When Does Life Begin?

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Some argue that the unborn are not yet human because they lack rational intelligence, the distinctive difference of the human species. Rationality is certainly not missing in the arsenal of an unborn child's potentialities. If the child lives, he or she will certainly exercise that potentiality in a recognizable way.  

The "first nature" of any living being contains a bundle of potencies which are actualized according to the growth cycle of individual being. Just because the actualization of the capacity for human reasoning cannot be detected in a child's prenatal existence is no reason to assume the child lacks that capacity. There are many things a child won't do right away, such as forming words, sentences, and grasping concepts. But as any mother will tell you, children learn these things far sooner than you would expect.  

Both of the arguments above suffer from another defect -- they focus on certain aspects or qualities of a human life and not the life itself. When you talk to parents about the birth of a child they will often tell you about the sudden recognition that a new life has been thrust into their hands. A human being who did not exist now exists and has come forth from you. The contrast between existence and non-existence that is experienced at childbirth points back to the existence that came into being at the moment of conception. Sperm and egg joined together, and a new being, a third being, was created out of the union. That third being, the child, has never been before, except, perhaps, in the mind of God.