Does life begin at conception?

Life begins before conception. Any choice for a menstruating female to not fertilize her eggs is ending that life with full intent no different than any abortion you can have performed.

The process of life begins, doesn't mean the cycle will completely run and therefore produce a human being.

It's alive and squirmy, so yeah.


Doesn't necessarily make abortion wrong. We kill lots of things (including other people) if we think we have a good reason and don't consider it wrong.

FallenPaladin said:

A developmental biologist told me it does

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Biological life does. Life as a person does not.

It is life as a person that is ethically relevant.


eudaimonia,

Mark

FallenPaladin said:

Does life begin at conception?

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Only if reality is important to your mind.

A developmental biologist told me it does and she said that is why abortion is wrong. What do you think?

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She has a healthy mind. Abortion is wrong.

Eazy E said:

The process of life begins, doesn't mean the cycle will completely run and therefore produce a human being.

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If the life process is not stopped by murder.

Let natural death occur to the developing human being from conception to whenever natural and unassisted death occurs.

A zygote begins at conception. But that's not a person.

Terminating a pregnancy may be wrong in some cases, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal.

FallenPaladin said:

A developmental biologist told me it does and she said that is why abortion is wrong. What do you think?

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Life begins before conception: the living sperm and the living ovum come together to form a living zygote. But, to me, that has nothing to do with the morality of abortion: sapience does not start till well after conception.

Ending the life of a sapient creature is, arguably, immoral, but ending the life of a non-sapient creature is not only amoral (i.e., not immoral), but also routinely done without moral qualms..

Yes

onemorequestion said:

If the life process is not stopped by murder.

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I abhor abortion, but I wouldn't call it murder. More along the lines of denying a life to begin is how I would describe abortions

onemorequestion said:

Let natural death occur to the developing human being from conception to whenever natural and unassisted death occurs.

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And to what do we say to the hundred(or possibly thousands?) of eggs that never fertilize in a lab, and subsequently thrown in the thrash?

It is likely that life began once, 3-4 billion years ago. Since then it has modified itself. The sperm is alive. The egg is alive. The zygote is alive.

Life is continuous, until it ends. It is not separate. It is not new.

FallenPaladin said:

A developmental biologist told me it does and she said that is why abortion is wrong. What do you think?

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Yeah it's biologically alive. Many of conceptions dont lead to successful implantations and I think I heard only 1/6 of those lead to successful pregancies. Why is God so wasteful when life from conception is so precious?

Gracchus said:

It is likely that life began once, 3-4 billion years ago. Since then it has modified itself. The sperm is alive. The egg is alive. The zygote is alive.

Life is continuous, until it ends. It is not separate. It is not new.

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That's an absurdly good point.

edit: though, to be fair, it's possible that it started a few times, independently, and our first ancestor won that initial competition.

onemorequestion said:

If the life process is not stopped by murder.

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So I take it then you've never heard of a miscarriage?

Gracchus said:

It is likely that life began once, 3-4 billion years ago. Since then it has modified itself. The sperm is alive. The egg is alive. The zygote is alive.

Life is continuous, until it ends. It is not separate. It is not new.

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Mling said:

That's an absurdly good point.

edit: though, to be fair, it's possible that it started a few times, independently, and our first ancestor won that initial competition.

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Well it is possible that life began more than once, but it is also likely that all modern life is descended from a common ancestor.

That is why I used the word: "likely".

How can a new life begin before conception. Yes a sperm and a female egg are alive but they cannot create a new life before they bond togeather. keeping them apart which is contraception is not the same as destroying the new life that has been created. Once they bond the DNA in the respective cells interconnect and communicate to create the intricate miricale called life. Any involvment to alter this process after it has been put into place is wrong as it's not our right.

benglobal said:

How can a new life begin before conception. Yes a sperm and a female egg are alive but they cannot create a new life before they bond togeather.

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Something isn't alive until it creates new life? I don't understand.

keeping them apart which is contraception is not the same as destroying the new life that has been created. Once they bond the DNA in the respective cells interconnect and communicate to create the intricate miricale called life.

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The living sperm and egg, although alive are the not the miracle of life?

Any involvment to alter this process after it has been put into place is wrong as it's not our right.

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Why is not keeping the ovum alive okay?

I'm very confused by this as there seems to be two different definitions of the word "alive" being used?

Life didn't begin at conception. It began before conception. The sperm and egg are alive too. If the fact that something is alive is a reason why taking actions that will lead to its death is wrong, then we're murderers even when we're creating life.

EDIT: All of which people have already said. Got to love blind posts.

If you are talking about an individual life, strictly in the biological sense, then yes, an individual organism's life does begin at conception. When life itself begins, however, is more tricky. As others have pointed out, this doesn't necessarily make abortion wrong. One of your skin cells could be used as the beginning of another unique individual life (e.g. through cloning). Does that mean that you are obligated to ensure that you kill none of your cells since any one of them could be used to produce a new individual life?