Life Begins When?

[liveonearth]

This morning I awakened to a story on the radio about the "Personhood" initiative. Some well-meaning folks are seeking to have states pass laws saying that "life begins at conception" and to ban all abortion and all uses of human cells. I appreciate their purism and their willingness to take this value to its logical end. At least these "lifers" are not hypocrites! But unfortunately for them, their initiatives are falling like flies under a flyswatter. Why? People are unwilling to force women to have babies they don't want. It is problematic. If you MUST give birth to any conceptus that sticks, do you still then have to mother it? Or can you ignore and abuse it? Well it turns out, you CAN ignore and abuse it. If the government notices how bad you treat your kids, it takes them away and they get treated even worse. These people who wish that every conceptus become a child are neglecting to consider the logical outcome of their actions. MORE unwanted children helps create a desperately sick society that doesn't respect life at any age.

But back to the question of when life begins. Life "began" when a bunch of chemical components somehow found themselves able to do something that they couldn't do separately. And somehow they became able to spread, expand, and later to reproduce. Since then life has been continuous. We are an extension of the life that began in the slime. Tentacles of life reach out all the time, in every direction. We are host to more living cells that are NOT us than to cells that ARE us. Life is a network, a collage, a confusing interconnected amazing self-promoting thing. Cells die but life goes on. Skin cells. Stomach cells. Sperm cells. Egg cells. The idea that a sperm cell + an egg cell is somehow sacred because it is more alive than any other cells is exaggerated. The web of life goes on. The boundaries of death remain.

Comments

[bobby1933.livejournal.com]

I really wish i could agree that the supporters of this amendment in Mississippi were "well meaning." But I think that most "right to lifers" are participants in the same "culture of death" that the rest of us are involved in. They just express their hate and inhumanity in a different way.

As to the importance of ending abortion, i agree that it should be ended or minimized, but laws prohibiting it are not the way to go.

Not being a biologist or medical person, i cannot even guess at the number of miscarriages, spontaneous abortions, and still births which occur. From my experience, i would guess that a majority of pregnancies do not result in live births? Nature continues to insist that it is master, not us.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

In fact, it's a pretty small percentage of fertilized eggs that result in anything that could reasonably be called a pregnancy. Last stat I heard was something like 90% fail to implant or miscarry within month 1.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I'm in agreement that the vast majority of egg-sperm unions do not implant or are ejected before 6 weeks. Unfortunately if a woman is seeking an abortion it is because something did implant. And these right to lifers want to outlaw morning after pills too.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I know. And I used to be pretty arrogant about all that too. My position has softened when I came to realize that my position (which is again, pretty close to yours) is basically based entirely on the unproven and the illogical. At that point, I hadda say that I lost most of my arrogance on this particular topic. And I am pretty arrogant, so that took some doin'.

Essentially, almost all of the positions are based on the fallacy of appeal to consequence. As in:

"if abortion is illegal, then we'll have more abused children", which is true, but has no impact on whether or not that's a person in there.

"if a fetus is a person, then they'll have to investigate miscairaiges as possible homicides", which is true, but has no impact on whether or not the zygote is a person.

See what I mean? There's no good solid logic to be had on this topic, only 2 religions locked in a holy war. That's why my preference is to give it to the states, you know, like we were a Republic or something.

[bobby1933.livejournal.com]

It never occurred to me to think about fertilizations that "don't take" or that the percentage could be so high. This would keep law enforcement in Mississippi incredibly busy investigating "possible homicides."