus becomes life doesn't matter because we kill life that isn't considered a person everyday for all kinds of reasons.

Answer 9

I know this does not sound like a very religious thing to say. I know this will not sound Christian at all. Many many years ago I was very new agey believing in it all. I was in a car accident and though I could not be near them (I couldn't even see them). I gathered all my family and friends in a healing circle (in my mind). All of them were in it but my cousin who was pregnant at the time who kept on drifting out. I kept on trying to grab her back and she kept on drifting away. When she did drift away a being came from her a separate little thing. They both drifted off. SEPARATE not the same. I could see their "spirits" or whatever you want to call it. They both had them. The baby was only 4 months old. A soul at birth? No I do not think so. People want to fool themselves and tell themselves that but it is not true. God gives them a soul the minute they are conceived. I really do believe this.

Answer 10

It's a living human being at conception. Shortly after conception, a unique DNA code is formed which will remain unchanged through the life of the fetus, and after birth. Scientists define this event as the start of a human organism -- of human life. Many pro-lifers assert that the presence of a unique human DNA code also signals the start of a human person. When a human spirit leaves the body, we call that "death" and the cells quit living. It doesn't matter how many cells a person has. That isn't pig cells or plant cells growing, it's human.

EDIT: TO Aeorostar: I've worked in situations where people were declared "brain dead" and we tried to harvest their organs, but could not because when life support was removed they wouldn't die. Then while back in ICU waiting to harvest the organs the next day, they did die while on life support and we were unable to harvest the organs.
By soul I mean that part of us that is immortal that goes onto the afterlife. It's where our emotions and thoughts are seated and is linked to God. We are created in the image of God:mind, body and spirit (Father, Son and Holy Ghost). I have watched people die, and you can tell when the soul leaves the body.