If life doesn't begin at conception, what does?

Question

:0D

That cellular mutation you mentioned can only give rise to a human. It can't grow into anything else. It is only growing in one direction with the outcome being a human being

Answer 1

these people saying c**p about life not beginning til the fetus can survive out "in the cold world on its own" are idiots.  seriously.  if i put my nine month old in the "cold world" on his own, he'd be dead.  so has his life not begun yet?  ... incorrect.  he's plenty alive.

and what else is the purpose of the contact between sperm and egg?  yes, they are both independently alive, but when joined, make a baby.  no ifs ands or buts about it.  

Answer 2

Yes, sperm and egg cells are alive....but they aren't human. Nor is the cellular mutation that occurs at conception. Even the Catholic Church (officially) states that "life" (human life) does not actually begin until 40 days after conception.

But that is the outcome, not the "life-form" itself. It has the potential to be a human, it is not a human.

Sperm has the potential to become a human, as well, given the right set of circumstances. The same is true for ovum. What is the difference? Is it magically transformed into a human when the two combine? No, it is a long process that -eventually- leads to a human being...sometimes. It is believed that almost half of the conceptions that occur spontaneously abort within the first few weeks. Most women never know anything happened at all.

Answer 3

Apparently, from what I've learned on here, mothers are like God; they get to decide when you are officially alive or not.  

I don't agree with that.  I think life does begin at conception.  At that point, you start the transformation into a human.

Answer 4

For once I agree with Ryde on, the zygote/embreyo is a bunch of cells which are alive and have a neutron, as is a sperm and an egg.

Answer 5

If you pull an acorn out of the ground, should be be subject to the same social condemnation as someone who chainsaws down an old growth forest?

I say life begins at viability (being able to live and survive outside of the mother's body) because frankly, until it can survive out there in the cold world on its own, that zygote/fetus is deriving every single resource supporting its tiny life from of my body's resources. The zygote benefits from a prolonged close association with my host body, which it exploits for food, shelter, warmth, protection. Though I'm not saying that abortion is a great thing (I've had one and it's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy), there are so, so many ways in which the life of the fetus must depend on (and interfere with and endanger) the life of the mother that the early stages of an unwanted pregnancy can be compared with a parasite growing within you. It gets nourishment to start its life while making you, the host, constantly nauseous, making you pee all the time, making you hyper-sensitive to smells and tastes, making your appetite shift into high gear, making your b*****s feel tender, making your hormones go crazy, making you feel moody, making you break out, making you feel fatigued.

I come back to the acorn question. Potential is not the same as life. An acorn could become a tree, but it's not a tree. It's an acorn. Until that little bugger can struggle free from my body instead of passively suckling at my body's resources, it should be my choice whether I want to continue letting it grow off of me. When I had my abortion, the "fetus" was not even 1/17th of an inch, smaller than a quarter of a grain of rice, smaller than a pinhead. It was not a happy event in my life by any means, but I felt much better knowing that there was no way this clump of cells too small to be see with the naked eye could have survived outside my body at that point, or at any point in the near future.  

Answer 6

It is life! If it wasn't, how would he know to implant himself onto his mother? The baby, even at cell size, has the natural instinct of survival. He knows that to live, he has to depend on his mom. He is a smart little guy, I think that if he was just a bunch of cells, he wouldn't become a human being. He wouldn't know how to survive in the womb. He wouldn't know how to feel, love and play, just as he does as he grows inside of his mother. He is alive in every way possible!

Answer 7

For me a life begins when a person becomes adult and becomes capable of supporting him/her self for his/her survival.

So in that sense life probably starts at till 18, 16 or 14 depending on when you are able to pull yourself up and where you are.

Obviously this concept of thing called state, which relies on sucking tax payer’s money to provide for others has reduced this "beginning age" of what I call life.

Till that time you are a parasite (dependent being a more politically correct term) on your near and dear ones.

Thus a baby who depends on mother for 9 months of survival or a child who depends on his/her parents is identical.

It is not hard to conceive the thought that parents in both cases get to decide on child's fate.

Obviously if this notion is implemented, I do not think it is not going to do any harm to society. In fact parents who do not take care of their child will then not be able to propagate their own genes and would ultimately suffer in this process of natural selection and survival for fittest. It is precisely this very property of nature/evolution which has resulted into such close bonds between parents and children with such a nice feedback controlled self sustaining mechanism established by nature.

I love this natural arrangement. Social rules suck!!!

It thus is very natural for me to accept such a concept of life as one of the fundamental premise of any society/social setup.

Edit: Livefree... by using exactly the same logic even I am right.Is not it?

Even a child since he is not able to sustain himself all alone in this world he life becomes dependent on parents. Thus parents should have control over his life.  if state thinks that child is important to it and that it can take care of that child, it should instead pitch in help the child and should not be punishing parents for it. But i am sure you would disagree with this explanation. Hence, how do you explain to other this dichotomy in your mind.

Answer 8

Different people have different opinions.

Its not my area of expertise (nor is it yours).  So leave it alone.

Answer 9

Bear in mind that "comception" itself is a process, not an instant. A whole bunch of things take place. The anti-abortion folks' main problem is theological - they imagine that God pokes a soul into the merging zygotes at some instant, and that, I suppose, is the "moment of conception." However, no embryologist has ever been able to see that happen.

Perhaps we should give the system the benefit of a doubt and argue that life begins at ejaculation:

Every sperm is sacred,

Every sperm is good.

Every sperm is wanted

In your neighborhood!

Answer 10

Humans have immense power.  We can make life, and we can take life.  It's a staggering responsibility - one which most people are too afraid to take on, so they look to imaginary gods for guidance.

We humans indiscriminately destroy life all the time - wars, economic sanctions, assassinations.  We indiscriminately destroy our own lives with cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, fast food, and dangerous lifestyles.  Where are all the religious objections to Big Macs?  High cholesterol and heart disease kill more people in a month than abortions do in a year.

We DISCRIMINATE when abort.  We look at the costs vs the benefits to the parent, the potential child, and society at large.  This is what human beings do.  We make CHOICES about life and death, and what is best for the majority of people.  I'm sorry that you find the idea of morally navigating our future as a species too weighty, but many of us do not, and we will do what is in mankind and this planet's best interest.  The world does not need millions of unwanted children being born each year.

Answer 11

Cellular mutation.

Life was present even prior to conception, both the sperm and the ova are quite alive.

Edit : I guess it would depend on what kind of sperm and ova joined in conception , wouldn't it ?

Answer 12

Good question. When do you celebrate your birthday?

Answer 13

I like your logic. :)

Gestation is just the first stage of life. An egg and a sperm individually are only alive in the same way that an arm or a leg is alive, whereas a foetus is a complete human being. It has it's own DNA and circulatory system, and after 21 days it's heart starts to beat. It may be dependent on the mother's body, but so is a six month old baby.