When does life begin?

I searched this forum to see if a thread like this already existed but I couldn’t find it. If this has already been posted I apologize.

I’m here to voice a thought and am looking for intelligent responses in effort to debate this position. The question is: When does life begin? I know prolife people believe it begins at conception while prochoice believers seem to lean towards actual birth. There seems to be a flaw with each stance. At conception you simply have a mass of dividing cells growing in size. A tumor does this and we do not claim a tumor is alive so how can we say this mass of cells is alive? The birthing process does not equate to life either since an infant can be still born. What I am left with is the start of life must relate to our society’s definition of the end of life or moment of death. When someone at an accident scene or hospital is declared dead, the declaration is made after checking for a heart beat. No heart beat = death. If the absence of a heartbeat equates to death, wouldn’t the presence of a heart beat equal life and therefore the start of it?

Remember this question is about the start date of life, not abortion so please refrain from discussing women’s rights, incest, rape, religion, etc.

 

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Actually today they check for brain activity not heart beats to determine if death has occured.

Birth, IMO, happens when anything takes its first breath of air.

 

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Where did you find this breath-of-air definition?

What are the limits to the brain activity? How much activity or what kind is considered 'alive'?

 

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It is my belief. I found it when thinking about your question.

 

Any measurable electrical brain activity.

 

Hmm... Genesis 2:7 —

I think we can all agree that a fertilized egg is alive and that it's human (in the sense of having a complete set of human chromosomes), unlike sperm and unfertilized eggs.

I think the sticking point is human life in a recognizable/acceptable form. (And I've seen some pretty ugly babies in my time.) :bugeye:

What is the definition of life? If it includes ability to reproduce, the life doesn't begin until the teenage years (and some people would wholeheartedly agree

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).

 

Life began at some time prior to 3.5 billion years ago, exactly when we don't know for sure. Since then it's been a continual process.

The question you mean to ask is when does an individual organism's life begin.

In which case I would say that it begins when the individual organism's biological process separate from and/or can sustain themselves independently of it's predecessor. Prior to that it is not an independent organism. It does leave a gray area because there may be a difference between when this can happen and when it does or would normally happen. Personally I find that when it can happen without technological intervention is a fair assessment.

~Raithere

 

Life begins when a living thing comes alive.

Original life on Earth began probably by accident.

 

If we are speaking about the point at which an animal's (including human's) life begins, I see no room at all for any 'gray' areas. It begins the moment a sperm or egg cell is produced - well before they ever combine.

That's because both types of cells are just as alive as a liver cell, heart cell or any other cell in the body. They are just different kinds of cells, that's all. There's no gray area because there's nothing at all between being alive and being dead. It's always one or the other. For example, something can be in the process of dying BUT until it does, it's still alive.

 

Life truly begins when a feotus becomes viable. If you compare the human feotus to any other, you would he hard-pressed to tell which one is which. The brain-tube and heart form very early on in the development of a feotus - within the first couple of weeks. At about 14 weeks the feotus becomes viable. That is to say, alive. At 26 weeks a feotus can be born and with the proper care, survive - though those born this early do not tend to survive, and if they do they usually have a whole plethora of serious problems. The lungs aren't properly developed at this age.
At 32 weeks, the chances of survival increase dramatically, and at 40 weeks, most survive. Using this as a kind of scale, maybe it will become easier to decide.

 

By following that logic you would have to insist that the initial cluster of cells are dead (not alive) even though they are growing, taking in nourishment and producing waste matter.

Nope, I'm not buying ANY of your thoughts on the subject.

 

However, gametes (sperm and eggs) only contains half a set of chromosomes ... a human sperm or egg containing only 23 chromosomes, not the 46 required for it to be completely human.

Seems related to the breath-of-air definition.

IMO, a fertilized egg is alive (ie, not dead). Sperm and eggs are certainly alive, although separately they are not "life" (eg, not a human life). I can't transition from live sperm and eggs, to dead fertilized eggs, then back to live viable fetuses/babies. Otherwise, we're looking at countless abiogenesis that starts with every dead fertilized egg.

 

The cluster of cells you refer to are not alive in any meaningful sense of the word. However it would also be wrong to suggest they were dead, clearly they have some semblance of life - though i would suggest that as they are entirely dependent on the mother to live they are in a symbiotic phase and have no wat to survive independently at this stage. But this os what the question is all about - trying to work out when life technically starts. Others may argue it starts when the gametes fuse, others when it breathes.

 

In regards both of the statements above, the question isn't centered upon something being recognized as human life. Rather it is much more basic than that - when does life start. Therefore, I still maintain that it begins with the production of the living sperm cell and/or an egg cell. Period.

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I believe that life begins when you cry the first time.
It is a sign of perception of reality.

 

I was going to say something like that, but a tumour is also alive and it can't cry, or what do we really know about that? It communicates in a strange way, by eating itself into another being, becoming a part of it, and when the host cries maybe it's the tumour in disguise. Life is strange.

 

No, A tumor is called malignant for a reason. It is what happens when life goes drastically wrong. Normal cells are programmed to last a certain time and then die..this is healthy normal living. A tumor doesn't die, it is effectively immortal so long as the host lives. It is a toxic parasite. If it could, it wouldn't be crying, it would be giving you the middle finger.

 

Exactly.

The question of OP -When does life begin?- is not a biological one, but rather linguistic, political, cultural, philosophical, ethical, namely an "arbitrary" approach. It requires some agreement on what we understand from "Life" in the first place.

Therefore, "life" begins with the letter "L" (or "l"). It begins with a governing human regime of meaning.

 

Completely off-topic. A tumor has no place in a discussion about "when does life begin" - which is the REAL topic of this thread.

 

I was just replying to another post..calm down and read my other posts.