There Is No Answer In Law
On Election Day 2008, Colorado voters were asked to decide a question that theologians, ethicists, philosophers and parents from time immemorial have struggled with: when does life begin? A ballot initiative asked voters to expand the definition of “personhood” in the Colorado constitution to include any fertilized egg, zygote, embryo or fetus. If they decided that a fertilized egg is a person, then every fertilized egg would have inalienable rights, just like you--the reader.
But deciding “when life begins” is so much more complicated than a re-definition. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court refused to rule on the matter, saying that it was in no position to decide a question about which there was such great division: “When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.” In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the court again rejected arguments that a fetus was a person, with Justice Blackmun writing: an abortion is not “the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection. Accordingly, a State’s interest in protecting fetal life is not grounded in the Constitution. Nor, consistent with our Establishment Clause, can it be a theological or sectarian interest.”
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A society that does not protect the conceived life is selfish, careless & callus towards itself & others in that society..It is a "ME" generation.
PHYSICALLY= At the first heartbeat, SPIRITUALY= before physical time, when GOD formed you in HIS mind...
What evidence do you have for this?
Deciding when someone has a soul is a religious question. Deciding when someone is a person for purposes of the law is a legal question thanks to Roe and its progeny.
Deciding when human life begins is a scientific question that is capable of determination. At conception a new human life has been created. How much protection that life is entitled to then becomes the question, which should be a political one.
I agree with you except for when you say that human life starts at conception. As far as I know science has never come up with a satisfactory answer. If you know of some other research, please inform me.
The embryology textbooks used to train doctors (I think the most widely used one is written by a doctor named Dixon) are clear that at conception a new member of the species has been created.
He or she has DNA distinct from the mother and the father. A new life has been created as a matter of science . The degree of protection that life deserves is what cannot be determined by science.
Is somewhat questionable--Whether we can apply what's in an embryology textbook to be scientific fact--probably not.Yes, there is A textbook called "The developing human: Clinically-Oriented Embryology" that states "a zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo)." This does not answer the question of "what is a human being" or "at which point should a cell philosophically, politically, theologically be considered a human being." It's an example of one scientist saying what they think.
Since embryology is the scientific study of the development of human life prior to birth, I cannot think of a better scientific source for determining when human life begins.
The second part of your comment gets to the heart of the matter, although I think it should be phrased differently.
At conception a new human being has been created. It is not going to develop into a puppy, or a pony. It will become, if that development is not terminated, a human baby.
What you are really raising is the issue of when should an unborn child be considered a person, in the legal sense, who is entitled to society 's protection.
I think it is extremely important to separate the two concepts for the purposes of debating this issue. Abortion destroys a human life, whether it is performed at four weeks or twenty-four weeks. That is a scientific fact.
Denying the humanity of an unborn child may make people feel better about the 1.2 million abortions performed every year in the US, but it is intellectually dishonest.
The question that must be squarely faced is whether a mother should have an absolute power of life or death over her unborn child. You may believe the mother should have that authority, but denying that a human life is being extinguished is nothing more than an attempt to evade the enormity of what has been done.
Textbooks change over time. It changes as we know things. It changes as we learn things are different. If I found you an embryology textbook that said the opposite, that said that a fetus cannot truly be considered human until week whatever, would you be forced to admit that "Scientifically, human life begins at this stage."?
MEDICALLY, an authority we could possibly go to was the AMA. The AMA says there's no consensus between doctors .There are spectrums of opinions ranging from At Birth, to At Conception. There's no majority. There's just..a line in a textbook.
Scientifically though, it's less clear. For example, we could go to the neurologists. Neurologists are the people in charge of the study of the nervous system, and it's through them that we get the idea of what constitutes dead--ie, Brain Death. Using that rule, we couldn't really start Life until--Brain life. The first neurons start firing at around 5 months, and the brain is fully developed at 7.
So there's a valid scientific alternative.
Of course they change over time, as medical knowledge increases. Good luck finding a modern book on embryology that states that a human life is not created at conception.
With regard to your point on brain activity, a brain that is dead is still a human brain. A brain that is developing in an unborn child is still a human brain that is developing.
I find the whole "brain wave argument" to be another evasion. Is it really okay to destroy a human life simply because it does not have what you regard as sufficient brain activity? The brain is developing.
One thing is certain, if the unborn child is aborted, he or she will never have a chance to have any type of brain activity.
You would admit that it was scientifically proven that human life does not begin at conception?
The whole argument centers around both "what is technically alive" and "what is technically human", two things that do not have a clear definition--Certainly not a scientific definition--that we can fall back on. So whether you view that discussion as evasive or irrelevant, I'm sorry. But if the answers were clearer, there would be more consensus.
Since the overwhelming consensus in embryology textbooks is that life begins at conception, one outlier would not change that.
I do not undestand how you can deny that an unborn member of the human species is both alive and a human. An unborn human is obviously not dead and is obviously not a member of some other species.
This gets back, again, to a determination of legal personhood -- at what point does society decide that an unborn member of the human race cannot be intentionally killed?
Society may try to rationalize its decision on that issue by relying on things like brain waves or viability, but in the end it cannot be disputed that a developing human life is destroyed in an abortion .
That member of the human species will never walk the planet, feel the warmth of the sun, laugh, dance or engage in the countless other activities engaged in by those of us who had the good fortune to be carried to term by our mothers.
Justifying that deptivation of life based upon insufficient levels of brain activity or lung capacity strikes me as arbitrary and inhuman.
a consensus, since of the embryology textbooks that are in use at, say, the medical school attached to my University, none of them have a statement regarding how to define "life" or how to define "human". I could only find the one book that had that line in it. These things are defined, as the AMA says, by philosophers and not by doctors .
You use "experience" to determine human life. Does that fit into your definition, or is that something of an aside? Also, there is a difference between a "developing person" and a person, much like there is a difference between a developing thing and a thing. Or a possible thing and a thing.
I would think the others probably did not feel it was necessary to point out that a being developing in a woman was alive and was a human being.
I agree there is a difference between a developing person and a person. Does that difference justify the arbitrary killing of the developing person?
or disagreeing that "A textbook" does not constitute scientific consensus.
The assertion that other textbooks on embryology chose not to discuss the personhood of a zygote because it was unnecessary isn't logical. Indeed, one might presume that their non-statements either lead to the idea that the writers either: didn't want to represent philosophical opinion as scientific fact, or didn't think it was important enough to write down. It would be more accurate to say you have one, I have none, and there are dozens and dozens of neutrals.
When is it immoral to kill a person vs. When is it immoral not to kill a person is actually quite a complex philosophical question. It is fairly accepted, however, that people do not have any moral obligation to keep others alive at the cost of their own resources. For every person that starves to death, we don't incur some moral penalty. Certainly, we could have saved the, but we are under no moral obligation to do so. Indeed, in the event that they are, say, stealing from us to feed themselves, we have no moral obligation to allow this to continue. Put it another way--If my surviving costs you something, you're under no moral obligation to pay it just because not doing so would lead to the end of my life. And I'm a full-blown person, not a developing one.
"Development of the embryo begins at Stage 1 when a sperm fertilizes an oocyte and together they form a zygote."
[England, Marjorie A. Life Before Birth. 2nd ed. England: Mosby-Wolfe, 1996, p.31]
* * *
"Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception).
"Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]
* * *
"Embryo: the developing organism from the time of fertilization until significant differentiation has occurred, when the organism becomes known as a fetus."
[Cloning Human Beings. Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, MD: GPO, 1997, Appendix-2.]
* * *
"Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus."
[Dox, Ida G. et al. The Harper Collins Illustrated Medical Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993, p. 146]
* * *
"Embryo: The early developing fertilized egg that is growing into another individual of the species. In man the term 'embryo' is usually restricted to the period of development from fertilization until the end of the eighth week of pregnancy ."
[Walters, William and Singer, Peter (eds.). Test-Tube Babies. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 160]
* * *
"The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]
* * *
"Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism.... At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]
* * *
"The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."
[Sadler, T.W. Langman's Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]
* * *
"Zygote. This cell results from the union of an oocyte and a sperm during fertilization. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo)."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology. 7th edition. Philadelphia: Saunders 2003, p. 2.]
* * *
"The chromosomes of the oocyte and sperm are...respectively enclosed within female and male pronuclei. These pronuclei fuse with each other to produce the single, diploid, 2N nucleus of the fertilized zygote. This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
[Larsen, William J. Human Embryology. 2nd edition. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1997, p. 17]
* * *
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and M? Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29.]
* * *
"Almost all higher animals start their lives from a single cell, the fertilized ovum (zygote)... The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. Patten's Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]
On your second point, we are talking about intentional killing, not denying resources.
abortion except denying a fetus access to the resources of the incubator?
Many of these books are quite old. I mean, the most recent one was written six years ago, and the oldest, 24 years ago. Do you think that more modern editions have chosen to not include making such points consciously or unconsciously. If unconsciously, do you think that's because the writers of medical textbooks have simply felt that the debate is over?
denying a fetus access to the resources of the incubator?"
Now there is a euphemism for the ages. What abortion is, is the tearing to pieces, by one means or another, of an unborn member of our species.
All of the textbooks and medical dictionaries I cited were published after Roe v. Wade, when this issue became politicized. You have yet to cite a single textbook or medical dictionary that states that human life does not begin at conception.
In the absence of even a single source supporting your view, I do not see how you can even contend that there was ever a debate on this issue.
First of, I contend it because being in a textbook or medical dictionary once, even nine times, doesn't make something scientific fact, nor does it make it the opinion of the consensus of the scientific community.
I'll give you an example. Do you have the model in your head about how, in an atom, there's sort of a core of protons and neutrons, and electrons sort of orbit around in a circle? That's the model I grew up with in high school, and even in some university physics classes. The problem is that, even before those textbooks were written and those lesson plans were published, that's not really how atoms work. It's really not even close. Of course the real way they work is incredibly complicated. But the solar-system atomic model that is in so many textbooks doesn't represent the viewpoint of the majority of scientists, nor does it represent scientific fact.
The second reason I contend that is the same way the AMA contends it: It's really not the scientific communities purview to say what constitutes a human life or not. Just like it's not in the philosopher's purview to tell people how to make their car run faster, or the churches purview to teach higher-level mathematics out of the bible .
You're unable to see how there was ever a debate on the issue of what constitutes a human life, specifically regarding abortion ? That debate still goes on. Quite loudly. Look to your right--It's split 51\49. There's people who post and post and write and write and think and think specifically on this issue. "Here's this textbook. Game over, guys." That's not a thing.
Scientifically, we have to learn something empirically before we can call it a fact or not. Design an experiment which tests whether a fetus is a human life at the moment of conception. Or point me to an experiment that has shown a fetus to be a human life done in the past.
referring to was one I thought you were implying between textbook and medical dictionary publishers regarding whether they should state that human life begins at conception. Since there are no publications you can identify that take the "not a life at conception" position, there is no evidence of such a debate.
I really cannot understand your assertion that it is not a scientific fact that a human life starts at conception. At conception a unique member of the human species, with his or her own DNA pattern, comes into existence. The life form that is developing is obviously alive and indisputably human.
You want an experiment demonstrating that? Look around you. Human women get pregnant and nine months later, barring intentional or natural destruction of the life developing inside them, a human being will be born. Until a woman gives birth to a puppy or a pony, denying that the life growing inside her is a human life is absurd.
When an unborn life has a soul is a religious question. When an unborn life is a person is a legal and/or philosophical question. That an unborn life is a human life is a scientific question that has a clear answer. Attempts to evade that clear answer by claiming science cannot provide that answer are simply disingenuous.
Have a scientist analyze the remains of an abortion on a woman and the remains of an abortion on a dog. Do you really believe that science has no way of identifying which remains were human?
the definition of "unique member of a human species" as something that's genetically distinct is that it fails to take identical siblings into account.
How does science define "Alive"?
are two members of the human race who have the same DNA. The fact that they have the same DNA means they are not human? Or does it mean they are not alive? Or both?
A child growing in its mother's womb is alive. You actually dispute that? Once again, you are mixing human life with legal personhood. Those are two different issues.
Equating human life with legal personhood may make those who have or perform abortions feel better about themselves, but it is an evasion of reality.
And as such, the destruction of one wouldn't be a "death" according to your definition.
I'm asking, how does science define "live"? How does science define "alive"?
A cell, at the moment of conception, doesn't fit all of the criteria of what is a constantly-revised definition. It's not homeostatic, it's not catabolic, and it can't reproduce.
the destruction of one identical twin would be a death. The point I was trying to make, apparently unclearly, is that at conception the new life has DNA that is distinct from that of the mother and that of the father. Someone new has come into existence.
You keep saying the definition of life changes, but provide no citations to support the statement. At conception, the "organism" is (1) alive, and (2) a member of the human species. Explain to me how that does not add up to a human life?
Life has qualities that non-life does not. Are you asking me to cite where I'm getting those qualities and why they're important, or are you asking me to cite the need for a definition itself?
to cite something that claims that all the publications I cited to you are wrong when they say human life begins at conception. Those were all medical publications, not religious or philosophical tracts.
If science cannot define when human life begins, then those publications, which are used to train doctors , are desperately in need of revision.
"In the absence of such a theory, we are in a position analogous to that of a 16th-century investigator trying to define 'water' in the absence of molecular theory." [...] "Without access to living things having a different historical origin, it is difficult and perhaps ultimately impossible to formulate an adequately general theory of the nature of living systems".
Woodruff, T. Sullivan; John Baross (Oct 8, 2007). Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology. Cambridge University Press.
http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2009/03/can-we-define-life
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
close. Show me where a medical publication says that a human life is not created at conception. Articles about the difficulty of defining whether life exists on other planets are irrelevant to this dicussion.
Your assertion is that "Science has reached a consensus on life beginning at conception."
My assertion: "Science doesn't even have a consensus on what life is, so no they don't."
You need to have a consensus on what life is before you can talk about when it begins.
position that all of the publications I sent you before, and the additional ones I attach below, all have no idea what they are talking about:
"Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual."
"A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo)."
Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.
"Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the femal gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote."
T.W. Sadler, Langman's Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11.
"[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being."
Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a 'moment') is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte."
Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Müller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8.
"Human embryos begin development following the fusion of definitive male and female gametes during fertilization... This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development."
William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998. pp. 1, 14.
It's my assertion that they're using a word, life, without fully understanding what it is they're meaning to say.
And again, things that are developing are not the same as things. Developing humans are not the same as humans.
authors of those books buffoons, who have no idea what they are talking about, rather than experts in human development. Got it.
Children develop into adults. Are children less human because they are not as developed as adults?
Finally, since you believe that you can't define life because science cannot agree on what the definition of life is, is it your position that science cannot state that the two of us are alive?
They're using terms they have no business using. This does not equal buffoon.
"There is a difference between a developing person and a person."
We can philosophically acknowledge our own liveness, but we cannot at this point determine what qualities you and I have that makes us alive, that seperates us from something not alive. This means that we have no clear definition of what "life" is.
Because we're not really all working from the same definition of "life". I mean, my finger constitutes life because it's got cellular activity. There are bacteria in my stomach that constitute living beings. What, exactly, are we trying to preserve?
While I disagree about the primacy of conception in the process, I do agree that a fetus (and the egg before conception) is alive and human, in the sense that its species is undeniably homo sapiens. As you say, the question really is how much protection is a fetus entitled to. I believe it is never zero and increases throughout gestation. The changing balance between protection of the expectant woman and the fetus is a political one, worthy of legislation and judicial interpretation.
The problem with the Roe and Doe cases in 1973 is that the Supreme Court's "solution" to the abortion issue was to impose the basically unrestricted right to abortion that existed in New York at the time on the entire country.
The degree of protection afforted to the unborn should be decided by the people of each state, having reasonable discussions like this one, not five justices sitting in Washington D.C.
I am broadly in favor of contentious issues being decided in smaller jurisdictions, rather than nationally. How would you feel about a national requirement that states not be able to enact bans that cross a less-contentious, federally-defined limit e.g. rape/incest/serious harm to the mother? This could include some kind of counseling requirement and/or late-term ban as well - negotiated, in other words.
My concern is a practical one. After 30 years of bitter fighting, I don't think we would get reasonable discussions like this one. The ideological institutions are geared up and ready, on both sides. If we make a change, I'd like to have some kind of damper to prevent a draconian, reactionary swing.
As I matter of principle, I would not want federal involvement because I do not think it is constitutional.
However, as a matter of political reality, you would not have states passing laws that prohibited abortion in cases of rape and incest. Exceptions for those circumstances are supported by an overwhelming majority of the public. In any event, those account for only about 1% of the abortions each year.
The health of the mother exception might be more contentious because of the issue of how you define a threat to health.
I think the fact that both sides would be geared up and ready if the issue was returned to the states would actually prevent the reactionary, draconian swing you are concerned about. Neither side would have an advantage beyond the fact that some states clearly trend towards one position or the other.
Since we have arrived at a peaceful place, perhaps you can help me with something. Why are exceptions made for rape? I understand why I feel it is justified, but when I read the arguments of people here I don't understand the exception from the 'anti- abortion ' perspective. If I may attempt to restate the position: the fetus is an innocent human being that should be protected. How is that changed by the circumstances of rape? It's not the fetus's fault. Isn't the rape exception an instance of including the emotional health of the mother in the decision?
It is for legal purposes, not moral purposes.
The unborn child is always considered an innocent life, and the hope would be that the mother would recognize that (there was recent story in Slate about a woman who was looking for a way to explain to her 10-year old daughter that she was the result of a rape, so it does happen).
A rougher version of this approach is presented by Liam Neeson in the movie "Rob Roy", where Jessica Lange, playing his wife, tells him that she is pregnant and the baby is probably that of a British officer who raped her. She asks if he wants her to abort the baby and he replies, "It is not the baby that need killing."
In the absence of the mother's decision to accept the new life, even most Catholics, like myself, would not pursue passage of a law that required the mother to have the baby.
He also quotes or paraphrases Shakespeare, "'Tis a wise father knows his own child," I think indicating that the child will be his, in his heart and mind, and the rape never considered.
But, why not pursue the law? Why is the mother's emotional health taken into account in this one case, but not in others? Either the fetus is more important than the mother's preferences, or it isn't, right? Aren't you opening up the possibility of compassion for the woman exceeding compassion for the fetus?
I just do not think a law saying a woman had to have a child that was the result of a rape would pass. If anything, it would probably hurt efforts to restrict abortion in the circumstances that account for the other 99%.