"A HUMAN LIFE BEGINNING AT CONCEPTION"

[redleghunter]

Personhood is the entire issue, AFAIC. No one suggests that a foetus isn't alive.

Which definition of personhood? The definition found in the CCC? Moral person? Constitutional person? Legal person?

Should not we have a solid definition of person if such hinges on termination of such human life?

 

[redleghunter]

This is patently false. A sperm possesses 23 chromosomes and an ovum possesses 23 chromosomes. On their own, neither will become anything more than what they are. When the 23 chromosomed sperm fertilizes the ovum - a new human life is formed. Again, scientific fact at this point.

It's not like the above was recently discovered either. You would think with all these threads on abortion and the settled science of conception laid out, someone just discovered a supernova. I have heard of climate change denial but the conception denial is puzzling.

Somewhere in the Hudson Valley my HS AP Biology teacher is cringing.

 

[Biblewriter]

The debate about when life begins is actually a distraction from the truth. We do not need to rely on either theology or opinion to determine this question.

No one can deny a simple and obvious progression of facts.
A living adult comes only from a living child.
A living child comes only from a living baby.
A living baby comes only from a living embryo.
A living embryo comes only from a living zygote.
A living zygote comes only from living fertilized egg.
A living fertilized egg comes only from the union of a living egg and a living sperm cell.
And living eggs and sperm cells come only from living adults.

Thus, there can be no logical denial that life is a continuum. It does not begin at all. It started a long time ago. If you believe the Bible and take it literally, you believe this happened a few thousand years ago. If you believe in evolution, you believe it happened millions ago. But everyone knows it happened a long time ago. And today, it simply continues. Life can be ended, but it cannot be begun. It can only be continued.

No there comes a point in which this continuum resolves itself into a new individual. And there can be zero logical debate that the point at which this takes place is the moment of conception, that is, when the living sperm cell unites with the living egg. When this happens, the product is not a potential life, but simply the continuation of the life that was already there.

In reaching this conclusion, we are using neither theology nor opinion. We are only using undeniable logic.

 

[Armoured]

The debate about when life begins is actually a distraction from the truth. We do not need to rely on either theology or opinion to determine this question.

No one can deny a simple and obvious progression of facts.
A living adult comes only from a living child.
A living child comes only from a living baby.
A living baby comes only from a living embryo.
A living embryo comes only from a living zygote.
A living zygote comes only from living fertilized egg.
A living fertilized egg comes only from the union of a living egg and a living sperm cell.
And living eggs and sperm cells come only from living adults.

Thus, there can be no logical denial that life is a continuum. It does not begin at all. It started a long time ago. If you believe the Bible and take it literally, you believe this happened a few thousand years ago. If you believe n evolution, you believe it happened millions ago. But everyone knows it happened a long time ago. And today, it simply continues. Life can be ended, but it cannot be begun. It can only be continued.

No there comes a point in which this continuum resolves itself into a new individual. And there can be zero logical debate that the point at which this takes place is the moment of conception, that is, when the living sperm cell unites with the living egg. When this happens, the product is not a potential life, but simply the continuation of the life that was already there.

In reaching this conclusion, we are using neither theology nor opinion. We are only using undeniable logic.

Not... quite sure what point you think you're making here. Even if we accept all your points, so what? Life is not particularly noteworthy morally.

 

[SPF]

Armoured, as Christians we believe that humans are unique amongst God's creation and that we alone are created in His Image. We all have intrinsic moral worth.

1. Can you find anything in Scripture which would indicate a distinction between a human being and a human person?

2. What is the purpose behind creating a distinction between a human being and a human person?

3. By what objective measure do you determine that the transition from a human being to a human person is consciousness? How is that distinction not subjective and arbitrarily determined? Meaning, what gives you the authority to create a distinction between a human being and a human person?

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

1. "A human life beginning at conception," is NOT the same thing as "human life beginning at conception."
"Human life" means alive human cells; "a human life" means a person, a human being.

2. There is human life at conception.
There are alive cells that are human cells, therefore there is "human life."

3. There is no NEW appearance of life at conception, NO NEW LIFE, so the "beginning" is not of life, as in "new human life." ALL the life found at conception is the very life that the ALIVE SPERM and ALIVE OVA brought together in the unity that is the zygote. Life continues from sperm and egg to fetus, the same life contributed by the alive cells from the alove woman (I like that!) to the alove man (I like that!). [With "alove" here I mean "alive," of course.]

I would ask everyone interested in abortion to consider these three claims, and especially how is someone to correctly understand what "A HUMAN LIFE BEGINNING AT CONCEPTION" means?
Hint: at conception what will be (maybe!) a human being is "begun." (New genetics.)
That something is begun (to be made) does not mean the thing to be, to be made, THEN EXISTS as though it were already made.

Is there anything in the above claims that strikes one as untrue, and if so, why?

Human soul exists before conception in the mind of God.

 

[redleghunter]

Armoured, as Christians we believe that humans are unique amongst God's creation and that we alone are created in His Image. We all have intrinsic moral worth.

1. Can you find anything in Scripture which would indicate a distinction between a human being and a human person?

2. What is the purpose behind creating a distinction between a human being and a human person?

3. By what objective measure do you determine that the transition from a human being to a human person is consciousness? How is that distinction not subjective and arbitrarily determined? Meaning, what gives you the authority to create a distinction between a human being and a human person?

Number 2 above is very interesting.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

Human soul exists before conception in the mind of God.

Oh so we are eternal because WE HAVE LIVED FOREVER ALREADY?

Is it something like that you mean to be saying?

You say "human soul" rather than a human soul, so perhaps you are saying a new human soul comes from some great reservoir of soul that God's mind has? Pretty much your fabrication, or can you point to Scriptures?

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

Oh so we are eternal because WE HAVE LIVED FOREVER ALREADY?

Is it something like that you mean to be saying?

You say "human soul" rather than a human soul, so perhaps you are saying a new human soul comes from some great reservoir of soul that God's mind has? Pretty much your fabrication, or can you point to Scriptures?

He calls non-existent (yet) as existent. Many places in the Scriptures, too many to quote, where God knows in His mind exactly ahead of time. Even the number of hairs of each unborn kid. God isn't limited by the constraints of time, space, anything.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

The debate about when life begins is actually a distraction from the truth. We do not need to rely on either theology or opinion to determine this question.

No one can deny a simple and obvious progression of facts.
A living adult comes only from a living child.
A living child comes only from a living baby.
A living baby comes only from a living embryo.
A living embryo comes only from a living zygote.
A living zygote comes only from living fertilized egg.
A living fertilized egg comes only from the union of a living egg and a living sperm cell.
And living eggs and sperm cells come only from living adults.

Thus, there can be no logical denial that life is a continuum. It does not begin at all. It started a long time ago. If you believe the Bible and take it literally, you believe this happened a few thousand years ago. If you believe in evolution, you believe it happened millions ago. But everyone knows it happened a long time ago. And today, it simply continues. Life can be ended, but it cannot be begun. It can only be continued.

No there comes a point in which this continuum resolves itself into a new individual. And there can be zero logical debate that the point at which this takes place is the moment of conception, that is, when the living sperm cell unites with the living egg. When this happens, the product is not a potential life, but simply the continuation of the life that was already there.

In reaching this conclusion, we are using neither theology nor opinion. We are only using undeniable logic.

You get the progression of human reproduction, and THE FACT LIFE DOES NOT BEGIN anywhere, correct!

But your "new individual" is suspect. New individual what?
Since you are insisting it occurs at conception, you must be referring to what exists there - namely the single-cell union of ovum and sperm, the continuation of life. But this is ALMOST NOTHING. Invisible to the naked eye, it is certainly not a person.
It is a new individual cell, ONE SINGLE CELL that is indeed individual or unique in that it has distinctly different genetics than the actual human body it exists within.
It is NO flesh and blood even. NONE AT ALL. Nothing more than "information," (something like a map) that will be used in the construction of a new human being. (Please note that before something is constructed, it is NOT, it does NOT EXIST, as the thing that is being constructed, that is, as though it exists before it is created.)

 

[SPF]

Douglas, you seem to be saying that the newly formed human life isn't a human person because it hasn't reached a certain level of development. On what authority are you able to determine at what level of human development that a human life becomes a human being? Do you have some Biblical or scientific argument? Or is this theory just made up on your own?

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

Douglas, you seem to be saying that the newly formed human life isn't a human person because it hasn't reached a certain level of development. On what authority are you able to determine at what level of human development that a human life becomes a human being? Do you have some Biblical or scientific argument? Or is this theory just made up on your own?

It is mostly based on biology, the NATURE OF WHAT IS THERE.

The question is, what is a human being, that is, an animal, the member of a species, the species homo sapiens.

I think it is pretty sensible to conclude if there is NO FLESH AND BLOOD, there is no human being.

Do you think Christ was a "man without flesh and blood"? Christ THE MAN. Without ANY flesh and blood? I don't think so.

Christ the Lord as a human being was NEVER a single-cell invisible NOTHING. What bad theology to ever think such!

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

He calls non-existent (yet) as existent. Many places in the Scriptures, too many to quote, where God knows in His mind exactly ahead of time. Even the number of hairs of each unborn kid. God isn't limited by the constraints of time, space, anything.

The Bible says the hairs on your head are numbered (by God).

It does NOT say the hairs on a fetus are so numbered.

 

[ChristianFromKazakhstan]

The Bible says the hairs on your head are numbered (by God).

It does NOT say the hairs on a fetus are so numbered.

Psalm 139

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth [i.e. mother's womb],
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Simply put, God knows everything and anything. Number of hairs is nothing. How about number of cells? Number of DNA molecules? And even deeper - atoms, subatomic particles and one billion other things we currently have no clue about.

 

[SPF]

So you believe by about the 11 week mark when there is a beating heart and flesh that the human life becomes a human being?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

yesIt's based on the idea of self awareness, to put it simply "does the organism care that we're doing this to it?" and no, like many important moral questions, there is no way to draw a clear bright line of distinction between "person" and "non-person".

Some of the Nazis clearly would agree that some lives are difficult to see a distinction between person and non-person, whereas others are clearly non-persons (apparently even some born already). We just happen to be talking about a very much larger group of people that have yet to be born, who some of us want to conveniently label non-persons to make us feel better about allowing the slaughter of millions of them every year.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

It is mostly based on biology, the NATURE OF WHAT IS THERE.

The question is, what is a human being, that is, an animal, the member of a species, the species homo sapiens.

I think it is pretty sensible to conclude if there is NO FLESH AND BLOOD, there is no human being.

Do you think Christ was a "man without flesh and blood"? Christ THE MAN. Without ANY flesh and blood? I don't think so.

Christ the Lord as a human being was NEVER a single-cell invisible NOTHING. What bad theology to ever think such!

A human soul is not a "nothing". I agree it with the ancient Greeks it is not material, but that does not equate with no-thing. A soul is a thing, just not a material thing. A soul is necessary to drive what is materially forming from conception to eventually become the fully formed (20+ years later) if allowed to live. The spirit is a part of what the animal forming at conception will become and that spirit is as necessary at conception as it is at every point in the life of that individual animal. Without that spirit, the body that was that individual begins to and will die.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

A human soul is not a "nothing". I agree it with the ancient Greeks it is not material, but that does not equate with no-thing. A soul is a thing, just not a material thing. A soul is necessary to drive what is materially forming from conception to eventually become the fully formed (20+ years later) if allowed to live. The spirit is a part of what the animal forming at conception will become and that spirit is as necessary at conception as it is at every point in the life of that individual animal. Without that spirit, the body that was that individual begins to and will die.

All just your fabrication, far as I can tell. You want there to be something at conception to make the fetus and pre-fetus into a person, so you come up with the idea IT MUST HAVE A SOUL. I don't think you get this from either biology or Scriptures.

Why would a zygote need a soul to "drive what is materially forming" any more than one is needed in the production of sperm, say? What you call "spirit" here, is that anything more than the LIFE OF THE CELLS, and without life they die. Sort of what that death you point to in your last sentence is, the lack of life. What else is there except the cells and life - you can point to NOTHING. Sheer imagining!

I certainly would not deny that human beings have spirit and soul, but to concoct something supposedly present at conception in order to try to suggest there is a human being there is sheer conjecture and nothing of reality.

 

[Douglas Hendrickson]

Psalm 139

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth [i.e. mother's womb],
16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Simply put, God knows everything and anything. Number of hairs is nothing. How about number of cells? Number of DNA molecules? And even deeper - atoms, subatomic particles and one billion other things we currently have no clue about.

Sure God is all-knowing, I would not deny that.

But God's KNOWLEDGE of something does not make that something into something else; a single cell, with no flesh and blood even, does not become a person simply because God knows it's nature. And that it is part of the makings of a person, his making one might even say. The process is God's creation - ordained by him, but that does not make what is there at the beginning of the process RIGHT THEN somehow magically become what is the end.

A shingle on a roof, an apple core in an apple, a mouse in a mouse trap, none of these things become a person simply because God knows everything about it. Not even does the seed in the apple become an apple tree because God knows (of) it.

 

[Armoured]

Some of the Nazis clearly would agree that some lives are difficult to see a distinction between person and non-person, whereas others are clearly non-persons (apparently even some born already). We just happen to be talking about a very much larger group of people that have yet to be born, who some of us want to conveniently label non-persons to make us feel better about allowing the slaughter of millions of them every year.

Care to discuss this without invoking the NAZIs in your first response?