A Discussion on When Life Begins
Defining when human life begins is not a question science can answer. It’s a question of politics and ethical values (The Conversation-Summarized Version).
Since states have been given the final say over if and when abortions are legal, the political debate continues. Debates will hinge on the question of when is the beginning of human life that should be protected by law.
Dennis (Warden) indicates that it’s a scientific fact that life begins at conception. You say that 80% of Americans view biologists as the group most qualified to determine when a human life begins, and that 96% of biologists affirm that human life begins at conception. But those statements are not true.
Steven Andrew Jacobs who provided those statistics carried out a survey that was supposedly representative of all Americans, but his methods for conducting this research were not sound. The result is that his survey does not carry any statistical or scientific weight. So, it’s simply not true.
This appeal to scientific authority does not take into consideration discussions of people’s values and is based on faulty reasoning. The question of when life begins is not only of biology, but of philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, technology, and emotions. Understanding what it takes to be human involves a lot more than biology.
Scientists can’t establish when a fertilized cell, embryo or fetus becomes a human being. There is neither scientific consensus on when human life actually begins nor agreement that it is a question that biologists can answer using science.
Scott Gilbert is the author of the standard textbook of developmental biology and has identified five developmental stages that provide plausible beginning points for human life.
1. Fertilization – a zygote is formed with full human genetic material. Of course, almost every cell in everyone’s body contains that person’s complete DNA sequence. If we view this as a human life, the shedding of skin cells would be akin to terminating a life.
2. Gastrulation – 2 weeks after fertilization – Embryo loses the ability to form identical twins or triplets, and becomes a biological individual, but not a human individual.
3. 24 – 27 weeks of pregnancy – human-specific brain-wave pattern emerges in the fetus’s brain. The legal standard for human death is when this brain-wave pattern does not exist, so you could look at this stage as when human life begins.
4. Viability – This is the standard that Roe v. Wade decision centered on, and it starts at the point when a fetus typically becomes viable outside the uterus with the help of available medical technology. Today that stage is about 24 weeks.
5. Birth Itself.
The point is that biology does not determine when human life begins. It is a question that must take into consideration our values and what we take to be human. Having a functional genome, tissue layers, a notochord, a beating heart…none of this matters if the organism cannot survive where humans survive.
You own your body when you have the authority to make decisions about what is done to it and how it is used on the basis of your own interests and desires. It is a fundamental part of moral standing for humans.
So, when we talk about “her body, her choice,” it has to be a woman’s choice to continue a pregnancy. She is the person most affected, and the person who takes all the risks. Pregnancy is not a risk-free proposal.
Therefore, I don’t think that cells similar to skin cells, or cells that have no brain-wave activity, are a human life, and a woman must have the opportunity to determine whether she chooses to carry the pregnancy forward or to terminate it.
And most of America agrees. In a Pew survey conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion, 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases.
If we vote, we succeed.
Karen Gaut
